Israel's Obituary

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

1 view

0 comments

00:02
If you would take out your Bibles and turn to the book of Amos.
00:09
Tonight we are going to be in chapter 5.
00:15
The lesson has a small misprint.
00:17
It says lesson 3.
00:18
This is actually lesson 4.
00:20
Last week was lesson 3.
00:25
And the title of tonight's lesson may be somewhat controversial.
00:32
But the title of tonight's lesson is Israel's Obituary.
00:38
And I say it might be somewhat controversial because anytime you begin to talk about the nation of Israel, anytime you begin to talk about Israel as God's people, or anytime, especially now politically, Israel as a nation comes up and you know there's a lot of people who shout things like death to Israel and things like that.
00:59
And I certainly wouldn't want anyone to think that that's the direction that the lesson is taking.
01:05
By the title what I'm referring to is the fact that when we come to chapter 5 of Amos, this is the third of three oracles that Amos is giving to the people of Israel about their coming doom.
01:21
And really the fifth chapter, this third oracle, includes an oracle of doom and a woe, a judgment against them, which is powerful and profound, and it speaks to the finality of what is about to occur.
01:35
They are about to be overtaken by the Assyrians.
01:37
And as we've noted in the weeks past, the northern kingdom will not rise again.
01:42
Now there are a remnant, and then there is the southern kingdom, but the kingdom as it stands will fall.
01:52
As it was begun under Jeroboam I after the death of Solomon has now gone through several evil kings, and it is about to fall to Assyria and not to rise again.
02:09
And I was just thinking this week about the fact that I provide funeral services for a local funeral home.
02:17
I've done several funerals even just this past week.
02:21
I did three last week because it seems like they come, either I'll go three months and not do one, or I'll do three in a week.
02:27
It's sort of just the way it works.
02:30
And it's always interesting because one of the things that I do is one of my duties is I have to translate the obituary into a eulogy.
02:37
Take the obituary which says when they were born, when they died, who they were, and who they're survived by, and I have to translate it into saying something.
02:46
And eulogy, that word eulogy is a Greek term.
02:48
It means nice word or kind word or good word, to say something nice about someone.
02:53
And sometimes it's hard, but we do.
02:57
We say something kind.
02:59
But this is not a eulogy.
03:02
This is an obituary.
03:05
Amos 5 is not speaking well of Israel and her demise.
03:09
Amos 5 is speaking a strong word of condemnation and speaking about the reason for her fall.
03:17
Amos 5 is, as one pastor that I had listened to in preparation for this message, he called it the funeral song of Israel.
03:27
Amos 5 is the funeral song.
03:31
And as I said, it outlines the reasons for the impending death of the nation as well as a lament over her fall.
03:40
So you have the outline that I wrote, and it's five major headings in the outline.
03:50
And basically what I'm going to do is we're just going to follow the outline down, and I'm going to read it to you.
03:53
I have quite a bit of application that I'd like to make tonight, so I'm not going to spend as much time as I normally do giving a whole lot of commentary on the text, but we're going to read, and I'm going to make comments as we go.
04:08
But the outline will kind of help us follow along.
04:10
The first thing we see in verses 1-3 is a lament for Israel, a lamentation for Israel.
04:15
Then we see an invitation in verses 4-6, and a condemnation, verses 7-13.
04:21
Then we see a second invitation, a second lamentation, and a second condemnation.
04:27
This is actually a pretty long chapter, and we see a repetition in what he's saying.
04:32
And I don't know if you remember this, but early in the lesson of Amos, I said there's a lot of prophetic utterance.
04:39
There is oftentimes a lot of repetition, because he's trying to get something across.
04:44
And sometimes he'll say the same thing in two or three different ways.
04:47
And so we see here a lamentation, an invitation, a condemnation, and then again a lamentation, an invitation, a condemnation.
04:54
It's a second time through.
04:58
So let's look at verses 1-3.
05:00
Hear this word.
05:01
Remember, that's the same way that chapter 4 started.
05:03
That's the same way that chapter 3 started, the same way that chapter 5 starts.
