Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Amos 1 | Date: February 21, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Amos 1-2

And we conclude with something from the Minor Prophets, Amos. Amos chapter 1. Amos chapter 1, I’ll begin with verse 1, and we will go through chapter 2.

The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. And he said, “The Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem. The pastures of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers.”

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. So I will send fire upon the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-Hadad. I will break the gate bar of Damascus and cut off the inhabitants from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from Beth Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into exile to Kir,” says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Gaza and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom. So I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza and it shall devour her strongholds. I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon. I will turn my hand against Ekron and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish,” says the Lord God.

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Tyre and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they delivered up a whole people to Edom and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood. So I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour her strongholds.”

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Edom and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever. So I will send a fire upon Teman, and it shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah.”

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of the Ammonites and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border. So I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour her strongholds, and with shouting on the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind; and their king shall go into exile, he and his princes together,” says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Moab and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom. So I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth, and Moab shall die amid uproar, amid shouting and the sound of the trumpet. I will cut off the ruler from its midst and will kill all its princes with him,” says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the Lord. They have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked. So I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.”

Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals—those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted. A man and his father go into the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned. They lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

“Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. And it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you 40 years in the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up some of your sons for prophets and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?” declares the Lord. “But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘You shall not prophesy.’

“Behold, I will press you down in your place as a cart full of sheaves presses down. Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain his strength, nor shall the mighty save his life. He who handles the bow shall not stand, and he who is swift of foot shall not save himself, nor shall he who rides the horse save his life. And he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day,” declares the Lord.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, this is a sobering passage, a message of judgment from your inspired prophet. We ask that you would help us to learn its lesson well. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Basic Lesson Of The Passage

Well, there are various ways we could approach this passage, these two chapters. One would be to explore the previous history of each of these nations that are mentioned here in succession: Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, Judah, and then finally Israel. We could trace out the history of each of these nations and see the causes for this announced punishment that God has said he will bring on them because of their sins. That would be well worth our time. We can’t do that in detail today.

Another way to approach this passage would be to look at the later history of each of these nations and see the way in which this announced judgment actually fell on each of these nations as God had said it would.

Another way to approach this passage, and this is more of what we’ll do this morning, is just take a broad look at all of it and learn its basic lesson. And the lesson of the passage—you don’t need five theological degrees to see it. The lesson of the passage is: the very worst mistake a nation can make is to forget the law of God in its political life, its social life, and act as though they are independent of him and not accountable to him. It is the very worst mistake a nation can make. When they do it, it does not end well.

That’s the long and short of Amos chapters 1 and 2. I want to see it in more detail. I’m a preacher; I do that. I want to explore this in more detail. But if you drift somewhere during the message, that’s what the passage is about. A nation, one after another, forgets God, assumes it is independent of the law of God, behaves as it pleases, and then is judged accordingly. It was true of Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, Judah, Israel. That’s the flow of the passage.

What the Bible warns about men and women individually, God also warns nations collectively. And that’s a point I want to press here as well. That nation, or society, that forgets God and lives as though his law does not apply to them—whether they acknowledge God or not, whether they want to say that God is God or not—becomes finally irrelevant. God is God. God is king. God is judge. And these nations all, whether they have acknowledged him or not, are answerable to him. Nations as nations.

For Three Transgressions And For Four

And so here in rapid succession, the Prophet Amos highlights for us one nation after another that had shaped its policies, both domestic and foreign, as though they could do as they pleased with impunity. And so the prophet here announces God’s intentions in response. He will judge them for their transgressions.

Notice it again. Chapter 1, verse 3: “Thus says the Lord God, for three transgressions and for four of Damascus, I will not turn away your punishment.” Verse 6: “For three transgressions of Gaza and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.” Verse 9: “For three transgressions of Tyre and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.” Verse 11: “For three transgressions of Edom and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.” Verse 13: “For three transgressions of the Ammonites and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.” Chapter 2, verse 1: “For three transgressions of Moab and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.” And then verse 4: “For three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not revoke the punishment.”

