Our scripture reading this morning is the last five verses of the book of Amos, Amos 9 verses 11 through 15. This is on page 771 if you're following along with Pew Bibles, prophesying the restoration of Israel. In that day, I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations who are called by my name, declares the Lord who does this. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, him who sows the seed. The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord your God. Amen, dears, you may be seated. So here at Redeemer, Leslie and I are closing out 36 years of ministry at the end of the year, and we realized that there were 14 books out of the Holy Book and the Bible that we had never preached. I had never preached even one sermon. Three of them are in the New Testament and 11 in the Old. Today, we're on the 8th of those 14, and that is the book of Amos. In two weeks, Lord willing, we're going to look at the book of Obadiah, the shortest book in the Old Testament. Next Sunday, you have Psalm 5 as our intern, licensed man from the PCA. Ryan will be preaching from that. And today, we have the great book of Amos. But before we go into it, let's pray. Father, thank you for all the books of the Bible. They all point us and direct us to Jesus. Every single one of them, all the words therein. So it doesn't really matter if we're in Obadiah or Amos or Genesis or Isaiah or Romans or John or Revelation. All of them direct us to Jesus. Now, do that again for us today, we pray. Give us the bread of life, Christ the Lord, in the word and in the sacrament. This we pray in Christ's name, amen. So Amos was prophesying in the 8th century BC, that would be the 700s, and he was prophesying doom upon the northern kingdom of Israel. You remember the 11 tribes that broke off during the time of Solomon's son, Rehoboam's, and they had formed their own nation. Then you had the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Now, this man Amos was actually from Judah, and he was by vocation a Christian. a breeder of sheep and a tender of sycamore figs. And yet God calls him from that to be a prophet, and he sends him up to the country or the nation of Israel. Now, one of the prophets earlier in this book didn't like what he was saying and said, get out of here, go back to Judah. We're tired of your words and all your destruction and everything. But he doesn't. He stays true to his calling. So he is prophesying in the decades leading up to the final doom and disaster of the nation of Israel, which happened in 722 BC, when the Assyrians came in, hauled them off from their land, and they never ever did return to it, even to this day. So this is the context that we're looking at. this dresser of sycamore figs and this breeder of sheep becomes this great prophet. In fact, he is probably the earliest writing prophet that we have, not, of course, including Job or Moses. If we're talking about sort of the prophets as a group, as we think of them after the Mosaic period, during the kings especially, he's probably one of the earliest writers Now, the last five verses of the book, chapter 9, verses 11, 15, are by far and away the most encouraging. If you have the courage to read the whole book, as I did, as I tried to do, as I'm bringing you these best of the rest series of the whole counsel of God, It's all pretty much doom and gloom. There isn't a whole lot of light if there's no repentance. But here, at the very end, here comes all the glory, all the light, all the gospel, all of it points us to Jesus. the Christ who would come and establish his kingdom. Now, as I mentioned, Israel as a nation never did return, but Israel as the new covenant church would indeed in Christ and the new covenant era be established, it would last forever, and it would bring God glory throughout all eternity in this world and then in the eternal state in heaven. Therefore, in light of all of this, let's make it our gospel goal this Resurrection Day to rejoice in Jesus since we have everything we need in Him. Today we're studying Amos 9, 11 through 15. I know we have some visitors. We've provided you an outline if you'd like to use it. This is where we start. The title of the sermon is The Revival of the Church. And all the texts have doctrine. The doctrine here is the incarnation of Christ established the revival of the church. Now, Amos' very opening words of verse 11, the first verse of our scripture lesson today, introduced to the whole world the new and wondrous order of all things, this new order of all things, the tent of the booth of David that had fallen is going to be restored. Now there's the only way that ever could have happened or did happen is in the incarnation birth, ministry, life, death on the cross, resurrection, ascension, session in heaven, Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the full glories of the new covenant age coming to be. Only in Jesus Christ could all this excitement that Amos ends his book with center on. No one else. Christ alone is the fulfillment of the Amos 9 prophecy. So therefore, let us now appreciate why the incarnation of Christ established the revival of the church. first because all of Old Testament history pointed to Jesus' advent. Now, advent's just a kind of fancy word for incarnation, Christmas, coming on to the earth, being born. Now, this is one of the several reasons that every true sermon that's ever preached from a faithful pulpit always directs everyone to Jesus, whether it comes from an Old Testament or New Testament text, it doesn't matter. Christ and his gospel has to be at the very center, not only of