Pride comes before a fall

The Pride:

Modern folks consider Pride an emotion. In fact it’s a good emotion, one that is a pleasant sometimes exhilarating emotion that results in positive self evaluation!

That’s why we have for example: Black pride, national pride, Gay pride can all be positive things. People should embrace their skin colour, nationality or sexuality and be happy about it, not be ashamed of it or feel bad.

Yet pride in the Bible is a negative thing, it’s not a virtue but a vice. We don’t have good reason to think of ourselves as somehow better than others or somehow take pride in ourselves. Now I don’t want anyone to feel worthless or unloved because of who they are. That’s not the goal of this, we know that God loves us all DESPITE our sins and failings and has given us Jesus as the ultimate expression of his love. We are made in God’s image and valuable to him yet we’re also all fallen and sinful so pride is not something we should strive for. A quick search for the word pride throughout the Bible makes it very clear pride is a negative thing.

St. Augustine says it is love of one’s own excellence! Rather than being thankful to God for what he’s allowed you to have or achieve you’re proud because you think it is your own ability or something about you that is excellent not God.

It’s not just the Bible that thinks of pride as a problem either Aristotle says: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.

Like swimming in the pool to help yourself get up above the water you push someone else’s head down which lifts you up! All well and good for you but what about the poor kids you’ve almost drowned to lift yourself up?!

Would you be proud your achievements if they came from harming others?

This is the situation in Israel at the time of Amos, they’ve become militarily and financially successful so they became proud and thought more highly of themselves than they should. So they fell into three traps caused by their pride:

 complacency, folly and oppression of others.

6:1-7 Complacency

Firstly, Complacency in verse 1-7 the people of Israel on Mount Samaria, or Mt. Zion are complacent, they figure they’re just fine NOT trusting in God. They don’t need God, they’ll be fine! Over the past few decades they’d become wealthy and prosperous. Their cities of Jerusalem and Samaria were both on top of steep mountains and in the North, their King, Jereboam II extended Israel’s territory even up to Damascus. What harm could possibly come to us?

So why bother obeying God if disobeying him leads to such wealth and prosperity and military might? Life’s BETTER when you don’t worry about all the stuff God wants.

The literal wording is not you who feel secure but you who TRUST, they place a sense of security in where they live! They’re the important people too the noble men of the foremost nation. See their pride in action, they think they’re the elite, the smartest, wealthiest and therefore the ones who can pass judgement and make decisions for the rest of Israel.

The solution to this arrogance is in verse 2 – Consider the other cities nearby. Calneh, Hamath and Gath the cities incidentally that were under Israel or Judah’s control. In a sense God says if these places can be brought under your power as your subjects, even though they’re impressive and large… Don’t be surprised if you too can be brought under the power of another civilisation even though you might be impressive and large too.

The fate of these cities will be the fate of Jerusalem and Samaria!

3-7 again outline why this will be their fate:

They seem to scoff at the notion of ever having a bad day, a kind of judgement day like the Day of the Lord from the last chapter BUT they continue to behave in ways that guarantee it will come! They try to put off, or prevent their own judgement from happening but rule in terror over their subjects.

They lounge around eating and drinking to their hearts content, they lie down in luxurious beds of ivory and have lounges.

They spend their time playing music and drinking wine, much like some of the modern day rock stars!

They don’t do anything to help their fellow Israelites but instead exploit them to make more money! They don’t grieve over the ruin of Joseph, that is the Northern Kingdom of Israel, because they’re causing it’s ruin for their own benefit.

They’re not upset at the unfairness and injustice because the people’s loss is their gain! I picture these elite upper class rulers a bit like the French Monarchy before the revolution. When the everyday people were starving in famine and said they have no bread to eat:

Marie Antoinette reportedly said: If they have no bread, let them eat cake!

Showing her complete lack of empathy and understanding! If they can’t afford basics like bread, how can they afford luxury items like cake!

Amos condemns their materialism, selfishness and wealth.

6:8-11 Folly

The next outworking of Israel’s pride is their Folly. Their foolishness! Look at verse 8-11

God hates their pride and he swears by his own character he will deliver Samaria, the city unchanging divine nature God has, so what he swears is guaranteed.

Amos anticipates a question “ok so I mean how much destruction are we talking? Will anyone survive?”

What if some survive this destruction of the city? That can happen. I’ve seen pictures of war torn places with partly destroyed buildings and people still live in there

The answer is even if there are survivors maybe 10 men left in a house, they will be killed too. Then when a relative comes to burn the bodies acting as a kind of undertaker he will not find any survivors. The devastation will be so bad that it will be as if God has forsaken them completely. That’s why the undertaker will say Hush we must not mention the name of the Lord. It should really be we cannot, we are unable to mention the name of the Lord. Why? Because it appears from all the death and destruction in Samaria that God has abandoned Israel. No point crying out to him, he’s not here! There will be no invocation of the name of the Lord

Not that he does actually abandon people, remember that there’s still a remnant that survives and goes into exile but the destruction will be so great that it’ll be total.

The devastation is clear in verse 11 he will smash the big house and the small house! It’s a kind of play on words because it means both physical house, the building in which people live but also means household, a family. Not only will the city of Samaria be destroyed but so too will families big and small.

This seems very harsh, it seems truly unfair that God would do this but if you look back at Israel’s history, they’ve brought this on themselves. They made a covenant, a solemn promise with God to worship only him and obey him and God promised in Deuteronomy 28 the blessings of obedience and the curses that come with disobedience. God says although he’ll always love them there are consequences of their actions. Things will go well for them and life will be good in the promised land if they obey but if they disobey God they won’t stay in the land.

God promises they’ll come to sudden ruin if they do not obey in Deuteronomy 28:20 they’ll be defeated by their enemies in Deuteronomy 28:25, and ultimately they and their king will be sent to exile in verse 36.

In verse 49 God says he will bring a nation from far away to destroy Israel if they don’t obey him.

And the same kind of thing comes in Deuteronomy 31 where their betrayal and destruction are foretold.

It’s not as if God is some capricious nasty awful God who takes pleasure in punishing people. They literally asked for it, they disobeyed God and they are suffering the consequences of their actions.

If I ask my daughter not to do something and tell her what the consequences will be if she disobeys I set before her a choice, obey and life will go well for you or disobey and suffer the consequences. Then she disobeys and I have to follow through on giving her the consequences…

Does that make me a bad father? No, that makes me a good father!

So too God is disciplining his people, he wants them to obey him and recognise how great he is and so if he has to show them his mighty power by giving them a consequences he will do it.

How foolish of Israel to think they’ll be fine! Such incredible folly to ignore everything God has promised.

It’s truly absurd.

6:12-14 Absurdity

How absurd you ask? It’s dangerous as a horse running on rocky crags in verse 14. Horses won’t risk their lives running on steep rocky cliffs, its suicide, the horse will surely break its leg and a disaster is bound to happen. Yet this is what Israel is doing!

The reason why Banjo Patterson’s The Man From Snowy River is such a good poem is because of this kind of dramatic tension. The man from up by Kosciuszko’s side, rides hard and fast down a steep rugged hill filled with rocks and wombat holes. We’re meant to have our hearts in our mouths as we read on to see if he’ll survive an otherwise suicidal ride.

In the real world, such behaviour is insane! Yet that’s Israel, like a horse running full gallop over a steep rocky hillside and it’s only a matter of time they’ll surely die. You’d have to be nuts to do that.

You know what else you’d have to be nuts to try? Ploughing a rocky cliff! That does NOT happen and anyone who has been to Katoomba can testify horses DO NOT run up and down the cliffs and no one can farm them either. It’s a near vertical rock face Amos has in mind here and again the answer is in the negative.

Do horses run there? NO, that’d be absurd!

Do people plough there with oxen? NO, again that’d be absurd!

Yet Israel have done something even more absurd, they’ve ignored God, they’ve metaphorically hitched up their ploughs and are headed for Katoomba.

Why? Because they’ve perverted the course of justice, they’ve made justice a poison and righteousness bitterness, it’s unpalatable. It’s as if by their evil deeds they’ve turned what is normally a sweet and juicy fruit and turned it sour and horrible to the taste.

