The reading today comes from Amos 9, 7 through 15. "'Are you not like people of Ethiopia to me, O children of Israel?' says the Lord. "'Did I not bring Israel from the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Camptor, and the Syrians from Cairo? Behold, the eyes of the Lord are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. For surely I will command and will sift the house of Israel among all nations. As grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, the calamities shall not overtake nor confront us. On that day I will rise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages. I'll raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Eden. And all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, does this thing. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the plow mound shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed. The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back the captives of my people, Israel. They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them. They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them, says the Lord your God. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. I've read quite a few books on the Book of Amos, and all the commentators have at least one thing in common in their opinion of Amos, and that is that there is no good news in the Book of Amos. But I intend to show you otherwise today as we look at this book, as we conclude this book, as we wrap it up. And over and over in the previous eight chapters, Amos has repeatedly condemned the people for their sin. He has condemned and pressed hard on God's promises to bring judgment to sinners like us. There is no squirm room left. The message is that God's unrelenting exposure of the people's sin, His personal displeasure, His looming wrath, has resulted in His extraordinary actions to get our attention and warn us. Well, that in itself is good news that God has gone to extraordinary actions in order to get our attention and to warn us. And so many people may be surprised at this as we talk about this. And Amos is definitely not going to be included in the guy's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I forgot his name. Yeah, Carnegie. Because there's nothing in Amos, he does not speak sweet nothings in any sense. So, in fact, Amos would be thrown out of the majority of churches in America, and yet his message would probably go a long way to waking America up and shaking her out of her current plight. Without preachers like Amos, People cannot know that God is very serious about our conduct. Without pastors who care enough to warn His people of the bad news, the people will perish in ignorance, when it could have been avoided, when perishing could have been avoided. Proverbs 5.23 says, He shall die for lack of instruction. and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray." Die for the lack of instruction. I think many have died for lack of information, lack of instruction. And how many Americans, with even our access to Bibles everywhere, would know that in Ezekiel 8.20, God says, the soul that sins, or the soul who sins, will die. So the Bible is pretty much a closed book to the masses today. And so many dear people don't have the opportunity to hear these hard but essential truths. And therefore they almost never think of God's coming day of wrath. Many, many people don't know the gravity of sin's penalties. Many are not sure of the fact that we have actually sinned. You know, what is sin? Unless you know that sin is any lack of conformity or any one of conformity or transgression of the law of God, you wouldn't know. And I think, therefore, that few expect to hear God personally pronounce judgment on our every sinful thought, word, and deed, whether that deed be done in public or whether we thought we have done it in private, in secret, where no one knows. Hebrews 4.13 tells us, There's no creature hidden from God's sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. So there are no secrets from God. And in talking to people about the Bible, and talking to people about their lives, and talking about the gospel, I find so many people don't see any need for the good news of Jesus. and they don't see any need for forgiveness. They're cruising along through life and they just think that they're their own, they belong to themselves, and what they want to do is what they ought to do. You know, when I get on a commercial airline flight, probably like you, I don't wear a parachute. And why do I not wear a parachute? Because I don't think I need a parachute. I have a sense of safety. I have even a sense of comfort. And I fly on these airplanes because certainly there's a sense of efficiency. But if the pilot got on the airplane with a parachute and the co-pilot got on with a parachute and they shut the door, I might think that maybe I need a parachute too. We in America, particularly in America, this is the nation I know, we just think that we're just safe and our nation's so strong and we're so healthy and our medical system can just fix anything that's wrong with us and what could go wrong? So few people think of the consequences of sin and our sense of need of a Savior. And if we think of sin at all, we think of sin as very minor, even if we think of it at all. So many people face eternity and I think that they think it's far enough in the future that there is no need today to be concerned about eternity because surely that's way off and I can get it right later. unless you spend time with people, talking to them about spiritual truths, I believe that most of you would be surprised at how many people who are