Calvary Lutheran Church

A Warning to this Nation

May the God of peace fill you with all joy in believing. Amen.  

Amos 1-9

Dear Christian Friends:

The psalmist wrote, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people he chose for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12). And again, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). So is the United States of America today a righteous nation whose God is the Lord or a nation in disgrace in God’s eyes because of its sin?

To answer that question we turn this morning to the book of Amos in the Old Testament. When you study the book of Amos you can summarize the entire book in just one word—judgment. God’s judgment on the nation of Israel. And it saddens me this morning to have to report that there are some glaring similarities between Israel in Amos’ day and the United States of America in our day.

So this morning, like Amos, I wish to sound the trumpet of

WARNING TO THIS NATION

that we all share and love.

But first, a little background. When God’s people entered the promise land in 1400 b.c. each of the 12 tribes were assigned their particular plot of land. They were a united kingdom which for the most part followed God’s laws and commands. This continued throughout the period of the Judges, like Deborah and Samuel and Samson; and into the period of the first kings like Saul and David and Solomon. But in 900 b.c. Jeroboam rebelled against the house of David and formed what was called the Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Israel. So now God’s people were divided into two kingdoms—Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

One reason for the division was that King Jeroboam introduced idolatry, and all the kings of Israel after him followed suit. But God was patient, and he sent the prophets Elijah and Elisha to warn Israel, but to no avail. Finally, in 750 b.c., God chose Amos a sheep-herder in Judah to tell Israel that God’s patience had run out.

God had three main complaints against Israel. The first was complacency of the people and especially the leaders when it came to things pertaining to God. They ignored and rejected what God considered important. Amos wrote, “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).

This was a time of much prosperity for Israel. Their borders were being expanded. Their military was strong. Their businesses were booming. Luxury was found everywhere. They had their winter homes in the valley and their summer homes in mountains. Certainly, nothing wrong with any of that, but they had developed a sense of self-sufficiency and a false security. They were “Israel strong.”  Basically, they didn’t need God anymore.

And if the time ever came that they really did, well, God had always been there for them in the past. After all, he had brought them out of the land of slavery in Egypt. He had led them through the wilderness. He had provided for all their needs. He had instructed them through the law, and gave them the land they now enjoyed. They were God’s people. God would never allow any disaster to come upon them.  

Complacency, when it comes to the things of God, is easy to fall into as individuals and as a nation. When things are going well, when relative peace is enjoyed, when the economy is strong, when people are making money (some, lots of money) when the military is strong, when there is so much to do and so little time to do it, it is easy to remove God from the equation. Suddenly there is a sense of self-sufficiency and a false security. Instead of God being viewed as the source of all good, the feeling is, “Look at what I have accomplished; this is how great we are as a nation.” The result is that God is removed from the basic institutions of society like schools and government. Churches are empty on Sunday morning and the idolatry of money and leisure and sports and self take God’s place.

In a recent poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the secularization of this nation became obvious. Secularization is the process of removing religious and moral influences from all society. The poll found that one in five adults in the U.S. have no religious affiliation. In the 1950s that number was about 2%; in the 1970s that number was about 7%; today it is about 20%! The three areas where secularization is most evident, and where God’s anger and wrath must be especially severe, are sexual immorality and perversion; the continued degrading of human life—beginning of life issues, end of life issues, murder, suicide, drug abuse; and the attack on traditional marriage and the family—three gifts of God totally abused. We might say, “But God is on our side. We are a Christian nation, founded on Christian values and beliefs. God would never allow disaster to come upon us.” That’s what Israel thought.

The second main complaint that God had against Israel was its social sins.  Fraud, scams, exorbitant interest rates, bribes, extortion, corruption in the courts, crooked judges, crooked lawyers, crooked politicians—this is what was going on in Israel. Amos wrote, “Skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales” (Amos 8:5). “You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground. . . you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth” (Amos 5:7,9).

And those who suffered the most were the poor and helpless. They couldn’t afford to pay off the judges for a fair verdict. When they couldn’t afford the high interest on the loans, they were taken as slaves.

How many citizens of the United States today are growing rich because they scam the innocent and vulnerable? Identity theft that results in tax fraud amounts to $20 billion a year according to a recent news documentary. You file for your tax return expecting a refund, and someone has already beat you to it by identity theft. You can google “corrupt in the United States” and find a list of all the politicians who have been charged with federal crimes. That is exactly what happened in Israel.

