6th Sunday After Pentecost. July 17th, 2022. Series

Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 52, Genesis 18:1-10, Psalm 15, Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42

A). A BASKET OF RIPE SUMMER FRUIT.

Amos 8:1-12.

This vision and its interpretation is based in a pun: the Hebrew word for “Summer fruit” sounds almost identical with the word translated “the end” (Amos 8:1-2). Read Amos 4:6-11 for a litany of the temporal judgments which the LORD laid upon Israel, with its terse refrain, ‘Yet you have not returned to Me, says the LORD’! The LORD still calls them “My people Israel” (Amos 8:2), but there has been a steady ripening of divine judgment for the Northern Kingdom of Israel ever since the rule laid down in Amos 3:2.

The LORD had already set a plumb-line among His people Israel, and (because of their sins) there was no longer a pass-over for them (cf. Amos 7:8). Their religious innovations had failed, and even the king himself would fall before the plumb-line. The whole dynasty, the whole cult, and the whole Northern kingdom was doomed (cf. Amos 7:9).

Could you imagine the desolation of such a day? The songs of the temple become wailings; dead bodies are cast out everywhere. Silence (Amos 8:3).

There follows an indictment against the unscrupulous. You trample upon the needy and make the poor of the land fail (Amos 8:4). Your religious observances are hypocritical, and you cheat your customers with false weights and measures (Amos 8:5). You enslave the poor and needy and sell the sweepings of the floor (Amos 8:6). The LORD sees and cannot forget these sins (Amos 8:7).

So we see that, in the words of Gilbert and Sullivan, ‘the punishment fits the crime’ - at least for these people. “Shall not the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it?” (Amos 8:8a). The picture is of the swelling and subsiding of the River Nile in Egypt (Amos 8:8b; Amos 9:5).

“In that day,” says the LORD God, “I will” cause the sun to cease to shine (Amos 8:9). There follows sorrow, death, eternal bitterness (Amos 8:10). Then, for a people who choose to live without the word of God, the famine of all famines: a famine of hearing the words of the LORD (Amos 8:11).

Other famines pale into insignificance in comparison with a famine of the word of God. The LORD had allowed Israel to hunger long ago, teaching them that ‘man shall lot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD’ (Deuteronomy 8:3; cf. Matthew 4:4). A constant refusal to obey causes the blessing of the word to be withdrawn.

What a horrible thing: to be left “wandering”: falling about like a drunkard; swaying in the wind; lips quivering in agitation - and all for the lack of a word from God (Amos 8:12). The LORD had said, ‘Seek Me and live’ (Amos 5:4-6), but now it was too late. As Mary sang in her song, ‘the rich He has sent empty away’ (Luke 1:53).

For us, the call still goes out: ‘Seek the LORD while He may be found’ (Isaiah 55:6-7). God’s word is not far away for those with a heart to hear (cf. Deuteronomy 30:11-14; Romans 10:6-8). However, let us be ‘doers of the word, not hearers only’ (James 1:22).

B). THE EPITAPH OF THE UNGODLY AND THE TESTIMONY OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

Psalm 52:1-9.

The superscription of this Psalm associates it with the tittle-tattle tale-telling of a certain Edomite named Doeg, who was Saul’s chief shepherd (1 Samuel 21:7). This man - not wholly untruthfully, but certainly maliciously - informed King Saul that he had seen David coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the high priest there, who enquired of the LORD for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine (1 Samuel 22:9-10).

Ahimelech denied having enquired of God for David (1 Samuel 22:15). Enraged, King Saul ordered the massacre of all the priests: but his own footmen refused to raise a hand against them (1 Samuel 22:17). So Saul ordered Doeg to do the dirty deed, and he killed 85 priests, and slew all the men, women, children, babies, and livestock of the priests’ city of Nob with the edge of the sword (1 Samuel 22:18-19).

“Why do you boast yourself in mischief, you mighty man,” scolds the Psalmist (Psalm 52:1a). It is possible that Doeg was one of Saul’s ‘mighty men’ (cf. 1 Samuel 14:52), but the term is no doubt used here mockingly. What great deeds these were, to cut off the godly out of the land of the living!

Then he adds (although some translations miss this): “the goodness of God endures continually” (Psalm 52:1b). “CONTINUALLY” is echoed in the turning point of the composition, “God shall likewise destroy thee FOR EVER” (Psalm 52:5). Which, in turn, fits in with the confidence expressed towards the end of the poem, “I trust in the mercy of God FOR EVER AND EVER” (Psalm 52:8b).