Wednesday morning, I went out
on our back deck to the screened-in portion, as is customary when
it's not too hot or too cold, and drink some coffee, look at
some emails, sometimes get distracted by news
stories. But this past Wednesday morning,
I did the smarter thing. I didn't even take my computer
out there. If I was going to do anything
on the internet, I was going to have to do it on my phone.
And that's more difficult. But I took my new Bible out with
me. I finally broke down and bought
myself a new one, nice big letters in it. And I read. In a sense, at a venture, I thought,
I'm just going to find something to read. I don't have a reading
plan. I wasn't looking up a particular
scripture or anything like that. But I just opened up the Bible
and paged back and forth, and I saw Amos. And I realized, you
know, I couldn't tell you what Amos said. And I read it. But I couldn't remember what
was in it, so I just started reading it. And found it to be
a very rich portion of scripture. Now all scripture is profitable.
All of it's inspired by God, says Paul, and all of it's profitable.
But we do understand that some aspects of it are more profitable
and needful than our other aspects of scripture. Just to give you
an example, if you never did read the genealogies in the book
of Genesis, it would not likely do your soul any harm. I'm not
saying that, I mean, it's profitable, there's things to learn in there.
But it's not like, say, the book of Romans. But Amos If you understand what he's saying
and what, or may I put it this way, if you understand what the
Lord was telling us through the prophet Amos, there is a lot. A very powerful truth condensed
in these nine chapters. Now this book is eight and a
half chapters of judgment and one half chapter of mercy. What I read to you is virtually
all the good news that's in this book. There's one other spot
that has just a little nugget. But the rest of it is very dark. We do not like to dwell on judgment,
do we? Particularly here. I've been
here a long time. at least as humans count a long
time. And we have not spent a great deal of that time focusing on
God's judgment. And one of the reasons is, I'm
sure, well, I know it because I'm the one that decides what
gets preached on. And I know the things that motivated me.
But of the original group that formed this congregation, Nearly
all of them had come out of a very oppressive and judgmental religion. And I figured you had just about
enough of it. You already knew that part pretty
well, so we didn't need to keep going over that. Instead, I poured
it on about the grace of God and the mercy of God and the
freeness of His grace and mercy. have intended to do that ever
since. Now, the message of divine judgment
is natural to us. Our natural conscience is made
of it. Paul says that God wrote his
law in everyone's heart. I remember reading a story of
this anthropologist who went out you know, and researched
lots of cultures and civilizations to see if there was a common
human ethic or morality. And he listed the standard rules
of society that he found everywhere. And quite interestingly, they
pretty well matched the last six commandments of the Ten Commandments.
Now the first four of the Ten Commandments are specifically
regarding worship under the Old Covenant. The last ones are how
the Jews were to relate to one another and how they were to
set up their society. And what I find interesting is
that those very laws, you don't kill, you don't commit perjury,
you don't take someone else's spouse, you don't covet someone
else's things, You obey mom and dad and honor them. And there's
one more, I can't think of it right away. But, oh, don't steal,
I think is in there. And I remember reading that and
I thought, I don't know if this fellow knows it, but he just
confirmed what Paul wrote. It's written. And that our conscience
is what rises up in judgment against us based upon what God
has written in our hearts. For many, if not for all of us,
there is a nearly constant drumbeat of deficiency, guilt, failure,
sin, judgment, and condemnation. It just kind of runs in the background
in our minds. We don't want to come to church
and hear more of what our conscience has been telling us all week. And the message of judgment is
humbling or humiliating. We do not like being exposed
to criticism. And sadly, when we are exposed
to it, it is in our nature to simply reject it in order to
relieve ourselves of the bad feelings that it brings. We might
reject it simply by ignoring it. Say, well, I'm not going
to have any of that. Or we may reject it by answering back with
some religious slogan or even a biblical phrase that we believe
absolves us of all exposure to the rough aspects of God's Word. I remember I was at a Bible conference
one time. I was just attending. I wasn't
preaching. And another preacher who was merely attending but
not preaching. He gave me a ride from the church
back to the motel I was staying in. And I can't remember what
the subject was, but this man said, I don't want to hear about
anything but the righteousness of Christ. That sounds real good,
doesn't it? Until you find out that he was
later exposed as quite the thief and philanderer. and troublemaker
among the people of God. He didn't want anybody to say
anything of judgment or criticism. Another one, people will use
even a biblical phrase like Christ is all. Well, of course he is. The scriptures say it plainly.
