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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
AMOS 2:6-16
(Readings: Luke 16:19-31; Amos 1:1-2:5)
Especially For You!
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
The noose is tightening … the circle’s getting smaller … the web is nearly woven.
This is all imagery to describe what Amos has been telling from the Lord to the nation of Israel so far.
But allow me to introduce yet another image to especially bring out the way that Israel is exposed as the real target of the prophet’s words.
This is the image of the countdown!
Mind you, this image may be a little different to many countdowns we have had in our world.
There have been those countdowns at Cape Canaveral whenever another rocket was launched into flight.
There was the countdown to the Olympic Games, with so many days left to go before they begun.
And what about that constant countdown displayed on various television news during 1999, telling us how many days to go before the new millennium?
These countdowns are part of looking forward to a momentous event - a rocket ship into space, the start of an Olympic Games which will top them all, or the dawn of a whole new millennium!
They are full of expectation - everyone is thinking and saying, “What ever is going to happen next?’
You know, that’s completely different to the countdown in this text.
There’s nothing to look forward to here.
This is the countdown you have before a huge explosion, when everyone is awaiting that terrible destruction.
And don’t get it mixed up with a controlled demolition which is exciting to watch, and where it’s all going according to a man’s plan.
This countdown is right out of any man’s hand.
Even the way the numbers are counted down show how it’s going to be the end of any of our plans.
Notice also that this countdown doesn’t begin with ten.
It starts with 4 … 3 … 2 … and then there’s no one.
That’s the wipe-out!
Let’s see why.
Congregation, Amos comes to his real introduction.
Up until this point he has written the ‘Preface’ to his book - now he comes to the ‘Introduction’ of his book.
You see, now he comes to the nation of Israel.
At first, it may seem Amos is describing them much the same as any of the other nations.
He begins with declaring the words of the LORD with that, by now, familiar phrase, “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.”
A judgment is being told.
Israel has sinned too.
So which sin is the Lord going to highlight here?
I mean, that’s what the prophet has done with those other seven nations.
He’s pointed out each one’s evil with one particularly terrible sin.
But one sin is not enough to describe the state of this nation.
God’s covenant people here are going to be hung out for much more.
No longer is the Lord’s judgment getting closer to home.
It is home!
And, man, doesn’t it expose that home!
Because a home it certainly hasn’t been!
Congregation, there’s no one sin that really sticks out - there’s much, much more!
In fact - there’s four!
And so our first aspect is exactly this … THE NUMBER OF YOUR SINS IS FOUR!
Now, you imagine the effect of this on those Israelites.
Amos has nicely been circling the nations around, coming in a spiral from the furtherest relationally to their sister nation, Judah - right next door.
But now he smashes apart that door!
With the four sins he shows how terrible they really are!
They who knew the Lord’s will most of all - they who had had constantly rejected his call!
They are heading for the biggest fall!
The four sins very clearly show how they’ve done this.
Let’s see how that’s so.
The first sin in verse 6 is that they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.
The Israelites have literally sold out!
And it’s their own people they’re selling off!
So this is a sell-off which is much, much more than business.
By trading their own people this way they go against the Law of the Lord.
The sin by which Judas exposed his eternal condemnation is deeply ingrained here too.
The silver mentioned here are the bribes the upper class paid the judges.
They - the leaders, the rich, the powerful - had been corrupting the whole justice system.
Actually, it had even gone so far that you could buy any court decision you wanted for a price.
The use of the word “righteous” in verse 6, which is translated “innocent” in other versions, indicates that there was no justice.
These poor you would always have with you, because the rich would make it absolutely sure!
And if, as some have suggested, the “silver” referred to here is the smallest silver money piece, it only shows how bad the corruption was.
Those judges would accept any going price.
The poor never stood a chance!
What’s more is that if you ever got into debt, as poor people so often do, you didn’t have a life either!
Forget any idea that you would be able to stay on the family farm, or at least be able to go back to it during the year of Jubilee!
That was something the Law always gave back to the people - their land.
While the Law allowed a certain servanthood if a debt needed to be paid off, it never made that a permanent slavery for any of the Lord’s people.
Leviticus 25 is clear about this.
Every 49 years, which is seven times seven years, there was to be a universal return to the inheritance the LORD had given each family belonging to His people.
But the second sin here has shown how that was long gone.
The covenant people had become no different to any of the other peoples.
There was the same blatant disregard for the underprivileged in Israel that there was elsewhere!
