Turn in the Old Testament to the book of Amos in chapter 3. Prophecy of Amos and chapter 3. Amos and chapter 3. It's going to read the first eight verses. Amos in chapter three. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, you only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together except they be agreed? With a lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey, Will a young lion cry out of his den if he hath taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where no djinn is for him? Shall one take up a snare from the earth and have taken nothing at all? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it? Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy? Amen. Let's ask the Lord's help as we consider his word together this morning. Lord, we give thanks that we can come into thy presence again to consider your word. We pray, Lord, especially for help at this time. Give us minds that are quick to understand, alert, Give us hearts which are quick to believe. Give us reverence for thy word, that we might give attention to what you have spoken. Write it, O Lord, in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus Christ himself might be glorified. We ask it to that end, in his precious name. Amen. Last time, as we've been considering Amos, began to consider chapter 3. We can consider the first two verses in this chapter. And in so doing we were careful to note, and I repeat it again because it's important for us to remember, that it is very likely that the Prophet Amos here is speaking on a different occasion from what we heard, at least from what we heard in the first two chapters. It is even possible that each of the separate pronouncements in chapter 1 and into chapter 2 about the different nations as he goes and speaks of the transgressions of Damascus and of Gaza and Tyrus and Edom and so on, it's possible that each of those separate pronouncements of the separate places were also on separate occasions as well, that he would have done all of these things on a separate day, on a separate occasion. Remember that the prophet Amos was coming into a land which was far from his home, he came from far south in the southern kingdom down into Koa, as we find out in verse 1 of chapter 1. And so here he was, and there had to be an element in the preaching of this word that God had given him to speak that required the use of rhetorical devices. God ordains preaching in all of its subtleties. He says in the New Testament that it will please God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that perish. And so Amos is sent to men and women and young people and children who are perishing and the Lord had ordained that Amos speak to them in this form of heralding the word, preaching the word. And when God ordains preaching, he does so in all of its subtleties and the task of communicating his word And so we see time and again throughout the scriptures that use of such rhetoric in its legitimate practice in the preaching of God's word. And so having spoken that introductory oracle against Israel at the end of chapter two, Amos would then have faced opposition from the people. Up until then, of course, as we mentioned many times, they would have been happy to hear of Amos speaking against all of their enemies, against Gaza and against Philistia and all of the other places. But now when he spoke about Israel, they would have opposed him. They would have turned away from him, walked away, told him to be quiet, and he would have then had come to the end of that particular opportunity that he had to preach the word of God. Having been drawn in to hear the word of God, by the strategy of speaking first against their enemies, Amos then turned to Israel himself, And so by this method he ensured that the message was heard by those who it was meant for. He was not just ignored instantly as some kind of nut because he began to speak about the other nations first and they were quite happy to hear that. And here then, at the beginning of chapter 3, we see a similar intention, a similar method used to achieve it. Amos is speaking here almost certainly on another occasion. The whole book of Amos was not uttered in one place at one time. It would be a very long sermon. It was all uttered at different times. And so here, almost certainly on another occasion, Amos again lifts up his voice. Here we have a compilation of all the things that Amos said at various different times, as well as some of the narration of the events that surrounded his preaching of the Word of God. And here, then, on another occasion, Amos lifts up his voice again, perhaps in the busy marketplace or somewhere else where crowds gathered and mingled, where the rich mingled with the poor, where the powerful mingled with the week, where every type of person was present to hear this word of the Lord. And so his voice bellows out, hear this word, the prophet says. He uses this formulation of words a few times. You'll see it at the beginning of chapter four. And so we noted in these first two verses, first of all, the emphasis. And the first emphasis that we saw is that of the attention that Amos is requiring of them, the attention. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken concerning you, O sons of Israel, as the words are literally. The people were to pay attention to what God has spoken. need their attention. Then the second thing that was emphasized and we saw was emphasized was the certainty here. That which the Lord hath spoken. Past tense. The Lord has spoken this. It is a certain thing. The Lord has spoken it. It has been decreed. It would certainly and surely come to pass. That was the other aspect of the emphasis seen here. That there should be attention given, and that these things that he spoke were certainly to come to pass. That was the emphasis. Then we noted the surprising aspect of the words in the first two verses here. Because the words of Amos begin here in a positive way. The word translated as against does not necessarily mean against here. It has been translated that way due to the context, but it would be better understood as meaning concerning or about. So the sentence begins positively. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken concerning you, O sons of Israel. You only have I known of all the families of the earth. So this is of course a positive point to mention. The Lord had privileged them. Out of all the families, the clans of the earth, only them had the Lord taken knowledge of. And so this message begins positively and the positivity continues into the next part of the verse because the word punish can and often does have the meaning of to visit without any negative connotation. And so it is a surprising aspect of this sentence here. Again, it is present in order to draw in the hearers as it has been used before. Hear this word, all you sons of Israel. The Lord has spoken concerning you. You only of all the nations of this earth have I known. Therefore will I visit you. And then lastly, we consider the sting that we see here with this form of the words, Following a positive pattern at first, the pattern suddenly swings toward the negative. The privilege that Amos has mentioned is shown in actual fact to be a peril to Israel. The visitation of the Lord upon them turns out to be a visitation of judgment. And we could read those last words, I will visit upon you all your transgressions, all your iniquities. So in that sense then we see the sting in the tail so to speak and it is important for us to recognize it as that. Amos again draws in his audience with nice sounding words only to turn suddenly to judgment. This he does in order to ensure that the children of Israel do indeed hear this word that the Lord has spoken concerning them. They will not be allowed to be ignorant of it. So this whole sentence is designed to emphatically ensure that this pronouncement of judgment upon them is heard and known, that it is certain it is coming because God has spoken it. From these things we establish first that the Lord will have the attention of those to whom he speaks. And so we deduce that if you are not paying attention, if you are not listening to the word of God, reading his word, attending the preaching of the word of God, coming to church, It is because the Lord is not speaking to you. Because he will have the attention of those to whom he speaks. He's not ignored. He's not cast off. It is not you who decides you are not listening to him. It is he who decides he is not speaking to you. That is the point. And even as Christians, we must be aware of this. Are you paying attention to God's word? Are you doing so even this morning? And we can also be encouraged by this point as well. Because when God decides to speak to a person, he ensures that his voice is heard. He speaks with a voice that wakes the dead. And so we can pray for our lost family and loved ones with this in mind. Secondly, we drew out the fact that God will beat down pride. The reason that the people here had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to God's word was because they felt secure, they felt favored. Indeed, that is the point of emphasis here from Amos in these first two verses, that they were only, were the ones who were blessed amongst all the people on the earth. And so the Lord had to beat down their pride, and again, that is something that he will always do when he deals with each one of us. Even those who have not repented, one day their pride will be beaten down, they will bow before the Lord Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess. But again, consider this as something we can grasp when we pray for our lost loved ones that the Lord would beat down their pride, that they all would give in their stubborn will. And then lastly, on the larger scale, we've seen and we've shown here that God's punishment is commensurate with spiritual privilege And we stated how this nation has been so privileged spiritually and so is indeed under threat of and in some ways already is subject to the judgment of God because of the privilege that he has given it. And so we come now to verses three to eight and we may spend next time as well as the remainder of our time today considering these verses. In essence, the first thing that I want to remark upon in these verses this morning is the fact that the Prophet emphasizes here the nature of the coming judgment. And really the, if I was going to give a title this morning, would be cause and effect. Cause and effect. What we have here in verses three to eight are a series of questions, which at first reading and even subsequent readings could leave us a little perplexed. They left me perplexed. Difficult for us to first discern the reason for them, what the intent is behind them. The questions themselves are straightforward enough, but we need this morning to look at them in terms of their intention. And that will provide us with a good appreciation of what the overall message is here. Here they are then. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey? Will a young lion crow of his den if he hath taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where no jinn is for him? Shall one take up a snare from the earth and have taken nothing at all? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in the city, calamity really, and the Lord hath not done it? Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secrets unto his servants, the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy? And so from these words, there are six things that we can draw out, six things. But before we do that, we need, first of all, to understand the idea behind the questions. Amos here asks a series of questions, to all of which the answer is no, or at least is in the negative, which lead the listeners to the conclusion that he desires them to reach. Can two walk together except they be agreed? And the sense of the words here is not that they have to be on friendly terms, i.e., not arguing, in order to walk together. That is the wrong understanding of the verses here. The word agreed here gives the idea of or the sense of appointed. The root verb from which the word comes means to appoint or to meet and so what Amos is saying here is that two people won't walk somewhere together unless they have made a prior arrangement to meet and to do so. Once they Have done that, then they will meet together, and so then they will walk together, because they have arranged to do so in advance. That is the idea behind the words here. Will a lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den, he hath taken nothing? And again, the answer is no. Lions don't roar if they have no food. They move in silence and in stealth in order to take their prey. Once they have it, And they roar. They roar to establish their dominance over their territory, to warn potential threats away from them. And clearly they would not do this before they took their prey, because their prey would wisely run as far away as possible if they were to do that. And so Amos is leading the people again to say, no, of course not. A lion does not roar if he hasn't taken prey. Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where no djinn is for him? Shall one take up a snare from the earth and have taken nothing at all? And again, another question which leads to an automatic no answer. Can a bird fall in a snare if there is no snare to take him? Of course not. In order to be taken in a snare, there must be a snare. The sense of the second part of that question is, does a snare spring up from the earth if it hasn't captured anything? And again, the answer is no. The trap is not set off unless something has set it off. That's the idea behind the question. Again, the answer is no. Then Amos moves on from the wilderness, with which, of course, he is quite familiar, being a shepherd himself. Very familiar with the outdoors, with the laying of snares and traps, with the roar of a lion. He moves from the wilderness, though, to the city with his next question. He brings the line of thought closer to home. Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it? He thus brings the questions closer to home, while simultaneously bringing them closer to the heart of his subject. When the trumpet is blown in the city, it is to warn the inhabitants of that city of danger, of invasion and the like. Even here in this city, in London, during the war, of course, the air raid sirens would have been sounded and the people in their beds did wisely to fear because the bombs were about to drop and they would run then to the shelters. When the sirens went off, the people feared. Likewise, again, the answer to Amos' question is no. Will the people not fear? No, of course they will fear. And he asks, does evil? without the Lord having done it, calamity happen in a city? Again, the answer is no. And here Amos reaches his main point. That judgment is going to come. Calamity is going to befall them. And when it does, the people should take knowledge immediately that the Lord has done it. Verse 7 seems to break up the list of questions and really should be considered a parenthesis or an aside from his main purpose here. It still is relevant to the point that Amos is making. All of the things that he is saying and the very points he is making here, he is making of the divine authority. The Lord has revealed them to Amos. That which the Lord is going to do, he reveals to his servants, the prophets. Then we have the two questions in verse 8, which echo chapter 1 and verse 2. Perhaps your mind went back to those, perhaps not. There in chapter one and verse two, the prophet said, the Lord will roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem. And Amos echoes these ideas again here, but this time adding questions as to the results of the things that I mentioned. I think it's clear that Amos here refers back to the theme of the Lord roaring. The Lord will roar from Zion. And it's interesting also to consider the use of the simile of the lion, as we just considered in verse four. And he roars and he takes his prey. Lion has roared, Amor says. Who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy? And again, the answers are in the negative. There are none who will not fear. Now, there's a lot to unpack here, rather than overload you with everything at once. I want to deal with some of these things next time, especially verse seven and parts of verse eight. There is much here for us to understand in relation to what the Lord intends by these words. The Lord is, by the prophets, seeking to make specific application and to instruct the people through the words that he's given Amos to speak in these verses. And that instruction and