05:07
Hear this word.
05:08
That's the opening of the oracle.
05:11
That I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel.
05:19
The prophet is weeping.
05:23
That's what lamentation is.
05:25
You know, there's a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations.
05:29
Do you all know who wrote it? Jeremiah.
05:32
What is Jeremiah referred to as? The weeping prophet.
05:37
And that's not because he was a weakling who was always crying.
05:42
Jeremiah was a passionate man who weeped over his nation.
05:46
He weeped over their fall.
05:47
He wept for their destruction.
05:51
And lamentation is his weeping over the destruction of his people.
05:57
What we see in chapter 5, Amos also is weeping.
06:03
Hear this, that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel.
06:11
Verse 2, the people wither.
06:13
This is how the outline goes.
06:15
Because it says, Fallen no more to rise is the virgin Israel, forsaken on her land with none to raise her up.
06:23
For thus says the Lord God, The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.
06:35
Fallen no more to rise is the virgin.
06:40
Now often times when the term virgin is used, it's a positive thing.
06:48
If you think about a woman being referred to as a virgin, it means she's pure.
06:53
Or that she's someone who's of marriageable quality.
07:00
But there's another sense in which the term virgin is being used here.
07:05
And this sense is a woman who is unmarried.
07:10
She has no protector.
07:14
Fallen no more to rise is the husbandless Israel.
07:19
Is the one without a husband.
07:21
You know the father had taken Israel as his bride.
07:27
But now she has forsaken him.
07:29
So she is as it were an unmarried person without the protection.
07:35
And that's why it says, Fallen no more to rise is the virgin, forsaken on her land with none to raise her up.
07:43
My protection has been lifted, says the father about Israel.
07:51
Think of a situation where the husband's job is to protect the wife.
07:57
But when she goes out from underneath that protection, if harm befalls her, it's her doing.
08:03
And this is what we see here.
08:05
She's fallen because she has abandoned the God who was her husband.
08:10
In the picture there.
08:13
And he says, For thus says the Lord God, the city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left.
08:22
And what this is referencing here is simply military defeat.
08:27
They're going to send a thousand men out to battle.
08:32
And they're going to see 90% of their armed forces destroyed.
08:40
Could you imagine if we sent men into battle and lost 90% of those men? That would be a tremendous defeat.
08:53
I mean we've gotten to the point now where we do lose men, and we do see men hurt, and men and women do die in battle.
09:01
But think back to like World War I, when there were thousands and thousands a day that were dying on beaches and things like that.
09:10
It was amazing.
09:12
There's a new film that's coming out, and I don't know that I would recommend it because it is a rather brutal film, but it's about a man who would not carry a gun into battle.
09:23
And he was a Christian man, but he still wanted to go because he was a doctor.
09:28
It's a true story.
09:29
At least it's a Hollywoodized true story.
09:33
But the idea is he wanted to go just to save men who were dying on the battlefield.
09:41
And he did.
09:42
And I just think about how many thousands, how many hundreds are dying.
09:45
But that's the picture that Amos is giving here.
09:47
You will lose in battle.
09:51
And you will lose at a point that you've never lost before.
09:54
You send out a thousand men, a hundred men will return.
09:58
You will lose 90%.
09:59
If you send a hundred out, ten will return.
10:01
You're going to lose 90% in battle.
10:05
So this is the lamentation that the prophet is giving.
10:11
But following the lamentation, we have an invitation.
10:14
And this is the beauty.
10:17
For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, Seek me and live.
10:29
Now I want to go to verse 5, but before I go to verse 5, that's a beautiful statement.
10:36
He's calling them to repentance.
10:40
He's told them what's going to happen.
10:44
Risen to fall.
10:49
Or rather, fallen no more to rise.
10:52
You're going to lose 90% in battle.
10:54
But, seek me and you will live.
11:00
Seek me and live.
11:02
God is calling them to repentance.
11:06
I think about, when I was writing this, I was thinking about Nineveh.
11:13
God sends Jonah into Nineveh.
11:15
But, Nineveh has a promise from God.