Verse 7 begins with describing that they are “those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted…”
It’s like we read from Luke 16.
The rich man lies in the lap of luxury while at his gate the poor man suffers with his open sores.
And much as that rich man tried to plead with the Lord after his death for relief, or at least for his brothers to be told, he is answered with the answer he knew all along - the Law he should have put into practice for Lazarus while they were both still alive! (Luke 16:19ff.)
It is all adding up to a terrible litany of crimes.
Evil which was a deliberate and especially heinous sin.
The next sin brings it even more to light.
Amos goes on, “a man and his father go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned…”
If it were temple prostitution it would have been disgusting enough.
But, as Veldkamp points out, it was most likely the household maid who was suffering this indignity.
In a situation where she ought to have been safe and protected, there is the most horrible abuse going on.
And she can’t say a word!
Then on Sunday you’ll find them in church!
It sticks to high heaven!
They profane God’s Name alright!
How many times in church history haven’t we seen those seemingly important in the church violate the poor in such a way!
Still, Amos is not finished yet!
When verse 8 speaks about lying down beside the altar with garments taken in pledge, what’s being described is that the very clothes the poor need to survive the night are being spread out for the parties of the rich.
Oh, they call it a sacrificial feast.
It’s really a fund raiser you know.
We’re going to build that awesome new church to God’s glory.
We’re all going to put heaps in - aren’t we?
And if you happen to mortgage your family home because you’re told that giving that much is going to get you a hundred times more - they’ll take it!
We realise why Jesus was so angry with the rich and the powerful of his time.
That poor widow still had to put in her full temple tax!
And she and her kids would starve that night!
THE NUMBER OF YOUR SINS IS FOUR.
Your sin, O Israel, is as bad as it can get!
Yet this is not all - as terrible as it is.
Their sin is blatantly obvious.
They knew that.
But the countdown continues.
In the words of our second aspect … IT’S THREE TIMES I MY WITNESS BORE!
In the verses 9 till 11 Amos points out an additional three proofs to what the LORD had done among them.
Three witnesses, as well as the Law, which held before them the reason why they were there.
Three witnesses which were now condemning them because they had heard, time and again, the Word of God.
The first of these witnesses are the people who were in the land before them.
They are here called Amorites.
While that was the name for one particular ethnic group living in the land, it here becomes a general term covering everyone who had been in the land.
That ties in with why they are described here as tall as the cedars and as strong as the oaks.
Those who were that big were actually the Nephilim.
They were not ethnically Amorites (Num.13:32).
But by the general term that’s what they were.
It’s like when you speak of the people living in England.
You cannot say that all of them are English ethnically speaking, but they may be English geographically and nationally speaking.
It was only the Lord who gave the Israelites victory over those mighty men.
Those whom ten of the twelve spies had been so afraid about were destroyed by Israel.
Because the Lord was with them!
Think of how the mighty walls of Jericho fell!
Not an arrow was fired!
It was the God in covenant with them who was with them.
He completely obliterated those people.
Their prosperity and their stability were gone - as the word picture of the fruit and the roots tells us.
Congregation, just think, it was out of an ill-disciplined, disobedient people, who left Egypt, that the Lord, through his care and training of them in the desert, brought the mighty nation who conquered the Promised Land!
This is the second witness, found in verse 10.
In the words of Herman Veldkamp, “After forty years, this band of weaklings that knew only how to make bricks appeared as a well-equipped army before the gates of the frightened Canaanites.
“This was the Lord’s doing.
“Amos tells us that the purpose of those forty years was ‘to give you the land of the Amorites.’”
During this time in the wilderness, the Lord not only gave his people physical weapons and strength.
He also gave them what they needed spiritually.
He gave them no less than the Law itself - those Ten Commandments and the whole five books of Moses to give them their history and their future.
Yet, God gave his people something else to especially remind them of that Law.
In his words of verse 11, the third witness is that “And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites.”
The fiery words of the prophets and the hairy appearance of the Nazirites constantly fought against the spirituality of the land.
They were God’s special troopers.
They fought to keep Israel’s sovereignty spiritually.
They cried out to the people to keep apart from the world, as they themselves were especially set apart by the LORD to tell his people.
Three clear witnesses.
They could not argue with them.
Indeed, Amos shows how obviously they couldn’t. He concludes in verse 11, “Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?”
But the countdown continues.
THEN YOU ONLY DID TWO MORE!
This is our third aspect to the text.
And what a duo, congregation!
