WHAT GOD SAYS TO CHRISTIANS AND THEIR CHURCHES.
Amos lived about 750 B.C. when Israel was
politically secure and spiritually smug. Luxury,
immorality, corruption, injustice and oppression
were rife, the people thought they were "on
side" with God because they performed religious
rituals in His name. Chosen by God, Israel
continually failed to honour and obey Him. The
way they lived contradicted what they professed
to believe.
Amos warned that God's patience was at an end.
God's judgment would mean almost total
destruction unless the people "woke up to
themselves" and turned back to living according
to God's word. The warning went unheeded and
destruction resulted.
Christians are those who profess to having
turned to and trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord
and Saviour. Church is the name for a meeting of
these people. They are to-day's Israel.
73% of Australians profess to be Christians.
Every Sunday across the nation church services
are held. Yet luxury, immorality, corruption,
injustice and oppression of the poor is rife.
Practice continues to contradict profession.
Amos' warning is timeless.
Listen and Act!
The relevant chapter and verse references are
given so you can refer to Amos in the Bible if
you wish.The bracketed sections are our comments
or quotes from other parts of the Bible.
THE PROBLEM.
God's warning to Christians and their churches.
(Chapters 1 & 2)
Remember Hitler's plan for a greater Germany -
and his suicide in a bunker.
Remember Japan's plan for Pacific conquest - and
Hiroshima.
Remember communism's plan for classless equality
and justice - and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Christians and their churches who reject God's
word and live their own way instead of His,will
fare no better.
HERE IS WHAT YOU DO. Mostly in a refined middle
class way, and where possible, through
committees, to avoid individual responsibility,
you:
-"Trample the poor" by parading in fine
clothing in million dollar cathedrals and
churches while the poor go hungry, unclothed
and without housing.
-"Deny justice to the oppressed" by not
speaking and acting on their behalf against
a legal system only the rich can afford.
(Chapter 5, verses 7 & 12)
-Hoard money in church investments.
(Chapter 3, verse 10)
-Build, furnish and decorate for yourselves
what are mansions compared with the housing
of the poor you profess to care for.
(Chapter 3, verse 15)
-You society ladies, fundraising for church
charities in your fine clothes and sipping
cocktails, are in reality oppressing the
poor and crushing the needy. The cost of one
of your exclusive gowns would clothe a dozen
of the poor.
(Chapter 4, verse 1)
-You attend church to be seen, to gain the
approval of others, to make a show of your
church work and church giving.
(Chapter 4, verses 4 & 5)
-You pressure the poor to pay for prestigious
church properties you have established and
to support your own lifestyle.
(Chapter 5, verse 11)
-You "sell the righteous for silver" and
oppress them if their desires differ from
yours. (You do this by "stacking" committees
and "doing deals" with "in group" power
brokers, so as to have your own way).
(Chapter 2, verse 6)
-You sit proud, arrogant, smug and complacent,
"secure" in your denominational strongholds,
with your doctrinal and theological defences
all in place.
(Chapter 6, verses 1 & 8)
-You live in luxury:
-Lying on "beds inlaid with ivory."
-Lounging on your couches.
-Dining on choice food.
-Listening to your C.D. players.
-"Drinking wine by the bowlfull."
-"Using the finest lotions."
But you do not grieve that your selfishness has
neutralised Christ's work.
(Chapter 6, verses 4 - 6)
-You can't wait for Sunday to end and with it
your religious observances so you can get
back to trading:
"Skimping the measure."
"Boosting the price."
"Cheating with dishonest scales."
"Buying the poor with silver and the needy
for a pair of sandals."
(Chapter 8, verses 5 & 6)
-You've LOST SIGHT OF WHO GOD IS - HE:
-Forms the mountains and the seas.
-Creates the wind.
-Reveals men's thoughts.
-Turns darkness and blackness to dawn and
treads the high places of the earth.
-Placed the stars in the universe.
-Turns man's protective fortresses to dust.
(Chapter 4, verse 13, & 5, verses 8 - 9)
THE ALMIGHTY GOD IS HIS NAME!
-You're blinded to the fact that God:
-Despises your religious assemblies.
-Won't accept or have regard for your
offerings.
-Won't listen to your songs, or the sound
of your musical instruments, they are a
noise to Him.
-These activities are meaningless while
you tolerate injustice and
unrighteousness.
-What God wants is "justice" that rolls on
like a river and righteousness like a
never failing stream.
