July 7 - Amos 3:1-6:8 - "The Lion King"

MPC 7th July 2019.

Phil Campbell

Kids and parents, I'll bet you can't wait for July 19th.

The new version of The Lion King.

For my kids I think the original went down as one of the best movies of all time. If you haven't seen the promos already, here's a little taster.

There's no doubt, is there. Who's the king of the jungle. The lion king.

Which is why when C.S. Lewis wrote The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe back in 1950; it's no accident he portrays the king in the world of Narnia as the great lion Aslan.

Kids, if you haven't read the Narnia books yet, you should. Parents, if you haven't read the Narnia books, you should. Read them with your kids.

There's one particularly famous quote. As Mr Beaver says to Susan, "Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." And Susan, who's come into Narnia through the back of a wardrobe, asks, "Is he safe? I'll feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

To which Mr Beaver scoffs and says, "Safe? Who says anything about safe? Of course he's not safe. But he's good. He's the king I tell you."

It's a thought we hold in kind of awkward tension, isn't it? Kind of too good to believe. That there could be a power like that that's far from safe. And yet pure. And good.

That's the picture we saw last week in the first chapter Old Testament prophet Amos as God roars like an angry lion. Not safe. But thoroughly good.

In his anger first at the inhumanity of the nations around Israel and Judah, like the Syrians in Damascus, like the Philistines in Gaza. Like the Edomites. And the Ammonites. And the Moabites.

Such terrible people. a ring of fire. As it should be.

But it's easy, isn't it, to proclaim judgement on everyone else.

So here's the stinger. In chapters 3 to 5, the Lion is roaring even more. At the insincerity; at the hypocrisy; at the injustice. Of his own covenant people.

There's a lion on the prowl; chapter 3 verse 4. roaring in the bushes. growling in its den. Stalking its prey. And the prey. Is the hypocritical people of Israel.

There's a lion roaring. Look at the words. Amos 3 verse 8.

The Lion has roared - who will not fear. The sovereign Lord has spoken - who can but prophesy.

Because the risk is, verse 12, if things don't change, all that's going to be left of Israel is a couple of leg bones and a bit of an ear. Like bits of a sheep dragged out of a lion's mouth by a shepherd.

In fact, worse than a lion. Flip across to chapter 5 verse 19. It's going to be like you're running away from a lion; and you meet a bear. You run into your house, you slam the door, you're out of breath, you put your hand on the wall. And a snake strikes.

Which is kind of humorous in a dark sort of way. Except Amos is not joking. If the people of Israel ignore their roaring covenant God... there's nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere safe.

And so God calls out Judah. The southern half of the nation. Made up of the two biggest tribes.

And then the Northern Kingdom. Israel. The ten smaller tribes. Not so much for their war crimes as their absolute hypocrisy. That the people who are meant to be the people of God are nothing like it.

I got an email a couple of weeks back from a friend who said this.

He says, "I'm worried that middle class Christians appear to value and pursue exactly the same things as middle class unbelievers. And that's where all our energy goes. He says, "Have we become conditioned to accept that a faith characterised by worldly middle class values is acceptable to God; and then spend our time finding a pseudo spiritual justification for it ?"

What do you think? That's certainly how it was for Israel.

So let's take a closer look. At exactly what it is that's making the lion roar.

Let's ask Amos. As he puts Israel and Judah under the microscope.

Here's a starter. Chapter 3 verse 10. Take a look. "They do not know how to do right, declares the Lord, who hoard plunder and loot in their fortresses."

Here's the problem. Because it's a time of prosperity. Much like ours. And it seems their main interest is hoarding money. Much like ours.

Trouble is, their gains are ill gotten. Their profits are unethical. Their benefit. Is always at other people's expense. They'll cheat however they can. Whoever they can. They'll oppress the poor. Which we'll see more of in a few minutes.

Have you met people who do that? It's scary. Have you become one?

The point is, these Israelites have done very, very well. They're very, very, middle-class-comfortable.