The third complaint that God had against Israel may surprise you. It was superficial worship. You would think that just showing up for worship would be enough to please God, and that it didn’t really matter what you did once you got there. Not the case. God said through Amos, “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Away with the noise of your songs? I will not listen to the music of your harps. (Amos 5:21). Worship that only goes through the motions, worship that pretends to be religious, worship where the mind is in la la land, is an abomination to God. Jesus said that true worship involves worship in spirit and in truth—in truth because it is directed to the true God, and in spirit because it engages the whole body, mind, and soul. In Israel the worshipers were saying, “When will the new moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat” (Amos 8:5). In other words, “Let’s get this Sabbath day worship over so we can go back to making money.”

One of the most severe warnings in the book of Amos is found in chapter 8, “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “When I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11-12). It is the old saying, “Use it or lost it.” People who refuse to hear the Word of the Lord finally cannot hear it, because God takes his Word away. Oh, they may still physically have a Bible in their home, but it means nothing to them, and the Spirit does not work his miracle of faith without it. That’s what happened in Israel.  

So what did God do with the nation of Israel? He first warned them through prophets like Amos, Hosea, Nahum, and Obadiah. Amos said, “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). No disaster ever comes upon mankind without God first warning of pending danger. He warned the wicked people in Noah’s day for 120 years. He does the same today through this Word and preachers who are still willing to proclaim the whole council of God. This Bible is full of warnings. We need to know what they are. But that didn’t change Israel’s hearts.

Next, he sent natural disasters—famine, drought, pestilence, plagues. He sent a huge earthquake two years after Amos delivered his message that was still talked about 200 years later in the book of Zechariah. Every natural disaster that takes place in the world today is God’s warning of pending judgment. But that didn’t change Israel’s hearts either.

Finally, after 200 years of warning God sent the Assyrians from the north to destroy Israel. The destruction was vicious, and it was total. The Assyrians were the most cruel nation on the earth. Dead bodies were piled up in the streets of Samaria or thrown over the city wall. Prisoners were pierced with hooks in their lips and their ears and dragged back to Assyrian as slaves. Amos writes that if any did escape death and capture, and they were huddled in their home in fear, and if someone came by and asked, “Did anyone survive in this house,” they replied, “Silence, don’t let the Lord know we are here.” They knew it was God’s judgment.

The lesson of the book of Amos is this: Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked. God’s judgment is coming. It will be swift and it will be severe. All people will have to account for their sins either here or certainly on judgment day. For those whose sins are not covered by the blood of the lamb, it will be a horrifying day, far worse than Israel ever experienced.

But the lesson for us is also this: there is still time. There is still time to repent as individuals and as a nation. Do you really think the United States is all that different from Israel in Amos’ day? But there still is hope just as there was hope for Israel. God said, “For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. . . . Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you just as you say he is. . . . . Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph” (Amos 5:12).

Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on us as nation. Perhaps there are still enough Christians in this nation who are willing to plead for God’s mercy. Maybe it takes only one Christian. Remember when Abraham pleaded with the two angels for Sodom and Gomorrah? “If there are 50 righteous, will you spare the city? “Yes, we will.” “If there are 45, 40, 30, 20? If there are 10 righteous?” And the angels said, “Yes, we will spare it.”

The psalmist wrote, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:8-12). All of this mercy and forgiveness is possible because of Christ. Even Amos ended his prophecy with words of hope, “In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent” (Amos 9:11). He was prophesying the coming Messiah, the Savior. We know that the Savior did come, that he was born to a virgin, that he suffered for the sins of the world, that rose again for our justification, and that he ascended into heaven to control the future of this nation.

So maybe the Christians in this nation will be enough. Maybe just the Christians in this church today who truly plead and beg for God’s mercy and forgiveness will be enough for the Lord to relent, or at least postpone, the judgment that awaits this nation and world. If so, let us do so now.  Amen.

May we pray:

Father, we plead to you today to forgive our nation, the United States of America, of its many sins. Forgive us as a nation for arrogance, pride, fraud, murder, hypocrisy, slander, greed, secularism, racism, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, injustice, elitism, hatred, violence, oppression, unrighteousness, compromising the Gospel, and superficial worship. We beg for your patience and mercy until that time when we will all appear before your judgment throne and give an account of our earthly lives, depending on your forgiveness in Christ Jesus. May those few of us here today, be all that is needed to turn your righteous anger into your glorious compassion. Hear us for your Son’s sake. Amen.