A Famine of God's Word

Well, good evening. I just want to read the first three verses of that again, but this time in the NIV.

It's a very, as we saw, it's a great picture, Amos chapter 8.

Amos 8 · chapter mention

And these two translations, the ESV and the NIV, get different bits more helpfully than others.

So let me just read the first three verses and then I'll pray and then we'll have a look at it together.

This is what the sovereign Lord showed me, a basket of ripe fruit.

What do you see, Amos? He asked, a basket of ripe fruit.

I answered, then the Lord said to me, the time is ripe for my people Israel.

I will spare them no longer.

And that day, declares the sovereign Lord, the songs in the temple will turn to wailing.

Many, many bodies flung everywhere.

Silence.

Father God, we come here tonight, the end of a busy weekend, at the end of a busy day.

Father, with Monday crouching at the door, so many things that we could think about in this time.

But Lord, we pray you would send your spirit, that our minds would focus on what you're saying, that our ears would be open to your voice.

That our hearts would be soft.

Father, that we would benefit from this time.

And that we would see the real treasure trove of your word.

And that we might hear you.

And leave here loving Jesus more.

Father, help us.

We pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So we're in Amos chapter 8.

Amos 8 · chapter mention

It's our penultimate sermon in Amos.

Some of you will be mortified by that.

Some of you will be absolutely delighted.

For me, it's been a real joy.

I think we've started to see an area of the Bible that we seldom go into.

And my hope is that Amos will be a friend.

A friend who tells us hard truths about what life is like and what we need to be.

That he may go back on the shelf for a while.

But we'll have learned lots about him and understood his message perhaps a little bit more.

So next time he comes up in our personal devotions or in years to come where he's a sermon series,

we might be reacquainted with him and learn to love him more.

And it's been a very difficult book, if we're honest.

It's not been happy stuff.

It's been predominantly dark.

But don't worry.

Because Neil's going to make it all better next week.

So tonight the big message is when the room runs out,

when the room for repentance runs out.

And Amos has been dark.

It's been very, very dark.

It just seems like week after week on a dark winter's evening,

we've been trawling through judgment after judgment after judgment.

And there's been very little good news.

That really Israel is in God's crosshairs.

And it's been pretty mortifying to those that heard Amos the first time.

And pretty mortifying to us as we've gone through it again and again and again.

It's very easy, isn't it, as we've read it, to think,

well, Israel, why don't you just wake up?

Why don't you change your ways?

We can spend so long looking at them and what they've done wrong

and completely miss what God's been saying to us through this book.

Got to be very careful of deflection, of looking down on them

and missing what's going on in our own lives as far as this is going.

It's very easy, isn't it, to see the speck in Israel's eye

and totally miss the plank that is totally obscuring our vision

of what's really going on.

And it's been quite repetitive.

I'm sure we've got that.

Amos has been hitting the same things over and over again.

One day I'll remember my water.

It's been hitting exactly the same things,

that there's almost been a tediousness about it.

But just think how Amos feels.

He's been bringing the same stuff to the same people

day in, day out, week in, week out.

We come to chapter 8 and nothing's really changed.

He's preached a load of times to a load of people

and nothing's really altered.

Amos, as I'm sure we know, is from the south.

He's from Judah.

He comes from Tekoa.

That's just down near Bethlehem.

He's a mixed farmer who keeps both sheep.

We learn in chapter 1, verse 1.

And last week we learned that he also does sycamore fig trees.

He grows and looks after them.

And he comes to Israel during a time of great affluence.

Things are going great.

It's boom time in Israel.

Victories won.

Territory gained.

Bollinger flowing.

Caviar heaped high on the Bellinis.

This is a really good time in Israel.

And Amos is sent by God.

And he comes and he bursts their bubble.

Though prosperous on the outside, he says,

they are rotten on the inside.

The upper class are swinging from the chandeliers,

but the lower class are dying in the gutter.

It's a picture of exploitation.

It's a picture of utter chaos.

And the fabric of society is completely disintegrating around them.

And Amos comes speaking the roars of God in judgment

to his fickle and faithless people.

And we saw in week one, and we tried to repeat it,

that there's a combination code to Amos.

Can anyone tell me what the combination code is?

Good, Graham, you can stay another week.

The rest of you, we'll see.

8351.

And it stands for eight oracles of judgment.

That was week one.

Where we had six for the surrounding nations,

one for Judah,

and then Israel has been the target from then on.

The six nations are done for war crimes.

Judah is done for having the law,

but disobeying it.

And Israel is done for two major sins,

social injustice and hypocritical worship.

We then had three sermons of rebuke.

That was Mike Fernandez giving us Amos 3,

where it was very bleak,

but there was the hope of a remnant,

like the hind legs of a deer being rescued from a lion.

