Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. Well, if we go back to the very first verse in the book of Amos, we're given details about the timing of the things that are written in this book. It says that these things happened when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II was king in Israel. And we know that Uzziah became king in Judah in 790 BC and he reigned for 52 years. And we also know that Jeroboam II had already been king in Israel for nine years by the time or when Uzziah became king in Israel. and Jeroboam reigned until 753 BC. And so there's a 37-year period between 790 BC and 753 BC when both Uzziah and Jeroboam were reigning over Judah and Israel. And we can say with complete confidence, therefore, that the events that Amos has written about in this book happened somewhere during this 37-year period. But Amos gives us another time marker that helps pinpoint the dating to an even more precise dating, a more specific dating. He says that these things took place two years before the earthquake. Now, Zechariah helps us know which earthquake he was talking about here. Writing roughly 100 years after Amos, Zechariah wrote in Zechariah 14-15, Then you shall flee through my mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach Azel. Yes, you shall flee, as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Now, obviously, that earthquake in the day of Uzziah was a big deal. It was a big earthquake. Not only does Amos take for granted that his readers know which earthquake he's talking about, but a century later, Zechariah assumes that his readers know about this same earthquake that took place in Uzziah's day. And as I said a moment ago, that earthquake was a big deal in Israel. It was like the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco in our culture, even though that happened 114 years ago. I don't need to explain to you what happened in 1906 because everybody knows what happened with that earthquake in San Francisco. All I need to do is make reference to the big earthquake in San Francisco, and you know what I'm talking about. Well, that's how it was in Israel. That's how it was with Amos and with Zechariah. Everybody knew about the earthquake that took place in Uzziah's day, when Uzziah was king of Judah. And the Jewish historian Josephus tells us that that earthquake occurred at the same time that God struck Uzziah with leprosy for having usurped the priestly office. And if we believe Josephus knew what he was talking about, then we can narrow the dating of the book of Amos to about 760 BC. 760 BC, give or take a year or two. Now, Having an accurate date for the book of Amos is helpful. It's very helpful because it lets us know something about the culture of Israel that Amos was prophesying to. Even if we dismiss what Josephus said, because that's extra biblical. So even if we want to use only what we find in scripture for the dating, we know that it happened within this 37-year period when Uzziah and Jeroboam were both king. And what we know about that period is that that entire 37-year period was characterized by political and economic prosperity. It was during these 37 years that Israel finally prevailed against Syria in reclaiming the land of Gilead, which had been contested for 100 years. In addition to this, God gave Israel military success in gaining additional territories. Israel, that is, expanded her borders to both the north as well as to the south. To the north, Israel claimed the territory all the way up to Hamath and Damascus. And to the south, she pushed her borders as far as the Dead Sea. And Jeroboam had even taken control over much of Lebanon and Moab. And so during the time of Amos' ministry, Israel was experiencing a strong sense of national security. A strong sense of national security. And along with this military prosperity came economic prosperity. Israel's economy flourished as new territories opened up new opportunities for trade and commerce. And a lot of people in Israel became very wealthy during Jeroboam's reign. When we get to Chapter 3, we're going to read about how the wealthy in Israel, many of them had multiple homes. They had a summer home as well as a winter home. And when we get into Chapter 6, we're going to read about how they furnished those homes with exquisite decor and with carved ivory furniture. Amos goes on in chapter 6 to tell us that the wealthy in Israel ate only the finest food and they drank large quantities of fine wine. And the biblical commentators tell us that not since the time of Solomon had Israel been in possession of so much territory and enjoyed so much prosperity and luxury and wealth. What I want you to see is that this prosperity had a negative impact upon Israel's reception of the message that Amos was bringing to her. Amos's job was to tell the people of Israel that God is not happy with them. Yet the people of Israel looked around and they saw only what they perceived to be the blessings of God on their nation. For the first time in over a century, they were secure from the threats of their surrounding neighboring nations. Their territory was expanding, their economy was booming. And so when Amos arrived and told them that God is not happy with them, this herdsman from Judah, their inclination was something like, How can you say God is not happy with us? How could you say that God is angry with us while he's blessing us and giving us so much prosperity and success? This conclusion arises from something that the theologians call the