All right, if you would turn to Amos, chapter three, as we move our way through the mine of prophets. I'll give you a page number, but I think our Bibles are probably paginated differently. 926 for those who have my Bible. Amos chapter 3. I'm going to read the first eight verses this evening and we're going to stop there. Last time we took a very, very large chunk. Today we're going to take a much smaller piece. Amos 3 verses 1 through 8. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt. You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. Do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet? Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den if he has taken nothing? Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground when it has taken nothing? Is a trumpet blown in the city and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets. The lion has roared. Who will not fear? The Lord has spoken. The Lord God has spoken. Who can but prophesy? It's been challenging reading through the book of Amos. I have judgment on the brain because that's all God is going to talk to Amos about. And so I've been reflecting quite a bit on this and I stumbled upon a memory that I had not too long ago that I thought was interesting. And I tell this tonight more from the standpoint of just considering judgment. That's all I want to do. I'm not speaking to anything else. So with that to begin, let me say this. It was right after the terror attacks on 9-11. And we had these different perspectives of people coming out. And of course, one of them was, I think, From the late Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, they were sitting around discussing why these acts of terror were acts of judgment against this nation. And they made some link linkings of these particular peoples and their sins. And then this happened in sort of a cause and effect kind of way. Of course, there was a great outcry, and there was another group in the church, in sort of the broad evangelical church at large, and I happened to be at a church where this group was, more so than anything else, where we were absolutely positively assured that what happened on that day was absolutely not a judgment from God. that it was something else entirely and not a judgment. And it was interesting how folks within the church community, I think, sort of divided themselves over that, sort of depending on what your perspective is on judgment. And so I say that because I want us to just begin thinking about this, that there are people within the church who only want to hear soothing words. They only want good words, positive words. Don't be negative. Don't tell me anything that is contrary to the nice, easy listening that I really, really enjoy. And this passage here, Amos chapter 3, verses 1 through 8, is actually a defense of Amos by God to the people of Israel. It's a real defense in terms of the fact that God is going to say through Amos, the word that I have spoken, the word of judgment to you, O Israel, is a sure word of judgment. It will come to pass. And so he does this in two ways. One of the ways, which is verses three through eight, God asks a series of rhetorical questions. All of them, by the way, at least in verses three through six, but probably all of them, are to be answered in the no. You know, that is when he says, do two walk together unless they've agreed to meet? No. And then on down the line. So each one of these questions is meant to be answered, no, this is not the case. But he also begins his defense by, in verses one and two, giving a reminder of the covenant and sort of by implication, the stipulations to the covenant that God has made with Israel. And one thing I just want to note, that even though in chapter two, God has in some ways prophesied first to Judah and then to Israel, Here in chapter 3, when he begins to speak of Israel, he is speaking of Israel in the conglomerate, you who I have taken out of Egypt. That's all 12 tribes. That's not just 10 of the tribes that is known as Israel at this time in history. He's speaking to all of them. So in other words, he is speaking to the group that he rescued from Egypt, and he is saying judgment surely will come to you. even though it's going to come separately and distinctly first to the northern tribes of Israel and then secondly to the southern tribes of Judah, but he is speaking to them in aggregate and in whole. And so God reminds them of his covenant, its stipulations, and God assures Israel that Amos' words will come to pass. This is, you know, in some ways similar to the world and maybe probably to the more broadly evangelical church today. The world has enough bad news. It's just, you know, all this bad news. So news of judgment doesn't get a fair hearing. And that's why God is going to do this for Amos, because words of judgment don't get a fair hearing. I mean, let's face it, who wants more bad news? Probably none of us. On the other hand, There's other folks in the church that probably only want good news without ever speaking of bad news. So it's more of like a syrupy sweet kind of a message that precludes or excludes anything that might be in any way speaking of God's judgment or anything like that. So this is what he is doing. He is saying to Amos or through Amos to the Israelites, my judgment is assured. Amos' word is going to happen. That is the word that