every sermon, but of everything we do and who we are. If we miss that, we've missed the whole point of life, because God is all about Jesus Christ. He has nothing else to give us. He's not interested in anything else. All blessing is funneled through Him, and He's bringing all things into reconciliation in Christ, under Christ's rule, His reign. Day after day, Lord's day to Lord's day, that's what He's doing. And the prophets of the Old Testament wasted no ink. They came straight to the point, and their point was always Jesus Christ and Him alone. There is no other point. There's no other program. We could go all the way back to Genesis 1, but certainly Genesis 3, after the fall of man and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In verse 21, God slays an animal and clothes them with the skin of an animal, prefiguring the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who would clothe us. And then, of course, there's that great verse 15 of chapter 3 of Genesis, where we are told that the seed of the woman, the offspring, Christ would come. He would crush Satan's head and despoil his kingdom. forever and ever. And that's what Jesus did in his resurrection. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is not nearly as hard to interpret as people who do not love Jesus Christ very much would make it seem to be. Those who do know and love Christ understand almost intuitively that that's what it's all about. Whether it's Amos or anywhere else, it's all about Jesus. So next month, Lord willing, in December, many of us, not all, and I appreciate people's scruples on this, will celebrate Advent. And we might be reminded of the wonderful words of Isaiah 9, 6a, where the prophet wrote, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given. And one of our great 20th century Reformed wonderful theological friends, John Murray, a real favorite of mine, actually said this about that verse. Listen to this. Here you have the two natures of Christ, the son from everlasting given and the child born in time, the God-man Jesus Christ. All of Old Testament history pointed to Jesus' advent, and his resurrection inaugurated the millennial kingdom. Now, interesting, Christ's millennial kingdom is very lucidly laid out for us in verse 13 of Amos 9. Actually, that's one of the most millennial of all millennial verses, and I don't mean millennial like your age, okay? I'm talking about the millennium, right? The time of the glories of the gospel in the new covenant. Now, here at Redeemer, we hold the old view of the church, We're in the millennium. We're not waiting for it. It started at Christ's resurrection, so we're in it now. And the glories of Christ are growing from Lord's Day to Lord's Day. Now we know this from verse 13 because it talks about the plowman overtaking the reaper. Think about that, you farmers. Guys out there plowing. He overtakes the guy planting the seed. or the mountains dripping with sweet wine and the hills with it. Clearly, these certify and verify our earlier doctrinal point that verse 11 had initiated the doctrine of Christ's coming, the picture of the glorious appearance of the Son of God as the God-man in human history, frankly, just a couple of thousand years ago. It wasn't all that far back. Now, all millennial promises in the Bible are good, and they're encouraging. And usually, in the Old Testament, they're put in agricultural or other this-world-type imagery, and certainly that's what we have here in verse 13. And they are these millennial promises, dears. What I'm going to say here is very important. You've been learning some hermeneutics over this Best of the Rest whole Council of God series. Here's another great hermeneutical point for you. That these millennial promises are principally to be interpreted spiritually. The really important fact of Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the great gift that God would give his people. after Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Spiritually, in other words, these promises speak of gospel and covenantal blessings poured down by God through the blessed Holy Spirit onto his church, the body of Christ, and then through her to all of her members, the militant church here on earth. who enjoy Christ Jesus as our Lord. Even today, for you who can see it, for all of you Christians in Christ who love him and can actually see it, even for you, you recognize there's no way that you, the saints of the church, can keep up with God's grace to you. He always beats you to the punch. He always gives you more than you could possibly imagine or conceive of. There's a sense in which you find yourselves continually collecting more spiritual manna of Jesus in his church, his worship services, the preaching, the sacraments, the prayer, the fellowship of the saints, than you can get your spiritual arms around. This God of yours is so abundant. This is the picture of the Christian life. lived in the kingdom of God, holding the hand of the Father, taking one step at a time in Jesus Christ, being led by the Holy Spirit, walking in the kingdom of God. Let's do what we call the exegesis of these verses. That means that we understand them, we apply them, and we seek to grasp them from the word itself. These are verses 11 through 15, Amos 9. and appreciate the foundation of the revival of the church. Now, by foundation, I mean the absolute rock-solid basis of all our expectations to apprehend all the good things that the Bible's covenant got. And our text today opens with a building metaphor. Therefore, we will construct our argument on that motif now. The foundation