“Yahweh (the Lord) Is a Righteously Jealous God”
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. [Amen.]
“Grant me the strength to do With ready heart and willing
Whatever You command, My calling here fulfilling;
That I do what I should While trusting You to bless
The outcome for my good, For You must give success.
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
696:25)
Old
Testament......................................................................................
Amos 8:4-7 (esp. 7)
The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of
their deeds.”
Prologue: The Close of the Commandments is a quote from Exodus
chapter 20, verses five through six, in which God says, “I, the Lord Your
God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to
the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a
thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My Commandments.” The
Reverend Doctor Martin Luther explained that as “God threatens to punish all
who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not
do anything against them. But He promises grace and every blessing to all
who keep these commandments. Therefore, we should also love and trust in
Him and gladly do what He commands.” (Luther’s Small Catechism with
Explanation. Copyright © 1986, 1991, 2005 Concordia Publishing House, St.
Louis, MO. Pages 14 & 93.)
The question that immediately comes to my mind—and perhaps yours
as well—is, “What does it mean that God calls Himself a jealous God?” After
all, we commonly think of jealousy in terms of envy, covetousness,
resentment, suspicion, and, even, distrust. Is that a proper description of
our righteous and gracious God? The catechetical definition of divine
jealousy tells us that “Because God is holy A. He hates sin and insists on
strict and perfect obedience; B. H will not share with idols the love and
honor we owe Him; [and] C. He will punish those who hate Him.” (Ibid.) That
certainly helps us understand Godly jealousy in a more acceptable way,
right? Consequently, it’s really not so difficult for us to accept that …
“Yahweh (the Lord) Is a Righteously Jealous God.”
So, let’s consider the setting and background of this text in
order to be better able to understand it. The author was the minor prophet
Amos (his name means “Burden”), who “In the beginning … was no prophet,
neither a prophet’s son; but he was a herdsman and a dresser of fig-trees.”
In addition, “Though he was a native of the Southern Kingdom [of Judah], he
was sent by God to preach in the Northern Kingdom [of Israel].” (Christopher
F. Drewes in Introduction to the Books of the Bible. Copyright © 1929
Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Page 100.)
The fact that he was a minor prophet doesn’t mean that he was too
young to legally purchase and consume alcohol nor does it mean that he was
less significant than other Old Testament prophets. Instead, it means that
the quantity of the contents of his book was considerably less than that of
the major prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. However, “He was
a contemporary prophet with such men as Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, the latter
two being much younger than Amos.” (Theodore Huggenvik in Your Key to the
Bible: A Presentation of Your Religious Concern with the Bible. Copyright ©
1944 Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, MN. Page 63.)
The Martin Luther described Amos this way, “He is violent too, and
denounces the people of Israel throughout almost the entire book until the
end of the last chapter, where he prophesies of Christ and his kingdom and
closes his book with that. No prophet, I think, has so little in the way of
promises and so much in the way of denunciations and threats. He can well
be called Amos, that is, ‘a burden,’ one who is hard to get along with and
irritating, particularly because he is a shepherd and not one of the order
of prophets … . Besides he comes … into the kingdom of Israel, and preaches
there as a foreigner. It is for this reason that they say the priest
Amaziah, whom he rebukes …, beat him to death with a club.” (The Lutheran
Study Bible. Edward A. Engelbrecht, Gen. Ed. Copyright © 2009 Concordia
Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Page 1456.)
Well, he appeared on the scene some 700 years before the birth of
Jesus and declared God’s message of condemning Law and rescuing Gospel. In
fact, “The key-word of Amos’s message is ‘punishment.’” (Christopher F.
Drewes. Page 100.) After all, “Idolatry was prevalent. Amos knew very
well that if people do not have faith in God, human relationships will soon
suffer degrading influences. There was much of material prosperity in both
Judah and Israel during the days of Amos. Religion, if practiced at all,
was formal, [even] ritualistic. Luxury and its attendant evils were present
everywhere. There was a notable lack of repentance. Heedless, the people
were moving on to their own destruction.” However, “The wickedness of the
world cannot overthrow the plan of God. The way to approach God is through
repentance and faith in the sure mercies which are ever present, but which
will be fully revealed in the Messiah … .” (Theodore Huggenvik. Pages 65f.)
