Even small things, I think, like
trying to find Amos in the Old Testament, can distract from
worship. But the good thing is, is that
being with God is being with His Word. Find the prophet Amos
in the Old Testament. It's very close to Matthew. It was a tiny little prophet
called Obadiah, right after him, squeezed in between him and Jonah. Amos was a prophet for Israel
during the Assyrian conflict, during the Assyrian judgment
of the eighth century B.C. And of the minor prophets, many
scholars say that Amos is probably the most powerful book of the
Minor Prophets and not just the Minor Prophets, but the most
powerful writing in the entire Old Testament. And ironically,
because if we were to poll ourselves, when's the last time we ever
read Amos and we're really in awe? That's a pretty tall claim
to have that type of expression about Amos when nobody talks
about it. Well, there's some reasons these
aren't my discoveries. These are just regurgitations
of what other scholars have said about why this book is important. One of the main reasons is that
Amos, unlike other prophets in the Old Testament, speaks directly
to specific sins of the people of Israel. He doesn't just say,
hey, your sin or your idolatry. He says, hey, the way you're
doing this, the way you're saying this, the way you're believing
this, your love for this. He calls out sin by name. Specifically in the complacency
that Israel had. Primarily that they were Israel.
So even in sin, God's not going to judge us. We're his children.
So we may we may get popped on the hand a few times, but there's
not going to be judgment because we're the chosen. There's a very complacency, a
very apathetic heart that Israel has for God and Amos calls it
out, he calls out their prosperity. Especially not that just they're
prosperous, but that their drive is for prosperity, that their
drive is for prosperity at the cost of others, at the cost of
poverty of others, and that they close their heart toward the
poor and that they use the poor to make money off their labor.
Sound familiar? I think Amos is a very fitting
prophet for today in America. Especially those who sit in high
places and call themselves believers who do the very same sin that
Amos preached against. God says in chapter five of Amos,
he says, I hate what you do. I hate your worship. I hate your
feasts. Something's wrong with you. You
say your mind, but look at you. Something's wrong with you. You're
wicked. So that's one of the reasons
that people think Amos is one of the most important and powerful
books in the Old Testament. Secondly, the goal of Amos was
to change their theology. He was not just trying to get
them to repent, but he was trying to get them to see that God is
not the God you think he is. He's not the God of complacency.
He's not the God of just turning a blind eye to sin. He's never
done that and he never will do that. Does that sound familiar? It sounds like the Church of
America. Well, I'm a Christian. I'm in church. I'm born again,
double-dosed with the Holy Ghost. I'm good. I've got nothing, I've got nothing
to worry about. I've got nothing. Well, let me
just, you know, God understands that I love to sleep around a
little bit. God understands that I love to
set a little note. God understands that I love to beat my wife and
my children. God understands that, God understands when I
hate my neighbor. God understands that that law
I can't obey because it just doesn't work for my time to get
to work. God understands, God doesn't
understand that. God hates that. God hates it. Hating our heart
is murder, and therefore we're murderers. No murderer will inherit
the kingdom of heaven. I see a lot of my brothers in Christ
who are really hyper-grace. I'm hyper-about-grace. They say,
well, wait a minute now, you're trying to preach repentance in
a way that the Bible doesn't teach. And I'm telling you what Amos is
teaching. And I'll tell you that though the application may not
be the same, the theological principles are never changing.
God is immutable. Therefore, his theology is the
same. Amos wanted to correct their view of God for anyone
to sit and claim the banner of Christ as being born again by
the Spirit of God through the gospel and then yet to sit there
with a complacency in their sin and say, that's all right, because
I'm God's. He'll understand may very well not be God's. Because
God doesn't let his children ride that way. That's not the right theology
of God in heaven. It doesn't work. But Amos wants
to correct that. Amos wants to correct the third
reason that Israel believes that no matter what, God would never
bring any kind of judgment or harm against them because there
is people. But yet in chapter 3, verse 2 of Amos, he says,
You only have I known out of all the families of the earth.
Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. Do you
see that? Out of all the family of the
earth, I know you, and because I know you, I will punish you
for your iniquities. See, we don't understand that
context in the Gospel of Grace, do we? We don't realize what
that really means. And see, here, God, through Amos,
is speaking to a nation, to a people who are, in some sense, a political
nation. And God is bringing an everlasting
judgment against the nation of Israel as a people. Be it even
then, Not every single Israelite, though they may die in the process
of judging the whole, are condemned forever. We'll call that a remnant
in the Old Testament. Just as there are congregations
all across this country and people right now at this exact same
hour on this time zone singing praises to God and pastors in
pulpits preaching whatever they want to call that message that
they're doing, whether they want to call a sermon, a message,
an homily or, you know, life lesson. or whatever stuff's going
on in the name of worship of our holy God. All over the world,
but if Christ were to come back today, the multitude sitting
in those areas or the vicinity of those worship services are
not the church because they're there. And the multitudes of
those people sitting under the teaching of or either the lack
thereof, the teaching of Scripture would probably be left behind
if we believe in a rapture today. If the day of the Lord comes,
these people that are comfortable with looking forward to the face
of Christ should not have a joy in their heart looking forward
to the day of judgment because they will sit guilty in it. God judges His people. God judged
Israel. And we need to learn what that
means for us. Two more reasons why some scholars
believe that Amos is the most important and most powerful book
in the Old Testament as far as the prophets. Is that even though God hates
their sin, God makes provision for grace. So we see this judgment
that God says, I'm going to lay you waste. I'm going to take
you out. Well, there were thousands of
people. There are going to be a few left. Well, there's a few left. That's
grace. That's mercy. I'm not going to
eradicate you. I'm going to leave some of you. And that the day of the Lord
will be victorious for you if you seek Me and live. Seek me. Seek first the kingdom of God
and all his righteousness and all these things will be added
unto you. Those are the words of Jesus. Seek me. If you don't. There's something horrible coming.
God says in a vision to Amos in chapter 7, he sees two visions.
The first vision is a vision of a swarm of locusts. Very common
in that day. That swarm of locusts would come
into Israel and annihilate its food source. Oh, that's just
a natural disaster. Yeah, right. Salvation comes
in natural ways through natural means by supernatural power.
What do you mean by that? That means God, who is ineffably
omnipotent. That means all powerful, indescribable,
unknowable, all powerful. You can't put your hand around
it. So God is unimaginably all powerful and saves people by
his power. But he chose to use mortal mouths
and mortal syntax in order to bring salvation to mortal people.
The same way God brings judgment, he does supernatural judgment
sometimes. But for the most part, what the
prophet here is saying is that God's going to destroy your food.
You're going to have famine. You're going to starve to death. You're
going to go bankrupt. You're going to lose everything.
You're going to have to watch your family die in front of you
because they're going to starve. You're going to have to see this.
But God tells Amos these things, shows him through this vision,
and Amos cries out and he petitions the Lord. He says, please, please
have mercy. Please. Israel is too small. They cannot handle this. They'll
be gone forever. Please have mercy. And God has
mercy. And they refuse to listen to
the Word of the Lord. Sound familiar? So the second vision that God
gives Amos is not a vision of just more natural, but it is
natural, but it's a vision of fire. A vision of fire that consumes
all things. And Amos says, please do not
send this. They're too small. They're too
frail. They're too fragile. Please do not send this calamity
on them. And they refuse to listen after
God gives grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. And they reject
the gospel of grace coming from the mouth of God through the
word of God. They rejected it. God came to his own and his own
did not receive him. But all who received him, who
believed on his name, he gave the right to become the children
of God, not by choice, nor by the will of man. nor by blood,
but by the will of God. And you'll see that greatly in
Amos. It's not a shadow. It's absolutely perfectly printed
on the paper. When you hear the Old Testament,
I want you to hear. I hear John because I read a
lot of John. I want you to hear the New Testament. I want you
to hear the apostles. I want you to hear the voice
of Christ. I want you to see not just parallels, but absolute
perfect reflection of the same message. This is the significance
of why I chose to take a few weeks out to deal with the Old
Testament. How beneficial it is for me to
study it and then how morally, how more beneficial it would
be, overly beneficial it would be for you to learn it. And though judgment does come
after they refuse the gospel, the final reason that Some scholars
believe Amos is the most powerful book in the Old Testament, is
that on the other side of judgment comes grace and mercy again. Scripture says in Amos 3.12,
after the judgment is over, Israel is going to be like a lamb that
has ripped out the mouth of a lion. What's that? Rescued. Snatched. What did they do? Did they stand
in repentance like Nineveh? Did they believe on the gospel
like Sychar in John 4? No, they were just like the Jews
in Jesus' day. If you destroy this temple, I'll
rebuild it in three days. I'm a great bridegroom. I'm more
sufficient than the shadow of a wedding in John 2. You must be born again, not religious
in John 3. I'm living water. Stop satisfying
your thirst with other lovers. I'm the great bridegroom. See me and be satisfied. It is
Moses spoke of me. He will indict you for your unbelief.
