The plumb line day1

THE BOOK OF AMOS

 

He didn’t look like much. He was a farmer. He tended some sheep and watched over a grove of fig trees. It wasn’t very exciting, but it was a living.

And then, for some reason only God knows, Amos was called to go to his northern cousins and deliver a message.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel was experiencing a time of economic growth and affluence, a golden age. They lived in large houses and had the financial margin to enjoy leisure activities previously unknown. The people were prosperous, so they figured that God must be pleased with them.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

Amos showed up in Israel and wasted no time getting down to business. He delivered a scathing message that was intentionally designed to sneak up on his audience. He began by telling them how angry God was with their neighbours, the pagan nations surrounding them, the Syrians, the Philistines, people from Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab. He practically drew a circle right around Israel on the map, naming all of Israel’s major rivals. God was really angry and was finally going to let ’em have it!

Whatever scepticism the people of Israel may have felt toward this southern prophet must have melted away as they heard him rail against their enemies. They had a little pep rally going!

Then it got even better. Amos started to speak out against his own land, the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The people of Israel never expected a prophet to come from Judah and pronounce judgment on his own homeland. This was great! It served to confirm what they thought all along. God was pleased with them and angry with Judah. Judah wasn’t keeping the Law. God was going to destroy them. This was vindication for the Northern Kingdom.

Except the prophet wouldn’t stop talking. If he had stopped right there, things would have been okay. But it turns out that all the stuff so far was mostly a setup for the real message.

The real message was that God was angry and disgusted with Israel. The gap between rich and poor was growing. Wealthy people learned how to work the system and keep the underprivileged in line. God had blessed the people in many ways, and they were using those blessings to indulge themselves rather than to be a blessing to others. Furthermore, they gave lip service to the idea of serving YHWH while blending a lot of idolatry into their worship.

It does sound a little familiar, right?

Amos startled them by suggesting that God wasn’t measuring Israel against the nations around them; He was measuring them with His own plumb line, the Law He had given them. Compared to other nations, they might be able to say, “We’re not so bad.” But when compared to God’s Law, it was easy to see how crooked they had become.

The scariest part of the message from Amos was that while Israel was looking for God to punish the surrounding nations, God meant to punish them first.

Of course, God gave them a chance to avoid the punishment. Amos’s message was a warning, there was still hope for them if they would heed it and straighten up. If they would listen and return to God and do the right thing, they could continue to live in peace. If not, destruction was inevitable.

Amos never got any positive response. The priest at Bethel even told him to shut up and go home! So he finished up his message and then he did. He went back home and wrote down his message for a future generation to read. And the crooked nation continued on its crooked walk toward judgment.

 

Lord God, You have called me to be among the followers of Jesus who will prove themselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation who appear as lights in the world. This is a high and holy task that is difficult to fulfil because of the pressures and obstacles of this present darkness. The world has such powerful lures that seek to seduce me to play by two sets of rules and serve two masters. As I renew my mind with the timeless precepts and principles of Your Word, may I see through this web of deception and not mistake material abundance for Your blessing. In Christ, I want to become increasingly different from my culture so that I will treasure the goodness of Your kingdom above the goods of this world.

In Jesus’s name, Amen