The absurdity doesn’t stop there thought because they also boast of their military victories in verse 13

They’ve conquered Lo Debar which is on the other side of the Jordan river and thus extended their territory. Except there’s a joke here with the name, it means NOTHING.

So they’re boasting about their great victory and saying look at us we have conquered NOTHING!

They also claim their strength has led to a victory over Karnaim, literally two horns. Its’ like they conquered a great beast and all they got from it were two horns, not much of value.

The fall:

About 700 years after the events of Amos Jesus foretells a similar event will happen to Jerusalem. They too will be destroyed because they haven’t recognised God has come to visit them. He’s talking about himself, because Jerusalem rejected Jesus and therefore God who sent him, they’re destined for destruction too.

Here’s the scariest thing though, Jesus says the same is true for everyone who rejects him. There will be a day when Jesus comes to visit again and when he does those who do not recognise him as their Lord and God, will also be destroyed. Friends, hell is real and Jesus has promised to come again to judge. Don’t be like Israel in the time of Amos, or Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

Repent and turn back to God. Whether you’ve known him for a long time or never come to faith in Jesus at all the solution to the problem of ignoring God and living however you like is the same. It’s Jesus death and resurrection. Because he died in our place and took our sins we have nothing to fear when we come to God in faith. Because he rose again we have a sure hope a guarantee of living forever with him and NOT facing the consequences as Israel and Jerusalem both did.

If you’d like to know more or want to pray about this with me or another person don’t rush off to morning tea, stay and commit your life to following Jesus. We have these examples in the Bible to show us what destiny awaits people who ignore God. Don’t let that be your destiny too.

Let’s pray

The day of the Lord

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

He’s making a list,
He’s checking it twice,
He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you’re sleeping
And he knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

Here’s Santa Claus now! Come to give us all presents! How exciting!

We think Christmas sing this song and we think it’s a happy song, after all Santa Claus is coming to town! That’s a good thing right, the happy jolly man in a red suit who brings presents to all the good children.

BUT What if you haven’t been good for goodness sake, what if you’ve been bad?

Good children get presents but what do bad children get?

A lump of coal!

Would you look forward to Christmas if all you would get was a lump of coal…

So if you think Christmas is an exciting day, but you’ve been bad, you have to reconsider. Christmas won’t be a good day and it won’t be a kind of day you should look forward to.

It was the same thing with God’s people in the book of Amos, they were looking forward to the day God would come to visit them. They called it the “day of the Lord” and they were very excited because they thought it’d be a great day! A bit like Christmas is a great day for us they thought the day of the Lord was going to be great too

BUT just like Christmas, it’s only going to be something to look forward to if you’ve been GOOD and God’s people have been very, very bad.

Amos 5:18 says WOE to you who long for the day of the Lord. That DAY WILL BE DARKNESS, NOT LIGHT.

It’ll be the exact opposite of what they expect, instead of it being a very good day it will be a very bad day.

It’ll be a very dark day indeed!

It’ll be so bad that there’s no escaping the consequences. Like Santa Claus knows when you’re asleep and knows when you’re awake and knows if you’ve been bad or good, God knows EVERYTHING so if you think you can run and hide from him or you can trick him somehow it’s not going to happen.

Trying to avoid God is so dumb it’s almost funny! As if a man ran away from a lion only to meet a bear, he escapes that and gets inside only to be bitten by a snake!

It’ll be such a bad day that it’ll be a bit like Wyle E Coyote chasing the road runner, as he chases the bird he has lots of trouble. Dodging holes, explosions, falling anvils and he thinks he’s finally safe but instead he stands still and looks down only to realise he’s run off the edge of a cliff!

Doesn’t matter what he does he can’t escape his fate!

No wonder it’s a dark day for people who are bad!

The reason God’s so angry is because their disobedience, God gave them instructions on how to worship him and how to treat other people.

We might call it religion a way to live that pleases God

But Israel were NOT pleasing God at all. Their religion was BAD Religion.

They might have done some things they THOUGHT God wanted like offering sacrifices but they hadn’t done everything God wanted and so God is very upset.

Imagine you had been playing with lego and there were blocks everywhere, then your parents asked you to clean up all your Lego and you maybe picked up 2 things, you did a BIT of what they said but you didn’t do it all, it was a poor effort!

That’s Israel, they’ve done only a little tiny bit of what God wanted but all that did is make him angry because if you can do SOME of what God wants why can’t you do all of it?!

So in verse 21 God says he HATES israel’s religious feasts, their assemblies! Imagine if God said that to you, go away stop worshipping me, just stop it. Leave me alone! If you won’t do as I say don’t pretend to love me.

In fact God says no matter what they offer him, he won’t accept it. All their sacrifices and prayers and presents won’t get them anywhere because you can’t just suck up to God and offer him just a little tiny bit of what he wants.

In verse 23 God says he won’t even listen to their music. It’s not that they can’t sing well or that God like their type of music. The problem is with the people not the music itself, God won’t hear their songs because he knows they’re not serious they PRETEND to worship him…

I would HATE for God to look down at our Church and say the same thing. I would be utterly devastated and truly ashamed if what we do here today upsets God because of the way we live the other 6 days a week. While we might go to church and think when we sing and pray that God is listening, imagine if we’d been so badly behaved throughout the year that God sticks his fingers in his ears to drown out our noise! That’s what he did with Israel in the book of Amos!

He doesn’t want us to just sing and pray when we’re together he wants us to obey him, love him and love others EVERYDAY 24/7, 365.

What God wants is to let Justice Roll like a river righteousness like a never-failing stream! Grown ups might remember that’s what Martin Luther King Junior quoted when he sought equal rights for black Americans. We too must be treating other with justice, fairness, being kind and that’s got to be like the Murrumbidgee river, always there always flowing sending water out west. It doesn’t stop so in the same way our good deeds must not end, our love for God and love for others must not stop.

God reminds them that he saved their ancestors from slavery in Egypt and while they were in the wilderness, there’s a question about how they worshipped God.

Our English Bible isn’t clear what Amos is suggesting because it looks like these ancestors did not offer sacrifices in the wilderness at the time of the Exodus. But they probably did, so the issue was again their bad religion they thought they had a close relationship to God but actually they were very far off. The next verse, 26 tells us if they did offer sacrifices to God they did that while also carrying around idols to their sky gods. So obviously they’re not serious, they think they’re close to God but they’re far off because they also worshipping other Gods!

God’s upset because they’re not genuinely committed to him. While he doesn’t need them to give him a sheep or cow as a sacrifice it was a sign of devotion to him, how can you be devote to him if you’re also worshipping other gods?

In a way the people of Amos day were similar to these people in Exodus. On the day of the Lord things will go very badly for them since they too are just as far off from God. God wanted them to come near to him but they too offered sacrifices one day then on the next worshipped other god.

This is why God sends them far away, if they want to act like God is far off then he will force them out of his land and then they will be. It’s like when I was a boy my Dad used to say if you keep crying I’ll give you something to cry about! They’ll go out far away to Damascus the far off capital city of Israel’s enemy, a place even bigger and badder than Melbourne!

That’s what will happen when God comes to visit them. They won’t like it but this is what they deserve for playing games with God. The Day of the Lord will truly be bad for them.

What about us? We know that the New Testament especially the Apostle Paul use the same phrase The Day of the Lord to speak of when Jesus comes back. It’s the day when God comes to visit us in person.

Will that day be good or bad? Well like Santa Claus, it won’t go well for people who have been naughty. But here’s the worst part, We’ve all been bad! Really we all have to some extent and that’s why Jesus came the first time to die for our sins and rise again to give us new life. This means when Jesus comes back on the Day of the Lord it’ll be better than Christmas for us who trust in him.

In 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us that when Jesus comes back though, for some it’ll be a very bad day. You think getting a lump of coal on Christmas is bad, try ignoring God and seeing how good it is when God shows up. I know if you ignore your parents when they’ve told you to do something it isn’t good and it’ll be even worse with God.

But for those of us who love Jesus as 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 says For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live together with him.

That’s the Christian hope! We get to live forever with God when Jesus comes back on the Day of the Lord.

It doesn’t have to be a bad day, it could be the best day ever! So put your trust in Jesus, ask him to forgive you of your sins and you can look forward to that day.