of the revival of the church. First, Christ is the cornerstone, verses 11 and 12. In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations who are called by my name declares the Lord who does this. Now the Booth of David, as previously intimated, is the kingdom of David, which in a very real sense reached its most outward zenith under David's son Solomon's reign, where the kingdom just got really big and really powerful. I'd still argue that under David it was even greater, because David was certainly greater than his son Solomon. Indeed, David was the greatest of the kings until the great son of David, Christ himself, the fulfillment, did indeed come. But in the interim, after the Reign had gotten very big and influential. Because of sin, rebellion, idolatry, sloth, laziness, sinfulness, everything began to collapse. It had fallen. So it could be said that the booth of David had fallen in a very real way. But that booth would here be all restored completely, finally, fully, and gloriously and permanently in the person of Jesus Christ, and it would never fall again. In the Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testament, another important hermeneutical clue, Christ is always the ultimate and final David. Sometimes you'll hear blasphemous theologies that claim that David is somehow going to show up on the scene of human history again. and fulfill messianic promises, which are only fulfilled by the ultimate David, Christ alone. Now let me give you one, just one classic text on this. This comes from the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 34, verse 23, way after David had come and gone. And he said, and I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David. and he shall feed them, and he shall feed them, and be their shepherd." Now, we know that our interpretation of Amos 9, 11, and 12, whereby we are applying this promise to Christ Jesus is correct because, among other reasons, first of all, it just fits all the rest of the Bible, but among other reasons, in the Jerusalem Council found in Acts 15, verses 16 and 17, we find James, the Lord's half-brother, using these two verses from Amos and in using them to support the doctrine of Gentile inclusion into the one new covenant church, the true Israel of God. And again, all this took place at the Jerusalem Council. And not only would David's booth or tabernacle be repaired and rebuilt, it would be perfected and permanently secured in the fullness of the God-man, Jesus Christ, our Lord, the only one who could or did make that structure stand now forever, never to come down. He could do this because he, Christ, is the firm and only cornerstone, as we know often in the New Testament, and Ephesians 2.20 is one wonderful reference in that regard. Now, the aforementioned James back there in the Council of Jerusalem, that presbytery meeting, under the Holy Spirit's direct inspiration, again employing, in this case, the Septuagint of Amos 9-12 and perhaps a few other Old Testament texts in Acts 15-17, used this messianic terminology. He said that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord. Now it's interesting because even the Jewish Talmud itself recognized that these verses are messianic. But much more importantly than that for us especially, is that this messianic prophecy speaks of Jesus tabernacling or tenting or boothing, making his home with us here. He doesn't stay aloof from us. He condescended, took the lowest place, the place of a servant, all the way to the cross, as per Philippians 2, that great text. He did this for us. He tabernacles, tents, booths among us. Even as John 1.14, the text we used as a call to worship today, taught us. He dwells among us. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory. Glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now, to me, this text demonstrates the innocence of David's ministry. We all know about David, right? Very flawed, just like the rest of us. Had no goodness, no righteousness of his own. And yet, he was a man after God's own heart, and God loved him. And with regard to the covenant, the church life, he was flawless. And even after all his sins, he certainly confessed them in that context. The innocence of David's own experiences are what is in view here, especially as the King David himself, already anointed by Samuel, had to flee Saul in the early days before he actually assumed the kingdom in full. And then later, of course, had to flee his own son. Absalom, the foundation of the revival of the church. Christ is the cornerstone, and Christ is the blessing, verse 13. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes, him who sows the seed. The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. This dawns on me, you know, if somebody wants to take that grossly literally, like some people I won't mention do, That's ridiculous, right? That could never actually happen in a literal sense. But spiritually, yes, indeed it does happen. And as we already mentioned, this is a landmark millennial verse. And the blessing here is not something that makes us feel good, something that we can make ourselves feel good about ourselves. The blessing here is not all outward things, although they are entailed in God's goodness to us. The blessing is the person of Jesus Christ himself given to us in the glorious gospel of his grace to us poor, wretched, hopelessly lost and condemned sinners who are under the wrath of God, and rightly so, and we all know it. And so does everyone else who's outside of Christ. But we all know it. There's a lot of fooling, a lot of lying, a lot of deception, but