We have this strange expression here: “for three transgressions and for four.” This is a Hebrew colloquialism for just stating the idea of abundance and multiplicity. For the abundance of your transgressions, I will not revoke the punishment. But the expression “for three transgressions and for four” is more than that. It’s more than the statement of the multiplicity of their transgressions and rebellions. It is also a statement of God’s watchfulness over the nations. He’s keeping the books, as it were, keeping careful record of one, two, three, four—the multiplicity of their transgressions until finally he brings judgment.

But if this expression, “for three transgressions and for four, I will not withhold punishment,” tells us simply of the multiplicity of their sins and transgression, and if it tells us something of God’s watchfulness in keeping record of their transgressions, it also teaches us something of God’s patience. He has been in no rush to judgment. He’s given plenty of time for repentance, plenty of time for them to turn back. But finally, in keeping with this metaphor, when it finally reaches that fourth one, you’ve finally gone too far. And God’s patience is exhausted and punishment comes.

The Indictment Of The Nations

Now in this passage, the fourth transgression of each of these nations is what’s emphasized. I don’t think we should necessarily understand this in terms of saying there have only been three or four sins or transgressions on the part of these nations, but he highlights three or four to emphasize the multiplicity of their transgressions and rebellions, and then the fourth one is the one that receives the attention. It’s the capstone of their rebellion.

Each nation here is addressed, most every one of them, in terms of their leading or capital city. So, verse 3 of chapter 1: Damascus, the capital of Syria. “For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away your punishment because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron.” Threshing sledges were something like sleds that were used with their crops—these sleds with an iron blade that would be run across the crops and the stalks in order to cut the stalks and separate out the grain. Some have argued that what the Prophet is saying here is that these Syrians had in fact done this literally to their enemies, taking the sled against their enemies and literally chopping them up. It may well be the case. It may be the case that it’s just a metaphor of their awful brutality in war, war crimes, the barbarity of their crimes.

Verse 6: Gaza, the leading city of the Philistines, the ancient enemy of Israel. “Because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom.” So it’s human trafficking, slave trade. They’d make an incursion into one of their neighboring territories, kidnap whole groups of people, and sell them off as slaves. Again, war crimes.

Verse 9: Tyre, the leading city of Phoenicia. “Because they delivered up a whole people to Edom and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood.” Again, they engage in slave trade as well. This “covenant of brotherhood”—it might be a reference to 1 Kings 5, where they had a formal treaty with Israel and did not honor it. But at least here we have war crimes, probably the breaking of international treaties.

Verse 11: we have Edom. His judgment comes “because he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever.” His brother here is a reference to Israel, who are the descendants of Jacob. Edom, of course, are the descendants of Esau. So, their brother nation, as it were. Obadiah the prophet mentions the fact that the Edomites hated Israel without a cause and they were constantly in aggression against them without any provocation, but just out of hatred and spite. And that’s the idea here as well: aggression.

Verse 13: the Ammonites, that’s present-day Jordan. “Because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead that they might enlarge their border.” This is a war that’s not recorded elsewhere, but again, the idea of a war of aggression, and it’s marked by brutality and war crimes.

Chapter 2, verse 1: we have Moab. Their judgment comes “because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom.” Now, that’s an interesting one. Desecration of graves, we all think is horrible, but it doesn’t seem, I think, in our society to rank with some of these other things that were mentioned. We’ve had the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in our own day, even; repulsive as it is, we don’t tend to rank it with these war crimes and the brutality that’s mentioned in these other ones. But in antiquity, the desecration of a tomb was a particularly serious crime. It was viewed with a particular kind of abhorrence, and in this case in particular, the desecration of the graves was not just out of greed (which they often were, to gain the riches from whatever was buried in those tombs), but it was done just out of hatred and spite, making it all the worse.

