“This is what the Lord says: ‘For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent.’”
Amos 2:6a
“For three sins, even for four,” Amos thundered before his approving audience as one by one he exposed the transgressions of Israel’s enemies while announcing God’s intention to rain down judgment upon them. The preacher from Tekoa may not have thought of himself as a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but as far as his northern Kingdom’s listeners were concerned, Amos was a breath of fresh air.
It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to envision how well his words were received. There’s nothing like offering some good red meat to get an audience worked up. Like a modern day preacher delivering a sugar stick sermon before a local congregation, Amos was giving them exactly what they wanted to hear. If they had been voting on their favorite preacher, Amos would have received every vote. His words were delicious to hear. High fives abounded. Finally, somebody had the courage to tell it like it was. God was going to pounce on their enemies, and Israel reveled in anticipation.
Then when Amos turned his attention to their southern neighbor, Judah, it was the icing on the cake. Although Israel and Judah shared a common heritage, their rivalry was intense. Each jockeyed for position to be considered as the true people of God. Therefore, to hear God’s prophet denounce Judah was in essence a confirmation of Israel’s superior status. Amos was a hero. Fathers would name their children after him. Monuments would be erected in his honor. Amos was prime time.
But then amidst the raucous celebration, something unexpected happened. Amos turned his prophetic words toward Israel. “This is what the Lord says: ‘For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent.’” With that introduction Amos began to painfully expose the inner corruption in Israel along with God’s intention to bring judgment on His wayward and unrepentant people.
For five and half chapters, Amos continued without interruption until the priest of Bethel, Amaziah, tried a political maneuver to silence him. But Amaziah was wasting his time. Amos had no intention of being silent. In fact, he turned the focus of his prophecy onto Amaziah himself for his failure as a spiritual leader of the nation. With that, Amos continued to measure Israel with the plumb line of God’s truth and in case after case, the nation was found to be out of line with God’s righteous expectations of His people.
Of course, in typical prophetic form, Amos closed his words by pointing to a time when God would restore His broken people. This was the purpose of God’s judgment all along, not to leave His people writhing in condemnation but to awaken their hearts to return to Him in loving devotion. For Amos and the other prophets, the only way that could happen was for them to declare the stunning and unwelcomed truth with God’s people in the hope that at least a remnant might have ears to hear.
One can only wonder what Amos’ listeners must have thought of him once his words were focused on them. Likely, it began with an initial shock and eventually gave way to anger. For it’s one thing to hear God’s truth about somebody else, but it’s something entirely different to hear it directed to you.
Amos’ prophecy has much to teach us about what it means to be the people of God. But it also exposes a tragic lack in modern day prophetic preaching. Assuming that such preaching even takes place, it’s almost exclusively focused on safe targets which are made up of those who are outside the immediate audience. Whether we’re talking about opposing political groups or people of different theological persuasions, it’s relatively easy to point out “their” sins. It’s much harder to point them out to those on our own side. As a result, modern day prophets comfortably denounce the misdeeds of “others” while completely ignoring the exact same misdeeds of their own.
The same thing can be said about much of the political posturing on social media. I often find myself dumbfounded at those who so aptly point out the foibles of an opposing political party but are painfully silent when similar foibles are on display in the lives of those who are members of their own party. How can this be? How is it that we can see the shortcomings of our opponents and be so blind to the very same shortcomings of those on our side? How it is that we feel so bold to denounce the failures of those on the other side of the political aisle but are willing to give unwarranted toleration for similar failures of those on our side? Again, how can this be?
And what about the end game? It seems in our modern way of prophetic preaching and political commentary the goal is simply to denounce and conquer the opponent. There is no broken-hearted appeal, no pointing to the possibility of a future restoration. Instead there is simply the gleeful announcement that the other side has invited God’s judgment upon themselves, and we, the supposed righteous ones, are looking forward to watching it happen.
Despite this departure from the biblical norm, those who exclusively speak out against the injustices perpetrated by the other side without any grace-filled vision for a future restoration are lauded as having prophetic voices who dare to speak uncomfortable truth. But is that accurate? Are they truly being prophetic? Perhaps, but only partially. Amos shows us that to truly live in the prophetic tradition, we must not only be willing to proclaim God’s truth to those outside our particular group, but we must also be willing to proclaim that same truth to our own group. Doing so will not be easy. It wasn’t for Amos nor for any of the other prophets. Jesus caught grief for the same thing. In fact, they killed him for it.
Likewise such messages should not be shared with a spirit of joyful superiority but with a deep longing that they and us will hear God’s invitation to return to Him so that all of us can be restored into the wholeness He so wants for us to experience. To do otherwise is to miss the point entirely of being a prophet of God. For the true prophet always looks to the wonderful potential of what can be instead of camping down on the sad reality of what is.
May all who stand to speak on God’s behalf walk in the footsteps of Amos and the other prophets. God’s people need it. All of God’s people.