John 5. I'm the bread that gives life
to all men. Stop laboring for food that perishes. John 6. Jesus. God, here through Amos, saying,
I will snatch you, you rebellious people, out of the mouth of the
lion and I will preserve you. Though I put you there, I will
preserve you. And then finally, in the very
last portion of Amos, God says that in that day I will raise
up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches
and renew it. is going to be an abundance for
God's people. Friends, I want you to turn to
the latter part of Amos chapter 4. I want you to look at verse 12
and then we're going to read all the way through the end of
chapter 5. Amos 412 to the end of chapter
5. Therefore, thus, I will do to
you, O Israel, because I will do this to you, prepare to meet
your God, O Israel. For behold, He who forms the
mountains and creates the wind and declares to man what is his
salt, who makes the morning darkness and treads on the heights of
the earth, the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name. Hear this
word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel. Fallen no more to rise. is the virgin Israel, forsaken
on her land, with none to raise her up. For thus says the Lord
God, the city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and
that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house
of Israel. For thus says the Lord to the
house of Israel, seek me and live, but do not seek Bethel,
but do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba. For
Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.
Seek the Lord and live, lest ye break out like fire in the
house of Joseph and devour, with none to quench it for Bethel.
Or you who turn justice to wormwood, hear that, and cast down righteousness
to the earth. He who made Pleiades and Orion
and turns deep darkness into morning and darkens the day into
night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out
on the surface of the earth. The Lord is his name who makes
destruction flash forth against the strong so that destruction
comes upon the fortress. They hate him who reproves in
the gate and they abhor him who speaks truth. Therefore, because
you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him,
you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell
in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine. For I know how many are
your transgressions and how great are your sins, you who afflict
the righteous, who take a bribe and turn aside the needy in the
gate. Therefore, he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time,
for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil, that
you may live. And so the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil and love good
and establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord,
the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. Therefore,
thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, in all the squares
there shall be wailing, and in all the streets they shall say,
Alas! Alas! They shall call the farmers to
mourning and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation.
And in all vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through
your midst, says the Lord. Woe to you who desire the day
of the Lord. Why would you have the day of
the Lord? It is darkness and not light, as if a man fled from
a lion and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned
his hand against the wall and a serpent bit him. It is not
the day of the Lord's darkness and not light and gloom with
no brightness in it. I hate, I despise your feasts. I take no delight in your solemn
assemblies. Even though you offer me your
burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the
peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon
them. Take away from me the noise of your songs. To the medley
of your hearts, I will not listen, but let justice roll down like
waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Did
you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the 40 years
in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikoth,
your king, and Chiron, your star, God, your images that you've
made for yourselves. And I will send you into exile
beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts."
Now, you see that. There's no justice to preaching
this text thoroughly. I want you to look at a common
theme. at the latter part of chapter
4, I will do to you, O Israel. He says these words, prepare
to meet your God. And then he couples that theme
with the idea that they're looking forward to the day of the Lord.