Let’s pray

It’s your funeral

Intro:

PICTURE THIS CONVERSATION:

Hey you reckon you can jump my motorbike over that cliff and land it on that other hill over there?

Nah, looks dodgy to me, it’s too far.

Well it looks ok to me, how bad can it be?

Yeah well it’s your funeral!

OR THIS:

You think I can pick up that brown snake by the tail and not get bitten?

Nope, you’re asking for trouble these things are dangerous.

Well I think I can do it, what could possibly go wrong?

Yeah well it’s your funeral!

OR THIS:
You think it’ll be ok if I completely disobey God and exploit people for profit, lie, take bribes and pervert the course of justice?

Hmmm doesn’t sound real smart to me.

Nah, she’ll be right mate!

Yeah well it’s your funeral…

Israel’s funeral

5:1-5

You see in all of these situations you have to choose, one choice is wise, the other is very foolish. These foolish choices will lead to death. Yet Israel have repeatedly chosen the foolish option and it’s only a matter of time before their death.

Well sure go ahead but it’ll be Israel’s funeral if they don’t reconsider. They’ve been so disobedient and so foolish as we’ve seen throughout Amos 1-4 their actions can only end badly for them. God say’s you want to do that, go head but it’s your funeral.

God imagines a future day when he’s at Israel’s funeral. This short section is God’s lament, a kind of public outpouring of grief at the death of a young woman. Fallen is Virgin Israel never to rise again.

verse 1-2 Israel is portrayed as a young woman who has died. A beautiful young woman in the prime of her life that has been killed, cut down in the prime of her life. All the potential she had is gone, all the hopes and dreams are shattered. I’m sure the tragedy of this isn’t lost on the people of Leeton with the murder of Stephanie Scott. A terrible tragic and horrific event that affected the whole town.

As tragic as one death is, the death of a whole nation is even worse. The whole nation is the young woman who died. The whole nation of Israel is forsaken, left to die and there is no one to help her Israel will die and never be raised back up.

In verse 3 here’s how it will happen: Most of the soldiers will be killed in battle. Only 10% of their army will survive. In some battles, the very reverse could cause for a devastating rout if 10% of soldiers were killed but here only 1 in 10 will live so 90% of the army will be killed. I mean that’s a devastating loss…

No wonder Israel is said to be like a young woman who died, the army is almost totally wiped out. And if the army is all dead, the civilians are not going to stand a chance either.

It’s a dire situation Israel are in, God predicts the day when they’ll all be killed and he laments that, he’s sad about it, they did bring it on themselves by their foolishness but it is still sad.

But God says it doesn’t have to be that way: Israel doesn’t have to be killed, the situation doesn’t have to end in Israel’s funeral…. Despite their foolishness they can still be saved.

In verse 4 God says “SEEK ME AND LIVE”

Don’t run from God, run TO him! Israel must seek him and live, they can avoid the terrible situation, it doesn’t have to end in their funeral.

Like a parent talking to their kids, get off that motorbike and come home, walk away from that brown snake and stop trying to grab it by the tail… Come back to me and you’ll be fine.

There’s a clear contrast between what God wants them to do and what they’ve been doing. In Amos 4 verse 4 God sarcastically says go to Bethel and sin, Go to Gilgal and sin yet more! It’s obvious in context that God doesn’t want them to do that, he wants them to come back to HIM. Gilgal and Bethel were towns in northern Israel where the people developed some cult like traditions, they’ go to pay homage to past generations and remember God’s dealings with Israel throughout history, they’d return there over and over but they DIDN‘T RETURN TO GOD! They’d do everything else and remember everything else but not actually come to God himself.

It’s the same thing here in 5 verse 5, they’re opposite at first glance but are really trying to do the same thing! Israel must NOT pledge their allegiance to anyone or anything except God. They need to come back to him instead of simply paying lip service to God and going off to other towns to sin. That’s what they’d do, they’d offer sacrifices wherever and whenever rather than obeying God.

God reiterates it isn’t about allegiance to God on a part time basis. It’s about total devotion to him, seek after him whole heartedly. Seek God or else he’ll sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire and it will devour and Bethel will have no one to quench it. God’s is powerful, and dangerous, he’s like a fire and if you don’t give fire the proper respect it’ll burn down your house! House fires are no joke yet here God says Israel are treating him like they’re playing with fire.

Here’s why God’s so mad at Israel look at verse 7-13 to see Israel’s failure

Israel’s failure

The reason God’s so angry with his people Israel and he foretells a day when they’ll perish is because of the following sins.

They turn justice into bitterness, they cast righteousness to the ground! God’s saying HOW DARE YOU TREAT PEOPLE SO POORLY, HOW DARE YOU DISOBEY ME!

DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!

God’s the one who made the constellations of stars like Pleiades and Orion. He’s the one who can turn night to day, he’s the one who made the sea! He’s the one who can destroy fortified cities!…

It’s as if God says, you want to disobey me?! You want to pervert the course of justice in the courts? You despise those who tell the truth, really? Well Ok, But it’s your funeral. These things that Israel do aren’t just nasty, they are, but the real issue is that it is disobeying God’s law. When God brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery, he gave them the promised land where they could live as his people but they failed to do as he said. They failed to obey his law and instead did the very opposite in many ways, and by doing that they sinned.

Israel have a real problem with sin.

Look at verse 11-12 They trample on the poor, they exploited them for their grain and then used the money to build themselves big fancy houses. Like reverse Robin Hoods, they stole from the poor and gave to the rich!

It’s no secret to God… He knows how great their sins are how evil they’ve been. They oppress the righteous, they take bribes and so God once again reminds them to seek GOOD, not evil. So you may live!

See at no point is God a vindictive awful nasty God, he continually says there’s still hope, it doesn’t have to end with your funeral. Israel doesn’t have to be destroyed, all they have to do is obey him. Return to living his way, return to worshipping him and they’ll be ok.

As Amos says in verse 14 Then God will TRULY be with them, they think he is because they’re in the promised land, because they’re descended from Abraham and they have God’s laws. But that’s nothing, what God wants is obedience to his law, not simply possessing it, it matters that they DO it.

Yet they’ve failed to obey. They’ve failed to worship God, they’ve failed to live as God commanded

But there’s still hope even for Israel.

In verse 15 Perhaps the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. Picking up on the earlier theme from verse 3 God’s judgement will come, there will only be 1 in every 10 people in Israel will survive. God’s judgement is sure but so is his mercy, Amos foreshadows a time in Israel’s future, when God will have mercy on his people and save them.

But for now Amos is concerned with the more immediate future, while there will be a remnant and there will be some hope, in the meantime there is judgement from God. It’s as if it’s too late now, if you’ve jumped your motorbike off the cliff, it’s too late, if you’ve already picked up the snake and been bitten, it’s too late to change course. You have to face the music so to speak…

As God comes to visit there are cries of wailing in the streets and in every public square in verse 16 and 17 even in the farms and vineyards. God’s destruction of the people is total… cities and farms alike suffer the consequences of sin.

Israel’s future (John 5:16-30)

In the end, Israel’s funeral did come just as God said it would and just as Amos recorded here. There were many deaths and the army was destroyed fighting the super power of the day, Assyria. But remember that 10% left, they survived. Israel as a nation was destroyed but some of the people lived on eventually to rebuild some kind of a society. A society where the people would seek God and look forward to the day when God would be with them once again.

Some 400 years after the people returned to their land to rebuild God did indeed come to be with them again.

Enter Jesus.

in our reading from John 5 he gets in trouble with the religious figures in his day for healing a man who could not walk and forgiving his sins, thus claiming to do what only God could do. See verses 16-18. But if he’s really God in human form, there are real questions about what he’ll do, no doubt there were still injustices and people still sinned but instead of coming to judge God’s people for their sins, Jesus has come to save them!

Jesus challenges his critics by explaining to them that he isn’t just claiming to do God’s work simply because he’s chosen to do it by his own volition, he is actually what God the Father is sending him to do. Jesus’ mission is to do God’s work on earth and most importantly he says in verse 21 he says just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it and in verse 24-25 Jesus says whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

You see Jesus is the solution to Israel’s problem. In Amos, they rejected God, they failed to obey him and his law and so were facing their funeral. Yet again in Jesus day the same thing was happening because people rejected Jesus, rather than acknowledging he is God come to save them.