casually, you know, visiting Savannah, walking the streets of Savannah as tourists or citizens even, who are people attentively sitting in classrooms at Armstrong, or mothers rocking their children to sleep, or men working diligently to support their family, yet they've never heard the important bad news that God is holy and that God has obligated Himself to punish guilty sinners. By nature, He must punish guilty sinners. So, people are surprised when I explain to them the math of hell. You ever heard of the math of hell? Well, what is the math of hell? Why don't you tally with me here for a second. If we committed just one sin each minute, in 70 years that makes us accountable to God for 36,817,200 violations of God's holy law. Just one a minute. If you committed one an hour in 70 years, that would make you accountable to God for 613,620 crimes against God's holy law. If we committed one sin a day, we'd be saints, wouldn't we? One a day. people would want to canonize us. But in 70 years, that would make us guilty of 25,568 sins against God's holy laws. So, the If we committed just one sin each week in 70 years, that would make us accountable to God for 3,640 trespasses. If we committed one sin a month in 70 years, that would be 840 breaches against God's holy law. And if we committed just one sin each year, in 70 years, that would make us accountable to God for 70 illegal acts against God's holy law. Now, what kind of a judge, a righteous judge, a just judge, is going to allow that kind of disregard for his law. What kind of judge is going to allow that kind of law breaking to go on? We break these laws and precept, which means each law individually or an individual act of disobedience, or in principle. By the time you've committed, if you went to the traffic court with 70 traffic tickets, the judge would probably treat you as more than having violated misdemeanors. Because if you've got 70 traffic tickets, you are in disregard of the principle of law itself. And the judge would have to see you as especially dangerous on the streets if you will do that 70 times. What else will you do? By principle, you're a lawbreaker. So, we must always remember that God never abolishes or nullifies His law. He never winks at sin. No person's life and conduct ever becomes unimportant to God. But God cares, and He cares deeply. Therefore, He is actively informing us. He does not leave us to flounder and figure things out for ourselves as though it doesn't matter that we know right from wrong. Only an evil God or an evil pastor would not care enough to tell you the bad news. So God lovingly gives us perfect pictures of His requirements, like in the Ten Commandments that we just mentioned a few moments ago. are in the summary of God's commands in Deuteronomy 6, 5 and Mark 12, 30, which the first and second great commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. He's given us 66 books of the older and newer testaments. so that we can learn what He wants. And of course, He's given us His perfect Son to show us how unlike Him we really are and how much we need forgiveness for not being like Christ, being that perfect, which is what's required. So there is a meeting and a reckoning for which we need to get prepared. And how do we know this? Because in Amos 4.12, God in His goodness gives us a heads up about what's going to happen. He says, prepare to meet your God, O Israel. But you say, but wait a minute. I'm afraid to have this meeting with God due to my 70 sins, or my 37 million sins, or maybe my more than 37 million sins. But you see, God is saying, I'm preparing you. I'm telling you about these sins because I'm preparing you to meet Me, says Yahweh. That's what Amos 4.12 says. And I'm starting by showing you My power over you. In chapter 4, in verse 6, He talks about how He has brought empty stomachs. He's brought famine to the land. He's brought trouble to the people. He's made crops fail. Why? so that He could get their attention. But it concludes verse 6 with, "...yet you have not returned to Me." In verse 7 and 8, no rain, no water, they're going from city to city to drink. God's causing it to rain on some cities, but not on others. Why? To get their attention. And then God says, yet you have not returned to Me. And then in verse 9, He talks about ruining their crops. They're hungry. When people get hungry, usually they're looking around for what's wrong. And yet... They were not looking to God. And he says, you have not returned to me. In verse 10, he sends plagues that remind us of the plagues that he sent on Egypt. And they should have remembered those plagues and remembered that God was getting Pharaoh's attention, God is getting their attention. And yet, you have not returned to me. There are examples of specific judgments of certain people in verse 11. He's... punishing one and letting another be punished a different way and at different times to get their attention. And he says, Yet you have not returned to me. And verse 12 says, Therefore thus will I do to you. So God is saying, I'm going to do this to you, O Israel, because I will do this to you. Prepare to meet your God, O Israel. And then after, in the 13th verse, he explains his power. He's got the power to bring plagues and cause it to rain over certain cities and not others. But then He explains His power to create, showing who He is and the authority that He has over them. And that as their Creator, He has authority. Verse 13, For behold, He who forms mountains, who can form a mountain but God, and creates the wind, I would think that creating wind might be harder than forming a mountain. I can get a shovel and pile up dirt, but I can't