So they think they're prepared to meet the Lord. They think
they're ready to stand before their God in all their wickedness. in all their sin. For in their
minds, their God is a far, deep, forgiving God. And in that, they
are correct." God sets Himself right in their
minds. He says to them, I am the One
who created all things. I am the Lord God of all creation. I am majestic over the world
and the cosmos. I'm going to take you in such
a way that there may be ten of you that remain. I made the stars
that you so easily worshipped. The astrology that you so easily
allowed to seep into your lives. The wishing on well-wishing.
The pulling of wishbones. The throwing salt over your shoulder. The folklore. The witchcraft.
The scary tactics of superstition. I am the God who makes destruction
flash forth from the sea. No fortress can stand against
me. There's a lot of pain here. There's a lot of hopelessness
here in the text of this chapter. And it is sort of the root of
the entire book of Amos. It establishes the understanding
that God, though he has, is going to show them that he's going
to bring judgment against all the nations around Israel. And
they're thinking, yes, our enemies are going to fall. Then he points
to Israel and says, now it's your turn. Because I'm a just God. And see,
in the context of justice, you need to see the word justice
and the word righteousness as interchangeable. See that. Righteousness is justice. Justice
is righteousness. Righteousness is just. We think righteousness is just
this actions that we do. We have taken this trueness of
right theology of understanding God as righteous, and we've made
it in the sense that he's just now he never does anything wrong.
But in His righteousness comes justice against unrighteousness.
It is one and the same. And so with all of this, we need
to see if we understand what it means to be prepared to meet
God. He starts out there and He says
that you need to be prepared. And in verse 1 of chapter 5,
listen, He says, hear the Word. Guess what? I'm coming through
your midst. And it's going to be a calamity.
How are they in the midst of God? First and foremost, they're
in the midst of God through His Word that they'd had for centuries. That they knew for centuries
and generations and generations and generations. And not just
the Word of God, but the fulfillment of that Word. The prophets of
old. The Exodus. Did you worship me
in the desert? Did you offer me sacrament? He's
bringing them back to the days of Exodus. He's bringing them
back to the understanding that God alone, He alone brought them
out. He alone established His presence
among them. They feel prepared to meet Him,
and they're not. Reminds me a lot of John's writing
in his first epistle. If you say you have fellowship
with Him, but walk in darkness, you lie. Friends, don't feel comfortable
in your sin. Israel was comfortable in their
sin. At best, if you are a believer
comfortable in your sin, God will allow you to reap the complete
consequences of that sin in this life. What you do to your body
could hurt you forever. What you put in your mind could
never leave. What you listen to in your ears
could haunt your soul. Where you go with your feet could
destroy your testimony. Well, that's my business. It's
not your business. Because we as the body, each
part, if my hand is in depravity, I'm in depravity. If my hand
is dying, I'm dying. If my eye looks at another lover,
I'm an adulterer. This is the seriousness of God's
holiness, God's justice. And Israel thought they could
meet with God on their own terms. And God is saying that's not
going to happen. Hear My Word. Church, we must hear the Word
of God in order to meet with God. We must hear the Word of
God in order to know God. We must hear the Word of God
in order to receive the grace of God. We must hear the Word
of God and not just hear, but hear out of our hearing by His
mercy. Look what He says in verse 5.
Do not seek Bethel or Bethel, as some people like to say, or
Gilgal, or Beersheba, the places of worship, the places where
they laid down altars to the worship of God and built synagogues.
and because of God doing great things. And he says, don't go
there. Don't go back to that place and worship things of history.
