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AMOS 5:1-17
(Reading: Deuteronomy 31:30-32:47)
I’m Still Looking For You!
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
Do you remember when we had all those end of the millennium celebrations?
This was the time and the date no one was going to miss!
The party to end all parties!
On that last day of 1999, and for much of the first day of 2000, there was a world-wide television coverage via satellite.
Scenes were shown from all over the world on that day, and especially when the magical hour tolled in each of those places.
It was also a time when much of history was remembered.
Particularly the achievements of the twentieth century were highlighted, because many of these things had been recorded on film.
We could watch in a short time flashes about great discoveries and enormous scientific advances interspersed with the most gruesome scenes of suffering and bloodshed.
Short clips of newsreel became thrown together in no apparent order and with no obvious connection.
Except, of course, that each one of these things happened in the same century, and they all involved mankind.
Various commentators have said the same about the first seventeen verses of Amos chapter 5.
They say it’s a pottage of conflicting and non-related thoughts all cobbled together in the one passage.
They even go so far as to question it being a part of Amos because it seems so disjointed and muddled.
Looking at the four chapters before it, we can see where their concern comes from.
It has been very clear what, or rather whom, Amos has been addressing.
You cannot escape the condemnation of the ten tribes of Israel.
God’s patience has run out!
But this theme hasn’t yet ended!
Indeed, this theme itself is certainly a strand through this passage.
We just have to look a little deeper.
So it is that the first aspect we will consider to these verses is this: ISRAEL HAS FALLEN.
And ISRAEL HAS FALLEN, first of all, BECAUSE OF WHAT SHE HAS BECOME.
The way verse 1 begins shows this.
Here we have the same phrase which begins the previous two chapters - “Hear this word!”
And the same people are addressed this time too.
As we read the prophet say, “Hear this word … O house of Israel!”
The difference in this continued condemnation is the finality of all this with the word “lamentation.”
Lamenting associates us with the emotions people have after the death of a loved one.
Here, as in much of the Old Testament, it brings in the type of song which was sung during the deepest sadness.
For then it is all over - the hope that was in this life has gone.
Thinking of that documentary with those different news clips, how many weren’t accompanied by background music?
Perhaps it was the music from the era of those clips.
Or it could have been was a song or melody that brought out the impression of it all.
Like they use Welsh hymns when at a rugby match!
I’m not joking - often there will be a spiritual hymn involved.
There’s something in that music which lifts it above what happens at any one particular time.
It’s inspirational.
Well, here the prophet already gives us the tune.
The lament was well-known to his audience.
And after all the other clever techniques he used to lay the Word of the Lord before them, now he sings to them as well.
Not recommended for every preacher - mind you!
Now, listen to how sad this song is.
“Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her own land, with none to raise her up.”
Amos sings like it has already happened.
The lyrics in this song are so devastating.
You see, don’t think that ‘Virgin Israel’ here is saying that Israel has something special any more.
That’s how she was made to be.
But an undefiled young woman is the last thing you would describe her as now!
She doesn’t have any more promise - there’s nothing precious about her.
Instead, the word ‘virgin’ is used here as it’s used sometimes to describe Babylon or Egypt (Isa.47:1; Jer.46:1).
This is about someone who has so much.
And the people would have picked up clearly the accusing tone.
In the words of John Calvin, “I have … no doubt … the prophet here accuses the Israelites, because they, relying on their strength, indulged themselves.
“They did their own thing, and when things were going well, they lived luxuriously and lavishly.”
They partied!
This is something akin to a girl marrying in white when she is far being a virgin.
It’s become a traditional custom.
And she’s going to have it!
But it definitely doesn’t mean she has got it!
Just like Israel is going to get what she wanted all along - separation from the LORD.
That’s what really rings out in this song.
Israel is on her own.
She’s got no one!
In fact, so destroyed will she be that ninety per cent from amongst her will be completely wiped out.
Verse 3 is clear about picturing that.
Only a small remnant will remain.
Just a tiny shoot on the stump.
A little further on Amos continues with describing what Israel has now become.
In the verses 7 and 10 till 12, he brings out again some of the clips of what he’s shown us already more fully.
Israel had turned wrong into right, and all to suit the rich and the strong.
While these images seem to be mixed up with all sorts of different shots, you can certainly recognise these scenes as they pop up!
In our modern day collage of clips these are the bad ones.
These are those ones which show how cruel we are to our fellow human being.
Like that unforgettable photo of the young Vietnamese girl running naked away from a napalm bombing.
