By David Faust

Do you listen carefully to those preflight safety talks on airplanes? Flight attendants inform us about serious matters: How should we react in emergencies? What if the cabin loses pressure or the plane is forced to land on water? While the flight attendants talk, most of the passengers read, talk, doze, and ignore their instructions. We tune out the warnings because we’ve heard it all before.

But have you ever been on a plane during a windstorm or major turbulence? No one ignores safety instructions then. When life and death might actually be on the line, passengers pay attention. The movie Sully tells the true story about a US Airways flight that took off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009. Its engines were disabled after being struck by wild geese. The pilot (played in the movie by Tom Hanks) had everyone’s attention during the final moments before the plane’s emergency landing on the Hudson River. When Captain Chesley (“Sully”) Sullenberger declared over the intercom, “Prepare for impact,” you can be sure everyone on board was fully tuned in—and many were crying out to God. Remarkably all 155 passengers and crew members survived.

Sadly a lot of people seem to view preachers like flight attendants giving predictable speeches. Yawning listeners tune them out with indifferent stares that communicate, “We’ve heard it all before.”

Handpicked by God

Amos was a preacher who was hard to ignore—a blunt instrument in the Lord’s toolbox. Unpolished and unapologetic, Amos had no seminary diploma hanging on his wall. Just as Jesus called Simon Peter to leave his fishing boat and become a fisher of men, God called Amos to leave the farm and shepherd people. Amos probably had calluses and stains on his hands from harvesting figs when God handpicked him to be a prophet.

The Israelites had become materialistic and complacent. Their faith was shallow. Convenience and self-centeredness had replaced their devotion to God. In that kind of spiritual environment, genteel and predictable sermons would go unheard. There was “a famine of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11), so like Captain Sullenberger, Amos prepared the people for impact. He preached boldly, “Seek the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire” (5:6). “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream” (5:24). “Woe to you who are complacent in Zion” (6:1).

Fueled by Deep Conviction

Thank God for communicators like Amos who dare to speak the truth in love. We can learn some things from blunt instruments like him. Sometimes, in the name of love, important truths go unsaid. The best preachers, like the best of friends, kindly but forthrightly say what we need to hear, not what we want to hear. “Better is open rebuke than hidden love” (Proverbs 27:5).

Preachers shouldn’t be rude, mean-spirited, or harsh. God’s grace should be communicated graciously. But a life-and-death message shouldn’t be delivered so casually that it leaves minds bored and hearts unchanged. If we speak without passion—without Holy Spirit fire born in prayer and fueled by deep conviction—it’s no wonder listeners tune us out like bored airline passengers.

God’s Word demands the speaker’s best effort to prepare and present it, and the listener’s best effort to hear and respond. Biblical truth is too important to be ignored.

David Faust serves as the Associate Minister at East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Based on International Sunday School Lesson, © 2013, by the Lesson Committee. Scripture quotations are from the New International Version ©2011, unless otherwise indicated.

As you apply today’s Scripture study to everyday life, read Engage Your Faith by David Faust and the correlating Evaluation Questions.