we all know it. But this is the blessing Christ Jesus himself fully incarnated for us, now thoroughly given to his church, not only the church in heaven, the church triumphant, but the church here on earth, the church militant. Because of Jesus and the gospel field of his church's ministry, what you members here who love Christ will go into tomorrow, wherever you are in the office, wherever, work, home, school, whatever it is, You take your gospel field of ministry to the world, and as you do so, the plowman overtakes the reaper, the treader of grapes overtakes the one who sows the seed, and the mountains drip with sweet wine and the hills flow with it. This is happening today, and it happens through you who are faithful in Christ Jesus, who love him, and are willing to be filled with the blessed Holy Spirit, and just be who you are and grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord. Now, if you say, pastor, I'm not quite feeling that mature, that's okay. You have to be on the continuum of Christ, who he is, moving toward that sanctifying grace from Lord's day to Lord's day. taking him in as you're doing even right here. What a marvelous picture here of the covenant of grace being let loose on the fallen planet. There's people need Christ. I guess we're on the cusp of a big election coming up, right? I wasn't going to mention this. People are all nervous and worried. We don't need to worry. What are we worried about? What do we have to be concerned about? Do we not have the perfect Messiah, the ultimate King? We're told not to put our faith in princes, probably good stewards and good citizens, but hey, do we have anything to worry about? No. The plowman is overtaking the reaper. The hills are dripping with sweet wine right here in this church right now. Those of you who have hearts that love Christ are taking in the sweet wine of His love. Some of you will literally take it in in the Lord's Supper in a little while. No wonder the faithful church children of God have every cause for hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel of pure mercy. But I got words for you, dears. People outside of Christ have zero hope, no hope at all. No wonder they're concerned and worried and scratching themselves and despairing. They should be. They're creating God's image and they have no hope at all. Christ alone is their only hope. Let me encourage you who are in Christ Jesus to take advantage of your millennial standing, the blessings of Christ that you have right now. and allow the encouragement of your gospel life in Jesus and the church, overtake your discouragement. And no one's denying it. Look, living in this great glorious time means that you'll be persecuted, you'll be hated, you'll suffer tribulation, you'll have distress, trial, and trouble, your faith will be challenged, You will have the fear of man that you have to overcome. You will have to stand for the gospel wherever you are. I never said it was easy, but I did say it's glorious, all in Jesus, our marvelous Lord. Christ is the cornerstone, Christ the blessing. And finally, verses 14 and 15, Christ is our hope. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord your God. Now, these last two verses of Amos's prophecy, which is an ancient one, speak of Israel in its fullest and final and ultimate sense. Again, as I mentioned earlier, Israel as the northern kingdom ceased to exist. They basically assimilated into the pagan cultures. They're just gone, basically, in some ways. They never reappeared, and they never will reappear, not in any kind of literal form. But, even as we noted two Lord's days ago, from Hosea chapter two, in that amazing text, if you were here, we saw where elect members of the northern kingdom, who had some descendancy from that, were included in the great new covenant Jew-Gentile Israel of God, the new church, in that wonderful and glorious sense. And then last Sunday, this was even more confirmed in Joel chapter 2, the Pentecost sermon, where we have all the nations being represented coming to Jerusalem, hearing the gospel in their own language, and being given a common language. They become one body, Jew, Gentile, the New Covenant Church. But that included some, if you will, with some kind of lineage to old Israel. So the way verses 14 and 15 are being understood is in this vein. God restored the fortunes of his people Israel, i.e., his elect people from even old Israel, as they were descended there, as well as his elect people from all other people groups, Jew and Gentile, in the person, incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension of the perfect Israel the man Christ Jesus, our Lord, King, and Redeemer, the one who is focused on all the time by God the Father, the only one God the Father is concerned to share with you and me, the only one. The land now is the kingdom of Christ, his new covenant church, and the saints never being uprooted out of that land is the sovereign promise of closing Amos, the Lord our God, who is telling you he will never let you go. You will not be lost. Despite your troubles, trials, sins, the affliction of the world, the assaults of Satan, all the hardships of this world, You may be like a little candle in the ocean being tossed about, but you're going to survive it. He will bring you to glory. You who are in Christ Jesus, elect unto glory, having already received the benefits of atonement by the Holy Spirit's application of the grace of the gospel and regeneration. And once that happens and then you hear a sermon like this, your heart says, yes, I believe that, that's what I am, that's the