Prepare to Meet Your God
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‘We feel so blessed.’ I wonder when you last heard a Christian say that, or when you last said it yourself. Various Christian friends have said it to me recently about having a new house, about having (finally) a steady income, about having been able to afford a great holiday, and about getting their children into a fee-paying Christian school. And having recently moved out of a pretty small starter home into a spacious, five-bedroom family tardis, I can also say I feel blessed.
But here’s the disturbing question the Bible is going to ask us this morning. Is it possible that while I’m feeling blessed by the material resources I have, God is feeling displeased – even angered – by my use of them? Is it possible that in saying, ‘I feel blessed’, I’m paying lip-service to God, and that God would want to say to me, ‘The way you’re using what I’ve given you shows you’re not taking me seriously at all’?
Well, that’s one of the running issues in the Old Testament (OT) book of Amos, which we’re going through on Sunday mornings. Amos spoke for God at a time when many of God’s OT people, Israel, would have said, ‘We feel blessed.’ Israel as a whole was fairly well off. And the middle class equivalent of (I guess) most of us had never had it so good. And they’d have said, ‘We feel so blessed by God.’ To which Amos basically said, ‘But the way you use what God has given you calls into question whether you really know him at all. Because your religion has no effect on your use of money. And religion that has no effect on the use of money is false, and God can’t stand it.’
So let’s get straight back into Amos. Would you turn in the Bible to Amos 4. It’s a chapter which teaches three lessons:
First, THINK WHAT YOUR USE OF MONEY LOOKS LIKE TO GOD (vv1-3)
Look down to Amos 4, verse 1:
Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!” (v1)
So through Amos, God addresses these well-off women as cows of Bashan. Which isn’t an insult. It’s an insight into what their use of money looked like to God. Because Bashan was the most fertile place in Israel, producing the very best cows. So for ‘cows of Bashan’, read ‘Aberdeen Angus’ – cows living in the lap of animal luxury, sleek, fat, and grazing to their hearts’ delight. And God is saying that’s how these well-off women look to him as they live in the lap of luxury, thinking that the sole purpose of their wealth is to spend on themselves, with no thought at all that it might be used to help others in need. And reading on, God makes it clear that he can’t stand that attitude. Verse 2:
The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness: “The time will surely comewhen you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. You will each go straight out through breaks in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,”declares the LORD. (VV2-3)
And just a few decades later, that’s what happened: God allowed Israel to be invaded and exiled by Assyria. And there are carvings from the time showing how the Assyrians would quite literally string their prisoners of war together with hooks through their mouths or noses.
So how are we to read verses like this? Well, they’re not addressed directly to us – as if God thinks we’re all at fault in the same way (‘cows of Jesmond’). But they are in the Bible for us – because God knows how easily we can be at fault in the same way. So they’re here as a mirror for us to look in and ask, ‘Do I see myself here at all?’
Now there’s no doubt that almost everyone, if not everyone, here should see themselves in the same category as these women – namely, well-off. Listen to one Christian writer on money matters:
If your income was only £1,000 this year, you have more than 80% of people on earth. If you have enough food, decent clothes, live in a proper house and have some means of transport, you are among the top 15% of the world’s wealthy. If you have any money saved, two cars in any condition and live in your own home, you are in the top 5%. (Money, Possessions & Eternity, Randy Alcorn)
So almost everyone, if not everyone, here is rich. And that in itself is not something to feel guilty about, because the two moral issues when it comes to money are: No. 1 How did you get it? And no.2 How are you using it? And Amos is confronting these women on both counts. So, how did they get their money? Well, v1 implies: by oppressing the poor. Now I’m not qualified to say anything on issues like what economic system is best to vote for to benefit the poor, but we need to think those things through. But the other issue Amos confronts is: how are you using your money? And they were clearly spending their money entirely on themselves. Which is not God’s purpose for the money he’s given us.
The Bible as a whole gives four main purposes for the money God has given us. No.1 is to meet our needs and the needs of our dependents – which includes legitimate levels of saving. No.2 is to finance the spread of the gospel and the building up of the church. And it’s important on that one to remember that no-one else will do it – e.g., non-Christian people will give to Oxfam, but they won’t give to Wycliffe Bible Translators. No.3 is to relieve poverty and need. And it’s important to remember on that one that often only Christians will help the Christian poor – e.g., in contexts of persecution. And no.4 is to pay taxes. And thinking of no.1 in that list, how we define our ‘needs’ and how we decide to spend on ourselves and save for ourselves above our needs will obviously determine how much we have to give for those other purposes. So we need to be very careful about that if we’re serious about seeing our money as really God’s money to be used for God’s purposes.
And Tess and I agreed during the week that we need to raise our game more in this. E.g., we do aim to live moderately and record our spending so we can monitor it; but we don’t budget rigorously with a view to giving more. We do give a percentage of income, and some time ago accepted the challenge of raising that percentage bit by bit over the years; but maybe the bits have been much too small.
