Amos 6: Condemnation Combination

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Joe doing them today.

Prayer for our Schools

With the start of school in many places this last week, including here at EHCA, and the start of school this coming week for most everyone else in NM this coming week, we wanted to take some time this morning to lift up a focused prayer for our schools, administrators, educators, students, and their families this morning. I can’t think of a time when this time of prayer has perhaps felt more necessary than this year. Please join me in praying. We are going to start with 30 seconds of individual prayer. Take that time to pray specifically for the educators that you know, the students that you know, and the schools that you are connected to in some way. Then I will lead us as we pray together.

Lord, we are so thankful for the privilege of prayer. We get to join together with one heart in order to bring our concerns, our praises, our requests, and our struggles to You directly. We are grateful for that provision, Father. And this morning, we come together as a church family with a specific purpose to this moment of prayer. We come together to lift up our schools, our administrators, our educators, and our students and their families here at the beginning of their school year. This school year is unlike any in our recollection, Lord, probably unlike any that has ever occurred. We call upon Your mighty hand to work in our schools, in our city, our state, and our nation.

We pray, Lord, for those in our government who are making decisions right now about school in the face of this pandemic. We pray for You guidance and godly purpose behind every decision that they make. Protect them and grant them wisdom. We pray specifically for our president, the national Secretary of Education, for our governor and New Mexico Education Secretary, and for our mayor and the APS school board, as well as for the boards of directors and administrators of the charter schools in our area.

Educators are facing challenges that we could not have imagined 8 months ago. We thank You for providing those who teach. Therefore, Lord, we first pray for hope for these administrators and teachers. Give them incredible perseverance in serving to educate children. Lord, we pray that You would inspire them to innovate and find new ways to connect with and teach our children. Protect their health and well-being, Father, and protect their families from illness. Give them wisdom and direction as they make decisions for their classrooms or online meeting times. Grant them peace as they step out into this dynamic time, and help them to find sure footing, Lord, so that they can be effective, efficient, and energized by their work with students. Bless them and keep them, Father.

And we pray for students who are going back to school, or who have already started. We pray that you would protect them and keep them safe from disease, or violence, or anything else that might hinder their education or threaten their well-being. We ask that this time would not hinder their learning and educational and emotional growth, and that they would come out on the other side stronger for the experience. We pray, God, that you would use this crazy time to produce in them fruit that we can’t even begin to imagine now: fruit of resilience and hope, of perseverance and creativity, of a desire to learn and a healthy perspective on the importance of family and friendship… of community. Lord, for those students who are missing out on things that they expected for this year, things like sports or other activities, who are now missing out on those things, we pray that the possible long-standing consequences of this cancellation, such as lost scholarships or college offers, would be minimized or eradicated completely. And we pray that you would give hope to students who are already struggling with isolation and other emotional issues. Bless them, Lord.

Lord, we finally pray for our school here at Eastern Hills. We pray for the school board, for the administration, for the teachers and for the the students and families of EHCA. We thank you for how we have already seen You at work and how You have taken steps to solve issues even before the issues arose. Thank you for your continued provision for this school, and for the understanding and care of this church body in our willingness to see EHCA as a ministry and as a blessing to both this church body and to the community at large. We pray for safety and health for everyone at EHCA. We pray for Your protection around our teachers and their families, around our students and their families. We ask that you would keep COVID from this place in Your will, Father, and that it would not hinder our work in educating and guiding these students. Bless our teachers as they are facing a strange year full of strange decisions that must be made. Bless our students with clarity of thought and with focus and concentration. Bless them with good friendships and positive relationships with their teachers. Thank you for each of them and for those who teach them. Be with the board and with Rae-Ann as she continues to find her footing in her new role. We pray that you would be with Camille as she uses her talents and experience to help guide the school through these uncharted waters. We pray for all of our new teachers and students, that this would be a tremendous year.

But mostly, Father, we pray that we here at Eastern Hills, both the Academy and the Church, would redeem this time by boldly and consistently proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and working out our salvation with fear and trembling before a watching world. Let us shine light into the darkness and hold fast to the hope that we have in Christ, and let us always be ready, Lord, to give an answer to anyone who asks us about the hope that we have in Jesus. We pray that You would use our testimony to draw people to Yourself, so that they might be saved. Thank you for the privilege of being used by You in this way. Bless us now as we look at Your Word together. For Your glory and for Your sake we pray all of these things in the matchless name of Your Son, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Give a hand to our educators and students as a show of support for them and your willingness to pray for them this school year.

