Carelessness About Faith
An all-creatures Bible Message

Carelessness About Faith
 
A Sermon Delivered to
The Compassion Internet Church
 
25 September 2016
 
Frank L. Hoffman, Pastor

Scripture References

Isaiah 1:1-6
Amos 6:1-11

Carelessness about faith is a problem that most people seem to have, for while they know what they say they believe, they don’t always live their faith.
 
When people don’t pay enough attention to their faith, they can easily be enticed away from it by the corrupt ways of this world.
 
Such people have a carelessness about their faith.
 
This carelessness about faith can involve the worldly things we do, or the hurtful things we may say.
 
We are to hold fast to our faith and live it; we are not to be careless about our faith.
 
Amos prophesied during the time when Israel and Judah were prosperous and had secured their territory from Hamath in the north to the Dead Sea in the south, but this doesn’t mean that they were also strong in their faith.
 
Let’s take a look at Amos 6:1-11, and see if we detect any carelessness about faith.

1. Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,
And to those who feel secure in the mountain of Samaria,
The distinguished men of the foremost of nations,
To whom the house of Israel comes.

The religious and civil leaders of Israel had become over confidant in their security and lived in luxury; however, they also had a carelessness about faith, which caused them to slip further and further away from God and His heavenly will.
 
They put their trust and faith in the physical places and things around them and forgot that it wasn’t only foreign powers that they should fear, but God’s judgement.
 
Instead of living a Godly life as an example to the world around them, as God wanted them to do, the Israelites lived like the rest of the world, and because they had this carelessness about faith, they opened themselves to receiving the judgements of God which could easily come from the foreign powers they thought they were secure from.

2. Go over to Calneh and look,
And go from there to Hamath the great,
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are they better than these kingdoms,
Or is their territory greater than yours?
 
3. Do you put off the day of calamity,
And would you bring near the seat of violence?

In other words, go to the land of your enemies and see if what they have is any better than what God gave to His people, which it was not.
 
They didn’t see what God gave them as a blessing from heaven and strengthen their faith in thankfulness to the Lord; instead, they had carelessness about their faith, and sought after the corrupt things of this world, as we see next.

4. Those who recline on beds of ivory
And sprawl on their couches,
And eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall,

They have so much carelessness about faith, that they have lost their true love (for God), and as a result they have hardened their hearts and souls so that they no longer have a sense of compassion and empathy for God’s creation, particularly the animals whom they kill to satisfy their own greed and lust.
 
This is why, today, we keep talking about the ungodliness of killing and eating animals, for we cannot cause another living being to suffer and die unless we first harden our hearts and souls to no longer feel the pain and suffering of these humans and animals.
 
This carelessness about faith causes us to be separated from God, which is what happened with the people in Amos’ day.
 
And such people do more and more things to further separate themselves from God, and try His patience.

5. Who improvise to the sound of the harp,
And like David have composed songs for themselves,
 
6. Who drink wine from sacrificial bowls
While they anoint themselves with the finest of oils,
Yet they have not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.

Because these people have hardened their hearts, they no longer have the capacity to mourn for the judgement of God that has begun to befall Israel, just as most of us today have failed to see the signs of God’s judgement beginning to befall us.
 
Like the Israelites in Amos’ day, most of the people today have developed a carelessness about faith, and they will face a similar fate because of it.

7. Therefore, they will now go into exile at the head of the exiles,
And the sprawlers' banqueting will pass away.

Most of the people in the world seem to believe that they can live a life that is pleasing in their own sight without any regard to what is pleasing in the sight of God, and this carelessness about faith will cause God to speak out against them just as He did to the Israelites in the days of Amos.

8. The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself, the LORD God of hosts has declared:
"I loathe the arrogance of Jacob,
And I detest his citadels;
Therefore, I will deliver up the city and all it contains."

Christians are also supposed to be the peacemaking children of God who live in the heavenly will of God here in earth as it is in heaven, and when they continue to refuse and continue to follow the corrupt ways of this world, they will find themselves facing the judgements of God, just as the Israelites did.

9. And it will be, if ten men are left in one house, they will die.
 
10. Then one's uncle, or his undertaker, will lift him up to carry out his bones from the house, and he will say to the one who is in the innermost part of the house, "Is anyone else with you?" And that one will say, "No one." Then he will answer, "Keep quiet. For the name of the LORD is not to be mentioned."
 
11. For behold, the LORD is going to command that the great house be smashed to pieces and the small house to fragments.
NASB

The people who have carelessness about faith and refuse to repent and return to the heavenly will of God will one day find themselves cut off from the Lord, for in reality they have chosen of their own free will to make the devil and his minions their god instead of the Lord our God.
 
And just in case some people don’t believe that what Amos said was meant for them, note carefully what we are told in Isaiah 1:1-6…

1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

This is taking place around the same time that Amos prophesied to Israel, but Isaiah is speaking specifically to Judah and Jerusalem.

2. Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth;
For the LORD speaks,
"Sons I have reared and brought up,
But they have revolted against Me.

Isaiah is telling the whole world to listen to what God is saying to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, because if they don’t change from their worldly ways, the same judgement will fall upon them, for like Judah and Jerusalem, they have a carelessness about faith.

3. "An ox knows its owner,
And a donkey its master's manger,
But Israel does not know,
My people do not understand."

Or like things are today, we don’t believe that they want to understand God or His heavenly will; they just want to continue to live in the corrupt ways of this world, which as Isaiah says, an ox and a donkey have more intelligence than they do.

4. Alas, sinful nation,
People weighed down with iniquity,
Offspring of evildoers,
Sons who act corruptly!
They have abandoned the LORD,
They have despised the Holy One of Israel,
They have turned away from Him.

It is very easy to see Isaiah’s and the Lord’s anger.
 
When people follow the evil ways of this world, it shows that they really despise the Lord our God.
 
We cannot serve both the Lord and the devil; we must choose who we will follow.

5. Where will you be stricken again,
As you continue in your rebellion?
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart is faint.

In other words, from the leadership on down, they have rebelled against God and have led the people astray.

6. From the sole of the foot even to the head
There is nothing sound in it,
Only bruises, welts, and raw wounds,
Not pressed out or bandaged,
Nor softened with oil.
NASB

Isaiah sees nothing good in the vast majority of the people; and we see the same kind of turning away from the heavenly will of God happening in the churches; they may claim to know God, but their lifestyles reflect the ways of the devil who enjoys seeing all the pain, suffering, bloodshed, and death of millions of human beings and billions of animals every year.
 
We have to stop our carelessness about faith in God, and return wholeheartedly to Him and His heavenly will.
 
Amen.

Return to: Sermons Archive