retribution principle. The retribution principle. What is the retribution principle? Well, it's the understanding that when people obey God, he will bless them. And when people disobey God, he will curse them. And the retribution principle is absolutely true. It is taught all throughout the Old and New Testaments. There are dozens and dozens of passages that teach us that God will bless those who obey him and will curse those who disobey him. But it's not always easy applying or knowing how to apply the retribution principle to our lives. This is largely because we're not always able to accurately discern between what is a blessing and what is a curse. We tend to think that blessings are things like wealth and good health and a comfortable life and the absence of pain and problems in our lives. And we tend to think that curses are things like, well, pain and difficulty in life and poverty and hardship and illness and so on. And sometimes we're right about those things. Sometimes God's providences do follow that pattern. In fact, they often follow that pattern. When one of us becomes sick, We pray for healing. And when God provides that healing, we rightfully count that to be a blessing from God. But then how do we explain those situations when God chooses not to provide healing? Do we conclude that in those cases that God is cursing the sick person? Or how do we explain those situations where the wicked prosper? Do we conclude that God is blessing the wicked because of their obedience to him? What we learn from the Bible is that security and prosperity in this life are not necessarily signs of God's good pleasure toward a person. just as hardship and difficulty in this life are not necessarily signs of God's displeasure toward a person. The Bible teaches us that God's providences in this life can appear paradoxical. The wicked will sometimes prosper, while the righteous will suffer under hardship. Jesus said the man who was born blind suffered, suffered for many, many years so that the work of God can be revealed in him. That challenges us. It challenges our understanding of how the retribution principle applies to the very real lives that we live on a day-to-day basis. Or take the parable that Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man was a wicked person. Yet he was clothed in purple and in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day of his life. Lazarus, on the other hand, lived in poverty and starvation and suffered from many physical ailments. Many people would mistakenly conclude from this that Lazarus must be suffering under the curse of God because of his disobedience, and the rich man must be enjoying the blessings of God because of his obedience. But when we listen to Jesus tell the rest of the parable, we learn that it's actually the exact opposite. It's the other way around. So we don't always properly discern between God's blessings and God's curses. The wealth, prosperity, and good health that God gives to the wicked will eventually prove to be a curse to them. That's because the wicked put their trust in those things rather than God. It's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. So what would you rather be? Rich in this life and eternally damned in the next or poor in this life and eternally blessed in the next. Jesus told the parable of a farmer whose crops. whose crop was so abundant that he needed to build bigger barns in order to store his harvest. And when he had done that, when he had successfully filled his large barns with his harvest, the farmer said to himself, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. And what did Jesus say God's response to this farmer was? Luke 12 20. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will be these things in which you have provided? The point being, the abundance of crops was not a blessing to this man. It was a curse. This was not a blessing to the farmer. It was a curse. It actually proved to be a curse. It was one of the reasons why the farmer did not trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, why he did not live his life in dependence upon God. His trust and his dependence was in the size and contents of his barns, which proved to be a curse to him. When seemingly good things happen to people, It's not always a blessing to them, although it may appear to be so initially. And when seemingly bad things happen to people, it's not always a curse, although it may seem initially to be so. Sometimes it's the exact opposite. In fact, quite often it's the exact opposite. God frequently uses difficulty and hardship in this life to draw his people into greater and greater dependence upon him, which results in eternal blessings that can never be taken away. Where moth and rust do not corrupt and destroy, thieves break in and steal. The biblical truth we frequently need to be reminded of is the children of God only receive blessings and never curses. The children of God only receive blessings and never curses. If you are united to Christ Jesus through faith, then his perfect obedience has been imputed to you. It now belongs to you. And consequently, God blesses you accordingly. And not only has Christ's obedience been imputed to you, but he has taken your disobedience away from you. And you will never ever bear the curse for your own disobedience because Christ bore that curse for you. Remember the assurance of pardon that we read just a few moments ago from 1 Peter 2.24? Christ himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed." And