Ripe for Judgment

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Well, if you want to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Amos, we are going to be in chapter 8 tonight.
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And Cody, you can pass out those handouts if you would, son.
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Hey, no worries, no worries.
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Everyone is getting their hands out, hands out, their handouts.
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I would like for you to look first at verse 11.
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We are going to read through the whole chapter of chapter 8, but there is a point at verse 11 that sort of provides for us the final condemnation.
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You know, those of you who have been here for the last several weeks, that from the beginning of Amos all the way till now, it has been a word of condemnation from the beginning.
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The southern prophet has gone to the northern kingdom, he has stuck his little pointy finger right in their face and he says, you are unjustly treating the poor, you are unrighteously worshiping God, you are turned over to idols, you are turned over to debauchery, you are turned over to sensuality, you are turned over to licentiousness.
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And because of this, God is going to bring upon you swift and complete destruction.
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And yet his words have gone unheeded.
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Last week we noticed the priest Amaziah who came to him and said, stop preaching, we don't want to hear it anymore, go home, go back to the southern kingdom, leave us be.
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We want to hear good things, we want to hear prosperity, we want to hear positivity, we don't want your preaching of judgment, leave.
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So we come to verse 11 of chapter 8 and we see that the people will eventually get what they have asked for.
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Verse 11, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
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The judgment of God that is coming upon the people is a judgment that they probably have thought would be a blessing.
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I don't have to hear these words of condemnation anymore.
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I don't have to hear how bad I am anymore.
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I don't have to hear how much I need to repent anymore.
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Hooray! But when destruction comes and when all around them have fallen and now they realize there is nothing for them to turn to, and they turn to God and He is not listening.
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He has turned them over to their sin.
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He said God wouldn't do that.
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Read Romans 1.
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For this very reason God gave them up to a debased mind.
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To do what ought not to be done.
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For this very reason God gave them over to a debased mind.
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There is a time when God gives a person over to their sin.
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He gives them over to what they have longed for.
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Amaziah is in a sense the spokesperson for Israel because he came out and said we don't want to hear this.
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And God says well there is coming a day when you won't.
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But it will be in that day when you will need it the most, want it the most, and it will be gone.
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It is an amazing prophecy.
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It is an amazing damning prophecy.
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Think about this.
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We have as a nation been through several hard times.
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Those of you who are maybe my seniors in age can remember maybe some harder times.
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You don't have to giggle.
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Maybe remember some harder times than I do.
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But, very few of us were, I don't know, none of us were alive in the 1800's of course.
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In the early 1900's we have gone through two world wars and in those times we have seen massive devastation.
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And yet, one pastor pointed this out, he said and yet with all the devastation that we have seen there has been rebuilt.
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Even Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we dropped an atom bomb.
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Look at a picture of Nagasaki and Hiroshima today.
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They are thriving cities.
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Just half a century after an entire civilization of city destroyed.
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Half a century later we got it back.
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Twelve years ago, well no, how many years ago was it, oh, 9-11 is 2001, it is 2017, so 16 years ago buildings fell.
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But what did we say when the buildings fell? What did everybody say? Not that we will rebuild, but that is true, that is not what I am thinking about, but that is true.
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We said we will rebuild.
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What did we say? We will never be the same.
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We are the exact same.
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We changed for half a minute.
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Everybody said we are going to be more God conscious.
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You know how many more people go to church now than did before? That many.
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Because devastation and destruction like that does not last long in the mind.
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And that is the point God is making, because the destruction that is coming is no longer just a famine in a field, or a tower falling, or a famine of food, or a famine of water, a drought of water.
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There is coming a time where God is going to step away.
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And that will change everything.
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So this is what is coming.
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Remember what I told you about the Northern Kingdom? The Northern Kingdom never gets restored.
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After they fall to Assyria, they never are restored.
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The Southern Kingdom falls to Babylon.
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They go into captivity.
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And they are led to freedom under Cyrus.
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But the Northern Kingdom falls to Assyria.
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And it is done.
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So let's go back to verse 1 and see how this all plays out.
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Because it says in verse 1, This is what the Lord God showed me.
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Behold, a basket of summer fruit.
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And he said, Amos, what do you see? And I said, a basket of summer fruit.
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Then the Lord said to me, The end has come upon my people Israel.
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I will never again pass by them.
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The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, declares the Lord, so many dead bodies, they are thrown everywhere in silence.
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Here is the point of that.
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The summer fruit, we would probably see as a good thing.
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If I brought you a basket of fruit, usually as some type of a positive.
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You know, if you were sick and I brought you a basket of fruit, you would say thank you.
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If you were new to my neighborhood, I might bring you a basket of fruit and you would thank me because that is a blessing.
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But the basket of fruit here is a symbol of the end.
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Because summer fruit was the last of the harvest.
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This is it.
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This is the ripe fruit.
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That's why tonight's lesson is entitled, Ripe for Judgment.
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That's the picture.