In verse 30 Jesus says he’ll raise people from death to life and when that happens those who have done good rise to new life and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. You might think on balance you’ve been pretty good so if you’re mostly nice and honest and hard working so you’ll be raised up to eternal life.

Except no-one is good enough to be raised to new life under their own steam. In fact all of us deserve to be raised to be condemned. It should BE OUR FUNERAL TOO! We deserve God’s condemnation just as Amos says of Israel.

Although we may not think we’re really as bad as the people of Amos or even in John, remember elsewhere the Bible tells us we’re all sinners. We need to know we’re all as bad as them and all deserve destruction and a funeral like Israel. Yet Israel’s future and our future are totally linked.

Jesus says God has given ONLY him the authority to give new life and Jesus has the authority to judge so the good news is that we don’t get what we deserve. Israel’s future life comes from Jesus, and so it is with us. By his death and resurrection we have our sins forgiven and the guarantee of a new life now and eternal life later.

We’re absolutely certain because not only is Jesus the one who gives us new life and he’s the one who will judge. The one who sits in judgement on us at the resurrection is the same one who has already cleared our record.

This is why Israel’s future is our future, when we come to Jesus we too don’t have to face a dismal future of judgement and a funeral we rather face a bright future of eternal life.

No returns?

Sometimes you see shops have a no returns policy, you can’t bring back anything you bought and get a refund. This is pretty uncommon now with improved consumer laws ensuring quality of merchandise and guaranteeing exchange or refunds if there are faults with your purchase.

Instead of there being a NO returns policy, shops nowadays almost all have a returns guaranteed policy. If ever there’s a problem you’re free to bring your item back to the shop and they’ll make it right with repair, refund or exchange.

So it’d be crazy not to take advantage of this if you could.

If you could always come back to the shop and fix the problem why wouldn’t you want to! You’d be mad if you said, well yes I know there are problems and I know the shop will always be ready to help but I’m not going to do anything about it.

It’s a pretty silly thing to ignore this opportunity to make things right with products you buy in a shop but does God have a no returns policy? Will he take you back if you’ve gone off and been damaged? Will he take you back no questions asked or will he say no?

This is the problem Israel have with God in Amos, their relationship with him is broken, they are broken, there are major defects but what will they do? They keep ignoring this problem time after time, they continue to blindly continue in sin and imagine that there really is no problem.

God keeps trying to get them to return to him, to restore that relationship and this is Amos message. There isn’t a no returns policy with God, his door is always open for you to come back to him.

Why? Why won’t God just leave them be, let them go and do what ever they want? Why is he so needy that he keeps trying to have a relationship with people who don’t want one with him?

Because Israel are his children! Wouldn’t you want your kids to have a relationship with you? Why would you wants kids to be estranged from you?  Wouldn’t you want them to come back at any time? If they’ve run away from home don’t you want them to come back? Even if they’re fit and well and everything is ok you’d still want to have that relationship but how much more would you want that if they were in danger?

When they’re in danger you’d want nothing more than for them to come back home, come back to your loving arms!

This is the situation with Israel in Amos, they’d left to go about living however they want and they’re in real danger. Amos is still addressing the people of Samaria, the capital city of Israel the northern kingdom of God’s people and interestingly here he’s criticising even the women!

From chapter 1 it seemed like most of the problems God had with Israel and surrounding nations were military kinds of things. Taking slaves and selling them, murdering pregnant women and so on but here in chapter 4 God turns his attention to the women of Israel. The COWS of Bashan! The real cows aren’t the animals out on the plains, they were the women! Decadent, spoilt and given everything they want on a silver platter so to speak. These women were just like the cows and God’s hardly pleased by their behaviour.

Amos 1:1 Jeroboam Son of Jehoash, Jehoash was the previous king who had won 3 battles against the Assyrians and taken some of their territory in Bashan, it became part of Israel’s territory and they’d be very familiar with the imagery Amos uses. Bashan was a large grassy plain which was perfect for grazing cattle. The cows were well fed, fat, they were well prized for being the best cattle around because basically they were spoilt rotten! Plenty of food and water, life was easy breezy for the cattle no struggling to survive here it’s like everything they need was given to them on a silver platter almost! Living in the lap of luxury!

They get everything they need and everything they want and here’s the problem, it’s at the expense of the poor and needy, they oppress or literally financially exploit the poor and needy. They’re reverse Robin Hoods they take from the poor and make themselves rich! They mistreat or crush the needy! They’re not using their wealth for some grand nation building plan either, they’re not taking money from others to fund some kind of philanthropy but instead they’re spending it all on the good life! Making sure they have plenty of WINE!

The women are probably a bit like Eddie and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous. They’ve got plenty of money and spend their days boozing and lounging around in the latest fashion. These women in Samaria likewise spend their days drinking and ruling the roost at home bossing their husbands around telling them to bring them a drink!

The play on words is hilarious, the word for husbands is Lords. So their relationships to God plays out in their marriages. They don’t serve their LORDS as in husbands, their LORDs are really there to serve them.

And that’s how they treat God, he exists only to serve them, he’s their personal waiter or butler… He’s not telling them what to do, they’re telling him what they want HIM to do.

These women, these cows, are in God’s crosshairs as he says in verse 2. He swears by his holiness that he’ll send them out into exile. He swears by his unchanging character his holiness, his divine nature that this is going to happen. Safe to say this is a guarantee this is going to happen!

There’s a fantastic play on words here, they’ll be taken away with hooks much like we lead cattle we attach a ring in their nose and use a clip or hook to lead them around. Possibly the imagery like a show cane or cattle prod with a hook on one end. And like a fish is hooked in its mouth being reeled in these women who treat others like animals will themselves be hooked and taken away like animals.

Verse 3 says they’ll be sent straight out through holes in the wall, their city will be destroyed, the unassailable impenetrable city of Samaria will be destroyed and the inhabitants will be sent out, cast out.

The reason for God’s decision to send them into exile comes in the ironic and sarcastic encouragement to sinful worship. In a way it’s the correction these cows need so they’ll come back to him. Like cows that wont do what they’re told but keep going the wrong way when God tries to lead them he takes action to correct them he wants them to come back to him.

He begins with the instructions on worshipping him:

Go to Bethel and sin, go to Gilgal and sin yet more! Obviously this isn’t serious, God’s not ACTUALLY encouraging them to do this, he’s reflecting back to them what they’re already doing. It’s sarcastic, it’s like instead of coming back to me like you should, instead of returning to God, they’re going through the motions they’re pretending to but not taking it seriously, there’s no real love or devotion to God.

They’re going to the right places and doing the right things but God’s interested in their relationship. He wants them to obey him not selectively choose some aspects of the law to follow begrudgingly.

Bring sacrifices every morning – that sounds good but isn’t because God instructs them to offer sacrifices once a year but their over emphasis on sacrifices means they think to please God they should offer many more! If God likes ONE sacrifice a year he’d love 365 a year!

The tithes likewise were usually paid every three years but literally it should read they’re offering them every 3 days! An over abundance of gifts rather than obedience and repentance.

God’s saying let’s just see how well that’ll work out for you, just keep doing what you’ve been doing… Don’t bother trying to change your ways, don’t bother obeying me just keep doing that same old thing and let’s see how things will go.

They need correction because they’ve gone astray. God says this is the reason they need correction, it’s because this has been their approach to God so far, they just keep ignoring what God says about treating their fellow humans with dignity and respect. They chose to make up for what God wants by giving him hundreds of other things. It’s like they’re naughty kids who have been asked to clean their room and have agreed to do so but they’ll then do anything they can to avoid doing that. They’ll do the dishes for a year, they’ll mow the lawn and wash the car but what they should be doing is cleaning their room.

So God keeps trying to discipline them and correct them since they refuse to obey him. They exploit others for their own benefit, who live in luxury and THINK they’re pleasing God but are actually rebelling against him and continually disobeying him and the relationship has become soured.

So let’s see what kind of correction God has used to try to get them to come back to him it’s like God is the parent who is desperately trying to get the child to listen and obey.