so the reality is that those who are in Christ Jesus receive only blessings from God, and those who are not in Christ Jesus receive only curses from God, regardless of what those blessings and curses may initially appear to be in this life. And so what's the point of all of this? The point is that blessings and curses are not always easily distinguishable from one another. The people of Israel made the grave mistake of thinking that the wealth and prosperity that they were enjoying was an indication of God's favor and approval upon them. But it was just the opposite. So God sent Amos to inform them of their error. Notice how Amos addressed the nation of Israel. He addresses them in the same way that he addressed the other seven nations that went before this. Verse six, thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because, and then Amos goes on to list multiple sins that Israel was guilty of. Now what's the same about the way Amos addresses here is the formula that he uses for three transgressions and for four. And we saw in a previous sermon that this is a poetic way of saying that Israel's sins are exhaustive. They are complete. They have run their course. They have reached their fulfillment. They have reached that level where they have exhausted God's patience. And what's different about the way Amos addresses Israel is the number of sins that he mentions. Whereas he only listed one or two sins with each of the other seven nations, here with Israel, he lists a minimum of five sins, maybe six or seven, depending on how you count, but at least five sins. And as we consider these five sins, I want you to remember that these are national sins. These are national sins. These are not the sins of just a few individual people who happen to be residing in Israel. These are the sins that were so widely committed within Israel that they characterized the nation. And we should conclude from this that the sins that are mentioned here, along with the sins that are attributed to the other seven nations as well, are the type of sins that characterize a corrupt nation. They're the type of sins that characterize a corrupt nation or they're the type of sins that characterize a corrupt society. Since Amos' message concerning all eight of these nations has been that God is fed up with their wickedness and their depravity, so much so that he's bringing judgment upon those eight nations, we would do well, we would be wise to sit up and to take notice of what a corrupt society looks like. What are those sins that when they reach that national level, God says, that's enough. My patience is exhausted. I'm done. I'm through. Judgment will now pursue." The first sin that Amos mentions concerning Israel is selling justice. In the 16th century, Martin Luther spoke out against the Roman Catholic Church for selling indulgences. In a very similar manner, Amos is speaking out against Israel for selling justice. He says at the end of verse six, they sell the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals. You might think that when Amos says they sell the righteous for silver that he's referring to slavery, that Israel was guilty of selling their, you know, her fellow countrymen into slavery. But that's not what Amos is talking about here. He's talking about betrayal. He's talking about how quickly, how easily the people of Israel would sell out to the highest bidder. Amos is describing the backstabbing and the cheating and the dishonesty that characterizes people who value money more than they value people, who value money more than they value integrity, who value money more than they value relationships. He's describing those who give bribes as well as those who receive bribes in order to pervert justice. Those who, for the right amount of silver, or perhaps for a pair of Air Jordans, will look the other way when injustices are committed. Amos is describing people who justify their sinful behavior, their oppression of the poor, their betrayal of those who are righteous by saying, You know, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. You got to do what you got to do. The second sin Amos mentions is closely related to the first. In verse 7a he says, they pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor and pervert the way of the humble. Now this is a a really difficult verse to translate. And you can get an idea of that if you just compare different English translations and see how there's quite a variation from one to the other. I think the ESV, English Standard Version, does the best job in this particular instance. The ESV says, those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted. those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted." This is talking about denying justice to those who are oppressed. Whereas the first sin was selling justice to the highest bidder, the second sin is denying justice to those who rightfully and truly deserve it. in every society, including Israel, but even in our own society. In every society, there are always people who can easily be taken advantage of because they don't have much of an opportunity for recourse, right? You can take advantage. These people can be taken advantage of because Those who are taking advantage of them know that they're not going to be able to retaliate or to have some form of recourse. And these are the people who patiently endure mistreatment because they don't have much of a voice in society. Sometimes that's because they're uneducated and just don't know any better. Sometimes it's because they're immigrants and they have not been afforded the same protection as citizens. Remember in the ancient world how the Apostle Paul was mistreated until they found out he was a Roman citizen and everything was different, right? That's the type of oppression I'm talking about. Sometimes it's because a person who's being denied justice doesn't have the financial resources to pursue some type of recourse in the courts. Just can't do it. And in other times, it's because the person who's denied justice is just patiently waiting for the Lord to deal with that situation. They're patiently waiting for the Lord to take vengeance upon them. They understand what the Bible says. