Visions of Divine Retribution: Summer fruit (8)

Introduction:

When we were together last, we were introduced to three out of four visions given to Amos in regard to how and why God will judge his people in Amos 7, which were, if you remember, a vision of Locust, of Fire, and of a Plumb line. The plumb line, we learned, represented God’s law, and showed how far Israel as a wall had leaned away from that standard. We also saw that Amos had to deal with Confrontation from the prophet Amaziah who questioned his credentials and opposed his message.

This morning we will look at the last of the four Visions of Divine Retribution given to Amos by God; that of Summer fruit from Amos 8, and how that vision provides the main header for the final countdown to judgment for the northern kingdom.

Text: Amos 8

Amos 8 ESV

1 This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them. 3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord God. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” “Silence!” 4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, 5 saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, 6 that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” 7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. 8 Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?” 9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10 I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. 11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. 12 They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. 13 “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst. 14 Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’ they shall fall, and never rise again.”

Main Idea: Because God is so longsuffering and steadfast in his love, we must never entertain the idea that his fiery judgment on sin will not happen.

Whereas the third vision of the plumb line revealed that judgment is certain. Our present vision, the fourth vision, reveals that judgment is near.

I. Certainty that Judgment is Near (1-3)

A. Vision of Summer Fruit (1-2)

(1) This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.

As we learned last week, this vision as well as the previous one (plumb line) begins with God asking Amos what he sees.

(2) And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.

The Hebrew terms for summer fruit (qayits) and end (qets) sound alike. In Hebrew literature this kind of wordplay is very common. Here, “summer fruit” signifies the last of the harvest. See Jer. 8:20, “the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

The long summer of God’s patience has finally come to an end, and there has been no harvest of repentance.

I will never again pass by them - as was mentioned in 7:8, no longer will the Lord pass over their transgressions.

B. General Description of Judgment (3)

(3) The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord God. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” “Silence!”

The songs of the temple shall become wailings - The Lord will no longer tolerate the noise of the temple songs (5:23), which will turn to the wailing of bereavement when the Lord comes in judgment.

that day - Judgment day, as mentioned already in 5:18.

so many dead bodies - An abundance of corpses is typical in defeated cities in the ancient Near East, especially when conquered by the Assyrians (Nah. 3:3).

The paganized worship of Israel will end in a terrible silence.

With the certainty that the end is near, God now reminds us through Amos of the…

II. Causes of that Coming Judgment (4-6)

The terrible irony of all this is that the Israelites thought that ritualistic worship could excuse oppression and greed. However, even a sincere worship could not have atoned for these evil acts.

A. Oppression of the Poor (4)

(4) Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end,

you who trample on the needy - The rich and powerful were oppressing the poor and weak rather than helping them.

But those who sought to bring the poor of the land to an end were themselves going to face a terrible end.

B. Improper Observance of Holy Days (5a)

(5a) saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale,…”

new moon ... Sabbath - The New Moon festival is celebrated every fourth week (lunar cycle), with various offerings (Num. 28:11–15). The Sabbath, observed every week, is founded on God’s acts of creation (Ex. 20:8–11) and redemption (Deut. 5:12 note).

Since work is forbidden on these days, these dishonest oppressive merchants could not wait until these Sabbaths were over so that they could continue in their…

C. Dishonesty and Deceit in Business (5b-6b)

(5b) “that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances,”

ephah small ... balances - Such dishonest business practices are against the Lord’s law, and will result in His judgment (Lev. 19:36; Deut. 25:14).

The weight of goods being bought or sold was determined by hanging them on one end of a balance beam while standard weights (such as a shekel - 2/5 of an ounce) were hung on the other end. If the weights were only slightly false in the merchant’s favor, considerable profits could be made. The situation was similar if the measure of volume (such as an ephah - 3/5 of a bushel) being used was incorrect.

(6b) … and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

chaff of the wheat - Lit. “the refuse of the wheat.” By mixing the chaff with the actual kernels of wheat, the estate owners cheat the buyers of their grain. These owners add to the good wheat that which falls the floor and is supposed to be discarded in the wheat threshing process.

D. Enslavement of the Poor (6a)

(6a) that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals …

buy the poor … and the needy - Rather than helping their poor neighbors, the rich and powerful were using their money and power to put these people into slavery.

So you might think that they should just stop doing these things…however, all of these activities showed not just a disregard for their fellow man, but that this disregard was rooted in a disregard for God and his covenant relationship with them. Thus, a spiritual deficit in the vertical, will always reveal itself as a relational deficit in the horizontal.

God’s judgment will fall on sin as we will see outlined with a…

III. Comprehensive Detail of that Judgment (7-14)

A. Necessity for Judgment (7)

(7) The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

‌The pride of Jacob could be taken in three different ways: it could be a reference to God himself , or the land of Israel itself, or it could be a literal reference to Israel’s insupportable pride in its strength and wealth or a combination of all three as is seen back in 6:8...

Amos 6:8 ESV

8 The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts: “I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.”

Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. - I believe in the context, it is talking about Israel’s self pride to which God will be in remembrance of their deeds.