Don't give me your religion. I don't want your religion. I
don't want your church service. I don't want your teaching. I
don't want your fancy songs and your fancy ideas. I don't want
your holy attitudes and your Lord's table. I don't want these
things. I want righteousness and justice. Without holiness, we'll never
see the Lord. So God reversed His people. He reversed them in a way that
they are sanctifying in their present state. They're fully
sanctified. They're fully justified in the
presence of God. Therefore, there now there is
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, Paul says
in Romans 8. But it does not give a license to continue in
a complacency in sin and in the world. The whole idea that Jesus
speaks of in numerous occasions is that the world will know that
you are mine because you have an affection for each other that
sacrifices your own ideals, your own desires, your own principles,
and lays your life down for the sake of others. We don't seek
to satisfy our needs. We don't seek to escape our problems. We don't seek to do that which
pleases us. We give ourselves away for the
sake of the pleasure of our brothers. And we obey Him. If you love
me, you will obey me. What dichotomy as we sit at the
road of temptation and we see the crossroads ahead of us and
we see that which is absolutely gloriously sublime and beautiful,
the cross of Jesus Christ, the face of God there. And we see
it in the word and we know that it's there. And the wooing of
God's spirit as his children beckon us to stay, to wonder,
to wonder like in awe, not wander away. And then just to be in,
I don't know, silence with no way of expressing what we see.
And then we look at this awful other path that somewhere in
our flesh it seems that it would be fitting for us during this
season of our life. It would be satisfying for us
just a moment. But it's not. Because we walk down that path,
put Christ to shame. We walked on that path and we
feel pretty good skipping down that yellow brick road to nowhere.
We recognize the fact that Christ beckons us that he paid for that
sin. So why do we go for that which
has been dead to us? Israel not only had gone in temptation,
I'm not talking about the temporal failings of the child of God
throughout his life. I'm talking about waking up,
going, I want this more than Jesus. Do not seek your worship. He
says in verse 4, seek me and live. Do you see that picture? You want to know where so many
people in the decisional regeneration realm get this idea? Seek the
Lord. If you do not seek the Lord,
you will perish. Seek the Lord. Do you see Him? Is it? No. Are you His? Oh, Israel, verse 7, you turn
justice to wormwood, to decay. And you cast down righteousness
to the earth. You stop it. Now, God, who made these stars. Who takes darkness and makes
the sun come up upon the earth. He is the Lord. He is Jehovah. Verse 10 is very key. It says,
They hate him who reproves in the game. They hate him who speaks
the truth. Israel had gotten to where they
didn't want to hear the prophet. Like the days of Jeremiah. We
don't want to hear you. We're going to kill you. Like
Jesus in Luke 4. Oh, the Spirit of the Lord is
upon me as He reads the scroll. Today, this Scripture is fulfilled
in your hearing. And they said, oh, how gracious. Oh, how gracious are you. Oh,
Lord, how gracious are the words of your mouth. And then Jesus
reminds the Jews in Luke 4. He says, but do you remember
the days of Elijah when there were many widows in Israel and
the heavens were shut up and drought and famine came and grace
and mercy was not given to the widows of Israel, but to the
widows of the Gentiles? And remember the days of Elisha,
when mercy did not come to the Jews, but came to the unclean. And then they gnashed their teeth
at him. They hated him. There were murders in their heart.
They pushed him physically out of the temple and out of the
city onto the cliff. And they attempted to push him
off the cliff so that they might kill him. And he passed through
them undetected. Test your heart, beloved. Do
you hate the one who reproves in the gate, in the city, in
the camp, among the people? That's why
church membership, as we use the term, is so vital and so
directed in the Scripture. Accountability, togetherness,
the body working and growing and deepening and de-stifling
one another, the body praying and holding each other accountable.
You know what's one of the most difficult things to swallow in
the world that we live in is that church among church among
church, excuse me, congregation among congregation among congregation
allows sin to go unchecked, unfettered, undetected and uncared for. It
is a mockery of the gospel of Christ. It is a mockery of the
cross when the church, so-called, allows sinners just to run rampant
and do their thing against the perfectness and the holiness
of Jesus. It's wickedness when we see that
people are just let go, when they just disappear from the
fellowship of the saints without some consequence, because it
is that symptom that proves the deeper problem that they may
be rejecting the gospel. None of us would let someone
burn if we could save them. Why do we let them go? Why do
we let them sin? And the child of God does not
hate the reprovement or the rebuke. The child of God does not hate
The child of God does not abhor the truth. But Amos continues to speak.