make the wind go. Who declares to man what his thought is? Anybody here can tell me what I'm thinking right now? and makes the morning darkness, who treads the high places of the earth. The Lord God of hosts is His name. The Lord God of armies is His name." So this Creator God is much more interested in these people coming to Him. He's interested in their holiness. much more than He is their happiness. And He's much more interested in you coming to Him and recognizing His glorious goodness and His ability to provide salvation than He is in any of our earthly status or our possessions or our connections. God is clearly interested in people, His people coming to Him. So what will we find when we finally come to Him? Because He's promised that we're going to come to Him. We are, every one of us will stand face to face with God. Some of us sooner than others. Who will be the next one in the grave? It might be me. When I stand before God face to face, what should I expect? What does Amos tell the people to expect when they meet God? Well, if you turn to Amos chapter 9, he begins to talk about God here. And in verse 7, he says, "...Are you not like the people of Ethiopia to me, O children of Israel?" says the Lord. The people of Israel, were not like the people of Ethiopia. And yet, so they thought. And yet, God says, I'm not going to give you a pass. I'm not going to give you a pass because you are Israel. I am not going to give you a pass because I have called you my children. Yes, I have revealed my personal name to you, and yes, I have treated you as special people. In fact, I've treated you as family, says Amos 3, 2. But you only have I known as the family. And when we think about being his family, what happens next? I, as a family member, am more accountable than I would be if I were not a family member. You know, I don't spank your children, and you better not spank mine. Why? You have no authority over my children. I have none over years. But he made a covenant with us. And all this is true, Amos responds, and he says that he delivered the people of Cush in Egypt, 2 Samuel 18, 21 and following. He did the same for the Philistines and the Syrians, but the attitude of these so-called God's people is worse than the other nations because they are family. That's why it's worse. And for this very reason, God has treated Israel so well It's an affront to His goodness that they are now turning against Him and will not return to Him. They have greater responsibility because they carry His name. I know a man and a woman who adopted a child. And they gave this little boy their name. They raised their son to be special. He grew up living a life that was much more privileged than what would have happened if they had not chosen him and loved him and cared for him and nurtured him and provided for him. And yet, the little boy got the idea that he was his own master, and he became ungrateful. He became contrary to his parents. He became uncommunicative to his parents. He got sullen with them. And it wasn't long in his teenage years, he became a criminal. And when he was caught, he called his parents to help him out. He asked him for bail, he asked him for lawyer fees, he asked them if he could be allowed to come back into their home for a while. And you can only imagine the shock the boy received when his parents told the prosecutor that not only were they not going to give him bail and pay for his lawyers, but they were going to testify against their own son in court. Best thing they could have done for him. Best thing. But you know, people say, but mom, but dad. And when God testifies against us, even though we're His children, we might think, but God, but God, I'm special. I get a pass, don't I? I'm yours, I get a pass. Nope. In love, you are held accountable that you may turn. In love, you are held accountable that you may return. If God loves you, He will not let you go. In John 16, 8, He says that before the Holy Spirit is the comforter, He's the discomforter. He causes you to be convicted of your sin. So God rejects Israel's claim to safety due to who they are. And this is because faith is supposed to make a real difference in how they lived and how they responded to God in worship and obedience. So we too, as Christians, we're supposed to have faith. And that faith is supposed to make a difference in how we live, and how we worship, and how obedience in our lives look. But does it? Do we look at God as the one who makes sure that we always have more forgiveness than we have sin? Do we look to Him to keep our bank account between sin and forgiveness balanced? Do we look to Him as nothing but for hell insurance? We live in a nation that we seek to, I think, I know you, I know that you seek to live a life that's different, that's special. And yet, we live in a nation that can eclipse the visibility of our individual lives as we seek to live in faith. Paul says that obedience comes from faith. And yet our lives should display that we are citizens of heaven, that we are committed to holy living and not committed to living the common life. And yet, This week, last week, how many times did we fall back into living the common life, where if somebody had walked by who understood what a Christian was and heard you talking with your friends, would have had any indication that you were a Christian or not. Were you like the world or were you not? See, we can become common, we can become mundane, we can become very worldly. We can, as Christians, do the worst thing of all, and that is become indistinct. unnecessary in our faith. By faith we are in the world, but we're not of the world. By faith we are true sons