But when they say that, as a shield against any word of judgment
from God. As though they don't even have
to listen and take to heart the things said. That's a dangerous
use of the scriptures. If we hear a word that condemns
us or at least condemns what we do, we've got to pay attention. God's saying something, and we
need to take it in and accept it for what it is. But as much as we do not like
to hear a message of judgment, even we who profess to be exempt
from judgment under that scriptural principle There is therefore
now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. That's Romans
chapter five, verse one. We must listen to what God says
in judgment because God's judgments are discerning. Remember how
in the book of Hebrews it says, for the word of God is living.
And we are taught by the apostle Peter that the biblical phrase,
the word of God means the gospel. But the gospel, though that word
means good news, though the gospel is in general good news, that
is, it ends in good news, it begins with the word of judgment.
And the book of Hebrews goes on to say that the word of God
is living, it's powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. And it's able to discern the
thoughts and intents of the heart. Jeremiah said, the heart's deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. And while our hearts
are deceitful, here is the horrible reality of what our hearts do.
Of all the people that our hearts deceive, it's our own selves
it deceives the most. It doesn't like the light of
truth to shine within it and expose it for what it is. So
it tries to shield itself from the discerning aspects of God's
words. We may have grown up under a
message of judgment, but really the message of judgment we grew
up under was not the judgment of God, but the judgment of man.
It was men pronouncing judgment on others. And you can find relief
from the judgment of man by hearing a different message than what
you previously heard. But has this different message
delivered you from the judgment of God? And your conscience may
have condemned you for many years, but it is your conscience, not
God's word. And relief from the condemnation
of your own conscience is not the same thing as relief from
the accusing voice of God. Indeed, Christ is all. But the issue is, do you have
Christ or just a good slogan? You may be a poor sinner and
nothing at all is one of my favorite old stories relates of a man
who used to go around saying, I'm a poor sinner and nothing
at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. And you may say that
of yourselves, or so you say anyway, but do you really believe
that? Or do you just take refuge in
that statement? So let us hear what the prophet
Amos said to his day and see what, if any of it applies to
us. Now, don't fear. I have no intention of leaving
you and me in a state of guilt. Instead, my hope is that everyone
here, when they leave here, will be assured that they are of that
blessed remnant chosen by grace and exempt from every accusation
by reason of God's method of exemption. And that's really You know, everything
that I preach, there is that hope within it and that desire
that that which is preached will so affect your heart that you
will be able to say with certainty whether or not you have indeed
been delivered from condemnation by Jesus Christ. or you are merely a religious
person with some good religious slogans. I remember Henry Mahan preaching
a message on that scripture where the Lord said, many shall say
unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not do this, that, and
the other? And Henry said, that word, many,
terrifies me. Many shall see Christ in the
day of judgment, expecting that they are among his people, and
shocked to discover that they are not. I don't want any of
us to be in that crowd. I don't want me to be in that
crowd. I don't want you to be in that crowd. To be honest,
I don't want anybody to be in that crowd. But my heart is most
attached to you. Brother Mahan used to preface
some of his harder comments with, hang on to your pew, we're fixing
to jump a creek. So in the same spirit, I say,
cinch your seatbelt, the ride might get rough. But the car's
not going to tip over. To understand this prophecy,
we must note three groups of people that are found in this
book. There are the Gentile nations
that surround the 12 tribes. And then there are the 10 northern
tribes that goes by the name Israel. And there are the two
southern tribes, which as a nation went by the name Judah. Shortly
after Solomon died, his son became king over all 12 tribes. But that didn't last long. and
it was soon split into two nations, Israel in the north, Judah in
the south. These three groups, as I was
reading this, I saw this pattern emerge in the things that were
said concerning those three groups. In general, I believe we can
see them as an illustration of the Gentiles representing the
outright unbelieving world, the world utterly opposed to God.
