Sermon(Amos 8:7): The glory of Jacob

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025252298

 

 

>> The Lord has sworn by the pride (>the glory< in Korean version) of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. (Amos 8:7) <<

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Amos was a man who was a herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees in the time of two kingdoms, (North) Israel and Judah (Amos 7:14). At that time, Jeroboam II was the king of the North Israel, where there was a wide gap of wealth between the rich and the poor. The rich and the noble including the king led extravagant life, but they were ruthless exploiters of the poor. So God told Amos a herdsman to go to the North Israel and to prophesy. Amos declared judgement to Israel as God gave him words. He said that Israel would be totally destroyed and taken captive to another nation. He said even the holy places of God in Israel would be completely destroyed. But Israel was most prosperous in those days, so Amos' warning was thought to be a mere joke. Amaziah, a prophet of Bethel, mocked Amos, saying, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom. (Amos 7: 12, 13)"

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In short, North Israel was a very rich nation as a whole at that time, but its wealth was concentrated on the privileged, and the poor were exploited, and justice and mercy were completely ignored. The privileged wealthy people of Israel bought the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sold the refuse of the wheat (Amos 8:6). In those days, the religious leaders, who had been busy providing easy religious services to the privileged in order to share their wealth, were living as secularized prophets who closed their spiritual eyes but opened only their physical eyes for the visible things, and secularly prophesied for money. People of Israel had never thought of the fall of the nation, because North Israel at that time was a rich nation, was prosperous and successful in everything, and because North Israel and Judah had never experienced the collapse of nation until then. They had had several wars with neighboring countries before, but they had managed to survive them. Can God's people be destroyed and taken captive to a distant country? How can the enemies invade here where there is the sanctuary of God and destroy it? So Amos became the head of a heretic sect in the eyes of the blind religious leaders. They thought that Amos endangered the king, crying out the evils of the gap between rich and poor to stir up the people. >Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. (Amos 7:10)"< God said to Israel through Amos, but the political and religious leaders of the nation who ruled the nation would not repent, so God declared: "I swear by the glory of Jacob that I will surely never forget any of their deeds. (Amos 8:7)" God declared a thorough punishment.

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Usually, oaths are made by the name of those who are higher than him who makes the oaths. For example, people say, "I swear by God that I'll keep the promise tomorrow!" When God swore to Abraham, there was no one higher than himself; so he had to swear to him by himself. "By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, ... (Gen 22:16)" In the biblical text today, God swore by "the glory of Jacob", which tells us that the glory of Jacob was very important to God. The glory of Jacob primarily refers to God himself. And, to me, the glory of Jacob is the glory that God gave to Jacob, that is, Israel. That glory is the glory of Israel's becoming God's people, and the glory Israel had received when the God had become the God of Israel. At that time, no other countries served the living God and had the precious law that he gave, like Israel. Therefore Moses said to Israel: "You are a blessed people." But to look into the present situation, Israel looked prosperous and rich outwardly, however, it had lost all the glory of Jacob. So God felt great sorry for Israel, and declared judgement by "the glory of Jacob", and promised to recover it. He promised Israel that he would restore the glory of Jacob that Israel had lost. This is the theme of Amos.

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What shall we do to restore the lost glory of Jacob?

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1. There must be the repentance of sins.

God enumerates every sin of Israel. The strong oppressed and exploited the weak (Amos 8:4, 6), the commerce was deceitful (Amos 8:5), the people rejected the words of prophecy (Amos 7:12, 13), and there was idolatry (Amos 8:14). Above all, they regarded the worship of God as a heavy burden (Amos 8:5). They hated the Sabbath, the day of the God, for they must not sell goods on that day. My brethren, please repent your sins in tears when others point out your sins, because God has spoken directly to you through them. The recovery of your lost glory begins with repentance of your sins. Pride will be added to your sins if you, waiting for God's direct reproach, ignore people's rebuke. God regards it as a grave sin to think the religious life to be burdensome, to exploit others, to deceive others, to reject the words of God, to rebel against spiritual leaders, and to commit idolatry. We must repent of such sins.

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2. Pride (hubris) must be stopped.

God knows that discipline is a good means to break the haughtiness of man. So God punishes Israel for the good of them though it is not a happy situation. If the wicked root of pride is not pulled up, it will sprout buds again sooner or later and will bear bad fruits. The most serious pride is to hinder the proclamation of the word of God. God declares the following punishment to Amaziah, the priest who committed such terrible sin. "Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, 'Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.' Therefore thus says the Lord: 'Your wife shall be a harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.' (Amos 7:16, 17)" He must have suffered great pain until he lost all - his wife, children, wealth, and the position of priest. The same is valid in the church, the society and the Internet. Do not oppose those who preach the words of God, nor disturb the work of God. You can have the four pillars of your house pulled out when you try to keep your poor self-esteem. God caused the arrogant Israel to be humiliated, to be in darkness, to be robbed of joyful songs, and to lament and mourn (Amos 8:8-10). When we lose what we had, we realize that they haven't been ours. My life, health, ability are not mine but God's gifts. We must become completely humble during the period of discipline. We must be humble but not discouraged. We must not give up the future. "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. .... For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. .... (Heb 12:5-13)" The fruit right after the discipline is humility, and abundant secondary fruits come after that. Are there any fruits that give more righteousness and peace to us than the fruit of humility? There is no root of sin in humility, so it is righteous. And when you are humble, you do not fight against God and man, so there is peace in you. Above all, once you are disciplined, you are convinced that you are forgiven by God, so you have peace. Of course, you become righteous because you have no sins after God's forgiveness.

