Well, a few years ago, a dear friend of mine, a brother in Christ, truly believed that to be the case. He had been living a life of sin. And that sin was exposed in a rather public way, a way that left him very ashamed. A few months after the fact, I I called him, we were speaking, and that's part of the reason why I truly believe that he is a brother in Christ. He said, well, brother, I know one thing for sure, and I'm paraphrasing here, but I know one thing for sure. He was not upset at God. He was thankful to God for having exposed his sin. And these were his words, because I think that's what it took for me to repent of that sin. Perhaps one of the last resources, one of the last recourses that God has when he comes to the sin of his people, when the preaching of the prophets does not work when the word coming out of the pulpits falls in deaf ears. Perhaps one of the last resources that God has is to expose them for their lack of obedience, for their love of the world, is to expose them to the greater shame of being corrected in the presence of the world. No punishment is quite as terrible as that, perhaps save from the final punishment on the last judgment. But that is exactly the theme that we have here for us in front of us in Amos chapter three. Just as a brief, brief recap, we've already considered how Amos spoke judgment against the nations, chapter one into chapter two. And how, at the end of chapter 2, he speaks about the judgment that is to come upon Judah and Israel, the southern and the northern kingdom. And we saw, weeks and weeks ago now, but we saw how The idea there is that the guilt, the iniquity of the Israelites in particular, and the Judahites as well, but their iniquity was so much more foul in the eyes of the lords, particularly because they knew the word of God. They were the people of God. They had the oracles of God. They had the revelation. The covenants were theirs, the law of Moses. the land given to them, the promise of the Messiah to come through their descendants, all of that was theirs, and yet they still sinned. And the other people, the other nations, yes, they sinned, but they sinned in the darkness of their understanding. Yes, they had the revelation, perhaps in nature, in their consciences, that the things that they were doing were evil, but so much more with Israel and with Judah. They had the word of God. And we've considered particularly this as we came to chapter three, that those words, those sobering words in verse two, you only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore, I will punish you. for all your iniquities. Instead of God saying, as perhaps was their theology, as we called it, the Northern Kingdom theology, instead of God saying what they thought God would say, well, you're my people, I'll give you a pass, God says, no, precisely because you're my people, I will punish you for your iniquities. God will not have spoiled children. Yet God's people were not taking the message seriously. So we're from verse three to verse eight, and this was what we considered last week, last Lord's Day. The prophet gives a series of questions, common sense questions, questions that any individual, even a child, is able to answer positively, questions that lead the audience to say, yeah, there is a cause and there is an effect. And it's all building up to those final questions. Surely the Lord will not do nothing unless he reveals his secret to his servants. I am here, Amos says, speaking to you, O Israelites. If I am here speaking to you, isn't that because if I came all the way from Tekoa in the southern kingdom from the edge of the wilderness to you here in Samaria as a prophet from God, isn't it because God is speaking? Isn't it because God is speaking? God's people didn't want to take it seriously, the message. And now to the text in question. Again, this forms one unit, a judgment that God is bringing upon Israel. And since the people will not listen to the voice of the prophet, since the people will not listen to the reasoning of the prophet, now God uses his last resource. God calls upon the nations to come and testify against Israel. God sets this great tribunal. And I think I said this a couple of weeks ago when we considered the beginning of the chapter. This is very foreign to us because we live thousands of years after the fact in a completely different culture. But this is very familiar to people living in the Middle East, even today, the idea of a covenant, a covenantal lawsuit. That's what we see here. The people of Israel were in a covenant with God and they had broken the covenant. And chapter three is basically, has all the hallmarks of a covenantal lawsuit. It's God himself, through the prophet, bringing this lawsuit against him. So God now calls the witnesses. And for me the greatest, not the greatest, but for me the thought here, almost parallels in a roundabout way the thought of Romans 8. What am I trying to say? We've all have drawn great encouragement, haven't we, from the words of Romans 8, verse 30 or 31, where it says that if God is for us, who can be against us? We've all have read those words and have taken so much encouragement from them, and rightly so. They're there to encourage, to comfort, to exhort us. But Amos 3 almost gives us the reverse side, the mirror image of this. If God is for us, who can be against us? Praise the Lord. But then there is the reverse side. What if God is against us? Who can stand for us? That is the idea here. And that's what we will consider as we go through this. So we'll consider this briefly as an exposition, just me going through the verses, explaining some of the more almost alien language to us living in the 21st century, and just noting some of these details that are important to understand the word, and then we'll draw some lessons and then some applications. But first we have God's invitation. Verse nine, that's where we left off last week was in verse eight, and now we come to verse nine. Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Ashdod, Egypt. Two nations are represented here. Hashdod was one of the five major cities of Philistia, of the Philistines. You might remember this. Again, I'm not sure how much you remember of these things a year or two down the line, but when we looked through the book of 1 Samuel, chapter four, when the ark of the Lord is taken into captivity to the land of Philistia, It was to Ashdod that he was taken. 1 Samuel chapter 5 verse 1 says that then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Ashdod was the center of the worship of the deity Dagon. And we all remember that story, don't we? If not from the sermons, from reading our Bibles, how God, for twice in the morning, the Philistine priest would arrive at the temple, and the statue of Dagon was faced first, bowing before the Ark of the Lord, and how the Lord brought himself, with no help from the people, out of the land of the Philistines. He won the victory by himself. We remember that. But now God calls Ashdod, the Philistines, to come and to bear witness against Israel and to bear witness of what God is gonna do to his own people. The same thing is true for Egypt. Now, Egypt didn't show up in the nations that are being judged. in chapter one into chapter two. But nonetheless, Egypt is a nation that historically was against God and against the people of God. It was out of Egypt that God had brought out the Israelites hundreds of years before. An idolatrous, ungodly nation, pagan nation. A nation that had oppressed the Israelites so many times And God calls upon the two most historical enemies of the Israelites to bear witness against them and to bear witness of what God is gonna do to them. It's interesting, isn't it, that God chose these two nations. I don't think it is coincidental that these are the two nations that have perhaps seen God act most clearly through their history up until now. Egypt with the Exodus and the Philistines with what the Lord had already done. in bringing the people into the land, and through the time of the kings, driving the Philistines out, defeating them in battle, the two nations that knew this the best. And the Lord says to them, assemble on the mountains of Samaria. Assemble there. I know you don't know Samaria. It's no longer called Samaria. I did check the name. I forgot to write it down. But there's now another town or another name for that town. But if you look at the geography of the place, it's a rather interesting place. And it relates to this. Samaria is placed in a valley surrounded by mountains all around, and it's as if God is saying, you Egyptians, you Philistines, come and assemble around the mountains, as if God is creating this amphitheater of for the judgment that is to come. Gather yourself, sit down and watch, sit around those hills and watch what I'm about to do to Samaria. Watch the oppression, first of all, the oppression, the great tumults in her midst, the oppression within her. how they store up violence and corruption. That's the content of the witnessing that they are to do against the Israelites. There's oppression, there is turmoil inside of the city. They do not know how to do what is right. They store up violence and robberies in their palaces. God calls the Philistines and the Egyptians and says to them, come sit down, see what is happening among my people. Look at all of this. The riches that have been acquired illicitly. The way that they oppress the poor, the widow. The way that they disobey my law. The law of Moses that was so often, so many places concerned about the poor and about the less fortunate in the society was a law that was meant to bring social cohesion. And here in Israel at this time, there was none. But they were not just to witness against, they were to witness the punishment. Verse 11, therefore thus says the Lord God, an adversary shall be all around the land. He shall sap your strength from you and your palaces shall be plundered. An adversary, historically this happened. Decades later after Amos preached this message, the Assyrians came in. And they took the land. Here, he shall sap your strength. It's literally, he shall bring down, cast down your strength. And most commentators, all commentators, in fact, they say that this refers to destroying the fortresses, the strongholds of the land of Israel. He shall sap your strength. He shall bring down your strongholds. and your policies, those same policies that were filled with riches that have been acquired illicitly through oppression and through violence and through robbery and through afflicting the poor. those palaces shall be plundered. Historically, this happened, brothers and sisters. There's ample evidence of it outside even of the Bible. Go to the British Museum and you see the reliefs in the walls. In those days, you didn't have newspapers. So whenever a king of a nation would accomplish a very great feat, he would publish it, he would make it known, make it written down for posterity by lining the walls of their palaces with those things. And you go to the British Museum just a few minutes away and you see those reliefs of the Assyrian Empire and how they really took the Israelites by force here and testify. or apologies, verse 12, thus says the Lord. It's not just the material. As a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be taken now to dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch. This speaks of utter destruction. I won't go too much into detail now for the sake of time, but in those days in ancient Middle Eastern societies, under-shepherds, the people who used to work for the wealthy that had sheep, the people who had thousands of sheep, they would have under-shepherds. If it happened, this is in the law as well of Moses, if it happened that one of the sheep was taken by a lion, by a predator, it was incumbent on the under