Israel, the Northern Ten Tribes, representing religious but apostate
Christianity. Now if you ask somebody that's
an expert in what they call comparative religion, that is they just study
the religions of the world, I think they'll tell you one and a half,
two billion Christians, something like that. But they're counting
everybody that calls themselves a Christian. And if you look
at what these various groups believe, it's obvious not all
of them can be Christian because they're saying things that are
utterly contrary to one another. So we have this whole group which
we might call, and it has been called Christendom, But it is
for the most part apostate. You say, I don't know what apostate
means. Apostasy means to fall from. And an apostate church
is one that has fallen, fallen from the truth that God has taught. And even though they go around
claiming the name Christian, they are not in truth followers
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then there's Judah. which
at the time that Amos spoke, Uzziah was the king, and he was
probably the best king that Israel had after Solomon. If you read the history of him,
it says that he was a good king and feared the Lord. There's
only one thing he messed up in, as he tried to burn incense at
the temple. And that was not his right. He
was of the tribe of Judah. And that was only for the Levites
to do. Only the priests were allowed to do that work in the
temple. And so the Lord made him a leper for the last years
of his life, and he had to live separate from everybody else,
but he did continue as king. Nonetheless, at the time that
Amos spoke, and he would have been a contemporary of the prophet
Isaiah, and Hosea under King Uzziah, and
also during the reign of Jeroboam II in the northern tribes. But he came and he spoke a message,
and this is an interesting aspect of this. He was from the country
of Judah. But his message was almost exclusively
to Israel. He was a shepherd until the Lord
called him to preach. And I don't know how it is that
some of these people that study scriptures come up with timelines,
but as near as I can tell, They claimed that he worked as a prophet
for several years and then went back to his plow. Now, using
that as an introduction, and I'm going to try to condense
all the thinking that I've been doing. And believe me, I have
enjoyed it. There is so much to see here,
and I will try to condense it. and deliver to you the message
of Amos and may the Lord be pleased to keep it in your minds and
you can think upon it and under the Lord's guidance determine
what applies to you and what does not. But God pronounced judgment on
five groups. The Gentile nations that persecuted
Israel and Judah, the people of Judah, the people of Israel,
the self-righteous, and the complacent. What sort
of judgments did he give to them? Well, if you read in the book
of Amos, the judgments were spoken of in terms like famine and invading
armies. But we know that while Amos was
initially sent to Israel of old, the 10 northern tribes, and his
message was primarily to them, it never found its fulfillment
in them. You say, how do you know? Well,
the judgments found their fulfillment. They did suffer famines. Invading
armies did come, both to Israel and then many years later to
Judah. But God never did bring back
the ten northern tribes. In that section we read, it says,
where he says, I will restore David's fallen tent, and I will
repair its broken places, and so forth, and build it as it
used to be. Remember when they rebuilt the
temple after the captivity, the really old timers who had seen
Solomon's temple wept at how insignificant the new temple
seemed. And even though later, King Herod
the Great spent 40 years remodeling the temple, And it was a grand
temple in that day. That temple sat there in Jerusalem,
but Jerusalem was under the thumb of Rome. Never has Israel been restored
to what it was during the times of David and Solomon. Even now,
and there's a lot of people that get all excited and think that
Israel over there is fulfillment of prophecies. No. How do I know that? Well, all
the prophecies of a restoration of Israel involved a return to
the Lord, and there's been no such thing. Also, if you look
at a map of Israel, modern Israel, it does not cover all the territory
that Israel once did. No, these prophecies, all that
Amos had to say, find their complete fulfillment in the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ in establishing the new Jerusalem, not rebuilding
the old one. They find their fulfillment in
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, who Paul calls the Israel
of God. Now what did the Gentile nations
hear from God? That he would destroy them. and
that he would destroy them because they had persecuted his people. Now our Lord was going to pronounce
judgments on his people and it was by the hand of the Gentiles
that he would bring that punishment. And then he turned around and
punished the Gentiles for doing it. Because while they were the
hand of the Lord, so to speak, the arm of the Lord's judgment,
they weren't doing it out of zeal for the Lord or anything
like that. They were doing it simply because, as is natural
to mankind, their fall of hatred, full of bitterness, full of covetousness,
and kings just wanted to expand their empire. They didn't care
how many lives it took. They didn't see that as they
expanded their empire, they were essentially stealing land murdering people, all to advance
their own agenda. That's all they were doing. Nebuchadnezzar
did not have a heart for God, nor Darius, nor Cyrus, nor Alexander
the Great, nor Caesar, though everyone did exactly what God
determined for them to do in their dealings with Israel. And
then he turned around and punished them for doing it. They did horrible
things, and it's not important to go through all the details.