If it was me I’d be saying I don’t know what I have to do to get you to obey me?! I love you and you ignore me, I discipline you with time out, smacking, taking away toys, grounded you etc… Still NOTHING will make you come back to me. Doesn’t matter what I do.

Look at verses 6-9 God says, I gave you empty stomachs, I gave you drought, thirst, blight and mildrew on crops! And you didn’t get it, you did not return to me! God sends plagues to them as he did on the Egyptians, you’d think this is the ultimate judgement, God’s people being treated as God’s enemies trying to get them to obey him. Like Pharaoh was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to God, the people of Israel are just like that…

In verse 10 God killed many of them in battle, the camps stank with the smell of dead bodies yet they did not return to God.

In verse 11 God says I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah! Again likening his people to one of the worst most memorable examples of evil. Yet even with the destruction of their cities they do not return to God.

Then comes the most chilling verse here in verse 12 Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel and because I will do this to you: PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD!

This isn’t a happy thing YAY God’s coming to visit hooray. No this is meant to strike fear and dread because you haven’t come to God, God is coming to you!

I remember at Bible College, if you have a problem and come to the Principal Ian and you ask him for help or you admit you’re struggling or that you haven’t studied.

That’s ok. He’ll welcome you with open arms… So if you want to see Ian in his office, that’s good, but if you ignore the fact you haven’t studied and fail an exam… that’s bad enough but because you didn’t go to see Ian in his office before, now Ian wants to see you in his office NOW…

It’s all about who takes the initiative and when!

Verse 13 is the great reminder of who God is… He’s the big man, the one in charge and if he’s angry with you you’re in real trouble. He’s the one who made the heavens and the earth, you think you’re going to win this battle of wills? You think he doesn’t know you’re mistreating others? You think he can’t do anything? Watch this, he’s coming to not just tread on the high places but to STOMP on them.

It could be he’s so big he can tread on mountains like stepping stones, but even more significant is that in that day and age in Samaria the shrines and temples to false gods… He’s not just a big God but he’s the God you’ve been ignoring and feigning religiosity but still disobeying.

But it didn’t have to be this way, it didn’t have to get to this point where God intervenes. They could’ve listened, they could’ve returned to God anytime before now. He doesn’t have a no returns policy but because the people continue to reject him he comes in judgement.

You know friends, even today God still doesn’t have a no returns policy. Maybe you’ve drifted away from God over 2020 now is the time to return to him. Confess your sins, repent and recommit to following Jesus.

Jesus’ death and resurrection mean that anytime you want to, you can come to God, just come as you are. Confess that you’ve been ignoring him, recommit to following him and obeying him. Jesus himself promises that anyone who genuinely seeks God will find him.

In Matthew 7 we read about asking, seeking and knocking, it’s like someone coming to God’s house, coming home to be with their estranged parent. When they do that, God reciprocates, he opens the door and welcomes you in.

James 4:8 says the same thing. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Remember though, the longer you ignore God, the longer you keep away and the longer it takes you to return to him, the more his anger grows and there will come a day when he will come in person to judge. At Jesus return, the day God visits us, it won’t be a good day for those who haven’t returned to him.

But for all who have returned who have come to Jesus in faith and live that faith genuinely loving God and loving their neighbours then it’s going to be glorious. Now is the time to return to God, don’t wait or it’ll be too late.

The lion ROARS!

25 years ago this month the Smashing Pumpkins released their double album master work Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness. Billy Corgan’s distinctive whiny voice is iconic in the world of alternative rock and in one of their songs from that album Bullet with Butterfly Wings Billy complains that life is unfair, that the world is a vampire sent to drain, he never gets what he deserves. Life just keept taking from him, but he’s powerless to stop it….

so he sings despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.

It doesn’t matter how furious he might be at the way things are, there’s nothing he can do about it, he’s still trapped in a cage. Is that what God’s like, mad about the state of the world but unable to do anything about it? Is he somehow constrained and powerless at the injustices and wrongs in the world?

Despite all his rage, is God still just a rat in a cage?

No! In fact here Amos introduces us to a God who is not only deeply saddened and angered by the world but is also powerful and able to do something about it. God is Roaring and not a rodent!

Amos 1:1 tells us writes this 2 years before the earthquake in Israel and we get the names of the kings for both kingdoms with Uzziah of Judah and Jereboam son of Jehoash in Israel. We can date Amos’ prophecy to 762 BC and this means the once great kingdom of David and Solomon has been divided into two minor kingdoms for about 170 years. Over that time things have gone from bad to worse, sure there have been some successful kings in both kingdoms but the overall trajectory is DOWN. Financially, militarily and most importantly ethically and religiously the people have not loved God as they should and so have not behaved as they should. Yet in Amos 1 Amos prophesies against their neighbours who have caused so much of their downfall.

That’s the crux of Amos 1, God sees the terrible way other nations have treated his people so he is going to act to punish them for their sins. But he also speaks of Mt. Carmel early on in verse 2. It’s always RAINY on MT. Carmel. The mountain catches the clouds and causes the rain to fall year round, always wet BUT NOW it’s going to dry up!

Back where I grew up near Murwillumbah the highest mountain in the range we call Mt. Warning but the indigenous Bundjalung people call it Wollumbin meaning the Cloud Catcher. Its summit is very often shrouded in cloud and Mt. Carmel is similar but now at God’s command it will wither and dry? That’s real power!

This frames the whole rest of the book, God is a mighty and powerful LION! Amos says God is a mighty, powerful and dangerous thing. He ROARS from his temple on Mt. Zion, his voice thunders from Jerusalem. The verse is a kind of Hebrew parallel where the second line reinforces what the first line says but makes it stronger. God’s voice is like a LION’s roar which is LOUD and frightening but it’s actually even louder, stronger, more powerful like a thunder clap. This is what God’s voice is like and the effect he has as he speaks his judgements on the nations. And at the start of each oracle, he starts with this is what THE LORD Says. Notice LORD in capital letters? It’s God’s special name, the one he gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. I AM, THE GOD WHO IS! He is the one true God who is mighty and powerful and will exact vengeance on these nations.

So we begin with Damascus in verse 3 and the familiar pattern of God pronouncing judgement for the sins of the nations, for three, even more than that for four sins. God doesn’t mean literally three or four, since he only mentions one ‘sin’ for Damascus and various number of sins for other nations so it’s metaphorical to show that the full amount of sin and wrath allocated for each nation has been reached and even exceeded. That’s why God will not turn back his wrath because their sin is so great their time of reckoning has come.

Damascus gets singled out for God’s wrath because they threshed Gilead, a region of Israel, with sledges with iron teeth. Huh, they did what now?

Think of it this way, in those days they didn’t have headers to harvest grain, instead they’d gather all the grain by hand and lay it out in windrows then attach a heavy wooden sledge that had protrusions like teeth that would rip the grain off the stalks.

Amos says God will punish Damascus, the capital city of Syria, part of the Assyrian empire because they’ve threshed Gilead, a region of Israel with sledges with iron teeth. It’s metaphorical but imagine the same force and violence ripping people from places like grain is ripped from the plants. Damascus fought a series of battles with Israel for control of Gilead and in the process, the wars displaced many people and caused a lot of hardship and suffering for God’s people.

Thus in verses 4-5 God will punish Damascus and destroy their King Hazael. Not only that but the people of Aram will themselves go into exile. God’s certainly not some weak and pathetic God but one who ROARS in anger at the mistreatment of his people.

But Damascus is not alone, Amos moves onto Gaza, and like Damascus we’re familiar with the location since it’s still there today. Gaza city is part of Palestine today but back then it was called Philistine! Likewise Ashdod, Ashklelon and Ekron are part of the Philistine territory and they’ve incurred God’s wrath because they’ve kidnapped and sold whole communities to Edom. God’s not keen on a nation abducting and enslaving his people.

God will also burn down Tyre, a city in what we today call Lebanon. We met a Greek Syrian-Phonecian woman from there in Jesus time in Mark’s gospel a few weeks ago. Tyre will also face God’s wrath for slave trading much like the Philistines.

