Amos
10
The game’s up! “Righteousness” and “Fair play” have been meaningless fictions for too long in Israel. Fooling around at the sex and religion shrines and running roughshod over the poor is over. It’s time to face hard reality, no more fantasy. Here comes a black cloud with no silver lining. The Lord, the God of heaven’s armies, has now taken the field, a plumb line in His holy hand. His people, when tested, were completely out of plumb. The crunching judgement lands in Amos chapter 7 verse 9. “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”
How courageous Amos is. He speaks the unpalatable truth where the people were, at the pilgrimage shrines. He’s like Daniel in the lions’ den. This lion roars at Bethel where the opposition is amassed at the very place where grace was being abused and God’s law had been forsaken.
Prophetic preaching often arouses opposition. It lands prophets in big trouble because what is declared is not airy-fairy nonsense or vague. It is the specific, personal, blunt and direct word of God. In the New Testament in James chapter 5 verse 10 we read, “as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” Amos is verbally attacked for being a foreigner and is told in no uncertain terms by the priest of Bethel, Amaziah, to go back where he came from – back to the southern
Kingdom of Judah and to get out of Israel.
In Jeroboam the second’s kingdom, Bethel was a royal chapel and the equivalent to a national cathedral. The resident priest, Amaziah, didn’t like what he heard and reported Amos to the king. His words are recorded in chapter 7 verse 10. “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. For this is what Amos is saying, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”
Whenever preaching criticises the establishment or the official religion there is bound to be a reaction from the powers that be, defending their own vested interests. But Amos refuses to be intimidated. He gives as good as he gets. He’s no vulgar little upstart easily dismissed as of no consequence. He’s God’s man willing to stand alone and not readily silenced.
Verse 12 reads, “Then Amaziah said to Amos, ‘Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy any more at Bethel because this is the king’s sanctuary and temple of the kingdom.’”
Amos retorts that being a prophet was not his idea in the first place. It was God’s. God conscripted him. He’s in this job by divine appointment. Verse 14 contains his response. “I was neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flocks and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”
Now fearlessly Amos takes the initiative “You say, Do not prophesy against Israel and stop preaching’” (verse 16). Literally this phrase ‘stop preaching’ is ‘do not drop, trickle or drip your word.’ Far from hectoring or ranting, Amos is speaking in a gentle, welcoming, winsome, refreshing manner.
However Amaziah the priest has rejected the word of the Lord and God rejects him. You may recall a similar situation confronted King Saul when faced by the prophet Samuel.
Here Amos of Tekoa prophesied – Amaziah the priest replied, “Do not prophesy.” He heard the word, but wouldn’t listen.
It’s as if the Lord of the plumb line drew near and measured both men. One was taken and the other was left. One bowed before the word, the other did not.
The consequences were dire for Amaziah. The Message Paraphrase Bible puts it this way in verse 17. “Here’s what God is telling you:
Your wife will become a whore in town.
Your children will get killed.
Your land will be auctioned off.
You will die homeless and friendless.
And Israel will be hauled off to exile, far from home.”
One can imagine the stunned silence that would follow such a declaration. The message was spoken with such assurance and certainty but it must have been extremely offensive to the priest. It was an accurate and precise prophecy, which focused on Amaziah’s wife and family, the land and the nation.
In chapters 1-6 the prophet’s words were addressed to the leading people of Israel and Samaria as a whole, but here Amos names the priest and the king. Jeroboam the second, after a reign of forty-one years, died and his dynasty came to an end. Amos had been accused of being a traitor. Far from it, he was God’s spokesman. Centuries later Jesus spoke these words in Palestine.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me… Rejoice and be glad; because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who went before you.” (Matthew chapter 5: 11-12 (NIV))
Perhaps He even had Amos in mind.