Amos
Beware presumption: Amos
5.14-20
Question: At what
point does assurance become presumption?
Answer: When
disobedience becomes a way of life
The people of Israel were making
two massive assumptions
1.
That God was with them
2.
That the Day of the Lord was something to look forward
There were tragically wrong on both
counts and Amos told them why:
Their bold claim and conviction was
that God was with them. After all they were the chosen people. Of course, God
was with them, that was exactly what he had promised in the Bible. Of course
God was them, they went on pilgrimages each year to Bethel, Gilgal, and
Beersheba. Their religious feasts, and their offering of sacrifices were second
to none
Of course God was with them - they had no doubt about it -until Amos
started preaching his message, sowing a seed of doubt in their minds:
14
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God
Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. 15 Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in
the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of
Joseph.
Oh, yes the Lord will be with you
says Amos, the day you start cleaning up your act but until then, your belief
in God’s presence with you is pure
presumption.
What God wants to see is a people
who have the marks of belonging to him, whose heart is aligned with his heart,
whose basic goal in life is to do his will and not to further the cause of evil
And that will be seen in the social
life of the nation, as well as in the personal life of individuals. There will
be justice in the courts (v15); integrity and honesty in national life (12);
and an end to the scandalous treatment of the poor described in verse 11
When these things start to happen –
then the Lord will be with you – then the Lord might have mercy on you,
but not before
14
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will
be with you, just as you say he is.
God is
looking for a real change in their lives. Their assurance that God is with them
is just presumption, if their faith is not evidenced by real fruit, the fruit
of obedience and repentance.
How easy it is for a church or an
individual to be presumptuous? ‘Of course God is with us, we are an evangelical
church, we preach the Bible’ we say to ourselves. Of course God is with us, do
you realise how many people come to our church on a Sunday ? Of course God is
with me, I read the Bible everyday. Of course, God is with me, I’ve been to
Spring Harvest six years running
How easy it is for us to base our
assurance on our religious practises rather than really trusting in the grace
of God
The sign that the people of Israel
was not really in touch with God was their wide scale and flagrant disobedience
in personal living and indifference to social justice. What about us? Do our
lives measure up to our profession? Or is our assurance just a form of
presumption.
God
was looking for a real change of attitude in his people and a change of
attitude that was backed up by lifestyle -
a positive active pursuit of good:
‘Seek God’ (v14) and ‘love good’ (v15) with an equally
definite rejection of evil: ‘Hate evil’ (v 15). We will see more next week
about what that would entail but for now the essential message is clear.
**************
What Israel didn’t realise – and
what we may forget – is that God can be with us in judgement as well as
blessing. That was the warning of verses 16-17
16
Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says:
"There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every
public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to
wail.17 There will be wailing in all
the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst," says the LORD.
This brings us on to the second
point:
18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.
In their complacency, in their easy
going optimism, in their blindness to the holiness and wrath of God, they
actually looked forward to the day of the Lord. They were like turkeys
looking forward to Christmas. How foolish they were.
Don’t you realise, says Amos, what
that day will bring. ‘That day will be darkness not light’ (v18) – judgement
not blessing, condemnation not vindication
A terrible judgement is coming that
will be utterly inescapable (v19):
19
It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as
though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a
snake bite him.
This is a day to dread not to
welcome. Once again we see the terrible presumptuousness of the people of
Israel and how utterly false their sense of assurance was
How far they had fallen to get to
that state and how much they needed to hear Amos words, to repent, to reform
their ways
We began with this question
Question:
At what point does assurance become presumption?
Answer: When
disobedience becomes a way of life
We have seen the danger of
presumption, of an easygoing assurance that is blind to the holiness of God,
that believes a life of persistent and wilful disobedience is acceptable to him
Perhaps our age is prone to that
mistake just as much as Amos’s generation. We don’t like to think about
judgment or hell or accountability to God. The general consensus is that God
will forgive pretty much anyone and welcome them into his kingdom. He’s a bit like ‘Young Mr Grace’ in ‘Are you being
served?’ with his cheerful pronouncement of ‘You’ve all done very well.’
And although Christian people
aren’t likely to think about God like that, at what point does the wonderful
assurance we have in Christ become presumption? Surely the answer for us is the
same as for them: assurance becomes presumption when disobedience becomes a way
of life
If we wilfully persist in
disobedience, in conduct dishonouring to God, then we are fooling ourselves if
we think everything will be OK on the day of judgment
Because it was Jesus
himself who said:
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord,
Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my
Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7.21
True belief will show itself in
true words and actions.
* * * * * *
* * *
How
then should we approach God? How can we approach him in a humble? spirit,
trusting in his mercy, with the assurance of faith, but not presuming. In
a few moments we come to his table and say this prayer. It puts it all rather
well, doesn’t it?
We do not presume to come to this
your table merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness
but in your manifold and great goodness,
we are not worthy so much as to
gather up the crumbs under your table but you are the same Lord whose nature is
always to have mercy