application can be taken by us also. As I said before, there are six things here that are plain, I believe, from these words. But we'll deal with four of them this morning, and perhaps the other two later in a couple of weeks' time. So by way of application then, and in the remainder of the time we have left, let's consider what the Holy Spirit seeks to teach the people of Israel here through Amos, and of course, to teach us this morning. First of all, he wants to teach them this, The punishment comes as the effect. Sin is the cause. This is perhaps the primary thing that Amos is teaching the people here with these questions. That the punishment that God is going to bring upon them is going to follow as a direct effect of their transgressions. We see two people walking together. The logical conclusion that we must come to is that they had arranged to meet and to do so. We hear the lion roar. It is because he has dominated his territory, because he has taken his prey. The bird has fallen in a snare and so we must conclude that this effect has come about because a snare has been laid to catch the bird. The snare snaps shut and we conclude logically that something has been taken in that snare. No doubt Amos was familiar himself with the sound of the snare. having taken the prey, maybe having laid them himself. And then even more poignantly, there is a great stir. We observe a city, the people filled with fear, moving quickly to places of refuge. Surely then a warning must have sounded, that invasion or something similar was incoming, and so the people fear. Calamity befalls them, we must conclude that the Lord has brought it upon them. The people then are to conclude that the punishment that Amos is prophesying as coming soon upon them, as coming certainly upon them, is a direct effect of their sin. It is a natural, organic order. Remember the words of Amos at the outset, for three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. And the sense of the words is that the punishment is coming. It is coming. And the Lord is not going to divert it. He is going to allow it to come. The punishment then is coming almost as a natural outcome of their transgression. Their transgression was the cause. Their sin was the cause. The punishment then was the effect. Amos is saying then, don't be surprised that your sin has caught up with you. The punishment that is coming has a cause. Your iniquity, your transgression is the cause. Two don't walk together unless they agreed to do so. The lion does not roar unless it has taken prey. Punishment does not come. unless you have transgressed. And this applies in exactly the same way to you this morning if you're outside of Christ. Your sin will catch up with you. Be sure your sin will find you out, the Bible says. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. So should you not turn to Christ this morning and understand this, as Israel were to understand it here, your sin will bring forth punishment as effect follows cause. On the day of judgment, when you come before the judgment seat of God, having never repented, you will have no grounds for complaint. You will not be able to cry unfair or unjust. because the outcome will be plain to see as a natural result of your sin. The wages of sin is death. Believe that this morning. Punishment is the effect, sin is the cause. Secondly, we see here that calamity does not happen by chance. God brings it. And this fact is a little more obvious from the verses here because one of the questions is, shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it? I've already alluded to the meaning of these words a few times because at first reading they are problematic and this is one of the very few areas of weakness in the King James Version. The word evil here is in fact the word evil. But the Hebrew language of course is very fluid and the words have nuances. We discovered that when we considered the word punish as we mentioned earlier. Translated more often as to visit. It's only the context which makes it to be a negative, as punish. And here the word evil should be translated as calamity, not as evil, even though that is an accurate translation when the word is considered on its own. The context here shows that it is calamity that is meant here. Calamity is evil in one sense. We use the word evil. We might perhaps have read in times past the term evil tidings. We're not talking about tidings which are morally evil, we're talking about tidings which are of bad things, bad news essentially. That's how the word evil is meant here, because that was how it could be used in the time of the translators. It's not common use today, so people incorrectly think that these words and other similar places are teaching that God is the author of moral evil. That is not the case. The Lord is not the source of evil. He is, by definition, good. All that to say, then, that what we're being taught here is that when calamity comes, when disaster comes, when it occurs, It is the Lord who has done it. God is sovereign. Nothing that happens can happen except He has sovereignly ordained it. We delve into a subject which would take a long time to discuss, perhaps better discussed in a less formal setting. But the fact is that calamity does not occur by chance. That is what the word of God says, and that is what we know to be true. And we should consider that to be a good thing. If calamity could occur by chance, to the degree that God might be surprised by it, and did not know it was coming, and he has just taken his back as we are, then we would, and we should be