Chapter 2, verse 4: judgment on Judah would come. Her punishment will not be withheld “because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his statutes. But their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers had walked.” Judah had the law of God, special revelation from God; they were given direction from God how to worship. They violated that law and went after false gods just like their fathers had done.

And then finally, chapter 2, verses 6 and following, he comes to Israel, the northern kingdom. We’re here in the divided kingdom. Amos is a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He has prophesied in verses 4 and following about the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and now verses 6 and following about the Northern Kingdom of Israel: “because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.” That is systemic injustice. The poor are abused because it is known that they have no recourse. Systemic injustice. “Those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted. A man and his father go into the same girl so that my holy name is profaned.” So there’s wanton, gross immorality. “And then they lay themselves down besides every altar on garments taken as a pledge. And in the house of their God, they drink the wine of those that have been fined.” We have some kind of abuse of worship and false worship as well.

The Sentence Of Punishment

And for all of these sins, each of these nations, one by one, is arraigned by God who calls up their sins and then pronounces sentence on them. God has kept accurate books, and now, finally, they have their day in court.

In chapter 1, verse 2, the note of divine judgment is introduced with this metaphor of a lion. “The Lord roars from Zion.” That’s meant to convey a chilling sense of fear, like you feel on the inside when you hear a lion roar. I think we’ve all seen that. Even if you go to the zoo and you get a good roar from a lion, it can be chilling. You can imagine if you were out in the wild and you hear that roar. So the lion is roaring; he’s about to pounce on his prey, and he’s terrorizing them with a roar. That’s the idea here. It’s a prophecy of impending judgment.

And then, as I say, each of the nations is called up one by one, and their punishment is assigned. Go back through them again. Chapter 1, verses 4 and 5: Damascus. God says, “So I will send a fire upon the house of Hazael and shall devour the strongholds of Ben-Hadad. I will break the gate bar of Damascus and cut off the inhabitants from the valley of Aven,” and so on. Verse 7, we have Gaza: “So I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza and it shall devour her strongholds.” Verse 10, with Tyre: “So I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre and it shall devour her strongholds.” Verse 12, with Edom: “So I will send a fire upon Teman and it shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah.” Verses 14 and 15, here with the Ammonites: “So I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah and it shall devour her strongholds.” Chapter 2, verses 2 and 3, here with Moab: “So I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth, and Moab shall die amid uproar.” Verse 5, Judah: “So I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.” Verse 13, with Israel now, the northern kingdom: “Behold, I will press you down into your place as a cart full of sheaves presses down, and flight shall perish with the swift,” and so on.

One by one, God calls up each of these nations, calls them to the bar, gives the indictment, and then assigns sentence—the punishment that they will receive.

God Is God Over The Nations

Well, there’s an overview of the passage. One interesting feature, I think, of this passage is just the rhetorical effect that this would have had in its original setting. Amos, a prophet—he’s a shepherd, but now God has called him to speak his word to the people of the northern kingdom. He goes to Bethel, which is a place where they had committed special false worship. And standing in Bethel, he issues God’s proclamations of punishment to the northern kingdom of Israel.

And what’s interesting here, as I say, the rhetorical effect, is that he begins farther out with more of the distant nations. And he circles down and he comes closer and closer to home until finally he gets to Israel. And you can imagine as they hear this prophecy, they might say, “Okay, the judgment on Edom and so forth. Okay, great. Yeah, that’s fine. Amen. Preach it. Preach it.” And finally, he gets to Israel.

So notice how that works. Verses 1 to 10 of chapter 1, we have three foreign powers. These are longstanding enemies of Israel. This is Syria, Philistia, and Phoenicia. Then in verses 11 and following, we have some what we could call brother or cousin nations to Israel. We have Edom, who are the descendants of Esau. And also we have the Ammonites and the Moabites. They are descended from Lot’s incestuous relationship with his daughters. So these are brother nations. We started with the foreign nations, come down to these cousin nations. And then in chapter 2, verses 4 and 5, he mentions Judah. And I can imagine that the Israelites in the northern kingdom are thinking, “Yeah, that’s good too. Go get Judah. That’s all right.” And then verses 6 and following: “For three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not withhold her punishment.” He starts at the distance and then brings it home to Israel for her own punishment.

