Tag: Amos

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When God goes silent.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

““The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord’s word.” Amos‬ ‭8‬:‭11‬-‭13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Amos isn’t famous, rich or educated, but he just had enough of Israel’s abundant flaunting of wealth and hubristic treatment of the poor. Being a shepherd and a fig tree farmer didn’t stop him from hearing from God, putting together his sermons and messages about what he heard and delivering it in Bethel, where there was a large temple.

Israel, under Jeroboam 2, had become extremely powerful and wealthy. The king had won a lot of battles and secured Israel’s borders so that everyone prospered. Everyone, except the poor. The rich got richer and the poor not only got poorer, they became slaves to the wealthy families. And because they were poor, there was no representation or help when cheated in transactions. All the while, the Jewish well to do continued to go to temple, pay their taxes, and party hard in the religious celebrations. And, worst of all the people did all of this while experiencing and expanding their worship of idols. In the people’s eyes, the nation was flourishing and the wealthy were happy to add Jehovah to a list of other gods as a part of their cultural, religious experiences.

This average Amos guy comes into town with big warnings and harsh words for the privileged and those who just wanted to live the good life without giving a second thought to God or his rules. Earlier in chapter 8, God shows Amos a basket of ripe fruit, figs most likely. God says that the ripe fruit represents the people being ripe for judgment. In one verse God says “You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless. You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.” (8:5‬). Just normal folks, playing a dangerous game of living high while behaving horribly to their fellow (poor) Israelites.

In these verses, God tells Amos, the next big famine that God will send on them will be worse than the ones before. What is worse than a food famine or a disastrous drought? God will quit speaking. There will not be any words, no communication, no messages from heaven – God goes silent. If we lined up all the Old Testament prophets, the spokespersons for God, they were all speaking, warning, pronouncing both judgment and hope. Most of them were murdered to subdue their silence. This time, God would go silent for 400 years! From Malachi to Matthew, God did not speak.

What happened in that time period? The world experienced a mini apocalypse, just a foretaste of what men of war and humanity would be like without God intervening or speaking. Just a note, in the future God will not be silent. You would think that the non-God crowd, the atheists or pantheists would celebrate. But the world got very dark, brutal and wicked. Honest historians admit, this period of time led to the worse treatment of humans and the poor ever! People who think Judaism is restrictive, or that Christianity is a straitjacket of thought, morality, and science – even promoting sexism, patriarchal oppression and hate, does not know history. This period of time, the 400 years of silence was a free for all of power, wealth, abuse and domination over the weak, the poor.

It was the worse time in history to be a woman or a child! Read Tom Holland’s book, Dominion. Holland, an atheist himself, concludes that Christ and Christianity was the turning point and salvation of human morality and treatment of the poor, the weak – especially for women, children and the family structure. Modern culture seems to beg for the removal of constraints and restrictions of Christianity, of any sense of God, but we do so to our own peril, our own destruction.

Prayer

Dad,
I feel the conviction and passion of Amos’ words even today. Our “king” and country is wealthy. And, I see a lot of folks pursue whatever god promises the biggest financial bonus or fame. I also do my Sunday duties and too often continue to treat the outliers and outcasts with disdain. Father God, you’d prefer mercy over sacrifice wouldn’t you? I also know that I tend to focus on things that perpetuate instead of prevent further harm or injustices. I need the boldness of Amos’ passion to work first in me. I don’t need to look far from my own frailties. Forgive me. Help me Holy Spirit; to yield and move towards you, not away from you. In you, Oh Lord, will I find right living, peace and joy! Amen.

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Gravity don’t lie.

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“Then he showed me another vision. I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line. He was using a plumb line to see if it was still straight. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” I answered, “A plumb line.” And the Lord replied, “I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore all their sins.” Amos‬ ‭7:7-8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Full tilt and a bubble off!

This last vision Amos saw is so tame and cool compared to the other two before this. The first a swarm of locusts, a plague devouring everything. The second a raging fire sweeping across both land and sea. Also destroying everything. This third vision is so different! A plumb line.

How genius is this back in ancient days? We use a variation of plumb lines today with modern technology. Gravity don’t lie. Put a weight on a string and hang it from the top of a wall, fence or post and it will show you if the structure is straight, even or “plumb” as they say.