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. He will repay. And so they patiently endure injustice, waiting for the Lord to repay. All the above. regardless of what the scenario is, all the above can be lumped into Amos's description of people whose heads are being trampled into the dust of the earth. Amos is saying that Israel was doing the trampling. Israel was unmercifully stamping on the people's heads trampling them into the dust of the earth, and God was not going to let Israel do that any longer. The denial of justice was more than what God was able to bear. Now the third, fourth, and fifth sins are immorality, oppression of the poor, and false worship. Immorality, oppression of the poor, and false worship. And Amos presents these three sins kind of in a cohesive togetherness as a way of showing how they're connected to each other, how they overlap, how depravity breeds depravity, how sin, once indulged, never stays confined to a single area of life, but it metastasizes into many other areas of a person's life. Look at verses 7b and 8. a man and his father go into the same girl to defile my holy name. They lie down by every altar on clothes taken in pledge and drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their God." Now, when Amos says that a man and his father go into the same girl, he's talking about the sinful types of relations that are described in Leviticus 18. It's similar to the situation Paul was denouncing in 1 Corinthians 5, where a man in the Corinthian church was having relations with his father's wife. The law of God makes it exceedingly clear that this is a detestable behavior to God. Leviticus 18, after defining this as detestable and after having defined similar relations as sinful, God says in Leviticus 18, verse 26, you shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you. lest the land vomit you out when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you." Now remember, the people of Israel had been given Leviticus 18, as well as the rest of the law, long before Amos ever showed up. God had given them the law, so they had been clearly warned that the immorality that they were involved with was the type of thing that not only defiles their own bodies, but defiles the very land in which they're living. And when the land is defiled in this manner, God says that the people of the land will be vomited out. Now, hence the urgency of Amos' message, and hence the depravity, the level of depravity that characterized the nation of Israel in that day. In reading Amos's pronouncement against this particular form of immorality, the question might be raised about how prevalent it actually was in Israel. Was this sinful behavior something that a large percentage of the population was doing? Or was this something that only a small percentage of the people were involved with? I'm not sure we can really actually answer that question. The Bible doesn't give us percentages, and I don't think we have the data to compile that information. I tend to think it was something that only a small percentage of the people of Israel were involved with, however, that they were actually involved in that behavior. But to ask what percentage of the people were actually committing this sin is not the most important question to be asking. The more important question to be asking has to do with the overall nation's attitude toward that sin. Did they consider that to be an acceptable behavior within their society? If we look at the way the Apostle Paul handled the very similar situation in 1 Corinthians 5, we can see that Paul condemned two things. First, he condemned the behavior, the actual commission of the sin. And it's very clear from 1 Corinthians 5.1 that he was condemning that sin. Those who behave in that way, who commit that abomination, are guilty of that perversion. But then Paul spends several more verses condemning the people who did not behave that way, but who gave their approval to the man who behaved that way." Realize there was only one person in Corinth that was actually, or at least in the church in Corinth, that was actually involved in that type of sinful behavior. There was only one man. But there was an entire church of people that were involved in the sinful approval of that man's behavior. And Paul denounced both. He used one verse to denounce the man and he used many, many more verses to denounce what the entire church was doing by giving their approval. So when Amos says that this abomination characterized Israel, the percentage of people involved in the actual behavior is not the only consideration. We also need to consider what the nation's attitude was towards that behavior. And we can confidently conclude from Amos' pronouncement that the majority of the people in Israel were supportive of that behavior. They didn't see