Politics and religion

Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: "Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.  For this is what Amos is saying: `Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.' "

Then Amaziah said to Amos, "Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.  Don't prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king's sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom."

Amos answered Amaziah, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees.  But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, `Go, prophesy to my people Israel'" (Amos 7:10-15a).

The events of this Old Testament lesson happened almost 3,000 years ago on the other side of the world, yet they show a troubled relationship between politics and religion that is still common today. The land cannot bear all his words.  Politics is about using words to get people on your side; religion is about speaking the truth.  Because of this fundamental difference, politics and religion don’t play nice together.

At the time of Amos, God’s nation had fallen on hard times.  Israel had once been a powerful and wealthy country, able to defend itself from any aggressive neighbors.  But King Solomon turned away from the LORD and started worshiping false gods; as punishment, God allowed the nation to become engulfed in civil war following Solomon’s death.  The ten northern regions split off and became their own nation, leaving Solomon’s heir with just two regions to rule.  The northern country called itself Israel, and its kings ruled from Bethel.  The southern land became known as Judah, and it was governed from Jerusalem.

The civil war created a religious problem, too.  Worship of God was headquartered in Jerusalem at the Temple.  The Temple contained the Ark of the Covenant.  The Temple also contained the Altar of Burnt Offering, where God’s people went to have their sins forgiven.  The nation of Judah had something the nation of Israel did not—a place where the people could connect with their God.

Israel certainly did not want its citizens going to Judah for worship—that would undermine the nation’s existence as a separate entity.  So the king of Israel ordered construction of his own temple in Bethel and staffed it with his own priesthood.  It should come as no surprise that the priests had very close ties to the government, and tended to support the king’s every decision.  But the temple in Bethel was not sanctioned by God, nor did He approve the men serving there as priests.  The nation of Israel had created its own religion and had turned away from the true God.  Not surprisingly, this made the LORD very mad.

So God chose Amos to speak for Him as a prophet.  Amos was not trained as a priest; his background was in ranching and agriculture.  Perhaps that’s why God chose him for this task—Amos was a prophet with no ties to any priesthood; he could not be accused of favoring Israel or Judah.  Amos was sent by God to speak the truth without political bias, and the message was a terrible one: Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land. 

God was very angry.  He had given Israel all sorts of blessings, only to be pushed aside by a government that wanted to set up its own private church.  Since Israel had abandoned God, His message was this: “you’re on your own, and without me your nation will be invaded and destroyed.  The king who is leading you astray will die by violence, as a public testimony to his sin.”

As you can imagine, Amos’ words created quite a stir.  Amaziah, the priest in Bethel, was angry because Amos ignored his authority as the local head of the church.  So the priest sent a letter to Jeroboam, urging the king to shut Amos up.  He wrote, The land cannot bear all his words.  Amos was stirring up trouble; the high priest even labeled the prophet as a traitor: Amos is raising a conspiracy against you.  The priest claimed that Amos, by speaking against the government, had proven himself to be a dangerous rebel.

Amaziah had a low opinion of Amos.  He told the prophet, Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.  The priest of Bethel did not believe that Amos really spoke for God.  As far as he was concerned, Amos was only looking for money; he thought of Amos as a traveling evangelist who sets up a tent, preaches a fiery sermon about sin and the need to repent, passes the hat, and then moves on.  Amaziah told Amos to take his roadshow somewhere else and stop trying to make a buck at the king’s expense. 

This forced Amos to defend his credentials.  He had no training in public speaking.  He was not raised in the priesthood.  He was a simple man of the countryside whom God had tapped to be His spokesman.  Amos was not speaking to make money or earn a name for himself; he was repeating important words that must be listened to.  God was threatening to punish an entire nation for ignoring Him.  Wake up and repent before it’s too late!

God was very angry with His people living in Israel, but He still loved them—loved them enough to give them warning so they could repent and be forgiven.  Sadly that message fell on deaf ears, and everything Amos predicted eventually came to pass.  Israel was destroyed and the people suffered terribly. 

Years later, the nation of Judah followed in Israel’s tragic footsteps—God was ignored, prophets warned of national calamity, the warnings were ignored, and Judah was destroyed.  History repeats itself.  We do not learn from past mistakes.  America is marching down the same path of destruction that Israel did in Amos’ time.  Our country is turning away from the LORD. 