It would be something like—put this in a modern context: “For three transgressions of China, and for four, I will not withhold her punishment. She has slaughtered perhaps 50 million of her own people in the name of progress. She has systematically violated all kinds of human rights, and she has continued to repress the Church of Jesus Christ. For three transgressions of Russia, and for four, I will not withhold her punishment for the millions that she has slaughtered over the last century and for her continued international aggression. For three transgressions of Iran, and for four, I will not revoke her punishment. For she has not only repressed and persecuted the people of Christ in her country, but she has sponsored terror all over the globe. For three transgressions of Great Britain, and for four, I will not withhold her punishment for her centuries of colonial aggression and for her rejection of her gospel heritage for which she has been so immensely blessed. For three transgressions of the United States of America, and for four, I will not withhold her punishment. She has rejected her gospel heritage. She has legalized and even celebrated the slaughter of unborn children by the millions. She has rejected not only the God-given roles of men and women, she has rejected even the created distinction between man and woman. And she has promoted and even demanded the approval of all kinds of immorality.”

Well, what? Did we think that all of these nations and the United States would be exempt from this kind of thing? Have we learned nothing from history? Mighty Babylon and the Third Reich, too, join the dust of empires that have passed away. Full of strutting pride, mouthing boasts untrue, they lie crushed before the God whose will holds sway. The United States must never consider itself exempt from the fact that God is God over the nations.

It’s important also, I think, in this passage to notice that there is an increasing degree of responsibility, an increasing degree of guilt as we come closer to home. These surrounding nations around Israel, they had no special revelation. They had no prophets raised up among them to give a word from God, and yet they should have known better. And they’re destroyed because they knew better. And they rebelled against the revelation that they did have. The law of God was written on their hearts; they’re created in God’s image, and they knew better than what they had done, and so they are destroyed for it. As Paul argues in Romans chapter 1, they know intuitively, and it’s augmented from the very created order, that God is, and that we are responsible to him, and yet they have rebelled against it so that they are without excuse. They were without special revelation, but they were not without moral responsibility.

But when we come to chapter 2, verses 4 and following, the situation is a little bit different. “Thus says the Lord,” verse 4, “for three transgressions of Judah, and for four I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his statutes.” And then finally we come to the nation of Israel, verses 6 and following, the northern kingdom, and he specifies their sins in verses 6 to 8. And then verse 9, notice how he reasons: “Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his root beneath. Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel, declares the Lord? But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘You shall not prophesy.'”

This is actually a familiar indictment against Israel and Judah by the prophets that were sent to them. We find something of it in Isaiah chapter 1. The stupid ox doesn’t know who feeds him—it’s a metaphor he uses there. And all I’ve done for you, bringing you up out of Egypt, making you my people, blessing you beyond all the peoples of the earth, and you have rebelled. And there’s this increasing degree of responsibility because of abused privilege.

This, of course, is something that Jesus brings up in his own ministry. In Matthew chapter 11, for example, and Luke chapter 12, he castigates Israel because of their abuse of privilege. “You have seen me, you have seen my mighty works, my miracles, you’ve heard me preach, and yet you have rejected me… Sodom and Gomorrah will be better off in judgment than you will be.” Because to whom much is given, much shall be required. And a recognition of that in this passage and elsewhere in the Bible ought to make us just wonder at the patience of God toward the United States. We have had gospel influence in our nation that is absolutely unprecedented. For all the crackpots and all the heresy that’s out there, you can hear the gospel today anytime you want in the United States.

