Amos 7: The Certainty of Judgment
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Amos 3:1-15
Opening:
Opening:
Good morning, and thanks for being here today, whether you are online or in person. Last week, we finished up the eight messages to the nations from the first two chapters of the book of Amos. We heard the opening condemnation of God against His people in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the judgment that was coming because of their treatment of the poor and needy and because of their rejection of their covenant with God, even though He had blessed them in such incredible ways. This morning, we will look at all of Amos chapter 3, and we will be reminded again of God’s thesis for this entire message: “The Sovereign Lord Roars.”
Let’s stand together and read the Word of the Lord:
1 Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken against you, Israelites, against the entire clan that I brought from the land of Egypt: 2 I have known only you out of all the clans of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. 3 Can two walk together without agreeing to meet? 4 Does a lion roar in the forest when it has no prey? Does a young lion growl from its lair unless it has captured something? 5 Does a bird land in a trap on the ground if there is no bait for it? Does a trap spring from the ground when it has caught nothing? 6 If a ram’s horn is blown in a city, aren’t people afraid? If a disaster occurs in a city, hasn’t the Lord done it? 7 Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants the prophets. 8 A lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who will not prophesy? 9 Proclaim on the citadels in Ashdod and on the citadels in the land of Egypt: Assemble on the mountains of Samaria, and see the great turmoil in the city and the acts of oppression within it. 10 The people are incapable of doing right— this is the Lord’s declaration— those who store up violence and destruction in their citadels. 11 Therefore, the Lord God says: An enemy will surround the land; he will destroy your strongholds and plunder your citadels. 12 The Lord says: As the shepherd snatches two legs or a piece of an ear from the lion’s mouth, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be rescued with only the corner of a bed or the cushion of a couch. 13 Listen and testify against the house of Jacob— this is the declaration of the Lord God, the God of Armies. 14 I will punish the altars of Bethel on the day I punish Israel for its crimes; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground. 15 I will demolish the winter house and the summer house; the houses inlaid with ivory will be destroyed, and the great houses will come to an end. This is the Lord’s declaration.
PRAY
Some commentators believe that the book of Amos is a collection of messages that Amos preached to Israel as he traveled around to different places, and this one may have been preached in the capital city of Samaria itself, given the language that it contains. I’m not certain that that is necessary, but it is possible. In chapter 3, we find that the Lord is now giving a statement about the certainty of His impending judgment against Israel, along with His primary reason for why.
Twice in this chapter, the Lord commands that people listen, because He has something to say:
1 Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken against you, Israelites, against the entire clan that I brought from the land of Egypt:
13 Listen and testify against the house of Jacob— this is the declaration of the Lord God, the God of Armies.
I believe that it would be wise for us to obey this command to listen as well. He’s not messing around. He wants our attention, our focus. In verse 1, He calls on His wayward people to listen, and in verse 13, His instruction is to His messenger.
As we sit here this morning, perhaps we are a little of both. Maybe we are His wayward people of today, not necessarily as Eastern Hills, but as members of the Body of Christ in this world in this time. Or we might be His messengers, called to declare His displeasure with not just the nations around us, but with we His people, because as God’s people, we should know better.
We are going to pick up where we left off last week, as this week’s point is the same as our last point last week. I’ll be honest, I really felt like this is where we needed to start today, but I wasn’t very excited about it, because we’re opening up with same message of judgment that we ended with last week. However, I was reminded by the Lord that preaching back-to-back (to-back-to-back) messages of judgment was useful for Amos, so why should I worry about doing the same thing?
1: God will judge His people’s sin.
1: God will judge His people’s sin.
As we ended last week, God isn’t going to overlook any sin, including the sins of His own people. In fact, in a way, we saw and will see that His declaration of condemnation against Israel was more severe because of the fact that they as His people should know how to live because of His relationship with them. He explains this in verse 2:
2 I have known only you out of all the clans of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities.
God had selected the nation of Israel, all of the descendants of Jacob, to be His covenant people in order to be a blessing to the nations, to show the other nations the power and glory of the Lord as He worked in and through them, and to be His vehicle through which He would bring forth the Messiah, the Savior for the world. His sovereign selection of Israel by His own choice is illustrated well in Deuteronomy 7:
6 For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. 7 “The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Unfortunately, the people of Israel got the order of things backwards. They acted as if they had been chosen because they were special. Instead, their position was actually that they were special because they were chosen. God had done and was doing a work in and through them that was supposed to be a blessing to all the people of the earth, especially when you look out to the coming of Messiah.
