Let's open our Bibles to the book of Amos, Amos chapter 2. Amos chapter 2. Years gone by, I would have spent a lot of time dealing with the historical events concerning these prophetic books. These events were real and they took place between these nations and Israel. But having a better understanding of the scriptures, I know that that would really be of no benefit to your heart as it was no benefit to mine. just to acquire knowledge concerning Moab and the Ammonites and the Edomites and all of these other countries. All of them are mentioned here, particularly in the Book of Amos.

The purpose of these prophets for us is not to understand the events concerning what took place in the 7th century BC, but in order for us to have a word from God concerning our need right now. And Amos, you remember his name, translated means burdened, burdened. And this world and this life and this sinful world and in our sinful flesh can be a great burden. The greatest burden of all that the believer struggles with every day is the burden of their own sin, the burden of their own unbelief, the burden of their flesh, that old man that they bear with themselves every day.

And I want us to look at Amos chapter 2, and I hope that the Lord will speak a word of comfort to our hearts as we are able to identify with what the Lord is telling us here about the judgment of Moab. That's the title of this message, the judgment of Moab. And we'll read about the Moabites, we'll read about the Ammonites, we'll read about the Edomites, and several other tribes that were of the people of Arabia. And there's one thing that all of these people have in common. One thing they all have in common.

Yes, they were all the enemies of Israel. And there were many conflicts between them and Israel. Sometimes Israel would persevere. Oftentimes God would send these nations in to bring judgment and punishment against his people for their own sin. But the thing that I want us to see tonight that these nations have in common is that they all represent a people who are descendants of believers.

You remember after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot was dragged out of town, The Lord took him by the hand and led him out. He lingered, but the Lord would not allow him to remain. The Lord knows how to deliver his children from temptations. And he brought Lot out along with Lot's two daughters. And seeing the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we know what happened with Lot and his daughters and how they thought the whole world had come to an end, and that they were the only hope for the extension of mankind, but there were no other men around. And so what did they devise? They devised a plan to have a child by their own father. And the eldest daughter had a son, and his name was Moab. And the youngest daughter had a son, and his name was Ammon.

Now, the Bible tells us that Lot was a righteous man. And out of the sin of a righteous man comes these nations who were, matter of fact, Moab translated means of his father, of his father. The Edomites, we know who Edom was. He was the son of Esau. And Esau was the twin of Jacob. And we know what those two boys represent.

For Rebekah, when she was pregnant with the twins, went before the Lord and cried unto the Lord and said, why am I thus? Why do I have these two babies fighting with one another in my womb? And the Lord answered her question and he said, because there are two manner of people within you. Two separate nations. They will be in constant conflict with one another, but the elder, Esau, the father of the Edomites, will serve the younger, Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, elect of God and a prince of God, and a picture of our new nature in Christ.

And so we see that the two natures here, not only are they in Moab and the Ammonites, but they're in Edom, And then we have all the other tribes of Arabia who, to this day, are descendants of Ishmael. We know who Ishmael was. God had promised Abraham a son. Abraham's 100 years old. Sarah's 90 years old. Well, 14 years before that. Abraham and Sarah devised a plan to help God out

We're gonna give I know we believe God wants to do this, but he needs our he needs our help and so the plan was for Abraham to to have Sarah's handmaid and Ishmael came from that Union and There again, we have a picture of our flesh the flesh wanting to wanting to do something, wanting to perform some work that would obligate God to fulfill his promise of salvation.

And so all these tribes, brethren, are pictures of you and me. They're pictures of us. The judgment of of Moab that we read about here in Amos chapter two is the exercise of God's judgment against our old man in the new birth. These aren't just historical events. Yes, there are two manner of people in the world. There's only two manner of people. There are believers and there are unbelievers. There's the elect of God. already converted, some yet to be converted, and then there is the reprobate. There are the sheep and there are the goats. There's two manner of people in this world, that's all there are. Whatever tribe or nation or language men speak, whatever color or creed they might have, there's only two manner of people. But in the like manner, there are two manner of people in us. And the one, the one must be, he must be destroyed.

Now, some, as we read, and this is why I wanted to read that passage in 1 Peter, because some who have never stood in the presence of a holy God will be confused to hear us talk about how sinful we are. and how shameful our sin is to us, and how we always depend upon God's mercy and God's grace. And only the new birth will enable them to identify with this. We did not know we had an old man until we got a new man. We didn't know we had a man of flesh that was nothing but sin until we were born by the Holy Spirit and Christ was made in us. He was made in us. Christ in you is your hope of glory.