You can read it and see the things that these Gentile nations were
accused of doing. And then there is a couple of
verses directed, and this is in chapter 2, verses 4 and 5,
directed to the people of Judah. And he said to them that there
would be judgment upon them as well. It wouldn't come as soon, but he says, they have rejected
the law of the Lord and have not kept his decrees because
they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors
followed. I will send fire upon Judah that
will consume the fortress of Jerusalem. Now at this present
time, when Amos said this, actually, as pointed out, Uzziah was the
king, and it was a time of general faithfulness, at least outwardly. Idolatry had been shoved out,
but it would come back in. These were prophetic judgments.
There would come a time when Israel would cease the worship
of the true God, or Judah would cease the worship of the true
God, and God would judge them for it. And then there was the
people of Israel. Once they split into two countries,
Jeroboam, the king of the northern tribes, realized that according
to the law, there was only one place they were allowed to worship,
and that was Jerusalem. But Jerusalem was in the nation
of Judah. And he knew that if the men went
down there each year, as they were supposed to do three times,
to worship, they would soon probably have their loyalties transferred
back to Jerusalem and thus the kingdom of Judah. So he said,
there's no use you troubling yourselves to go all the way
down to Jerusalem to worship. And Jeroboam set up two places
of worship for the northern tribes. And others, kings that followed,
set up even more. And he had calves made. Back
then, people would make the likeness of a calf and then set the idol
of their god on that calf. And so he had calves made. Of
course, nothing was put on top of it. Why? Jehovah is the invisible
God. This is what they did at the
foot of Mount Sinai when Moses went up to get the law. And they
came to Aaron and said, make us gods. And he said, all right,
you bring me your gold. And they made a golden calf.
And they began to fall down and worship the golden calf. But
there wasn't anything sitting on the calf because their god
was the invisible God. And in fact, Aaron said to them,
This is your God that brought you out of Egypt. Let us have
a feast unto Jehovah. And they had a feast, all right.
It was very corrupt, as was common with religious
feasts in those days. And they fell down and worshiped
in the presence of that calf. And God said, you are worshiping
the calf. you're worshiping an idol. And
some, five, six hundred years later, however long it was to
get to this time, here comes Jeroboam. No use you going all
the way to Jerusalem to worship Jehovah. Here, up here in Bethel. Bethel, where Jacob had wrestled
with God. Bethel, called, which name means
the house of God. and then one in a more southerly
location. I can't remember the name of it right now. Excuse
me. It's Dan and Bethel. Dan up in the north, Bethel in
the south part of Israel. But those two places is where
they could go. In other words, they were told you don't have
to worship God at the one spot that he has designated. Here
are two. And for that, the Lord destroyed
them utterly. They were professing to worship
Jehovah, but they did so through the practice
of idolatry, and that soon led to bringing
in other gods right along with it. He brought bespoke condemnation
and judgment on the self-righteous. If we look here at chapter five,
verse 18, woe to you who long for the day
of the Lord. These were the very religious
people, probably in Judah, but maybe even some in the northern
tribes, who thought that they were faithful worshipers of the
Lord, the truly godly, among all these ungodly false professors. And they would say, oh, for the
day of the Lord, when he will destroy the wicked. not realizing they were among
the wicked. He says, why do you long for
the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light.
