So, after that text in Amos, which was just read, some of you might be wondering, you
know, probably quite valid, why is it that the Bible seems so confusing, all these weird
imageries, all this blood-curdling and bloodthirsty types of visions and images, odd place names.
It's just a lot of the Bible seems either confusing or it seems like just a bit repellent
because it's so bloodthirsty and violent.
In fact, many people might even be wondering if you're here this morning, like, why is
it that a church would even read such a thing like this in public?
Like, you know, on a Sunday morning you struggle to come here through the rain and you don't
want to really hear about all these things about judgment and destroying all the land
and destroying the deep and people being dying by the sword.
Like, it's not, you know, people don't sort of wake up in the morning on a Sunday and
say, gosh, I think I need to hear a story about massive earthly destruction today.
I think it'll really help my inner life and sense of peace if I spend some time thinking
about it.
That's not how Canadians wake up.
And it's one of the reasons, by the way, that many, many churches, if you're a person
who's come here this morning for a variety of reasons, you got dragged here, you got tricked
here or whatever, or you're in some type of a search.
And, you know, many people say, you know, George, it's no wonder, like, you know, churches
that talk about these types of things, it's not very helpful.
Like, look at how, like, yoga's peaceful.
Like, there's lots of peaceful things.
Star Trek, you know, Star Wars is a bit like, it has like the force.
It's like a bit religious.
It's far, like, it's better, George.
Don't you think it's better?
How can you talk about Amos in Canada in a day like today?
One of the things that we do, for those who are here maybe as guests, is we don't, we
believe that Messiah, that the best way to really learn about God and learn about ourselves
is to go through whole books of the Bible, where we talk about, I mean, the books, everything
in the Bible was originally written as a book, as an individual book, and we feel that's
really the best way to come to know who Jesus is and to come to know ourselves.
It's an honest way to look at things.
I'll illustrate, I mean, I just, the other day, actually, just this week I had two people
who had to deal with either insurance companies or car companies, and I'm not making a negative
comment about if you're here and you work for an insurance company, and if you're here
you work for a car company.
I'm not talking about all, if actually what I say is about you, then maybe that's one of
those things you need to repent of.
But in both cases, the person got screwed because of, sorry, maybe Andrew would have been
bothered that I said that.
Anyway, that's not too offensive, is it?
They got ripped off, that's the better word, maybe less offensive, because of fine print.
And, like, one guy that I was just talking to this week, he's probably out about 10 grand
because of fine print, that if he'd seen the fine print, he would have chosen a bit
of a different option about it.
And another person, it was obvious that they just were pretending that they were kind and
caring, but in fact they weren't.
They were just trying to close a deal on a car, and they were really just trying to close
a deal on the car.
I mean, basically they've learned that if you can fake being kind and caring, then you got
it made.
It helps you to be not kind and not caring and try to make money, except it didn't work
in this case.
So, you know, many of the times people wonder about Christians and about, you know, why,
you know, oh yeah, yeah, it all sounds good, you know, Jesus loves you, you know, the pig,
oh yeah, he's up there, stained glass window holding a little sheep, and he looks, but you
know, George, like there's all this other side about religion and about Christianity.
And that's one of the reasons, by going through books of the Bible, what in a sense we're
doing is we're saying, like what I'm telling to this is, I believe there is a God who really
does exist.
And I think there's some good philosophical arguments and other things for it, but at
the end of the day, I believe it because I believe that Jesus actually is God's son,
that he actually died upon a cross, that on the third day he actually rose from the dead,
that the tomb was empty, that he rose from the dead, that he proved that he was alive.
And it's because of him, and I trust him, that God actually speaks, he tells us about what
he's like, and that every human being needs to be reconciled to their creator.
And Jesus is God's means to reconcile creatures like you and me back to God.
And there's no other way other than what God has done to the person and work of Jesus.
Jesus.
And I really believe that.
Like, I believe it.
And it's because of that, I don't want anybody to say, well, you know, that we hide things
about what it means to be a Christian.
And at the end of the day, because Jesus trusted and loved the Bible, and if you go and you read
the Gospels, he's quoting the Bible, he's making allusions to the Bible, he says he doesn't
contradict a single thing in the Bible, and by that he means texts like Amos.
And when he actually, after he died and risen from the dead, and he appeared to his disciples,
on several occasions, he sends them back to read what we call the Old Testament.
Jewish people call it the Tanakh.
And he sends them back to read it because he says, I'm in that all the way through it.
And so that's why we read Old Testament texts like this.
Even if they seem a little bit bloodthirsty, they don't seem at all what Canadians are thinking
about.