But only the presence of Christ can identify that old man for who he is. And so those who have never stood in the presence of a holy God might be very confused about how followers of Christ could lament so much about their Sin. Others will use a message like this to justify or to at least rationalize acts of rebellion and disobedience. Well, that was just my flesh. It's just what I am. I can't help it. I would say to that, that there will always be abusers of God's grace. There will always be abusers of God's grace. But as soon as we condition God's free and sovereign grace by adding buts to it, in other words, we try to to curb the behavior of the abusers of grace and say to them, this does not mean that we have a license to sin. As soon as we begin to speak like that, all we do is discourage genuine believers who know themselves to be nothing but sin and are dependent upon God's grace alone for all the hope of their salvation.

So we don't condition grace in order to correct the abusers of grace, neither do we promote our own righteousness in order to silence the accusations of those who hear us speak of how sinful we are by concluding that we must be living some secret life of rebellion and some secret life of licentiousness, no, no. There are some that will hear this message of the destruction of Moab and they will know that that Moab nature, that child that was born in shame, and he was, we were born in shame, David said that I was conceived in iniquity. I've been a sinner since my mother's womb, since before I came into the world, I inherited this sin nature from my father. What does Moab translated mean? Of his father, of his father. All of these enemy nations of Israel, have this one thing in common. They are all descendants of believers. They're either descendants of Isaac, as was Esau. They're descendants of Abraham, as was Ishmael. They're descendants of Lot, as was Moab and Ammon.

The sin nature that we struggle with every day, the sin that doth so easily beset us, is the sin of our unbelief. And we cry with that father, Lord, I do believe. Oh, but help thou mine unbelief. Help thou mine unbelief. Every child of God is vulnerable to any act of rebellion and disobedience. We know that. We cry, Lord, keep me. Lord, don't let this in nature manifest itself in disobedience and rebellion. But that doesn't change the nature of that old man that we live with and the unbelief.

There are times when we're able to greatly rejoice. There are times when we're able to truly rest and be happy and have no fear. And our hearts are filled with faith and warmed with love, perfectly content, knowing that the Lord is in control. But that's not always the case, is it? If we had no sin nature, there would never be a hint of discontent. unhappiness, impatience, murmuring, complaining. We would never know anything about fear and worry. Our hearts would never be cold and indifferent. We would never make earthly pleasures and possessions the measure of our life. We would never value the opinions of men so high as to compromise the will of God.

You see, it's not our circumstances, brethren, that we need to be delivered from. And it's not people. We oftentimes say, well, you made me do this or made me do that or made me feel this way. No, all people do is bring out what's already there. And all circumstances do is bring out what's already there. It's our sin that's our trouble, isn't it? The judgment of Moab, this is the burden that every believer bears. Look at Amos chapter two, verse one. Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Moab and for four, I will not turn away. And notice the word, the punishment is in italics. I don't know if we need those words there. I will not turn away thereof. I'm not going to leave Moab alone. because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime. Now in the margin of my Bible, there's a reference to second Kings chapter three, verse 27. And in that chapter, in that passage of scripture, the king of Moab was in a very difficult place. about to lose a battle and about to lose all of his army and about to die. And he goes before his idol and he offers up his son as a burnt offering in order to win the favor of his God that the battle might be won. And this reference has nothing to do with that. I guess the people that put the Bible together just thought, well, maybe that's a reference to that event. But that's not what the verse says.

The verse says that this king of Moab burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime. What we have a picture of here is the insult and the humiliation. What we have a description of is the king of Moab digging up the bones of the king of Edom. burning them into dust. No greater insult or humiliation could be demonstrated against a dead king. His death wasn't enough to satisfy the justice of the king of Moab. He had to have more of an insult against the king of Edom than just his death alone.

And to me, it pictures where we are except for the grace of God. If the Lord doesn't show us by the miracle of the new birth, and by the revelation of scripture and the power of his Holy Spirit that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was sufficient in and of itself to satisfy God's divine justice and put away our sins once and for all. Nothing can be added to it. We know now we would dare not add anything to it.

But prior to the judgment of Moab, prior to the destruction and the execution of God's justice against our old man, slaying us. And our old man's dead. We're still carrying about this dead corpse. But what do we see a picture of here? The reason that God kills the king of Moab is because he dug up the bones of the king of Edom and tried to add more shame and humiliation to what the King of Edom had already suffered by his death, thinking that it was going to benefit him. It's exactly what we do, left to ourselves.

Left to ourselves, we believe that The death of Christ on Calvary's cross was necessary for salvation, but it wasn't sufficient. Something else has to be done. We have to perform a work. We have to make a decision. We have to do something in order to make what he did work for us. This picture of unearthing a dead king's bones and burning them to powder was done for that reason, to humiliate that nation and their king, to shame him, saying that his death was not enough. We must shame him further by saying that more insult must be given to him.