11:20
Forty days, and Nineveh will be overturned.
11:24
Nineveh will be destroyed.
11:28
So what happened? Nineveh repents, top down.
11:31
King all the way to the man in the stables, right? There's repentance from the bottom to the top, and from the top to the bottom.
11:39
And God's hand of judgment was stayed.
11:43
And people say, did God change his mind? No, God knew what was going to happen.
11:46
Don't forget he is sovereign.
11:48
And he had a plan in sending Jonah.
11:50
That's the reason why he sent Jonah.
11:52
Was so that they would repent, because he knew what was going to happen.
11:54
And God had decreed that that would happen.
11:57
But for a minute, I think about that, because here Israel is receiving a similar promise.
12:06
Fallen no more to rise.
12:08
90% of your battle, but you can seek me and live.
12:16
Nineveh, the Assyrian capital.
12:20
They heard repent, and they repented.
12:23
Israel hears repent, and what do they do? They keep on keeping on.
12:31
And that's why he says, but, verse 5, but do not seek Bethel.
12:36
Remember when we talked about Bethel and Gilgal? Those were the places where had been set up places of false idol worship.
12:44
So that the people wouldn't go to Jerusalem like they were supposed to.
12:46
They would go to Bethel or Gilgal and they would worship there.
12:49
And it says here, Beersheba, also a place where there was false worship.
12:53
Do not go to seek Bethel.
12:55
Do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba.
12:58
For Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall become nothing.
13:09
Seek the Lord and live.
13:13
Lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour with none to quench it for Bethel.
13:21
That's God's call to repentance.
13:24
That's the invitation.
13:29
There's a lament from the prophet.
13:30
You are going to fall.
13:32
Failure and falling is coming.
13:35
Turn.
13:38
Repent.
13:41
And then verse 7 begins the condemnation.
13:45
O you who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth.
13:59
By the way, wormwood, if you're unfamiliar, it was just a type of, it was a very bitter type of herb that wasn't really good for eating.
14:10
And the concept here in verse 7 is that justice should be a sweet thing.
14:18
Not always an easy thing.
14:21
But I sort of was thinking about this this week.
14:23
When you hear that someone has committed an atrocious crime, and you hear that that person has gotten away with it, and maybe the judge was too lenient, or maybe the jury was foolish and didn't look at all the evidence, or maybe some of the evidence had to be suppressed, and so the jury didn't get to see everything, and you know the guy did it.
14:43
I mean, we can think back to a few times when we know the person did it, but the person got off due to a technicality.
14:49
Either somebody didn't put the right paperwork in the right place, or something happened, right? And what does that feel like in your gut? That feels sour.
15:00
You say when the murderer doesn't receive any punishment for his murder, or when the thief doesn't get charged anything for his thievery, or the person who injures another doesn't have any punishment that they have to suffer.
15:14
There's no justice.
15:17
There's bitterness in our heart.
15:19
There's a sinking sour feeling in our stomach.
15:24
Justice should be sweet.
15:29
And that's what he is saying here.
15:30
He says, you who turn justice to wormwood.
15:33
Basically, you who turn that which is sweet into that which is bitter.
15:36
They had become a corrupt, unjust people.
15:40
And they had turned their justice upside down.
15:43
They had cast down the righteousness to the earth.
15:48
They had thrown away the true righteousness and replaced it with injustice.
15:55
Verse 8 shows us the power of God.
15:58
It says, He who made Pleiades and Orion, which are the stars, constellations, star constellations.
16:08
He who made these and turns deep darkness into morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth.
16:16
The Lord is His name who makes destruction flash forth against the strong so that destruction comes upon the fortress.
16:23
And ultimately, verses 8 and 9 are just focusing on the power of God.
16:26
Look at who you are fooling with.
16:30
This is God's justice that you are tarnishing.
16:35
What is sweet is the justice of God and you have turned it into bitter wormwood.
16:40
You have offended the Almighty.
16:42
Look at who you have offended.
16:44
The one who put the stars in the sky.
16:47
The one who gave us rain.
