His glorious, matchless love is not like miracle of grace. of the world in praise, to raise it Please be seated. I'll turn with me, if you would, this evening once again to the prophecy of Amos. We said this is either the last gasp of summer or the first gasp of the cold and flu season, but so many missing. I was told by the Boggesses who are visiting the booths, Lord willing, this afternoon and this evening, that they'd be joining us. So we're glad for their mixing in a little fellowship with their vacation. Greetings to them, if they are indeed with us. Tom, our brother, folks here praying much for you, for sure. We want to read tonight, and actually I want to read from chapter 6, that we're going to focus our thoughts on the 7th and 8th chapters primarily this evening, and we'll read some from those chapters as well. But I want to read from the opening verse of chapter 6 together and read a little way into this chapter. Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations to whom the house of Israel came. Pass ye into Calna and see, and from thence go ye to Hamath the great, then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Be they better than these kingdoms, or their border greater than your border? Ye that put far away the evil day and cause the seed of violence to come near, that lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches and eat the lambs out of the flock and the calves out of the midst of the stall, that chant to the sound of the vial and invent to themselves instruments of music like David, that drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief ointments, but they're not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretch themselves shall be removed. The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord God of hosts. I abhor the excellency of Jacob and hate his palaces. Therefore will I deliver them up the city with all that is therein." Well, in reading in verse 8, trust again the Lord to add his blessing. to the public reading of his word. Let's do it by our heads and hearts again together. Our Heavenly Father, we tonight come in the close of this Sabbath day. Lord, we've sung hymns of rejoicing, hymns of grace. Truly it is to that that our hearts are drawn. But we read tonight in your word, words of warning and of judgment. Lord, it's a warning given to those that are called to plea for grace, to flee from self-sufficiency and sin. And Lord, I pray that you will sober us and help us as we read these words to your people from long ago. Words as we found already that are yet quite applicable to even the professing church in this very day. So grant us grace tonight once again to delve into these words from this prophet of Tekoa. And we ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Tonight I want to continue our little survey of the prophet Amos as we're doing a survey of all of these so-called minor prophets. And as I said, I want to come this evening to chapter seven and chapter eight Because as we come to this portion, really the closing section of the prophecy, Amos, who's made use of a variety of styles, we noted that poetic refrain that opened his book as he cried out for the overflowing of sin of the various nations and then ultimately singling out Israel and their sins. The book closes with a series of five visions. Some of them are recorded very briefly. All of them really are brief, yet there is elaboration and historical interlude in between. There seems, at least in the opening visions, to be something of progression that we find within the visions. And so I'll ask you just to read with me again chapter 7 and into chapter 8 this evening, and we'll intersperse our comments as we go along the way. But if you look in verse 7 and verse 1, and you'll see it repeated in verse 4, again in verse 7, and then again in chapter 8, verse 1, there's a formula that singles out these particular visions, thus hath the Lord God showed unto me. So we read, thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth, and lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. And it came to pass that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive. I beseech thee. By whom shall Jacob arise, for he is small? The Lord repented for this. It shall not be, saith the Lord. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me. And behold, the Lord God called to it, contend by fire. And it devoured the great deep and did eat up a part. Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee. By whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small. The Lord repented for this. This also shall not be, saith the Lord God. Thus he showed me, and behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line and with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a plumb line. Then said the Lord, behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them anymore. And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate. And the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. These are the first of the three visions or of the five visions that, again, come in the conclusion of the book. And I wanna look at these this evening for application that we find in Amos himself. The first two visions, we find that the Lord predicts and engages with threatenings upon the land. First, a plague of locusts called grasshoppers here in our translation. And then secondly, a plague of fire. In each of these cases, it is a disaster, it is a calamity that would come upon the land. Amos has spoken about the Lord showing these calamities and revealing them to his servants, the prophets. It's quite possible, it would be almost certain that the people have memories of the plague of