Oh, what a shameful thing it is for us to insult our God with the idea of digging up the bones of Christ and trying to add to what he's already done. This is the reason why the Lord is, has telling us that he's, let's read this verse again. Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Moab and for four, Explain that last Wednesday night when we were looking at this. Three is a number of completion. In other words, if it was only three transgressions, that would be enough. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, a thing is confirmed. And how many times we see the number three in the Bible, it's God's way of saying that's the completeness of it. We have it, we see it in the Trinity. in so many other ways. And so this is prophetic language saying to us that three transgressions would have been sufficient, but you're guilty of four. And so the judgment of God's wrath is going to be, it cannot be excused. It cannot be changed. I will not turn away from Moab because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime."

As I mentioned earlier, Amos' name translated means burdened, and certainly there are many things in this life that cause us to be burdened. There are lots of heartaches. Heartaches in families. There's stress in families. There's estrangement between children and parents and between brothers and sisters. There's divorce in families. What a burden it is. There's addictions in families. There's rebellious and unbelieving children in families. Who doesn't, what child of God does not know the burden of bearing those weights and finding themselves at night crying out to the Lord, Lord help me, help me.

There are many problems in this world that affect every aspect pretty much of our lives. There are health problems, physical problems, there are chronic illnesses and diseases and death that come in life. There are emotional problems and distresses, mental distresses and depressions that plague many. What a burden.

Here's our comfort. in dealing with all those burdens. First Peter chapter five, humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. These burdens are humbling. And what a blessing it is when they humble us under the mighty hand of God, believing that he will exalt us in due time.

And the next verse says this, casting all of your care upon him, for he careth for you. He careth for you. Is this not our comfort? Is this not our hope and our help in our time of need to know that our God is sovereign and that that he has purposed these things to bring us to him and that he possesses all power. There's nothing that he's not able to deliver us from. And he loves us with a perfect everlasting love and only has good for his children.

So here's what the Lord is telling us in our time of burden, humble yourself. Therefore, under the mighty hand of God, he'll deliver you in due time, casting all of your care upon him, for he careth for you.

It is an unspeakable blessing to have a heavenly father that is able to help us and willing to help us in our time of need. Why do we hesitate? Why don't we flee to him more quickly? Why do we spend so much effort trying to fix things only to make them worse? Why do we labor so long when there is perfect rest at his feet?

And the answer to that question is because of our sin. It's because of our unbelief. Mark, I think it was Scott Richardson that I heard this from the very first time. And it struck me when he said it. I read it from what may be something he wrote. But he said, every problem in this world that cannot be solved with money will eventually be solved by time. A lot of truth in that. Either in the passing of time our circumstances will change or we will pass from time and all of our problems will cease.

What a blessing it is when the Lord reveals to us that we have a problem that no amount of money, nor an eternity of time, will solve. It's called sin. Sin. And when the Lord shows us how the, and this problem never, you see, the problem with our temporal circumstances is that they're always changing. Men get interested in God or get interested in religion when they're in trouble, that often that which is born in a storm dies in the calm, and you've seen it, I've seen it. They get excited about things, and then when the circumstances change, they change. But here's a problem that never goes away. Here's a problem that we bear in our old man every day of our lives, everywhere we go. It's this sin problem. And so we're always in need of a savior. We're always shut up to Christ. We're always needing him to exercise his judgment against Moab.

Because Moab is his father. Moab was born in a dark cave under shameful circumstances. Every time we come before the throne of grace to find help in our time of need, we're thankful. We're thankful that our help is always by grace. It's always by grace, whether it be a need that we have in this world, or whether it be a need that we have spiritually beyond this world. It's a throne of grace. Grace, grace, oh, unmerited, undeserved, we could never, Turn over, you're still in Amos. Turn over just a few pages to the last book of your Old Testament, Zechariah.

Zechariah chapter four. If God required anything from us in order for us to prove ourselves worthy of his help, we would never have his help. If God required anything from us to prove ourselves to be deserving of his help, we would never know anything of God's help. It's a throne of grace, and it's for sinners. Look at Zechariah chapter four, a Zerubbabel is the one who brought the children of Israel from Babylon back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. He was the son of, I think it was Jeroboam, the grandson of Jeroboam, who was the king when Israelites were taken away into captivity. But his name translated means, Sown in Babylon. And Babylon is this world. Everything about this world, the religions of this world particularly, are Babylon. And the Lord Jesus left the glories of heaven and was born in the likeness of sinful flesh and lived in this Babylonish world.

