Playing with Fire

Well I need to start this morning with a confession. It is of something that I don’t think even my bosses here at church know. And it’s this: 3 months ago I tried to burn down a school. When I say tried, it wasn’t actually a deliberate attempt - which is why I’m here in the pulpit this morning and not in a cell somewhere at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

I was doing a school assembly and had laid some flash paper on the lectern which I was going to light to make a point from James chapter 3 about how the tongue maybe small just like a match, but it’s uncontrollable and can cause a lot of damage. This visual demonstration of that truth was then made much more spectacularly than I had intended - for as the match fell on the flash paper it burned higher and longer than it usually does. Setting fire to the foam microphone and almost catching my tie and jacket.

Fortunately the flames were easily doused. What was harder to douse was the laughter & my rising sense of embarrassment -Particularly as I had taken 2 colleagues from the staff here at JPC with me, so that I could show them just how an assembly should be done. 6 days later those 2 colleagues and several members of staff from the school who attend this church opened up the newly published JPC term card - Looked at the morning of September 9 and discovered that a certain Ken Matthews would be preaching... on the subject “Playing With Fire”. Needless to say many jovial texts, e-mails and Facebook messages came flooding my way that week.

But as we turn to Amos chapter 5 this morning - this is where the laughter stops. Because in this context “Playing with Fire” is no laughing matter. It has no possible happy ending. It is fatal – as this is a funeral lament. Did you see that when we read it earlier on? Verse 1:

“Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lament I take up concerning you: “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.” (5v1)

Amos is writing here to the people of Israel in the middle of the 8th century BC – a period of peace and prosperity like no other in their history. They had never had it so good. On the face of things Israel was safe & successful. They thought that they had never been healthier – economically, militarily and even spiritually. But Amos is going to address his listeners as if he were addressing the passengers on the Titanic. He is going to leave his listeners ruffled and disturbed. They think that they are having a wonderful party, yet Amos says, “Well actually the ship is going down and you are all going to your death!” That’s what’s happening here as the iceberg of God’s judgement comes closer and closer.

In historical terms that judgement was the holocaust of 722BC when Sargon II the King of Assyria put an end to the kingdom of Israel once and for all and Amos is actually preaching as if this had already happened. The words “fallen” and “deserted” in verse 2 tell us that this is past tense. The word “virgin” speaks of a premature death – Of the early promise never being fulfilled. Could that be said of us I wonder?

Well, so certain is their judgement that Amos stands by the graveside of Israel and describes their death. I mean usually at a funeral there would be a body, but here the body isn’t still warm – it’s still alive as Amos declares how it will happen in verse 3:

“The city that marches out a thousand strong for Israel will have only a hundred left; the town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.” (5v3)

This is desperate stuff. As every battalion will be reduced to a company. Every company will be reduced to a platoon. The military pride of Israel will be utterly devastated. The population decimated. And it will leave even what’s left of the nation flooded with tears - verse 16: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square...” As God himself drives the nails into Israel’s coffin - verse 17: “There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst, says the Lord.”

Which all makes you want to cry out: Why? Why? Why? What had Israel done that God should leave her dead, deserted & despairing in this way?

Well as the new Israel, God’s church – if we want to understand this chapter of the Bible this morning we have to place ourselves in the coffin and be the live corpse and let Amos’ voice penetrate the padded sides of our wooden casket. As we do that we will see that Israel had done 3 things to bring this calamity on themselves. And these are 3 dangers that we need to beware of falling into ourselves. Here’s the first one...

(1.) The Danger of Ignoring Our Convictions “... you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth.” (v10)

These people had given up on truth! That is what has happened. They were no longer concerned with truth. They had stopped living by what they knew to be right. This denial of truth had even found its way into the law courts - So that the whole process of law was being held in contempt. So in verse 10 a judge who passes a fair sentence or a witness who gave honest evidence were not admired for their integrity and courage, but scorned and discriminated against.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the TV programme 24. If you haven’t then don’t worry – that’s easily rectified by a quick shopping trip on Amazon later on this afternoon. You’ll soon catch up. It’s about a US counter terrorism agency and just about every week on the show someone is about to give a warning, reveal who the mole inside the organisation is, or expose some other pertinent truth about the investigation which will bring the criminals to justice – and just as they are about to do so they get taken out by a sniper, or chloroformed, or injected from behind and dragged away by the bad guys. It is uncanny just how many times that can happen in a day when you’re fighting bad guys.

In Amos’ day it was just as commonplace to be taken out for speaking truth. There's all this corruption going on. Those in the right don't get justice. It's happening time and again and woe betide anyone who said: “You know what? That preacher Amos has got a point you know!” ‘Cos in that culture what did you do? Verse 13: “Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times, for the times are evil.” You don’t speak up. You don’t say “This is wrong!” You don’t say, “We’re oppressing the poor by not fighting for justice.” No, you don’t say that. It’s too unpleasant – it’ll get you knocked off the Christmas card list.