It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord
be darkness, not light, pitch dark without a ray of brightness? He goes on to say through Amos,
I hate, I despise your religious feasts. Now these were the ones
in the South who for the most part, it seemed like were remaining
faithful. They worshiped only at the temple.
They brought all the required sacrifices. They worshiped or
observed all those feasts. And here's what God said about
them doing what he told them to do. I despise your religious
feasts. I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt
offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. God commands
them to bring an offering, they do, and then he refuses to accept
it? Yes. That's what he's saying. Though
you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs. I will not listen to the music
of your harps. but let justice roll on like
a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream. Did you bring me sacrifices and
offerings 40 years in the desert, O house of Israel? You have lifted
up the shrine of your king." These people were boasting in
their supposed faithfulness to the Lord, but you know who it
was they were really enamored with? Uzziah, the godly king. They weren't trusting God, they
were trusting him. He said, you've lifted up the
shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols. They'd made an
idol out of Uzziah, the star of your God. They'd made a god
out of Uzziah, which you made for yourselves. Says, therefore,
I will send you in exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose
name is almighty. And eventually that happened.
And we must be careful of this. Because here we begin to see
a picture of what we could be. Full of self-righteous satisfaction
that we remain faithful to the true way of God. Because we have
the right doctrines. We have the right practices. And that means we're the people
of God. And in so doing, we become nothing
more than what they were doing up there in the northern tribes,
because they began to make other places to worship God. They had other high places, as
they were called. They said they were worshipping
God, but they weren't worshipping God where he told them to, which
is a picture of worshipping God in Christ. They were worshipping
him with the things they made with their own hands, gods they
devised out of their own minds. All the while, they said, we're
worshipping God. We believe the doctrines of grace.
And we should, because what are called the doctrines of grace
Some people call them the five points of Calvinism and all that,
you know, they put theological names on everything, but these
are the things that the Scriptures teach. But you can believe all
those things and die and drop straight into hell. Salvation
is not in a doctrine. Salvation isn't the one whom
the doctrines tell us about, but people take refuge in a false
god made out of their doctrinal system. Yes, there were high
places. to overtly false gods up in the
northern tribes. And down in the south, they might
say, well, we have no such high places. All we have is the temple.
But in their hearts, it was not the god of the temple they were
worshiping. It was the temple itself. And it was the king. And we must be careful that we
don't find that all we've done is made a high place out of our
doctrines. a high place of idolatry out
of the scriptural snippets we quote or the slogans we repeat. And then the complacent. Chapter 6 verse 1, woe to you
who are complacent in Zion. Now, where's Zion? Well, Mount
Zion is where the temple is, the city of the great king. This
was in the South. More words of judgment on the
South. Woe to you who are, I like King James, it says, who are
at ease in Zion, untroubled. It says, you who feel secure
on Mount Samaria, Then he drags in those of the northern tribes,
because they had their own mountain to worship on. He says, you notable
men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come.
So he's speaking, I would say, primarily to the leaders. He goes on to make Some statements
about him, he says, you put off the evil day, but bring on the
reign of terror. You lie on beds inlaid with ivory
and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and
fattened calves. You strum away on your harps
like David and improvise on musical instruments. You drink wine by
the bowl full and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve
over the ruin of Joseph. Now, what does he mean about
Joseph? Joseph was another name for the northern tribes. So these are once again, he's
talking to those who claim to be faithful and who outwardly
speaking are. They're worshiping at the temple
they should worship at. They're offering the sacrifices
they're supposed to offer and going to the feasts they're supposed
to go to. But it said you put off the evil
day and indeed God's judgment did not fall on them for a hundred
or so years, I believe, after it fell on the northern tribes.
