God's Messenger: Amos (Pill Corps 10th July)

Sunday Morning message outline (Alan Young)
It was a Golden Age, a prosperous time. The stock market was up, interest rates down and there was a housing boom. Enter Amos, with a message no-body wanted to hear. It was time to measure up. Amos 7:1-9

God would test the people of God to see if they were in line with his purposes What he discovered did not make comfortable reading.

God’s people were living in times not dissimilar to our own in the West. If God did the same thing among us today would the church today come out unscathed by the enquiry?

1. Spiritual Awareness
Officially religions prospered and worship was very polished but rather that being about connecting with God it was really about impressing other people whilst at the same time keeping God sweet. See Amos 4:5

Many celebration services today are planned to make the congregation happy rather than to please God. It is possible to focus on the presentation of the service more than on the presence of God.

Amos response was “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!” (Amos 6:1)

The people of Israel at that time also had the mistake idea that background, pedigree and adherence to a religion gave then animmunity to God’s judgement and discipline. Amos challenges that kind of thinking.

2. Lifestyle
People also separated what happened at the religious ceremonies from everyday life.
Judah and Israel had taken on the shape of the culture instead of giving shape to the culture. Amos addresses the issue of greed, promiscuity, excessive drinking, gluttony, enticing young people break their pledges of abstinence, the silencing of criticism and all that is before Amos even starts on social justice and corruption issues. Whenever we take the shape of the culture, our true identity becomes lost. Righteousness is sacrificed, holiness becomes obsolete and passion is extinguished.

3. Social Conscience
Amos is most famous in Scripture for addressing; social conscience. All the time they were at worship at those great shrines, singing their songs they were planning their exploitation of others for their own ends. Amos 8:5
Amos rages against the unfairness he sees in this society.

“They buy and sell upstanding people. People for them are only things- ways of making money. They’d sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They’d sell their own grandmother! They grind the penniless into the dirt; shove the luckless into the ditch.”
Listen to this you who walk all over the weak, you who treat poor people as less than nothing, Who say, “When’s my next pay check coming so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the week-end when I can f out and have a good time. Who give little and take much and never do an honest day’s work. You exploit the poor, using them and then, when they are use up, you discard them.” (Amos 8:4-6 Message translation)

Wesley Campbell and Steve Court list what they call the 7 Deadly Sins against humanity in the 21st Century.

Poverty
It is estimated that about 800 million people live in the condition of chronic, persistant hunger and malnutrition. Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger.

Children in chains
100-200 million children are forced to work worldwide, some as slaves and some to support their families.

Children on the streets
One third of the world population is under 15, about 100 million of them are believed to live at least part of the time on the streets. These are lives lived without parental love and guidance, without education and often in the context of sexual abuse.

The Sex Trade
Commercial sexual exploitation has not been defined as terrorism by UNICEF. Millions of children throughout the world are being bought and sold like chattel and used as sex slaves.

Aids and Plagues
Some 3 million children die each year from vaccine preventable diseases. No fewer than two thirds of todays 15 year old boys will die prematurely from Aids. The United Nations expects that 70 million people will die of Aids by 2022.

War
At the turn of the 20th century 90 percent of war casualties were male soldiers. At the turn of the 21st century 90 percent of war casualties are civilians, the majority of whom are women and children.

Persecution
While wars killed millions, there are also totalitarian regimes that have kill more of their own citizens. Many of these deaths were based on religious belief. The World Christian Encyclopedia estimates that 45.5 million Christians were martyred in the 20th century.

Issues of social justice are often tagged on if we have time, or spare resources. Amos points out that if we are not willing to deal with social justice issues then our worship means nothing , our religious practice means nothing and our personal walk with God is going nowhere.

It is not enough to bemoan the state to things?
Amos calls for repentance Amos 5:4
Amos engaged in intercession Amos 7:1-3
Amos demands righteousness and justice Amos 5: 24

Cell Questions
In Amos’ day the people failed to connect with God through worship. Why do you think that was? What helps or hinders your connection with God through worship?
“Whenever we take the shape of the culture our true identity becomes lost.” In what ways should a Christian be different from the prevailing culture around them?
What is your reaction to some of the statistics mentioned in the list of 7 Deadly Sins?
What are some of the ways that we can practically participate in the Salvation Army’s calling to “serve suffering humanity?”

God bless

Carol