16:50
And then it talks about the water.
16:51
This is interesting because it talks about the water cycle.
16:52
The water coming off the sea and being brought in by the clouds and raining down on the earth.
16:56
That's an interesting picture of how they did understand at least a little bit of the scientific process of how water works.
17:02
And even in the ancient world, they did understand certain scientific principles.
17:06
He says, you know, God's in control of all this.
17:09
He's the one that makes it rain.
17:11
He's the one that makes the stars.
17:13
And He put them in the place where they are.
17:15
And even in the constellations that we can look at them and see how to navigate and things like that.
17:21
This is God you're messing with.
17:26
And then we see verse 10.
17:29
They hate Him who reproves in the gate.
17:34
And they abhor Him who speaks the truth.
17:42
I honestly think that Amos is speaking somewhat autobiographically.
17:52
Because he's saying they hate the one who's speaking the truth.
17:55
That's me.
17:56
I come to them preaching and they hate me.
18:00
I speak the truth to them and they abhor me.
18:05
There's a story.
18:07
And for the moment, I don't have it in my notes.
18:09
But I'm just remembering.
18:10
And I can't even remember the prophet's name.
18:12
But Jehoshaphat and Ahab came together.
18:16
And they were going to do a military activity together.
18:22
And I forget which book it's in.
18:28
But Jehoshaphat asked for the prophets to come and to prophesy.
18:31
Tell them what was going to happen.
18:32
And all these false prophets come out.
18:34
Everything's going to go great, Lord.
18:36
Everything's going to go good.
18:37
King, you're going to win, blah, blah, blah.
18:39
You're going to whip them, whip them good.
18:42
And Jehoshaphat says, well, do you have any more? And Ahab says, well, there's one more, but I hate him.
18:51
Because he never prophesies well of me.
18:54
Can you remember the name of the prophet? I can't think for the life of me.
18:58
I can't just for whatever reason.
19:00
It's gone out of my mind.
19:01
But I just remember him saying, there's one more, but I hate him.
19:05
Because he never speaks well of me.
19:08
And he was the only true prophet he had.
19:12
And that's the way the prophets were seen.
19:14
Think about when Jesus wept over Israel.
19:17
He says, oh, Israel, Israel, you who kill the prophets.
19:26
It's not Micah, it's Micaiah.
19:29
Or Micaiah, yeah, Micaiah, yeah.
19:31
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:31
I'm sitting here in my brain.
19:33
I'm thinking, and I was like, yeah, that sounds right.
19:35
And I hate that, because I should have put it in the notes.
19:38
But, yeah, there it is.
19:41
People don't want to hear the truth.
19:43
I spent two minutes this week.
19:45
I listened to Joel Osteen for two whole minutes.
19:51
And, well, the first thing that got me was how vacuous the words.
19:56
Because it was just, the Lord is going to make everything great.
19:59
And he's going to make everything pretty.
20:00
And it's going to be so beautiful.
20:01
And you're going to wake up and have more than an abundance.
20:04
You're going to wake up and have more than what you need.
20:05
And you're going to have so much, you're going to be able to help somebody else who doesn't have what they need.
20:08
And it just went on and on and on.
20:10
And I thought, I couldn't sit through this for 30 minutes.
20:14
I'm going to have diabetes when it's over.
20:18
It's just so much saccharine.
20:21
I couldn't take it.
20:24
And that, again, is the picture of the prophet.
20:28
The prophets were hated because they spoke what the kings and the people didn't want to hear.
20:35
I hate him because he never says anything good.
20:38
He only prophesies what is bad.
20:42
One day I'm going to preach that text.
20:45
Because it's such a good reminder of how people only want to hear the positive.
20:52
Yeah, exactly.
20:54
What goes down easy.
20:57
But this is, as I said, I think verse 10 is somewhat autobiographical.
21:02
And that's the plight of the prophet.
21:03
And then verses 11-13, he talks about what I have in the notes just because I was trying to be a little alliterative.
21:09
The peccadilloes of the people.
21:11
Or the sins of the people.