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3. Evil must be removed.

How did God remove the evil of Israel? God killed all evil religious leaders, political leaders and idolaters. God scattered faithful worshipers of God to far countries for a while. They lived there, only relying on God's help. They looked for God. But it was by no means enough. Living in the gentile country, they realized how happy it was to live with the freedom of religion in their own land. However, God added the punishment of >the famine of words of God<. "I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. (Amos 8:11)" People (Israelites) were forced to attend the worship of the gentile gods. They hated such idolatry, however, they had no one to wash their defiled soul, by words of God, although they wanted to be washed. No, the gentile kings even prohibited preaching the word of God. Like this, God removed his people from the sinful land of Israel to another place, and removed the authors of sins from Israel. To leave a sinful place and to remove the leaven of sin is an essential process for our recovery. God cures our spiritual obesity through the famine of the word of God. You have no appetite if you do not feel hunger. You crave for food when you are hungry. Obesity is a disease and an evil. How many adult diseases are caused by obesity? Even if a man is humble, his spiritual obesity prevents him from living a normal Christian life. Spiritual pride leads to sinful deeds while spiritual obesity incurs lazy Christian life and passive Christian life, and robs Christians of the joy and happiness in God. Is this not a terrible evil? Spiritual obesity is as sinful as spiritual pride, a terrible evil. Both of them are poisonous mushrooms that appear in the times of peace and prosperity. Sometimes God keeps silent for a long time in order to get believers to seek for him more eagerly. During that time, we are cured of spiritual obesity and realize that God is my everything and joy. In order to restore the glory of Jacob, we must leave the place of sin, remove the leaven of sin and the spiritual obesity. God made Israel see Gentiles' idolatry while living in the foreign nations, and made them realize how vain their idols were to them. Israelites could clearly witness that the idols the Gentiles, who had taken Israelites captive, served couldn't give any help to them on the day when they were attacked and destroyed by enemies. So Israelites learned that idolatry was vain. The idols of foreign nations were so attractive to them when they were living in their homeland. But now they saw the idols closely with their own eyes, and realized that they were not so great, and that the God of Israel only was a true living god. In short, Israelites have been to gentile nations on a religion field trip. All their evil was removed there, and they learned there that there was none but the God who was to be believed in.

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God's swear goes on. God promises to restore Israel after punishing Israel. "In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; .... I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land which I have given them. (Amos 9:11-15)" My brethren, do not be sad because of the loss thanks to God's chastisement. God, who swears by the glory of Jacob, restores you. God is love. So he chastises you on the premise of recovery. God repeatedly says to us in the Bible that he loves us. We become pure gold after the chastisement. Who is like pure gold? You have become pure gold when you can feel grateful to God for the painful discipline, love God more than the world, hate and reject even every shape of sin, give thanks to God for everything, and solve all problems by prayer to God. Then the glory of Jacob will be restored to you.

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You can keep the glory of Jacob even before you are chastised. How can the glory of Jacob be kept? First, we must not disregard prophecy. Prophecies are like diagnoses and medications for diseases. When God, looking at our sin in bud, gives us the words of prophecy to warn us, we must accept the words and obey God without opposing and rejecting them. Next, we must end the abominable double life of a good believer and a bad member of society. Hypocrisy is very harmful. Hypocrites are known as good people, so it is very difficult for them to repent in tears. They would rather go to hell with their sins than lose their face. Therefore Jesus abominated them. I, too, abhor hypocritical Christians. Finally, we must not forget that each of us is another Jacob. Jacob was the one who luckily met God and was blessed by him to be a great man. Jacob himself can never be proud. Jacob is a man who has to hold God as fast as he can because he can live only by God's blessing in the hard world. 'Worm Jacob (Is 41:14)' - this is what we are. But if we humble ourselves thus, God will grant us 'the glory of Jacob'.

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Who is the true servant of God? Amaziah the priest or Amos the herdsman? The former, calling himself a servant of God, received great honor from people, but the latter said he was not a prophet but a herdsman. Is a man a true servant of God just because he calls himself a servant of God? Proclaiming the word of God rightly - this is the touchstone of the true servant of God always, in the past as well as now.

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May God grant you the glory of Jacob and keep you to the end.

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Chong Tack Kim

                                   - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -

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