He says, but you bring near the reign of terror in their self-righteousness. They trampled upon the poor and
the needy. And you know what? Spiritually
speaking, we can do the same. We lie on our beds inlaid with
theological correctness. We lounge upon our soft couches
of soft words for ourselves. We dine on choice lambs. We listen to the gospel being
preached. We sing good songs. As you drink
wine by the bowlful, representative of Christ, you use the finest
lotions, but you do not grieve over the
ruin of Joseph. You're so sure nothing will happen
to you, you are not concerned about what's going on with apostate
Christendom. Oh, brethren, we all do this.
It's so easy to sit self-satisfied in our
theological correctness and have no concern in our hearts over
those who go astray to their own destruction. You say, well,
they deserve it. So do we. So do we. Oh, and I got to admit, some
of this is brought up by what I read on Facebook. And some
of them, some of these people I know, and I've been them on
occasion, but they talk about those reprobate Armenians. Well, there's a high place for
Armenians, and there's a high place for Calvinists. And if you're among the Calvinists
who believe in the sovereign grace of God-and that's what
we teach and preach here-be sure that you're not on Mount Calvin.
Be sure that you're not attacking Arminians from a supposedly higher place. It seems as though some whom
I have read even rejoice in the destruction of those who do not
believe as we do." He says, you don't grieve over
the destruction of Joseph. When we see God bring judgment
on the various denominations and churches and individual who
have departed his way, even as they tried to keep his name on
their lips, we see what he does to them and we laugh. They're
getting theirs. Well, I don't disagree with you.
They're getting theirs. We're not getting ours. And therefore
we should never exalt ourselves above them. We're not getting
ours because Christ got ours for us. The Lord God himself says, I
have no pleasure in the death of him that dies. Then why should
we? Have we become like Laodicea
in the book of Revelation? You said, I'm rich and increased
with goods and have no need of anything. But you don't realize
that you're poor, wretched, miserable, and blind. Oh, may God's word of judgment
through the prophet Amos touch our hearts and humble us to where we are
still bold for his truth, but compassionate to those who are
in error. That we not live our lives for
ourselves, even as we try to tell others that we are living
our lives for God. Well, what did God say? Right in the midst of judgment,
look at chapter 5, verse 4. This is what the Lord says to
the house of Israel, the northern tribes. Seek me and live. Do not go to Gilgal. Do not journey
to Beersheba. Do not seek Bethel. Bethel and Gilgal had been set
up as places to worship, but yet idols were worshiped there.
And then Beersheba, which was actually in the southern part
of Judah. The same kind of worship had
been set up, and some would, there was a way they could get
in there, sneak in there somehow or another, and they would go
down there to worship. He said, don't go there. Seek me and live." Even to the
ten tribes and the people of the ten tribes upon whom he had
pronounced such awful judgments and who were worthy of every
judgment he pronounced upon them, he says to them, seek me and
live. I know God has chosen the people. He chose them before he made
the world. And they and they alone shall be saved. But that's
God's business, not ours. And when God speaks to the world
and to apostate Christendom, He says, seek me and live. And when He says to those who
are outwardly faithful but inwardly self-righteous and complacent,
He still says, seek me Don't go and hide in your slogans. Don't seek refuge in little snippets
of scripture here and there. Seek me. And then turning back to Amos
chapter 9, and seek me and it comes with a promise. He says,
seek me and live. It doesn't go from, I'm going
to destroy you and uproot you and I'm not even going to leave
a remnant and all. It goes from that to seek me and live. Not
seek me and then we'll talk about maybe easing up on the punishment.
Not seek me and yeah, it won't be as bad as it was going to
be. He said, seek me and live. Oh, what a gracious God. How
kindly he speaks to those who rebel against him. And then he says in verse 11,
in that day, I will restore David's fallen tent. I will repair its
broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be
so that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the
nations that bear my name, declares the Lord, who will do these things. What's he gonna do? Well, the
restoration of David's tent is the restoration of Jerusalem.