So as a result of God’s sovereign choice of using Israel for His purposes, He promised to bless them. He miraculously protected them. He provided for them. He gave them incredible privilege. But once they were all settled in the Promised Land (and even before that), Israel very quickly forgot that privilege implies responsibility. Since they had decided to go their own way instead of the way prescribed by their God and King, they had failed in the responsibility that went with their privilege, and it was time for judgment to come.
To illustrate this point, God gives Amos seven rhetorical questions to ask. Keep in mind that rhetorical questions assume the answers. For us, we might not be able to immediately know the answers, because we don’t know the things that they knew. The past is a foreign country, and they had experiences that we have never known. The answer expected for each of the first five questions was “no:”
3 Can two walk together without agreeing to meet? 4 Does a lion roar in the forest when it has no prey? Does a young lion growl from its lair unless it has captured something? 5 Does a bird land in a trap on the ground if there is no bait for it? Does a trap spring from the ground when it has caught nothing?
The answer expected for the last two was “yes:”
6 If a ram’s horn is blown in a city, aren’t people afraid? If a disaster occurs in a city, hasn’t the Lord done it?
Each of these pictures is “cause-and-effect.” People who are going to travel together have to make plans to do so. A lion roars in order to terrify its prey, and will grunt and growl while it eats. A bird won’t land in an unbaited trap, and a trap will not spring itself without cause. In 6a, there is a note of warning about what could come in 6b: the ram’s horn was a terrifying sound for people in the city, because it was a warning that something terrible was coming. Disaster from the Lord is what He had already promised to Israel.
We get really nervous about saying that God would cause a disaster in a city. We don’t want to paint God as wrathful, or vengeful. I guess the question would be: Why not? If there is anyone in the entire universe who has a right to be wrathful and vengeful, and Who has the ability to be those things in perfection, it’s only God. We see it in Genesis when He made the flood. We see it in Exodus when He breaks the back of Egypt with the ten plagues.
And here in Amos, He’s taking these steps against His people, who had entered into a covenant agreement with Him. Why should He not hold them to the terms of the covenant? He had brought trouble and hardship to His people when they ignored Him over and over in the book of Judges. Why shouldn’t God bring judgment on His people? I think that our problem with this is that we have a very poor perspective on the holiness, on the “otherness” of God, and we assume that He thinks and acts like us. God is perfectly within His rights as God to judge whomever He pleases, and to punish them however He pleases, and to do so whenever He pleases. Because of His holiness, we should take heed.
As Hebrews 10:31 says:
31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
I believe though that the point of this message is to remind His people that although He has made up His mind that judgment would come, Amos has come to preach as a warning:
7 Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants the prophets. 8 A lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who will not prophesy?
God has spoken to Amos, and Amos is sharing what God said. The Great Lion has roared, and people should fear. God Himself is speaking, and Amos can’t help but preach as a result. Amos in this way is like Jeremiah later on (who even preached the same things):
8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I proclaim, “Violence and destruction!” so the word of the Lord has become my constant disgrace and derision. 9 I say, “I won’t mention him or speak any longer in his name.” But his message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones. I become tired of holding it in, and I cannot prevail.
God’s message regarding the sins of His people had to be spoken. And now, we have to listen.
But we might ask: “Couldn’t God just let things go?” No. Why? Because His people, then and now, are on display before for a watching world.
2: God’s people are on display.
2: God’s people are on display.
As I said earlier, the nation of Israel had always had a purpose: part of which was to display God’s glory and power to the watching nations. Philistia had seen it when God used a shepherd boy to kill a champion, and when God later took that shepherd boy as a king and went ahead of Him in the tops of balsam trees to lead the way in striking them down. Egypt had seen the power and glory of the Lord as He showed them His might and His control over everything, sending the plagues, separating His people from them by fire, and parting the sea. But now, God invites these two nations who have already seen Him act in incredible ways on behalf of His people, to come and sit as witnesses of their sin and shame:
9 Proclaim on the citadels in Ashdod and on the citadels in the land of Egypt: Assemble on the mountains of Samaria, and see the great turmoil in the city and the acts of oppression within it. 10 The people are incapable of doing right— this is the Lord’s declaration— those who store up violence and destruction in their citadels.