Verses 11-12 concern God’s wrath against Edom. You might remember Edom is the people whose ancestor is Esau. You know Esau and Jacob, Esau was the oldest son of Isaac but Jacob stole his inheritance by tricking the old man. There were tense times for a while but the two brothers eventually reconciled in Genesis 33 but their ancestors founded the two nations of Israel and Edom who also had a love hate relationship and here in Amos while we don’t know exactly what specifically led to the condemnation here but we know that rather than brotherly love Edom pursued their distant relatives, Amos says brothers, with the sword. Our English translation here says they lack compassion or stifled compassion but it’s a kind of double entendre, the word for compassion is very similar to the word for womb, so Edom are most likely not just killing the men but also the women, an especially heinous kind of war crime even today. The idea is that their wrath was left unchecked, or they never kept watch on their anger leading to even killing the pregnant women. That’s why, their fortresses will burn! Seems fair enough in the context.

That also fits well with the next group about to face God’s wrath, Ammon. The city we today call Amman, the capital city of Jordan is another place we can find even today that Amos talks about. What have they done to deserve God’s wrath?
They ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, in verse 13.

Remember Gilead we heard about before in verse 3? It’s on the eastern side of the Jordan River, and it’d been attacked by Damascus and now by Ammon. Again we don’t have a specific battle in mind but this kind of thing happened often in the area and God is not happy about it so God’s wrath is going to be revealed to them!

The final oracle from our passage today Amos 2:1-3 concerns Moab, in today’s southern region of Jordan. Here’s where it gets really interesting too! They’ll cop God’s wrath because of what they did to Edom! This nation isn’t condemned because they opposed or attacked Israel, it was another pagan country in view. This means that God considers their crime itself to be the problem not just who the victim is. But doesn’t this seem like a minor offence, burning someone’s bones? What’s the big deal?

It does seem a minor thing compared to other offences like murdering pregnant women so what’s the problem here? What’s going on? What did they do to deserve God’s wrath?

One commentator seems to think the problem here is a gory celebration of violence. The phrase burning to ashes means they turned the bones to lime, a whitewash. There is archaeological and written historical evidence kings often whitewashed the walls of their throne-rooms and where did the lime come from for the white wash? Bones… in this case it seems the whitewash contained human bones from the king of Edom. So the problem, the reason for God’s wrath is the fact that the king of Moab may have literally painted his palace with the lime made from human bones. That’s gory and a glorification of violence, a kind of way of saying I’m so powerful my enemies become house paint.

But no matter the power of these kings and armies, God has a lot more and he’ll ensure all of them get what they deserve for their treatment of other human beings. God said repeatedly he’d burn down their cities, he’s going to act, he’s powerful to do it he’s not a rodent he’s a ROARING lion.

But is it all just bluff and bluster, is his bark worse than his bite? Did this ever happen?

Yes! By 40 years after Amos’ prophecy all these places mentioned was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 722 B.C. God raised them up to punish these nations for their sins they were all attacked and destroyed in a series of campaigns that eventually lead the Assyrians to grow and become a super power. God’s wrath is directed towards the enemy nations but uses other nations, such is his power he can raise up or destroy whoever he wants. He can have mercy or exact vengeance whenever and however he wants to.

He will not let sin go unpunished

It all sounds a bit harsh doesn’t it. A bit too much of an Old Testament God of vengeance when all we want to hear about it the New Testament God of mercy? But you see in Revelation 5 where we see Jesus is the same God. He is the same powerful ROARING LION, able to send God’s wrath on those who sin against God and other people.

It’s a real problem then if Jesus will pour out God’s wrath because we’d all be doomed, how can you escape God and his righteous anger? None of these mighty kingdoms ever could because their sin lead to their downfall. Even now we all sin too and cannot escape God’s wrath on our own.

You may not think sin deserves such a harsh response from God but it’s a bit like COVID-19, some people have a really bad case of it where the virus takes over almost their whole body, others only have a sore throat for a day or two. But regardless of the symptoms it’s the same disease and the same measures are taken to prevent the disease harming others.

Likewise sin manifests differently in different people, but we’ve all got it.

We may not have a bad case of it, after all we aren’t known for murdering pregnant women and painting our houses with the lime made from the bones of our enemies. Yet every one of us still needs to be accountable to God for our sin, we all must face the ROARING LION JESUS. If we are to get what we actually deserve from God, it’s will be his wrath as a roaring lion. Like Billy Corgan in his song, God is mad about the state of the world he sees the injustice and misery BUT unlike an angry rock star God can do something about it. He sends Jesus!

But Jesus is not just a lion, he’s also the lamb of God slain to cure us of our sin sickness, because of his death we’ll never face God’s wrath because Jesus suffered all that wrath in our place!  And because he was obedient to God in his death, Jesus is raised to new life and he is the one with all the power and all the might and all the authority.

He is the one who has saved people from every tribe tongue and language. Yet more than that he makes them priests, God’s servants. We deserve the wrath, the roaring lion yet when we come to Jesus we’re saved from his wrath and meet Jesus the lamb of God who dies in our place to save us from his wrath.

That’s why in Revelation 5:11 angels sing his praises, because Jesus has purchased us men for God, people like you and I can be part of that when we put our trust in Jesus. It’s the only way to prevent facing his wrath, is to become his friend and servant.

So let me ask you, do you want to face Jesus as the roaring lion or as the lamb?

The Saviour of all

The Saviour of all

If you join the soldier’s club as a member you get all kinds of privileges, you get to vote and even stand for election to the board, there are prizes and discounts for eating and drinking at the club BUT they’re only for members.

Non members don’t get any of that, the privileges don’t extend to them. It doesn’t matter how many perks there are if you’re not a member you don’t benefit from them.

Take for example Fly Buys or Woolworths Everyday Rewards. Again there are a great many benefits for members, the more you buy the more you fly… except it’s not really applicable to us in 2020 of course since we can’t fly anywhere… nonetheless I know there are many other options to spend points on.

You can get Christmas presents and homewares, whitegoods and food and drink. Yet you have to sign up and be a member and have your card ready at the checkout in order to benefit and gain these rewards. The other issue is that each membership is only good for certain privileges, you can’t use your Woolworths rewards card at a Coles or Kmart and you can’t use your FlyBuys at Woolworths and so on. If you’re a member of the LnD bowling Club you won’t benefit at all from it if you try to use it over at the Soldier’s Club.

It’s all a giant mess and leads you to having a wallet full of random cards and you get lost in the details of which card does what and how many points you have or what you have joined and whatever else.

But what if there was some way to benefit from one of these things no matter who you were and even if you were NOT a member of these clubs. What if you could benefit from them without ever being a member at all, no card, no signing up, no cards clogging up your wallet. That’d be great! And even better would be if you get these benefits for free and with no restrictions. To be a member of the Soldier’s Club or any other there are always rules about who could join like you have to be over 18 or whatever, but what if there were no restrictions and no conditions?

In a way that’s what Jesus does for us. He allows us to benefit from being part of what was originally a very exclusive club. We don’t need to be part of that club or join it or anything like that we simply receive all the benefits without ever deserving or earning them.

Let’s take a look at what I mean.

We start our story in the city of Tyre, a very well known and wealthy city in what we’d today call Lebanon. It’s not far from Northern Israel, from Nazareth to Tyre it’s only about 65km as the crow flies. But the difference in culture and religion is startling.

The ruins of Tyre, Lebanon

In Israel the people are Jews and worship the ONE God who saved them out of Egypt and gave them the promised land. In Tyre, it was a foreign culture which worshipped multiple gods and pagan practices even some evidence points to possible child sacrifice. They’d been very much influenced by Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome it was a real melting pot of cultures and gets a mention through the Old Testament as a powerful city-state who at times oppressed Israel.

Yet, Jesus goes to this city in verse 24! We should be asking ourselves why… Mark’s dropping a hint here that something strange is going on. But he’s leaving it ambiguous for now, well maybe Jesus goes there because there are Jews there, it’s not that far from Israel after all.

But maybe he’s trying to AVOID the people he’s previously been ministering to, he was trying to have rest earlier at the time of feeding the 5,000 and again when the disciples were struggling to row across the lake during the storm at night.

Maybe he’s trying to avoid the Pharisees and teachers of the law who he’s just had a run in with a few verses back.

These may be the reasons, its just speculation we don’t know really but it’s clear Jesus doesn’t want to be known or recognised by others. Yet he’s recognised by a woman who comes and fell at his feet looking for him to help her daughter possessed by an unclean spirit.