locusts that was dealt with in Joel's prophecy many decades before. And the Lord threatens, I say, these judgments again against Israel. But when we look at the first two visions, We find that the prophet Amos intercedes for the people. He cries out to God and asks God to cease. And we won't pause and take time this evening, but you will recall as we've seen before, when the scripture uses the language of repenting with regard to God, it's not any change in God, it's not a change in his purpose, it's certainly not any moral evil that he needs to repent of the way we normally use the term. It's the Lord turning from that which he had threatened and warned. When we see God repenting, the change normally is in us, not him. When repentance on our part follows the threatening, then God turns from the threatened judgments. But I say I want us to pause at the first of these visions, these first two, and consider the simple fact that Amos intercedes and asks God to cease, asks God not to send the judgment. And he cries out for Israel, he said, by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small. Amos here displays a heart that I think is rarely in the minds at least of the ungodly and sometimes even of the godly, a heart that is rarely discerned inside those that would speak against, at times, the sins of God's people. Amos is a fiery prophet, praying, we might say, against God sending fire at this point. And yet, should not this be the heart of all of God's prophets, recognizing their own sinfulness, recognizing themselves as recipients of grace instead of deserved punishment? We'll come to Romans 9. The Apostle Paul will speak with regard to Israel some of the most amazing statements, really, in all of the New Testament, in my opinion. Paul, who knows so much of the gospel, Paul, who knows so much of grace, speaks that he could wish himself accursed for Israel, his kinsmen, according to the flesh. Paul had been threatened. He'd been lied about, he'd been beaten, he'd been stoned and left for dead by Jews, and yet his heart was for them. We've read in Romans 1, commented upon it recently, that chapter of all chapters where we see that chronicling of of the downward spiral of wickedness and perversion in the lives and the experience of the Gentile nations. And what has Paul said in introducing that? What's he said in introducing the whole book of Romans? I'm a debtor. His posture toward even the most wicked of the wicked was one of a debtor. One that cried to God for their salvation. that cried to God for their punishment to be averted and for them to be saved. Well, here it is for Amos, who has looked at the people. He's been sent of God to preach against the people's sins. He has complied, we might say, most willingly and most vociferously with that directive. He's preached powerfully of the overflowing of Israel's sins. But when in these visions the Lord begins to open unto Amos what he will do then in chastening the people, Amos takes that position of a debtor. He takes the position of an intercessor, and he says, Lord, no. In the first of these instances, Amos asks the Lord to cease, and he does, to forgive. The second, he asked, some described for a stay of execution. And again, the Lord ceases from that that's threatened. And I say, I wonder in an age such as ours, when evil is not hidden anymore, it's not done in secret, it's done in the open. It reaches the point where it's not even just they want these things to be allowed, They want them to be embraced and celebrated by all. And we can look and see the gross evil of such things. And what will our hearts think and do in such days? Will we pray for these people? Will we take the position of a debtor? We must faithfully announce God's judgment against sin. Fleshly religion will change the message in order to display the loving heart. No, the real loving heart brings the truth, because it would be unloving to do otherwise, because judgment is coming. But yet pleads with God for the people. And I pray that God will give us and prosper within us such a heart for the ungodly of our age. Let us with Amos, let us with Paul manifest that we are debtors to grace, that we deserve every punishment threatened against these and cry out to God for mercy. We come to the third vision beginning in verse seven. Thus the Lord showed unto me and behold, he stood upon a wall made by a plumb line with a plumb line in his hand. We said there's something of progression in these. In the first of these, Amos cried to forgive as he interceded. In the second, he asked God for a stay of execution again as he interceded. In the third vision, there's no intercession from Amos. God brings Amos to a point. He brings him to this vision of the plumb line to let him see that there has been a point of no return. One of the things I remember as a teenager when I was so taken with Amos, you read later in this chapter, as we will in a moment, of this controversy with Amaziah, the false priest of Bethel. He speaks about Amos conspiring against the king. Again, it's a wrong spin, to be sure. He said he's conspired against thee in the midst of the land of Israel. I thought, well, God said he'd put a plumb line in the midst of Israel. Amos is the plumb line. I think there's truth in that. More than one commentator has drawn out the parallel that Amos was to preach that straight and perfect line. But in the vision itself, God is calling upon Amos to look. Consider the situation. The plumb line, you'll recall, is just an instrument of measurement. It's a weight that is suspended by a string or a wire. When it's held, it gives a perfect perpendicular. I'm trying to remember. There's a cathedral. I don't know what