The Egyptians and the Philistines had brought “violence and destruction” on the people of Israel, and God had delivered them. It’s almost as if God is saying, “You Israelites could teach these other nations a thing or two about violence and destruction.” Israel is supposed to be on display, because they have been chosen. Unfortunately, they are showing the world what NOT to do.
How are we doing this same thing? Paul, in Romans 2, wrote about the Jews thinking that they had it all together simply because they were Jews, but in fact, how they lived brought about the result exactly opposite of their intended purpose:
17 Now if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on the law, and boast in God, 18 and know his will, and approve the things that are superior, being instructed from the law, 19 and if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light to those in darkness, 20 an instructor of the ignorant, a teacher of the immature, having the embodiment of knowledge and truth in the law—21 you then, who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach, “You must not steal”—do you steal? 22 You who say, “You must not commit adultery”—do you commit adultery? You who detest idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 For, as it is written: The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
Couldn’t we apply this same line of thinking to ourselves? I mean, I get that we aren’t perfect. Every last one of us, in some way, is a hypocrite along the same lines as what Paul wrote here. But we are supposed to be on display to a watching world. We are supposed to be the people with a message of hope, and yet we doom and gloom about politics and COVID. We are supposed to be the people who love our neighbor as ourselves, and yet we say stuff like “if you don’t agree with me, unfriend me,” on social media. We are supposed to be a people who speak the truth in love, but we’ll share and repost anything that fits the narrative we want it to fit without giving a moment to fact-check it or even wonder if it’s useful for building others up according to their needs, and beneficial to those who see it. We’re supposed to be, “like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since we were called to this” (1 Peter 3:8-9), but we don’t. We insult people we don’t agree with, instead of just disagreeing. We do this even with each other sometimes.
Is the name of God sometimes blasphemed among the lost because of us? Shouldn’t we know better?
William J. Toms is credited with saying:
“Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some person ever reads.”
His thinking is based in 1 John 4:11-12:
11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.
We are on display, so that people can look at us, and especially at how we treat one another, and see the reality of a God who loves them.
It matters how we live. And it matters what or Whom we take refuge in, because as the Israelites learned, false refuges are not actually refuges at all.
3: False refuges are not refuges at all.
3: False refuges are not refuges at all.
The people of God, especially the Northern Kingdom, had placed their hope in all the wrong things. And God now takes those three things and pronounces the certainty of the destruction of those very things that they relied upon to feel safe, secure, and prosperous. They should have known better.
Their first refuge was their government: their military, their defenses, and their economy. But these would not prove to be a refuge for them when the Lord brought His punishment:
11 Therefore, the Lord God says: An enemy will surround the land; he will destroy your strongholds and plunder your citadels.
If our ultimate hope for our lives is in our government, then we have no ultimate hope. We live in the nation with the greatest human-based government ever set up on God’s green earth. Our governmental structure inherently provides a great possibility for the flourishing of her citizens’ life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. I’m proud and blessed to be an American citizen, and I love our country. However, no aspect of our government can be where we put all of our hope, because according to Lincoln, our government is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The problem there is people, and there’s not one of us who isn’t flawed. The hope of Jesus Christ is the only hope that will truly stand the test of time, and will never fade, because only He is perfect.
The second refuge that Israel clung to was their religious practice, which by this time was a mash-up of just about everything they could get their hands on (some of which we talked about last week). This would also prove worthless to deliver them:
14 I will punish the altars of Bethel on the day I punish Israel for its crimes; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.
Basically, they acted as if as long as they gave God the “head nod” while they worshiped however they wanted to, then God would be cool with it. At their worship sites, with their altars at Bethel and Dan, they even had actual golden calves that they made offerings to. They thought jumping through the hoops offered them security. But their altars would be destroyed, and would be no place of safety or refuge for them.
