You have a sermon text in your bulletin that you can use if you didn't have your Bible with you today. So you can keep that handy and follow along as we go through the sermon, as we go through the text, as we go through the sermon. One Sunday in my previous church, we ended the service, and the people had worshipped, and the sermon had been preached, and the supper had been served, and the benediction had been given. And I walked down the aisle to the door, and I was standing there in my robe and greeting people as they left the church building. As they left, this lady, she took my hand and she was shaking my hand and she said, she said, Pastor, I am so glad that you preached that sermon today. So I said, well, I'm glad that it was helpful to your soul. And she says, oh, no, no, it wasn't helpful to my soul. It's my husband who needed to hear it. And you really put him in his place in no uncertain terms. And that really happened. So, well, needless to say, she missed the point. And she reminded me of what one of my seminary professors told my class one time, that people love to listen and say amen to what God says to other people. But at the same time, they're resistant to personal application, because that requires that they want to be holy in their own lives, and that they're willing to say that, I have done wrong, and I need to repent and be changed. And that is much harder to do. And people like that are much harder to find. So today I want to show you that people as a nation and as individuals can be so unaware and so comfortable in their own sin that when others are called out for the same sins that they themselves are committing, they don't recognize their sin or their guilt and they don't see their own need to repent. Yet they enjoy hearing others accused and caught and punished for their sin. And they think that that is a very good thing. But we do not want to be people like that. We must not be people like that if we're true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And before we look directly at Amos, I want to look at another familiar passage about the blindness of sin, one's own sin, and if you have your Bible, you can turn to 2 Samuel, and it's chapter 11, 2 Samuel chapter 11, and the very last verse there, and then nine verses in chapter 12. Here we go. It says, but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Then the Lord, and you probably know what that is, but I'm gonna repeat, he's gonna tell us again what it is. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said to him, there were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished. And it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom. And it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die. And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Then Nathan said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more. Why have you despised that word despised? Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord? So of course, you know that this is where David had had Uriah killed, had Uriah killed at the hand of the Ammonites. He lusted after Bathsheba. He took her for his own. He committed adultery with her. And God sent Nathan to rescue David from his sin. But David didn't recognize his sin until it was right in his face Until he was faced with something exactly comparable and said what you hate here right now David is You hate what you have done, but you don't hate it because you've done it you hate it because someone else has done it and what we need to do is as believers is we need to hate our sin and I hate sin. It's my duty to hate my sin more than I hate anybody else's sin. And it's your duty to hate your sin more than you hate anybody else's sin. So God sent the prophet Nathan to David. And at first David didn't see his sin, only the sin of the other. And then God moved through Nathan by his Holy Spirit, where David saw that he had sinned, he repented, and he was spared. Well, similarly, in our text, God sent Amos, the prophet Amos, to eight nations, and there was no recognition of sin, therefore there was no repentance, and therefore the wrath of God was promised. And today I want to go through the eight indictments that Amos brings against these nations, and they will be pretty quick. The first is an indictment against Damascus, and you have in your text Amos 1.3. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away its punishment. And then he goes on to say, because they did what? They murdered and mutilated the bodies of human beings. Israel hearing this, Judah hearing this, if Amos had stopped right here, had stopped the message right now, they would have been cheering at the sermon. They would have been preaching and saying, way to go, Amos, preach it, brother. They would have been very encouraging that Amos should stick it to these people. But Jerusalem and Israel had done the exact same thing. And is this not similarly going on in our nation today? Could not the same thing be said about America today? For three transgressions of America, and for four I will not turn away its punishment, because they murdered and mutilated the bodies of human beings? As Americans, do we not allow the mutilation of the unborn babies in the womb of the mother? And those of you who know what abortion is, you know that it's performed by literally cutting the baby apart or sucking it into pieces out of its mother's womb. And we can say, yes, this is wicked, and abortionists must be called out, and they must be punished. And so they will be. But didn't the people of America, didn't you and me, or probably not you, and you know not me, I'll promise that, but didn't the people of America vote in lawmakers who promote and protect and fund the mass mutilation of babies' bodies? And can we really expect God to turn away his punishment from America? Well, he will not unless we acknowledge our guilt, our covenantal blood guiltiness, and repent to be forgiven. The second indictment we find in Amos 1, 6 and following. For three transgressions of Gaza and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because, and if you read on, they captured and sold human beings into slavery. If Amos had made this indictment and then stopped the message right here, Judah and Israel would have cheered and said, way to go, Amos. That's really telling them. forgetting that Judah and Israel had done the