truth, that's called faith being applied. Sometimes regeneration precedes, in that sense, faith, but it is always together and it's a gift from God. Christ is our only hope, he's the world's only hope too, dears. Let us proclaim and share the light of the world, Jesus, with all the lost souls around us, always, especially this week. Here at Redeemer, I'd like to do a little more application. So let's understand why Amos' concluding words are so momentous for the church today. Now, we've already seen largely why this is so, but there's even more strength and comfort to be gleaned from this ancient prophecy. Therefore, let us further consider why Amos' concluding words are so momentous for the church today. because the already in Jesus totally secures us. In other words, what we studied, especially in verse 11, the booth being restored, locked down for us both the historical reality of Christ's incarnation for us and the air and watertight absoluteness of our sealed justification in Christ in his death and resurrection. You who are now in Christ do not need to worry or fret about your standing with God. Or frankly, anything else. Because actually, isn't that the only thing that really matters? Your standing, what kind of standing do you have with God today? That's the only question that really matters. Nothing else really matters. People are either redeemed or they're condemned. They're saved or they're damned. But what matters is your standing with God. And if you are in Christ, you don't need to worry about that or anything else. Let me ask you this. Do you love God in Christ Jesus? Do you? Are you a baptized member of his faithful church where you take your baptismal membership vows seriously and don't stand aloof and pontificate down upon others as if you can make all the decisions? Are you humble? Does your heart contrite? Do you recognize that you're nothing but a sinner before God? Are you under the shepherding ministry of a faithful yet very imperfect church? If so, if the answer to these questions is yes, what do you have to worry about? Be confident, dears, strong in the Lord, the power of his mind. Put on the full armor of God and take your stand against the evil one in the evil day. Justification is a one-time given ultimate blessing and it comes to us upon the moment the Holy Spirit regenerates or causes us to be born again by his application of the atonement to our hearts. And that's what verses 11 and 12 were illuminating to our souls today. Christ comes, verse 11, the elect of the nations are saved, verse 12. Then verse 13, the millennial text, is a bridge between justification and glorification. So let us now explore that dynamic a little more right now. Why Amos' concluding words are so momentous for the church today. because the already in Jesus totally secures us while the not yet completely encourages us. You probably saw that coming. Verses 14 and 15 are obviously this world's snapshots of life in the kingdom of God. But I would like to say that in a secondary way, they also may also speak to us in the church today of a continual generation to generation hope for even better days for the life of the church, Israel, the kingdom of God. You know that some of our great forebears, Jonathan Edwards especially, believe that, I do too, that there will be even greater glorious days, but it'll all be the same means of grace. Nothing new's gonna be introduced, not tongues, not miraculous things happening, whatever. Same means of grace, same church, Jew, Gentile, just like this one. same prayers, same preaching of Jesus, same sacraments of baptism in the Lord's Supper. We can pray for that. And, of course, we usually do. We must always relish the fact also that in heaven we get to enjoy our fully glorified state and our resurrected bodies, which will there be reunited with our already glorified souls. So Jesus Christ is our heaven. He's the goal of everything. Christlikeness is the aim that we're achieving now in sanctification. But it's nice to know that we have heaven too. We might ask somebody, how is all this possible? How could this be apprehended? Well, through the historical objective truths of the gospel, which were brought out here in Amos 9, the incarnation and kingdom, all that went into that with Christ's death and resurrection, ascension and session in heaven, pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the bloody cross, the glorious resurrection, And then joined with that, the gift of the Holy Spirit, whereby the elect, regenerate, are given the gift of faith in this wonderful God-man, leading us to love for God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then causing us to walk in humility, in confidence, in faith, in assurance, without fretting, without fearing, being full and free, liberated and true in Christ alone. Put all of your faith in Jesus. Take to him, to yourself, him. His gospel, his grace. Passively receive the grace and glory of God in Jesus Christ today. As you do, you will enter a new world that you never knew could possibly have existed. A glorious world. Won't be easy. Love God in him with all your heart. Beloved, this text is really largely about the revival of the church. It required the coming of the Son of God. Let all the true saints today be all about the revival of the church. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for that. Christ is the cornerstone, the blessing, and our hope. We bless you for him. We pray now that you'll bless us in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as we are one body of Christ that love you in Jesus, in whose name we pray, amen.