They don't even seem at first as if it's what we need to think about.
But it really is what we need to think about.
You see, one of the things that's going on in this text, I'm going to have you, if you
have your Bibles, we're going to look at it in a moment.
So one of the things that's going on in this text, which is really, really important,
is that God actually wants to speak to every human being.
Like God, the thing about the Bible is it's all sorts of different types of literature
because people process things different ways.
They appreciate things different ways.
I've shared with you, I don't like poetry.
I never read poetry.
And when I have to preach on a poem in the Bible, it's going against the grain.
But I know there are many people who love poetry.
My former bishop, he was always quoting poetry.
He loved poetry.
I mean, he'd rather read a poem than a novel.
I'd much rather have a novel where somebody gets killed and then they try to figure out
who killed the person.
And that's my type of, I like that, you know?
I don't like poetry.
But that's fine.
The Bible's not just written for people like me.
It's written for all sorts of different people.
And that's why it's written in all sorts of different genres.
I've told you before, I have a good friend.
And she was a lawyer.
She'd been a lawyer for quite a few years, still is a lawyer.
And she was non-Christian.
And she started getting interested in the Christian faith.
And she was having a hard time figuring out how things worked.
And she was at a workplace thing, like an inquiry type thing.
And of all things, the speaker spoke on the book of Leviticus.
The book of Leviticus, if you're non-Christian or you don't know much about the book,
that's like all the law type of stuff.
And she said, as the sermon went on, on this long text of Leviticus, by the end of it,
she said, Christianity makes sense.
From Leviticus!
But she's a lawyer!
Like it fit with her.
So here's the thing.
I like abstract ideas.
I like being able to debate at an abstract level.
It's one of the things, it's just the way I am.
I know lots of people aren't.
So if I say to you that God is omnipotent, sovereign, omnipresent, active in his creation.
Now because you're good Christian boys and girls, you'll all nod and go, yeah.
But many of us, nothing is going on behind the eyes and between the ears.
I might as well have spoken to you in Turkish.
Because it would have had the same impact on you.
It doesn't mean anything at all to you.
For some people, abstraction thing, that's very, very good.
In fact, you know, images, oh my, images and movie clips, those are dangerous, you know.
But for others, we think in movie clips and images.
So one of the things at this point in time in the book of Amos is after six chapters have gone on,
where amongst other things, after six chapters in two different types of literary genres,
God has tried to communicate to the people of Israel, probably around the year 750 BC,
and about a massive, even though the country is very, very prosperous and very, very stable,
its prosperity and stability is based upon profound injustice, human suffering, and great evil.
And now, for the rest of the book of Amos, but especially in chapter seven, God gives three images.
And the images are to try to communicate in a visual way, like using words to try to create a mind,
a picture that God is omnipotent, sovereign, omnipresent, and holy.
But for those of us that that doesn't mean anything, the Bible, Amos uses three images to communicate the same thing.
In fact, it'd probably be better to say it's as if God gives the words for three short movie clips.
So let's look at them.
We'll look at them and then we'll see sort of, well, let's look at them.
The first one is verse one.
This is what the Lord God showed me.
Behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout.
And behold, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.
When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, and we'll talk about what he said later.
Now you get this image.
The three different images are going to show how that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign, and holy
in the natural world, in the supernatural and natural world, and in the human and moral world.
That's what the three images are going to do, through images.
And so what we see here is a picture of God being all-powerful and present and sovereign
and holy in the natural sphere.
And so it's a picture as if he sees God and he sees God summoning locusts.
And as God summons locusts, there's an overwhelming number of locusts.
And then God directs the locusts to go to where Israel is and to do what locusts do naturally,
which is to eat everything which is green.
And the significance of the mowings is you might be pleased to know that even in the year 750 BC,
the government makes sure it gets his taxes first.
I get my paycheck, the taxes are gone, right?
Even in 750 BC, that's how it was.
And so what it is is that the very, very early crops, the king comes and takes them.
Taxes are paid.
You have trouble with the rest of your crops?
Sucks to be you.
But the king's got his tax.
And so basically the king's got his tax and that's when the locusts come.
And the locusts devour everything.
It means there's nothing to eat for a year.
It means famine.
Now the second image is in verse 4.
It goes like this.
Remember I said that it's using images
because some of us think in pictures
that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign, and holy.
Nothing goes on in our minds.
Well, here's the second image.
This is what the Lord, verse 4,
this is what the Lord God showed me.
Behold, the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire
and it devoured the great deep
and was eating up the land.