I was struck in just a shocking, horrifying way how far we had gone in the opening day of the House of Representatives this year when a prayer was offered that made the news. He prays and he says, “We ask in the name of the monotheistic God and Brahma, and gods by many other names from many different faiths, amen and a-woman.” And aside from the utter absurdity—you wonder how otherwise intelligent people talk like that—but aside from the utter absurdity of it, you think: this is just deliberate, determined apostasy and rejection of the God of heaven. We will presume to define God however it pleases us in our passing fancies. And it struck me that day when that happened; I thought, as much as we pray for God’s mercy on our country, as much as we pray for revival—and I’ll continue to pray for God’s mercy—at some point we have to side with God and say, “We don’t deserve it.”

That’s the message of Amos chapters 1 and 2. Now we could spend, as I mentioned earlier, some profitable time looking at the recorded history of each of these nations, how this sentence that is pronounced was carried out on each of them. Some of them are very interesting in particular. Tyre, for example, verse 9, chapter 1. Ezekiel picks up on that prophecy and that’s carried out in succession over the centuries, even, by Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar’s armies, and then finally by Alexander and the Grecian armies. Others—some of them took decades, some of them took centuries, to see how God’s judgment finally fell. We come to verse 4 of chapter 2, and we have Judah. Judah survived until 586 BC, and finally Nebuchadnezzar’s armies came on them. He ends up with the Northern Kingdom, Israel, chapter 2 and verses 6 and following. And their judgment came within decades. 722 BC, the Assyrian armies under Shalmaneser came and obliterated the Northern Kingdom.

The obvious lesson of these chapters is: God is God over the nations. They’re all accountable to him. As nations, God treats people groups on a societal and a national level, and nations as nations are accountable to this God. We don’t have time to look at them, but you might jot down, if you’d like, chapter 4 verse 13 and chapter 9 verse 6. There are another passage or two in Amos where Amos gives us something of a doxology, speaking of God and his greatness, and he outlines for us and emphasizes for us that God is the creator—the creator of earth and all that is in it. He’s the creator of heavens and all of the heavenly bodies. In other words, this is the God who made all, and so you are accountable to him. And he also uses that interesting title for God: that He is Lord, the Lord, the God of hosts. The Lord, the God of hosts—that military designation, Lord Sabaoth. We sing it in our Great Reformation hymn: “Lord Sabaoth, His name.” It’s a military designation. God is Lord of the hosts, Lord of the armies. The armies of heaven are His, and He will bring them to execute His will against the nations.

And this is a view of God and of human and national responsibility that we are most likely to ignore. It’s a common theme in the prophets, not just in Amos. I don’t have time to turn there with you today, but I’ve made a list here of what we find in the prophets that’s similar to what we have here. In Amos chapters 1 and 2, it’s a bit more dramatic than in the others, but we have it in Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. All of these prophets prophesy the coming judgment of the nations: Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Babylon, Ethiopia, Cush, Put, Arabia, and so on. All these kingdoms are arraigned before God by his prophets, and all for the same reason: they have ignored the law of God in their national life, and God finally calls them into account for it. And God deals with them on a national, societal level. Their sin was pandemic. The prophets issue their warning, and those that have not repented—with the one exception of Nineveh under the preaching of Jonah, where their judgment was forestalled for a good time—every one of them, refusing to repent, fell beneath the judgment of God.

This is one of the great values of the prophets: to learn and be reminded over and over and over again that God is God. He’s God over the nations. And not even the United States is too big to be exempt from his judging eye. And in fact, this is set up for us at the very beginning. Genesis chapter 1: God created the whole thing; we’re all accountable to him. Genesis 6 to 9: he destroyed the whole world in the flood. Genesis 18 and 19: Sodom and Gomorrah. The book of Joshua: we have them taking the land that God had given to them, and one by one they take out all of these people groups—scorched earth policy. God says, “Wipe them out because their cup of iniquity is full.”

