Rev. Don Campbell
Amos 6-9
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, July 12, 2019
“MEDDLING AMOS”
Let your imagination transport you to the days of Amos. He has taken it to the nations around and then he trains his sights on Judah, Israel’s sister. The “Amen corner” in Israel must have responded with shouts of joy.
The Gentile nations had sinned against natural law; Judah had sinned against God’s clearly revealed will, a situation which had not changed in the days of the New Testament: “But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’” (Romans 2:17-24).
Amos has finished with those nations surrounding Israel. He now has a bead on them, charging them with five corporate sins. Before examining the bill of indictment, consider the words of Amaziah the priest of Bethel: “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” (Amos 7:12). Note that it is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of his kingdom, not God’s temple or sanctuary.
The first charge on the bill of indictment is injustice: “they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, trampling the heads of the poor into the dust of the ground and turn aside the way of the afflicted” (Amos 2:6-7a).
The second charge is immorality: “a man and his father go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned” (Amos 2:7b).
The third charge is opulence: “I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish and the great houses shall come to an end declares the Lord” (Amos 3:15; also see Amos 6:4-7).
The fourth charge is religiosity: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21-24).
The fifth charge was cutthroat capitalism: “Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” (Amos 8:4-6). To them free-market capitalism meant that they should be free from all restraints to their greed and dishonesty. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Will Rogers commented on the idea that cutting taxes on the rich helps everybody: “This election was lost four and six years ago, not this year. They [Republicans] didn’t start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands. They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue” (St. Petersburg Times, 11/7/32).
CONNECTIONS
1. Those who wish to do so can find many prooftexts for capitalism. Others can find just as many prooftexts for socialism. God is not a God of “isms,” but a God justice and righteousness (Amos 5:24). As citizens, do we need to keep the wheat and throw away the chaff—that is, examine carefully the prooftexts for the wheat (God’s truth) and throw away the chaff, which is the self-serving theories of men mixed with Scripture?
2. How would the words of Jesus apply to Judah and Israel, who descended from Jacob: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).