anything wrong with it. They approved of it. It was considered an acceptable alternative. Not everybody in Israel actually chose to behave in that way in their own personal lives, but they thought that consenting adults should have the right to do whatever they want to do. To each his own, they said. Who am I to judge? The bumper sticker on the back of their donkey said, you cannot legislate morality. So God sent Amos to Israel to remind them that all legislation has a moral foundation and that it's God who does the judging. God will judge Israel and he will judge her according to the laws that he had previously delivered to her. Amos, therefore, is not delivering anything new to Israel. He's not telling her anything she didn't already know or shouldn't have already known. She knew the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death. And she also knew that it is a sin to approve of those who practice them. In pronouncing Israel's sin, Amos shows how one sin spills over into another. In verse eight he says, they lie down on every altar on clothes taken in pledge. Now in Exodus 22 verses 26 and 27, God says that clothes taken in pledge need to be returned to the owner by nightfall, since those clothes are the only thing that the poor have for keeping themselves warm at night. But the people of Israel, did not return the clothes that were taken in pledge. Rather, they kept those clothes and they lied down on them to commit their indecencies. And so here we have a vivid depiction of how sin leads to sin. In the course of pursuing forbidden relations, the people were also oppressing the poor. Somebody somewhere was shivering in the middle of the night because of the vile passions of these wicked people. Amos also shows us how the sin of false worship is connected to all of this. He says that the people who lie down on the clothes that were taken and pledged do so next to the altar while they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their God. Now, you might remember that Jeroboam I built two temples in Israel, one in Bethel and one in Dan. And you might also remember that Jeroboam I placed large golden calves in each of those temples, thereby establishing a system of profane and false worship in Israel. And in the days of Jeroboam II, which is the king who's reigning when Amos' ministry is happening, in the days of Jeroboam II, those temples were still the principal places for worship in the northern kingdom of Israel. Now Amos is showing how the people had digressed so far from true religion that they no longer understood what worship really is. They no longer understood that the altar was the place where repentance was demonstrated by offering a blood sacrifice to the Lord. They no longer understood that the temple was a place where the humble and penitent could draw near to the thrice holy God and experience His grace and mercy. Instead, the altars in Israel became places for committing immorality. Their temples became places where they can call out upon deaf and dumb gods. and their worship was a time of self-indulgent drunkenness, drinking the wine that was dishonestly acquired at the expense of the poor and oppressed in society, the people whose heads have been trampled into the dust. What Amos has so effectively demonstrated here in our sermon text is the systemic nature of unrepented sin. What does systemic mean? It means it works on the entire system. It works on the entire system. It's not localized. It's not isolated. Rather, it works on the entire system. Take as an illustration, systemic medications. Systemic medications are those that work throughout the entire body. The opposite of systemic medications are localized medications, such as a topical cream that you might rub on your shoulder or a shot of Novocain that only numbs a small area around the tooth. Our rebellion, in our rebellion against God, we like to think that our sin is localized. We like to think that we can keep it compartmentalized to just what we're doing in that one little area of our life and that it won't adversely affect other areas of our life. A man thinks that he can indulge in pornography and not have it affect the relationship he has with his wife, or with his children, or with his employer, or with society as a large, or most importantly, with his God. A woman thinks that she can gossip and not have it affect the way she looks at other people, the way she treats other people, the way she is distrustful of other people, and in a way that she is not trusted by other people. A child thinks that he can lie to his parents and not have it affect his joy, his peace, his fellowship with God, and his relationship with his family. The alcoholic thinks that his sin is localized, yet his wife can give you 365 examples of how his drinking has negatively affected her and the kids over the past year. The gambler thinks that his sin is localized, yet the growling of his children's empty stomachs tell otherwise. The angry man thinks that his sin is localized, yet the fear in the eyes of those who have experienced his outbursts of wrath will tell you otherwise. The truth is that sin is systemic. It's never localized. It's always systemic. It will always affect the whole person. It will affect the whole family. It will affect the whole church. It will affect the whole society. It will affect the whole nation. That's how sin works. That's the very nature of sin. It never stays contained in its own little compartment. Amos has shown us how false worship is connected