Today we resume our sermon series in the book of Amos. Amos is quite a book. The more I read it, the more I study it, the more amazed I am by it. There's not a lot of good news in it. You've got to actually get to the very last chapter to see the overt declaration of the great news of what God has done. But all through, we see little tidbits, we see little hints that God is definitely leading us and leading his people and doing things for his people. that is delivering them from themselves as well as their sin and from the tyranny that is all around them. So today we're going to give attention to Amos chapter 3 verse 8b through the end of the chapter which is verse 15. Please give attention to the reading of God's word. The Lord God has spoken. who can but prophesy, proclaim in the palaces of Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, assemble on the mountains of Samaria. Seek great tumults in her midst, and the oppressed within her. For they do not know to do right, says the Lord, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, an adversary shall be all around the land. He shall sap your strength from you, and your palaces shall be plundered. Thus says the Lord, as a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be taken out who dwell in Samaria, in the corner of a bed. and on the edge of a couch. Hear and testify against the house of Jacob, says the Lord God, the God of hosts, which is the God of armies, that in the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house, The houses of ivory shall perish and the great houses shall have an end, says the Lord. And may God add his blessing to the reading and the hearing and the preaching of his word today. Today, we actually begin dealing with the main pericope of the scroll of Amos. And this main pericope in our English language Bible is developed clearly and fully from Chapter from chapter 3 verse 9 through 614. That's the the main pericope of the book And it contains the heart of the message from from God through his prophet Amos now here in Amos God saw fit to have his prophet preach the same content as Essentially the same message over and over and over probably due to their Slowness to hear and slowness to heed and we need to hear it because you know, God didn't take any of it out He we have we're slow to hear and slow to heed to so the scroll of Amos is a series of sermons from this prophet from chapter 1 1 to 9 10. That's one sermon After another sermon, all the same instructions, all essentially the same warnings and the same threats. And as is always God's heart, his merciful nature, he offers grace to us. He concludes this scroll. in Amos 9, 11 through 15 with mercy. So these sermons, they contain the same principles that are repeated, as I said. And why are they repeated? They're repeated because all the people everywhere around the world through all ages, all times, all nations, we're all going to be measured and judged by one thing. by God's holy word, by one person, by God himself. And sadly, people from all ages and places are in need of the same forgiveness because we all commit the same acts of lawlessness against God's holiness in the same ways. Even all the way in James 517, they look back at Elijah. Here, James looks back at Elijah. And James says, Elijah was a man with like passions as we. What that translated is, Elijah was a man with a nature just like yours, just like mine. Elijah was a sinner. And we need to understand that we really do have sinful natures that need to be conquered, that need to be actually put to death. mortified is the way Paul puts it, and we need a new nature, the living nature, the born-again nature. So Elijah, the prophet, the hero, was also the coward. He was Elijah the sinner. He was Elijah the recipient of God's grace in the end. And that is a big deal because as we sin, as they sin, as the people of Amos, the scroll of Amos sin, all these nations are named, we all need We need the forgiveness and we receive the forgiveness once we admit that we have sinful natures that have caused us to sin. We are guilty. Now, God doesn't forgive us because we confess. He brings us to confess because he's forgiving us, but asking forgiveness is a demonstration to us and a picture to God that we really are his and that his work is effectual. So we all need to admit this so to our text and what was promised it what we see here is promised at the hand of God in this pericope is that God is calling witnesses against these nations. God is going to call witnesses against these nations because he's gonna punish these nations and he wants everyone to see it. He wants everyone to know why they're receiving this punishment. And in his day, we know that this is not an unusual thing because even the prophet Isaiah called heaven and earth to witness against Judah in Deuteronomy 30. And here Amos summoned the pagan nations to witness against the sins of the kingdom of Israel. So the sin of Israel here was so great that it appalled even pagan nations. And clearly, Israel was sinning against a flood of warning and light. As I read the text just a moment ago, you heard in verse 8, the Lord God has spoken. Verse 10, says the Lord. Verse 11, says the Lord God. Verse 12, thus says the Lord. Verse 13, says the Lord God. The God of armies, verse 15, says the Lord. And yet, these warnings were mostly unheeded. And why were they unheeded? Because people didn't want to obey the Lord. They did not want to surrender. They did not want God to have dominion over them. And the governments and the people did what they thought was good for them, and they did what they thought would make them happy and secure, But they were wrong. And this is very much like us today. What what do we see all around us in the world today? We see crime. We see evil. We see we see envy that is practiced and Everywhere we see worship that is not true worship. We see promiscuity. We see sex wrongly used, this great gift of God that's wrongly used. We hear people say things with their mouths, words that are unfit, even against anyone, even in the darkest place against your worst enemy. And