Verse 1, I saw the Lord standing beside the altar and he said, strike the capitals until the thresholds shake and shatter them upon the heads of all the people. And those who are left of them I will kill with the sword. Not one of them shall flee away, not one of them shall escape. Looking again to the judgment that was to come upon the Northern Kingdom and their rival city of worship. If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them. If they climb up to Eben, from there I will bring them down. If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them. And if they hide from my sight, At the bottom of the sea there I will command the serpent and it shall bite them. So here's this very figurative language speaking about the destruction that is to come upon them. And if they go into captivity before their enemies there I will command the sword and it shall kill them and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good. the Lord God of hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn, and all of its rises like the Nile, and sinks again like the Nile of Egypt. who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth, who calls for the waters of the sea and he pours them out upon the surface of the earth. The Lord is his name. Are you not like the Cushites to me, O people of Israel, declares the Lord. Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt and the Philistines from Cathar and the Syrians from Kerr. Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, declares the Lord. For behold, I will command and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword who say, disaster shall not overtake or meet us. Pretty heavy words, are they not? But then he concludes with this, in that day I will raise up that booth of David that has fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Eden and all the nations who are called by my name, declares the Lord who does this. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, him who sows the seed. The mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted for out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord your God." And so reads God's holy and errant word. All right, before we sing another hymn, we'll take a minute. I want to, as we've been doing, follow up on some of the things here in the book of Amos. As we saw this morning, Amos was a man who was not so well known and not necessarily one who had been trained up to be a prophet and to speak for God. He was yet a very faithful man that God used and God blessed and he was faithful to proclaim the word that God had given to him and to go to a country to his own kinsmen, but there was strife between the North and the South and he would not be well received most likely and he wasn't in many respects, but yet he was faithful and he did what God had called him to do. And so 2,800 years after the fact, we are a people who are reading the things that he wrote, the sermons he gave to the people that day that I think still have significance and help to us in our day. Just a couple of points tonight as we think of the book of Amos. The first one is this, that although God is merciful and gracious, he is also absolutely and immutably just. Amos explores the relationship between God's justice and his mercy, because God is both of those things. He is a God of mercy. He is a God of grace. And he also is a God of justice. And he must address the issue of sin and unrighteousness and injustice, even when it is found among his own covenant people. as we see in the book of Amos and his confronting of the gross sins of the people of Israel in that day. But beyond that, we see that God has a purpose that he is going to long-term, he's going to restore the world, he's gonna bring in a new covenant family and he will bring in a new heavens and a new earth. But we see in the world in which we're living now, those two things being played out. He is merciful, he is gracious, and he is one that must judge sin. He will judge all sin. And again, in Amos chapters 1 and 2, he addresses the nations surrounding Israel in the day, and he calls out their sins. He is mindful of their sins. And he pronounces judgment upon them. But again, it is true also for Israel and also for Judah. He is calling out their own sins. And we're reminded that although God is slow to anger, abounding in amazing grace, We also read in Exodus 34, seven, that he will by no means, what? Clear the guilty. He will by no means clear the guilty. And, you know, as we live in this world, we hate to see injustice. We get upset when we see things as we are seeing on our TV sets or listening on the radio. As we see what Putin is doing to the people of Ukraine, there's something that cries out within us, this is not right, and the whole world is joining in with that chorus. God is aware of this, God is not indifferent to this, and the Bible is very clear that God is going to judge sin. He sees the sins of the nations, He knows the sins of the nations, and He indeed will judge. So he is sovereign over kings and kingdoms. We're aware of that, are we not? He raises up one king, he sets down another. We see in Isaiah 10 that he is gonna raise up the Assyrians and they're gonna be used by God to judge his own people, Israel. And the city would fall, the Northern kingdom would fall in 722. But then Isaiah 10 turns around and says, God is gonna judge Assyria because of their sin. They had evil in their hearts as they went into Israel and as they captured Israel. Now, I don't know how all of those things work. The ways of God are certainly far and above what I could ever comprehend or any of us for that matter. What God is doing in world events right now, we certainly cannot understand that. But we know that God will judge sin, and God is at the same time accomplishing his purpose. Oh, the depths and the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, his ways, our past finding out. So we think of Stalin. Stalin killed, I think, they don't know for sure, 20 to 40 million people, four million even in Ukraine, much of that through starvation. And then we have Mussolini's and we have the Hitler's. But these things do not go unnoticed by our