and daughters of the covenant, and we should live like it. And of ultra importance, we are saved by grace from our real 37 million plus sins, how? By Jesus in whom we trust and by whose blood we are washed completely clean. So, we look at the next verse in verse 8. He says here, Behold the eyes of the Lord are on the sinful kingdom and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Wait a minute, God, that's so hard and that sounds so absolute and that's just the end of things, right? No, that's only half of the verse. Yes, we're sinful and we deserve to, I deserve to be destroyed, but verse, the second part of that, yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. He will not utterly do it. And here we see mercy. Not a pass. We see mercy. We see Him doing something in order to take away the guilt of our sin. Awakening us by His Holy Spirit so that we can apprehend who God is and we can return to Him. And the inescapable judgment is not inescapable after all when we go at it God's way. What's impossible for us to accomplish is very possible for God to accomplish. And this radical problem of sin has a radical remedy. Mercy will be provided by the just and righteous Lord. who will justly save us from His own wrath. Deuteronomy 4.31, For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not forsake you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them. So there is a threat of destruction. And yet it's followed by clear encouragement that not all will be destroyed. So who are those who will escape God's wrath? Those who are by grace are given the ability to apprehend the mercy of God. Calvin says this, here the prophet Amos sets forth God's consolation that we might perceive mercy. Threatening alone is not God's whole method and would cast even the strongest into despair. You've got to have hope. That's absolutely true. You've got to have hope. As people, we cannot and we will not admit our sins. We will not admit our mistakes. We will not admit our crimes and repent of them unless we can apprehend mercy. And on the human level, I'm going to tell you, as a man, Men are typically dirtbacks. Y'all know that, right? Girls shake your head, yes, that's true. On a human level, men do not admit their errors, to a wife particularly, if she wants to rub his nose in the error. He won't do it. Unless there's an atmosphere of mercy in the home, the man won't respond. Don't look at him like that, I say. We have to apprehend mercy. If a mother is a scolding mother, if a wife is a scolding wife, if a husband is a scolding father, if a husband is a scolding dad, then You will not get many results in the relationship, even if the scolding and the rubbing of the nose in this crime is through the silent treatment. Shorter Catechism, question 87. Ask, what is repentance unto life? And it says, "...repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ..." There it is, "...apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief and hatred for his sin, turn from it unto God with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience." So God, through Amos, He comes to these people and He's saying, here, apprehend the mercy of God. There is mercy in God. And Amos assures his readers that once the judgment and the exile has passed, that restoration is available to them. In Amos 9.11, it says, So here, I want to cite Calvin again. He says, We know that whenever the prophets designed to give hope to a distressed people, they set forth the Messiah. For only in Messiah are all the promises of God. It is no wonder then that the prophets, after having prophesied of the destruction of the people, should recall the minds of the faithful to remember the Messiah. This is the importance of the whole. After having shown that the people had no hope, from themselves. He now includes, the Lord will yet have mercy on his people, for he will remember his covenant. God's remedy for our sin is Messiah. And we look on at verse 12, and what do we see? We see Him saving the Gentiles. We see Him saving the nations. And why is He doing that? Because it says in verse 12 that they are called by My name, says the Lord. And an amazing thing to say that they're called by the Lord. And then in verse 14, He makes a great promise of mercy again. I will bring them back. I will bring back the captives. I will rebuild. I will cause to inhabit. I will plant. I will cause them to be able to have drink again. These blessings reverse the earlier futility curses that God has brought. Here the Lord is showing mercy. And in verse 15, I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them, says the Lord your God. The Lord promises here security to his people. He promises that he will fulfill his covenant with David. He will include Gentiles in that covenant. And 2 Samuel 7 says this, He shall build a house for my name, talking about David, and he will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he shall be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. but my mercy shall not depart from Him." Isn't that just wonderful? My mercy shall not depart from Him. So, these promises are to those of faith, whether they be Jew or whether they be Gentile. When we talk about Gentiles, I believe that all of us are Gentiles, but we're actually children of Abraham. We're completed Jews, true Jews, if we have faith. And how do these promises come about? What will happen to bring about the reality of God, of this plan of God? We have to acknowledge God is the creator of all and therefore He's the authority over each one of us and over our nation. You see, God is working His purpose out in our lives. He's showing us mercy, He's giving