So, “The Lord called the shepherd Amos to deliver a surprising and
[threatening] message for Judah and Israel. In his prophecies, Amos
pictured the Lord angry, crouching, and focused like a lion stalking the
sinful, carefree nations. The kingdoms were prosperous when Amos preached,
but his prophecies of destruction were rapidly fulfilled by the invading
Assyrians, who besieged Samaria within a few decades.” In short, the
purpose of his writing was “To warn Israel and Judah that God would punish
them for injustice and for idolatry, though a remnant would be saved.” (The
Lutheran Study Bible. Page 1456.)
With all that in mind, let’s turn to today’s Old Testament
Reading, in which Amos accused the people of being unfair and in so doing
told them (and us) to …
I. Avoid Abusing Anyone Less Blessed Than Ourselves. (4)
4Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to
an end, … .
Jesus Himself summarized the Second Table of the Law (that being
commandments four through ten) when He said, “You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.” (St Matt 22:39 ESV) The so-called “Golden Rule” is based on
another of our Savior’s teachings, namely, “So whatever you wish that others
would do to you, do also to them … .” (St Matt 7:12 ESV) In addition He
stated, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you … .” (St
Matt 5:44 ESV) and Saint Paul taught that we should “Be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph
4:32 ESV) and “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone,
and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Gal 6:10 ESV)
Our sinful human nature causes us to try to weasel out from under
those divine instructions by asking things like “Who is our neighbor?” and
“How should we love our neighbor?” hoping that the answers will let us “off
the hook.” However, the Bible-based answers to those questions lead us to
realize that “All people are our neighbors” and we “show this love by
keeping the commandments of the Second Table.” (Luther’s Small Catechism
with Explanation. Page 73.)
In our sermon text for today “the Lord pointed to the unrighteous
treatment of the poor as a symptom of the nation’s impenitence.” (Paul E.
Eichmann in People’s Bible Commentary: Hosea/Joel/Amos. Copyright © 1994
Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Page 253.) But Jesus Himself
gave a supreme example of merciful and gracious treatment of our neighbor
when He told the parable of the Good Samaritan, who personally cared for and
even provided for the further care of his neighbor’s needs although they
were enemies. But more than that, Jesus Himself, about whom the Good
Samaritan was a description, gave a living example of fulfilling the Second
Table of the Law. He did so by being “the propitiation for our sins, and
not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2
ESV)
That word “propitiation” means that He appeased or pacified God’s
righteous anger against us because of our rebellious transgressions against
Him. He did so by being our Substitute did what we could not do: He
perfectly obeyed God’s Law in our place, He suffered the punishment of our
sins in our place, He was the spotless Lamb-of-God sacrifice offered on
Calvary’s cross in our place, and He arose from the dead whereby He sealed
Satan’s defeat in our place. Through Spirit-given Baptismal faith in Him as
Lord and Savior we now possess the benefits of His propitiation activity,
namely, forgiveness of all our sins including abuse of anyone less blessed
than ourselves, full healing of our immortal soul and eventually our mortal
body, and eternal life with Him in heaven.
Oh, and as an additional bonus, we’re now able to love one another
as Christ loved and continues to love us. Drawing on today’s Old Testament
Reading, one way we do so is when we …
II. Avoid Being Deceitfully Dishonest. (5-6)
… 5saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the
Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small
and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, 6that we may
buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the
chaff of the wheat?”
The problem with the Israelites then that God addressed through
His prophet-servant Amos was no different from what societies throughout the
ages since then as well as our own today have experienced … greed. Greed
conceives and births coveting. We heard about this in today’s Gospel
Reading: “[Jesus said,] ‘No servant can serve two masters, for either he
will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and
despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.’ The Pharisees, who
were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And
he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God
knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the
sight of God.’” (St Luke 16:13-15 ESV)
As we learned in our catechetical instruction leading to
confirmation, “Coveting is having a sinful desire for anyone or anything
that belongs to our neighbor.” In light of that, “God forbids every sinful
desire to get our neighbor’s possessions openly or by trickery.” Instead,
“We should be content with what God has given us and assist our neighbor in
keeping what God has given that person.” (Luther’s Small Catechism with
Explanation. Pages 90f.)