And for those of us who are married, v1 is a reminder to guard against unhealthy dynamics in our marriages in this area. Because at the end of v1, these women say to their husbands, ‘Bring us some drinks.’ Which may be a hint that their expectations of a high standard of living were dictating things.
Most of you will know Ken Matthews on our church staff. After the first time I met Ken’s Dad, he (Ken’s Dad) took it on himself to write me some fatherly advice. A few days later, a letter arrived. It had three main points of advice. I’ll spare you points no.1 and no.2 but no.3 was (I quote), ‘Get married. You seem like the kind of person who needs to. But don’t marry a fashion queen – they’re too expensive to run.’ Well, the wives in Amos 4 were clearly expensive to run. Their expectations of a high standard of living seem to have been dictating things in their marriages. And the husbands were probably at fault for indulging those expectations. But in their defence, it is natural to want to give your wife what she wants. And this is why married couples need to talk together about this area and guard against the unhealthy scenario of one having ungodly expectations of a high standard of living, and the other indulging that expectation – either out of a misplaced desire to please, or out of fear of conflict.
Andrew Cornes is a Christian writer and speaker on marriage. He was single until his late thirties. And I remember a talk in which he said that singleness had helped him to learn to sit loose to money and material possessions, whereas he noticed that his married friends were much more prone to being absorbed in buying things and doing up the house and so on. He said, ‘God used my singleness to help me accept a disciplined standard of living. But soon after getting married, my wife and I had to admit that we’d unthinkingly allowed our standard of living to creep up very significantly.’ And he says, ‘Looking back, the single biggest cause of that was...’ What do you think he said? He said, ‘Our wedding gift list.’ (Maybe they’re more of a mixed blessing than we think.)
Marriage and family and the home and stuff that go with them do undoubtedly make it easier to let your standard of living creep up unthinkingly, uncritically. And husbands and wives need to talk together about what their use of money looks like to God – what that next purchase looks like to God, what that financial planning looks like to God.
Here’s a thought-provoker from C.S Lewis to round that off:
I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give... I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as us, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they’re too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them. (Quoted in Money, Possessions & Eternity, Randy Alcorn)
So that’s lesson 1: Think what your use of money looks like to God.
Secondly, THINK WHAT YOUR RELIGION LOOKS LIKE TO GOD (vv4-5)
Look on to verse 4 and what Amos says about the religious routines of his contemporaries:
“Go to Bethel [which was one of their main public worship centres] and sin; go to Gilgal [another public worship centre] and sin yet more.Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years.Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings—boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,”declares the Sovereign LORD. (vv4-5)
So by anyone’s standards, they were very religious. In today’s terms, they were twice a Sunday churchgoers and Bible-reading-every-morning types. But a good number of them were the same people we’ve just met in vv1-3 – people whose religion had no effect at all on their use of money; people whose use of money showed that their hearts were in reality miles away from God. So in vv1-3, God looks at their use of money and says, ‘That’s sinful.’ And then in vv4-5, God looks at their religion and says, ‘That’s equally sinful to me. Because you rock up to church professing that I’m your Lord. But your use of money – to name but one area of your lives – gives the lie to that completely.’ And so with heavy sarcasm, Amos says to them:
“Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more.Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings—boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,”declares the Sovereign LORD. (vv4-5)
Now I’m sure that plenty of us here, like me, can look back to a period of our Christian lives when we pursued a goal or priority or relationship or something that we knew was wrong. At the very least, you knew it was miles less than the best; you knew in your heart of hearts that you were being wilful against God – however you rationalised it in your mind. And yet throughout that period I guess you kept coming to church; you kept reading your Bible; kept up the routines, kept up the appearances. And had Amos been around, maybe he’d have said something as shocking as vv4-5 – like:
“Go to church and sin.Go twice on a Sunday and ignore God yet more.Read your Bible every morning and congratulate yourself.”
While all the time, underneath the routines and the appearances, there was a major area of unrepentance – and you knew it.
And maybe that’s you this morning. And no-one else knows or even suspects, precisely because you are keeping up the routines and appearances so well. But the lesson here in Amos 4 is that God knows – and that now is therefore the time to come clean with him. And that’s often begun or helped by coming clean with another Christian you trust, to who you can go and say, ‘Look, I’m way off track spiritually, but I want to get back on – will you help me?’
But verses 4 and 5 are not about the predictable ‘shocking scenario’ of someone secretly committing adultery and then coming to church giving every appearance of walking closely with God. In the first place, they’re about someone conforming entirely to the self-indulgence and materialism around them and then coming to church giving every appearance of walking closely with God. And they’re saying: if your religion has no effect on your use of money, then this is how your religion looks to God. It looks like just another aspect of your sin.
So: Think what your use of money looks like to God; think what your religion looks like to God; and:
Thirdly, REALISE THAT GOD WILL ONLY BE TREATED AS GOD (vv6-13)
Which I mean in the sense that a parent might say to a child, ‘Talk to me like that and you’ll go to your room.’ I.e., the wise parent won’t stand for being treated as less than a parent – and will apply sanctions if they are.