He says, you trample on the poor. You exact taxes of grain from
him. You have built houses, listen
to this, of huge stone. What's that? That's masonry.
That's precision work. That's master builders. They've
on the backs of the poor so that they can eat. They've built mansions. that God says you will not dwell
in them. Take a little sidebar here. You
want to see what the prosperity gospel has in store for it? You
want to see what the likes of Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes and others
have in store for them? You want to see what it's going
to be like for those who on the backs of their congregation who
are looking for a handout from God in excess and by doing so
give money to the man perpetrating and purveying a false gospel?
They will build those houses of stone, but they will not dwell
in them. They will plant those pleasant vineyards, but they
will never drink their wine. They are drinking the wine of
death and living in the dungeons of decay. And the smoke of their
torment, lest the gospel reach their heart by the grace of God,
will be forever." That's really harsh. False teachers
send people to hell. False teachers defame the name
of God. False teachers destroy the world. Many are your sins, he says. You who afflict the righteous.
You who hurt my children. You who hurt my holy ones, God
says. You take bribes and turn aside
the needy. You don't even let them in. You
don't care for them. You got what you needed from
them and now you're done. Like a dish rack that's a little
moldy. Sometimes you just have to Throw
it out. Therefore, he was prudent will
keep solid such a time for it is an evil time. Verse 14, he
reiterates that grace. Seek good, not evil, that you
may live. I think it's time we stop saying
sin, shortcomings, wrongdoings. It's time we stop using these
cakewalk words that everybody just sort of takes. You know,
yeah, I fall short of the glory of God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yada,
yada, yada. We need to start calling it evil.
Or as Sister Karen say, wicked. Let's just call it what it is.
When we sin, it is evil. When we defame the name of God,
it is wicked. When we allow it to go on in
our lives, We are wicked in our actions. When we allow it to
go on amongst us in our families, we are wicked in our actions.
When we allow it to go on in our congregation, we are wicked.
But seek good that you may live.
And so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you. She said, prepare
to meet the Lord. Hear my word. I'm coming. I'm going to tear you anew. I'm
going to hurt you. I'm going to crush you. I'm going
to depress you. I'm going to pay. I'm going to
give recompense. If you seek me, you will live. If you seek good, I will be with
you. He's already going to be with
us. The Lord is with His people and the Lord is with the people
of the world, either in mercy Or in judgment. Because justice will prevail. Hate evil, love good, and establish
justice. Establish righteousness in the
gate. This is key. This is where Amos
is trying to teach them some things about God that they did
not understand. It may be that the Lord, the
God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. Seek me. I will be with you.
Establish justice in the gate. And maybe, just maybe, maybe,
if it pleases me, God says, I will save a remnant. Maybe. But he's
under no obligation. Because even in repentance, even
in seeking after God, even in our worship, it doesn't repay
the debt of wickedness. We're not Islam. We don't believe
you can outweigh the bad because the wages of thinking
sinfully is death. The wages of doubting the gospel
is death. So what's the outcome? If the Lord God is maybe gracious
to the remnant of Joseph, when the Lord is with them, here's
what they will see. Verse 16. In all the squares
there will be wailing. And in all the streets they will
say, Alas! Alas! They shall call the farmers to
mourning. and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation.
There were professional wailers in this day, even through the
days of Jesus. When people needed to express
how broken they were, they would hire people to walk the streets
and stand at the graves and just scream 24 hours a day for people
to hear how awful their suffering was. God said it's going to be so
bad it's going to be in the streets. The whole city will be wailing
and you'll wail. The farmers will come out of
the crop areas, out of the countryside to the town to wail. That never
happened. You're going to have to hire
people to wail. You'll call them all. Everybody's
going to wail. We're going to wail. You're going to wail. And
all the vineyards there will be wailing. Why? Because I am
passing through your midst. The cause of their wailing is
the presence of Yahweh, who is just and righteous and holy. Remember Isaiah 6 a few weeks
ago? When I saw the holiness of the
Lord and then Isaiah was an undone man. He just looked upon it and
he says, oh, woe is me. Woe is me, for I'm an unclean
man with unclean lips of an unclean people. Oh, woe is me, I am lost. That's what he says. And he says,
woe. Woe to you who desire the day
of the Lord. Woe to you who can't wait for
the Messiah to come. Woe to you who want the end of
days to be here. Woe to you because the way you
live and the heart of your affection disproves the fact that you think
you're my children. Who are you? I'm coming against
you. Why would you have my day? He
says. Why do you want it? You think
you're going to run? It's not light for you, Israel.