And here we have a different image.
It's as if God starts to speak and call out.
And as he speaks and calls out, a fire comes.
And this is a fire that can touch what we would call
spiritual or supernatural things and also natural things.
And he calls for this fire and when the fire has come, he sends it.
And it's a very, very interesting image of the great deep.
For Amos' hearers, it would have had a double meaning.
For some of them, it would have meant the oceans.
That there's a fire that comes from God that consumes the oceans
and then begins to consume the land.
But for others, it's a place where the really bad and nasty
but powerful gods live.
And so when God calls a fire and it consumes the deep,
it consumes the gods.
It consumes the gods that you're most afraid of.
And they're all consumed.
The water, the gods, and it starts to consume the land.
And it all comes as God speaks.
We have a hard time thinking of God as omnipotent,
omnipresent, sovereign, and holy.
It doesn't do anything for us.
This is an image that communicates it for those of us
who can't think in abstractions.
It also actually serves as an important check for us
because sometimes abstractions just remain abstractions.
We don't think of them as being real.
And a vision like this is trying to communicate to us.
It's like, I think I've told you this before.
I was at a, this is a long, long time ago
and I'm still part of the Anglican Church of Canada.
And there was a workshop on demons.
And most, a lot of Anglican clergy,
they're fine with the idea of the demonic
as a type of a symbolism for evil
or maybe even a symbolism for institutional evil.
And it was halfway through the workshop,
one of the speakers said,
one moment,
you're talking about demons as if they're real.
And the speaker said, yeah.
I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Like ontologically real?
Like not just an idea or a myth or a narrative
or an organizing principle,
but actually like real like a person?
Yeah?
Well, then,
then the brown stuff hit the fan
and the whole conversation went a different way.
And so actually for many of us,
the danger of just having the fact
that God is omnipotent,
omniscient, sovereign,
and holy
is it can just become something abstract.
These images help us say,
no, no, no, no, no,
that's what those big words
with lots of syllables mean.
And then the third image,
and you're going to have to take my word for it a little bit
because we're going to see in a moment
why I say what it is.
It talks about God being omnipotent,
omnipresent,
and sovereign,
and holy
in the realm of human life
and the moral order
and in institutions
and human relationships,
everything that it means to be human.
And that's in the image that comes,
the vision that comes in verse 7.
This is what he showed me.
Behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall
built with a plumb line,
with a plumb line in his hand.
And the Lord said to me,
Amos, what do you see?
And I said, a plumb line.
And we'll talk a little bit about more
what it means in terms of responding to it in a second.
But here's the image.
It's in the moral area
and the human area.
He sees the Lord.
He sees the Lord holding a plumb line.
I mean, nowadays they use lasers
and stuff like that, right?
It's a heavy weight at the end of a rope
that shows you what's vertical.
And there's a plumb line
and there's God holding a plumb line
and beside God is a wall
that's been built properly
according to a plumb line.
And it's an image
for the fact,
as what's going to come and see here,
is that God's plumb line
is going to be in Israel
and it won't be taken away.
And it's an image
that God desires
to build human lives
and human institutions
and human endeavors
according to his plumb line.
And those that aren't built
according to his plumb line,
as we'll see in the rest of the interaction,
will be destroyed.
And it's an image
of God being present
in human affairs
in a real way,
with real expectations
about how important institutions
should work,
like families
and marriage
and business endeavors
and government.
And that there's a way
that if God's presence
and purpose
and character
and law
and grace
and mercy
and love,
which is all
what's sort of imitated
and talked about here
with this plumb line,
that there's a way
that that should lead
to a type of human flourishing
that fits
with the created order
and there's a way
that it doesn't
and eventually God will destroy it.
There'll be judgment.
So that's the beginning.
And part of the reason
it's confusing for us
is that
in our culture
it's not the way
most people think about God.
And that's part of the reason
it's confusing to us.
Because it's not the way
we think of God
as judging
and as being sovereign
over these types of areas.
In fact,
in a sense,
relative to what
most Canadians
think of as God,
I would be an atheist.
I don't believe
that God exists.
But if you think about it
for a second,
and this text here
isn't going to try to prove
that God exists,
by the way.
And I'm not going to
in this sermon
try to prove
that God exists.
But if you think about it
for a second,
the God that most Canadians
think of
is,
I mean,
you know what,
you go to a better place,
you know,
he's kind and loving,
she's kind and loving,
it's kind and loving,
it's like a force,
it's through everything.
You know,
it has less character
and less reality
or and less...
Like,
if you described
a human being
in those terms,
would you think
that was attractive?