God. He is holy and he will judge. And there is a day of accounting. It seems sometimes that people are able to cheat sin and get away with it, but they won't. There's a day of accounting. And Jesus is the one who Paul says in Acts 17 31, that God has established to be the judge of all the earth. And he says, he will judge the world in righteousness. he will judge the world in righteousness. You know, we have a hard time in our fallen world to see righteous judgment carried out, don't we? But he will, he will judge the world in perfect righteousness. He is omniscient, he's omnipotent, and he will bring to pass a righteous judgment one day. As we think about this, though, we are so mindful that God is mindful of our own sin, and that God is righteous in what he does in terms of his people, saving them from their sin. He does not wink at sin. He does not sweep our sin under the carpet as if it doesn't exist. God deals with our sin. It's easy to see the injustices of others, the unrighteousness of others, and be blind to our own, isn't it? And we can see what Putin's doing, but we are often blind to our own sins, but God knows our heart. All things are laid open and bare before the God with whom we have to do. And God has dealt justly with our sins at the cross, hasn't he? Paul talks about this in Romans 3. He brings the whole world guilty before God. And then he goes on to speak about the fact that to everyone that believes in Jesus Christ, God is the, he remains just and the justifier of those who believe in Christ. He's just. He has dealt justly with our sin. And as believers, we need to understand that. to be appreciative of that, of what God has done for us. But in Christ we are also looking for a new day when He's going to make all things new. And Peter describes it as a new heavens and a new earth and what what is gonna be there, a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It's not our world today, but we look forward by the grace of God and the hope that Christ has won for us, we look forward to that new heaven and that new earth and there will be perfect righteousness. We will be established in righteousness, no longer to sin. And we will live in a community and in a new world that is marked by righteousness and holiness. And this is our great hope. So, although God is merciful and gracious, he is absolutely and immutably just. Secondly, we see that Amos teaches us that the most elaborate worship, if it is insincere, is but an insult to God. And we see that in the book of Amos. Turn, if you will, to chapter 4. Chapter 4 and verse 4. Well, back to verse 2. The Lord God has sworn by His holiness. that the days, behold, the days are coming upon you when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fish hooks, looking to their exile, the crushing of the Northern kingdom, and you shall go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead, and you shall be cast out into Harman, declares the Lord. And then verse four, come to Bethel. Again, Bethel is a rival city to Jerusalem where Jeroboam I had set up worship there so that the people wouldn't go down to Jerusalem. He was afraid if they would do that, he would lose his kingdom, the hearts of his people, so he made Dan and Bethel places where they worshiped supposedly Jehovah, but it was syncretistic. They brought in the pagan beliefs as well, and it was perverted worship. Notice what verse 4 says, come to Bethel and transgress. Interestingly enough, when I was in college, I lived in a dorm that was called Bethel dorm when I was at Cedarville. And I heard this verse quoted often about the guys living in Bethel dorm. Come to Bethel and transgress, to Gilgal and multiply transgression. Bring your sacrifices every morning and tithes every three days. Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened and proclaim the free will offerings, publish them. For so you love to do, O people of Israel, declares the Lord your God. It is being spoken about in a sarcastic way. You're coming to worship. but really you're coming to worship and it's transgression. As you come and you bring your sacrifices, all the things that you're doing, it's a transgression. It is an offense against God and His holiness. Yes, you're doing a lot of things, offering sacrifices and so forth, but it is not pleasing to the Lord. In fact, it is sin. And so, here he is confronting their transgressions, they're violating the commands of God and yet they're still worshiping and God confronts them. Chapter 5, we see this in chapter 5 verse 21, some very strong language here. This is where he says to them, they're looking for the day of the Lord. They think it's going to be a great day. I mean, they think things are going well. They're prospering. Their bank accounts are doing well. But when the day of the Lord comes, it's not going to be what you think it is, Israel. It's not going to be a day that is good. It's going to be dark. And he's going to bring judgment if you do not repent. And he noted right in the middle of this, verse 21, I hate. I despise your feast and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and the grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your harps, I will not listen. And here's the call, let justice roll down. This is not what's happening in the nation. There's not justice that is rolling down like waters and there's not righteousness that is like an ever flowing stream. There is this worship that is perverted and God will not accept it. Many believe that Isaiah, who was sort of a contemporary with him, he probably ministered in this general time. Many believe that he actually picks up on some of Amos' writings. Amos is referred to as one of the first writing prophets in the Northern Kingdom. We have some people that were non-writing prophets, Elijah, Elisha. We don't have the book of Elijah or the book of Elisha. But we have these writing prophets, and Amos is probably one of the first of those. And many believe that Isaiah himself used some of his language, especially right here. If you remember in Isaiah 1, as Isaiah writes, he said, unless the Lord had left us a remnant, we would become like Sodom and Gomorrah. And he says, I hate your