Thank you for joining me in prayer.

Opening

Remember last week that we considered the Lord’s message to His people in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and the fact that they had rejected and neglected the Word of God, and had been led astray by lies. We considered our own faithfulness to reading, meditating on, understanding, and applying God’s Word in our own lives, and we decided as a church to start working on a new habit of Scripture reading, and we started reading Psalm 119 together, 8 verses (one stanza) per day, from last Sunday until August 30. If you have read every day this week, today you should be reading verses 57-64, if you haven’t already.

But today, we have reached the point that is a sort of “climax” of the first two chapters of the message of God through Amos. Remember that the thesis of this message to God’s people is that “The Sovereign Lord roars,” as we saw in verse 2 of chapter 1 at the beginning of the book. The Lord is about to make the point that He started making in that initial statement. He is about to roar at the target people of His message: the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Let’s read our focal passage this morning, and stand in honor of God’s Word:

Amos 2:6–16 CSB

6 The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Israel for three crimes, even four, because they sell a righteous person for silver and a needy person for a pair of sandals. 7 They trample the heads of the poor on the dust of the ground and obstruct the path of the needy. A man and his father have sexual relations with the same girl, profaning my holy name. 8 They stretch out beside every altar on garments taken as collateral, and in the house of their God they drink wine obtained through fines. 9 Yet I destroyed the Amorite as Israel advanced; his height was like the cedars, and he was as sturdy as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. 10 And I brought you from the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness in order to possess the land of the Amorite. 11 I raised up some of your sons as prophets and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is this not the case, Israelites? This is the Lord’s declaration. 12 But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets, “Do not prophesy.” 13 Look, I am about to crush you in your place as a wagon crushes when full of grain. 14 Escape will fail the swift, the strong one will not maintain his strength, and the warrior will not save his life. 15 The archer will not stand his ground, the one who is swift of foot will not save himself, and the one riding a horse will not save his life. 16 Even the most courageous of the warriors will flee naked on that day— this is the Lord’s declaration.

PRAY

The Lord has been, for what we have marked as 18 verses, like a lion stalking His prey. He has circled around His quarry, and even sneaked right up next to it. Amos is probably in the town of Bethel as he shares the Lord’s message, and as it was one of the major locations for worshiping in the Northern Kingdom, he likely has had a decent audience. As I have mentioned the last couple of weeks, all the while as Amos shared God’s condemnation on the pagan nations around Israel and ultimately on their brother nation, Judah, these Israelites were probably agreeing with everything God had to say through this prophet from the south. After all, He was railing against everyone Israel hated. Of course they were going to celebrate that.

But as Amos started this last message with the formula, “I will not relent from punishing Israel for three crimes, even four...”, all hope of their escaping this message of judgment and justice evaporated. And what they were left with was not just a picture of how the pagans had disobeyed in how they treated others, or of how Judah had disobeyed in their rejecting the Lord’s covenant, but they would hear how they had actually done BOTH: the nation of Israel had sinned in the same veins as both the pagan nations around them AND the nation of Judah. They were ripe for judgment (as we will also see later in chapter 8), and their constant practice of injustice had reached its breaking point.

So God declares through Amos that He will judge His people for their mistreatment of others and their violation of their covenant with Him, but this message is different from each of the others, as we will see.

God condemns the mistreatment of the poor and the needy.

What we see first of all is that, like the pagan nations around them, Israel had a problem with how they treated other people, specifically the poor and the needy. There is some indication in the language here that it was likely the rich and powerful that were doing the mistreating here. Let’s look at verse 6 and the first part of verse 7:

Only read through 7a.

Amos 2:6–7 CSB

6 The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Israel for three crimes, even four, because they sell a righteous person for silver and a needy person for a pair of sandals. 7 They trample the heads of the poor on the dust of the ground and obstruct the path of the needy. A man and his father have sexual relations with the same girl, profaning my holy name.

There’s basically two pairs of statements here regarding how the poor and needy among the people of Israel were being treated, and this is by their brothers:

They sell a “righteous” (likely meaning “innocent” in this case) person for “silver,” and a needy person for a pair of sandals. One way that people ended up in slavery in Israelite society was to be in debt. The powerful in Israel were using people as a commodity to be bartered with: some for much (silver) and some for little (a pair of sandals). We will see this language again later, near the end of the message of Amos.