I've spoken through Amos. It's going to happen. So what I want us to think about tonight is I want you to think about your presentation of the gospel. That is, I want you to be thinking about in terms of how you say to people, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news that I have good news I want to say to you, because that's what we used to say, that good news I want to say to you. But particularly, I want you to think about it in terms of giving it to a culture that wants only soothing words. They don't want words of judgment. They don't want to hear, God is coming and he's quite angry. And here are the consequences to God is quite angry and he is coming. But this is in essence what Amos is receiving here. But you know, you can count on God's decree of judgment to stand. You can count on it. And that is the main message of this passage. You can count on it. It's not something, folks, I know this, it's not something that you want to hear. God's coming in judgment. But it's true. Nonetheless. God's judgment is assured to the Israelites because of his covenant. Look at verses one through three. It says this. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt. You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. And then the first of the rhetorical questions. Do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet? Now, literarily, Verses 1 and 2 are, because I know you like when I speak in literarily terms, verses 1 and 2 are prose. I mean, you know, it's just straight facts, statements. Here it is. Verses 3 through 8, except for verse 7, are all in what are generally called Hebrew poetry, which involves some parallelism, where you sort of say the same thing twice or something along those lines, where the statements are parallel. You know, they say two different things, but they basically say the same thing. Okay, so we're going to look at the first of the rhetorical questions and the prose part. All are getting at the same idea that at Sinai, God made a covenant with Israel. He made a covenant with them. He delivered them from Egypt. He brought them to Mount Sinai. He gave them a law, and in Exodus 24, verses 7 and 8, Moses reads the law to the people. And their response is all this we will do. It's a covenant. They agreed to it. It's a conditional covenant, but they agreed to do it. They stood there in representation of all people who would be Israelites. their children, their children's children, their children's children's children and said, we will do it. They promised they will do it. Well. Fast forward some time. They didn't do it, so now God calls them to account. He says to them, OK, remember, you guys all stood up there and you all said, We will do it. And he says this very poetically, this is a very nice way, because in the prose part, he says it. And he alludes to the adoption that he gives to them, you know, that you are my children. But in the poetic part, he says it quite interestingly, I think. He says it this way, and this is the gist of it. The two agree to walk together, or to do walk together unless they have agreed to meet. In other words, you and I have a relationship. We agreed on the deal. And because we agreed on the deal, this is why now I can come and say what I'm about to say. This is why Amos' words are going to be sure. Because we agreed. And not only did we agree, but we entered into a relationship. And the relationship we entered into was a legal familial relationship. Legal familial. We made a covenant. And you became my family. Very much, I think, like I have an uncle who's adopted a couple of children, and I think very much it's like this. It's a legal personal relationship. I think one of the things that we need to kind of wipe away from our minds is that covenants are legal relationships only. That's the general gist. That when we enter into covenant, we just sort of enter into this solemn binding agreement that's sterile and, you know, basically, you know, a couple of lawyers looking across the fine mahogany table at one another. That's not the gist of these covenants. Not this one particularly, because he said, when we entered into the covenant, you became my family. And it's very much a picture, I think, of salvation as we understand it, that we are not only forgiven of our sins, but we are adopted into God's family. We get both sides of the deal. We get the legal side, but we get the family side as well. So what God is saying to these people is this. We, together, we aren't just business partners. We're family. I'm your father. You are my children. This is why I'm about to bring great, great discipline upon you. Because we have an agreement. And the answer to that first question would be no. Two people don't just walk together unless they have agreed to do so. So now they have entered into this covenant, they are now responsible for it. The probation, though, this probationary type covenant, shows man's inability to keep the law. I mean, there's a sense in which this is very, very applicable to you and me because their inability to do it continues to drive Christ into this world, if you will. Not the best way of saying it, but their inability is eventually what gives us Christ, the one who can keep the covenant. So, in some sense, this is a good thing. for all who would call upon the name of the Lord. The second thing we see here, verse four, we have the