Good morning. Only way a sinner will ever be saved is by God's free and sovereign grace. What? What joy we have knowing that God Almighty looks to his son for all of our acceptance before God. We're sinners saved by grace.

I'd like to ask you to open your Bibles with me to the 8th chapter of Amos, Amos chapter 8. I feel like Amos has been a profitable study for us these past couple of months, and some wonderful revelations of Christ made in this little prophetic book. be pleased to reveal more of his grace and his glory to our hearts this morning.

Let's let's let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father, how we need to be able to worship the this hour How we need for you, Lord, to send your spirit in power to open the bread of life, to open our hearts, open the windows of heaven. Open the understanding of our eyes, Lord, that we might be able to behold thy dear son and find in him all of our salvation before thee. Lord, we thank you for the revelation that you've given us of him in thy word. Lord, as we open the pages of the Bible, we do pray, Lord, that you would open our hearts and give to us faith. to rest, stand, and rely on and rejoice in thy dear son. For it's in his name we ask it. Amen.

I've titled this message God's Ripe Fruit. This past Wednesday night, we were in Amos chapter 7, and we saw how the Lord used the simplicity of a plumb line to reveal Christ to us and how God tests everything by the perfection of the Lord Jesus and how we must be found in Him in order to be able to stand before God. And that that plumb line reveals the bowing walls and the teetering fences and all the imperfections that we have in ourselves.

And so, this morning in chapter 8, the Lord uses the analogy of a basket of summer fruit. A basket of summer fruit. Such simple illustrations, such simple analogies, and yet there's such depth. to what the Lord is saying to us here in this chapter.

In verse one of Amos chapter eight, thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruit. We are always in need of the Lord to show it unto us. that he would reveal to us what it is he's showing about Christ. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, the end is come upon my people of Israel. I will not again pass by them.

This summer fruit illustrates how perishable all men are and how a short shelf life the Lord gives to us in this world. And this is not grain that can be stored away. This is not meat that is cured. This is very ripe fruit that must be eaten. or it will spoil very quickly. And I believe the Lord is speaking to us about the urgency of the gospel and reminding us of how brief our time is in this world and how, like the manna, it must be eaten every day and it must be received when the Lord provides it. if it's if it's kept over, it will spoil and have worms in it.

And how frequently the Lord shows us the urgency of our souls to be saved and to and to know him and for him to show us his grace. He asked the prophet, Amos, what do you see? I said, well, I see a basket of summer fruit, Lord, what does it mean? Well, here's what it means. I'm gonna pass by my people. Now Israel as a nation had fallen into idolatry. They were worshiping idols in Bethel. Now Bethel we know translated means the house of God. And they were using the name Jehovah in their worship, but they had perverted the worship of the Lord. And they had mixed the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace with works. A perfect picture of man-made religion today, particularly in what is popularly known as Christianity in the world today. Men will honor God with their lips. They will say that Jesus is Lord. They will say that salvation is by grace and that it's all of God. And then they will mix God's work with their own. And the Lord has made it clear. He said, if it is of grace, it can no longer be of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace. We cannot mix these two things together.

But as Solomon reminds us, there's nothing new under the sun. And what Israel was doing during the days of Amos many, many years ago is still being done today. Men are denying Christ His glory in salvation and taking to themselves some credit, some credit, either by their will or by their works or by their presumed wisdom. They are obligating God to save them by something that they do.

And the Lord is saying, this basket of summer fruit, this ripe fruit, and God never picks his fruit until it's ripe. You've grown fruits and vegetables, you know the difference between something that's bought in the grocery store that was picked long before it was ripe and ripened with some gas or ripened over time on the shelf and one that's actually ripened on the tree, one that's ripened on the vine. And if you pick it, Fully ripe, you need to be able to consume it pretty soon, because it's not going to last long. But oh, how perfect it is when it's fully ripe. This is God's ripe fruit that he's illustrating here. And he's saying it's got a very short shelf life. And I picked it fully ripe. And here's what's going to happen. Look at verse three. And the songs of the temple shall be howling in that day, saith the Lord God, and there shall be many dead bodies in every place, and they shall cast them forth. And in margin of my Bible, the word with is translated be. They will be silent. They'll have nothing to say. When the wrath and judgment of God comes, man will have no defense. He will have no argument to be made to God.

Now, verses four through 10, the Lord tells us exactly what these people were guilty of. And rather than just looking at the literal application of these things, let us think of them in terms of the gospel. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail." A works gospel swallows up needy men. And it makes the poor of the land to have no place to go. If you give a poor man something that he can do in order to save himself and he has nothing to offer, then he can't be saved. And so this works gospel, this free will gospel was being promoted as something that you could participate in to earn your salvation, to work your way to heaven, to earn favor with God. And the Lord is bringing his judgment against the world because of that.