But it's fulfilled not in the restoration of an earthly Jerusalem,
but the establishment of a new Jerusalem, part of the new heavens
and new earth, wherein dwell the righteousness. The new Jerusalem
is the church of the living God. It's the place where Christ is
enthroned in the hearts of his people, the son of David. You know David? He was promised
that there would be one of his line who would sit on the throne
of Israel forever. Well, there isn't anybody of
David's line sitting on any throne over in Israel right now, is
there? Because there's not a throne. But Jesus Christ, the son of
David, died. And in his dying, he pleased
the Lord. And the Lord raised him from
the dead, and raised him up to glory, and seated him in his
right hand, and gave him preeminence over all things, and gave him
a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, and every tongue confess that he is what? Lord,
King, Ruler, Sovereign. There's David's fallen tent raised
up again. It's Christ. It also involves the ingathering
of the Gentiles. Said he'll restore David's fallen
tent so they may possess the remnant of Edom. Who are the
people of Edom? Edom was another name for Esau,
Jacob's brother. And Esau forfeited the blessing,
didn't he? Forfeited the birthright and
the blessing and went off and established his own nation. the
Edomites. And while they are the descendants
of the one who utterly rejected the promise of God, there is
a remnant even among them, chosen by grace, and he says that they,
the true Israel of God, may possess the remnant of Edom and all the
nations that bear my name. Now there are no nations that bear his name as a political
identity, but there are people from every kindred, tongue, tribe,
and nation, according to the book of Revelation, who bear
the name of God. And they have all been made a
part of the Israel of God. Who will do this? He says, I'm
going to do it. I like that. Nothing of God's blessing is
ever the result of the doing of man. We don't restore David's
fallen tent. We don't build up the cities. God does. Oh, time and again
my conscience condemns me, and there's plenty to condemn me
for, believe me. And words like this, I read them and I can see
myself on every page. I can see myself as worthy of
all the judgments that he's pronounced. And that makes me glad that he
says, I will restore David's fallen tent. What will it look like? It will bring such prosperity
that the plowman and the planter Or the reaper will be overtaken
by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. Just
a way to talk of an overabundant harvest. He says, I will bring back my
exiled people, Israel. And he did, literally. And he
does so spiritually and is doing so now. All of his people he's
bringing back. I remember the first time I heard
this distinction, it was again Brother Henry Mahan that made
it. He said, the Lord Jesus said, I have come to seek and to save
that which is lost. And he will seek every lost person,
he will find every lost person, and he will save every lost person. And he went on to say, will you
say everyone's lost? He said, no, they're not, ask
them. Are you lost? The Lord's looking
for you. But if you say, no, I got this. I was trained from a child and
I know what to believe. I hope how soon you get lost.
I hope how soon you are like that one sheep from the 99 out
there all alone in the desert. For the shepherd knows where
you are, and he'll find you, and he'll bring you home." And then he says, I will plant
Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the
land I have given them. Religion. Religious Christianity. I've got to quit. It takes, spends
so much time trying to plant people. People spend a lot of
time trying to plant themselves. And we try to make sure we get
all the T's crossed and the I's dotted, both in our doctrine
and our practice. And we think if we do this, we
will be fruitful in the land. The Lord says, I'll plant my
people. And if I plant them, they will
never be uprooted from their land." What is the land of the people
of God? We can apply it to many things. It's His promises. Look unto me and be saved, all
the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's the land of promise. It's
the land of rest. It's the land of God and His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know I've gone long, but the
burden was on my heart. And believe me, I left out a
lot. Oh, brethren, let us be sure. that our confidence is
in Christ and not in our religion. Because we can hold all orthodox
truth, we can become experts of this Bible, we can, quote,
do everything right and still be lost. Because salvation is
not in what we do. It's in what God does. And may
our hearts be fixed on that, planted there, never to be uprooted. Now may God honor His word.