terrified. But the fact is that calamity does not occur by chance. God brings it about. You will remember perhaps if you've been here that the judgment that came was by way of earthquake as well as by invasion. That was the punishment that God brought upon them. God brings it about. He has control of it. We might not understand why or for what purpose He might do so, but we should start out by accepting that this is the truth. God brings about calamity. He has power over it. And our first response to this fact should be one of encouragement and of thankfulness as the people of God. That the God who loves you, who has sent his son to die upon the cross for you and you have believed in his name, you're a Christian this morning, that God has saved your soul, who will bring you certainly one day to be with him, has control of every moment, every event that might occur in your life. That should be a heartening thing, a truth that cheers your heart, that the Lord loves you, has control of everything. And when bad things happen, they happen for a reason. Which brings us to consider the third thing that is intended for us to understand here. A tragedy, a calamity occurs for a reason. And in this particular case, it occurs to bring about correction. and repentance. Calamity comes for a reason. In the case of Israel here, the reason is straightforward. It is that Israel should repent and turn to the Lord once more. Their acts of sinfulness and transgression are doing them harm. And so because of this, the Lord is going to allow tragedy to strike. He's going to bring calamity down upon them, that they might turn from their sin in sorrow and look again to the God who had blessed them in times past. He'll remove the thing that they have come to trust in, that they've come to love, that they've come to rely on, the thing that gives them comfort now. He'll remove that thing. He'll remove their idols, their resting place, all of their comforts that they should recognize their spiritual poverty and turn again to the Lord and rest and rely upon Him and find Him alone as the only and only truly satisfying comfort to them. The same can be said of this nation as a whole. The Lord will likely bring calamity on it if it is to turn back to him. Most calamities that occur these days are put down to other things, other causes, although some seem to always blame God when things go wrong, but forget him when things go right. The same can also be said of individuals. Perhaps you've gone through some difficulty of late in your life that caused you to trust the Lord. Perhaps you're going through a difficult time now. Have you tried turning to the Lord? The Lord brings these things about for a reason. It's hard for me to adequately cover this subject on a Sunday morning, but it is good for you to consider this simple fact, that the Lord is in control, and he has never done a thing without a reason. Every act of the Lord is purposeful and for a purpose. and we must trust Him. Seek the Lord's will for your life. And if you're outside of Christ this morning and you've never trusted in Him, then the Lord's will this morning is that you do trust in Him, and that you turn and repent from your sin. And finally, this morning as we close, what is here for us to learn, fourthly, is that when God decrees a thing, it certainly follows. And we touched on this last time, of course, and even today. When Amos uses the terminology of the past tense in verse one, hear this word that the Lord hath spoken, that showed us, of course, that the Lord has already spoken the things which Amos communicated, and as such, they were certainties. And here, as we've mentioned already, the prophet is showing that cause precedes effect. In verse eight, we see that the lion has roared, Meaning, of course, that the Lord has spoken his word. And as Amos goes on to say in the second part of the verse, which we'll touch on in a couple of weeks' time, the lion has roared. The Lord has spoken. And the question he asks is this, who shall not fear? And the implication is that if the Lord has spoken, then the natural result should be that the hearers of his word will be caused to fear. That is, they should take his word seriously. Why? Because when the Lord speaks, that which he speaks will surely and most certainly follow. The sons of Israel who are addressed here would find this out for themselves, but Amos, as the prophet of the Lord, is addressing them to inform them so that they would repent and trust in God. The lion has roared. Who shall not fear? All the prophets of the Old Testament point forward to the one who is the true prophet of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Not only is the Lord Jesus the great prophet of our God, but he's identified as the very Word of God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That is why we preach Christ crucified. He is the message. We preach him because he is the word of God. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That is the gospel. That is what you must hear and understand. The gospel truth is the only truth that can save you from the judgment that is incoming. The Lord has decreed it. He has spoken it. The lion has roared. It is certain. Therefore, this morning be persuaded by the preaching of that word. Do not delay. Come to Christ, who is the only shelter and refuge that God has provided. although she will be subject to the judgment of God which comes upon sin and upon sinners as surely as the lion roars when it takes its prey. May the Lord have mercy on your soul this morning for Jesus' sake. Amen.