second question, does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den if he has nothing? Now please understand that as these questions are going to unfold, there's sort of a logic to them, and the logic is that it's going to be forcing not only the individual answers to the questions, but it's going to be forcing us eventually at the end to say, oh, Here's why all of this is true, or here's why all of this God's Word is going to stand. In other words, each question has its logic, and then each question added to the previous one has its logic as well, forcing us into answering these questions in a certain way, and then coming to the conclusion in verse 7, which God is going to give us. Verse 4, the next questions are about lions. Now, this verse contains these analogies about lions. They're both exactly the same. This is that parallelism where, you know, in Hebrew poetry they say it, and then they say it again slightly differently, but the intention is to be the same. And so you come to the same conclusion. The answers are still no. This is what happens. But the gist of the analogy itself is this, that a lion roars when he has his prey under his power, and it cannot escape. but it isn't dead yet. We had a cat that kind of did this kind of thing. It wouldn't roar so much, but you know, it would play with its mice or rabbits that it caught. It was a lot of fun to watch because you could tell that there was a point coming when that mouse or that rabbit, it wasn't going anywhere. I don't know if the rabbit or the mouse knew that, the cat knew it, but just loved to kind of play with it a little bit. And this is the essence of what this is getting at. That the lion has caught its prey. It's incapacitated, but still alive. But it's not going anywhere. It's only at that point that the lion now roars. For what? Well, it could be a warning to other animals, it could be calling everyone to dinner, it could be a lot of things. But it's only at that point that it roars. So that's the gist of it. God knows what Israel's been up to, that is, idolatry, and is ready to enforce the covenant curses. The prophetic announcement gives them opportunity to repent, which is an opportunity for them disregarded. So in other words, he knows Israel's still not in captivity yet, but he has them in his power. He has his thumb on what they're doing. They are not acting without his notice. And it's not like they're getting away with it. God is basically telling them, guys, you aren't getting away with this. I know what you're doing, and I'm about to do something as a result to you. But don't distress. Again, it's cause for great distress. Many think God misses the wicked acting wickedly. I have done that. I'm sure you have done that as well. We see wicked people getting away with wickedness and think, why don't they get caught? God has them under His control. Their judgment is coming. It took a long, long time for Israel to come under the judgment of God, but they came under the judgment of God. So we don't want to miss that, that just because the wicked are acting wickedly and getting away with it, it doesn't mean that they're going to escape their judgment. And this is the surety that God continues to give us in His Word. Yes, I know it's not in the timing that you would like it or that I would like it, but the timing nonetheless is in God's timing and they will get what it is that they deserve, the recompense for their wickedness. The next question is in verse five. Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground when it has taken nothing? God's enemies deserve their destruction. The force of the logic moves forward. God and Israel have agreed to a relationship. Israel has violated that relationship. God sees this. Under his control, he is ready to bring judgment against them. Israel deserves the judgment it's about to get, and that is the gist of these two questions about the traps, the birds and the snares. And the first one is basically this. A bird cannot be caught unless a trap is set. So, in other words, he's just saying, does a bird fall in a snare on the earth when there is no trap for it? So, picture the earth with no trap. Can a bird be trapped with no trap? No, the answer is no. There's no way to trap the bird. Then it just acts a little bit differently the other way. Does the snare spring up from the ground when it has taken nothing? Think of it in terms of one of those spring traps. You catch groundhogs and things with them, those kind of critters. You stick food or something in the back of the trap, but the floor is spring loaded so that when he runs over it, boom, the door closes and he's in the trap. That's kind of the gist of this trap thing that they're talking about with these birds. So, in other words, all he's saying is that that trapdoor, that spring-loaded trapdoor, will it spring up if nothing goes across it? Well, no, the intent is that it just stays that way until something springs it. That's the gist. Well, what does that mean? Well, it just means this, that judgment and destruction don't come with no reason. So Israel, be prepared that when these armies of Assyria and Babylon come sweeping through, be prepared and know this, they're not just coming because, well, they had nothing better to do that day. They're coming because I'm sending them your way. See, that's the kind of thing that we don't necessarily