Amos
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
A few weeks ago, there was a man who declared that he had a vision that the Rapture would happen September 23/24, signaling the beginning of the end times. Has happened many times in the past, seems like every 10-15 years we get some one claiming they have figured out the timing.
Jesus told us that when He returns it will be like a thief in the night, that we won’t know, so why do so many latch on to these ideas? I think it is because we long to see justice done, we long to see the evil of the world removed. It can lead us sometimes to ask the question “Why has God waited so long?”
When we look at our text today, the book of Amos, we get a little bit of a picture into why God doesn’t just “end it all now.” God’s character is consistent throughout the Old and New Testament, and when we look at what God did with Israel, we can begin to understand the answer to the question why he has waited.
Context
Context
Amos is a minor prophets....Minor prophets aren’t really covered.
Want to look for the themes, because they tell us a little about who we are as humans and about who God is.
Time period - Pre-exile, about 40 years before the fall of the northern kingdom. Predates Isaiah, around same time as Jonah.
That makes this a warning to the people of Israel.
Summary
Summary
CH 1-2 Punishment will come for many
Begins with a list of places that will be punished.
Damascus
Gaza
Tyre
Edom
Ammon
Moab
Judah
Each of these kingdoms is to be punished for their wrongdoings.
Repetition of the phrase “For three transgressions of....and for four,” indicating it’s not just one thing.
All 1 paragraph, and mostly about betrayal of different people groups or killing people. For Judah it is for rejecting the Law.
Then we get to Israel.
Ill - Group of young sailors got in trouble, and all of them got punished, but Captain saved the ringleader for last, and had the harshest punishment.
Israel’s condemnation spans 4 paragraphs, so what did they do?
Worshiped Idols (within that there were lots of immoral things)
Perverse relationships
betrayed the poor and destitute
walked in all sorts of wickedness.
God’s response:
questions, who brought you out of Egypt? Sustained you in the wilderness?
Chapters 3-6 Israel’s guilt and punishment
Starts by singling out Israel, they were chosen and brought out of Egypt.
Promise to Abraham, rescued them from slavery.
They were given the law - abide in this, and they failed.
3:3-8 declares demonstrates the cause and effect idea
Israel abandoned God and His Law, and thus reaps the punishment
Also demonstrates clearly that the punishment is coming from God.
The judgment of exile is proclaimed in 3:11, but in 3:12 there is a remnant that will be saved.
Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“An adversary shall surround the land and bring down your defenses from you, and your strongholds shall be plundered.” Thus says the Lord: “As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed.
This isn’t a sudden judgment:
4 & 5 show that God did several things to warn Israel to correct their path and they did not.
4:6-11 shows judgments poured out followed by the repetition of “yet you have not returned to me”
“I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord.
ii. Chapter 5 Amos continues to plead for Israel to return to God.
Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel,
Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
b. The remainder of the book until the end of Chapter 9 is describing the judgment that will fall upon Israel because of their rejection of God.
Several visions that show the destruction of Israel and darkness that falls upon the nation.
Warnings to those who are complacent, to those who are prideful.
Visions of a plumb line and fruit essentially saying times up.
The end of the book closes with hope.
Israel will be restored and they will rebuild.
Themes
Themes
Patience of the Lord
Patience of the Lord
Why do the wicked prosper? Why doesn’t God just punish evil?
Several times in the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah
O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?
Legitimate question that we might ask, it’s in places like these we can see the answer.
God is patient and kind to bring about redemption.
to understand the patience of the Lord, we need to go back to Moses and the giving of the Law.
If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.
From the very beginning God gave the Israelites warnings that if they went astray from the law they would no longer possess the promised land.
Centuries they went astray and God was patient, calling them back.
Chapter 4 we see 5 different judgments that God sent prior to Amos and each of them ended with “yet you did not return to me.”
More than just 5 - Come Thou Fount “Ebenezer” - Israelites were prideful and went into battle without God, they lost, then they repented, prayed, and in the next battle the won. Lot’s of stories like these where God gives some sort of Judgment, sometimes the Israelites respond (like Ebenezer), but by and large they don’t.
Judgments are a pleading for Israel to return. RESTORATION —- That is the goal, that is what God desires, repentance and turning to Him.
Even in this letter in chapter 5 God is still calling them back, it’s a final warning to return and repent.
Two sides to this. One, he tarries that some might be saved. That is the remnant that will be rescued we talked about in Ch 3. But it also stands to condemn those who stand against God all the more. They have had the opportunity to repent, but kept walking in their evil ways.
Even now, God is patient, calling us to repent and to know Him.
We may sometimes say “Come Soon Lord,”
If not, may we be patient that more might be saved.
For those who refuse to repent and turn to the Lord, the judgment is very real, and it is Just.
Just Judgment of the Lord
Just Judgment of the Lord
It is a Just judgment.
Throughout Amos we see the guilt of Israel laid out.
Ch 2 shows us they turned to Idols that do nothing.
God condemns them saying:
Amos 2:9–11 ““Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.”
Amos 3:1–2 “Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”
God’s power was demonstrated to the Israelites in a very clear way, and yet, they turned aside to whatever the culture around them was doing.
Back to Deut 30, The law was given, the way was clear.
We also stand condemned in the same way:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
We can see the power of God and the nature of God and yet we still turn away. We stand in the same place of the Israelites.
God has been patient, the consequences were clear, and ample warnings were given.
Again, chapter 4 demonstrates that God put things in Israel’s path to call them to repentance. “yet you did not return to me.”
God made a covenant, Kept his side of the bargain and Israel didn’t.
Often the argument is made that the OT God is cruel and exacting.
This shows a different picture. It shows a God that is patient and merciful, yet Just.
It shows a God that gives us every opportunity to follow His law and yet we don’t.
Genesis we see that an individual will break God’s Law (Adam)
We also see that families will break God’s Law (Abraham/Isaac/Jacob)
Here we see a nation will break God’s Law (Israel)
This is not the actions of a vindictive god like the idols the ancient world worshipped. This is a patient father and this is a just punishment.
But God does not leave us without hope. There is a promise here of a future for Israel. Remember God’s goal is restoration of his chosen people.
So What?
So What?
Praise God that He is just in His judgment and turn to His grace
Evil should be punished.
The problem is, we all deserve that punishment because we have all turned away from God. The good news is that the judge has taken that punishment for us.
This is why Jesus had to die on the cross, the standard was set from the beginning, and we have failed that standard. The punishment is just, and Christ, the God Man, took it in our place.
Romans 3:26 “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Restoration!
Praise him because of this grace, but also praise Him that evil will be punished and that He is perfectly Just.
Remember God’s patience when we look at people.
Ourselves
Look at ourselves and think - “I keep failing at the same thing” - “How can I possibly be saved,” “How could God really love me?”
Don’t turn away, run to Him. Lean into the grace of God in Christ. God wants us to turn to Him.
In your weakness, His strength is shown.
Each other
Last week’s message - bear one another’s burdens, remember God’s patience with Israel, with you, and be patient with each other.
The World
People who stand against God, rage against him and his law, his creation. It’s easy to look at them as enemies.
We were enemies of God once too. Ephesians 2:1–3 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
Pray for them to repent and look for opportunities to share the Gospel.
We started this morning with the question of “Why has God waited so long?” Amos shows us that God is patient and desires repentance of His people. He tarries that more might be saved and that those who do reject Him have no excuse. So, as we go out this week, may our prayer be “Come soon Lord Jesus, Come soon, but if you tarry, help us to do the work you have called us to, calling people to repentance.”