It would be odd to get into an argument about being straight when using a device like this. Someone may ask, “well, how do you know it’s straight?” Answer, look at the plumb line! They may argue, “well, how do you know if the plumb line is correct?”

Ah, a doubter of gravity eh? Gravity guarantees the weight hanging from a string, perpendicular to the object, is straight. Folks can argue all they want, choosing to question what’s straight or plumb, but unless they want crooked buildings, fences or posts they should line up their project to the plumb line.

God told Amos, He is the plumb line and the people of Israel, by their behaviors don’t line up! They are living crooked lives by giving and sacrificing to wooden poles and calling them god. The entire leadership of the country has gone wacky and God had enough of it. End of the line for King Jeroboam and the crooked priests feeding him nonsense.

What an object lesson! Amos, look for yourself, the whole bunch is BENT, broken, off kilter! God says, “I can’t ignore that.” When our lives are held up against a standard of what’s straight, what’s right, what’s good, we can clearly see we’re crooked! God is the standard, God is that plumb line everywhere and in everything. So, whether we’re leaning a little or a lot to the left or a little or a lot to the right, we’re still not straight compared to God’s perfection.

Prayer

Dad,
No arguments here. I know how good and perfect you are. I also know of your great mercy and grace to us. And, I know that the only one that stands perfectly straight next to this heavenly plumb line standard is Jesus! So I try to stand as close as I can to Him so that you see his perfection, his goodness, his righteousness. I am thankful for the work through Christ on our behalf.

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It’s extremely hard to get our attention.

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“Therefore, I will bring upon you all the disasters I have announced. Prepare to meet your God in judgment, you people of Israel!” Amos‬ ‭4:12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Especially when we are living the high-life, going, doing whatever we desire, whatever we fancy.

Famous Amos, another spokesperson for God, has the wonderful opportunity to tell Israel the truth. While Israel is living it up, partying, taking advantage of others and all along offering sacrifices to idols! Giving time, money (crops and foods) and attention to block statues of wood called Baal.

Amos is pointing out the obvious, holding up a community mirror up in their faces. They were basically visiting whores while saying they were in a promised, lifetime relationship with the creator of the universes. Amos says, “Go ahead and offer sacrifices to the idols at Bethel. Keep on disobeying at Gilgal. Offer sacrifices each morning, and bring your tithes every three days. Present your bread made with yeast as an offering of thanksgiving. Then give your extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere! This is the kind of thing you Israelites love to do,” says the Sovereign Lord.”

Betrayal, rebellion and brash, ballzy, hubris behavior towards God. So, yes, God sends a slew of reminders, strong hints that they were flirting with danger. Much of these were what we would call “natural” disasters or “Mother Nature.” What a laugh. These weren’t natural occurrences, they were supernatural messages to stop living a life destined for death. Even after famines, droughts, insect infestations and outright plagues reminiscent of Egypt, Israel just wanted to “Bill & Ted” their lives saying, “party on!”

How would you stop a high speed train barreling down the track destined to travel off a cliff? That’s right, you’d try your best to purposely DERAIL it, hoping to save lives. Amos is begging Israel to quit living for and giving to fake gods and come back to the real God.

I don’t want God to have to work that hard to get my attention, save my life, or accomplish His good and perfect will in this world. However, out of His mercy, God will do whatever it takes. I’ve seen some really awful things happen in people’s lives and I wonder, why? It’s it “natural” consequences from just living in a broken world. Is it the work of the chief liar and deceiver? Or – OR is it God trying to just get them to turn and make things right with Him? As I’ve said before, David, in the Psalms apparently ALWAYS attributes everything to God’s eventual control. I’d say it’s best to go to the one who has all the answers – God. Start there. Tell God what’s going on and ask him how to proceed. I also need to remember, because of Christ, these are NOT threats of hell, they’re disciplines of love to lead the full life God promised!

Prayer

Dad,
I don’t know a lot, but I do know what betrayal feels like. I know what it’s like to love someone, invest in a relationship and have it derail, sometimes even going bitter and sour. It is so painful to vulnerably give and have it spurned or used against you. Even in that tiny little example, I can see how wrong we are to run after “other” gods, fake gods made out of wood or electrons. Who won’t give back anything but pain. Who won’t, who can’t save us nor make life good for us! No fake gods for me thank you!