21:13
Verse 11, it says, Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them.
21:26
You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
21:30
For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins.
21:35
You who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.
21:38
Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.
21:48
Now this verse 13 is kind of difficult.
21:52
Because it says, he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time.
21:59
And somebody says, well wait a minute, shouldn't the wise speak up at such a time? And it could simply be saying something as simple as he will be aghast or be without words as to how bad things are.
22:17
The person who sees with wisdom will be just without words as to how terrible.
22:24
Have you ever been that way? Have you ever seen something and just didn't know what to say? You see something so unjust, so ungodly, and you just, I can't say anything.
22:37
There's nothing in the world.
22:39
It's just so bad.
22:41
And so that could possibly be it.
22:42
It could be that it's a forced silence.
22:46
But it doesn't seem to read as if, it says he'll keep silent.
22:50
It doesn't say he's forced silent.
22:51
But again, it's sort of a difficult thing to sort of understand what it's saying here.
22:54
Because we know the prophet is a prudent man and he's speaking out.
22:58
But there's going to come a time where the prudent will be silent.
23:01
And like I said, I think it may just be that the prudent man has realized this has just gone beyond words.
23:10
The sins have grown so heinous.
23:15
And destruction is inevitable.
23:19
So then we see, beginning in verse 14, a second invitation.
23:26
As I said, there's a first invitation already, verses 4 through 6.
23:29
Well, we see a second invitation in verses 14 and 15.
23:33
Seek good and not evil.
23:34
Remember, in verse 4 it says, seek me and live.
23:37
Well, now he's saying, seek good and not evil.
23:39
And I do think there's an interesting parallel between verses 4 and verse 14.
23:45
Because when he says, seek me and live, in verse 14 he says, seek good and not evil.
23:51
God is good.
23:52
Now I know that's a simple thing to say.
23:54
God is good.
23:56
But if you think of verse 4 and verse 14 as parallel, they're parallel in this.
24:01
When we seek that which is good, we are seeking that which is God.
24:07
Because that's the synonym.
24:10
Seek me, seek good.
24:13
And hate evil.
24:14
What's evil? Evil is that which is opposed to God.
24:24
That sounds simple, but that's really profound.
24:27
Because if you go out and talk to people, and you talk to them about the Lord, there are people who will call God evil.
24:35
Well, I can't worship God because He's so harsh, and He's so judgmental, and He sends people to hell.
24:44
I can't worship Him.
24:46
And I think to myself, and I ask them, I say, first of all, He's not those things.
24:57
But you see Him that way, and you're judging and saying this about God, that He's harsh and He's difficult.
25:05
Upon what basis are you making that standard? Your own foolish subjectivity.
25:14
You know, speaking to an atheist recently, I asked him, I said, do you think what Hitler did was wrong? And he said, well, yeah.
25:24
I said, upon what moral basis? Well, it hurts people.
25:30
Why is it wrong to hurt people? Well, it's because people are valuable.
25:35
What makes people valuable? Where is there any dignity? And man, if all you are is a grown-up germ, if all you are is a sack of stardust, where is there any value in that? Where is there any dignity in that? You know, there really is.
25:51
You have to push people back and ask the real serious question, what makes something good? Well, I think it's good.
26:01
Hitler thought it was good to kill six million Jews.
26:05
He thought it was good to raise up an Aryan race.
26:09
He thought it was good to exterminate people that he considered less than human.
26:18
Yeah, that's right.
26:19
We ought and we ought not.
26:22
Where does that sense of ought come from? It's inherent within us because God has placed it there.
26:29
It's not an evolutionary byproduct.
26:32
It's a creationary byproduct because we're creating the image of God.
26:36
I can go on one verse sometimes a little longer than I intended, but the idea was seek God and seek good because God is good.
26:46
So he says, Seek good and not evil that you may live and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you as you have said.
26:55
Hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate.
26:59
It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
27:06
Again, it's similar to earlier.
27:09
Seek me and live.
27:11
Seek good and live.
27:14
But then the lamentation starts again.