(Chapter 5, verses 21 - 24)
WHAT GOD SAYS ABOUT ALL THIS.
I, Jesus Christ, God Himself, died a voluntary
bloody and agonising death for you. It was the
price I paid to liberate you from the shame and
hypocrisy of ungodly living. I chose you, showed
you a new way and told you how to live it,
individually and as my people.
(Chapter 2, verse 10 & 3, verse 1)
But, in My Name, you've corrupted my way and
replaced it with your own.
Change back to my ways or be crushed and
punished for all your sins. Prepare to meet
your God you Christians.
(Chapter 3, verse 2 & 4, verse 12)
Unlike you I am not underhanded, I do nothing
without revealing my plan, so heed this warning.
(Chapter 3, verse 7)
Turn back to loving me wholeheartedly and your
neighbour as yourself or else:
-Your church strongholds, your theological
fortresses (as opposed to mine), will be
pulled down and plundered.
(Chapter 3, verse 11)
-Your church buildings, your private "manors,"
your lands, will be "smashed and devoured by
fire." (Maybe you'll learn to trust me again
instead of your structures).
(Chapter 3, verses 14 & 15, Chapter 5, verse
6, Chapter 6, verse 11).
-You society ladies, (whose lifestyle is at
the expense of the poor and needy), will be
"led to captivity with fish hooks through
your noses."
(Chapter 4, verses 1 & 2)
-There will be wailing, mourning, anguish and
weeping as God passes through your midst,
darkness, "the sun will go down at noon,"
instead of the light you expected when I
come. (Remember my words "Not everyone who
says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the
will of my Father in heaven). You'll be
exiled from your comfortable religious
complacency. (Chapter 8, verses 8,9, Chapter
5,verses 16-18 & 27, Matt Chap. 7,verse 21).
-Your religious festivals and feasts will turn
to mourning, your singing to weeping.
(Chapter 8, verse 10)
-There will be a famine in the church, a
famine of hearing God's words. Lovely young
women and strong young men will "thirst for
it" and fall never to rise again. Men will
stagger in search of it but not find it.
(Chapter 8, verses 11-14)
-Your church structures will fall never to
rise again.
(Chapter 5, verse 1)
-God's patience will run out.
He has spared your man made churches in the
past but now He is "setting up a plumb line"
among the "Christians" and "will spare them
no longer."
(Chapter 7 verses 1-9, Chapter 8 verses 1-3)
The cathedrals and fine church buildings
will be destroyed. (They will be seen for
what they are, monuments to man's
insecurity).
-Your songs in church will turn to wailing
followed by dead silence.
(Chapter 8, verse 3)
-There will be no escape from God's judgment
on the man made church. It will be useless
to hide even in the grave, on mountain tops
or in ocean depths for God will "fix His
eyes on them for evil and not for good."
(Chapter 9, verses 1-10)
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO.
-Be aware that God will not utterly destroy
the man made church. To the extent that some
Christians are "fair dinkum" they will be
spared.
(Chapter 3, verse 12)
-Be aware of God's patience and be able to
understand how He has put up with you in the
past. For example:
-Be aware that there has been famine,
drought, plagues such as Aids etc., flood,
cyclone, earthquake, war and economic
hardships yet you have not returned to
God.
(Chapter 4, verses 6 - 11)
-Seek God and live.
(Chapter 5, verse 4)
-Seek and love good and hate evil, that you
may live, then the Lord Almighty will be
with you just as you say He is. Maintain
justice in the courts and God will have
mercy on what "fair dinkum" Christians there
are.
(Chapter 5, verses 14 - 15)
-Know that the Lord is Almighty, that He
"touches the earth and it melts." He forms
the mountains, the seas, the heavens, the
universe.
(Chapter 9, verses 5 & 6)
-Understand that God sees the man made church
as a sinful kingdom and that those sinners
who complacently think that "disaster will
not overtake or meet us" will "die by the
sword." He never forgets what they have
done.
(Chapter 9, verses 7, 8 & 10)
-Understand that the man made church will
reject the message of this book as being a
word from God (one can already hear its
disdainful dismissal as an unscholarly
misuse of the Old Testament) and bear God's
judgment as a result.
(Chapter 7, verses 10 - 17)
-Understand that those in the man made church
who are "fair dinkum" will be spared by God.
(Chapter 9, verse 8)
-God will restore, repair and build His
church, so that all the nations will know
God is in His world.
It will be a time of genuine joy and
harmony.
(Chapter 9, verses 11 - 15)
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