I mentioned earlier that this is seen particularly in the false church, which takes the name of Christ and adds works to it. But we can look even broader than that and see that in every religion of the world, in every religion of the world, there is a mixture of law and grace. Everybody promotes their God as being a God of grace, a God of forgiveness, a God of mercy, a God of redemption, whether it be Allah or Buddha or any other God. And yet, there's something you have to do. Verse five. They are saying, when will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balance by deceit. That's what a works gospel does. It falsifies the balance by deceit. It tells lies about God, because the only thing that will balance the scales of heaven is the work of Christ. And yet men attempt to put their works on the balance scale thinking that somehow they can atone for their own sins and their own faults and failures. And the Lord says, I hate a false balance. I hate a false balance. There's only one weight. that will satisfy the justice of God. And that's the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They say, you know, the Sabbath, when's it gonna be over so that we can go back about our business? They're doing their religious duties out of obligation. A lot of people do that. I pray the Lord will give us the grace to want to come, to desire His presence, to want to be able to worship Him, to fellowship with His people, to hear His gospel, that we won't be making our religious traditions, just something that we do out of habit or out of obligation. But that the Lord will stir our hearts to desire to desire him.

But this is this is the way of the natural man. He goes through the motions of religion in order to satisfy in his own mind what God requires to balance the scales. And God says, it's a false balance. You've robbed from the poor, you've made them to fail. You falsified the balances by deceit.

Look at verse six. That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat. All for our profit, all for our gain. Not for the glory of God. They knew nothing of what David said in Psalm 115 when David said, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory for thy truth, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake.

Lord, this is, I'm the beneficiary in worship. I'm the one who profits in worship. God is not in need of us to worship him. He's the eternal I am. He's complete in himself, never been in need of anything. And yet out of love, he has made a way for his people to see a glimpse of his glory and to have the hope of one day seeing him as he is and being made like him. And so the glory, The benefit all goes to us. We're the takers, he's the giver, always. But the glory all goes to him. And what does this religion of man do? It takes the glory of God to himself. We're going to buy and sell, and we're going to make gain.

Verse 7. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob. Hey, we know who that is. Who is the excellency of Jacob? There's only one who's excellent. Jacob is the church. He's speaking of Christ. He's speaking of the head of the body of Christ and the covenant promises that God has made to Jacob and to his people. who are by nature supplanters. That's what Jacob was. He was a liar. He was a thief. He was a dishonest man. But when he met the Lord Jesus, the Lord changed his name. He changed his name to Israel, a prince. The excellency of Jacob is the Lord Jesus Christ who takes his deceivers and deceived people and adopts them into his family and makes them part of the royal family, makes them princes and princess in his royal court. And here's by the excellency of Jacob, I profess this is going to be, this is the basket of summer fruit, the Lord saying, it's ripe, it's ripe for judgment. Shall not the land tremble? I'm sorry, look at the last part of verse seven. Surely I will never forget any of their works." You see, our works are seen before God in Christ. In Christ.

There are three works spoken of in the Bible. There's dead works. Those are the works that men do in order to try to earn favor with God. And there are good works. There are good works that the believer does in faith, presented to God Almighty in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, we're to repent of those dead works. And God, by His grace, according to Titus chapter 1, makes His people zealous for good works. He makes them zealous for good works. And God says, I'll never forget any of their works. Come and enter into the kingdom that's been prepared for you.

Our works before God are made perfect by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse eight, shall not the land tremble for this and everyone mourn that dwelleth therein? And it shall rise up holy as a flood and it shall be cast out and drowned as by the flood of Egypt. The flood of Egypt, that's what happened to the Egyptians in the Red Sea. God brought his people across on dry land. Later he brought them across the Jordan into the promised land. again on dry land.

The overwhelming flood will not drown you. Not if you're found in Christ. It will not drown you. But all of those who are looking to Christ plus something else, the Lord is saying there is a flood.

Isaiah chapter 28, the unbeliever says, we've made a covenant with death. With hell, we're in agreement. We've done our part. We've satisfied what God requires. And when the overflowing scourge comes, it will not overcome us. The Lord says, I'm going to disannul your covenant. You're not saved by your promises. A covenant is a promise. We're not saved by the promises that we make to God. How many promises have you been faithful to keep? We're saved by the promise that Christ made to God, to his father. The promise to redeem them, the promise to keep them, the promise to reveal himself to them.

Everything else is like a basket of summer fruit. It's ripe for the plucking.

I want you to notice in this next verse, verse nine. And it came to pass in that day, in what day? In the day of judgment, saith the Lord God that I will cause the sun to go down at noon and will darken the earth in a clear day.