Amos looks around and they've got their summer houses, they've got their winter houses, there's the beach house with a spa... all decorated with the latest designer ivory carvings. And they can just sit back and relax. It's a generation of lounging women. And lounging men. It's a world of wine, women and song.

Chapter 4 verse 1. First the women. Not particularly polite to the larger framed ladies of Israel; he calls them cows. But he says, they lie back on their lounges and they call for more drinks. bring me another gin and tonic!

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands... 'bring us some drinks.'

Living in luxury as they walk over the needy. Without even noticing the lumpy bits in the road.

And the men are the same. Flip over quickly to chapter 6 and take a look. Verse 1. "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation to whom the people of Israel come!" The leading men of the land. What are they like.

Verse 4. "You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves; you strum away on your harps like David, and improvise on musical instruments."

You know it's funny. I quite like a bit of jazz. Lou hates it. Sorry jazz players. But where, you know, you just noodle around; make it up as you go. Improvising. She hates that when you're listening you can't even figure out what the tune is. She says, it's all for the benefit of the person playing. And not for the person listening.

Well, I don't know what God thinks of jazz in general. But he doesn't like this jazz.

Amos says to the men of Israel, you guys have got too much time on your hands. You guys have got it too easy. Lounging around paying your jazz harps. While other people are starving.

You drink wine by the bowlful, 6 verse 6, and use the finest aftershaves. But you do not grieve over the ruin of your ancestor Joseph. He'd be rolling in his grave.

On the outside, you smell great. But on the inside... you're a stinking ruin.

Because the height of their hypocrisy is this. At the same time as they're sipping their drinks and playing their cool jazz and ignoring the poor... they're still what you'd call very religious. They're still turning up at their altar in Bethel... and making their sacrifices.

Just flip your eye back for a minute to verse 4 in chapter 4. They've got their altars to God in Bethel and Gilgal. They're going through their rituals. But in God's eyes, it's not just a waste of time. It's offensive. What they're thinking is impressing God... is actually just piling up their sin.

We're back in chapter 4, picking up verse 4 and 5.

"Go to Bethel and sin;

go to Gilgal and sin yet more.

Bring your sacrifices every morning,

your tithes every three years.

Burn leavened bread as a thank offering

and brag about your freewill offerings -

boast about them, you Israelites,

for this is what you love to do"

declares the Sovereign Lord.

See, that's Israel. They're bragging. They're boasting. About their standing with God.

When the reality is they're just complacent, uncaring, hypocrites.

Here's what they're like. There's a list in chapter 5.

There are those, chapter 5 verse 7.who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.

There are those, chapter 5 verse 10, who hate the one who upholds justice in court. And detest the one who tells the truth. Who levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain.

There are those, verse 12, who oppress the innocent and take bribes. And deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

Chris Masters was on the radio on Wednesday. It's thirty years since he broke the story on Four Corners of the corruption that was rife through Queensland. Led to the Fitzgerald enquiry. And Chris Masters said, as I was preparing the story, obviously, nobody wanted to talk about it. He said, there were a few brave honest cops. Who spoke up. But the middle ground was full of people too scared to speak. The truth wasn't welcome.

In the time of Amos. That's Israel. The people of God. This is the Amos enquiry. And yet they're still going through the motions of their sacrifices in the mountains. And think God's pleased with them. And he's not.

You reckon you get up on a Sunday morning and you hate coming to church sometimes. Well, in Israel, it's God who hates going to church. Still in chapter 5. Verse 21. God says,

I hate, I despise your religious festivals;

your assemblies are a stench to me.

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them.

Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,

I will have no regard for them.

away with the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

They're thinking the God of the universe is a transactional God. Bring me this and I'll do that. That God's a ceremonial God. Just do this and I'll do that. They think he's like an ATM.

But they've misunderstood him completely. They've forgotten they're dealing not just with a lion... but with the God who made mountains.

Who lit the match that started the bang that started everything. With just a word.

Did he shout it? He didn't need to. He could just whisper everything into being if he wanted.