same thing. But couldn't the same indictment be laid against America? Are we not allowing the massive slave trafficking organizations to buy and sell human beings for sex, especially at the southern border? And you see, God will not turn away his punishment of America unless we acknowledge our guilt and repent and ask to be forgiven. Third indictment is to Tyre in Amos 1.9. For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not turn away its punishments, because they also engaged in the slave trade, so it goes on to say. They broke covenant with their kin. Their leaders decided that they were wiser than God, and they didn't want to follow God's laws to rule the country. Now again, if Amos had ended his message right there, his declaration against Tyre, Judah and Israel would have said, now you've pointed out the evil of our enemy and you've condemned them as they ought to be condemned, forgetting that they themselves had done the same thing. But the sin of Tyre is a devastating declaration against America as well. Do we as a country want God's laws to rule our country? are not. Like Jimmy says, if all of us were on a boat and we were somewhere out in an unknown place in the ocean, we ran up on a desert island and we were stuck there for the rest of our lives. What rule would we use to make our law code? Would it be God's law? Would it be the scriptures? Or would we just push it aside and start inventing it ourselves? Well, do we want to follow God's laws as Americans? or has the false idea of the division of religion and state not expelled God from business and from medicine and from schools and universities and the civil government and from public interchange? We have officially forbidden the Ten Commandments to be publicly displayed in federal property. The law of God, the word of God, the ten commandments of God, the first and second great commandment of God, they are held in disdain. And we can't possibly expect God to turn away his punishment from America unless we acknowledge our guilt and ask to be forgiven. The fourth indictment was against Edom. And Amos in 111 says this, for three transgressions and for four I will not turn away its punishment. Why? Because they, what, hate God's people and live in an unrelenting rage against them. You see that in your text there. If Amos again had stopped his message right here, the people of Judah and Israel would have said, you've really hit the nail on the head with them, Amos. But in America, do we not have the same blindness? Are not Christians more and more suffering persecution here? The more outspoken you are as a Christian, the more persecution don't you receive? And don't you subject yourselves to possible harm from civil governments and state governments and so forth? In September, In America, Christians were arrested in Idaho for singing Psalms without a mask. Churches across America were fined for meeting for worship. Governments are making it harder and harder for parents to raise their children by Christian principles. And why? Because governments want to take the place of God in authority, and they want to take the place of God in providing for your needs. So they will take all that you have so that they can give some of it back, and they demand complete allegiance. But we're not lemmings as Christians. We're not lemmings who follow the whims and the mandates of a nation that is contrary to the law of God. But as Americans, as what we see around us now, do we expect God to turn away the punishment of America for allowing the God of government to usurp his place in everything? Well, of course we can't expect God to not punish us unless we acknowledge our guilt and repent. Fifth, the fifth indictment was against Ammon in Amos 1.13. For three transgressions of the people of Ammon and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because they And then, this is absolutely awful, it says, they gutted pregnant women. They killed women and babies. They had blood guilt on them. Ammon was very guilty. And again, Judah and Israel, they hear this, and they hear this accusation, they hear this indictment, they hear this promise that God is not going to turn away punishment from them, and they think, what a great message, Amos, you've really conquered our enemy now, so we don't even have to raise our sword against them, you will take care of this. But wouldn't that, what about America? Would we join with Judah? Would we join with Israel and say, boy, Amos, you have really put Ammon in its place? Can we do that? No, in America, we offer RU486, which is baby murder by mail. Women are lied to about the effects of that on their bodies. And so can we expect God to turn away the punishment of this nation for this crime against him unless we acknowledge our guilt and repent to be forgiven? The sixth of the eight indictments is against Moab. Amos chapter two, verse one. For three transgressions of Moab and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. Why? Because he mutilated the corpse of the king of Edom. Now, you might think, well, of course he shouldn't mutilate a corpse of a human being. That was horrible, and that's against God's law. But I think the real point here is that they mutilated the corpse of the king of Edom to make a point. They were opposing authority. They did not want human authority that might be properly imposed under God. But so this is the crime here. They were against authority and they were mutilating the body of a human being. So again, if Amos had stopped preaching right here, the people would have thought, well, Edom is getting what it deserves, and we're especially glad that God is going to get them for the disrespect of authority. Good word, Amos. But Judah and Israel, And America, we're doing the same things. We show disrespect for the human body. Look how we just mutilate human bodies. We do all kinds of things to a body that we think we own when the Bible says we don't own it. God owns our bodies. And we disrespect human authority. And this, our God's authority, all authority. And this is an epidemic in America today. Children disrespect their parents and they're taught to. Parents are being stripped of their authority in the homes. Pastors who preach according to the scriptures are disrespected and called legalistic simply for repeating God's word. And just like Amos did not stop declaring God's message, so