27:18
Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, The Lord in all the squares shall be wailing and in all the streets shall say, Alas, alas, they shall call the farmers to mourning and wail to those who are skilled in lamentation.
27:33
And in all vineyards there shall be wailing for I will pass through their midst.
27:39
Your midst, says the Lord.
27:43
There's going to be wailing among the farmers.
27:46
There's going to be wailing among the skillful.
27:49
There's going to be wailing throughout the people of Israel.
27:53
Why? Because the Lord shall pass through.
27:57
Now think of this.
28:01
Compare it in your mind.
28:04
When God held back His judgment, He passed over.
28:11
Remember? Egypt.
28:14
You put the blood on the doorpost and the lentil and I will pass over.
28:19
But when He exercises His judgment, He passes through.
28:27
God will come this time not to pass over, but pass through.
28:33
And with His passing through will bring judgment.
28:39
And then we see the final.
28:40
The second condemnation begins in verse 18 and it's rather long.
28:43
I'm going to read it out.
28:45
But what we're going to see here, verse 18 is interesting.
28:50
It says, Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord.
28:53
Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light.
28:57
As if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall and a serpent bit him.
29:05
That seems kind of like prophetic poetry.
29:08
But here it is in simple terms.
29:10
You think that you're going to be okay on the day of judgment.
29:16
That's what it says.
29:17
It says, Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord.
29:19
The day of the Lord is a prophetic language which represents the day of judgment.
29:27
And we see this even in the New Testament, the phrase the day of the Lord, that it's the day when Christ will return and He'll exercise judgment on all the nations.
29:33
And we talk about the day of the Lord.
29:35
And honestly, as a believer, I look forward to the day of the Lord.
29:39
I mean, I look forward to the day when I get to see Christ.
29:43
Whether I'm dead and I see Him in my death and there at judgment.
29:48
Or whether He splits the sky while I still live and I see Him.
29:51
I look forward to that day.
29:53
But so did they.
29:56
But they shouldn't have.
29:58
That's what the prophet's saying.
29:59
He says, You look forward to the day of judgment not realizing you're on the end of the stick.
30:04
You're on the end of the judgment bar.
30:09
He says, You're like this.
30:13
He says, You're like a man who fled from a lion and ran into a bear.
30:18
Because you think you're okay.
30:20
But all you've done is gone from one judgment to another.
30:26
Because they were worshiping falsely and they were worshiping idols.
30:30
He says, You're like a man who goes into his house, thinks everything's fine, puts his hand against the wall and didn't realize there's a snake in the wall.
30:36
And it bit him.
30:38
And essentially, the prophetic utterance is simply this.
30:42
You are blinded by your own plight.
30:47
You think you're going to be okay when you face God.
30:49
Let me tell you something.
30:50
I cannot tell you how many people that I have witnessed to over the years that tell me, They'll look me right in the face and they'll say, I'm okay with God.
31:00
I don't need you to tell me anything.
31:03
I'm fine.
31:05
Some of those people may be fine.
31:08
But in general, if I get them to talk to me, generally they are not.
31:13
In fact, I was wearing my shirt the other day, my witnessing shirt.
31:17
I had my tracks and I was walking around at the monster truck rally.
31:24
I can't tell you how many people I go up to hand a track to.
31:27
And the person will say, I don't need that.
31:29
I'm good.
31:32
You give that to somebody else.
31:34
I'm okay.
31:36
And I'll say, well, you know, thank you.
31:38
I try to talk them into taking it.
31:40
Sometimes I'll maybe, you know, I'm not ever really pushy, but I'll ask them a question or two.
31:45
You know, but I just can't, I can't imagine what's going to happen on judgment day to someone who's their whole life, I'm good.
31:54
That's where Israel is in this passage.
31:57
They look forward to the day of the Lord.
31:59
Not realizing that it will not be a blessing to them.
32:09
Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness at all? And then verse 21, the worship is mentioned.
32:19
He says, I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
32:26
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.
32:30
And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them.
32:33
Take away from me the noise of your song, to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
32:36
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.
32:41
Let me tell you something, verses 21 through 24 could be mailed to the door of so many churches.