Amos has already reminded them who they're dealing with at the end of chapter 4. It's worth looking at his words on the screen.

He who forms the mountains,

who creates the wind,

and who reveals his thoughts to mankind,

who turns dawn to darkness,

and treads on the heights of the earth

the Lord God Almighty is his name.

You know the bit they missed? That this God, this immensely powerful cosmic God, He hasn't left us guessing.

He's actually spoken. Through prophets like Amos.

This God. This majestic God. Has told them from the start that in all his immense majesty. Has revealed his thoughts. And made it very clear he actually cares about the small stuff right down on ground level. Like how they treat one another. Like whether or not they're fair and honest and just and loving and true.

He's introduced himself. He's told them his name. He's opened up his very thoughts to them.

And they haven't taken any notice. Just business as usual. Make more money. Sacrifice a few more sheep. Ring a few more bells. Burn a bit more incense.

There's more of the same in chapter 5. From verse 8.

He who made the Pleiades and Orion,

who turns midnight into dawn

and darkens day into night,

who calls for the waters of the sea

and pours them out over the face of the land-

The Lord YAHWEH is his name.

This is the God who wants justice. This is the God who's going to judge.

This is the God who's got the power in his little finger to turn night to day and day to night and to end their nation with a word.

So what should they do? Amos spells it out over and over again.

Chapter 4 lists all the ways God's warned them before. Five times, he says, you should have taken the hint. And yet you haven't turned back to me.

Maybe it's still not too late. To seek me... chapter 5 verse 4. And live.

Don't seek Bethel. Forget about your sacrifices. Seek me.

Seek the lord and live, verse 6, or he'll sweep through Israel like a fire.

Seek me and live.

Which means in verse 14, and this is not rocket science, is it? That they'll seek good. And not evil. See, how odd; that they'd need to be told that seeking God means you'll seek the good. That seeking God means hating evil and loving good.

And can I say in today's context, not just hating the kind of sexual evil that you're not into yourself anyway. You might have picked up in the news lately, we're very anti that stuff, aren't we?

But that's easy isn't it. It's easy to call down judgement on everyone else. Which is what Israel was doing.

But this is about hating the evil we quietly tolerate. That we enjoy. Maybe it's going to mean refusing to be satisfied with our own middle class greed? Grieving our own complacency in the face of economic injustice.

Chapter 5 Verse 14. For Israel, here's the clincher.

Seek good and not evil that you may live. then the Lord your God will be with you, just as you say he is.

See, they're 100 per cent confident that God's on their side.

And Amos is 100 per cent confident that he's not.

So maybe. Just maybe. It's not too late.

Maybe, just maybe, verse 15, if they hate evil and love good and maintain justice in the courts, maybe, just maybe the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on them. Or at least a few.

Maybe. Although it doesn't sound promising, does it. We're in chapter 5 verse 16.

Because without missing a beat, Amos spells out the coming woes.

There's going to be wailing in the streets. Verse 16. Tears in the town square. Weeping farmers, wailing in the vineyards.

They think God's on their side. They've been looking forward to the day God's going to judge everybody else. But God's on the side of righteousness and justice and truth instead.

And so the day's going to come. When God's going to act.

Now can I be clear, Amos is not talking about hell at this point. He's talking to them about something much more immediate. He's talking about the smashing down of the nation of Israel. At God's own command.

He's talking about the fact that the northern tribes of Israel. Are going to be decimated and scattered. Until there's hardly a flicker of hope. The Day when the lord visits. He's going to come with enemy armies from the north. The Assyrians.

There was a hint of it in chapter 3. The large ladies, dragged from their luxury lounges. Through the ruins of the city walls.

It's plain here in Chapter 5 Verse 27.

Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus says The Lord, whose name is God almighty. Your ivory beds will be crushed; your bowls of wine overturned.

You'll be among the first to go into exile, chapter 6 verse 7. Your feasting and your lounging will end.

Which can I say, is exactly what happened.