we must persevere as well. In fact, the focus of Amos preaching and prophecy is that if these foreign nations that were not under the covenant of God, they were not under the They were under the providence of God, but they were not under the smiling providence of God as a matter of course. If these foreign nations could not escape God's wrath, due them for their sins, then Judah and Israel will also not escape from God's wrath, due them for their sins. And I want to say, neither will America. Well then, the message of Amos hits home. The seventh of the indictments of Judah come home because Judah is the home of Jerusalem, God's city, and the temple, the place of God's worship. Amos 2.4, it says, for three transgressions of Judah, and really Judah and Israel because they were divided but they were really seen as one, And for four, I will not turn away its punishment because, verse four, because they have despised the law of the Lord and have not kept his commandments. Their lies lead them astray, lies which their fathers followed, meaning generationally, covenantally. This is covenantal sin. But I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, the palaces of Jerusalem. That was a knife in the heart to these people because Jerusalem and the palaces of Jerusalem, meaning the temple, that was their love. That was what they saw as the optimum in this world. So all of a sudden, of course, the cheering for Amos would be stopped. And they'd say, whoa, Amos, what are you saying? And in Amos day, the people were all about the punishment of the surrounding enemy nations. But what is this? You're saying that God who has said He loves us is going to punish us? Why aren't you indicting them instead of us? And Israel and Judah were blindsided only because of their blindness caused by their sin. Sin darkens the heart. Sin causes us to not be able to see the truth. Zephaniah 117, listen to these words. And they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord. This is called the noetic effect of sin, the darkening of the mind, the hardening of the mind. They shall walk as blind men because they have sinned against the Lord. God does not let sin just go any way that we want it. We can't just ignore it. He doesn't ignore it. So what this means is that instead of recognizing what a gift they had in the law of God, how valuable the word of God was as the creator, how wise the word of God is, these people were despising it, despising it. And what does it mean to despise? It means to show contempt, to show deep repugnance, to abhor, to hate, to loathe, to show hostility toward, to feel animosity toward, and to find intolerable. Last week, I was looking at my little app on my phone called Neighborhood. Y'all know what Neighborhood is? I don't know much about apps, but this is one. And the comment came up on Neighborhood about recommending doctors, particularly orthopedic doctors, and I thought I might have a little knowledge about orthopedic doctors, especially in this area. And the people started downing the doctors and saying all kinds of things about them that were unfounded. So I took it upon myself to comment. I said, I thank God that God has raised up doctors, that they love people, they love to help people, that God gave them special brain power and skills to care for us when we need them, when we need physicians. In just seconds, almost a half a dozen irate responses came on my phone. You should be removed for bringing God into this conversation about health care. God has no place in the conversation about health care. Who do you think you are? And I didn't even quote a Bible verse, but somebody says, you think you're the only one in the world who knows what the Bible says. Well, I know what the Bible says, too. And it says that God loves all people and helps those who can't, helps those who help themselves. You ever said that? Benjamin Franklin said that. There's no way in the Bible. If you can find God helps those who help themselves in the Bible, I will eat the Bible. I'll eat my hat, as they used to say. Well, this is what God, you know, this is what God has against them. They felt and acted this way against his word. And there's another way to demonstrate that you may not be willing to declare that you have that posture toward his word. But does your Bible have dust on it? Do you read it intentionally and study it? Do you refer to it so that you can learn what God's will is for your life, so that you can do what He wants you today to do? If we just ignore it, if we're just casual with it, God says, you're despising my word. You're despising my word. He gave us one book and he expects us to know it and expects us to live by it. But today in America, The real posture toward the law word of God is disdain and despising. And when we read from the word things like homosexuality is sinful, that God will punish the sinner who commits such acts, that a nation that engages in pride moth, that Wait a minute, wait a minute, you just need to be loving. Well, I am loving because I care about these people. I want to tell them the truth so they can turn away from it before the punishment of God is visited. But we're accused of being intolerant and not loving the sinner, but the opposite is true. to go along with any sin, mine or yours or the nation's, is to despise the word of God and to shrink from or to recoil or to feel hostility to the law of God is a crime against God himself that we need to repent of and we need to show the works in keeping with repentance by getting our Bibles out and finding really competent, not just willy-nilly Bible studies where people ask the question, what do you feel the Bible says? I don't care what you feel the Bible says. The question is, what does the Bible say? What does the text say? And you figure out what the text actually says, and then you're supposed to live accordingly. Because the word is to be loved and lived by the Christian. It's bread to the hungry soul. It's water to the spiritual thirst. It's life to his body. We have a catechism that asks what rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. The word of God which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. And what do the scriptures principally teach? The scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man. You see, he is the sovereign ruler and he demands to be recognized as such