feast days. You come with all of your worship. And it's an abomination to me. And he uses the same very, very strong language that Isaiah used here. These people, they are deceived. And all of their worship and their prosperity, it meant nothing to God. In fact, it incurs his wrath. One commentator writes and says, such words are eloquent to generations far beyond the age in which they were spoken. Many a modern Christian seems to be unable to conceive of salvation apart from the sacraments and ceremonies of his own church. Amos taught Israel that religion means much more than mere worship, mere formality, just going through the motions. What did Jesus say to the Pharisees? They worship me with their lips, right? But what? Hearts far from me. I think that, is that taken from Isaiah, I think? And so it was in the day of Amos and here he says also in our own days that Amos taught that religion means much more than mere worship and that it is not the smoke of the burnt offering that is acceptable to God but the incense of a pure and a loyal heart. That is the sweet smelling offering that comes from the heart of worship to please God and then to serve God. God's people to be one who is marked by righteousness and justice. But here they are, they're self-indulgent, they're living for themselves and their own pleasures. They are taking advantage of their Jewish neighbors and the poor and crushing them to the earth. And God says, your worship is an abomination to me. and I will not accept it. We saw in Joel something similar to this, rend your hearts and not your clothes. Also in Hosea, Hosea speaks about what God desires is steadfast, loyal love rather than sacrifice and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. And it's very possible for us, isn't it, to go through the motions of Christianity, to simply show up at church or to even read our Bible, but our hearts can be far, far, far from the Lord. And we need to hear this and be reminded of this as well. God doesn't look at the outward appearance. He looks upon the heart. So he teaches us that even elaborate worship, if it does not come from a sincere heart and if it's not joined to truth, it is an insult and an abomination to the Lord. And we also see here that there must be social justice in the biblical way, biblical justice between God's people and doing what is right. It's what Micah 6, 8 talks about. We'll look at that too. A lot of these themes that we see in the minor prophets are gonna be similar in all of the minor prophets, addressing sin, calling for repentance, and Micah deals with that. what does God require of us, but to love mercy and to love justice, to do what's right and to walk humbly with our God. And so this is a call that is given to the people of God that we would love righteousness, and that's what we see in verse 24. Let justice, let it roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Geneva Bible has a footnote, it says, the streams or the wadis of the Middle East are rocky watercourses through which torrents rush in the rainy season, but which are dry at other times. The Lord desires righteousness that is like his own, that is dependable, that is strong. I don't know if you've ever been on Rapid Run when there's been a torrential downpour, but if you go down through the windy part of Rapid Run where the creek is there, Sometimes that creek is just flowing, and water is just gushing down there. It's the same, I think, in Muddy Creek as well. I remember one time, we were coming down Rapid Run from Needbrobe, coming home, and we had just had this huge rainfall. And as we saw the first part of the creek there, there was just this gushing water that was coming, a big wall of water. And the further we went, we got down there, and the creek bed was absolutely dry. There was no water at all. And I thought, wow, this is pretty amazing. So we parked, we stopped, and we watched. And this huge wall of water just came gushing down the river bed there, the creek bed. And this is the picture that's being given here. Let righteousness be like that, that flows from us. as we live with one another, as we seek to be the neighbor that God has called us to be. The second great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. And the second table of 10 commandments has to do with that, how we love our neighbor. So let this be a picture of the people of God. And by God's grace, may it be so. Fourthly, how do we avoid securing the judgment of God? When we look at these verses, there are many verses where we see what it is that is calling for the judgment of God upon Israel. Some of the things that we see is don't spurn the grace of God. Look at chapter two, verses nine through 11. I will not read all of these here, but here, God is reminding them through Amos of what he had done for them. Chapter two, verse nine. Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite. He's speaking about their sins, that they're trampling their poor neighbors in the dust. And then he says, yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above his roots beneath. Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and I led you 40 years in the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite. And here's God who has shown grace to them, hasn't he? He has called them to be his own people. He brought them out of bondage, out of Egypt, where they were oppressed. And now what are they doing? They are oppressing their own people. They're treating them unjustly. And so here is great privilege that they have received and great blessing But what they have done is they've spurned this and they are going contrary to the will of God. And we're reminded that spiritual privilege brings about greater accountability, doesn't it? It will be greater in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus said, than those cities and those people who had Jesus working miracles in their cities. It's gonna be, there's gonna be greater accountability for the privileges that you have had, that you have seen, that you have witnessed. And so it will be here for Israel as well. And this is what Amos is showing them. And Israel needs to see that privilege involves