But here’s the REALLY interesting thing, this woman is not a Jew she’s a Gentile! Mark identifies her in verse 26 with a double bunger identity A Greek born in Syrian Phoenicia. She’s not in any way qualified to benefit from Jesus’ ministry. She’s not a member of his people group, she’s Greek! She’s not part of Israel or even a convert to Judaism, if ever there was someone who deserved nothing from Jesus, it’s this woman.

The woman was a Greek, SHE IS NOT A JEW! Her daughter is also therefore NOT A JEW! To be a jew your mother must be a Jew so in this case the woman and her daughter should not benefit from Jesus’ ministry at all. He is the Jewish messiah, he is the one who the Old Testament Law, prophets and writings all point to yet this woman would NOT have ever read it. They have no right to it, it’s the kind of members only type thing.

And that’s why Jesus says in verse 27 first let the children eat all they want for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.

The privileges of eating a nice cooked meal at the table with a family are not for the dogs. You wouldn’t bake a nice new loaf of bread and immediately feed it to the dogs, now you might very well give the dogs the left overs, maybe the crusts or the bread the children don’t eat after they’re full.

If we think of it like one of those rewards clubs, if you’re not part of the club, if you’re not a member you don’t have any right to get any of the benefits. In the same way, Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the one promised from the Old Testament, this woman is in no way a part of this club. She and her daughter should not stand to benefit from Jesus’ ministry. They’re the dogs who don’t get first priority.

Yet also notice what Jesus says in verse 27 First Let the children eat all they want.

See, Jesus doesn’t say this woman and all other gentiles should NEVER be receive the benefits of his ministry, just not yet, not as first priority. Just as the dogs will get scraps or leftovers so too the blessings of Jesus will flow down to them but only after the children eat. If it’s like one of these rewards clubs then the members will benefit and only once all the members are taken care of, whatever is left can go to the non members.

That’s why Jesus isn’t immediately very interested in the woman and her daughter, eventually they may benefit from his ministry but only after he’s accomplished all his work of saving God’s people of the time, the Jews.

Yet the woman makes a very interesting observation. Have a look at verse 28 Lord even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.

See what she’s saying? Rather than there being a two stage process where the children eat first THEN the dogs, that is rather than first the Jews benefit from Jesus’ ministry THEN the Gentiles later she is saying that the two groups benefit simultaneously since there are crumbs and bits of food the children drop on the floor which the dogs can eat.

It’s a cryptic way of saying the two groups are equal, she doesn’t disagree with Jesus’ assessment she and her daughter are Gentiles and should not benefit from Jesus ministry. She is a dog, she has no right to benefit from the Jewish Messiah’s ministry yet she asks simply for a crumb from the table. A little crumb for a little dog, not a huge feast just a little bit of something.

Again we get another surprise, the woman has challenged Jesus and now Jesus changes his mind. In verse 29 Jesus is so impressed with her response that he DOES deliver the woman’s daughter from the evil spirit.

The story is filled with twists and turns, yet there are good Biblical reasons why we might think Jews and Gentiles will be treated equally, both will benefit from Jesus’ ministry. It’s present throughout the Old Testament but we can find proof way back in Genesis the first book of the Bible.

We read in Genesis 12:1-5. God chose Abraham to make him a great nation, the Israelites all were descended from Abraham, Jesus himself is a descendent of Abraham and Abraham and his descendants will be special to God, to be his people. BUT we also see, ALL NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED THROUGH ABRAHAM!

This applies to the Gentiles just like this woman and her daughter in Mark. They stand to be blessed because of Jesus, in fact we all can be. There is a priority, of course, Jesus is a Jew, his ministry is predominately to Jews after all they’re Abraham’s children and get first priority.

But Jesus does make an exception here to give this woman a few crumbs, healing her daughter. He sends her away to see her daughter now delivered because even though she is a gentile, she can benefit from Jesus’ power.

But this woman and her daughter aren’t the only non-members to gain some As Jesus goes from there to the Decapolis, the ten gentile cities in what we’d today call Jordan and Syria where he meets a group of people who bring to him a deaf man who can hardly speak.

With no hearing aids and no sign language people like this guy would’ve suffered a great deal and had real trouble communicating.

And yet again Jesus heals the man, he puts his fingers in the man’s ears and spits on his tongue which seems odd to us but the expectations of people would have been that Jesus needed to DO something. Some kind of hands on examination like a doctor.

Yet it’s not touching the man that heals him, Jesus simply commands the man’s ears to open and his tongue to loosen. In the same way as God can simple speak the world into creation, he says let there be light and it happens, so too Jesus can simply speak and the man is healed.

Yet again we are to understand this is a Gentile man in gentile territory! He should have no claim on this healing yet Jesus saves this man from his suffering. We see the compassion of Jesus, his love for even this man because as he heals him he looks to heaven and with a deep sigh acts to save the man from his deafness.

This word refers to mourning groaning out of a sense of compassion and pain for the man. Jesus doesn’t reject him simply because he’s not a Jew. Rather Jesus again is showing us he’s the saviour of all people.

First the Syrophonecian woman’s daughter, now a deaf Gentile man. Jesus saving power and compassion knows no limits.

You might think that you’re not good enough to come to Jesus, that somehow to be acceptable to Jesus first you have to be a certain kind of person belong to a certain club a bit like the rewards clubs we have spoken about earlier. Some people think that because of their past or their living situation or their cultural background they’re excluded from receiving the benefits of Jesus’ ministry.

NOT TRUE AT ALL. We see here in Mark 7 Jesus is the saviour of ALL, no matter who you are or what ethnic group you might be, you don’t have to do something special first to be blessed by encountering Jesus.

The church should be the place where we display the kind of kingdom Jesus’ has established, one where there isn’t those who belong and those who do not, the Kingdom of God is not a two tier thing with some who can join the club and receive the benefits and others who cannot.

This is no rewards club with members and non-members who are treated differently. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come to Jesus because Jesus is the saviour of all.

Who is this man?

The Princess Bride is fantastic movie with action, romance, comedy, fantasy and tragedy. It’s quality is inconceivable!

Early on in the film a mysterious masked man chases the bad guys who have kidnapped a princess. He fights a sword fighting master fencer, he manages to beat a giant in a fight and outsmarted another bad guy by getting him to drink poison. He has kept it hidden the whole time and by wearing a mask he prevented anyone from knowing who he really is. We’ve seen what he can do, he can fight, duel, outwit others, scale impossibly tall cliffs, he’s an amazing guy but we don’t know who he is!

Finally as he gets to the princess in one of the greatest scenes, we see the mysterious masked man finally reveal his identity. It’s Dudley the farm boy who the princess knew in her childhood. Except the farm boy Dudley wasn’t a swordsman who could defeat an expert duellist, and wasn’t strong enough to beat a giant or smart enough to outwit a criminal mastermind. It can’t be Dudley then…

or can it?  

Just who is this man? It’s all quite a mystery…

And this mystery is similar to Mark’s gospel, and the person of Jesus. The question we’ve seen people asking about Jesus time and time again is who is this man?

He’s a polarising figure with some loving him and some hating him but there’s no denying he’s an amazing and mysterious character.

As far back as Mark 1:28 after Jesus delivered a man from a demon news about him spread quickly.

Yet Jesus also wants to keep his identity a secret. The demons knew who he was so in Mark 1:34 Jesus won’t let them speak in case his secret identity is unveiled. A bit like farm boy Dudley, he has shown amazing power and skill which is amazing yet we don’t know who he is really.

In Mark 2:12 Jesus forgave the sins of a paralysed man and the crowd responded with “We have never seen anything like this!”

In Mark 3:11-12 Jesus drives out more evil spirits and tell the delivered people them to not tell anyone about him.

In Mark 4:35-41 Jesus calms the storm while on a boat with the disciples and in verse 41 they ask “who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

In Mark 5:20 after Jesus heals people and delivered the man of a legion of demons the people were amazed.

There are some questions about his identity in Mark 6 when some people think he’s the old Testament prophet Elijah, but King Herod thinks Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead.

At the end of the same chapter he feeds the 5000 and walks on water and calms another storm so in verse 51 the disciples are completely amazed!