They also “trample” the heads of the poor on the dust of the ground, and obstruct the path of the needy. I very highly doubt that the “trampling” is literal, physical trampling. Instead, the rich and powerful used the poor as people to step on to elevate themselves financially. Since they could be forced to become slaves due to being indebted, one way to take advantage of the poor was to make sure they were indebted. This is where we see the courts come into play. The rich and powerful in Israel likely used bribes to “obstruct the path” of those in need, so that they would be denied justice and would either remain or become indebted to them.

This went against many instructions of God that were given in order to protect and bless the needy and the destitute. Here are just a couple of those verses, from Deuteronomy 15:

Deuteronomy 15:7 CSB

7 “If there is a poor person among you, one of your brothers within any of your city gates in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.

Deuteronomy 15:11 CSB

11 For there will never cease to be poor people in the land; that is why I am commanding you, ‘Open your hand willingly to your poor and needy brother in your land.’

This condemnation boils down to the fact that the Israelites saw the poor and needy among them as people who could be used and abused, instead of seeing them as those whom God would rise up to defend, as it says in Psalm 12:

Psalm 12:5 CSB

5 “Because of the devastation of the needy and the groaning of the poor, I will now rise up,” says the Lord. “I will provide safety for the one who longs for it.”

So ultimately, the Israelites didn’t value the poor and the needy as God had told them to.

This isn’t exactly the focus that I believe that God is calling me to bring us to this morning, so I will just ask: what is your attitude toward the poor and needy? As with all of the issues that we dealt with regarding the pagan nations, this comes down to an understanding of all human beings bearing the image of God. Do we see the poor and the needy as image bearers, just as we are? Even think about what’s going on right now with COVID: how many are struggling to make ends meet, or have lost their jobs, or are having to manage childcare without schools? Are we willing to consider passages like the sheep and the goats from Matthew 25, and serve the “least of these” in our society as we have the opportunity?

For Israel, they were not. And not only that, but some of their mistreatment of the poor found its way into their “worship” as well.

God condemns idolatry.

This next condemnation is a little on the graphic side, but it may come across as a little less graphic if we can think of it from another perspective. The people of Israel had adopted many of the worship practices and idolatry that existed in the lands around them, which will be made more clearly in chapter 5. They were likely following pagan worship practices, such as cultic prostitution:

Start with 7b.

Amos 2:7–8 CSB

7 They trample the heads of the poor on the dust of the ground and obstruct the path of the needy. A man and his father have sexual relations with the same girl, profaning my holy name. 8 They stretch out beside every altar on garments taken as collateral, and in the house of their God they drink wine obtained through fines.

I don’t think I need to go into much more detail about the last part of verse 7, but it’s what they did in verse 8 that gives rise to thinking that this was about some cult practices. They would “stretch out” beside altars as an act of “worship.” This isn’t part of how God has called His people to worship Him. This is why this appears to be a part of a cultic practice that they adopted from the pagan societies around them. And they would do this “stretching” on garments that were taken as collateral from the poor (which is its own problem because God said that you couldn’t keep a poor person’s clothes as collateral overnight in Deuteronomy 24:12-13).

And as they would stretch out beside those altars on ill-gotten garments, they would drink wine that was obtained as fines. While the drinking of wine was not problematic, the issue was in how they obtained the wine, and then the fact that they were bringing wine that was not really theirs. There was no sacrifice there, no willingness to give something of personal cost in order to worship. In short, everything about their “worship” was wrong in some way. They weren’t worshiping God. They were worshiping something else.

Idolatry is a covenant issue. Worshiping something that isn’t God will ultimately lead us to make choices that don’t honor God, because you serve what you worship. Step back for a moment and consider your life: is God at the center, or is something else? Is it possible that what we call “worship” of God isn’t actually worship of Him at all, because we have placed something else at the center, on the throne of our lives? Or is it possible that we’ve manufactured some poor facsimile of God, created in OUR image instead of His, and we think that we worship God, when in reality, we really only worship ourselves and call it God?

Again, this is not exactly my focal point today. Instead, the real point for this morning comes from verses 9-11, and in that passage we see how God had dealt with His people:

God deals faithfully with His people.