This was a culture in which people had turned their backs on truth, so people were scared to speak truth. AND I wonder if we’re any different? What place does truth have in your life and mine? Or have we allowed ourselves to be dragged away and silenced by our culture?

Our attitude to truth today has been brilliantly encapsulated by a prayer that was prayed in an open state senate meeting in Boston a while ago. It angered many as a local pastor opened the meeting with this prayer – but I think it asks us a great deal about where we are with truth and whether we’ve been injected by the culture. He prayed:

“Heavenly Father we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know your word says woe on those who call evil good, but that’s exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that:We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word and called it pluralism.We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.We have killed our unborn children and called it choice.We have neglected to discipline our children and called it self-esteem.We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbour’s possessions and called it ambition.We have polluted the airwaves with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.We have ridiculed the time honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.”

Have you been silenced? Have you been injected by the culture?

You see, our culture is no less contemptuous of truth than Amos’s. It’s doctrine of relativism insists that “right” and “wrong” are just matters of perspective. And unduly swayed by this it is easy for us to suffer a loss of moral confidence, so that we are hesitant to challenge wrong courses of action and commend obedience to what is right. We are more inclined to recommend a course of conduct because “it is best for you”, rather than because it is right. So that our motivation is self-love, rather than any appeal to what is true. For instance – Parents, do you insist your children tell the truth because it is to their advantage, or because it is right? Children, do you obey your parents just when it’s in your best interests, or because it is right? All of us, do we follow God to look good, or for the spiritual satisfaction, or a ticket to heaven, or because it is right to do so?

Do not ignore the truth. As Israel found, you do so at your peril. That’s danger number 1. Here’s danger number 2...

(2.) The Danger of Ignoring Compassion

You see when you start ignoring your convictions you pretty quickly find yourself ignoring your compassion. So truth is not listen to or heeded in Israel and what happens? Verse 11 happens:

“You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.” (v11)

This was typical of the brand of justice that was being meted out in Israel. The poor were being forced to give up their grain as a form of tax. So they were being told: “The law is on our side, so you’ll just have to pay up.” It was a kind of institutionalised exploitation. And as we’ve already seen, they weren’t going to get a sympathetic hearing from the court.

Amos tells these Israelites: “You have no awareness of the importance of people. If you had then you wouldn’t be letting this happen in the courts.”

But they see the poor here as a commodity to be disposed of in order to improve their own quality of life. So the poor man can be mistreated with impunity. And he has no resources with which to defend himself. And as the poor are trampled on, so the rich grow richer and where do they go? To their stone mansions and plush vineyards.

The attitude here is the attitude of the hedonist. It says: “My pleasure and my happiness come first.” That is what is driving this exploitation. Now I’m not going to accuse anyone here of wilfully exploiting the poor. BUT there are never-the-less some tough questions that I have to ask about how important I think my quality of life is. Because it was quality of life that drove this exploitation. That was the desire. And it is a disease in our culture.

And the biggest symptom of this disease is: My right to happiness. As without conscious thought we just drift towards a mindset that asks: “Ken, are you happy? Are you happy, Ken? Are you feeling fulfilled, Ken? Are you secure?” Where my personal fulfilment and contentment is, is what matters most.

And so we develop a mindset which is anaesthetised to the horror and tragedy and pain that we see in the world around us. So we may see stories of famine or flood on the news, or read an article on worker’s conditions in the sweatshops of the Far East in the Tear Times magazine, or we might have heard sermons like last week’s from Ian on Amos 4 where we are challenged about what God thinks about our use of money - But... then the busyness of life takes over and very quickly we slide back into the comfort zone.

It came as a great shock to me in my younger years as I struggled to get over a relationship break up when a friend of mine told me: “God is not concerned with your happiness, he is most concerned with your holiness.” I mean that wants some for pastoral sensitivity when you've just broken up with your girlfriend of 3 years, but it’s true. And friends if what matters to us most in a world where the poor are still trampled underfoot, deprived of justice & with very few to up hold their cause - is our own agenda, then we are not being godly. If our main concern is our happiness, when there is suffering like that then we've lost our compassion.

•So I can’t be godly and not be concerned about the legal defence fund of the Christian Institute paying to try to obtain justice for Christians fighting for what’s right.•I can’t be Godly and not be concerned about the work of Armonia with those who live on a rubbish dump in Mexico City.•I can’t be godly and not be concerned about helping the socially deprived of this city.

I can’t be godly and not be concerned about things like that. No! Amos won’t have God in a box marked; “Church” or “Quiet Times” or “Sundays only”. No - I can’t be a Christian and not act righteously towards the poor.