And what human being,
like,
in fact,
if you talked about
somebody in those ways,
you'd probably,
like,
if you had a friend
that you described
in those same ways,
you'd say,
that person has to start
to learn to have
some self-assertion.
Like,
two-year-olds
aren't like that.
People aren't like that.
Why is it that we think
that God's like that?
Like,
shouldn't that be
a little bit of a clue to us
that the type of God
that most Canadians
think of as being God
can't possibly be God?
Or if it is,
it's a God
who needs therapy
or something.
Like,
come on,
stand up for yourself.
Like,
tell us something
about yourself.
You know?
And yet,
most Canadians,
because most Canadians
think the same way,
just as in Amos,
when he's speaking
to Israel,
Israel has gotten
so accustomed
to speaking of God
in a similar type of way
that it's a complete
and utter shock to them
to hear that God
might be something
completely and utterly
different
than that their
educational institutions,
their religious institutions,
their legal institutions,
government institutions,
the entertainment institutions,
all the way
that they talk about God,
that that view of God
might be wrong.
wrong.
Not true.
And in some ways,
then,
what goes on here
in Canada
is the very same thing
that's going on
in Israel.
And it's a bit
of a shock to us
to hear a text
like this.
So, I mean,
I just want to suggest
to you,
this text isn't going
to argue,
but I'm going to just say,
if you think about it
for a second,
it's far more likely
that if God exists,
he's something like this
than the way
most Canadians
think of God.
Because the way
most Canadians
think of God
doesn't make sense.
Doesn't sound real.
It's not like
the way real things are.
Now,
some of you might say,
okay, George,
that might be true,
but gosh,
you sure hope
that that isn't true.
Like, George,
don't you think
that's a bit of a
bloodthirsty,
blood-curdling,
violent God?
Well, I,
I,
to God,
you need to take
seriously.
But I,
I've only given you
the,
the visions,
and the visions
take place
within conversation
and dialogue,
and you need to see
the rest of it
before you start
to have a view
of what the Bible
is really trying
to communicate here,
because it's trying
to communicate something
not only about
who God is,
but what it means
to be human,
and what it means
to flourish
as human beings.
And so the images
are there to catch
your attention,
but you need
to understand
how Amos
and how God
talked to each other
about the different
images and what
they reveal.
So if it,
this,
let's go back
and look again
at what happens.
I said I'd speak
about it,
and I will.
Look at chapter 7,
verse 1.
Now you've got
the images
that God is
omnipotent,
that he's omnipresent,
that he's sovereign,
that he's holy.
Omnipresent means
he's closer to you
than you are
to your breath,
closer to you
than your mind
is to you,
closer to you
than your thoughts
are to you.
That's what
omnipresent means.
He's also transcendent,
he's completely different,
he's all-powerful.
But the text
is communicating
this in images,
so here's the first
image and what happens.
This is what
the Lord God
showed me.
Behold,
he was forming
locusts when the
latter growth
was just beginning
to sprout,
and behold,
it was the latter
growth after the
king's mowings.
When they had
finished eating
the grass of the land,
I said,
Oh Lord God,
please forgive!
How can Jacob,
that means Israel,
how can Jacob stand?
He is so small.
The Lord relented
concerning this.
Notice that,
the Lord relented
as Amos called out.
It shall not be,
said the Lord.
It shall not be.
Now,
just a bit of a pause
here before we get
into some other things.
Here's a real challenge
for us.
Many Christians,
and if you're here
as a guest this morning,
you're still trying
to figure out
the Christian faith,
or as I said,
you got tricked
to come in here,
you came here
to get out of the rain
or whatever.
Hopefully I'll have
lots of coffee
with us later on.
But here's the thing
which is a real challenge
for those of us
who are Christians.
We lament
what's going on
in parts of our culture.
Part of Canada,
there's a whole part
of Canada
that's increasingly
embracing the culture
of death.
And as well
for Christians,
especially Christians
who are older,
the fact that the church
and the Christian faith
used to have
a privileged position
in our culture
and in our country
that that's gone,
completely gone.
In fact,
that the opposite
is increasing.
It's very worrisome.
But here's the thing.
Do you notice this?
Amos intercedes
for his nation
and his city?
And this is a challenge
to every single one of us.
Do we intercede
for Canada?
Do we intercede
for Ontario?
Do we intercede
for Ottawa?
For those of you
who come from
La Belle Provence,
do you intercede
for Gatineau?
And do you intercede
for Quebec?
Amos isn't said,
God doesn't say to Amos,
what do you mean
giving me lip?
That's not what God says.