So the Israelites were oppressing and mistreating each other. They were violating their covenant with God by worshiping really themselves instead of God. However, God is faithful. God didn’t, and doesn’t, treat His people in the same way as they treat others or Him. And as we read verse 9-10, we can sort of understand God’s frustration with His people because of all He had done for them to show them His love:

Amos 2:9–10 CSB

9 Yet I destroyed the Amorite as Israel advanced; his height was like the cedars, and he was as sturdy as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. 10 And I brought you from the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness in order to possess the land of the Amorite.

Joshua chapter 10 tells of the mighty deliverance that the Lord provided for Israel from five Amorite kings who joined forces to invade and take the Israelite village of Gibeon. Joshua mustered the army and came to Gibeon’s aid, and experienced a great and miraculous victory:

Joshua 10:11–14 CSB

11 As they fled before Israel, the Lord threw large hailstones on them from the sky along the descent of Beth-horon all the way to Azekah, and they died. More of them died from the hail than the Israelites killed with the sword. 12 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 And the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on its enemies. Isn’t this written in the Book of Jashar? So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed its setting almost a full day. 14 There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord listened to a man, because the Lord fought for Israel.

God had gone to battle for His people. And years before this, Israel had been in slavery in Egypt, and God had brought them out through another miraculous display of His might as He plagued Egypt, who had enslaved the, and even allowed Israel to plunder Egypt as they left. This had been the single most important event in their history.

His people were oppressed, and He provided for them. They were needy, and He rose up and delivered them. They were homeless, and He gave them the land of promise. God did not violate His covenant with them. In fact, He even provided specially called and gifted people in order to help His people KEEP their covenant obligations.

Amos 2:11 CSB

11 I raised up some of your sons as prophets and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is this not the case, Israelites? This is the Lord’s declaration.

He gave some to come and speak the truth of God, and others to live lives set apart for God’s purposes as examples of faithfulness.

Notice how this ties to what God condemns them for: He rescued them, and they mistreat those in need of rescue. He provided a means of learning to keep the covenant, and they willingly choose to violate it.

This is where we ultimately come to our point this morning. While God does have a special relationship with Israel and a special purpose for them, those who believe in Jesus Christ are the people of God, because according to Ephesians 2, God has torn down the veil of hostility and separation between Jew and Gentile in His Kingdom:

Ephesians 2:18–19 CSB

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,

But the thing that we need to consider is this: How much more has God done for US?

Charles Simeon, a pastor in Cambridge, England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in a sermon on this passage, said this:

And what innumerable mercies has He conferred on us? How has He formed us in the womb, and made us perfect in all our members; when we might have been hideous monsters, that could not endure the light of day! How has he furnished us with rational faculties, when many of our fellow-creatures are idiots, yea, less rational than the beasts! Above all, how has he endued us with an immortal soul, capable of knowing, serving, and enjoying God to all eternity! How has he kept us through the helpless years of infancy, and brought us in safely to the present hour; while thousands have never lived to receive instruction, or been cut off in the midst of their iniquities!

And not only that, but He has given us Christ Himself, who willingly took our place in death in order to pay the penalty of our sin. God is perfect and holy and we aren’t. We violate His design for us every time we go against what He has instructed. Our debt is so great and terrible that we could never pay it. Enter Jesus, living a perfect life and dying an unjust death so that we would be offered forgiveness of our sin debt. We need rescuing, and God gave the life of His own perfect Son in order to make our rescue a reality. Because of what Jesus has done, we can be restored to God, we can become His people, and we can look forward in hope to the promises of salvation and eternal life. The only thing we bring to our salvation is surrender to God, giving up ourselves to Him in faith.

And certainly, if that was all that God gave us—His one and only Son—that would be enough. But wait, there’s more! Just as God gave prophets and Nazirites to instruct His people Israel in keeping their covenant obligations, He has again done one better for us. If we belong to Christ through surrender in faith, He also gives us Himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit, living within us, making us holy from the inside out, in a way. Not to mention the guidance, the conviction, the gifts, the power, the reminders, the teaching, the intercession, and on and on… all things that the Holy Spirit does through His presence in our lives. We could go on about each of these, but we don’t have the time this morning.

Praise God for the gift of salvation and hope that He has given to us! But to continue that same quote from Charles Simeon:

Yet in what manner have we requited Him for all His love? Have we endeavored to improve our time and faculties in His service? Have not rather the multitude and continuance of His gifts been the occasion of our entirely forgetting the Donor?