32:49
I hate your feasts.
32:51
I don't delight in your assemblies, your songs.
32:56
I didn't want to get into that.
32:58
But are there noise to me? Your sacrifices, I don't accept.
33:13
But verse 24, but let justice roll down like waters.
33:16
You see the part you're missing in your worship is true righteousness.
33:23
You are so good at showing off in worship.
33:27
You're so good at playing the part of church.
33:31
Boy, tell me this isn't relevant to today.
33:34
You're so good, you can dress the part.
33:38
You can make the light shows.
33:39
You can have the greatest dinners.
33:42
You can have the greatest bands.
33:44
You can have the greatest speakers.
33:46
The most eloquent preachers.
33:48
You can have all of these things and not have Christ.
33:54
And what's the difference? Righteousness is the difference.
33:59
If the church that you attend does not call you to repentance and a life more conformed to the image of Christ, the church is not a church.
34:08
That's essentially it.
34:11
If you can walk in the front door and walk out the back door and there's no call for change, it's not a church.
34:23
The part you're missing, Israel, is righteousness.
34:29
You have abandoned that for a show.
34:33
This could be a sermon by itself.
34:38
Verses 25 to the end, we'll just read it.
34:42
It says, Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikoth, your king, and Kihun, your star god, your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
35:02
Basically what he's saying.
35:06
He references the forty years in the wilderness.
35:09
What happened during the forty years in the wilderness? People worshipped the golden calf.
35:16
People refused to believe when the twelve spies went into the promised land, refused to believe they could overtake.
35:26
And what did God do? God made it to where the only ones who would go through, Joshua and Caleb, and those who were less than twenty years old.
35:33
All of that older generation died.
35:35
Why? Because of a lack of faith.
35:41
And again, verse 26 and 27, he calls their gods by name.
35:46
Your star god.
35:49
Your false king.
35:53
And they will go into exile.
35:56
You will go into exile, and they will be no help to you.
36:02
Alright, let's look at some application.
36:06
I took all my time on the explanation.
36:08
I hadn't planned on it.
36:10
But I'm going to give you the application.
36:20
Number one.
36:23
There should be lamentation when we consider the judgment of God.
36:33
I said earlier that justice is sweet.
36:40
And it is when we see true justice accomplished.
36:44
Because injustice is bitter.
36:48
Justice is sweet.
36:50
But at the same time, when we consider the full-orbed nature of judgment, there is a sense in which even though it is sweet because it is righteous, it should weigh on our heart that somebody is going away for the rest of their life because they took the life of another.
37:16
I've never looked at somebody who got justice for their crime and said, Yay! I'm excited! Because one, somebody's life is destroyed.
37:25
And the other guy's life is forfeited.
37:30
So even though there is sweetness in justice, there is still lamentation for what caused it.
37:37
The sin.
37:39
And we do lament over sin.
37:41
And I got to thinking about this.
37:42
The Bible says, and you can write this down, Ezekiel 33, 11.
37:46
The Bible says that God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
37:52
Now He is glorified in the exercise of His justice because He's a just God.
37:58
But there's a difference between God being glorified and God getting His jollies out of judgment.
38:04
You understand what I mean by that? And that's what I think the text is referencing.
38:07
When it says He doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
38:14
When the wicked dies and the wicked goes into hell, there is a sense in which God is glorified in exercising His justice.
38:25
But He's not standing there, Yay! As if it were any more than we stand at the...
38:32
You know, I've seen men be sentenced to death.
38:37
Never in person, but I've seen newsreels and things like that.
38:43
And I've never once thought, Yay! You know, it's a sad thing.
38:48
In fact, have you ever heard of the phrase, breaking the nib? It's a new phrase, I just learned it myself.
38:55
Breaking the nib is...
38:56
The nib is the end of the pen.
38:58
And after a judge sentences someone to death, it's a tradition among judges that they will take the pen that they use to write the death warrant and they'll break the nib as a sign of the finality and a separation of what has happened between their personal feelings and their role as judge.