shepherd, in order to avoid the responsibility for that sheep, because he could be accused of having just stolen it and sold it, it was incumbent on him to go where the lion or the predator took the sheep and to take a leg. To take a piece of veneer as proof that, in fact, the sheep was not stolen or sold for profit, that it was taken. And he would then, by this, avoid the responsibility. But this speaks of the utter destruction, that Israel is the sheep here. And there is a little bit of grace in that there's an ear, there is two legs that are going to be saved. There is a remnant that is going to escape the judgment, but most of the lamb will be taken in a corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch. Hear and testify against the house of Jacob, says the Lord God of hosts. that in the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel. God was not only upset for their social sins. Their social sins were a demonstration that they have departed from the law, that they were breaking the covenant in their heart, and it was in their worship as well. We won't go into detail here, but when the two nations separated, Jeroboam I, he set up worship in a few temples up and down the land in Samaria, but particularly in Bethel. That was the royal temple. That was where the kings went to worship, and he set up there calves, and people came and worshiped them. And this displeased the Lord so very much. And the Lord is here saying, I'm going to come and deal with that as well. And the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. The horns of the altar would be the place where a person who is being accused of murder or of being accused of something that's that the punishment was death, they would run, and this is, you can see this throughout the narratives of the Book of Kings, this happening even to kings. They would go and grab the horns of the altar, and while they were clinging to the horns of the altar, no one could do them any harm. They were in a sanctuary place. They were safe from destruction, and here God is saying, I'm gonna cut off those horns. There will be no place for you to seek mercy. There will be, when the time comes, there will be no place for you where you will find forgiveness. And I will destroy the winter house along with the house, the summer house. This speaks of the opulence that they lived in the house of ivory. Ivory is not present in Israel. There's no elephants or no rhinoceros in the Middle East. It would have to be imported. And the great houses shall have an end. Archeologists even to this day find houses in the northern part of Israel that fit so very well, or ruins of houses that fit so very well this description. So in other words, God is gonna come and deal with all the sin, all their hypocrisy, all their iniquity, and God is gonna punish them for all of it. But why did God do this? Why would God do such a thing? Because they weren't listening. Because they were too content with their status as a nation chosen by God. God calls upon the nations to come and bear witness against them. There's so much more I could say here, but we need to move on to the lessons and the practical application. What do we learn from a text like this? For us living thousands and thousands of years, or not thousands, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, 2,000, 3,000 years after the fact, the first is that the status of being the chosen people doesn't release us from the reality that we can corrupt ourselves, that we can wander off that we can become just as if not worse than the world. And again here, church history bears ample witness that churches do deviate and that churches do become corrupt. Christianity has at times been so corrupted by evil men and evil doctrines that for an onlooker it looks worse than the world. And it is, if nothing else, because Christians, or so-called Christians, they have the revelation of God's words. So we need to be aware of that. The second lesson that we learn from this is that God has not changed. God is the same. and that if we refuse obstinately to obey and to listen to the voice of his word, oh, he will, if necessary, use the last resource in his arsenal. He will call upon the world to witness And we too know of this happening in history. We too see this happening time and time again. Churches coming to the news. Christians being exposed for their wickedness. I could name names, but I don't think it is healthy or expedient or is profitable for us. But I'll quote from scripture. Abraham, he gets to the land of Egypt. His wife, Sarah, is such a beautiful woman, and he's afraid of Pharaoh. So he tells the Pharaoh, she's my sister. And then the Lord exposes him to Pharaoh. And he is rebuked by the Pharaoh, by the wicked, pagan, idolatrous Pharaoh for his sins. What a shame, he was caught in a lie. Can you imagine that? Jonah, as Jonah is fleeing from God, God tells him to go to Nineveh and Jonah flees away in the direction of Spain. There in the bottom of the boat, in comes the captain. Why is it you fool? The sheep is about to sink and you're standing there. And Jonah is exposed to shame for his unfaithfulness. A third lesson that we learn from this is that Christians, and so-called Christians, that we have more responsibility. You will be more tolerable in the last day, Jesus says, to them than to Sodom and Gomorrah. With great revelation comes great responsibility. And that goes for true Christians, and it goes for those who sit under the ministry of word, week in and week out, that hear the voice and word of God, that know what is right, and yet refuse to obey. We are more responsible. And one last lesson before I close with a few questions of application. So I was looking at this text, and I must confess, brothers and sisters here, as an aside, that it's not been the easiest to preach through Amos. And I wonder how much one should jump from here straight to the New Testament and