It’s happening in the halls of government.  Jesus said, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6:27-28).  Yet we have elected officials who sanction to use of torture to rip secrets from our enemies.  God said you shall not kill (Exodus 20:13), yet the practice of abortion is protected by law.  In Leviticus 20:13 we read If a man shares a bed with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done something detestable, yet several states have made gay marriage legal. 

It’s also happening in our churches.  Through Moses God said, Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Through the prophet Zechariah God said, Speak the truth to each other (8:16).  But God’s words can make us uncomfortable.  They tell us to give up pleasures that we enjoy.  They tell us to do things we’d rather not do, like serving the Lord with our money and talking about our faith with others.  Many in the clergy are afraid that if they speak all of God’s word, leaving nothing out, they will offend some people and drive them away.  So they are careful in their sermons and teaching, downplaying anything that might make a congregation unhappy.  They edit God’s truth, massaging it to make everyone feel good—except for God, of course.  Paul predicted that this would happen; listen to his words in 2nd Timothy chapter four: the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth. 

When Amos spoke God’s words, some people were offended and others got angry.  As it happened in the past, so it happens now.  Christians are told to stay away from abortion clinics.  Bibles are kept out of schools, where evolution is taught without any contradictory opinion.  The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech, but look at how a 2009 contestant for Miss USA was criticized for saying that, according to the Bible and her personal beliefs, marriage is for the union of a man and a woman.  Our society promotes tolerance for all, yet people quickly grow intolerant when the word of God is spoken. 

Americans are building a national religion, you know.  It is called Political Correctness.  America’s religion wants tolerance for everyone, regardless of background, beliefs, or lifestyle.  Now don’t get me wrong, we need to accept each other—Jesus associated with all sorts of people, from religious leaders to prostitutes, from blue-collar workers to Jewish traitors who served the occupying Roman army as tax collectors.  Jesus reached out to everyone. 

But the American religion of Tolerance is very different from the Way of Christ.  Tolerance wants us to accept others just as they are.  Jesus reaches out to everyone, but He demands change—He wants us to repent of our sins and accept His rules for life as ours.  Jesus loves us just as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way.  He wants to purge us of sin, washing it away with the blood that He shed on the cross.  He wants to make us better; that means doing away with our love for sin. 

America’s religion tries to ignore sin—for the sake of getting along, we try to avoid judging each other’s behavior as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.  But God does not turn a blind eye to sin.  Sin destroys relationships.  Sin makes a healthy society impossible.  Sin puts ‘me’ in the center of the universe, makes what I want the greatest good.  But there’s no way that millions of people can all have it their way.  Fights and disappointment are inevitable.  And so we duke it out it out in court to see who gets his way this time.

God wants something different, something better.  He dares to want perfection.  Impossible?  The angel Gabriel told Mary, nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37).  Jesus is the key—through Him, the impossible becomes possible.  Through Him, unforgivable sins are forgiven.  Through Him, death is defeated and life reigns victorious. 

You cannot achieve perfection through compromise.  God is not interested in cutting corners or relaxing His standards.  And that causes a problem for politicians.  Politicians thrive on compromise—from their perspective, it’s the only way to bring people together in common cause.  God knows differently; He knows that so long as sin rules in our hearts, each of us will try to use others to achieve our own ends.  The only way to be truly unified is to stand beneath the cross of Christ where our sin is dealt with and we are united behind Jesus’ leadership.  Politics is about lies and half-truths and ‘spin’; Christianity is about unswerving commitment to the truth.  As Jesus told Governor Pilate, Everyone on the side of truth listens to me (John 18:37).  Like most politicians, the governor just didn’t get it—“What is truth?” Pilate asked.

Politics and Religion—they just don’t mix.  It was that way in Amos’ time, and it’s true in our time as well.  Amaziah the priest and Jeroboam the king tried to shut Amos up because his message was rocking the boat.  But ignoring God doesn’t make Him go away.  Tuning out His message only makes Him angry. 

My friends, Amos may be long dead but today God has you.  Amos was just a common man, yet God spoke through him with great power.  You might not feel qualified to speak for God, but the LORD can use you nonetheless.  He can speak through your letters and emails sent to Washington and your state capital.  You can warn our leaders about the dangers of ungodly behavior like Amos did.  You can share God’s truth with people who have made a career out of double-talk and carefully nuanced ‘truth’.  God’s message might not be welcome in the halls of government, but it is most certainly needed.