us repentance, or He's giving us wrath and ruin. There's only two things. There's mercy and repentance, or there's wrath and ruin. And each of God's children, if he personally repents of living for himself, And he bows before his Creator and says, you're worthy for me to live for, for me to recognize as my Lord. How do you spell Lord? B-O-S-S, Lord. You're worthy to be my Lord, then there is mercy. And this book of Amos is not... foremost a history lesson. It's a call to you. It's a call to me to be God's people. People whom he is disciplining at the present. Anybody here doubt that America's being disciplined right now? It's just impossible to think that we're not being disciplined. And it's right now. And it's as a nation. And it's personally. And it's in our families. Covenantally, you see, we're guilty. Personally, we're casual with the things of God. We're casual about worship. In our families, we often take our cues from the culture rather than spending our time washing our families, our wives, our children in the washing of the Word and so forth. So through Amos, we are We have a call, and we're called to not just sit idly by and let things happen. We have to develop a jealousy that God be seen as the creator, that He be seen as the authority, that He be seen as actively involved in our lives, working out His purpose in your life, in my life, in the life of our nation. I don't like the way our nation's going right now, But God has a plan for our nation and He's going to work that purpose out. And it's going to be either wrath and destruction or it's going to be mercy and salvation. And He's a God full of mercy. We need to personally devote ourselves to God in daily study of His Word and prayer and in fellowship and in communion. We need to pray for God the Holy Spirit to give us discipline to grow in our knowledge and love for Him. And there are men and women in this very church who, if you want help, if you want just a partner, you already know how to be disciplined. But you just want a partner in prayer. You want a partner in devotional life. You want a partner to discuss things of life, of marriage, of work. There are people in this congregation who are more than glad to help you and more than competent to help you and your family. It's important that you be a strong Christian. If you're an emaciated Christian, you cannot benefit your husband. If you're an emaciated Christian, you cannot benefit your wife, or your children, or your grandchildren. You need to be full of Scripture. You need to be full of God the Holy Spirit so that Scripture and truth and love and the fruit of the Spirit will wash, will pour out of you, will wash over those people around you that you see healthy families spill over into and strengthen each other and the church. Our vibrancy as part of the bride of Christ needs to show that we recognize God's chosen means to proclaim His truth and to proclaim His will on the earth. And yet, we're only as healthy as we attend to the means of grace, and as God the Holy Spirit works in us, as we live out the covenant, as we think about the family covenant, the marriage covenant, and so forth. And back to the nation. God has called us to be organized in nations with unique cultures, Yet, we need to be unified in the gospel. We need to take the gospel to other nations. We need to become bold in proclaiming that God is the God of the nations, that God is the God of the church, that God is the God of families, that God is the God of you, that God is the God of me. And He is the only God. And as we think about this, as we understand this truth, we need to declare it openly and we need to live it openly. We need to live it unapologetically. We need to be worthy of our calling as His children. And we need to expect Him to show His strength in us. God can show His strength in our lives, in your life. And what does your life matter anyway when it comes to thinking about eternity and the glory of God? I don't want to end up my life pouring my life down a rat hole. I want my life to count. I want my life to mean something. I want it to be different and I want your life to be different. So I'd like for us to, as we think about this, to take your little insert in your bulletin And I'd like for us to conclude by reciting this together as God's cause. God's cause is mercy. God's cause is life. You will see, I'd like for us to read this together, and I will lead us together. Sovereign God, thy cause, not my own, engages my heart, and I appeal to thee with greatest freedom to set up thy kingdom in every place where Satan reigns. Glorify thyself, and I shall rejoice, for to bring honor to thy name is my sole desire. I adore thee that thou art God, and long that others should know it, feel it, and rejoice in it. O that all men might love and praise thee, that thou mightest have all glory from the intelligent world! Let sinners be brought to Thee for Thy dear name. To the eye of reason, everything respecting the conversation of others is as dark as midnight, but Thou canst accomplish great things. The cause is Thine, and it is to Thy glory that men should be saved. Lord, use me as Thou will. Do with me what thou wilt, but, O, promote thy cause. Let thy kingdom come, let thy blessed interests be advanced in this world. O, do thou bring in great numbers to Jesus. Let me see that glorious day, and give me to grasp for multitudes of souls. Let me be willing to die to that end. And while I live, let me labor for Thee to the utmost of my strength, spending time profitably in this work, both in health and in weakness. It is Thy cause and kingdom I long for, not my own. O answer Thou my request. Amen.