God Used a Shepherd to Expose Everything

Hey friends, welcome back to Becoming a Boss. It has been an eternity and I am starting off with a confession. I tried to stay focused on just mindset and leadership, but I was having a really hard time keeping the Bible out of it. And you know what? I have officially given up. You deserve an opportunity to know that the Bible is not boring and I'm accepting the challenge to prove it to you by asking the hard questions. Today we want to know, does God even care about injustice? Turn to the news for 2 minutes and you can see that people are wild, but we don't take our cues from the news. Instead, we are going to see what our old boy Amos has to say. And if you haven't read the first thousand pages of the Bible or so, let me catch you up. The Israelites have already been freed from slavery. They made a covenant with God and they entered into the promised land where they are divided into 12 tribes of Israel that some of us are familiar with. From there they go through this repetitive downward spiral of whoring themselves out to the corrupt practices of the surrounding nations. Then they become oppressed by a foreign enemy. Then they cry out to the Lord for help and then he swoops in to rescue them. Again and again they trot around this vicious cycle until finally something heartbreaking happens. Instead of a foreign enemy oppressing them, it is their own king that inflicts the oppression. And it gets to be so bad that the country breaks out into civil war and the country is divided into two. So now it's 10 tribes of Israel to the north and two tribes of Judah to the south. After the split, King Jeroboam makes a decision that is so bad the Bible refers back to it almost two dozen times. He was the king of the north, but the place where they're supposed to be going to church is in the south in Jerusalem. And he can't have his people traveling south into enemy territory just to go to church. So to solve for this problem, he builds two fake temples in the north, each with a golden calf. And I know what you're thinking, didn't this just happen with Moses up on the mountain talking to God for 5 minutes and the people are already worshipping a calf? Yes, that did just happen. Like I said, vicious cycle. So this is the setting we find ourselves in when we open to the book of Amos. One or 200 years have passed now and there's another king. His name is also Jeroboam the second who has continued down the path of his namesake. And now Israel is full of people who claim to love God, but they are treating his people very badly. And God has had enough. Chapter 1 begins with Amos cussing out all of Israel's neighbors. And he is dressing them down. Damascus, Tyre, Gaza, Edom. And he is not only announcing the coming wrath, but also everything that they've done to deserve this. Betrayal, slavery, murder. It's all in there, friends. The Bible's got more tea than Bridgerton. And if you think that's bad, Israel's laundry list of behavior seems to be even worse. The poor are being denied justice, father and son are using the same girl, and the people are partying in the temple using the money that they just extorted from the poor. It is wild. And God reminds them that their sins are even worse because they're supposed to know better. But they don't care. King Jeroboam the second was prospering by almost all accounts. The problem was that he was prospering off of the backs of the poorest people in the country. It was state-sponsored oppression. Innocent people were being sold for silver. Neither the legal system nor the religious system was doing anything about it. The legal system was worthless because if anyone was bold enough to take them to court over it, the rich people would just pay off the judges and get their way anyway. The religious system was even worse because the priests weren't even real priests. When the original king had built those two fake temples in the north, the real priests refused to participate because they knew dang well they were supposed to be going to church in Jerusalem. So the benchmark of bad king fires them all and hires a bunch of randos from the street. They weren't even Levites. Since then, the people's suffering has only gotten worse. And what's wild about the story is that God doesn't use the king of the north or the king of the south to lead his people out of oppression. He doesn't call the priests or the prophets or any of the religious elite with their flowing robes and their showy prayers. He calls a regular old Joe like you and me. But his name ain't Joe, it's Amos. Amos wasn't a prophet or even the son of a prophet. In fact, he was a shepherd and a farmer living in the south minding his own business when bam, God calls him. Lace up your boots, put on your backpack. And the Bible doesn't tell us how Amos felt in that moment, but I bet he wasn't thrilled to leave behind everything that he ever knew. And I know that's familiar for some of you, too. When we decide to follow Jesus, he doesn't always lead us to places that are fun and cute. Well, sometimes he does. But where Amos is going, it's not all fun and cute, either. So, he packs up his stuff, leaves his country, and travels north to the bustling city of Bethel, where he is surrounded by people that he was just at war with two grandmas ago. And these are the fakest Christians you've ever seen. Well, I guess they're not Christians yet, because Jesus hasn't come, but you know what I mean. Halfway through the book, in chapter 4, God reminds them of all the ways that he has already tried to get their attention, so they would turn from their evil ways and return to the God who has shown them mercy over and over again. He says to Israel, "I gave you empty stomachs, but you did not return to me. I withheld the rain. I destroyed your gardens. I sent you plagues. I burned your cities with sulfur, but still you did not return to me." The same Israelites who were held captive by the Egyptians for what seemed like an eternity had now become the very oppressors that God had freed them from. So, God is sad mad. And he says through Amos that he despises their fake celebrations and festivals. He says that their songs of praise sound like a bunch of noise to him, and basically, I don't even want to hear it. You say you love me, but you don't spend any time with me. You say you love me, but you don't read my word. You say you love me, but you are selling my children for a pair of shoes. God hates their fake religion, and he hates ours, too. And Amos tells them, "You have completely missed the point. If you truly love God, you would love his people. And the Lord is patient, but this has gone on for two grandmas, and he declares that enough is enough. He's going to let justice roll on like a river." God speaks through Amos to say that the king is going to die by the sword, and the people are going to be taken captive yet again. That they're going to be strung together by fish hooks in their cheeks, and led out through the breaches of the wall. Amos was starting to get traction with his messages from God. So, here comes the opposition from Amaziah, who's the chief priest in the area. Well, he's a fake priest, but he's got the flowy robes, and he tells the people what to do. Amaziah sends a nasty gram to Amos, basically getting right in his face and telling him, "Get out of here. Stop preaching in Bethel and go back to where you came from." And Amos, he ain't no punk Christian, so he is not going to back down. If you've been walking with the word long enough, you know exactly what to do. To the world, Amaziah may seem like a boss, but for the rest of us who know the truth, we know this dude is a joker. He is not a real priest. He is not even in charge. He is not in communication with God and therefore his power is limited. Amos is the real deal though, so he puts 10 toes down, reaches in his pocket, and pulls out the only weapon that really holds damage, the word of the Lord. And he says, "Actually, bro, your wife is going to be a prostitute, your land is going to be taken from you, and you yourself are going to die." Not only that, but God says also through Amos that there's going to be a famine of words in the land, that the land will tremble, and that the sun will go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. And listen, all of that stuff happens, and it's pretty sad, but we don't have time to talk about that right now. Finally, the book ends with a glimmer of hope. God says he will restore the fallen tent of David, and he says that this restoration is not just going to be for Israel, but also for the surrounding nations. And prophetically, he's talking about me there, not a Jew, but a Gentile, not born into the family of God, but adopted into it by accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Friends, I have read a lot of books, but the Bible is the most interesting book in the world. I pray you read it with me and discover just how incredible it is. Praying for you, friends.