responsibility. Notice chapter three and verse two, you only, you only Israel. sons of Abraham, have I known of all the families of the earth, there's no other family that has known and enjoyed what Abraham and his descendants have known and enjoyed. They had special favor that had been given to them by God. And of all the families of the earth, I have known you in a personal, more intimate way. But notice, therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. Chosen nation, privilege that was given to them, but there is accountability, a greater accountability, and God will judge them for their sins. They also spurned discipline that God gave to them. Chapter four, verses six to 13. We'll not read this, but it mentioned several things that God has done. Just the first one, verse six. I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord. What is he talking about here? I gave you cleanness of teeth. Well, he didn't need a toothpick because there wasn't a lot of food stuck in your teeth because there was a scarcity of food, of famine or whatever it was. And he says, yet you didn't return to me. These were things that should have turned their hearts to the Lord. And this whole chapter goes on to list a number of things like that. They spurned discipline. They spurned the discipline of the Lord. They did not learn from it. These things that should have caused them to return to the Lord, they spurned it. They would not heed these warnings that were being given to them by the Lord. And then there was a silencing of the word of God as well. We talked about that this morning that Amaziah spoke about how He wanted Amos to leave the country, go back to Judah. We don't want you here. Here is a silencing of the Word of God. We don't want you. Amaziah should have been one speaking for the Lord. He was in a high position and yet he doesn't. He is rejecting the Word of God. He's silencing the spokesman that God has sent to them and wants to send him away. And then we have, again, this language that I read this morning that is Very strong language that God is going to send a famine, and it's a famine not of bread, not of thirst, chapter 8, verse 11, but it is a famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord. That is a great judgment, that I will not send my word to you. I'm going to bring judgment, and you will not hear from me. And how often we can be like the people of Israel where we don't have a heart to hear the word of God. We don't want to listen or we silence it by, again, closing the word of God and not hearing it. And God can send famine to our souls. And so may we learn from them as well in these words. And just in closing here, there's the promise of hope at the end of this chapter, that God is gonna raise up chapter nine, verse 11. He's gonna raise up the booth or the dynasty of David that is fallen and repair its breaches and raise up his ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. The house of David is not in a good place and it's going to look worse as the days go on. Israel will go into captivity, many of them killed, and the northern kingdom will come to an end. Judah, in 586, it's going to fall as well, and judgment will come upon them. They will go into exile in Babylon, and the house of David will be no more in that particular time. But he said it will bring them back to the land, but here it is even looking beyond that. I'm gonna raise up the house of David, the dynasty of David. it will be raised back up. He had made promises to David. And interestingly enough, if you read in Acts, we'll not take the time, but Acts 15, verses 16 to 18, here is James at the first church council as Peter and Paul and Barnabas are speaking about Gentiles that are coming to faith in Christ. They're embracing the Messiah. And what do we do with these guys? How do we receive them? Do they need to be circumcised? And of course the answer was no. Faith in Christ, they are joined to the people of God. And James says, this is exactly what Amos was speaking about. God's going to raise up the house of David, the dynasty, the family of David. And here is this in gathering that is spoken about. He's going to, verse 12, he's going to possess the remnant of Edom. and all the nations who are called by my name declares the Lord who does this. There's gonna be a greater in gathering of people from among the Gentiles. And then I think this is looking, a lot of people see this as the time of the millennium, a thousand years in which Christ will rule and reign. Others see this as just the final eternal state when there will be a new heavens and a new earth. And it's looking to a time of great blessing that is going to be poured out. And Peter speaks about that, that there will be a day in which a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. But he's going to restore the fortunes of his people, and this will be a time of great blessing. And so the book of Amos ends with this glorious hope and this promise of things that are yet to come after the fall of Israel and Judah. Well, let's stand and we'll be dismissed with a word of prayer. If you wanna read ahead for next week, we'll be in the book of Obadiah. It's a much shorter book, and this is the vision of Obadiah with regard to Edom. Shall we pray? Father, tonight we come before you again. There are many things that we do not know and we do not understand, but we do thank you for the things that we do understand. We know that you are holy, that you are just, and that you are the judge of all the earth. And you will by no means clear the guilty. And there is a day that is appointed in which you will judge the nations and you will judge all people. But if we be in Christ tonight, we are thankful that the judgment that is due to us because of our sin has already fallen upon Christ. We are forgiven and we stand accepted in the beloved one. And we thank you for that tonight. As we go into this week, Lord, may we be a people who demonstrate and show forth in our life what justice looks like as we seek to love our neighbor even as we would love ourself. Enable us to do that, Lord, we pray. And we ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. Lord, bless you all.