Well, to catch us up, we're going through Amos. In the first week, we heard that God was condemning the other nations around them for their brutality and cruelty to other human beings. Last week, we heard that God turned his attention to his own chosen nation. And whereas he spent a little time talking about the sins of the other nations, by the end of This sermon, he will have spent four chapters talking about the sin of Israel, and what she has done to her own people, and the judgment that is coming upon her. So open up your Bibles to Amos 5. We can follow along as we go through this. It will be 5 and 6 this morning. Israel is dead. Dead. They were told to prepare to meet their God and to see and understand the terrible destruction that awaited them in the form of punishment for their sins. And now here Amos says that Israel is dead for all purposes. That's why he laments. He laments over them in the first three verses of chapter five. 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. Here is Amos lamenting over Israel as a mourner at a funeral. Their sin has killed them. The chastisements have not worked. Israel is forsaken on the land, fallen and dead. And of course, Amos is talking about her spiritual condition. But note the small mark of compassion. Amos laments. He does not delight in these pronouncements. He does not take pleasure in pronouncing doom upon them. He realizes what sin has done, what their false worship has done. And yet, despite the warnings and despite God pleading with them, Israel clings to this religion as if it were no better than a corpse. Amos laments because he knows what God is going to do to them. And furthermore, he knows that Israel doesn't care. Yet, despite their depravity and the already pronounced judgments that God has given them, with more to come, the Lord once again pleads with Israel to seek Him, starting in verse four. For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, seek me and live, but do not seek Bethel. 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 you break out like a fire in the house of Joseph. and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel. Oh, you who turn justice into wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth." See, first note, or rather, who he tells them to seek. Seek me. Seek God. Seek the Lord. For he is a person, and he is the only one able to save them. Then note what he tells them not to seek. A place. He mentions three here by name. Now, last week I gave you a little history on Jeroboam I. The king has set up these little shrines all over Israel that they can come and worship at. And one might think that, could Israel be that ignorant that they would just go off to these foreign cities, these places that had no meaning and just start worshiping for no reason, when they knew that worship was supposed to be in Jerusalem? That they had no meaning for them whatsoever except for this whim of this king who was evil? Hardly. These particular places that are listed were chosen for worship for very clever reasons. He basically fooled the people into doing this. And it's important why you know why each one of these is mentioned, because it makes what Amos says distinct of it so much more bitter to them. He first mentions Bethel, and this is where he is preaching from. Now, Bethel is linked with Jacob, which means that this place would be very special to Israel after all, they are Israelites. And Jacob took on the name of Israel. And Jacob visited Bethel twice. The first time is Mark and Genesis 28. where we read about the famous dream that he has about the ladder, the stairway to heaven. And upon having this dream, he wakes up and he says, Surely the Lord is in this place. And I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God. And this is the gate of heaven. Now, what he has seen here is that the Lord Jesus Christ is the ladder, the gate of heaven. But unfortunately, the Israelites have now fixated themselves on this place of Bethel rather than God. And as we just heard, Bethel means house of God. And so sadly, now Israel is trusted in what they think is the house of God more than God himself. Thus, God says, Do not seek Bethel, seek me and live. This was a special place for Israelites, and according to tradition, they actually believe that the place itself by just going there has some sort of renewing power or life giving power. As Meyer points out in his commentary on his first visit, Jacob arrived as the man of the past, and he leaves as a man of the future. And on a second visit, he arrives as Jacob, but leaves as Israel. And so Israel thinks that just by going there, that they will be transformed, that God will be pleased with them by making this pilgrimage. And so now they've effectively turned the place where God met one of their patriarchs into an idol. The Israelites sought Bethel because this is where their forefather Jacob met God. So this is the plain words that Amos gives them here. Seek me and live, but do not seek Bethel. And why? Because God is not there. The second trend that God targets is Gilgal. Now, Gilgal was the first place Israel camped at when they entered the promised land. And when they first arrived there, they built a monument. Joshua tells us in his book, the people came up out of the Jordan on the 10th day of the first month. And they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. And he said to the people of Israel, When your children ask their fathers and times to come, what do these stones mean? Then you shall let your children know. Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over. So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever. So it was at this place of Gilgal, however, that in other words, they actually took possession of the promised land. This is the first place they got to when they crossed over. This is the first place that they experienced the fruit of the land that they were promised so many times, as Joshua says again, and the man has ceased the day after the eight of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but the aid of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. So Gilgal, then, is the shrine which, as Mount Yergin puts it, proclaimed the inheritance and possession of the promised land according to the will of God. So to an Israelite, when they thought of Gilgal, they thought, this is our promise. This is the land that God has given us. We are secure here. And this is what they associated with Gilgal. So this is why they put the shrine there. Yet as we know, it still wasn't the proper place of worship. They were commanded to worship in Jerusalem, not in Bethel, not in Gilgal, and yet here they worship. And so just like Bethel, they put their trust into this place that they reminded of tradition, and yet instead of God himself. And so God tells them, do not enter into Gilgal, for Gilgal shall surely go into exile. So this, of course, would probably instill a great deal of confusion to the Israelites, because again, when they think of Gilgal, they think this is where we crossed over to the promised land and where we're supposed to reside. So God is very sarcastic here with them. So the people enter the promised land by the way of Gilgal, and now he tells them, do not go there anymore for this place that you entered into will not go into exile. So they crossed over to possess the land, and now because of their sin, God tells them, don't go there, because the whole land is going to exile. There's a complete reversal of what God did for them. Do you see the irony here? God is telling them, do not count on the covenant blessing of remaining here. You guys have broken the covenant. And I told you, when you broke the covenant, I would remove you from the land that you put so much trust into, if you continue to break my commandments. And this is what they have done. And finally, he mentions Beersheba. This particular place has a lot of Israel history with it. It's associated with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all three. Abraham was the first one there. And on his first visit, a pagan king tells him what would be the theme of Beersheba. The theme was this, God is with you in all that you do. Isaac heard this theme when he visited there. Genesis 26 tells us, from there he went up to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake. Then many years later, Jacob finally arrives at Beersheba and we read this about his visit. So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offer sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, here I am. They said, I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there it will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again. And Joseph's hand shall close your eyes. And so it's perfectly rational for Israel that they would set up a shrine in this place as well, because their great ancestors all received the same kind of promise here. I am with you. If then God is with them there, why not put a shrine there and be reminded of that? And maybe God will be with us, too. The Israelites claimed the certainty of divine companionship. After all, God promised, I am with you. And this place of Beersheba was a reminder of it. And that's why the words of the Lord through Amos must have struck them deep in their hearts. Do not cross over to Beersheba. The Israelites went to Bethel because it was the house of God, and they built a shrine. They went to Gilgal because it was the promise of entering and possessing the Holy Land, and so they built a shrine. They went to Beersheba. But the other promise was, I am with you. And they built a shrine. So we have this tendency to think of Israel as nothing but these stupid Neanderthals who didn't know any better, who just turned on a diamond for some unexplained reason and just started worshipping in all these other places. They started false worship and idolatry. Let me tell you, these were educated people. They knew their history. They knew what God had done for them. And so they know exactly that if they didn't worship in these places, that it's not what God commanded them to do, but yet they still did it. But they rationalized it. God gave a promise here, let's worship here. God gave a promise over here, let's worship here. But they would not worship in the place that God commanded. So they didn't go off into some unknown town that you never read about. They picked these places for very specific reasons. It wasn't that false worship and doctrine among them just sprung up out of nowhere. Sin like this just doesn't pop up out of nowhere like that. They knew very well what they were doing. See, some people think that happens very suddenly, that this, like a ship that's locked safely in a harbor, that they think false doctrine and worship just comes like a storm and just wrecks the ship and all of a sudden they're lost. But it's much more subtle than that, what happened to Israel. It's like a ship that loses its anchor while