If your hope is based on how good YOU are, and not on how good JESUS is in spite of how good you aren’t, then your hope is misplaced. Jesus doesn’t call us to be good so He can save us. He calls us to come to Him and be saved so that He can make us good like Him. It’s in that process that He puts us on display, so that the lost can see that even in our weakness, God still loves us, and He’s making us into something special for Himself. We don’t obey and seek to honor Him because of our gratitude in knowing what He has given us salvation from.
Finally, the richest of the Israelites had accumulated massive wealth and power for themselves (through the exploitation of the poor and needy, as we saw last week). This would also not be a refuge for them:
15 I will demolish the winter house and the summer house; the houses inlaid with ivory will be destroyed, and the great houses will come to an end. This is the Lord’s declaration.
The wealthy had their winter home and their summer home, houses inlaid with ivory, “great houses.” Archaeological evidence shows that these houses in Samaria were very well-appointed, showing vast wealth. But these houses would be wiped out as well.
The one who dies with the most toys still dies, and after that, faces judgment. There’s nothing wrong with having a lot of money. If you do, that’s great for you. But is it where you find your hope? If tomorrow, it all evaporated, would you still cling to Jesus? Wealth can be a great tool to use, but it is not a secure refuge, and it cannot keep you eternally safe like Jesus does.
We skipped one verse in this passage, and we’re going to consider it as our closing this morning:
Closing
Closing
God would provide a remnant to escape, but not in some glorious safety. Instead, the remnant of His people would barely escape, as He explains in verse 12:
12 The Lord says: As the shepherd snatches two legs or a piece of an ear from the lion’s mouth, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be rescued with only the corner of a bed or the cushion of a couch.
Billy Smith, in his commentary on Amos, said this about verse 12:
“The number of Israelites who survive the disaster will be like the few bits of a mutilated sheep left by a lion, or like a few scraps of furniture salvaged from a looted city.”
It would be a “barely” deliverance. How do we live, brothers and sisters? Do we live in the reality that God has given us great privilege, so with that comes great responsibility as well? Paul admonishes us in our thinking in 1 Corinthians 3:
10 According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved—but only as through fire.
We need to carefully consider the blowing of the ram’s horn in verse 6. This would have been that warning that something was coming. And yes, God will judge the sins of His people. But He’s sounding a warning, like He did in Nineveh by sending Jonah. Jonah’s message as we have it recorded was so short: “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!” But the entire city, from the greatest to the least, repented and surrendered to God, hoping according to Jonah 3:9:
9 Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.
And they were delivered.
Only God is a refuge to those whom God has declared that He will judge. Like a parent of a toddler who misbehaves and is corrected, and then immediately seeks comfort from the parent who disciplined him, so the only refuge and comfort for God’s people is in returning to God Himself in repentance, in humility, crying out, “Abba, Father.” That is what God is looking for in response to His warning. That is when we will see revival. If you need to come and get on your face before the Lord in response to His warning this morning, that’s great. Come to the steps and do so.
But the warning also goes out to those who do not know God: Another simple message of warning, from Jesus Himself: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) The good news is that Almighty God loves you and wants to be in a relationship with you. We all sin, which means to go against what God wants for us. And that sin breaks our relationship with God, just like Israel’s was doing. But God made the way for us to have that relationship restored—for us to be saved from His wrath—by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die in our place, to pay that penalty. And just as Jesus died for us, He also beat death for us, rising from the grave according to Scripture. If we surrender to Him as our Lord, repenting of our sins and trusting in His work for our forgiveness, then we will be saved, and live forever with Him. Hear the warning of the ram’s horn today, and turn to your only hope, your only refuge—Jesus.
If this morning, whether you are here or online, if you are surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus in faith, we want to know about it so that we can help you in your first steps of following Jesus. If you’re in the room, please stay behind as we are dismissed, so we can talk about that surrender more. If you’re online, please send me an email at bill@ehbc.org to let me know, so we can help you from a distance.
If God is leading you to join this church family in formal membership, I would love to talk to you about that as well. Stay in your seats as everyone is dismissed, and we’ll have more conversation after the service is over.
Donna is going to come and play a song for our reflection and response. If you want to use this time to give online, please do so. If you’d rather give in person, you can do so using the plates at the doors as you leave.
PRAY
Closing words
Closing words
Clear instructions for leaving.
Plan for Lord’s Supper next Sunday morning. Keep reading Psalm 119!