Amos - The God Of Justice - Preach The Word

THE GOD OF JUSTICE
David Legge
the mission field and westernised those countries, but rather that they should finance
mission in those countries by indigenous nationals taking the Gospel to their own
people. Do you know why? Because they are queuing up to do the work, but they
haven't got the resources! Do you know that? They are volunteering by their
thousands, but they haven't got the monies. His vision is to tell this story in the West,
and to motivate Christians - maybe you can't go, or won't go - but certainly to give,
and know that there are those lining up. I read in that story, it would break your heart
in that book to read of evangelists who can't feed their children. I read one
heartbreaking story of an evangelist who went to a tribal community in a remote area
to tell them of Jesus and His love, and they were an illiterate people, they could not
read or write. So he couldn't give them tracts, he couldn't give them a Bible or any
form of literature, so he thought he would show them slides - but he had a problem,
he hadn't got a slide projector. Do you know what that evangelist did? He went to the
hospital every week, and he sold his blood that he might buy a projector to tell
illiterate people about Jesus.
Can I ask you, Christian tonight, what would you give so that others might live? Does
this touch us? God mightn't call you to go - maybe He does - make sure He has called
you to stay; but if He hasn't called you to go, is He asking you, as a Westerner, to
simplify your life in order to know God better because it's crushing and choking the
word of God and His voice in your experience, or is He asking you to live more simply
that others might simply live? That's not just a challenge to individual Christians, it's a
challenge to Christian churches: how do you spend your wealth? Office bearers,
ministers, pastors, deacons, how are you spending your wealth? Can I tell you: I
know some conscientious Christians who don't give into their churches because they
don't trust them to spend the money aright - they waste it! Listen to what Paul says in
1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 17, listen: 'Command those who are rich in this present
age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives
us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready
to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to
come, that they may lay hold on eternal life'. Is that not what the Lord Jesus Christ
taught when He said: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and
rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where moth cannot corrupt and where thieves cannot not break
through and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also' - where is
your heart tonight? Where is your heart?
Listen, I believe this: here in the West, in the church, if we don't use the wealth that
we have for the kingdom of Christ, we might lose it! All you have to do is look around
you at credit crisis, national debt in the Eurozone, in the United States, crashing
financial global markets - and it's quite possible that we, as the wealthy, might
become the poor in a matter of decades, if God should choose! This God of justice,
this God of the nations who takes note of everything that is going on! Verse 2: 'The
Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness: 'Behold, the days shall come upon you when He
will take you away with fishhooks, and your posterity with fishhooks'. You see,
fattened beef would be led away by the butcher, isn't that right? The Assyrians, who
were going to bring Israel into captivity, they had a practice: they would put hooks in
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