it's in the harbor. And so there's nothing to secure it. And so they start drifting. They start drifting and they keep going and they keep going. And pretty soon they're out in the middle of the ocean and they're lost. They have no idea how they got there just because they didn't have an anchor and they just gradually shifted and shifted and they didn't even know it was happening. And this should serve as a warning to us all, and I'm going to get to that in a minute. And this is the point that God is telling them. They flocked to Bethel, to Gilgal, to Beersheba because they thought that they were legitimate partakers in the promises of God. They were very self-deluded. However, it's one thing to know about the promise of God, and that's what they knew. They knew about the promises. But it's different to actually know about a promise and to actually be an inheritor of it. It's one thing to know about God and another to actually know God. And this is God's point in saying what he does to them. Seek me and live, but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba, for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing. These places that you trust in will be no more. Seek the Lord and live, not these places, lest ye break out like a fire in the house of Joseph, and none to quench it." So they thought God was with them. They thought that they had truly inherited the promises because of these places. Abraham was our forefather. Of course, we're saved people. God is not going to leave us. We can do what we like. Because God is much bigger than these places. And it was in him and not in these places they should trust. And this is the force of his words when he proclaims destruction on them. When he tells them a fire will break out in Bethlehem and won't be quenched. God is about to break out against them when the whole time they were under the impression that he was with them. Hear the power of the Lord. He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the 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 the destruction comes upon the fortress." So basically he's telling them, hey Israel, remember me? I'm the God who punished the entire world for sin. You remember the flood? Remember when I called forth the waters of the sea and poured them out? Do you remember what I did to the Egyptians in your protection? Emptying the Red Sea of water and then causing it to crash down on them? Do you remember all the strong fortresses I destroyed so that you could enter the promised land that you're trusting in so much? So now Israel had nowhere to hide. They thought they were safe in the promised land, but they're not safe there anymore. They built their own fortresses and tried to keep God out. The Lord continues his accusations against them in verse 10. They hate him who reproves in the gate. And they abhor him who speaks the 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 your sins are. You who afflict the righteous and you take a bride and who 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. He talks about their own social injustice. Then he recounts to them their punishment, which is signified here by a frustrated hope. He knows how great their sins are, and they keep going. He has seen how they treated the poor and the afflicted, how they robbed the righteous and trampled them to the earth. There are three meanings here that can be applied to the last verse in 13. Therefore, he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. The first is that when this exile happens, God will send no more prophets to them, no more teachers. The Lord will be silent, there will be a famine in the land when the exile comes. The second is that the righteous, the prudent, those who were doing good should keep quiet in these times because the times are evil and the truth they speak will bring only animosity towards them. And the third is that the Lord is doing all of these things, and if they know what was good for them, the prudent would keep his mouth shut. Do not complain to me. You know what's happening because of your sin. And once again, in verse 14, the Lord pleads with them and instructs them and commands them, even in the midst of this declaration. See good, 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. Establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. This is the second time here in a few verses that we've heard about this gate. This is one of the injustices that God is talking to them about. In the ancient world, the cities were protected by walls. There's a series of them. So you broke through one wall and you had another one to deal with. And so they were connected by these gatehouses. And so during times of peace, The old men and the judges would sit in the gatehouses and the doors would be open and they would watch all the comings and goings. And here they would decide the cases of those that were brought to them. They should have been judging rightly, but they didn't do that. The judges should have spoken for truth, but they sacrificed justice for money. And that's how they built these houses. And so the verdict usually went to the highest bidder. It didn't matter who was wrong or right. Whoever had the most money, that's who got ruled in their favor. They were to seek good, because the Lord is good. That's what he tells them. Seeking good means seeking the Lord. And just like Amos said a few verses ago, they were to seek God and live, not these places. They were obviously not seeking good, but rather evil, as Mason prayed about in his prayer. Yet they kept saying, God is with us. God is with us. But here God shoots them down and says, seek good, not evil, that you may live. And so the Lord will be with you, as you have said. You keep saying it, Israel. You keep saying I'm with you. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Remember, you keep insinuating that I'm with you, but it doesn't make it true just because you say it. You keep offering sacrifices. You are near to me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. And this is nothing new. But they reply, but God, I thought we were seeking good. If this isn't good, if what we're doing isn't good by bringing you sacrifices and offerings and ties, then what is good? And God says, this isn't anything new. This is something that I've told you. As Micah says in his prophecy, He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. And although Israel was commanded to return to God, they wouldn't. And so now we turn back to the beginning of the sermon and the funeral cries renewed in verses 16 and 17. In all the squares there shall be wailing. In all the streets there 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." Now wait a minute. Remember, hearing this as an Israelite. Wait a minute. Pass through? Think about that for a minute. Everyone in Israel knew about the Exodus. That was their major event. Every child knew the story. Every old man looked back on it to remember the promise God gave them. They even celebrated it time and time again. It was the Passover. When they had put the blood on their doorposts, God passed over them. He did not destroy them the way he did the Egyptians. The terror of the Lord that night passed over them. For an Israelite, the Passover was a major deal, a comforting meal. Now they do not hear the Lord will pass over them, but He will pass through them. I was talking to my wife about this this week, and she made an excellent point that when she thinks of pass through the Red Sea, the water split, God's spirit went through and passed through and destroyed them, the waters. Now this is the same image that God is giving them. I will pass through you. I will separate you. I will destroy you on either side. And do to them what he did to the sea. They were singing and rejoicing at the Passover, but now there will be wailing and mourning in the pass through. See, Israel had this idea about this Day of the Lord. And in Amos, it's probably the earliest known use of this expression. But they had this idea that the Day of the Lord would be the day that God vindicated them. The day that God punished all of her enemies. The day that God made them rulers of the world. This is what they believed. They anticipated it because, once again, they had a false view of their relationship to God at this point. They were not true inheritors, but unbelievers. Thus, God sets them straight on this, starting in verse 18. 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 his house and leaned his hand against the wall and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, gloom with no brightness in it? In other words, she's saying, why are you asking for death, Israel? Do you understand what you're asking for when you use this phrase, this day of the Lord? Has your mere pretense of thinking that because you use my name as a shield, that you are protected in your hypocrisy? Woe to you who desire this day! It will not be light, it will be darkness, because I am coming to pass through you, to destroy you. And Calvin says this about it, God tells him as it were here, God is an enemy to you, and the nearer he comes to you, the more grievously you must be afflicted. He will bring nothing to you but devastation, for he will come armed to destroy you. There is therefore no reason for you to boast that you are a chosen people, that you are a priestly kingdom, for you have fallen away from the favor of God, and this is to be imputed to your own misconduct." See, God doesn't like hypocrisy. He hates it. And this is exactly the mindset of the Israelites. This is what they were doing. They thought they were worshiping God. They claimed to be His people, but they didn't act like His people. They were not worshiping God in the manner He declared to them. They thought they would escape to a better place on a better day in the day of the Lord. But as Amos says, it would be better for them if they fled from a lion and a bear met them. Why do some insist on not only going to hell in our day, but actually asking for it and daring God to judge them by asking in the day of the Lord? They make a joke out of it. And what's worse is some professing Christians do the same thing with hypocrisy. God is asking them a rhetorical question here, pointing out their strange desire for destruction to fall upon them, even if it is an ignorance. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It's darkness. But as we have seen, they had a completely different idea of what this meant compared to what it would actually be. See, they thought they were pleasing God, and that's the irony of the whole situation. They went along with their worship. They offered their sacrifices. They sang their songs. They presented their offerings. But it was all done in hypocrisy. And why? Because they were saying one thing, but their deeds weren't matching up. They were not being just, they were not doing righteousness. They talked about being God's chosen people, yet they accepted bribes, condemned the innocent for money they stole from and trampled the poor and didn't care at all for the true worship of God. See, God doesn't worship like this. In fact, he hates it. These are some of the strongest words in scripture. Verse 21, 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, the melody of your harps. I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. He's very strong language when God says he hates something. And yet he says it here. He says he hates it. He despises their feasts. He takes no delight in their assemblies. They were hypocrites. They claim the promises of God, but had no true interest in them. It was a show. It wouldn't do them any good, and it wasn't pleasing to God. Yet they still brought burnt offerings and grain offerings. But God says he refused to accept them. He called the sound of their singing to be noise. It reminds me of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. The Israelites had no love for God. So you can bring God offerings, you can have your feasts, you can participate in your most solemn assemblies, and still have nothing to do with God whatsoever. And that's really the call to all of us here this morning. This is why God put this in the scripture. The question is, are you in Christ? We have a great liturgy. I love I love doing the liturgy. We sing very theologically sound songs. We hear the law. We hear the gospel. We have strong doctrine, we have this great confession of faith that I subscribe to. But is that enough in and of itself? Is that enough to truly save us? So we talk a lot about the fact that just because one is sincere about something, it doesn't make it true. Yet God calls us also to be sincere in the truth. And this is something the Israelites didn't do, and this is the warning. And it should serve as a wake-up call. Do you think you are safe here? If you think you are safe here, you are not safe. Because the only place you are safe is in Christ. The church is a great harbor, but you are not saved in the harbor long. You have to be on the right ship. You have to have the great captain. Just being in the harbor is enough. You'll just stay there forever and not go anywhere. And so, again, the great question is, are we in Christ? Do we rely too much on our liturgy or our confession of faith, as great as it is? See, it's quite possible to know all the right things, to know all the right doctrine, to know how to worship God properly, and I think we do in this church. and yet still not have a renewed heart. And without that you are as lost as Esau was. Later you come back to repent with tears and you will be rejected. This is something we are warned about in scripture and we can't afford to take it lightly. Over and over again hypocrisy is condemned and yet it is a very persistent sin that men do. Christ dealt with it regarding the Pharisees. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. And Paul again reminds us, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. So this is something Israelites didn't understand. And Amos tried to warn them, but they wouldn't listen. Hypocrisy in worship, hypocrisy as a Christian, is a dangerous thing. Because trying to fool God never works. And all it does is lead the person committing it into self-delusion. And this is why we are called to make our calling and election sure. For the Lord said about the last day, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many, many works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. This is what God is telling the Israelites. Haven't we worshipped the right way, God? Haven't we brought you sacrifices? Didn't we do all these things? And God has told them, I knew you from all the families of the earth, but now I don't know you. You are not my people. And that is what the Lord will tell the hypocrites on the last great day, who played church with God, but had no real interest in the blood of Christ. And this is exactly what the Lord is telling the Israelites in the book of Amos. Yes, he knew them out of all the families of the earth, but they proved that they weren't truly believers. They had no part in the true worship of God. And now judgment has finally caught up with them. And God said his name was five, verse 24. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." He then adds more sharpness to his sword in the next verse. "'Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikuth, your king, and Kion, your star-god, your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,' says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts." Israel did in fact bring sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness. But they did, in fact, do so mixed with idolatry. And so they haven't changed. So God tells them to take up their pagan idols, the ones they made for themselves, and take them out of his land. And see if they can help you, Israel, when I send you in exile beyond Damascus. And this is, of course, exactly what happened in the Assyrian exile. And these words must have come as a shock to those who heard them. Because we have, as we have learned, Assyria at this time was a very weak nation. So the Israelites were thinking, there is no way that Assyria will come and take us. And this is exactly what Stephen said in the New Testament, that the Jews murdered him for, by the way, when he talked about their stiff-necked and disobedient ways. Stephen's great sermon in Acts 7. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of Prophets. Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your God, Rephan, the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus. So Stephen actually barely speaks about two or three more sentences before they killed him, after he says this. And so back to Amos, starting in chapter six now, we find that not only were the Israelites hypocrites, not only were they listening to their own doom, but it seems that the Jews back in Zion, back home, didn't even care what was going to happen to the nation. And so God directs his words to them now. Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes. Pass over to Kalma and see and from there go to Hamath the great and then go down to Gath or the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Is your territory greater than their territory? Oh, you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seed of violence. See, Christians in theory are supposed to be supposed to act better than non-Christians. That's the theory. Believers should have a higher standard than non-believers. But we do not always act this way. We forget and we sin and we rebel. And that's one of the reasons we read the law here every single week, because we recognize that. But that doesn't make the requirements of God any less demanding. They became lack in their true sincerity. They became slack in their ease. And so do we. We need a wake up call every so often. We need to have eternal questions put in front of us. But we must answer. Are we truly better than anybody else? Is there something special about us, apart from God's grace? Is there anything good in us and of ourselves? No. And yet when it comes to hearing about God's wrath and His commandments, His judgment, we like others see fit to put it away. Because it doesn't matter to us. Because we think we are safe. We put far away the day of disaster, and yet we bring near the seed of violence. Every week. Just like the Jews did. So Amos continues in verse 4, chapter 6. Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the mist, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and, like David, invent for themselves instruments of music, who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore, they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away. See, now God has warned them about their hypocrisy. He is and will judge them for it. And yet some still remain unconcerned. And so God pronounces another woe on them. Woe to those who are at ease. And it's very possible some of us are doing the same thing. This is just the Old Testament. This is just Sean filling in for Doug. But I assure you, this is God's word. This is the message of these chapters. I am not asking anyone to doubt their salvation this morning, but to make sure that they are in the faith. St. Spurgeon says this about Calvinistic hypocrisy. They believe the doctrine of election, but they have not the faith of God's elect. They swear by final perseverance, but persevere in unbelief. They confess all the five points of Calvinism, but they have not come to the one most needful point of looking unto Jesus that he may be saved. Do not cling to Zion. Cling to Christ. Do not depend on a confession of faith for salvation, but upon the confession of Christ and his testimony of what he says about himself. That's the point. Amos continues in verse eight, the Lord God is sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts. I abhor the pride of Jacob and I hate his strongholds. I will deliver up the city and all that is in it. And if 10 men remain in one house, they shall die. And when one's relative, the one who appoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the bones out of the house and shall say to him who is in the innermost part of the house, is there anyone still with you? He shall say no. And he shall say, Silence, we must not mention the name of the Lord. Such hypocrisy that his life possessed was nothing more than pride, and this is what God is now addressing. It was pride in what they were doing, pride in their sacrifices, and God says he hates it. This pride is presumption, and God still hates it today. We need something more than presumption. We need perseverance and preservation. As we see in these verses, when destruction comes, they would be afraid even to mention the name of God. out of fear and anger, angry that God had brought this upon them, even though it was because of their own sin. It's a strange mixture of fear and anger and hostility. They would know that God is the one that brought such pestilence. They just heard it, but they would be afraid to accuse him of it on account of their own sin. They wouldn't say, God help us anymore. No, don't even say God's name. We've been hypocrites. For behold, the Lord commands, and the great house will be struck down into fragments, and the little house into bits. Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. You who rejoice in Lotabar, who say, Have we not by our own strength captured Carnium for ourselves? The study note for this in my Bible says, even the least educated farmer understands that there are laws of nature that must be obeyed if life and health are to be preserved. Farmers know that you can't get a good crop from a pile of rocks. God is going to break these people down, and instead of humbling them, all it will reveal is the hardness of their hearts. One giant stone crushed into many little stones. From such a rock pile, nothing will grow. And this is why the promise of God is so important in Ezekiel 36. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. And despite their need for such grace and regeneration, they still dared to boast that these small skirmish battles that they were talking about, they won by themselves. And presumption. Which is nothing but pride. These victories that they claim here are small, nothing. Nobody remembers these battles. Like when a boxer beats nobodies for fight after fight, and then he's questioned for his legitimacy. And so people start saying, give him a real challenger and see how he does. And this is exactly what God promises to do to this nation, who thinks that they are so strong in and of themselves. Verse 14, For behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O Israel, declares the Lord. And they shall oppress you from Lebo Hamath to the brook of Ereba. One more time, God warns them that the Assyrians are coming. And notice, this doesn't happen by chance or fate, but God says, I will raise up a nation against you. This isn't fate. I'm going to do this. This is the work of God. This is God's doing as a result of their sin. And the geographical location that He gives here, these places that we've probably not even heard about, indicates to them that this Assyrian conquest will be total, complete. Nothing in the land will be free from this. And this is what we're going to see starting in chapter 7 next week. So what do we take from all this? Am I destroying the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints here? Am I claiming that people can lose salvation? No. As Paul would say, by no means. Rather, the warning is against hypocrisy. Not against losing salvation, but against hypocrisy. Against false worship. Or thinking that because we go through the motions week after week. Because we have good liturgy. Because we sing great songs. That if we have a true religion, that we're okay. When the fact may be that all we have is religion and no regeneration. The preaching of Amos was to show them their hypocrisy. To show them that they had hearts of stone. That they needed new hearts. And that because they would not repent, they would perish. The preaching today is aimed at that as well, to call those who might be hypocrites to have true faith in Christ. For those of you who are in Christ, be grateful, be thankful, and rely on Him and Him alone. As I mentioned earlier, yesterday was Reformation Day, the day that Luther nailed his thesis up to the door. After recovering the gospel, which is justification by faith alone, it is to Christ and only Christ that we are to turn. Not to pagan temples that Israel built, not to the indulgences that John Tetzel sold, and not to ritualistic worship and to liturgies, but to Christ. He has paid the price. He is the shoot of Jesse that has grown up from the level tree stump. God cut them down, and yet there was still hope because there was a shoot from the stump. Christ has saved us. He continues to save us. He will save us. We can have that assurance, as John says in his letter. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life. None who are in Christ will be lost. And that is the key. None who are in Christ. One must first be in Christ. We're about to celebrate the Lord's Supper this morning. And it's a sacrament that belongs to believers. And only believers. It's a token of the covenant promise for our salvation that we, like Noah, have been placed safely inside the ark. of Christ's righteousness, and no matter how hard the rain of his wrath beats down upon the earth, we are safe because we are hidden. And we will remain free of it. We have a banner in the Lord Jesus Christ, not of hypocrisy, but of certainty. The Israelites were certain, but based on their presumption of a renewed heart and religion. Our certainty is based on much more sterner material than that. It's based on the blood of Christ, his body, his life, and his promise to his people. The parable was the man bought the entire field because there was a precious jewel in it. So be sure that you have the jewel, not just the field. The jewel is the crown of God's glory, which is a person of Jesus Christ himself. Believe in the gospel, and what is the gospel? It isn't, let's do our offerings and let's come to church. Let's burn our sacrifices and recite our creeds, sing our songs, run through our liturgy so that we can be close to God. That isn't the point. No, rather, we do these things because we have already been brought near to God by the blood of Christ. One's a result, the other one's a cause. God has passed over us, not through us. See, sin demands blood. This is why we have the wine. It represents blood. And this is His blood. He's the one that died. And so we are to be satisfied with that. We are to partake in the real thing. Not hypocrisy. Do not be hypocrites. Many have the false articles. They think they have it, but they don't. So for you, the question is this morning, be sure, are you sure that you have the genuine article? Real, substantial, personal. The Lord Jesus Christ himself. Trust in nothing else. Not this church, not its pastor, not our creeds, nothing else but Christ. If the creeds and the confessions and liturgy can expound on him and they can teach you about him, all well and good. But they in and of themselves will not save you, as Israel thought Bethel would. Just by going to Bethel, they thought they would be saved. And God says, no, seek me. Seek a person, not a place. Let's pray.