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You've reached the end.
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You've reached the last of the fruit.
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Here it is.
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And after this, no more.
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It's over.
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And then verse 4.
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From verse 4 of chapter 8 all the way to verse 10 of chapter 9, there's a lengthy explanation as to why it has come.
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But the point, again, if you think of verse 11, tied back into verse 1 and 2, the point of chapter 8 and 9 is it's over.
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The only thing we get at the end, five verses of hope at the end of nine chapters of condemnation.
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You get five verses of hope.
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But it's not hope for the nation of Israel.
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It's hope for the remnant.
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For within all of Israel, there's a remnant of true believers.
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But not the nation.
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The nation, this northern kingdom is done.
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It's not the kingdom that will be saved.
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And we'll see that.
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And it's under the Messiah that salvation will come.
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And we'll see that as we get there.
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But the point of this is the utter devastation.
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Why? Verse 4.
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Hear this, you who trample the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, when will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small, the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat.
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Alright, we'll stop at verse 6 for a moment.
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Because this is a warning against what they have done.
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And let me explain, because this really has an interesting interpretation and understanding.
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Because he says, you trample the needy, we've already talked about how they do that.
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You bring the poor of the land to an end.
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We've sort of addressed that over the last few weeks.
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But verses 5 and 6 address something sort of new that he hasn't really touched on yet.
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Because verse 5 says this, he says, you say when the new moons will be over, when will the new moons be over that we may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small, the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances.
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The reference there is the reference to the fact that they are very religious and they're still practicing their religion, but they're doing so in a way that is not pleasing to God.
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Because they celebrate the new moons, which is one of the festivals.
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They observe the Sabbath, which was commanded of Israel that you not work on the Sabbath.
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But the whole day that they're observing the Sabbath, they're looking forward to nightfall.
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Because as soon as that sun goes down, I can get back out there and cheat people.
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I can get back out there and get back to the work.
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You see, culturally, Israel was religious.
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I'm going to say something again for those of you who are my seniors, this may come not necessarily as a shock, but something that you may not have thought of.
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Often times I hear people say, you know, America used to be very Christian in their behavior because we didn't go to work on Sunday and we didn't do this on Sunday and people didn't use bad words in public and we were more Christian because we behaved morally.
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Behaving morally does not make you more Christian.
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And I'm going to tell you why.
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Because you can behave morally and be lost.
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Because that moral picture that you put in front of your face, all it is is the picture.
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You are just what the Pharisees were which were the whitewashed walls, Jesus said.
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You were like tombs that had been cleaned but inside you're filled with dead men's bones.
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There were people who took Sundays off because that was the Lord's day but then they got up on Monday and cheated people at their jobs all week long.
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They went to church on Sunday but from Monday to Saturday they broke their arms twisting other people's arms.
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You see what I'm saying? This is what's happening in Israel.
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They have a facade of religion but it means nothing to them.
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All it is is meeting their social checklist.
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They're doing what they need to do to meet that social requirement of religiosity.
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I've kept the new moon festival, I've kept the Sabbath day but now I can go back out in the latter part of verse 5 when he says you make the ephah small, the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances basically what it's saying is you cheat people you make that which is valuable not valuable and you take that which isn't valuable and you pretend it is valuable.
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Sort of the way we do with money.
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We artificially inflate money.
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I look at Dale because Dale's a man who understands stocks and we talk about this sometimes.
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Don't businesses do that? Artificially inflate stocks and things like that and then Enron happens and people lose their entire lives because of cheating the system.
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It's what it's saying here.
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So you go to church on Sunday and then you live like Satan on Monday.
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That's the modern expression of this.
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They have a cultural religiosity that doesn't matter.
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In fact it's worse.
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It's worse to be culturally religious than to just be non-religious.
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Because Jesus said I would rather you be hot or cold but because you are what? Luke warm.
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I'm going to spit you out of my mouth.
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It's worse to pretend and that's what they were doing.
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They were pretending.
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And so verse 6 just follows that up.
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We may buy the poor for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals, sell the chaff of the wheat.
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The chaff of the wheat was the useless part of the wheat.
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It wasn't good for food or anything but they would sell it as part of it.
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You know you've heard of maybe a modern example of that of somebody weighing a piece of fish or something or some type of something that's it's only supposed to weigh this much but they put weights in it to make it weigh more so they have to pay more.
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You've heard of people doing that.
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Maybe fish is a bad example but you understand what I'm saying.
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You've got a piece of fish that's 20 pounds you put a 10 pound weight in its mouth so it's 30 pounds and then you sell it but you can't eat the weight and you don't know it until you've already cut it open.
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You know there's other examples maybe you have a better one in your mind but that's just one that's in my mind but you understand they're cheating people they're taking people into slavery they're buying people for the price of a pair of sandals.
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You know what if somebody said your life is worth what the shoes you're wearing.
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I was given these for free and I think the person who bought them got them at a yard sale so my life would be really worth very little.