It’s the imagery which proves we haven’t become more civilised at all!
In fact, the more people on this planet the more wars we have than ever before!
And there’s nothing the United Nations can do about that!
You see, the real heart of Israel’s break-down was its own going away from the justice system the LORD had instituted.
The Law with its commitment to equality and liberty under one law had got left right behind.
And how much isn’t our nation’s mess today exactly because the Christian basis to our courts of law are being rapidly eroded into a humanistic mish-mash!
You aren’t safe anywhere!
ISRAEL HAS FALLEN alright.
ISRAEL HAS FALLEN … BECAUSE OF WHAT SHE HAS BECOME.
But also, ISRAEL HAS FALLEN, in the second part to our first aspect, BECAUSE OF WHAT SHE WILL NEVER BE.
I think this would be the hardest part of Amos’ message for those Israelites.
Those listening to him after he has flashed back the terrible injustices done in their nation, are now told that they’re going to lose all they’ve got.
And that’s quite a lot!
Israel was in a time of boom.
There was political peace and the economy had taken off.
They had every optimism for more.
That’s why there’s the reference to building stone mansions and planting lush vineyards in verse 11.
But all that was being based on the wrong kind of capital.
They were debts which, when called in, would produce a worse crash than 1929!
Because morally these ten tribes were utterly bankrupt.
Congregation, when the situation has got to the stage in a nation that we find in verse 13, when the “prudent will keep silent in such a time,” those times are evil.
For this is no encouragement to believers to break the ninth commandment, but a recognition that a different commandment applies then.
The one about protecting life itself!
There have been times like this known to some of us.
During the 2nd World War who didn’t lie, or at least not tell the truth, if they were hiding Jews, or they knew where they were hidden?
The last verses of our text are in no doubt about what this evil brings about.
The lament - the sad song - he begins this passage with, is going to be sung by everyone then.
They’ll have to!
The dead are everywhere - ninety per cent of them have been wiped out!
These are holocaust-type figures.
The devastation that touches everywhere - even the farmer in the field and in the vineyards which certainly aren’t associated with this.
And if there’s anyone who hasn’t picked up Amos’ clear meaning so far, the very end of the text makes it plain.
The Lord himself says, “For I will pass through your midst.”
Well, the Israelites knew of the time when the Lord passed over them.
That was in Egypt when his angel had passed over their homes with the blood on the doors.
But now he would go through them as he had gone through the Egyptians.
Then he had struck down all the firstborn of those Egyptians who had opposed him.
He devastated them!
And soon he would punish Israel too!
Congregation, the Lord God always remains the Supreme Judge.
He doesn’t have sudden variations of character.
He’s absolutely fair - and he doesn’t change.
The fact that ISRAEL HAS FALLEN says just as much about who God is as it does about the nature of people - and this people in particular who had every opportunity and resource to go the right way.
So it is that we see, in the second aspect, THE LORD STILL STANDS.
We note now those other clips shown in our text.
Scenes which are so different.
I mean, look at the verses 8 and 9.
Right in the middle of the verses 7 and 10, which is the same kind of scene showing Israel’s injustice, here’s this picture of the Lord himself.
From man’s tiny power games to God’s great power-play - and back again!
It’s a documentary that has been played over many times to Israel.
Moses showed it as the people were about to enter the Promised Land, and how many prophets haven’t screened it again and again.
It should have been better known than the most repeated movie or television series.
They were the images that kept being used.
The images that never dated, for it was where God always worked.
THE LORD STILL STANDS, in the first part, BECAUSE HE ALWAYS IS.
The clip showing this in verses 8 & 9 is itself three pictures.
We are shown the Pleiades and Orion.
These are constellations of stars in the sky.
In their rising and setting they marked the beginning and ending of the season of navigation.
For some they were also a type of calendar.
God made them!
And he not only puts them there - he keeps them there.
Then there flashes snap-shots of night and day.
How much more different a change can there be than light and dark!
And he did it!
A word appears here in verse 8 which has been used in verse 7.
Can you see it?
It’s the word “turns”.
But while the Israelites may have turned right into wrong, here is One who turns the night into the day!
These are not only different clips, they’re completing contrasting clips!
It’s obvious which clips leave the impression.
The third clip shining out the Lord shows his power in a quite unpredictable way.
For the seasons and the days are regular but floods are a sudden and unexpected overthrow of what we try to do on this earth.
The Insurance companies are quite right to call these cataclysmic events “acts of God”, although we shouldn’t just limit God to there.