by all mankind or pay the price. So with all this in mind, do, You want to hear God's Word as though it is good for you, as it is your rule of faith and practice, as though it is your guide to faith? Do you see it as more precious than gold, yea, more valuable than much fine gold? If so, then you will properly study the Word of God with real intention to know it. And you will start using the language that the Bible uses about sin. We call sin, sin. We don't make excuses for sin because there's no remedy for those excuses. But the blood of Christ is the remedy for our sin. Will we take orders about what to accept and what to reject as Americans? About what to love and what to hate as people of God who are Americans? About what to embrace and what to say no to as people who are Christians and who are Americans? Will we take what's true and right and will we take our marching orders from God's word? or will we take it from the world? Well, Judah was actively and energetically rejecting God's truth, and therefore Judah was not at all concerned to keep the Ten Commandments, the first and second great commandment, they weren't concerned at all with what God had said. And if you think this sermon from Amos is not to us, but to others who need it because we don't, then judgment is coming. A miracle will face punishment. And finally, the eighth indictment is against Israel herself, verse 6, chapter 2, verse 6. For three transgressions of Judah and Israel, but Israel. And for four, I will not turn away its punishment because Verse six, they sell the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals. What's going on here? They're practicing slavery, and they have a low value on human life. They will find the down and outs of society, and they will put them under pressure to obey them, to be their masters, so that the down and out will become their service. Because they have a little more, they have a little more power. So slavery is being practiced and oppression of the poor. And then look at verse 7. They pant after the dust of the earth, which is on the head of the poor, and pervert the way of the humble. And the humble. humble people, those who were needy due to circumstances, those who didn't have pride, those who weren't trying to make the power play. But the people with financial means were actively pressuring the poor to sell themselves as indentured servants. And these were Jews selling or buying Jews, their fellow Jews, their fellow people, people they were in covenant with. And they weren't helping their own people. In fact, they were making money off of the suffering and the hardship of the poor. So are we looking out for each other as Christians as we should? Are we caring for the needs of the people around us and looking for ways to do so? You know, may it never be that we would use people, oppress people, try to enslave people, because to do so is to invite God's very punishment. So we must not be unaware of the sins in our own midst. So what's the solution? Well, Judah belonged to God, Israel belonged to God, and you as believers are the new Israel, and you belong to God. So we have a conditional promise. And we're gonna find more of this later in Amos, but I'm gonna zero in on one verse that's not in Amos, 2 Chronicles 7, 14. And it says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Notice what it says here, this is conditional. If it starts with my people. So you've got to be his person. You've got to be in Christ. You've got to be in covenant with him. You can't be just outside and expect any benefit from God. If my people who are called by my name. We want to be called by His name. I don't want to be called by names of any false god. I don't want to be called by any other name than by the name of Christ, the name of God. I want to be recognized as one who is owned by the Father, owned by Christ, owned by God the Holy Spirit. And then, if that's true, humble themselves. We need to humble ourselves, put ourselves in the same place as maybe the down and outers that we find in the previous passage in Amos. Humble themselves and pray. We need to pray. We have a prayer meeting every Wednesday night at eight o'clock. We need to pray. We pray together. We need to pray for our church. We need to pray for our city. We need to pray for our state, our country and the world. We need to pray and seek my face to think about the idea of seeing God face to face. is an amazing faith thing. But when we're praying, we are seeking His face. We're seeking for God to look at us and to sift us. I don't want to be sifted by the devil. Remember, Peter was going to be sifted by the devil, and Jesus said, I prayed for you that the devil will not sift you. But we ought to be sifted by God. He ought to look at us, and He ought to purify us and take the dross away. All of the sins away, the guilt away, the things that are between us and him, we want to seek his face. And then the next phrase, and turn from your wicked ways. Repentance requires an action. It's a change of mind that always results in a change of action. A change of mind that results in a change of action. Then it says, so if then, there's the if then clause, if then I will hear from heaven. God will hear. Isaiah 59, 1 and 2 says that your sins have caused a separation between you and your God so that he will not hear your prayers. But God is saying here that if you will be in Christ by faith, call on his name, humble yourself, pray, then he's going to hear our prayers. I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sins. What's more important to you than the forgiveness of your sin? When when you are facing death, there's nothing going to be more important to you than knowing that you are going to be clean before the Lord and not be bearing condemnation in his presence. It's essential. It's going to be everything to you. And then I will heal their land. So it's bigger than just us. It's us and the people around us and our land. So we, as churchmen, as Christians, we need to be worshiping. We need to be praying together on Wednesdays and other times. We need to be attending the ladies' discipleship. We need to be attending the men's discipleship. And we need to be showing that we care about one another and we care about our nation. We care about our church. It's important. And Amos will stop preaching now because the sermon's over. Amen.