Verse seven, and here's the enemy, here's Moab. Who art thou, O great mountain? Is there some obstacle that's keeping me from God? Is there some sin? Is my flesh going to keep me from God? Who art thou, O great mountain? That's what a mountain is. A mountain is that which separates. Your sin has separated you from your God. If you had faith of a mustard seed, you could say unto this mountain be cast into the sea, and it would be removed. So there's the mountain. It's the barrier between us and God. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings and crying, grace, grace unto it. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hand shall also finish it. And thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto you.

He laid the foundation. In election, he laid the foundation. In redemption, he laid the foundation. He finished the work in redemption. It is finished. Everything that God requires for our salvation, our Zerubbabel accomplished it. And he is continuing to perform his good work until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. For he that began a good work in you will perform it until that day. Who art thou, O mountain? Zerubbabel's gonna come. He laid the foundation, he's gonna finish the city, and it'll all be done by grace, grace, crying unto it, grace. You see, only sinners are in need of grace. If I left to myself, if I'm anything but sin, then I've got something to offer God, to obligate him. But here's my old man, Moab, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Ishmael. And here's the word from God. I'm going to execute justice against that old man. I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him. And in the new birth, our old man is put to death. He is revealed for what he is. Death. The wages of sin is death. In the day in which you eat of the tree, you shall surely die. So before our conversion, we were dead, but we didn't know it. We're like a zombie. That's the problem with zombies. They think they're alive when they're not. And that's what we were. But in the new birth, we acknowledge that old man for who he was, a dead man. A dead man.

Here's the promise of God, brethren. Thus saith the Lord, for through transgressions of Moab, And for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime. I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kiriath." Now, I don't know what the significance of this is, but Kiriath is Iscariot. That's where Judas was from. It's the same town. Judas Iscariot. Iscariot wasn't his last name. It was the town he was from. And Iscariot is the Greek for the Hebrew Kiriath. So draw from that what you will, but here's that old sinful man again. Would devour the palaces of Kiriath, and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting and with the sound of a trumpet. Oh, there's great shouting and there's a great sound of trumpet when the battle is fought and the old man is put to death and we come before the throne of grace trembling and rejoicing. trembling because of this old man, and rejoicing because of God's grace.

I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof." You see, we were making judgments about ourselves, thinking that God would have favor upon us because of something we did, or because of a prayer we prayed, or a decision we made, a work we performed, a life we were living. And what does the judgment of God against Moab do? It kills the judge. It kills the towns. It kills the everything.

And now we make righteous judgments. Now our judgments are God's judgments. What are God's judgments? I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. Everything about me is sinful. I have no righteousness. All of my righteousness is filthy rags. The only hope of salvation I have is to be found in Christ. not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness, which is by the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Oh, what a, this destruction of Moab is the new birth. I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof. We judged God as impotent before Moab was killed. We thought that he lacked the power to save. He wanted to save, but he wasn't able to save unless we allowed him or unless we did our part. That's the natural thinking.

Now we make righteous judgments about God. And we'll slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the Lord. We used to be able to have fellowship with religious people who blasphemed God like us. But we had to come out from among them. We had to be made separate. We can no longer call them our brother. We can no longer attend their churches. We can no longer give encouragement to their religious activity. All the princes have been killed. Moab's been killed. Kiriath has been burned. An old man's been identified for who he is.

Now, just very quickly, The river of life that comes from the throne of God, like the Nile River, like the Euphrates River, and like the Jordan River, those are the three most well-known rivers in that part of the world, they flow through a desolate, dry, desert land. The water of life flows through. a desert land to give life.

God took the sin of Lot and Moab, and he had a daughter of Jerusalem that was in Moab. Naomi had to go fetch her. You remember Elimelech? The book of Ruth is what I'm thinking of right now. And Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, left Bethlehem and went down into Moab. And he died and his two sons died. And Ruth came back with Naomi.

And to make a long story short, Ruth met Boaz, her kinsman redeemer. Ruth said to Naomi, No, I'm not going to go back like Opah did. Opah went back. I can't go back. Your people are going to be my people. Your God is going to be my God. Where you go, I will go. And God gave Ruth grace.

But that wasn't the end of the story. Ruth and Boaz got married. And they had a son. His name was Obed. And Obed got married. And he had a son, his name was Jesse. And Jesse got married and he had a son, his name was David. And Ruth was the great grandmother of King David. And every time the lineage of Christ is mentioned in the Bible, Ruth's name is there. That Moabitess. God saved one out of Moab and put her in the very bloodline of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What was born in the darkness and shame of a cave, now, oh, now she becomes the wife of the kinsman redeemer, Boaz, picture of Christ. And she's part of the very fabric and family of God's redeemed people. That's his mercy. See, God never executes judgment against Moab without mercy toward his people.

Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Lord, speak comfort and hope to our hearts as we reflect on your mercy and your grace. In Christ's name we ask it, amen.

352. 352? 352.