Sadly, I think he’s right. And Israel had done the same thing… they rejected that message, just like Judah had. They would rather do things their way than submit to their loving God:

Amos 2:12 CSB

12 But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets, “Do not prophesy.”

They, and I think often we, would just rather live in our sin. And while God loves us, and cares for us, He will not tolerate our sins forever.

God will judge His people’s sin.

We will just spend a moment here, and then close. God will not just overlook sin. Any sin. Even His own people’s sin. Unlike the other punishments that God would give out, this one is not based on fire. Instead, God paints a picture of what He is about to do, a picture that their rather agrarian society would have quickly understood:

Amos 2:13 CSB

13 Look, I am about to crush you in your place as a wagon crushes when full of grain.

God promises that they would be crushed. It’s possible that the earthquake that was mentioned in the very first verse of the book could be a part of this. It may be, but it may not be. Regardless of whether or not the earthquake is in view, within less than 50 years, the Northern Kingdom of Israel would be overrun, destroyed, and taken into captivity by the Assyrians.

God had promised judgment to those other nations. And now, God promises judgment to the nation of Israel. He is being impartial in His judgment, willing to judge each nation for their sin. And as we see in the rest of the passage, His judgment is total.

Amos 2:14–16 CSB

14 Escape will fail the swift, the strong one will not maintain his strength, and the warrior will not save his life. 15 The archer will not stand his ground, the one who is swift of foot will not save himself, and the one riding a horse will not save his life. 16 Even the most courageous of the warriors will flee naked on that day— this is the Lord’s declaration.

If this is the earthquake He’s speaking of, it is fitting. No one could escape an earthquake, regardless of their speed, strength, agility, resources, or military prowess. It could also be a military prediction, and what a prediction that would be. It sounds horrible.

And brothers and sisters, we are not exempt from the judgment of Christ. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:

2 Corinthians 5:10 CSB

10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Even if we are in Christ, we will still have to give an answer to our Savior and Lord for our choices with the life that He’s given us. That doesn’t mean that we will not be saved, because the PUNISHMENT for our sin has been completely poured out on Jesus, but I suppose it’s a good thing that forever is forever. I’m expecting that this will be a LONG conversation.

Closing

We are called, church, to take what God has given us: namely the rescue from our sins that He has performed through Christ and the gifts that He has given us as a result, including His Holy Spirit in our lives, and we are to live this out because of our gratitude and joy in being delivered and set free. And living out our faith includes serving those who are in need, and doing so with the right frame of mind: that because Jesus did this for me in as bad a shape as I was in spiritually, I can do this for someone else in bad shape physically.

And this morning, if you are still trapped in your sin, and you’ve come to the realization that you cannot save yourself, that only because of what Jesus has done can you be saved, then I ask you to surrender your life to Christ right now where you are. Ask Him to forgive you. Commit to Him that you are giving up on saving yourself, and that You know you need Him. Submit to Him as Your Lord, and ask Him to save you. If you make this commitment, whether online or here in person, we want to know about it, so we can help you start off your journey following Jesus. If you’re online, send me an email at [e-mail] and let me know about the decision you made today. If you’re here in the sanctuary, just stay after the close of service, so we can talk a little more.

If you have been looking for a church home here in Albuquerque, I’d also like to ask you to stay following the close of service, so we can talk a little more about that as well. We have one couple who will be joining our church family after we’re done with our offering and reflection time.

If you want to come and pray at the steps during this time, please feel free to do so. Just use the blue dots for distancing. You can also use this time to give your offering online if you’d like. If you’d rather give in person this morning, you can use the plates by the doors as you leave. As Donna comes to play our reflection song, let’s pray together.

PRAY

Donna plays

Receiving Jim and Barb Mulvey

Unfortunately, we can’t do the whole “come up and hug/shake hands/etc.” thing that we ordinarily would do.

Closing Remarks

Last week, I kind of got messed up and forgot to give clear instructions about our exit plan for close of service. Remember, that we’re exiting from back row to front row, and out two different doors: if you’re on Joe’s RIGHT, you’ll exit through the foyer and into the courtyard. If you’re on Joe’s left, you’ll exit through the main doors under the carport. If you are exiting from the north door of the sanctuary, just wait until your row leaves before going. Don’t forget to read Psalm 119 each day. Thanks for being here this morning, and I pray you have a blessed week!