I don’t know how God could have made the point more vivid, more plain, than he has in the pages of scripture. It is the history of nations, one after another. They rise, they strut, they flout their independence of God, and God puts them down. Another rises, they strut, they flout their independence of God, and God puts them down. And another rises, and he struts, and they announce their independence of God, and God puts them down. And one after another, after another, after another: Egypt, the Assyrians, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome—throw in Germany, the Third Reich. They presumed to be the reason for their own success and the reason for their own greatness, and they presumed to think that they could get by with ignoring the law of God, until finally, that’s four. And God could allow it no longer and, to use the metaphor of chapter 1, the lion roared, and he pounced, and they’re gone.

They forgot that God was their creator. They forgot that they are accountable to him. In their pride, they strut and think, “What can he do to us?” Yeah, right. And if our current power, like the United States, has any sense whatsoever, we will learn from this. We are accountable to God, too. Or has God’s patience led us to think that we will be exempt from punishment forever? God holds nations as nations and governments and societies responsible for their collective sins. He’s king over Tyre, he’s king over Egypt, he’s king over Damascus, he’s king over Judah, he’s king over Israel, and he’s king over the United States.

The lesson in brief: when a society ignores God, it accumulates a debt of offense against God that cannot go forever unpaid. Jeremiah chapter 12, verse 17 tells us of a nation that does not listen: “I will completely uproot and destroy it.” The time will come when God just says, “That’s enough. That’s it.” In the words of Hosea, God will remember just what you don’t want: God will remember their sins and bring them back against them. And the judge of the earth will finally bring sentence.

I have no idea what God’s intentions are for the United States. I’d never step out on that limb and try to make a prediction. But every advance of evil in our society ought to remind us of this note that is sounded so loudly in the Bible: that nations as nations are accountable to God and his patience will not go on forever.

Now in fact, Amos—and we don’t have time to go there for this—but Amos himself, although he is a prophet of judgment, it is not a prophecy without the note of help and hope as well. In chapter 5, for example, there’s a call to repentance: “Seek the Lord and live.” So it’s not only what we find in chapter 4, verse 12—”Prepare to meet your God” in judgment—but it’s also, in chapter 5, a call to repentance: “Seek the Lord and live.” That’s a familiar theme in the prophets as well. God will judge sin, but if you repent, he will relent.

We can’t take the time here to trace it out. Chapter 7, the prophet records a personal experience where he was interceding with God on Israel’s behalf. And he sees in a vision God coming with a great locust plague. The prophet prays, “Lord, forgive.” The locust plague is withheld. He sees another vision of God coming with a storm of fire against Israel. And the prophet prays and intercedes for Israel with God, “Lord, forgive, turn back.” The Lord holds back. And there is this picture of God almost reluctantly bringing judgment, willing to wait, willing to hold back for repentance that may come, until finally the judgment does come.

Then in chapter 9, we have finally a note of promise. We have the promise of the establishing of the Davidic King; a new heaven and a new earth will be established. All of this comes to final fruition in the book of Revelation. This is something we see all through the Bible. It comes to climax in Revelation: the kingdom of this world finally becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Revelation 19, the Lord comes in judgment over the nations and destroys all his enemies. And then at last, the kingdom of God is established worldwide, and that name that has been banned for so long and so often around the globe then will be on the lips of every last man and woman as they acknowledge that Jesus is Lord.

As with all of the prophets, Amos’ prophecy of judgment reminds us of the judgment that each of us deserves. Each of us deserves divine judgment for our sins. And our glory, our joy, just as we’ve sung it this morning, our whole joy lies in the fact that our Lord has come and borne that judgment for us. In our place, he’s taken our sin and taken the judgment that we deserve. And that is ultimately the hope—the only hope of every nation and every man and woman. The Lord Jesus is king and he is judge, but he is also a great savior. He’s borne the curse of sin and he offers terms of peace. Come to him, bow before him before it is too late. Amen. Let’s pray.