A few years later in the year 720BC. The lion that roared in the bushes finally pounces.

The Assyrians march in, and they completely crush the northern kingdom of Israel. Everything in ruins. And the survivors are dragged off into exile in Assyria, and ultimately broken up and scattered all round the Mediterranean and the middle east. The few left in Samaria, they intermarry and give up their Israelite birthright... to the point where there's hardly a connection at all. The Samaritans, still hated by Israelites hundreds of years later.

And then later Judah. In the south. Same story in the year 587BC. Crushed and exiled as a group to Babylon. And refugees scattered everywhere else as well. A refugee crisis without precedent. a whole nation sifted and dissipated. Under the judgement of God.

Northern tribes off to Assyria in 720BC. Southern tribes to Babylon, 587.

Now seventy years later a few of the southern Israelites come dribbling back to Jerusalem and try to get things restarted. But it was never much. Because their hearts were no different from before.

And then the Romans come. And so they're just like prisoners on home detention anyway.

Although as we'll see next week, there was always the faintest glimmer of a hope that one day; their judgement would be over.

One day, they'd all be invited home again. All 12 tribes from where-ever they've scattered. That one day their king would come.

More than a king. The Lion King himself. In person. Calling a people together.

Offering a new righteousness that would come from changed hearts.

Launching a new regathered Israel that includes even people like us. Changed in our spirits. By his Spirit. With a call to be not what Israel was. But something far better.

With a call not for more rituals. But for justice and righteousness that flow from generous changed hearts. For mercy that comes from having known mercy. That's ultimately shown at the cross.

Different from Israel. Because we've seen the majesty of who God is; not just in the mountains and the starry sky. But in the person of Jesus. That God would reveal his thoughts to mankind not just in the words of the prophets. But through his son.

Which then makes it all the more tragic. If we are just complacent. Lethargic. Ritualistic. As Christians. If we're just going to repeat the mistakes of Israel, it's like Jesus never came. And I'm talking about all those awkward concrete areas. Like your compassion. Like your generosity. Like your passion for justice and fairness.

So what's the answer to that email I got a little while back. I haven't actually replied to it yet. But I've started reading a book the last few days.

It's called The Jesus Economy, by John D Barry.

He says, the world's economic models are based on scarcity. And competition. We compete with one another for scarce resources. What if we flipped it. What if we reversed that? Because John Barry says "The currency of Jesus kingdom is different from ours. Jesus economy is based on self sacrifice, and his currency is Love."

And so, living in the Kingdom is about exchanging the various currencies of this world - wealth, and power and comfort - for the currency of love. For what we can give instead of what we can get. Exchanging the concept of competing for scarce resources for the idea that we've got plenty to share.

And so we actually need to start noticing. 20 percent of people in developing regions are trying to get by and feed their families on less that $2 USD per day. 767 million people.

John Barry runs a foundation that helps people like that with micro-loans. And strategic grants. Setting up Fair Trade partnerships. preaching the gospel that changes hearts. And then developing justice systems that stamp out the corruption that he says ruins everything.

John Barry's an incredibly energetic impressive entrepreneurial kind of guy.

But I wonder - even smaller scale - what that kind of thinking would look like for you? Would look like for us? Sure, from time to time it's going to move us to do things like buying an orphanage bus in our Christmas Appeal, or setting up an X-ray program for kids in Goma. Or dental care in Aru. That stuff's great. Because that's who we are. But it's actually meant to be a matter of heart all the time.

A generosity. That puts fairness to others. Over and above the comfort of self. That getting a good deal starts to mean something completely different to just getting a good deal for yourself.

And as people who are offered changed hearts in Jesus, we're certainly not for a minute thinking we can somehow fool God by just turning up on a Sunday and singing a few songs... as if he's interested in the machinery of religion. The point is, we're actually here week by week to encourage one another; and shape one another. And urge one another on. To live out world changingly generous lives of gospel shaped love.

Because that's who we are. And that's the kind of gathering God delights to be part of.