God relents.
See,
there's a mystery here
that the Bible
just talks about.
It just shows it,
but it never explains it.
There's a mystery here.
It portrays God
as transcendent,
as omnipotent,
as omniscient,
as sovereign,
as holy,
as being one
who can call locusts,
who can call fire
that devours idols
and spiritual presences
in the land
and water
and is present
in the moral order.
Yet at the same time,
what it portrays
is that God,
as he's working,
he listens to the prayers
of his people.
And yes,
that is mind-boggling.
It's one of those things
to use an Irish expression
that's gobsmacking.
But that's what it's trying
to portray.
It's telling us,
amongst other things,
to intercede for our city
and intercede for our nation.
But you see,
the other thing
which is going on here
in the text,
which is really,
really important
before we get
to the other
different images,
is that
look at what he says.
Look at how Amos intercedes
for,
and he's going to intercede
for this twice
in verse 2
and in verse 5.
Verse 2 again,
Oh Lord God,
please forgive.
How can Jacob stand?
And what does it say?
Why?
He is so small.
Now let me ask you this.
Do you think
that if you went
to the Supreme Court
of Canada
and sat in
on their meetings,
they'd begin their meetings
by saying,
let's just all remember,
Canada
and all that goes on here,
we're small
and God is big.
I think that's how
they begin their meetings
and their deliberations.
Do you think
the Liberal Cabinet,
and I'm not playing
partisan politics,
do you think
the Conservative Cabinet
began their meetings
by saying,
I just want you all
to remember,
we're small
and God is big.
Okay,
let's think.
Do you think
that's how they think
at the CBC?
Do you think
in the Faculty
of University of Toronto,
University of Ottawa,
Carleton?
Do you think
that's how
when the executive
of Google
gets together
that they say
to themselves,
just remember,
we're small,
God is big.
It's not part
of the self-identity
of Canada
or of corporations,
of Hollywood.
It's not how
we understand ourselves.
And in fact,
actually,
probably for many
of the people
that I've just
mentioned,
but maybe not
all of them.
You don't want
to be presumptuous.
It would be offensive.
See,
one of the things
that Amos
is trying to communicate
week in and week out,
and I know that Daniel
and I have shared
the sermons
and I haven't yet
had a chance
to listen to Daniel
and we all come,
you know,
there's different things
that the Bible
really calls on
and speaks out to us,
but the Bible
wants to regulate,
Amos is a book
that wants to,
really,
these visions
are so important
to the book of Amos.
Canada thinks
that God
is small
and people
are big
and institutions
are big
and movements
are big
and banks
are big
and money
is big
and social progress
is big
and being progressive
is big
and all of these
things are big
and God is really,
really tiny
and small.
And we breathe that in.
We breathe it in
when we go to school.
We breathe it in
when we go to work.
We breathe it in
when we go to Tim Hortons
or we go to Starbucks.
We breathe it in
when we read the newspaper.
We breathe it in
when we read,
when we watch the movies
and we breathe it in
and it's easy
to start to become
that part of our spirit
or the way
that we follow Jesus
is that in our heart
of hearts
we sort of see
that God is getting
smaller and smaller
and smaller
and all of these things
are very, very big
and that's how
the world looks.
And Amos
is trying to shock us
and say,
no, no.
God is big.
Google,
that's smaller.
That's smaller
than the Down Syndrome
child you saw
in Tim Hortons
yesterday.
Google will come
to an end.
That young child
will live forever
in eternity.
And even though
individuals are bigger
than institutions
and countries,
how many people
spend all their time
thinking about
Nortel stocks today?
Well, maybe some of you
who lost your shirt on it
think about it occasionally,
but the rest of us
don't.
And the Bible here
is trying to help us
to understand
that God is big.
People are small.
Now, some of you
might say,
George,
that's a very,
very worrisome idea.
Whoa, that's a
worrisome idea.
George,
haven't you seen
what it's like?
Like, look at some
cultures and some
religions where God
seems to be really,
really, really big
and it just seems
to crush people.
It just seems
to crush people.
George, if you knew,
you know, if you knew
what it was like in Quebec
in the 1950s
and the way they
talked about the church
and God
and religious things,
it just crushed the people.
George, if you look
in places like Saudi Arabia
where God,
at least on the surface,
seems to be big
and people just get crushed.
Like, George,
you look at what happens
with the Taliban.
George, you look at
what happens in some
places under Hinduism.
Look at something.
George, do you see
what happens when God
seems to be big
and people are small?
People just get crushed.
Here's the thing.
I'm just going to say it,
but I'm not going to
spend much time on it.