sin always brings harm, and it always brings misery. And that harm and that misery come now or they come later. And it's tragic when people sin. And it's humiliating when the unsaved can laugh at Christians in their sins. We don't want to be caught in our sins because it's embarrassing. We know about TV preachers who've been caught in their sins, and it was embarrassing. It was very destructive. When people ask me what I do, so many times I say, I almost bite my tongue before I say, I'm a pastor. And why? Because the pastorette, the men in the ministry, sadly, the females in the ministry too, we have given the ministry a bad name. I believe there are going to be more pastors in hell per capita than any other vocational group. I really do. Including lawyers you may know some lawyers that are pretty bad, but including lawyers But it's humiliating when the unsaved can laugh at Christians in their sins It happened with Abraham twice when he lied to the heathen Kings about his wife, but who was Claiming something different Samson was scorned by the Philistines and judges 16 and David's adultery with Bathsheba gave, it says, quote, great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. People will see our sins, and they will think God means nothing to us. God's word is not important to us. It has no authority over us. We don't mean what we say when we say we believe, and God didn't mean what he said when he said he would punish. And therefore, God's name is blasphemed, 2 Samuel 12. Today, we see the Roman Catholic Church not excommunicating President Biden, who's a rabid abortionist. We see the Episcopal Church not excommunicating the people who are committing vile sexual sins. We see that going on a lot of places. Our president, he wants to put into the Constitution abortion. And if he does that, Well, as he said that, I actually saw a YouTube video about people from Islam, Islamic people laughing. Saying that this is going to mean a victory for us, a worldwide victory for us. Islam will win by having and training children. We will outnumber the Christians. We will outnumber the West if they keep killing their babies, killing their children and not training their children. So there's moral failure upon moral failure. And where is this moral failure? According to this, it's in the palaces. What are the palaces? The palaces are the seat of government. The seat of government in Samaria, the seat of government in Israel, the seat of government in Judea, the seat of government in America, in governor's mansions and so forth. And why is there moral failure upon moral failure in the palaces, the capitals? And it's because there's moral failure upon moral failure in the churches in America and around the world. It's an amazing thing that however goes the church, eventually goes the nation. So God calls witnesses against them. He called, God called for the Philistines in Amos 1.9 to rise up against Ashdod, which was a Philistine capital. And the Egyptians here in 3.9 to witness against what's going on in Samaria. And the leaders of Israel weren't interested in obeying God's word. Rather, they were eagerly and unjustly robbing the poor and amassing as much wealth and power as possible. And we see in verse 9 here that it says that great tumults took place. Tumults, plural, in her midst. The oppression is going on here, says verse 9. And it's going on within the nation of God's very people. And it's going on by the hand of those who are in the palaces. Because you see, you have governments that see themselves as God, and then you see governments that see themselves as under God. And here in this passage, we see governments that see themselves as having the authority of God. What they say is absolute. And think about in America, when a politician can say something along the lines of, well, I'm personally and religiously against, and you fill in the blank, but our nation demands that we vote this way. Who is their God? their nation, their people, their constituency, it has become their God rather than their God. Those in government, the palaces, the kings, here it says that they built, it teaches they built expensive houses and they filled them with opulent furnishings and they lived in luxury while the poor in the land were fleeced, fleeced through taxes, fleeced by by regulating the currency, fleeced in all kinds of ways to give the people less power, to give the people in the palaces more power. And it was typical then and it's typical today. And Amos wasn't the only prophet to accuse the rich of exploiting the poor. and ignoring the needy and setting themselves up as power mongers. You find the same message from Moses in Deuteronomy, from Isaiah in Isaiah 1, Ezekiel in Ezekiel 34, Micah in Micah chapter 2, Malachi in chapter 3, and many more. The law of Moses made it clear that a nation, that the people in the palaces were supposed to care for the widows and care for the orphans and care for the strangers in the land. In fact, Deuteronomy 14, 29, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, they may come and they may eat and they may be satisfied that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand. which you do. Our nation is supposed to care for its poor, but there's a priority here, and I'm going to just add this in. The nation cares after the family cares, and the family cares before the church cares, so it's the family first. the church second, and then it's the community or the nation, so to speak. And then we read about the people in the palaces. In verse 10, it says, and this is big, for they do not know to do right, says the Lord. They do not know to do right. Why do they not know to do right? They don't attend to God's word as though it's important. They don't. I'm so glad that you avail yourselves of church, that you read your Bibles, that we do discipleship together. There's studies that are offered that we can learn and grow together and that God can continue to knit our hearts together around his word. But they do not know to do right, and it's because they don't attend to the word. And then it goes on to say, in verse 