like to hear. That's not what Israel wanted to hear. They didn't want to hear that Assyria was coming down. to get them because God was making it possible. But that's what he's saying. So, so Israel, when these guys come, don't be surprised. They came at my behest. They came because I sent them. So it's important, folks, to preach or to share or to give the bad news before the good news. I mean, these folks, there's a sense in which they are being given an opportunity to repent. And over and over again, they are refusing to repent. Amos is proclaiming, this is what's going to happen. Think back to Jonah. Remember, the only prophetic word we have from Jonah was destruction to Nineveh in 40 days. And they all repented. Jonah had, I mean, I'm sorry, Amos has nine chapters worth of this. Jonah had, you know, a sentence. The whole city of Nineveh repented. As far as we know, not one single Israelite repents. That is really, really tough to consider, that the messages are going forth, and they're going forth, and they're going forth, and no one is coming to repentance. No one. But that's the way that our proclamation works as well. It's bad news. It's what makes the good news good. Good news with no bad news is just sugar water. It doesn't really work that way. Now the force of our logic brings us basically to the end. In verse six, is a trumpet blown in a city and the people are not afraid. Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? You violated the covenant. I know that you violated the covenant. I've prepared the destruction for you. Please understand that you're under my thumb. I have you right where I want you. You deserve your destruction because you are wicked. Now, the last set of questions in this in this section, does disaster come with no warning? Is it just there for no reason? Do they blow a trumpet and people are not afraid? No. The trumpet was used variously, you know, it could call to battle, it could be a warning, you know, all kinds of different things. He's using it here to suggest that there was a warning of impending disaster or war, you know, either one. And the trumpet itself is actually being likened to the prophetic word. That Amos himself is saying, here I am, I'm sounding the trumpet of warning. When people hear that in the city, they immediately become afraid. They know when they hear a certain trumpet sound. And again, the force of the logic is that these things become self-evident. Think about it. If you were living in that day and age and you heard a certain trumpet sound, you would prepare for battle or prepare for whatever it was to prepare for. And he's saying, here I am, I'm trumpeting the word of God. And you are not listening to me. Your hearts are hard. Your ears are plugged up. You're getting nothing. That's what he's likening this to. The disaster of the city is linked with God's handiwork and his decree. The force of this whole verse, judgment is coming. It's from God. Get ready. acts of nature, wars, all those things. I know it's tough to swallow sometimes, but they're part of God's judgment on this earth, temporally. It's not the way we like to look at it. And I'm not going to say that it's this war, that war, something like that. But understand that we have enough biblical witness to, I think, make the case that these things don't happen. unless God is making them happen. And we have enough biblical witness to say that when he brought these people in, even though it was an ordinary battle to all these people, under God's view of history, it was judgment for sin. And I think that we need to keep that somewhere, that connection somewhere. I think we do because we too often slough it off and just say, well, somehow this happened outside the purview of God and has absolutely no connection to his decrees. And I don't think the Bible speaks that way. I'm also not confident enough, like the reverends Falwell and Robertson, to just say this, that, you know, this happened and that's the result. Not confident enough. Because I don't think the Bible tells us to do that either. But I want us to think and consider that they understood connections that we have disconnected. And we need to make sure that those connections are there. Because God still comes in judgment. And so now, He ends it. He brings this thing to a conclusion in verse seven is that it's a prose conclusion. It's a statement of fact for the Lord does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets, and then gives us two more rhetorical questions. The lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord has spoken, who can but prophesy? Amos' defense of his judgment concludes that God does nothing without revealing it to his prophets. It's his defense. This is why I've been saying what I'm saying. This is what Amos is saying to the Israelites. Here's why I'm saying what I'm saying. Because God really did tell me. And then verse 8 reverts back to its poetic form. And here's the analogy. The lion roaring is like the prophet prophesying. Just as when a lion roars, those who hear it are frightened, so Amos has no choice but to prophesy when God has spoken. The implication is, everyone should be afraid. The reality is, the Israelites are not afraid. And judgment's coming. Jonah found this out the hard way. We've already talked about Jonah. I mean, he says, I mean, he asked the question here in verse eight, the