Prophecy For Today

“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” Amos 5.24

I remember when I was a student, and noticed this verse for the first time. It helped me realise that God’s Word was not just spiritual, but also political. It also revealed the nature of the prophetic calling, the means whereby God warns his people of impending judgment for their injustice (3.7-8).

Naturally, the ruling class never wants to hear this word of Divine correction, so prophecy is frequently forbidden (2.11-12). But God challenged prophecy’s domestication by a caste of professional prophets, through calling this ex-shepherd (7.14-16).

Amos condemned the exploitation of the poor: through taxation, expropriation, and corruption in the courts (5.11-15); while the rich sought more profits (8.5-6). With an increasing class divide, the wealthy became addicted (4.1), constructed expensive houses (3.15), and enjoyed luxurious lifestyles (6.4-6).

As the gap between rich and poor increases today, this word is ever more relevant. A sensual materialistic lifestyle, based on the oppression of the poor, characterises our society today. But this is not just a left-wing message. Domination also shaped the sexual exploitation of the powerless (2.3), as it does today. The sin of the nation combined all sins in a single movement of departure from the covenant, which God had established with his people, and which he sent his prophets to call them back to. 

So, Amos laid into their compromised syncretistic religion based on the shrines at Bethel and Gilgal (3.14; 4.4; 5.5), as well as their importation of foreign astrological deities (5.26). In particular, however, he criticised their infatuation with superficial worship: singing and lyres (guitars?), which ignored justice; a relevant word for our contemporary worship industry?

But when we look at Amos’s words to the nations (1-3), we see their judgment was based on standards of common natural justice. Condemnation of specifically ‘religious’ sin was reserved for those who should have known better, because they were party to the covenant. No country today has a covenant with God. There is no chosen nation. We cannot expect governments to promote faith. To do so is always a mistake, and a sell-out to power.

Easy-going Christians today may recoil from the language of judgement, reacting against the fulminations of fundamentalist preachers. But judgment is real; and the Day of the Lord, is not just at the end-times, but occurs within history (5.18-20).

Where the Hebrew Scriptures, portray a unitary Nation-Church, however, the New Testament, distinguishes them. The State is evaluated by how it treats the most marginalised; the Church by its fidelity to the covenant, including true worship, but also commitment to social justice.

The judgment proclaimed by Amos included famine, but far worse would be God’s withdrawal from the lives of his people, a famine of the Word of God itself (8.11). Do we not live in such times today? And yet, the book ends with hope. True worship would be restored, and the gentile nations themselves, included in God’s people (9.11-12).