B. Analogies of Flood and Darkness (8-9)

(8) Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”

rise … and sink … like the Nile - Amos sees the coming destruction to be like the annual flooding of the Nile. The flood is absolutely inevitable, covering everything and leaving destruction in its wake.

The imagery is used here to depict a coming flood of judgment—the upheaval of the Assyrian invasion.

(9) “And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will make ... darken - Though such idolatry is strictly prohibited by the covenant (Deut. 4:19), Judah and Israel have engaged in star and sun worship (5:26 note; 2 Kin. 23:5, 11). The assertions here affirm that the Lord alone is God, and the sun is merely one of His creations. This darkening of the earth could be a metaphor against the worship of the sun, as God causes this worship to cease.

Also, the analogy shows that Israel’s destruction will be so terrible that even nature will go into mourning, with the sun hiding its face.

This is reminiscent of another darkness that covered the earth when God’s only Son died for the sins of Israel and the whole world (see Mark 15:33). thus, darkening can serve as a symbol of judgment (Joel 3:15; see also Rev. 6:12; 8:12).

C. Universal Mourning (10)

(10) I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

sackcloth - This coarse material (similar to burlap) is worn as a sign of mourning to indicate that the pleasures of life no longer matter to the mourner (Gen. 37:34; 2 Sam. 3:31).

baldness on every head - Shaving the head is a sign of mourning. It is prohibited in the Sinai covenant (Lev. 21:5; Deut. 14:1), perhaps because it is a pagan practice of bodily disfigurement that disgraces God’s image (Is. 15:2, 3; Ezek. 27:30, 31). Ironically, it is prophesied for Israel and Judah (cf. Is. 3:24; Mic. 1:16).

like the mourning for an only son - this mourning will be so great that is parallels that of one who has lost their only son.

bitter - A term describing the ultimate consequences of sin (2 Sam. 2:26; Prov. 5:4).

But the greatest of all these judgments is the…

D. Famine of the Word (11-13)

(11) “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

a famine ... of hearing the words - This curse stems from the covenant law, which is synonomous with God hiding his face from his people (Deut. 32:20; Hos. 3:4). So also in the period of the judges, when sin abounded (Judg. 21:25), “the word of the Lord was rare” (1 Sam. 3:1).

Israel had rejected the words of the LORD from Amos and so they would go into exile, where there would be no word from the Lord at all. In its absence they will find that the revelation from God had been their most precious possession. We see how comprehensive this famine is…

(12) They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.

from sea to sea - A standard phrase in the ancient Near East denoting “the ends of the earth,” this lit. means “from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.”

they shall not find it - People who have repeatedly rejected God’s words will suddenly be unable to find God’s words at all. In 7:17 we saw how severe judgment came to the priest Amaziah, for rejecting God’s words, but here severe judgment comes upon the people as a whole for the same sin.

God’s people who refuse to listen, believe, and obey God’s word, will be left with a similar life of bewilderment and wondering as does the world.

(13) “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst.

lovely virgins ... young men - Even the young and robust will be at the end of their strength (cf. Is. 51:20).

thirst - The focus is on physical extremity (cf. 4:7, 8), though spiritual thirst may be in view as well (v. 11).

E. Idolatry will Perish (14)

(14) Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’ they shall fall, and never rise again.”

swear by the Guilt - This is likely a play on words: the Hb. word for “guilt” sounds like the name of the Canaanite goddess Asherah, and her spouse, Baal. To swear by a god in the ancient Near East of Amos’s day implies the recognition and worship of that god. This is why the Israelites are commanded to swear only by the Lord (Deut. 6:13; 10:20; cf. Jer. 5:7; Zeph. 1:5).

they shall fall, and never rise again - this idolatry in the land Israel will be permanently removed by their deportation by the Assyrians.

So What?

Do we live in the reality that this world is passing away, and that at some point of time, God will bring an end to all that we hold dear in this life?

So what does this mean…are we to not enjoy the blessings of this life? No, John tells us in his epistle how we are to look at this truth.

1 John 2:15–17 ESV

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Do we understand, as has been stated many times, that our relationships with one another on the horizontal plane, are directly proportional to our relationship with God on the vertical plane?

No matter how we try and point the finger at others, accusing them of our wrong actions, the bottom line is that our wrong actions are allows symptomatic of a spiritual problem and must drive us to repentance and restoration with God first.

Although we may not be able to change the other person, we can change ourselves and react biblically through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

The only way we can have peace with man, is to have peace with God.

Do we realize that we live in a day of great famine for the Word of God?

Too many churches and pastors do not look at preaching and teaching the Word of God as a priority, but have sought to give the people what the want to hear, and not what they need to hear.

This world wide famine for God’s word begins with a personal famine for God Word. Do we hunger and thirst for the very words of God? Do we even consider the Bible to be the very authoritative, infallible, absolute truth of God, the only guide for our lives?

Will we have to experience God’s judgment of removing his word from our daily life because of our abuse and low opinion of it? There are many places in the world where the bible is banned, and people hunger for it and travel great distances, at great danger just to hear it taught. Will we be next?

Will you fathers commit to reading and studying the Word personally, and vow to do so with your families?