10, says the Lord who they store up violence and robbery in their palaces. You see, I believe that there are many people in this world that think that's what's yours is really theirs. And they're being kind to you to let you keep part of what is. What God says is yours. They are robbing us from their palaces. And this terrible indictment that they do not know to do right in verse 10. When I go to the college classes, I'll say things and people will say, that's not in the Bible. And I'll say, well, yes, it is. And they'll say, oh, no, it's not. And we have all kinds of discussions. About what is and what isn't in the Bible and why don't they know is a Bible not available to these young people? No, a Bible is very available to these young people. There were there were a group of kids sitting on a bench at school reading C.S. Lewis. So I sashay over and I interrupt and I say, hey, do you know what you're reading? And yeah, we're reading C.S. Lewis. And I said, Do you see moral overtones here? Do you see biblical content here? What are you talking about? I said, well, why don't you bring your Bibles tomorrow? I'll meet with you, and we'll look at what C.S. Lewis was giving a Bible lesson here. Bring your Bibles tomorrow, and we'll meet. Not one of the six had a Bible. Not one of the six had a Bible. And I have to admit, I didn't have one until I was 21. I'm an oddball in America. Not one of six had a Bible. So these people, they didn't know to do right. And they were bound by their own ideas. They were bound by their own greed. They were bound by their own idolatry. They didn't know to do what was right. And that's because they have ignored God's word to the point that they no longer even probably care. And I think about Matthew 22, 29, you probably can all quote it by now. Jesus said, you are in error because you do not know the scriptures are the power of God. Why is our nation in error? Because it doesn't know the scriptures or the power of God. Why was Amos preaching that they didn't know the truth, they didn't know what was right? Because they had not attended to the scriptures. They did not know the power of God. Now, a while ago when I read from Exodus chapter 20, And I read about the earth trembling and the mountains, lightning flashing and stuff. They had seen these things. Many of them had seen them and they had heard about these things. And they should have had the scrolls to read about these things. But, you know, how does a Bible get read? How does a scroll get read? You have to pick it up and read. It's not going to read itself to you. You have to pick it up and read. And these people had not been picking it up and reading. Anyway, like many people today, they were addicted to their sin and to their self-law. People are very glad to throw off the law of God and put their own law over their heads. They didn't care that the people around them lacked the necessities of life. They did not care that there was unrest in their land. They probably promoted the unrest so that they could have more power. You know, you never waste a crisis with a good government, right? You never waste a crisis. The possession of wealth never satisfied the hungers of the heart, so they were never satisfied. And so they should have had Mick Jagger, that great prophet, sing his scroll, I Can't Get No Satisfaction. And even more tragic than their greed was their arrogance. These people were living as though they had possessions, and their possessions and their lives were safe. But their wealth can't stop death coming. Their wealth can't stop judgment. And the same attitude we find in the church of Laodicea, where it says in Revelation 3.17, I am rich and increased with goods and have no need of nothing. And you remember the man who built the barns and says, you know, eat, drink, and you know. God says, you fool, this day your soul shall be required of you. We never know. So like Israel of old, nations today measure their security by their wealth and their military power. The gross national product becomes the indicator of security and success. And the people in palaces, places of government, Presidents, kings, they get richer and richer and more powerful until God says, that's enough. Which brings us to verse 11 through 15, verses 11 through 15. And here, God is now calling for the judgment. I'm gonna read verse 11 here. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, an adversary shall be all around the land. He shall sap your strength from you and your palaces shall be plundered. So he's promising that the governments are going to fall, the nations are going to fall, the palaces are going to be plundered. And Amos announced that the kingdom of Israel was one of these nations, God's chosen kingdom, and the great city was going to be plundered. And this happened in 722 BC. And to illustrate how bad this was going to be to Israel, how Extensive the punishment was going to be from God amos borrowed from his experience as a shepherd and he says in verse 12 Thus says the lord as a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion catch this As a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear now We're talking about a sheep which has two ears two whole ears and has four legs Gone, so shall the children of Israel be taken out who dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch. So here, well, let me tell you where that comes from. In Exodus 22, 10 through 13, the commandment was given that if a lion took a sheep and tore it to pieces, that the shepherd had to go get those pieces and bring those pieces to the owner of the sheep so that he could prove that he was not stealing sheep and selling mutton on the side for a little extra money, but that he had to bring these pieces to demonstrate that he wasn't stealing. So that's where that comes from. And by the time Assyria was through with Israel, What he's saying to them is only a small piece of Israel is going to be left. Instead of having four legs, it's going to have part of two. Instead of having two, it's going to have part of one. He's going to use this picture so that these people who knew