Now it’s important to say that you can’t do everything. We all have differing and limited resources. But the question shouldn’t so much be: “Am I loving everybody?” - But “Am I loving somebody?” As Ian spoke last week, I thought to myself “Come on Matthews, stop making excuses and start taking action. Get a grip.”

Doing that is not just a case of giving money, it's also a case of giving time. As we find in chapter 6 that the Israelites were guilty not just of using their money to live in the lap of luxury, but they are also wasting their time living a life of leisure. Amos 6 verse 4:

“You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.” (6v4)

The poor are wasting away in the streets – and the rich are just wasting their time. They're not doing anything! They're just eating & drinking & lying around on the sofa. Life's just a party, while the nation rots.

Proverbs 29 verse 7 says: “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concerns.” AND I’ve been told that when John Stott who many would say was the one of the foremost Christian teachers and leaders of the last century - when he preached on that passage from Proverbs he said: “When I read those words aged 40, I realised that I was a wicked man because I did not have a concern for the poor.”

These people had got focussed on a quality of life to the extent that a hardness had came in which drained their compassion. Let it not be so for us. For if we ignore, our convictions, and our compassion, we will eventually find ourselves ignoring our conscience. And that's Amos’ final, and the starkest, warning to us this morning:

(3.) The Danger of Ignoring Conscience

“For I know how many are your offences and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.”(5v12)

Perhaps you can imagine what’s going on here. In fact some of the commentaries present a picture of Amos standing at the roadside preaching to these people as they went along to their churches. As they went along to their places of worship, verse 5 –“Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba.” And perhaps as they walked along they passed the fields where the poor were slaving away or the law courts where the poor were exploited.

And doubtless when they got to church there would be sacrifices to confess their sin. But it wasn’t going to be these sins that they confessed. No they weren’t going to be doing that because they had seared their consciences and were utterly unaware of their sin.

It’s so easy during the confession at the start of the service every week - to take time to search our hearts for the big sins, the obvious sins, the sins of commission so to speak. Have I kept my tongue from lies and deception? Have I quenched my lust and resisted the pull of internet pornography? Have I blown my top and murdered anyone with my anger? And if we can say “no” to all those - We can feel good about ourselves. We’ve had a great week! But we do not ask the Lord to search our hearts for our sins of omission. We don’t review how our lack of action has hurt others. For our consciences have become seared, and we’ve become complacent.

And that’s what the people here in Amos 5 were doing.

It is not just the poor who are resentful about this situation. Who is it who is really angry about this? Do you see? It is God. Verse 9: The Lord “flashes destruction on the stronghold and brings the fortified city to ruin...”

That is the problem. The people who live and call themselves Christians – Who are in the church of Israel – The people who forget their convictions and their compassion and their conscience find themselves under the wrath of God.

It’s a shocking verdict for the people of Israel. They thought they could avoid God’s judgement because of their respectability – their reputation. But as we see later on in chapter 5 that on “The Day of the Lord” God’s anger would pursue them relentlessly because of the way they had treated the poor, the vulnerable, the abused, the needy. They would not escape, no matter what they did!

Folks, are we really aware of our spiritual poverty? Are we aware of our transgression and our sin? Or have we actually started pressing the over-ride button on our conscience so that we no longer have any sense of it? And we have no longing to be Christ-like and to be righteous. I think that longing comes from times of confession. If you stop taking time to confess your sin then your heart will be hardened. It’s those who confess their sins who will be comforted by the Lord. Rather than the complacent person who is quite content about where they are.

So what are we to do about this? If we’ve incurred God’s wrath on these 3 things. In our lack of conviction, our lack of compassion, or lack of conscience. I tell you I’ve been convicted of this myself this week. Well this passage also gives us the solution. Verse 4 - what is the solution? “This is what the Lord says to the house of Israel: ‘Seek me and live...” Verse 6: “Seek the Lord and live...” That’s the solution says God. AND how are we to do that? Well...

i.We are to seek a real personal encounter with God. We are to seek God. We are not to seek ritual or social respectability. That’s what’s complained against here - If it is without a real personal relationship with God. So I must seek a 1 to 1 encounter with God. At the centre of our worship must be a heart that longs to have a personal walk with the Lord God. And as you do that, verse 14 you must...ii.Repent. That’s stage 2. A personal encounter with real repentance. Look at verse 14: “Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.” So as I meet the living God I’ve got to say to him, “Lord help me to seek good and turn my back on evil.” In fact verse 15 - what have I got to do? I’ve got to hate evil! We need to pray that the Lord would help us hate the evil that we see, to turn against it - so that we may speak and act to change it, for his glory. What evil do you see that you need to start hating? That you can make a difference in? Because new birth as a Christian is not just turning over a new leaf, it is a radical new beginning. There will be verse 15 - “justice in the courts” if folks are really walking with the Lord Jesus.

What do you need to pray? Seek the Lord, hate evil, love good. What do you need to pray? Let’s do that right now....