apply it to Christ. But I do want to bring a little bit of Christ in the message of grace here. All of this judgment, all of this punishment for sins really put into perspective what our Lord had to suffer on the cross. This thrice holy God who will not excuse the sin of his own people, who will not lighten the burden of their sinfulness. Christ stood upon that cross bearing the loathe of our sins. It's no trifling matter. Because as he stood there bearing the loathe of our sins, it's these kind of judgments that he was bearing. All of our idolatry, all of our sin, all of our transgressions, all of our iniquities. He stood there and he bore them, and he drank of that cup of wrath to its drinks. He suffered there for all of that insensitivity, of that violence, that robbery, of all that dishonesty, of all those oppressions. He suffered because of that. And he suffered so that we, who did not have the horns of the altar to cling to because they've been taken away, so that we would have the arms of the cross or the foot of the cross to cling to. Because the horns of the altar might have been cut off. There was no safety for them either in the fortresses or in the temple. There was no safety for them in the winter houses or in the summer houses, in the houses of ivory. There was no safety for them there. But Christ went to the cross because there was no safety for us in any of that as well. Christ went to the cross so that in that cross we would have a place to cling to. And we would have a place to weep for our sins and repent of them. we can cling to that cross. So my question to all of us, all Christians, believers, penitent saints and impenitent saints, unrepentant sinners, the question is, what would happen to any of us if the Lord were to call those the atheists, the agnostics, the Muslims and the Roman Catholics and the pagan religions, all of them. If the Lord were to call our unbelieving coworkers and our unbelieving family members and our unbelieving neighbors, if the Lord were to call upon them to testify against us, what would be of us? Would they say, oh, so and so, he is a drunkard. Oh, yeah, that person suffers from a lack of love. Oh, that person is dishonest as they come. For students, oh, that person cheats on his exams day in and day out. He swears, he does this. Is that the content of the witness of the world of us? There are many more questions to probe our hearts. But I pray that this will be a time for us to examine our lives and our hearts, to believe that the Lord would search us and see if there is in us any evil way. Because it is a solemn thought to think that God can be our enemy. It is a comforting thought to think that God is for us, but to think that God can be against us. He who did not spare his own son because of sin, do you think he will be light on you? But God, as our enemy, is a thought that is so solemn. Where will you flee from the wrath to come? I like the image here, and I'm closing. As the Lord is coming, he says, the adversary shall be all around the land, and we know that the Lord is behind us. He will sap your strength, so you will not be able to hide in your fortresses. That's the first part of call, isn't it? If you're fleeing from the wrath, if you're fleeing from an enemy, first place you want to go is to the fortresses, to the bunkers, and to the strong places, the strongholds. But the Lord says that there's no place to hide there. You're going to be torn down. But then you hide in religion, don't you? You go to the horns of the altar and you hide yourself in your outward religion. Oh, but Lord, haven't I done all of this? Haven't we prophesied in your name, in your name, done so many great wonders? Haven't we done all of that, Lord? The Lord says that's not gonna save you as well. And then even, As foolish as it sounds, they go and hide in their winter houses. They go and hide in their homes, hoping that this is just a bad dream, a nightmare, that we will wake up and, oh no, this is fine. It was just a really bad dream. You can hide under your beds if you want. The Lord says it will be of no use, because even your houses, winter, summer, ivory houses, will be torn down. So where will you hide from the Lord, the God Almighty? How will you stand in his presence when the day of judgment comes? And we read it in Revelation 6, that kings and princes and generals and all manner of strong people, rich and mighty, but not just the strong and mighty, even the slaves and the freemen, All of them, when that great day of judgment comes, they will cry out to the mountains, fall on us. For who can escape? Hide us from the wrath of the Lamb. Who can stand? Brothers and sisters, this is not fire and brimstone kind of preaching. This is gracious preaching because as the Lord tells us of the judgment, he tells us that there is a place to go. There are no longer horns of the altar, but there is the cross to cling to. Yes, we will stand before the presence of his throne in judgment on the judgment day. And no one can stand that unless they stand. robed in the robes of righteousness of the Lord. On that day, we will all appear for the throne of judgment, and we will either be bearing the load of our sin and the judgment we rightly deserve, or we will stand in Christ. because He first stood in our place on that cross, because He first bore the wrath that was coming for us, because He first drank to the dregs the cup, the bitter cup of judgment and punishment that we needed to drink only in Him, and no one else can we be sheltered from that judgment. May God give us that grace to renew that covenant to start walking hand in hand with the Lord again. May God give us the grace to hold, to cling, as we sang actually in the first hymn, to cling to the cross of Christ, to throw ourselves in the arms of the Savior, to beg for his mercy and forgiveness. For Christ died for sinners, and sinners we are. May he have mercy and compassion on us.