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My mom gave them to me.
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I'm pretty sure they came from a yard sale but uh that's okay I don't mind but if somebody says you're worth what your shoes probably you know less than five dollars and that's what people were doing they were treating the lives of others with so little value and you know I imagine and I can't promise this to be true but I imagine some of those poor people are part of the remnant that we're going to talk about in a little while some of those people that were being oppressed were crying out to God why you know so verse 8 or verse 7 rather word of judgment the Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob surely I will never forget any of your deeds now that phrase the Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob there's two ways to take that and if you want to argue interpretation you can because I think that it's a little to me a little difficult to come down on one side of the other and say absolutely the pride of Jacob could be say is God himself he is their pride but it could also be their pride their actual their wrong and he said I'm swearing by what is so obviously true your pride so it's kind of a he's either saying I'm swearing by myself or I'm swearing by your attitude which is obviously true but either way matters really not because both are the same he's telling the truth I will never forget any of your deeds why because they're not repenting of their deeds you realize the bible says God takes our iniquities from us and he removes them from us as far as the east is from the west and God chooses not to remember our sins against us that's a gift of God but these people because they are lacking in repentance they're lacking in a contrite heart God says I'm not going to forget what you've done I'm not going to forget your sin shall not the land tremble on this account and everyone mourn who dwells in it and all of it rise like the Nile and be tossed about and sink again like the Nile of Egypt this again is just the judgment of God it's going to flow like the Nile the Nile would rise and would fall and when it would rise it would it would cause some havoc you know as any flood would cause some havoc and when it would go back down you'd see the results of it and that's sort of the picture of God's judgment it's going to come up and when it's when it finally desists you'll see all the destruction that's happened on that day declares the Lord I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight that is the first of four I will statements this is God making a point and I want to make this point to you because he says I will verse 9 he says I will verse 10 three times it's four I will statements and the reason why I want to point this out to you is that often times we like to remove from God the action of judgment and place it on something else and I'll give you an example we think about the Passover right and the Bible talks about on the night of the Passover Passover he says the Lord will pass through Egypt and execute judgment but often times you hear people talk about the death angel the Bible never mentions the death angel it does mention a destroyer but the one who says he will walk through and execute judgment is the Lord God says I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight I will turn your feasts in the morning, your songs in the lamentation, I will bring sackcloth on every waist, baldness on every head and I will make it like morning for an only sun at the end of a the end of it like a bitter day.
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I'm going to do these things and you won't even be able to understand the devastation that's coming and then verse 11 behold the days are coming I'm going to send a famine on the land not for bread or water but for hearing the words of the Lord.
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Let me ask you a question is God is God required to offer anyone salvation? No, everybody is saying this because you're right.
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No God's not required to offer anyone salvation if the word of God is not being preached in the land then salvation has been withdrawn and let me explain how are people saved? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ but in the you could say by the word of God.
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If the word of God is removed so too is the preaching of salvation I have seen churches that have powerful pastors men of God who love the Lord, who love the word of God and who proclaim the word of God with power and the churches in their hatred of that man send him out and they rather hire someone else who will tell them what they want to hear and it's almost as if a black cloth is laid over the church because you are no longer hearing the word of God churches can die the church can't die Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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That's the universal church that will never pass away but churches do die we've seen it and there are churches that live on life support and there are other churches that just live in heresy the word of God not preached in the land is the worst of judgments and the people will one day long for it and not have it and it says in verse 12 they will wander from sea to sea, from north to east they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord but they shall not find it it will not be preached in that day the lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say as your God lives O Dan and as the way of Beersheba lives they shall fall and never rise again you see 13 and 14 is referencing the fact that these people have trusted falsely and in a false God.
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They faint for thirst, they thirst for the word but the whole time they had the word they didn't want it instead they were swearing by the guilt of Samaria and say as your God lives O Dan and as the way of Beersheba lives they shall fall and never rise again they had trusted in the idols they had trusted falsely and as a result they would themselves fall now chapter 9 I do want to turn there we got a few more minutes so we're going to look at chapter 9 we see a vision of destruction I saw the Lord standing beside the altar and what we see basically from verses 1-10 is all of the destruction that's about to take place strike the capitals until the thresholds shake and shatter them on the heads of all the people and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword not one of them shall flee away not one of them shall escape if they dig into Sheol which is the grave they shall from there shall my hand take them if they climb up to heaven from there I will bring them down if they hide themselves on the top of Carmel which was a mountain and there I will search them out and take them and if they hide from my side at the bottom of the sea there I will command the serpent and it shall bite them if they go into captivity before their enemies there I will command the sword and it shall kill them and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.
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This is harsh language from God and really it should cause us to think because God is making a point here that when He brings judgment it is inescapable he said on that day I am going to strike the land and you won't be able to run last year we had a hurricane headed this way and it seemed like it was going to be a pretty big deal and it was it flooded all of St.