Introduction
We have made the distinction between direct and indirect obedience. In the realms of indirect obedience, we noted the importance of starting close to home, and starting with the obvious. As God gives more grace, we may move out from the center. We will be able to see to do this because the beam is now out of our eyes, and because, as George MacDonald put it, obedience is the great opener of eyes.

The Text
“For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces” (Amos 3:10).

Remembering Who and Where We Are
In the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan for this sorry world, we are privileged to be living two thousand years into the expansion of the fallen tabernacle of David. In other words, we are closer to the plowman catching up with the harvester than we are to the smoking ruin of Samaria. We are part of the wonderful work that God has done in the world through Christ. This does not mean that there are no applications for us from Amos; it means rather that there are indirect applications for us. Please note that “indirect” does not mean “less authoritative,” or “optional.” Pressing the authority of God’s Word into every nook and cranny of the heart is one of the ways that God is bringing great blessing about.

Keep It SImple
In order to follow what I am urging here, we will run the risk of being written off as fundamentalists. But that’s all right—worse things could happen. We are living in a time of rapid globalization, and this process has its giddy, cute cheerleaders (all of them perky and blonde) and its hysterical, weeping critics (all of them with brown eyes and weak chins). How are we supposed to sort all this out? The former tell us about how Halliburton has rebuilt Iraq to the great rejoicing of pretty much everybody there on the ground. The latter tell us lurid stories of rapine, laughter, and heartlessness. Are we in the Church supposed to jump in there and sort it all out? If we are to be engaged with the culture, then yes. But how?

For most of us, keep it simple. Does Halliburton believe in Jesus? Remember, every knee will bow. Remember, here is no neutrality anywhere. There is no place where men can go that will obtain them a “release” from getting from the authority of the gospel. If this applies to all kings and presidents, and it does, we need to keep in mind that a number of our multinational corporations are bigger and richer than many nations. Why would it not apply to CEOs as well? This “cut to the chase” approach is for most of us. Some—who are providentially placed on the scene or who have the time and ability to get three PhDs in the subject—have the responsibility to speak the Word of God into the details of that circumstance.

Six Applications
In our treatment of chapter three in Amos, we saw six areas where the Church in America is failing to do what Israel also failed to do. The fact that this is an analogous failure does not remove the need for repentance.

First, our churches are very wealthy, the wealthiest in the history of the world. Do we use this wealth to establish robust, orthodox worship? Or do we decorate various kinds of “altars at Bethel”? And do works of charity flow out of our orthodox worship like a mighty river?

Second, like Israel we are ungrateful for our biblical heritage. Israel refused to acknowledge who it was who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, establishing them in the land. Today, even Christian writers and theologians take the lead in affirming that America never was Christian, and furthermore, ought not to be Christian in the future. The former claim is historically false, and the latter assertion is simply disobedience. For the latter, if Jesus told us to disciple all nations, “no” is not an appropriate response. Insistence that obedience never existed in the past is nothing but an excuse to keep it from happening in the future.

Third, we have forgotten that Jesus is the Lord of history. This means that He is Lord of kingdoms as they rise and empires as they fall. Benjamin Franklin, far more deistic than most of the other Founders, said this, “If a sparrow cannot fall without His notice, how can an empire rise without His aid?” The irony is that Franklin the deist had a more explicitly Christian view of history at this point than many contemporary “worldview” Christians. In the course of history, good and bad things both happen. This means blessings and chastisements, both of which we must learn how to read. Israel in Amos refused to read history rightly.

Fourth, like Israel we like to grade on a curve. We think that because we are “better,” then it means that we have somehow attained to the standard God has set for us. For example, Americans are far more generous than any other nation. We give close to 300 billion annually. But we cannot pretend that we are automatically vindicated because others are worse. We must not compare how generous we are compared to how generous others aren’t. If all the kids in the class flunked the test, this does not mean the top score of 48 came from the honors student. We must compare how generous we are to others compared with how generous God has been with us. That is the standard.

Fifth, Amos notes the presence of “tumults,” the “oppressed,” “violence,” and “robbery,” and all within Israel’s own midst. We have stark problems in our midst as well. Remember, start with the near and clear. Don’t fix all the problems you don’t understand. The problems that we do understand are sufficient for now.

Sixth, if Mammon has become a god, as it has, men who worship at that shrine will always glory in their god’s “majesty.” The indirect problems with greed as idolatry will become direct soon enough. As long as idolatry is a metaphor, people can shrug off the warnings because “they don’t see it.” But when it comes out into the open, and every can see it, then can now shrug off your objections because “everyone is doing it.”

Kirk Shire
The book of Amos belongs to the faithful Church. If the shire is to be a kindly place, it must be a kirk shire.It is part of our covenant heritage. We must not allow it to be co-opted by those who would disregard the heart of the prophet’s message. What should we take away from this book? We want to live in parish, in the shire, establishing a corner of Christendom. At the center of the shire must stand the faithful worship of God in the kirk. If the shire is to be a kindly place, it must be a kirk shire.