it's. Derek will probably remember. In the middle of Mexico City, the Roman Catholic The big church there, there's a plumb line there. And as you can see marks on the floor where the building has shifted from time to time over earthquakes coming. Amos speaks of earthquakes and you see the straight line, but yet where's the building been before and where is it now? But it's an instrument to give a perfect perpendicular. It would be used by the masons stacking the stones. Of course, these would be stone walls in that day with no mortar. It's remarkable when you see such a wall that has been built without mortar. But over time, the movement of the earth, the rain settling, the wall can begin to shift. It can come to a point where there's no saving it at all. It just has to be torn down. That's what God is calling Amos to see. Israel has reached a point, I see being torn down and I tear down my microphone. Israel has reached a point of no return. God has been long-suffering. That's the theme of the book. That's why, as we suggested at the beginning of our studies, that famine of the Word that seems so stark, it seems so unfair. Though the Word had been given, the Word had been given, the Word had been given repeatedly. Israel had been abundantly blessed with the Word. It's what distinguished them from other nations. They had the Word. They didn't want it anymore. They turned from it. and had come to the point where the wall couldn't be saved. Judgment had to come. If you would turn with me to Jeremiah for just a moment, Jeremiah chapter 7, because I think in this chapter we have in the experience of Jeremiah, much later in the times of the southern kingdom, what God has put him before Amos in the northern kingdom. It is not in such direct words, but I think it is, again, the impact of the vision of the plumb line. But in Jeremiah 7, read from verse 14. The Lord speaking. Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. Here referencing what Amos is threatening for Ephraim, the northern tribes. For Jeremiah, this has already come. He's reminding the southern kingdom of what God did in the northern kingdom. But then reading verse 15, I will cast you out of my sight as I cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me, for I will not hear thee. Those are sober words. When we're brought to a point when a nation, when a people, when a sinner is brought to the point where God says, cease praying for them. I don't believe that this is something obviously we would take lightly, nor do I believe really that in our circumstances it is something that we can come to at all. The prophets here had to be brought by explicit, direct revelation to cease their intercession. God had to inform them point blank, as it were, the line has been crossed. And we're not equipped to make that judgment. We are not given to choose that time. And so we're called upon constantly to pray. But I say it is a sober thing that it comes to a point where God would say, cease interceding. Judgment must come. This third vision is followed by a historical interlude here when we see from verse 10, Amaziah the priest of Bethel coming and accusing Amos before Jeroboam the king. We've referenced and looked at this in some of our previous study, but read again the words that are brought to the king with regard to Amos. Verse 10, then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there. But prophesy not again any more at Bethel, for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court. Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was an herdman, a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel. Now therefore, hear thou the word of the Lord. Thou saidst, prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac. Therefore saith the Lord, thy wife shall be in Harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line, and thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land. We think of Israel, excuse me, Amaziah, this priest of Bethel, bringing his charge. Obviously, Amos' words had reached and touched close to home. It can ignore you, as it were, when the words aren't having an impact, when their truth isn't evident. But think of what is put before the king, and think of what is put before the people. The truth has been brought by this farmer from Judah. The truth hurts, if you will. It's touching a nerve. And so Amaziah comes and fashions lies and puts a spin upon Amos' words. What are the people called upon to do? Here's Amaziah. He's the priest of Bethel. He's kind of like the archbishop of Canterbury. He has credentials. He's saying, and all the other preachers here in Israel are saying this, and this stranger from Judah's come up, he's not even a prophet. or he's not even from a prophet's family, he's not from a priestly line. What credentials does he have? All he has really is truth. All he has is the help of God to bring truth to bear on a situation where people don't want to hear truth. The parallels to our day couldn't be more obvious. to preach truth, to preach the truth as it is in Jesus, and our generation will be a lonely voice. The priests of the land will easily say, that's old. We can't bear stuff like that anymore. Go preach that somewhere else. God, through the prophet, brings a sober judgment in prophetic form to Amaziah. fearful end to this one that would not hear and heed truth, and yet claiming to speak for God. We come to the eighth chapter, and the fourth vision is put before Amos. Thus, verse one, hath the Lord God showed unto me, behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, the end is come upon my people of Israel. I will not again pass by them anymore. The putting off, the delaying of judgment, I'll not do anymore. Verse three, the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God. There shall be many dead bodies in every place. They shall cast them forth with silence. And then the Lord, through the prophet adds in, really, the circumstances behind this vision and the judgment itself, the reasons and the results for the calamity. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, when will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, the sabbath that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit. that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for this? And everyone mourn that dwelleth therein? It shall rise up holy as a flood. It shall be cast out and drowned as by the flood of Egypt. come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I'll cause the sun to go down at noon, and I'll darken the earth when it is in the clear day. I'll turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation, and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head. I'll make it as the mourning of an only son and the end thereof as of a bitter day. I say solemn elaborations as God would cry out and again show the evidences and reasons for such promised judgment. I want to focus for a moment here as you look here at the Lord giving an oath. In verse seven, we read that the Lord hath sworn. What is he sworn by? It's been a recurring statement in Amos. If you turn and look at these, back in chapter four, we read of an oath. Chapter four and verse two. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness that lo, the day shall come upon you. You turn over to chapter six and verse eight. The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord God of hosts. Then we come to chapter eight, verse seven. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob. Surely I'll never forget any of their works. This is an illustration, as we've suggested in our previous studies, the Lord condescending, stooping, even to the point many suggest here of extreme sarcasm. When God takes an oath, we see reference in Hebrews, because he could swear by no greater. He swore by himself. Well, that's what we've seen previously. The Lord is sworn by himself. He's sworn by his own excellency, sworn by his holiness. But now we read he swears by the excellency of Jacob. Some suggest the translation here, rather than excellency, should be constancy. And the point here again in extreme sarcasm is that Jacob, Israel, is so constant, so consistent in her sin that God swears by that consistency, I'm not going to avert my judgment any longer. I said what an amazing demonstration What an amazing divine commentary on the wickedness, the impenitence, the willful blindness of Israel. Of course, that's where we come in the further elaboration on this vision to that verse 11 and following that great description of the famine of the Word. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I'll send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east, shall they run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not. This, as I said at the beginning of our survey of this book, was what arrested me as a teenage boy. How can somebody seek the word and God won't let them find it? Give him a famine of himself, a famine of the word. What is clear, what God has highlighted with that most extreme statement of his oath being by the constancy of Jacob's sin. They were constantly given truth, constantly given light, they constantly rejected truth, they constantly told those that were preaching truth to go away and preach it somewhere else. And God said, the days will come. I'll send a famine. My day of patience, my days of long-suffering will reach their end. Judgment will come. Read verse 13, that day the fair virgins and young men shall faint for thirst. They that swear by the sin of Samaria and say, thy God, O Dan, liveth. The manor of Beersheba, this would be a pilgrimage to Beersheba's idolatrous worship. Even they shall fall, never rise up. again. The judgment upon the northern tribes, the northern kingdom, is now unavertable. It will come. And we've seen from our survey that it was within the following generation, Amos prophesying 760-ish BC, 722, the fall of Samaria. No mercy. And the pagans, as they overthrow the land, all the atrocities, all the evils committed against this people, yes, because of sins committed by Gentile marauders, but underneath that, Israel's own sin that caused God to use such evil empires in chastening such a privileged, and yet hardened people. You'll be happy to hear, I trust, that we're not finished with Amos tonight, because Amos, though he has much to say, much bad news, if you will, Amos is a prophecy that ends with good news. Amos ends with a prophecy that is highlighted at a significant point in the New Testament scriptures. of God's promise to preserve a remnant and to visit his people again. I trust the Lord will give us grace as we look at the survey of this fiery herdsman from Tekoa. The parallels to our times and indeed right for judgment we are. But do we have Amos' heart to faithfully bring the awful news but yet faithfully pray and yearn that God would forgive, that men would repent. Let us take up the example of this giant prophet from Tekoa. Let's bow our heads together. Our Heavenly Father, we do ask tonight that you might help us with discernment and with gospel hearts to read these words, to see the pronouncement of judgment against an apostasy of long ago, and to draw right applications to the apostasies of today. So grant us wisdom, grant us gospel hearts, Grant us to glean even from Amos, whom we've read from in your word tonight. We pray it in Jesus' precious name. Amen.