And in the rest of chapter 4 Amos is saying: God won’t stand for being treated as less than God. Because that’s what’s really going on in vv1-5: people are treating God as if all he wants is a bit of religious activity – a tiny religious slice of the ‘pie’ of their lives – and as if he has no rights at all to the rest of the ‘pie’, such as their use of money. That’s how Israel had been treating God for some time, and in vv6-11 Amos says that’s why Israel had been experiencing God’s sanctions. Look on to v6:
“I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me,”declares the LORD. “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away.I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another.One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me,”declares the LORD. “Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, I struck them with blight and mildew.Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,”declares the LORD. “I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt.I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses.I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me,”declares the LORD. “I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,”declares the LORD. (vv6-11)
Now to understand the significance of that you have to go back to Deuteronomy, where Moses spelt out to Israel what relationship with God was going to involve. And the heart of it is Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5, which say:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6.4-5)
So the logic is, ‘There’s just one God who’s the rightful Lord of the whole ‘pie’ of your life – so give him the whole ‘pie’: love and obey him in every area of your lives.’ And at the end of Deuteronomy, Moses says: if they do that, they’ll experience a whole range of blessings (see Deuteronomy 28.1-14). But if they don’t, they’ll experience a whole range of ‘curses’ – i.e., chastening judgements or sanctions designed to bring them back to their senses and to God (see Deuteronomy 28.15-68). And Amos 4 vv6-11 is simply a list of some of those Deuteronomy sanctions – like drought and crop failure – which God has already applied. And Amos is saying, ‘These things have been happening, just as Deuteronomy said they would, because you’ve not been loving God wholeheartedly.’
Now again, how are we to read verses like this? After all, we don’t live under the OT way of relating to God, as a nation under the law given through Moses – including this specific list of sanctions. So we shouldn’t leap to the automatic conclusion that the equivalent of crop-failure – e.g., financial trouble or unemployment – is God’s judgement on us. Now having said that, the general principles we see in Deuteronomy 28 still apply at a national level – e.g., the current economic problems are God’s judgement on greed and folly – and we’re all caught up in them however godly we’ve personally tried to be with our money. And having said that, at a personal level it is still true that when we behave half-heartedly (or less) towards God, he can and does use circumstances to chasten us and bring us up short (e.g., allowing us to get into financial trouble which we’ve brought upon ourselves by our own personal folly). And I’m sure plenty of us could testify to that in our experience – and to how it brought it home to us that God won’t stand for being treated as less than God.
But in Amos’s time, the chastening didn’t bring about a large-scale return to God – as he says five times in this chapter (see vv6-11). And that’s why God applied the ultimate Deuteronomy sanction of letting Israel being invaded and sent into exile. And that’s what Amos prophesies in v12:
“Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.” (v12)
Now you could just take that to mean, ‘Prepare to experience God as he acts in judgement to send you into exile.’ And I think it does mean that. But I think it must also be offering the chance to prepare – as in repent – even at this eleventh hour. Not that a minority repenting at this point would stop the exile happening. But it would mean there was a ‘remnant’ who would live through the exile as a faithful minority who would show – albeit imperfectly – what it meant to treat God properly as the God he really is – the God described in v13:
He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man,he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth— the LORD God Almighty is his name. (v13)
Let me end with this. I’ve sometimes quoted a book called The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason. Chapter one is entitled ‘Otherness’ and is about how very hard we find it to treat other people as we should. He writes:
The fact is that our natural tendency is to treat other people as if they were... not quite real... we see them as if through a haze – the haze of our own all-engulfing selfhood...And so we... pass people on the street as if they were telephone poles, look them in the eye and hardly see them, and engage in conversations that are really only conversations with ourselves. Too often others are just the punctuation marks in the... monologues of our own self-centred existence.(The Mystery of Marriage, Mike Mason)
So he’s saying how easily we fail to treat our fellow-humans as we really should. Amos is saying how much more easily we fail to treat God as we really should. But to those of us who know we’re forgiven for that failure through the cross of Jesus – and that we’ll continue to be forgiven whenever we need to be – the parting message of Amos 4 is this: Spend the rest of your life, as a forgiven person, preparing to meet your God. Spend the rest of your life as a forgiven person taking him with more and more seriousness, loving him with more of your heart, soul, strength, money, everything. Because when you finally meet him face to face in heaven, that’s what you’ll be doing – only perfectly.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Randy Alcorn has written three books – basically similar, but they’re the short, medium and long versions:
The Treasure Principle, Randy Alcorn, Multnomah Books – this is the small and short (96 pages) version.
Managing God’s Money, Randy Alcorn, Tyndale House – this si the medium version (272 pages)
Money, Possessions & Eternity, Randy Alcorn, Tyndale House – this is the longer version (520 pages!).