Introduction
We have spent a good bit of time considering the applications of the prophet’s words to his original audience, to the Israelites in the northern kingdom of Israel. Lord willing, we will spend two weeks considering how those words may legitimately be applied to us as Americans. This is not a topical sermon so much as it as a topical application.

The Text
“For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces” (Amos 3:10).

Themes of the Book
Not to beat the point to death, but remember that false worship produces false living, and false living always results in cruelty and inhumanity, always. Israel was indicted for two great problems—false worship at Bethel and Dan, and hardheartedness to the downtrodden.

Applications, Direct and Indirect
In order to know how to apply this book to our circumstances in this nation, we have to make a distinction between the sin as we see it and the sin as God sees it. God always sees the heart of the matter, but we are not justified in taking the fact of that “heart” and applying it socially. Take the illustation of a husband who looks lustfully at a magazine cover for thirty seconds at the grocery store. Has he been unfaithful in the eyes of God? Yes (Matt. 5:28). Does his wife have grounds for divorce? No, of course not. Apply this distinction to idolatry. Refusing to bow down in religious worship before pictures or statues is direct application of the first two of the Ten Commandments. In many places in the world, these commandments must still be obeyed in this direct fashion. But the apostle Paul also tells us that greed is idolatry (Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5), in the same way that lust is adultery. Heart idolatry is much harder for us to identify.

In a similar way, the prohibition of cruelty to the poor has a direct application, and it has indirect applications. As before, the indirect applications are harder to get at, although they are still there. For example, for entertainment the Roman emperor Tiberius would have prisoners brought in to be tortured in his presence while having his dinner. The message of Amos would apply to him directly. Frederick William of Prussia was traveling through Potsdam one day and saw one of his subjects darting off. The king ordered him to stop and commandaed him to say why he ran. Because he was afraid, the man replied. “Afraid?! Afraid?! You’re supposed to love me!”The king started beating him with a cane, while yelling, “Love me, scum!” Today when our rulers come out among the peasantry it is usually during a campaign, and so they come around to IHOP to have a waffle with us and ask us our opinions on geopolitics. They can still do vile things—but not openly as in other times. This means applications here will be indirect as well.

Applications for Americans
The evangelical Left is crowded with folks who want us to worship at Bethel—Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, and all that crowd. The evangelical Right is compromised by her allegiance to Dan— when President Bush summoned everyone to the post-911 worship service at the National Cathedral, many leaders of religious Right were there—including Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and for evangelicals generally, Billy Graham. And when we say this, we have to acknowledge that this sin at Dan was much closer to a direct violation of the law of God. Culture is always driven by cultus (worship), and you can’t get worship wrong and get anything else right long term. The religious Right wants good fruit from a rotten tree. The religious Left wants rotten fruit from a rotten tree.

Near and Clear
Jesus sets down several basic principles for us in His famous statement about the beam in your eye (Matt. 7:3). There are two issues here—the first is the location of the two eyes. The first is yours, and the second is your brother’s. Start at home. Secondly, Jesus says that we are to start with the big and obvious problem (the beam), and that later on we can get to the smaller problem (the mote). Put these two together, and we see that a Christian social conscience begins with the near and clear.

Having a social conscience over things that are far away and murky is a good way to avoid having a social conscience at all. When a motel chain asks you to refrain from having your towels washed so that together you can “save the rain forests,” we ought to see through this right away. This principle is foundational for all Christians who do not want their necessary naivete in certain areas to get in the way of being responsible Christians. As Linus put the reverse one time, “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand.” And P.J. O’Rourke said that “everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom with the dishes.” This same principle is seen (in another application) when John the apostle says, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 Jn. 4:20). We test distant love by proximate love. And this means that you cannot love your brother whom you have not seen if you are not loving your brother whom you have seen. Your fundamental duties are near and clear.

Some Test Cases
Take an average Christian believer, worshipping God faithfully and regularly, and one who reads his Bible and watches the evening news. How should his social conscience function? Where does it start? The less the application is diluted by distance and complexity, the more we may and must speak with assurance, boldness, and authority. The more it is diluted, the more careful we must be (Prov. 18:17). This is why, for Christians in the culture wars, the negative issues of abortion and homosexuality are touchstone issues. They are near and clear.

This is also why tithes and offerings and other aspects of personal generosity are also a touchstone issue. If we are in arrears with God’s taxes, then we have no right to complain about anyone else’s taxation levels. Put another way, those who are not tithing have no right to be political conservatives. Why? Their sin is near and clear.

Two Step Process
As we seek to make applications from Amos—as we will do more next week—we need to take two steps, asking two basic questions. Is this application direct or indirect? For most of us, it will be indirect. And because obedience will be indirect, we should want to begin our obedience at the near end, with clear duties.