Last week we saw in Mark 7 Jesus heals a deaf-mute man so in verse 37 people were overwhelmed with amazement.

So people have seem all that he has done, they sometimes are amazed, they’re in awe but also confused. We’ve seen all that he can do, yet his identity is still a kind of mystery.

Just who is this man?

We’ll see various ways to understand him firstly with the multitude and the meal then the doubters and the disciples culminating with Jesus himself saying he is the Son of Man.

Here in chapter 8 we are at the half way point in Mark’s Gospel. We’ve seen a lot of what Jesus can do and now we’ll see what he says of himself and what that means he will do in future.

8:1-0 we’ll see a multitude and a meal. This should ring a bell since we’ve seen something very similar before when Jesus fed the 5,000 in Mark 6.

The crowd, the remote area, the lack of food are all very similar. His disciples also respond similarly because they gather bread and fish just like before and once again Jesus feeds the crowd and once again there are basketfuls of leftovers.

Why? Why are there two very similar near identical stories of Jesus feeding multitudes? Some say the key to understanding it is that it’s an error, Mark records two events but actually in real history there was only one event but perhaps two sources or two witnesses. They are very similar after all so maybe it was just the one event

Except of course Matthew also includes it and later in Mark 8:19-21 Jesus specifically differentiates between the two multiplication miracles.

Maybe there are really two miracles, so is the significance in the number of basketfuls of left overs? Maybe 12 basketfuls is somehow significant in the earlier one like for twelve tribes of Israel and 7 basketfuls now is significant because it’s a number of completion and wholeness.

Maybe but it’s not the really significant thing.

Here’s the important thing to note. In the original story of feeding the 5,000 in Mark 6:30-44 Jesus is in Jewish territory ministering to Jews in Galilee. Here with the feeding of the 4,000 he’s still in the Decapolis the Gentile territory on the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

The idea being that this story comes right after the story last week where he delivers the Greek Syrian-Phonecian woman’s daughter in Tyre and heals a deaf mute man in the Decapolis. Both are Gentiles and remember how Jesus said to the woman it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs, and here Jesus is freely giving bread to the gentiles.

He’s showing here again the Gentiles are entitled to everything the Jews are! Just as the Jews benefited from a multiplication miracle, Jesus now does the same thing for non-Jews. He may be the Jewish messiah but he’s making it clear that he has come to save Jew and gentiles alike

Just like last week we see Jesus is the saviour of all people, Jew and Gentile alike. But this isn’t popular nor well understood by the Pharisees or his disciples.

It’s hard to believe Jesus the Jewish Messiah is really here to also help the gentiles. It’s like the mystery masked man from the Princess Bride. We thought he was a good guy but maybe he isn’t… It’s hard to tell by his actions because he doesn’t fit our ideas of right or wrong and good and bad. Jesus is a bit of a mystery to everyone, even his closest followers but especially his opponents, the Pharisees.

In one of the most ironic passages the Pharisees are unhappy and want Jesus to give them a sign from heaven…

I mean COME ON! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?! Nope, not good enough. Like we’ve seen before Jesus is a teacher, healer, prophet, a compassionate leader, able to walk on water, able to multiply food miraculously, able to calm a storm…

Is it any wonder what MORE do you want? Is it any wonder Jesus sighs deeply. It’s a kind of groan, he’s disappointed. He’s frustrated at their lack of faith and their demand for more evidence… He calls them “THIS GENERATION” a very specific phrase referring to the generation who disobeyed God in the Exodus. They were the ones who claimed to know God but disobeyed him and did not enter the promised land.

Jesus is saying the same thing is true of the Pharisees, they say they know God but really are disobeying him and they won’t go to be with God in his promised land so to speak. It’s clear they don’t understand, they always want more and something on their terms, they want to tell Jesus what to do. But he won’t play ball. He leaves them and gets back into the boat to go back to the OTHER SIDE of the lake. These guys are the doubters, they doubt Jesus is really who he is and want further proof he’s a good guy!

So Jesus leaves and goes up north to Bethsaida. ON the way Jesus has a chat with his disciples about being wary of the Yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.

He quizzes them about the leftovers from feeding the four thousand and then about the five thousand they answer but they don’t understand the significance.

Hmm yeast? What yeast? We don’t have any bread so why would he talk about yeast?

Jesus tries to help them join the dots. What happened when I fed 5,000 and then what happened when I fed 4,000. They can answer but they don’t understand the significance of it.

8:21 Jesus is asking questions to help them understand who he is and why he has come. The Pharisees are doubters and don’t understand and even the disciples don’t get it. The doubters and disciples still don’t understand who he is.

But Jesus will soon make it clear. First he’ll heal a blind man which is something he’s done before but like a good teacher Jesus is reinforcing then by doing something the disciples have seen before. Another little reminder of his power, a clue as to his identity. He can reverse the effects of sickness and disability.

It’s no wonder then in verse 27 Jesus asks who people say he is. Jesus quizzes the disciples again to see what they think.

He then gets the usual answers we’ve heard before, maybe one of the prophets, maybe Elijah maybe John the Baptist….

But he’s not interested in just what everyone else thinks, he presses them more, who do YOU say I am. Peter responds You are the Christ, the Messiah.

Finally now Jesus’ secret identity is revealed! The mysterious masked man from the princess Bride is finally revealed to be Dudley. Now we the readers of Mark are like the audience in the cinema watching a superhero movie. We know Clark Kent is Superman, Bruce Wayne is Batman and that the mystery man from The Princess Bride is really the farm boy from earlier in the movie. But there comes a time when the characters in the movie themselves come to discover this.

Already The whole of Mark’s gospel up to this point has always had a big question mark surrounding who Jesus really is but Peter thinks he’s worked it out. Jesus is the promised saviour, the anointed one chosen by God to save his people. This is BIG! For the whole Old Testament period but certainly for about 400 years since the last Old Testament book of Malachi God’s people have been waiting for the promised saviour and now here he is, in the person of Jesus.

He’s no doubt a powerful kind of figure and maybe he’s going to use this same power to re-establish Israel as its own sovereign nation and kick out the Romans. He’ll be a warrior King like King David or maybe a wise and wealthy ruler who can usher in a time of peace and prosperity like Solomon. Peter’s figured out who he is, but not why he has come…

Jesus immediately reframes their expectations though because as he tells them the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected. Well this is too much for Peter and he rebukes him. In Peter’s mind, God’s chosen saviour can’t be killed off by the powers that be. The Son of Man title is a reference to Daniel 7 where we see a semi-divine figure receive authority from the Ancient of Day, God himself.

Then in another twist Jesus rebukes PETER

GET BEHIND ME SATAN! Jesus’ point is that any attempt to stop him from dying and rising again is the work of Satan because as the Messiah and as the Son of Man this is Jesus’ ultimate mission, the reason for him to come to earth and the means by which he saves God’s people will be through his death.

Verses 34-38 give us a clear picture. Jesus first coming is to save his people from sin BUT at his second coming it is for judgement. Here and now we must take up our cross and follow him so that when he comes back we go to be with him. This is the kind of saving God has in mind, not a warrior king establishing a geo-political kingdom but a king who saves souls. This is the mystery of Jesus’ identity solved.

He’s interested in more than land and thrones and military might, his main concern is with people’s relationship to God. He must die and take our sins away so that we can be made right with God. If he simply came as a conquering King the first time around no one would be taken to be with God, no one will be righteous enough.

Yet in his mercy he heals, restores and forgives us so we can be with him forever once he returns.

So who do you say Jesus is? A lot is riding on that because as Jesus’ himself says, what can you give in exchange for your soul? The answer is nothing, your eternity is at stake so come to Jesus now and be forgiven and then serve him, take up your cross and follow him. Help the ones in need, teach them about him and wait for him to take us to go be with him forever.

That’s what Jesus will do when he comes back.

There’s no mystery anymore about who Jesus is or why he has come! This is the climax of Mark 1-8 and where we’ll finish our series on Mark for now because we’ve now solved the mystery of who Jesus is and why he has come.

How do you think of Jesus? Does it fit with what we’ve seen in Mark’s gospel? I hope so because unless you’ve understood Jesus properly you won’t truly value him nor trust him with your life. That is after all Mark’s desire for his readers and it’s mine too!