It's darkness. You think you're going to get
away from the lime that I'm feeding you to? When you turn around,
there's a bear. That's what he says. You got away from the lime and
met a bear. Or you think you're going to
run into your house and in your exhaustion, you're going to lean
up against the wall and rest? Guess what? A serpent's going
to come through the wall and bite your hand. You're going
to die. You run from the lion, you're
going to be eaten by a bear. You run into your house, you're
going to die from a snake. The day of the Lord is darkness
for you and gloom with no brightness in it. And God says, I hate and
despise your feasts. I hate your ceremonies. I hate
your worship services. I take no delight in them. I
hate your offerings. I hate your burned offerings.
I hate your grain offerings. I will not accept them. I will
not accept your peace offerings. I will not accept your prayers.
I will not accept your fattened animals. I will not even look
upon them. They are deplorable to me. I despise them. They are
wicked as you are wicked, for they are righteous works in your
own eyes, and those works are unrighteous. Take away from me the noise of
your singing. The melody of your hearts I will
not hear. But, but these two verses, 23 and
24. Take away from me the noise of
your songs. To the melody of your hearts
I will not listen. Your worship is in vain. But,
Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing
stream. God declares, I will roll out
righteousness. It's a different manner in which
Amos preaches this message, but it's very akin to other prophets.
You've turned for me, and because of that, I will bring judgment
against you. But I am still a loving Father. I'm not obligated, but
I promise I will save the remnant. I will save those who are mine.
I will bring out of the whole the small. And all these false
gods that you have, though I will bring righteousness down, I'm
going to do it this way. I'm going to take you and your
false gods and your false worship and I'm going to send you into
exile. I'm going to put you in slavery and
you'll no longer be a people of your own. You'll be someone
else's people. That's what happens. You're going to get what you
deserve, Israel. And then I'm going to give you what you don't
deserve, which is forgiveness. I want you to see the two sides
of these coins. Amos is helping Israel understand that they're not safe because
of their location. They're not safe because of their
genealogy. They're not safe because of their
lineage and their longstanding history as religious people.
And they weren't even safe because of their worship. They weren't
safe because of their prayers in the temple, because of their
worship and music, because of their sacrifice. They weren't
safe then. They weren't safe because of
their animal sacrifices or their peace offerings. They weren't
safe. They weren't safe. They weren't safe because of
the practice of their feasts and their times of assembly.