Now what is that a description of? It's a description of what took place at Calvary. exactly at noon o'clock, at 12 o'clock. From 12 o'clock to three o'clock, from the sixth to the ninth hour, the whole earth was darkened.

What is the Lord telling us here? It's not the sins of the flesh that send men to hell. If that were the case, we'd all go. It's the sin of unbelief. That's the unpardonable sin. The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is saying what's revealed by the Spirit of God in God's Word is not true. It's not true. God can't save me by himself. God needs me to do my part. God needs me to add my two cents worth.

The Lord is going to judge the earth in the end by what took place at Mount Calvary 2,000 years ago. That is the plumb line. That is the judgment that will be carried out on judgment day.

Well, if that be the case, then what do we, where do we need to, where do we need to do? Where do we need to go? We flee to Christ. God says, this is a basket of summer fruit. It's a, it's a, it's a picture of our life in this world. What is your life? It is a vapor. A vapor is even a shorter period of time than a summer fruit. It's a picture of the world as a whole. Peter says, don't forget, a day is as of a thousand years, a thousand years is of a day. The unbeliever might say, where's judgment? They've been talking about this since day one. Oh, God is not slack concerning his promises. He shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause, verse nine, the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

I'm going to bring judgment against all men based on the judgment that was poured out on Christ at Calvary's cross. In other words, The sin of unbelief, the sin of not coming to Christ, will be that sin that will bring about what Amos is prophesying here. The eternal judgment of the soul and separation from God is all determined by one thing. Verse 10. And I will turn your feast into mourning and all your songs into lamentations. And I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head. And I will make it as the mourning of an only son and the end thereof as a bitter day, as a bitter day.

It's a very, a very sobering prophecy. but a very promising one as well for those who find all the hope of their salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, in his perfect righteousness before God, and in the justice that he satisfied when he balanced the scales at Calvary's cross.

That darkened sky from noon to three, that was a picture. It was a picture of what the Lord Jesus cried on Calvary's cross when he said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Habakkuk tells us that the eyes of God are too pure to look upon iniquity. God saw the sins of his people on Christ. The Lord Jesus owned those sins as his own and took for himself the full penalty of God's wrath and justice to put those sins away once and for all. Forsaken of God as our substitute to satisfy God's justice so that we need not fear being forsaken of God.

We need not fear this basket of summer fruit being a picture of God's wrath and judgment against us if we'd be found in Him. God never picks his fruit except when it's fully ripe. Everything he does. And that will happen when he has brought the last of his lost sheep into the kingdom of God. That'll be when That'll be when his fruit will be fully ripe. Until then, we don't know when that'll be. Perhaps it'll be this morning if someone listens to the gospel. We know it'll be soon.

When the last of The ones for whom Christ died are brought by the Spirit of God to believe on Christ. Then the end will come. Then the end will come. We see this ripe fruit in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fruit of Mary's womb. which had been prophesied from the very beginning when God said to Adam in the garden that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And now Mary, God's appointed time. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that are cursed by the law.

The law of God stands in judgment of us. And in the fullness of time, when the fruit was ripe, the Lord Jesus left the glories of heaven, and he was born into this world, made in the likeness of sinful flesh, bore in his body the sins of his people, and suffered God's wrath in order to satisfy his justice. This is God's ripe fruit. Daniel, when the children of Israel were in Babylonian captivity in the 5th century BC, God gave to Daniel a vision that gave the exact year that Christ would come in the vision of the 70 weeks. And those wise men that came from the East, I believe they had been taught by the prophecy of Daniel. That's where they came from. And that's where Daniel had been. And they calculated clearly what God had promised through the prophecy of Daniel. They knew that it was time for the Messiah.

The Lord Jesus came in God's appointed time. The angels pronounced his coming to those shepherds when he said, unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. As God promised in the city of David, the Savior would be born. And the Savior is unto you, is unto you. This is a personal declaration of the gospel, not to be ignored.

It's a basket of summer fruit. It'll spoil soon. And just as the Lord Jesus was the perfect ripening of God's summer fruit in his first coming, so he will be in his second coming. When this world is ripe for the picking, God said, I'm gonna send my angels and with their sickle, they will separate the wheat from the chaff. and the trump of God will sound. The dead in Christ will be raised, and those of us which are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to ever be with the Lord. Oh, what a day that'll be.

This is the prophecy God's giving. He's showing us the urgency. Turn with me to 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter three. I've made reference to this a few minutes ago. 2 Peter 3. Look with me, if you will, at verse 3. Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lust. Oh, the fruit's not ripe. Oh, it's not going to happen now. Oh, this fruit was ripe when it was picked. Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

How presumptuous we can be. How easy it is for us to think, well, the sun will rise tomorrow, I'll deal with that then. We presume upon another day of life. And we build barns. We gather the wheat, and God says to that foolish man who stored up the things for himself in this world, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. The Lord tells us to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, treasures in heaven. This is the urgency of the basket of summer fruit. This is what the Lord tells us over and over again.