Then we had Ian take us through Amos chapter 4,

Amos 4 · chapter mention

and again there was a little sprinkling of hope in there.

And then in chapter 5,

Amos is almost conducting Israel's funeral,

as they look to the future of this unrepentant people.

Then Graham helped us and did the second of the woes,

which comes at the end of those sermons of rebuke,

and then we have five visions of judgment.

That was John Shearer last week.

He gave us the first three.

And so today we come to the fourth vision of judgment.

The fourth vision of judgment,

and it's going to take up the whole of chapter 8.

And then Neil next week will give us

the last of the visions of judgment,

and then what we've all been waiting for,

ever since the introduction of Sermon 1 in chapter 1,

this wonderful oracle of salvation,

which is this beautiful building in the midst of a very dark

and dangerous town called Amos.

And so, we're ready to begin.

I love a legal drama.

I'm a big fan.

I love The Good Wife.

I'm a fan of suits.

I really like law and order.

I love all things to do with legal things.

I think if pastoral ministry doesn't work out,

I try and be some kind of legal secretary or something.

I love the films,

A Few Good Men,

and The Firm with a very young Tom Cruise.

And I enjoyed Aaron Brockovich,

and The Pelican Brief.

I even enjoyed Legally Blonde 1 and 2.

I love novels with a legal theme.

I'm a massive fan of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Although I haven't got round to reading the second one yet.

Has anyone read it?

Set a Watchman, the sequel?

Has anyone read it?

No?

Perhaps we could all read it together.

I like The Count of Monte Cristo.

I even quite enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities.

I did a university dissertation on crime and punishment by Dostoevsky.

My favourite Shakespeare is The Merchant of Venice,

which is very legal.

I like legal things.

And what I like about them is the whole genre is about parry and riposte.

Prosecution versus defence.

That kind of backward and forward arm wrestle,

as they try to outmaneuver each other,

as they try to get one up.

And in the midst of this,

there's plea bargaining and suing and counter-suing

and class actions and settlements

and pre-trial hearings.

I bet it's not really like that.

That's just how I imagine it.

But it's all against the clock.

Because when the time runs out,

you get these immortal words,

we're going to trial.

We're going to trial.

The time's run out.

It's time that we're going to meet in a courtroom

and we're going to put this right once and for all.

Chapter 8 of Amos is kind of like that moment.

That moment's been reached.

That God looks at his people and says,

we're going to trial.

I've given you seven chapters of repeated warnings

in order to try and shock you into repentance.

But you've not listened.

So the date is set.

The subpoena is issued.

The summons is in the post.

And so chapter 8 marks the turning point in Amos.

Amos 1 · chapter mention

Chapters 1 to 7 have seen a succession of charges,

accusations and evidence presented

to try and get Israel to change their ways.

But in chapter 8, God says the clock's run out.

This is going on.

It's time to get our wigs on.

It's time to get a jury.

It's trying to get that little hammer thing.

This is court in session.

Israel will be defending themselves.

But their case is shot through from the start.

And so Israel's trial arrives with certainty.

God summons Israel to appear in his court.

And he does it in the most bizarre way

with the most bizarre vision.

God shows Amos a basket of ripe fruit

or literally a basket of summer fruits.

And you might think that's a good thing.

Oh, it must be so refreshing.

Oh, it must be time for Wimbledon

if we're getting the summer fruits out.

That's not what's going on here.

But,

this is a very clear and present warning to Israel.

The agricultural calendar of Israel

runs September to August.

And it's full.

It's not like here where we have some times called winter

where the ground's too hard to plant anything.

They have a very rigorous agricultural cycle.

It starts in September and November

where you harvest olive oil and olives.

In November and December,

you sow wheat and barley.

In January and March,

you're planting and harvesting chickpeas,

melons and cucumbers.

In April,

you pull the flax to make rope and other things.

In April,

you harvest the barley that you planted.

In June,

you harvest the wheat you planted.

In June and July,

you prune back your vines

because it's grape time.

And in August,

at the end of the year,

you have summer fruits.

Figs and pomegranates and berries.

And so when God says,

what do you see?

And Amos says,

I see a basket of summer fruit.

No one's in any doubt what that means.

It means the season's over.

It means the period's finished.

He had all this time to repent

and now it's over.

We've come to the end of the cycle.

We've come to the end of the line.

The space for grace,

the room for repentance,

the terminus of time has arrived.

There's also,

and again,

I take the commentators for this.

There's also a wordplay going on.

The word for summer fruits

is the word quiet

and the word for end is quick.

But I think in the northern

territory of Israel,

they shorten vowels

so it kind of sounds like quick and quick.