They were only safe because God in His mercy decided to save
them. They weren't safe then And they
weren't safe before then when they were walking with God because
of them walking with God. But here is the reality, the
second part of this coin. They're not safe either, just
because God says they're safe if they're living in continual
rejection of Him. You see that? Evidenced by their
life of sin and depravity. Fight sin. Church. Fight temptation, Church. Fight apathy. Fight your mind. Fight your hunger. Fight your
soul. Fight your pity. When we say, woe is me, let it
be because we see the holiness of God. Not because we're so self-inflicted
in our own mire. Woe is the one who does not see
the holiness of God. In John 3, Jesus talking to Nicodemus
of the Pharisees. Nicodemus knew Messiah was coming. Nicodemus knew the oracles of
God. Nicodemus lived as the Bible
commanded, but he was not saved. Nicodemus loved God with all
of his heart, with all of his mind, with all of his strength,
but he was not saved. Nicodemus confessed with his
mouth that Jesus Christ was of God. the begotten One of God. No one can do the things you
do except He be from God. And Jesus says, Amen, Amen, Amen. It is true. It is true. Verily,
verily, however your Scripture says it, It is that except you,
except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of
Heaven. So where's our hope? What was the hope of Israel in
the days of Amos? To fall flat of their face in the context
of all their being with the fullness of awakening given by the Word
of God. Oh, hear the Word of the Lord,
O Israel. I'm coming to you. I'm going
to walk through your midst and there will be wailing beyond
measure. I'm going to set fire to your people to take you out
for your wickedness. And maybe if you seek me, I will
save a remnant of Joseph. Seek the Lord. Seek to do good. What is that? Isn't that works,
Pastor? Isn't that just telling us to do good stuff and to come
after Jesus? Yeah. How does that work? You must be born again. Are you seeking after God through
religion? Through repentance? Through righteousness
of your own efforts? Or are you still in the horror
and the happiness of the gospel? The horror of the gospel that
Jesus, who was killed according to the Scriptures and then was
buried according to the Scriptures and was raised from the dead
in accordance with the Scriptures. That's the gospel which we preach,
which you receive, through which you have been saved and are now
being saved and will continue to be sealed. You heard this
of first importance, and I remind it to you, Paul says in 1 Corinthians
15. This is the gospel, the good
news of God, and it has nothing to do with you, and it has nothing
to do with me. The gospel has no man except
Jesus Christ at its center, at its top, at its bottom, at its
left, at its right, in its shallow places, in the depths of its
ineffability. There is no one but Christ. It is Christ alone. All I have
is Christ, or we have nothing if we do not have Him. Seek after Christ. Sitting still in the inequality,
in the ineptness, in the inability that you have to not even look
upon His face. But you rest in the moment of
His grace. Knowing that He alone satisfied
the judgment against you in His own body. in His own living. And apart from that, there's
no way to seek God but to sit in His mercy. Apart from that,
there's no way to repent of your sin except that God creates a
new heart in you that you love His ways and you walk in His
statutes carefully. This is the work of God. So as long as we're continuing
to try to be a people, without holding fast to the one man who
has accomplished it, will never succeed. When we say, believe the gospel,
repent and believe the gospel, the foundation of repentance
is a change of mind where you realize because of God's grace,
you can't affect your own glory. You cannot affect your own salvation,
no matter how much The nation of Israel changed their ways. They still were not safe, except
that God, in His mercy, saved them. And church, that's where
you sit today. You sit in the mercy of God,
or you sit in the judgment of God. Now, in closing, that coin
could stand on its edge, and around the rim of that thing,
we could see a real theological narrative in Amos, in the sense of judgment. We've
already heard in Romans 8 that there's no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus. And we know that. But if I take
a pen and I stab myself in the eye, it's going to hurt. It's
going to blind me. The same way as a child of God, if I dabble
in my temptation, if I submit my flesh to the temptations of
this world, even though for a short season, the consequence of those
things may very well be forever in this life. Do not be like
Israel and think that God will forbear earthly consequences
of sin. And do not think that you will
not bring others with you, namely your family and your church.
if you decide to jump off that cliff. You are not alone as a
child of God. And your options and choices
are not just for you. Neither is God's salvation just
for you. But it is for His people. One
body. The Bride of Heaven. To which
I hope you all belong. Believe the Gospel. which caused
Christ to die for the very sin that entangles us. Let's pray. Lord, all I have is Christ. If You do not take us, if You do not embrace us, if
You do not save us, there is absolutely no hope. Please, God, enter into our collective
hearts and minds. Unify us in a way that is incredibly
intimate beyond human understanding. That we may see with all clarity Your grace, Your purpose, Your
justice, Your righteousness, that we may live it out, forgiving
one another, forbearing with one another, as we grow deeper
into love, deeper into ministry, deeper into prayer, deeper into
study, deeper into sharing our faith, so that we may know and
fully grasp and understand all that which we have in Christ
Jesus. Let us be active in sharing our
faith together We love You and we praise You
in Christ's name, Amen and Amen.