Congregation, these images show God to be God.
They constantly prove he is who he always is.
THE LORD STILL STANDS … BECAUSE OF WHO HE ALWAYS IS; and THE LORD STILL STANDS, in the second part of this second aspect, BECAUSE OF HOW HE LOVES.
God is absolutely consistent in all he does because he acts in love.
That is why he has set it all up in the first place!
And that’s why he can’t help but speak of who he loves.
“Seek me,” the Lord cries out.
Not just once, or twice - three times!
And then he puts it in different words to emphasise this same point.
Verse 4 is the first cry.
It exhorts his people to seek him - not themselves!
That’s where Bethel and Gilgal come into the picture again.
These two shrines, just down the road from each other, had become the epitome of Israel’s selfishness, as they pretended to worship the Lord but did it in their own place and way!
And they could always say why!
These places had history - great saints had done something great there.
This is why Beersheba gets a mention too.
Because Beersheba, of all places, is actually found in the southern tip of Judea!
But that had even more ‘history’ - it was where Abraham had called upon the LORD, and where the LORD had appeared to Isaac and Jacob.
There was a real line in religious tourism down that way!
But that too isn’t where the Lord is.
That’s not Jerusalem where his temple is.
And while it may have been a buzz for those travelling there, it was totally the wrong emotion.
“Seek the LORD and live!”
It’s far away from true faith.
Going to church doesn’t always mean you’re a Christian.
You can think you are because you’re doing the so-called “right thing.”
But the church with all its ritual and ceremony, social respectability and middle class habit, can just as easily lead you down the wrong way.
It is as Matthew Henry said in the seventeenth century, “It is common for those that are farthest from God to boast themselves most of being near to the church.”
And that is what Bethel and Gilgal and Beersheba did.
They led away from the grace found in the saving God alone, to what the people felt was appropriate.
When Moses said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 32 verse 46, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day,” he meant it from the heart, not as just another part of your life.
The people couldn’t afford to get this wrong!
God is both kind and stern.
“Seek the LORD and live,” he says in verse 6, “or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour and Bethel will have nothing to quench it.”
God is the perfect Father.
As Jesus himself warns us not to be afraid of those who kill the body, but rather to be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Mt.10:28), so these Israelites should come home to God.
Then, in the words of verse 15, “it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
They couldn’t be comfortable!
In fact, it should be as one preacher described preaching, “It must disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.”
You see, THE LORD STILL STANDS … BECAUSE OF HOW HE LOVES.
So what overall impression did you get from this mixed collage of clips?
You certainly saw different scenes.
Did you see different scenes, though, with the same theme?
You cannot get away from it.
When you contrast man’s complete inability over against God’s total capability there’s no choice.
If that strikes your heart, you come down on your knees!
There is a story told about Napoleon that shows this.
A young soldier in his army had been convicted on a charge which meant the death penalty.
His mother came and fell before Napoleon pleading for her son’s life.
“Please,” she implored, “have mercy on him.”
To which Napoleon replied, “Why should I have mercy on him?
“He does not deserve it.”
“If he deserved it,” she answered, “it would not be mercy.”
Congregation, don’t make the mistake of Old Testament Israel.
Don’t think you can be right with God because of your merit.
Only Christ’s credit can pay that price.
And all we can do is plead upon his blood poured out on the cross.
When you know you cannot expect something you must humbly wait for it.
But please ask for it!
Don’t stop praying for God’s mercy on you and yours and on everyone else.
“Love must be sincere,” says Romans 12 verse 9.
And he definitely means it.
For this kind of seeking is about the whole of our lives.
Indeed, if it truly comes from our hearts everyday we need to pray to him and ask to be guided by this God.
Looking for God is living his way.
That’s why after Amos says “Seek the LORD and live,” he straightaway continues, “do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba.”
Seeking God means staying away from whatever doesn’t serve him.
We can’t seek God and also visit Bethel sometimes.
Then you’d be trying to worship God and money!
In the words of verse 15, “Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate…”
Friend, the Lord has flashed it all up before you again now.
This is the program you’ve watched many, many times before!
And listen to that music.
It’s a sad song.
They’re not playing at your funeral - are they?
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
Lord God, you are the One who always stands; the One who does not change…
We praise and thank you for exactly that.
We can depend on you.
And we can humble ourselves before you knowing that as we cross ourselves off the Cross of your Son makes us one again with you.
In Jesus’ precious Name we pray, 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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