In verse 12 we see that the previous two types of people who were to tell and show them what to do, they not only abused - they misused altogether!
The guide posts God put there to keep them on his way they did away with!
They were going their own way!
So, how was this worse than raping the servant girl or denying the poor their warmth for the night?
In which way was this more terrible than the bribery of judges and the perpetual slavery of God’s people?
I mean, we can sympathise with those Israelites.
Hearing those prophets go on and on, and having the Nazirites put you off with that holiness lifestyle, gets under your skin a bit!
Couldn’t they give it a break?
Things aren’t that bad - look at the economy after all.
The share market’s coming back up!
It was more than just irritation, however.
Underneath, in their hearts, it was an active rejection of what really matters.
Not only didn’t they want to have the Law anymore, but those especially called by the Lord and given his Spirit, they abused in the worst possible.
With the Nazirites they emptied the spirit of God by filling them with the alcoholic spirit of this world.
And with the prophets they shut their mouths by commanding them not to prophesy.
It’s a clear and definite repudiation of the Lord’s will as anyone could do!
Because this rejection was from those who knew a lot, lot better.
This was none of the outer nations here.
It was not even one of the three cousin nations of Israel.
Nor at this point in history was it her sister nation - Judah.
It was Israel - the northern ten tribes.
Yes, ten tribes.
Not one or two, not even three or four - this was ten tribes of the covenant nation who were standing against their covenant God in the most comprehensive and rebellious way.
The word “command” used here means a most authoritative position.
It was as close as one could get to the unforgivable sin - the sin against the Holy Spirit.
In the words of one commentator, “The most ungodly thing of all happened: Israel struggled against God in the most intimate aspect of his revelation.
“It rejected the most tender gift of his covenant love.
“This was a scandal without parallel in history, which was to be outdone only by the murder on the cross.
“Israel rejected Jesus when it said, ‘You shall not prophesy.’” (Dr. B. Wielenga.)
After such a catalogue of sins, spelled out with such a devastating countdown, it’s time for the last number when there is no zero.
We come to number one - numero uno!
And while Number One usually means the most important one it couldn’t be more different here.
Look at verse 13.
Read how it begins, “Behold, I will…”.
It’s time for judgment to begin.
And the same way it has begun being described for each of those other seven nations is how Amos begins it for Israel too.
Here, however, the description of the judgment will be different.
I mean, being told your capital city would be razed by fire isn’t a pretty prospect.
Hearing the prophecy that you will be totally destroyed or sent into exile doesn’t give you much optimism either.
But the way Amos starts the judgment here is to declare that they will suffer the whole force of the law.
The law of gravity that is!
For what is described is a cart crushed under its own weight.
And because the weight is so heavy the crushing is very destructive.
Everything just falls in on itself!
No matter how fast or strong or brave one may be, it won’t count!
This countdown’s finished!
No matter how accurate or quick or skilled you are, it will all come to nought!
The big zero which explodes it all.
Or to put it more colloquially, “They’re caught with their pants down!”
Actually the text ends in verse 16 with even their best heroes having nothing on at all!
This is being caught in the most humiliating situation ever!
Because then you are shown for what you’ve really got.
And that’s absolutely nothing at all!
Congregation - all grace has gone!
There is no hope since there is no faith.
And without faith it is impossible to please God!
There is no salvation there.
There is no Son of God there.
Jesus Christ - their covenant Lord - is far from there.
Friend, don’t get caught short.
Don’t go against the Word of God - or those who bring that Word to you.
And certainly don’t try to disrespect or degrade anyone giving you even a cup of water in Christ’s Name.
You see, they won’t lose their reward.
But you, like Israel, though you seem so close, yet you might be found far away!
Congregation, this is not just a warning for Israel in 760 BC.
It’s also for us in spiritual Israel in the 21st Century AD.
Will you get caught short upon the Lord’s return?
Are you ready if he comes tonight?
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray the prayer John Calvin spoke for this passage…
Almighty God, please grant that, as you have not only saved us by the blood of Your One and Only Son, so also you will guide us during our earthly pilgrimage.
Give us whatever we need.
Please grant that we won’t forget all your many blessings, and so turn away from you and follow our sinful desires, but that we will keep faithful to your service.
May we not hurt you with our sins, but willingly obey you.
Then by glorifying your Name we will carry you in both body and soul, until that day when you bring us into your blessed Kingdom which you bought by the blood of your Son!
Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
The source for this sermon was: www.rcnz.org.nz
(c) Copyright, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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