Look at verse five, for this they willingly are ignorant of. They know it's not, they know the end is gonna come, but they just put it out of their mind. Well, we'll just go to this city and to that city and we'll buy and sell and we'll acquire gain. Oh, no. If it'd be the Lord's will, we'll do this and that. We don't know. when this basket of summer fruit is going to be eaten? This they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of water and in the water, whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.

Now the Lord is likening the second coming of Christ to Noah's flood. And Noah, a preacher of righteousness, preached the gospel. We don't know exactly how long it took Noah to build the ark, perhaps a hundred years. But for a hundred years, he faithfully warned his generation that judgment was coming. It had never rained before. They'd never seen water fall from heaven before the flood. And they scoffed at him and they laughed and they They married and they gave in marriage and they went about doing their own things and acting as if this world was their home and this life was all they ever had and just investing everything in it. And then what happened? What happened? God shut the door of the ark. God shut the door of the ark. And Noah didn't hang a sign on the back of the ark saying, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. No, the window was closed. The door was shut.

This matter of God's urgency is given to us time and time again in the scriptures, isn't it? And my brethren and sisters, how How we need to be reminded of this. We're not just preaching to the unbeliever, telling them to come to Christ. Yes, yes. But how easy it is for us to find our ease in Zion and to find our rest and our comfort and our satisfaction in the temporal things of this world. And might the Lord just remind us again and again and again, who our life is and where our life is. Because we're prone.

I love that hymn that we sing sometimes, tell me the old, old story. There's a line in that hymn that says, When you fear that this world's dear treasures or offerings or whatever it says in that hymn, I've become too dear to me. Tell me the old, old story. That's what we need to hear, isn't it? These things do become too dear to us.

Verse 7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Not going to be a flood of water. It's going to be a judgment that God will send by fire. But beloved, now he's speaking, and that's what's going to happen to the ungodly.

But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Now that means that on God's time schedule, it's just been two days since the Lord ascended into glory and said, I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself so that where I am there, you may be also. Just been two days. That's God's reckoning of time. And how God sees things is how they are. It's how they are.

You know, we're so much like that little child. You know, when we're real young, five minute time out in the corner can seem like a lifetime. And then when we're pre-teens, Oh, the years to becoming a teenager just seem so far away. And then adulthood comes. And the older we get, until we get into old age, we begin to realize how short life really is. When we were young and ignorant and immature, we thought that it was long. But the older we get, the shorter it is. God's telling us how he sees it. And how he sees it is the way it is. We have such a distorted view. We see that distorted view just in our life that I just described. How distorted, how ignorant, how immature a child is to think that this is gonna last forever when we know it's gonna pass very soon. God must look at us the same way, even in our old age, even when we begin to get some understanding of how brief this life is. The Lord must look at us when we fret, when we fear, when we think, oh, this is so difficult and this is hard. God must look at us like we look at a little child. He had pity upon us, but here he's telling us how he sees it. Not gonna be long.

Verse 10. I'm sorry, let's finish verse nine. But the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to usward. He's talking to the believer. Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing. He's talking to the child of God. He's telling us what's gonna happen to the ungodly, but now to the believer. God's not slack concerning his promises, but he's long-suffering, he's patient. The long-suffering of God is our salvation. Aren't you thankful that our God is long-suffering? If our God treated us like we treat one another, he'd be done with us a long time ago.

He's long-suffering to us where, don't miss that us word, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. How many times I've heard someone take half of that verse out of the full context of what's the Lord saying to his people, and say, God's not willing that any should perish. If God wasn't willing for anybody to perish, no one would perish. God's will is always performed.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heaven shall pass away, and the great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seen then. that all these things shall be dissolved. Seeing then that all these temporal matters that concern us so, and that distract us so, and that burden us so. Seeing then that all of these things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness? looking for, and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat."

Nevertheless, nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for a new heaven. and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."

Abraham, the father of the faithful, looked for a city which hath foundations, which builder and maker was God. He wandered in the land all his life. There were cities there, but none of them that fulfilled the promise that God had made him. He was waiting for that new Jerusalem, has 12 foundations, that perfect city that would come down from heaven.

What do you see, Amos? I see a basket of summer fruit. Yes, and I've given you this vision in order to illustrate how perishable, how perishable the things of this earth are and how eternal are the things that we have in Christ. Made secure in heaven by the work that he accomplished.

When the sun was darkened, the earth was blackened, God's balance scale was satisfied, it was balanced.

All right, let's take a break. by sharing.