Lord God has spoken. Who can but prophesy? Well, that's that was Jonah's problem. The Lord spoke to him. He really couldn't do anything but prophesy, even when he didn't want to prophesy, even when he didn't go in the same direction. And all those things that we talked about, it had to come out of him. The Lord God spoke to him. There were no ands, ifs or buts. There was no choice in the matter. God spoke. Now the prophet speaks. And here's the word of the Lord. Folks, I think that the church, we, us, the church generally has this kind of a prophetic calling. That is the prophetic calling to proclaim God's truth, to speak words of judgment and hope today. His words of judgment against the wicked are no less than the word Amos's day. And I've mentioned this before, but I always think back to that fateful day when those people came, and I think this is in Luke, when they come to Jesus and they ask about the Galileans' blood being mixed with the sacrifice and that tower falling over. And Jesus brings it around to a call to repentance. I mean, that's what he does. Well, he's not going to comment directly, but he just says, well, unless you want that kind of disaster to fall on you, you better repent. You see, he just takes these things and he brings them back around again. We, that's our message. Here's what's going to happen, folks. I mean, to be real honest with you, Maybe we just need a little bit better of an understanding that these people are perishing and being judged and condemned. Because maybe too often we're flippant about the whole thing. But he brings forth this word of judgment. And we don't get, I've already mentioned this, we don't get any hope here. We can offer the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ. It's not just a matter of doing what Amos is doing. It's a matter of doing what Amos is doing and saying, now here's the free offer of the gospel. Repent. Repent. One last part of this. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know how much it flies, but we've had two mentions of a lion here. We had a mention of a lion in chapter one, verse two. And I'm not going to press this too much, but I'm already pressing it more than maybe I should. But once more in this book, God's voices made an analogy to a lion roaring. Verse two of chapter one was the other place. Jeremiah 25, 30 does the same thing. I think that, I really think that he is not doing this by chance. I think he's calling us to understand something about God. All the way back in Genesis chapter 48, Jacob prophesies over his son Judah. Here's my lion in whom the scepter will never leave. And all the way in the back of the last book of the Bible, when John has his incredible vision of heaven and he hears something and it's the lion of the tribe of Judah and he turns and there's the lamb slain as if slain and now alive. That lion is a lamb. And that's why I think this is what gives us the hope here. That when that lion roars, yes, he roars words of judgment. But interestingly, that when John himself heard the lion, he saw the lamb. That just never leaves me. Because therein lies the hope that Jesus himself, who is the lion, also makes the way. He takes the wrath. And so we keep coming back to this idea that, yes, God is coming in wrath, but Jesus himself has taken that wrath on behalf of his people. So not only is he going to dispense the judgment, but he takes the judgment. That's one of those benefits that we have of the atonement. God's word of judgment stands. It's never dismissed or passed over. It's either implemented to those who deserve it. Or it's implemented to Christ. Who didn't deserve it. But took it for us, his people. And I don't want you to miss that. That's why we can't sugarcoat the message. Because the wrath comes either way. It's not like God goes, well, no wrath today. That's not His grace. His grace is, here, I'll put a wrath right here on my son. That's different than, well, I just think I won't discipline anyone today. And I think that we ought not to miss that that also happens in God's wrath, hence the message of salvation. This passage is a defense of the necessity of doomsday, of judgment, to people who only want to hear soothing words. Probably more than anything else that can describe our culture to a T. But through a series of rhetorical questions and a reminder of his covenant and its implications, that is the stipulations of the covenant, God assures the people of Israel that Amos' words, God's words, are sure they're going to come to pass. So I say to you to proclaim the gospel to a culture, to a church who wants to only hear soothing words, proclaim the real gospel because you can count on God's decree of judgment to stand. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I ask that you help us. Lord, I do pray that those things that were not spoken properly, that you would just take them away. But I do pray, Lord, that you would help us to grasp the gravity of the situation. But Lord, also to offer you praise and glory and thanks. Because those of us who call upon your name, Lord, you've taken our wrath for us and put it on your son. Lord, for any in here who don't know you, may tonight be the night of salvation. May you have pricked their hearts. Now, Lord, be with us tonight as we go about our business. that our lives would be glorifying and honoring to you. In Jesus' name, Amen.