Sadly, coveting may lead to dishonesty and cheating … and
dishonesty and cheating may lead to stealing … and stealing may lead to
lying … and lying may lead to guilt-laden shame and anger … and guilt-laden
shame and anger may lead to murder … and, well, the dominoes may keep
falling and falling and falling. That was the situation with the Israelites
to whom God sent Amos to proclaim divine judgment. After all, they were “a
nation of greedy profiteers. The rich and prominent men, the social and
commercial leaders of Israel, abused their position to harass and suppress
the poor and needy. Neither Sabbath nor new moon could end fast enough for
these money-mad men, who disliked to be deprived even for one whole day of
the opportunity to make money. Their insatiable lust for gold impelled them
to resort to shamefully fraudulent tricks. Regard for the poor brother was
dead!” (Theodore Laetsch in Concordia Classic Commentary Series: Minor
Prophets. Copyright © 1956 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
Pages 180f.)
Do any of us, perhaps all of us (including myself) to one degree
or another, ever fall victim to the temptation of the devil, the world
around us, and our own sinful flesh to be greedy? Isn’t it true that in
many societies throughout the world, even our own American society, “the
same tactics are used in our days by such as speculate in foodstuffs and the
necessities of life, the manipulators always fixing the prices in their
favor or else selling inferior goods for the price of that which is really
high-grade”? (Paul E. Kretzmann in Popular Commentary of the Bible: The Old
Testament Volume II, The Poetical and the Prophetical Books. Copyright ©
1924 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Page 666.)
Without a doubt we all would benefit from a self-examination
consisting of the following questions that I came across in my study for
this sermon: “Do we sometimes neglect worship in order to make extra income
on [voluntary] overtime pay, so that we can spend it on luxuries? Do we
occupy our minds with thoughts of profit and loss even while our mouths pray
and sing hymns? Do we go to church reluctantly or participate in public
worship halfheartedly because ‘time is money,’ and we do not like to spend
it feeding our souls on the Word of God? Do we couple such disrespect for
the Lord with a lack of concern for our needy fellowmen? [If so,] Then we
have become like these Israelite merchants.” (Paul E. Eichmann. Page 252.)
Thanks be to God that His only begotten Son completely resisted
the temptation that Satan set before Him to be greedy. Thanks be to God
that His only begotten Son shed His blood unto death on Calvary’s cross to
cleanse us from all our sins, including greed. Thanks be to God that,
having been fully forgiven of all our sins, including greed, “Honesty will
be one of the marks of those who follow the Lord.” (Ibid.) Thanks be to God
that by the power of the Holy Spirit, who took up residence in us at our
Baptism, who renews us through reading and hearing God’s Holy Word, who
sanctifies us with the declaration of Holy Absolution, and who gives us
certain assurance of forgiveness of sins and strengthens our faith through
the proper partaking of Holy Communion, we now strive to avoid being
deceitfully dishonest.
In conclusion, therefore, let’s be comforted, reassured, and
strengthened by the message in today’s Gradual, “Many are the afflictions of
the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” (Ps 34:19 ESV)
Let’s do so frequently recalling and faithfully praying today’s Collect, “O
Lord, keep Your Church in Your perpetual mercy; and because without You we
cannot but fall, preserve us from all things hurtful, and lead us to all
things profitable to our salvation … .”
In addition, because …
“Yahweh (the Lord) Is a Righteously Jealous God,”
let’s keep in mind the words of today’s Introit antiphon, “Your testimonies
are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.” (Ps 119:144
ESV)
And finally, because of the certain consolation contained in today’s
Epistle Reading, “… God our Savior, … desires all people to be saved and to
come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a
ransom for all, … .” (1 Tim 3:3-6 ESV), let’s persistently strive by the
Holy Spirit’s power alone to …
I. Avoid Abusing Anyone Less Blessed Than Ourselves. (4)
and …
II. Avoid Being Deceitfully Dishonest. (5-6)
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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