39:27
Because they've done it in an exercise of justice, not personal vengeance or anything like that, but they've done it as an exercise of justice.
39:38
And they break the pen as a symbol of the finality of it and to show this is separation here.
39:45
They're not going to use that pen for other things.
39:48
That pen's got one purpose.
39:52
And when we're out proclaiming the justice of God, and we do, when we share the gospel, we share the judgment of God, we share the justice of God, but it should never be without weightiness.
40:09
I've heard people say, well, you can just go to hell then.
40:18
I know most people say this with no thought, but I've heard believers say that to unbelievers.
40:23
They'll get tired of talking to them and sharing the gospel with them.
40:26
Well, you can just go to hell.
40:27
I cannot think of the reality of hell without a sense of overwhelming awe.
40:41
And I think about Jesus who stood, and He looked at Israel, and He looked at Jerusalem and said, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you city that kills the prophets and stones those who sent to it, how often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.
41:01
I would have gathered your children together, but you were unwilling.
41:03
I mean, there's a sense in which the justice and judgment of God is an awful thing.
41:12
Awful in the sense that it's filled with awe.
41:15
It's not flippant, and it should raise within us a sense of lamentation.
41:21
And if it doesn't, I don't think we really understand it.
41:26
So that's the first thought.
41:29
Number two, the appeals of God to His wayward people demonstrate the extent of His loving kindness.
41:39
We see twice in chapter 5, God says, Seek me, seek good, turn, repent.
41:50
You know the Bible says the kindness of God and the forbearance and patience of God is for one purpose, and it's to lead us to repentance.
41:59
Romans 2.4 Don't you know that the riches of the kindness and the mercy and the patience of God is meant to lead you to repentance? How hard of a heart do we have to have? And it is hard.
42:15
That mercy doesn't lead us to repentance.
42:17
I'll finish quickly.
42:20
Let me just say this one last thing about this second part.
42:24
There have been people, and I know I've said this before, but people who say, oh, the God of the Old Testament was so mean.
42:29
The God of the Old Testament was so harsh.
42:31
He was so judgmental.
42:33
Marcion, one of the men from the second century, one of the earliest heretics in the church.
42:38
You know what he did? Marcion got people to believe that the God of the Old Testament was a demigod, was not the Father of Jesus Christ, but he was a demigod who was vindictive and unjust and unrighteous, and the Father of Jesus was loving and merciful and kind.
42:59
And so they threw out the whole Hebrew Bible and much of what was in the Gospels, because a lot of what's in the Gospels is taken from the Hebrew Bible.
43:06
It's quoting the Scripture.
43:09
And he was left with just parts of the New Testament that he formed together.
43:15
The Marcion Bible, you can look it up.
43:23
M-A-R-C-I-O-N, Marcion.
43:29
But here's the thing.
43:31
All throughout the Old Testament, there is calls.
43:35
Seek me and live.
43:36
Turn and live.
43:40
God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in times of trouble.
43:46
That's who He is.
43:48
And to throw that out is the height of heresy.
43:51
That's why it's called the Arch-Heretic Marcion.
43:56
Third and finally, the judgment of God will not tarry forever.
44:04
People often believe incorrectly because they have not yet experienced judgment that it will never come.
44:09
But the Bible promises us it is appointed unto every man once to die.
44:15
And after this is judgment.
44:19
Israel was convinced that judgment was reserved for everyone else, and that's why they look forward to the judgment of God.
44:25
We look forward to the Day of the Lord because that's going to be for everybody else.
44:29
May we never forget that every person will stand before the Lord, and we will either stand in Christ or outside of Christ.
44:37
And in Christ we will find all the depths of the mercy and riches of God, and outside of Christ we will find nothing but His wrath.
44:44
There are some discussion questions for you to take.
44:46
I hope that those have been helpful for you, and I hope tonight was encouraging.
44:49
Let's pray.
44:50
Father, I thank You for this time to study.
44:53
I hope that it's been helpful, and I pray that You'll use it in the lives of these people to encourage them toward a closer walk with Christ in His name.
45:01
Amen.