Here's the thing.
At the end of the day,
there really is a God
who really does exist
and so every different
religion,
apart from that,
apart from the God
who's revealed
in the scriptures
and is revealed
in the person
and work of Jesus,
all of the different
religions and spirituality
of the worlds,
they,
I'm going to be
very un-Canadian here.
Okay?
Give me a little bit
of grace.
I'm going to be
profoundly,
massively,
un-Canadian.
But all of the
different religions
and spiritualities
are distortions
of the real God
and left to our
natural thinking
and our natural
processes,
unless it's constantly
reformed by God's word,
our understanding of God
will start to be
deformed
and twisted
and wrong.
And that's why
one of the things
that the Bible does
as we understand
the whole counsel
of God
in the context
of the grace
that comes to us
in the person
and work of Jesus,
and we start to
understand the person
and work of Jesus
in light of the
whole counsel of God,
is that the Bible
regularly subverts
every religion
and spirituality
and ideology.
It subverts
and undercuts it,
but at the same time,
it fulfills it.
It undercuts
and subverts
and it fulfills
because it tries
to reveal
who God really is
in the context
of our heart,
who we really are,
and the wellspring
of the different types
of decisions
and longings
and hopes
and fears
that we actually have.
And that's what
the Bible does.
And so what Amos
is trying to communicate
is that when we
understand who God is,
and we're going to see
this more as it goes through,
is that when the Bible
says is that
when the God
who really does exist,
when we accept,
when we hear him speak
and we see how he redeems,
and in light of his redemption
and the way he speaks
and what he tells us to do,
when God is big
and people are small,
people matter to God.
And institutions will be built
that enable human flourishing.
But when God is small
and people
or ideologies
or idols
or projects
are big,
evil grows,
injustice flourishes,
and people suffer.
That's what Amos
is trying to get to us.
And that's why God judges.
Now, why is it
you can say
that the Bible
is trying to communicate
that when God is big
and people are small
that people actually flourish?
Well, you see,
in some cultures
where God is really
massively big
and people are small,
you could not imagine
Amos interceding
for his city
and God listening.
You see,
the entire flow,
the image
seems so unbelievably powerful
and if all you had
was verse 1,
verse 4,
verse 7,
and that was it,
you'd have to say
that these places
where God seems to be huge
so huge and big
that people are crushed
that that has to be true.
But that's not how
the Word of God goes.
It gives us this
overpowering image
of God being omnipotent
and God being omnipresent
and he's transcendent
and he's sovereign
and he's holy
and he reveals it
in a context of
human injustice
and human evil.
And little tiny Amos says,
God,
we're so small,
please relent.
And God does
because people matter to God.
And it comes up again
in the next one,
verse 4.
This is what the Lord God
showed me.
Behold,
the Lord God
was calling for judgment
by fire
and it devoured
the great deep
and was eating up the land.
Then I said,
Oh Lord God,
please cease.
How can Jacob,
that means Israel,
stand.
He is so small.
And the Lord
relented concerning this.
This also shall not be,
said the Lord God.
And then we see
the third vision.
And it's this vision
of the wall
which shows that
in fact,
God is not,
that the purpose
of God being big
and people being small
is,
and the way that
the real God,
the God who's revealed
in the Bible,
the God who's revealed
in the gospel,
in the person,
work,
and teaching of Jesus
that he's concerned
at the same time
with proper human flourishing
is also in this image
of the wall.
Verse 7,
this is what he showed me.
Behold,
the Lord was standing
beside a wall
built with a plumb line,
with a plumb line
in his hand.
And the Lord said to me,
Amos,
what do you see?
And I said,
a plumb line.
It's funny,
he can't say,
I can't see,
he doesn't say,
I see you God.
He doesn't say that.
He doesn't talk about the wall.
He just says,
I see the plumb line.
Then the Lord said,
Behold,
I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel,
and I will never again
pass by them.
In other words,
I'm going to spare
these other judgments,
but I'm not going to leave
being omnipresent.
I'm always present.
I'm always real.
See,
when you give your life
to Jesus
and receive the grace
that comes from God
and start to listen
to his word,
everybody around you
will say,
you've lost your senses,
you're losing touch
with reality.
The Bible says
you're starting
to enter reality.
That for the first time
in your life,
you're beginning
to live in the real world.
Verse 8 again.
And the Lord said to me,
Amos,
what do you see?
And I said,
a plumb line.
Then the Lord said,
behold,
I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel.
I will never again pass by them.
The high places of Isaac
shall be made desolate.
That's an institution.