with immorality, which is connected with oppressing the poor, which is connected with denying justice to some and selling justice to others. And notice how Amos frames the proper setting for understanding these things. He reminds Israel in verses 9 through 10 that they had done these things in spite of the marvelous acts that God had performed on their behalf. God had brought them out of Egypt. He gave them the land of Canaan. He raised up prophets to bring correction to them and to teach them his righteous ways. And yet the people rejected all those things. They forgot about those things. Amos says in verse 12 that when the prophets were sent to them, they forbid the prophets from prophesying. They said, don't say those things to us. Stop prophesying. And Amos goes on to say that They even got some of the prophets to break their vows before God by getting them drunk. They gave the Nazarites wine. The Nazarites weren't supposed to have wine, but they enticed them. They lured them to drink wine. And this is one of the tactics that corrupt and wicked people use. It's a tactic that a corrupt society uses. It's called a smear campaign. If a preacher of righteousness won't listen when they are told to stop preaching, then the next objective is to try to lure that preacher of righteousness into a compromising situation so as to discredit his testimony. Now what does God say about all this? Verse 13, Behold, I am weighed down by you, as a cart full of sheaves is weighed down. Have you ever tried to use a wheelbarrow that's been overloaded? The tire is squatting because there's so much weight on it. It's so heavy that you can hardly get it moving when you try to move it forward. And it takes all of your strength just to keep it balanced because the center of gravity is higher than it should be. It's way too heavy and it's way too tall. That's the image that God is using here to describe His exhaustion with Israel's disobedience. So he announces the day of his visitation upon him in verse 14, beginning of verse 14. Therefore, flight shall perish from the swift. The strong shall not strengthen his power, nor shall the mighty deliver himself. He shall not stand who handles the bow. The swift of foot shall not escape, nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself. The most courageous men of might shall flee naked in that day, says the Lord. When we read what Amos says was going to happen to Israel and what was going on in Israel, we can recognize how corrupt the nation had become. But let's not miss the fact that Amos is not preaching only to Israel. Amos is preaching to us as well. There's a reason God preserved these words in writing all these centuries and presents them to us as the milk of which we are nourished by. How have we received the messages of God's prophets? God has given us Moses and the prophets just as he had given Israel Moses and the prophets. Are we listening to them? Are we listening to them? And those prophets faithfully proclaimed Jesus Christ to you. They faithfully declared to us the glad tidings of salvation through the crucified Redeemer. And they assured us, those prophets, that all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will receive the Holy Spirit as their teacher, as their sanctifier, as their comforter to lead and to guide us into all truth. But how have we received their message? That's the question. Have we listened to the prophets? And this question can be asked at the national level. But before we ask it at the national level, we have to ask it at the personal level. How have we, how have you, how have I received the message of God's prophets? Understand that a nation is made up of individuals. And what a nation thinks or does is the consensus of what the individuals in that nation think or do. National reform, if it's going to happen, begins with the individuals that make up that nation. It begins with you. It begins with me. It begins with reform in our hearts and in our lives. And so the very first questions that need to be asked are, Have you been listening to God's prophets? Have you embraced the Savior of which those prophets are telling you about? Are you seeking daily and hourly to follow the lead of His Holy Spirit? Are you living your life to the glory of God and not to the glory of self? Or have you disregarded the prophets of God? Have you despised the gospel which they have preached to you? Have you thrown off the Holy Spirit's conviction of your sin under the guise that it's a bunch of legalism or that it's the oppressive doctrines of men trying to impose their will upon me? Don't be mistaken. There are many people today who profess to embrace the gospel, yet they show by their lives how little they regard it in their hearts. They show by their lives how little they regard it in their hearts. Many of them come to church regularly. But like the people in Israel on Amos' day, they don't understand, they don't remember what worship really is, why they're even coming to church. They don't understand that it's a demonstration of their repentance of sins as they confess through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ before a holy God. They don't understand that worship is the activity where the humble and penitent draw near to the thrice holy God and experience afresh His grace and His mercy. Rather, they come to church and engage in a self-indulgent form of worship because their focus is on themselves rather than God. The worship that they offer provokes God to say, inasmuch as