It was the best of opinions; it was the worst of opinions. Such could be said about Charles Dickens’ view of America. When Dickens arrived on US soil in 1842, he was filled with joy. Some have likened his arrival to the giddiness of Ebenezer Scrooge on that Christmas morning when his eyes are opened. But by the end of his journey Dickens had soured.
Samantha Silva, a Dickens historian, explains it this way:
“He was repulsed by Americans’ table manners and the tobacco spit everywhere he looked — on even the sidewalks of the nation’s capital, where he found party politics contaminating everything, its leaders ‘the lice of God’s creation,’ and ‘despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with public officers; and cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers.’ Even worse, everyone wanted a piece of the action, from Tiffany’s selling unauthorized copies of his bust, to a barber selling locks of his hair. He found Americans vulgar and insensitive, braggarts, hypocrites, and acquisitive beyond all imagining. ‘I never knew what it was to feel disgust and contempt,’ Dickens said, ‘till I travelled in America.’ When he departed in June, he left behind all notions of an Arcadian realm he now regarded as ‘a vast countinghouse’ full of nothing but ‘humbugs and bores.’”
How do you think the Americans responded to Dickens’ criticism? They certainly cleaned their streets of tobacco juices, took another assessment of their economic policies, and changed the way they chose leaders, right? No. Of course not. The American press responded to Dickens about as you’d expect. They turned to insults of his character and Dickens’ sales plummeted.
Nobody likes to be critiqued by another person. We especially do not like being critiqued by an outsider. The book of Amos is precisely this. Amos is from the Southern Kingdom, and he gives a message of judgment to the Northern Kingdom. It is a harsh message. But can we find the gospel in these words from an “outsider”?
I suppose before understanding how to find the gospel in the OT, it’d be helpful for us to define the gospel. The simplest definition is one given by JI Packer: God saves sinners. If you’d like to put a bit more meat on your gospel presentation, I use two different frameworks with four points each. The first is God—Man—Christ—Response. The second is more of a story: Creation—Fall—Redemption—Glory.
The first presentation centers upon God’s character and how humanity fails to meet God’s holy standard, as such the judgment of God is upon us. But the good news is that Jesus Christ fixes this by fulfilling what is required through his life, death and resurrection. Our only fitting response, then, is to respond to Him in repentance and faith. When this happens, we are united to Christ and his record becomes our record.
The second presentation centers upon the overarching story of the Bible. God lovingly created us to love Him and enjoy Him forever. We were made for rest, rule, and relationship. But we made shipwreck of this, and so rather than having the blessings of obedience we are under the curse of disobedience. Rather than having peace (rest), purpose (ruling), and healthy relationship we often experience the opposite. Ultimately, we are alienated from God. But thankfully God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our curse and to fulfill what God intended for humanity. As such we now experience the blessings of Jesus’ obedience in our place. He restores the rest, rule, and relationship we were created to enjoy. Someday everything will be ultimately restored and we will live in a new heaven and a new earth.
We could write entire books focusing on these various themes of the gospel. But every gospel story follows this basic skeleton. No matter where you find yourself in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) you can find one of these various threads. Every place in Scripture is either telling you something about God, something about our rebellion, something about His rescue, or something about our future restoration. If you can spot this, then you can fill out the rest of the story.
Amos is brilliant in his message. If he comes into the Northern Kingdom guns blazing, he’d have never gotten an audience. Instead, Amos came in with “good news.” The good news he brought was that God was set to judge all of Israel’s enemies. God was not going to overlook their wickedness anymore.
One could almost imagine the cheers as the prophet said, “For three sins of Damascus…” The cheers would raise to a crescendo as each new neighboring nations was given a scathing indictment. Yet, we also must wonder if they began to see what Amos was doing. If you map each of these nations, you’ll find that Amos is drawing a target, with Israel in the center. By the time the prophet says, “Three sins of Judah…” one has to wonder whether or not they knew what was coming next.
Once Amos leveled the charge he doesn’t stop. The biggest beef he – or rather God – has with the people is their oppression of the poor. The leaders of Israel are not living in justice and righteousness. They are instead trampling the poor and vulnerable under foot. They are not establishing the kingdom as God would have them. They are an expression of the twisted rule of wicked humanity rather than the gracious rule which God set as a task upon the first couple.
For nine chapters Amos speaks of the coming judgment upon the wickedness of the Israelites. Yes, the God of justice will not overlook the sin of the nations. But he also will not overlook the sin of His people. In fact, they will be judged more strictly.
The interaction between Amos and Amaziah (a prophet of Jeroboam) is telling. Jeroboam was like a guy who’d throw duct tape on something and say, “there, I fixed it.” He had several political problems in his day but was a shrewd leader. One of his big problems was the temple in the Southern Kingdom. That meant, in order to worship, his people would need to go into the rival kingdom and marvel at the glorious temple of Solomon. That doesn’t bode well for his rule.
He came up with a great plan. He’d make two golden calves (because that always works out well) and place one in Bethel and one in Dan. He made religion a matter of convenience. He set things up according to his own wisdom and knowledge and it seems like it was working. What this means is that Jeroboam made himself the standard of justice and righteousness. He was the “plumb line.”
Enter Amos. Amos comes with a plumb line of God’s justice and tells the Northern Kingdom they aren’t squared up. But Amaziah tells Amos to go back home. He restored to blame-shifting and attempted to silence God’s Word. And that’s what we even do today, we silence what we fear. And we blame-shift when we know we don’t have a foundation to stand upon.
This is lot of humanity. When the plumb line of God’s holiness is laid down next to us, we always fail to measure up. We are not holy. We do things according to our own wicked heart and our own whims. What do we do when we find that we don’t measure up? For the Israelites in Amos’ day, they ignored the prophet and kept going. Which is why Amos ends, or almost ends, with a vision of judgment: scorching fires, locust swarms, overripe fruit. This is what happens when we forget the God of justice.
There is one little glimmer of hope in Amos 9:11-15. In the midst of the rubble, a new and better kingdom will emerge. One that rules in righteousness. It will be a kingdom where justice and righteousness will roll down like a river. This is the Messianic Kingdom. This new story will include bringing Gentiles into the kingdom — all those neighbors who were judged in the beginning (and even more). In fact, Amos 9:11-12 is quoted by the Jerusalem Council to argue for the gospel going to Gentiles.
The message of Amos is that God is always just. He will not forget to execute His justice. But God is also a God of grace. When we believe that God is just and respond accordingly — in repentance — we are met with grace. Jesus is ultimately that plumb line which Amos used. He is the fulfillment of God’s justice and righteousness.
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