Not just,
not about mountain places.
It's talking about those places
in any culture
that are viewed as high places.
It's,
you know,
that it's like
when there's
in the Citizen
or the National Post
or the Globe and Mail,
they want to get
expert opinion.
They go to the faculty
of the University of Toronto
or the University of Ottawa
or the Université de Montréal
and that adds prestige.
It's a high place.
And the sanctuaries of Israel
shall be laid waste.
The retreats,
the spas,
the ways by which
we recoup
and we gather our energy,
all of the things
secular,
spiritual,
and religious,
which we understand
in a secular,
social way
as a sanctuary,
they will be laid waste.
And I will rise
against the house
of Jeroboam
with the sword.
So we see here
that this,
the Bible's trying
to communicate
a very, very,
it's trying to purge us.
Okay,
I had this real problem
the other day.
I was talking to somebody
and he found out
I was a pastor
and then he started
to praise people
who were religious.
And I didn't know
what to say to him,
but I wanted to say to him,
you know what,
I'm doing a sermon
on Amos 7
and it doesn't say
that religious people
are good.
It doesn't say
that spiritual people
are good.
It's not interested
in you becoming religious.
It's not interested
in you becoming spiritual.
It's calling you
to the one true,
real God
who acts
in a powerful way
through the person
of his son
to reconcile you to him.
And I was a bit tongue-tied.
I wasn't expecting
it was going to happen.
I didn't quite know
how to,
to sort of,
I felt like
it would have been
a bit rude
to tell you,
well,
I'm really glad
that you're flattering me
and complimenting me,
but actually I think
you're completely wrong
and I don't agree
with a word you've said.
I mean,
I just didn't know how to,
as a Canadian,
I didn't know how to,
to manage that,
you know.
I don't agree with anything
you said.
But it's,
it's trying to communicate
this powerful thing
about who we are.
But by the way,
one other just thing
before we go to the next,
you know one of the things
we see here?
God cannot make straight
what does not bow.
God cannot make straight
what does not bow.
This image of the plumb line,
and it's interesting,
the way that we get in line
with the plumb line
is by bowing.
And that's because
one of the things
that we do as creatures
when we're fallen
is the fall means
that we're all bent.
Maybe we're bent like this,
I don't know.
And the way it gets made straight
is when we start to bow to him.
We're made straight.
So how do we respond?
See, that's what's going to happen
right now
with the rest of the text,
just bringing it up
very, very briefly in closing,
is that Amos would have had
a public ministry.
It wasn't that Amos
wrote these few things down
and just sort of left it
in a book in a coffee shop
and then forgot about it.
Amos would have been
saying these things
over and over and over again
in public.
And probably what would have happened
is that he would be,
you know,
there's three different genres.
It's a different thing
in the book of Amos.
There's three different genres,
chapter one and two,
chapters three through six
and chapters seven to nine.
And he would have maybe
been giving these different things
at different times
and maybe talking to people
about explaining what they meant
and making them practical and real.
And eventually,
they would have gotten written down.
So how do you respond?
So the rest of the chapter
gives us the warning,
the spiritual warning
about how not to respond.
You see,
God wants us to respond
by repentance
and by intercession.
Calling out to God
for others
because we have a compassion
for our city
and our nation
and the other institutions.
And repentance
because we want to bow to his word.
What we don't want to do
is silence God.
But that's the very,
very deeply ingrained human habit
in the face of the true God speaking
is to ask him to be silent.
Listen to how it happens here in verse 10.
The visions are over.
Amos has had his conversations with God.
He's proclaimed this publicly
in Bethel
and Amaziah.
Verse 10.
That Amaziah,
the priest of Bethel
sent to Jeroboam,
king of Israel,
saying,
Amos has conspired against you.
He lies, basically.
Amos hasn't conspired against Jeroboam.
But Amaziah,
hearing all of these things,
he wants to get Amos in trouble
and he lies.
Amos has conspired against you
in the midst of the house of Israel.
The land is not able
to bear all his words.
For thus Amos has said,
Jeroboam shall die by the sword
and Israel must go into exile
and from his land.
And then after Amaziah
has in a sense sent this to the king
with the hope that the king
will do something,
probably in terms of executing Amos,
Amaziah speaks to Amos.
Verse 12.
And Amaziah said to Amos,
O seer,
go,
flee,
away to the land of Judah
and eat bread there
and prophesy there.
But never again prophesy at Bethel
for it is the king's sanctuary
and it is a temple of the kingdom.
Know what that is?
He doesn't say it's God's sanctuary
and a temple for God.
