CWC - O T Lesson - Pentecost 19 - Kieth Bernard Kuschel
Amos 6:1-7
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! 2 Go to Calneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are you better than those kingdoms? Was their land larger than yours? 3 You put off the evil day, and bring near a reign of terror. 4 You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. 5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. 6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. 7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.
The LORD bless you.
What is a blessing?
What is the most important blessing?
1 Life was good at Amos’ time. Enemies conquered. Borders extended. No Philistine threats. No wars. No oppression. No war produced devastation., Agricultural prosperity was back. Commerce was good. Building trades were busy. Summer homes were being built.
2 What attitude had that led to? 1: “you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria.” Complacency. Self- satisfied. Secure. Self-sufficient. To whom did the people look for advice? “You notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come!” Their leaders. The leaders said, “Everything is good. Don’t rock the boat. You an expect more of the same.”
1 2: “Go to Calneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are you better than those kingdoms? Was their land larger than yours?” The prophet tells them to compare themselves with Calneh and Hamath, two city states in the north which were powerful, wealthy and prestigious enough to successfully remain independent of the Assyrian empire. Also compare yourself with Gath, one of the five Philistine city states which were able to remain impervious to enemy activity.
2 What would they see? Israel and Judah were just as well off and maybe even better off than those cities. What should that have produced? A sense of appreciation to the LORD for the tremendous earthly blessings which He had showered upon them. Complacency. Taking it all for granted. An attitude that is disgusting to the LORD.
1 What is our situation like? No war on our homeland since the Civil War. The closest we have had were the terrorist attacks. How about the economic condition? Things are bad. Rampant inflation.
2 Not so quick on that bandwagon. Most people are able to work at an occupation to produce income for themselves and their families. The radio ads on the Brewers’ game say that the corn farms can produce almost limitless amounts of corn. Every home has a TV, many have more than one.
3 Go to most countries in which we have missions. Why? To realize and appreciate how many earthly blessings the Lord has surrounded us with. Have any of you ever gone to a presentation by one of our WELS missionaries from another part of the world Apart from all the fine questions about spiritual matters, do you remember what most of the rest of the questions were about? “Do they over there have what we have here?” What is the standard against which we compare other people, even when we would say we are headed toward recession? What God has blessed us with.
4 LORD, thank You for filling our lives with earthly blessings. Please, don’t allow us to become complacent. Don’t let us take things for granted. Most importantly, don’t ever let our feeling of security lead us to a lack of appreciation toward You in spite of all that You have given to us.
1 What does Amos have to say about this complacency? “Woe to you.”{1} What does that mean? It means that God is displeased with the attitude they had and He was going to allow something bad to happen to them. He tells us in verse 7 what that is: “Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.”
2 How did the unappreciative, complacent ones respond? 3: “You put off the evil day.” They laughed off the prophets. “Evil days? Hard times? Decay and destruction? You have got to be kidding, Amos. Look around. Prosperity. Power. Commerce. Agriculture. Military. Leadership. Success.”
1 That attitude affected their life style. They would do anything to maintain the status quo. From the rest of Amos’ writings we know they didn’t take care of the needy. They rigged the judicial system to protect their financial status. They oppressed their workers. They used their influence to drive competitors out of business.
2 What does Amos warn? “and (you) bring near a reign of terror.” That is ironic, isn’t it. People, who tell Amos that God’s judgment isn’t actually going to fall as he is saying it would, are actually bringing that judgment on themselves more quickly because their denial leads them to a life style that calls forth God’s judgment.
1 “Don’t worry. Nothing can go wrong.” Satan understands how appealing such reassurances are and is always eager to make the most of them. He even used them on Jesus. “Go ahead and jump. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Go ahead and worship me. That won’t really change anything about you.”
2 Nothing bad is going to happen. I am financially safe and secure. I know what I am doing is not ethical according to God, but everybody in the business world is doing it. My position is too insulated for anything bad to result from my unethical behavior.
3 Nothing bad is going to happen. I know I am not personally involved in helping people who are struggling as God suggests. But our government is doing a fine job of helping people. Besides our government is too strong to let anything bad happen.
4 Nothing bad is going to happen to us. I know greed is making our products too expensive in the world market. But we can’t possibly lose our prosperity.
5 LORD, thank You for filling our lives with earthly blessings. Please don’t allow us to refuse to listen to You as You call us to repent.
What was important to these complacent, unappreciative rejecters of God’s call to repentance? 4 “You lie on beds inlaid with ivory.” They did not just have comfortable places to sleep. Their beds told everybody else how wealthy they were.
2 “and lounge on your couches.” What did they spend their time doing? Not helping others. Not educating others about the LORD. Not being examples of godliness. Just indulging themselves.
3 You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. Not just good food. They had a banquet circuit where they would try to top the previous meal. People actually raised their own animals so that the meat would be unique, and thus would impress the neighbors.
4 5 “You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments.” Music had to be new and different. Why? Because that made the parties better, excited the passions more, and intensified the revelry.
5 6 “You drink wine by the bowlful.” Bowlfuls don’t just enhance the meal. They remove inhibitions and liven up the parties. Everybody needs to be loose if the party is going to be fun.
6 “and use the finest lotions.” At parties you are probably going to have some physical contact with somebody, so you might as well smell nice. Maybe even enticing or attractive.
“but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.” They did not feel sorry for the spiritual downfall of their nation. They did not feel bad that they had abandoned the LORD and had replaced Him with the party circuit. They did not feel as if anything was missing even though there was no ongoing relationship with the LORD. They were too busy using God’s earthly blessings to think about their Savior. They were too busy experiencing the physical side of life to think about the spiritual side of life.
1 The LORD says to us that the most important part of our existence is our relationship with Him, the spiritual part of our lives. He tells us that He wants that relationship to last forever. He tells us that He wants to forgive our sins so that that relationship does last forever. He tells us that He had His Son live, die and rise so we might be His children now and forever. He tells us that relationship with Him is something that He keeps alive when He works in our lives through His Word and Sacrament. Is that relationship with Him important to us? Is the spiritual side of our lives preeminent in our lives?
2 God has given us the ability to have Sleep Number beds, to lounge on our couches watching football, to eat at restaurants whenever we want, to listen to music on our ipods, to choose between Miller High Life and Leinenkugel’s, and to use Old Spice or Chanel #5. These are all blessings from the LORD to be used while we are on this earth.
3 LORD, please don’t let all these earthly blessings push our relationship with You into the back seat. Please don’t let us focus on them and abandon You. Don’t let the abundance of Your earthly blessings lead to a lack of spirituality in our lives.