about sheep and knew about what this meant, It's applied to them. He wants them to be fearful. He wants them to turn away He wants them to stop offending him and there's a point and here we come to a point in history as God did this as he scattered these people these people we see that this resulted interesting at God's hand in in tough history and bad theology and Because after they were overrun, after they fell, the survivors were mixed with their conquerors, with those people who followed fake religions. And according to 2 Kings 17, 5 and following, the Assyrians killed many Israelites, but they didn't kill them all. They took them captive, and they married them, and they had the men marry their women, and the women marry their men, and so forth. brought into the land captives from other nations who also followed evil practices and false religions. And this intermingling produced a people with diverse customs and religious practices. And surviving Jews of the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom, they married those who were not followers of Yahweh. And this produced a people that we know as the Samaritans, and they were a hated people. Now, this is big, because what we see in our country today is we see a melding of all kinds of religions into not a great religion, but into a nothing religion, a religion that means absolutely nothing, that has whatever standards all the people can agree on. Now, do you think God's going to countenance that? Absolutely not. Opinions are like noses. Everybody's got one. God has a word. He has a declaration. He has told us how it's going to be. And we must conform our opinions to his opinions. Otherwise, we're going to end up with nothing. False faith and false religion are perpetuated by trying to meld and make everything acceptable to everyone. It just won't happen. And then in Amos 3.13, Hear and testify against the house of Jacob, says the Lord God, the God of hosts, that in the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel. Destruction on the altars of Bethel. What is God doing? Well, he's cleaning up the mess. He's destroying the altars of Bethel. He is saying, you have been going along without fearing me. You've been going along without caring for what I've said, without obeying me. I am going to get rid of even this false religion. so that you have to either look to me or you have to look to nothing. So he's dealing with a religion that has no fear, the religion that has no awe, the religion that has no truth. And a religion with no fear and no awe and no truth has no positive effects. Only truth and awe and fear of the true and the living God can produce holiness of life. Now, He says here in verse 14 that he's going to destroy these altars and on the horns of the altar that the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. What were these horns of the altar? Well, there were lots of altars that were made sort of like Israel's altar, the altars to Baal, the altars to Asherah. And they had horns on them that symbolized the power of the government god. Because who was head of the god of Asherah? The government. Who was the head of the god of the Baals? The government. So he's going to cut these off. And he says that, well, these horns were horn-like projections that were on the four corners of the altar, and they would hang their burnt offerings on them. Where does Israel have horns on an altar? Exodus 20, verse 7 and following. You shall make an altar of acacia wood. five cubits long, five cubits wide. The altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits. You shall make its horns on its four corners. Its horn shall be of one piece with it, and you shall overlay it with bronze. So Israel had an altar too, but their altar was managed by God. The activities there were holy activities because God sanctified them through the blood of the sacrifice, through the faith of the people who were offering the blood of the sacrifice. So the horns of the altar, these things aren't decreed as places of safety, and yet they were used as places of safety by many people in 1 Kings 150 and 51 Adonijah Adonijah was afraid of Solomon so he arose and and when and took hold of the horns of the altar and it was told Solomon saying indeed Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon for look he has taken horns of the he has taken hold of the horns of the altar saying let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword so King Solomon was afraid to put Adonijah to death. And Adonijah was afraid, so he ran from, he was afraid of Solomon, so he ran to the horns of the altar, thinking that God could trump what Solomon would think. And he was right. But Solomon didn't have to trump it. Solomon could have peeled him off of the altar and taken him to his death in a moment. but he didn't. And when we think about the altar, it's a place of the sacrifice that pictured Jesus to come. And when we think, we know there are no altars anymore. There should be no altars because the final sacrifice has taken place. Jesus has died. Jesus has been buried. Jesus has been resurrected. Jesus has ascended, as you read in your confession, and Jesus is coming again. So there's no more altars. The final sacrifice has been made. But in Psalm 118, 27, it says, God is the Lord. He has given us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. And there you'll find safety. Why will you find safety? Because there, the sacrifice is made. There, God declares forgiveness. There, you come before God in your sin, admitting your sin. And there, you look to Him for the Savior. You look to Him for the remedy for your problem. So the horns of the altar, they're not Christ, but they symbolize Christ, because that's where the sacrifice was hung. Like the cross, the cross and the horns of the altar are basically symbols of the same thing. So we find, we're going to find in chapter nine, Christ in a big way. But today, these people are still in trouble. God is going to punish them. And yet he has shown them that he is going to be merciful to those who are in his family, as the scripture says. Amen? Amen.