That's not what he says.
It's the king's.
It's a temple of the kingdom.
Amaziah hears God
and says to God,
shut up
and go away.
And that's the persistent issue
even for us as Christians.
Part of the growth of holiness
is as different parts of the Bible
convict us.
Maybe about how we treat our wife
or how we treat our children
or how we're relating to our neighbors
or our thought life
or our money.
Or a political view
that we might have to have
a view on abortion
or on doctor assist,
like on euthanasia
that goes against our culture
that means that we won't be
as welcome with our set
and we want God to be silent
and to go away.
It's the issue of holiness
for the rest of our lives
is that there's always part of us
that wants to say to God,
shut up and go away.
The beginning of the Christian life
doesn't come,
the Christian life isn't about
me teaching you techniques
to never say shut up to God
and go away.
The Christian life begins
when we come to the point
to recognize
that what is being described
here in the Bible
is who I am
and that there is a God
who does exist.
And when we in a sense say,
I can't fix this, God.
I need you to do
what only you can do.
My only hope
is that this plumb line
you talk about
is not just a moral order
but is also a grace order
and a mercy order
and that you will have mercy upon me.
And despite the fact
that there is a deep habit
out of my heart
to tell you to shut up
and be silent,
my only hope
is that you will have mercy upon me.
In Amos' time,
they had what we think of
as a surprising thing.
We have the Ten Commandments.
If you go back
and look in Exodus and Deuteronomy,
it doesn't begin,
the Ten Commandments
don't begin by saying,
by God saying,
listen, I've thought up
ten really important rules
that are really smart
and really wise.
You need to do them.
How is it introduced?
I am the God
who redeemed you.
So listen.
So in Amos' time,
they could have understood
that it's in the context
of redemption
and grace
that God speaks to us.
we live more than 750 years
after Amos.
750 years after Amos,
Jesus came
and we live now after that
and we understand
in a way that Amos
could have only hoped
that God has acted
in a powerful
and public way
that his Son,
who is our Lord,
is also the one
who would die for us
as an act of grace,
that he would give us
his righteousness,
our inability
to tell God
to shut up,
to stop saying that,
that Jesus never said that
and his perfect life
stands for ours
and it's as we're gripped
by what Jesus
has done for us,
by God's mercy,
knowing that God knows
all there is
to know about us
and how deeply
ingrained we are
to tell him
to shut up
and to go away,
that God still loves us
and still sent his Son
and closed us
with his righteousness
and paid the penalty
for our sins,
that in light of that,
he has reconciled us
to God
and as the Word of God
confronts us
about how this week
we've lived
as if God is small
or this week
we've come to realize
that we have lived
a certain part of our life
telling God
to shut up and go away
and we can say,
God,
you've made that clear
to me now.
Help me, Father,
be gripped
by what you've done
for me on the cross
in the person of your Son
that I might begin
to amend my life,
that I might trust
that you are wise in this,
that I might listen
and think about it,
that I might talk
with other believers
about what the wisdom
of your Word
actually means.
Lord,
mindful of what you have done
for me in the cross,
grant me the courage
to stop telling you
to shut up and go away
but to listen to your Word.
that's the Christian life.
I invite you to walk in it
if you haven't started
walking in it.
There's no better time
than today
than to call out to God
for mercy
and to begin to walk
the Jesus way
with Jesus and others.
Let's stand.
Bow our heads in prayer.
Father,
you know those parts
in our lives
where we don't want
to bow to you.
You know those parts
of our lives
where we don't want
to hear your Word
because it's just going
to threaten the way
we think,
it's going to threaten
our politics,
it's going to threaten
some of our relationships.
You know those ways
that we think about money,
for instance,
and that we know
that if we start
to have a different,
if the text about money
start to affect our lives,
Father,
we don't want to hear
that stuff,
Father.
You know those things
about us
that we don't want
to hear your Word
speaking into our life,
but we thank you,
Father,
you know everything
there is to know
about us
until you sent your Son
to die upon the cross
for us.
And we ask,
Father,
that your Holy Spirit
would work in our lives,
that we would call out
to you for mercy,
that we would call out
to you for grace,
that we would be
disciples of Jesus
who would trust Jesus
to make us right with you.
The grace in who he is
and what he's done
for us in the cross
and his teaching,
that that would grip us.
And as, Father,
that gospel grips us,
helps us, Father,
to listen to your Word,
to bow to you,
to no longer tell you
to be silent,
but to listen to you
and to begin to live
free and whole
and for your glory.
Father,
this we ask in Jesus' name,
your Son and our Savior.
Amen.