these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, they have removed their hearts far from me. They have removed their hearts far from me, God says. So brothers and sisters, Amos is reminding us that the Lord does eventually grow weary of the type of contempt for the gospel that those who remove their heart far from him commit or bring into his worship. God will eventually become weighed down. like that big heavy wheelbarrow, like a cart full of sheaves is weighed down. God will eventually become weighed down by the persistent disobedience of those who are called by his name, yet who despise his long-suffering mercies. The Apostle Paul warned about this very thing in Romans 2. This isn't just an Old Testament thing. This same warning is repeated umpteen times in the New Testament. In Romans 2, verse 5, Paul said that there are people who are sitting in the church in Rome. They were sitting in the church in Rome, and they had hard and impenitent hearts, Paul says. It didn't matter that they were attending church because their attendance wasn't accompanied by true worship. And consequently, Paul said that they were treasuring up for themselves wrath for the day of wrath. And a few verses later, he said that these churchgoers are really just self-seeking pleasure lovers who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. And then, without any hesitation, without any shame, without any apology, without any embarrassment, Paul emphatically declares in Romans 2, verses 9 and 10, that God will bring indignation and wrath and tribulation and anguish on every soul who does evil, but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good. And what Paul is articulating here is the retribution principle. He's affirming and reaffirming that God will bless those who obey him and will curse those who are disobedient to him. And the bad news for all of us is that we are all disobedient to God. We have all been disobedient to God and continue to be disobedient to God in very practical ways. The good news for those who are in Christ, however, is that through faith in Jesus Christ, we have become partakers of his obedience. And having become partakers of his obedience, his obedience becomes our obedience. And when we become partakers of his obedience, we likewise become partakers of the blessings that belong to him and only to him and those who are united to him. And so as Christians who are united to Christ, We do not receive any curses. As I said earlier, the person, the Christian who's in Christ, the person who's in Christ will never ever experience any curse for his disobedience because Christ bore that curse. But those who are in Christ will receive only the blessings that were accrued by Christ and given to us because of his grace towards us. That is the gospel, brothers and sisters. That is the gospel in which we walk each day, in which we have comfort and security. When we look upon the world around us and we see the events that happen, many of the events look initially like they are curses that we are enduring as a result of some disobedience of our own. Yet God does not curse his people. He disciplines its people. We've had those conversations. I'm going to leave that conversation aside just to acknowledge there's a there's a form of discipline which is which is painful yet produces with us within us the righteous fruit of obedience. Yet that is different from punishment. That is different than a curse. God's people are never cursed. God's people are never punished. We are always blessed. And the very things that provide hardship in our life, God will use for our own sanctification to bring us to that point of blessing, where those negative things, he turns to be our blessings. We receive blessing upon blessing, brothers and sisters, blessing upon blessing, never anything else. Let's thank the Lord for his goodness to us. Our dear Lord and Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are this good and righteous God. You are the God who has redeemed us and you are the God who blesses us both in this life and the next. Father, we pray that you would give us the faithful eyes that are necessary to acknowledge and to see your blessings in our life. Father, help us to understand how those painful circumstances that we experience in this life are actually being used by you for our blessing. Help us to see how they draw us closer to you. Help us understand how they make us depend upon you. Help us to see the opportunities you give us in the midst of those circumstances to glorify you, or to serve your people, or to be merciful to somebody, or to come alongside and to encourage another, to provide hope for them, or to rebuke, or to exhort, or to do all the things that you have told us to do within the context of our community of Christians. Father, we cannot begin to fathom The depths of your wisdom, the intricacies of your plan, the impossibilities in our minds are very sure realities in your mind. And so, Father, your ways are so much higher than ours, your thoughts higher than ours. We cannot know them, but we can trust them. We pray that you would give us the ability to do that. Lord, turn us away from evil. Give us hearts that seek to grow in our maturity, to consume on a regular basis that pure spiritual milk of your word. And Father, use that milk to grow us and to equip us into the people that you have called us to be. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material herewithin, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.