So the fact that they see

a basket of summer fruits,

a basket of the end

is really what's going on.

I think the NIV gets the closest with,

I saw a basket of ripe fruit

and Israel is ripe for repentance.

That seems to me to be quite alarming to a people.

What do you see about our judgment?

Well, it's like the end,

a big basket of the end coming.

I guess it's a bit like James 5.5.

You have fattened yourself

for the day of slaughter.

You are ripe.

You're full of iniquity

and it's time to be judged.

You're at the zenith of your rebellion.

You've been caught red-handed

and you must be judged.

And so this is not a nice vision.

This is a vision of the room

for repentance running out.

And so at the end of verse 2,

God says,

I will not pass by them.

I will spare them no longer.

I will never again pass by them.

And this would send shockwaves

if you were an Israelite

because you're looking back to a time.

You're looking back to a time of Passover

where God definitively did pass by.

That on the eve of the Exodus,

God was coming to Egypt to judge Egypt.

And the only safe place to be

would to be found in the shelter

and security that God offered

sheltering under the blood

of a firstborn lamb.

And so when God judged,

his people were safe,

but now his people are told,

I won't pass by.

There's no means of escape.

The space for grace,

the room for repentance

has run out.

There's no shelter,

no refuge,

no sanctuary.

God is coming.

And he's coming to judge.

Terrifying vision.

The future is not bright.

It is very bleak

and it's not orange.

It is crimson red.

And these summer fruits

would be particularly associated

with Sokot,

the feast of tabernacles.

The time at the end

of that agricultural calendar

where everyone would gather

in the temple,

bring their produce

and celebrate for seven days

God's goodness to them.

They would joyfully remember

the fact that they'd had a harvest

and that they would pray

and rejoice expectantly

at God's faithfulness

that next year

there would be another harvest.

So here in verse three,

when they're gathered

in the temple,

normally to sing

these songs of joy,

see what it says,

the songs in the temple

will turn to wailing.

Harvest festival

will no longer be

a joyous occasion.

And what is expected

to be joy in the future

is actually deafening silence

because

there is no future

for Israel.

The celebration of life

and fruitfulness

and abundance

turns to a terrifying picture

of death and destruction

and decimation.

Many, many bodies

flung everywhere

and

silence.

An ominous warning,

the clock

is ticking.

God is saying,

I've given you

countless opportunities

and yet you've carried on.

You've been like

that stiff-necked people

this morning.

You would not change.

I was pulling on the reins

and yet your trajectory

was set.

God has spoken

to his people

of judgment

for seven chapters

through Amos,

trying to shock them

into a response

of seeking mercy,

repenting of sin

and pleading for forgiveness.

They haven't moved

a muscle.

Did the sun

that melts the wax

has hardened their hearts?

Their hearts are hard.

And I wonder,

friends,

we must be very careful.

We must be very careful

about continuing

to ignore God's challenge

and warning in our lives.

Seven chapters,

God has been on

at these people

about this.

This is wrong

in your life.

The way you treat

the poor is wrong.

The way you come

to the temple

is wrong.

He's been putting

his finger

where they're going wrong

and they've carried

on regardless.

And rather than

just look at Israel

and go,

goodness,

what a slow bunch

of people.

What about us?

That in our own lives

we read God's word,

we hear God's word,

we walk with God,

but he puts

his finger

on areas of our lives

that are not right.

God's word,

God's word,

and this is a stark

warning that you

continue to ignore

him at your peril.

While he's still

speaking to you

about it,

there's hope,

but the room

for repentance

is not infinite.

Is it a behavior

we're entrenched

in,

an attitude

we're clinging to,

a past hurt

that you can't let go,

a sin you're feeding

and not fighting?

God has been

on their case

for ages.

He has been

so gracious

in flagging

their sin

up to them.

And yet they've

gone,

carried on.

They've ignored him.

They thought

they were getting

away with it.

They thought

just because judgment

was delayed

it would never come

and God says

in chapter 8,

no,

it's coming.

The room

for repentance

is ended

in your life

as you continue

to ignore

what God is saying

as I continue

to ignore

what God is

challenging me on.

We're doing

serious damage

to our relationship

with Jesus,

our effectiveness

in God's kingdom

and we may

even be storing

up trouble.

We read

repeatedly

in 1 John,

didn't we,

that anyone

who continues

to sin

neither loves

God nor

has seen

him.

And I wonder

how true

that is

in our lives.

Will a day

come where

God stops

challenging us

to us

and he

gives us

over to us?

He does it

in Romans 1

and I pray

that he would

never do it

in our lives

so our

conscience is

seared

and we no

longer bother.

the gospel

knows nothing

of cheap grace.

It doesn't.

Jesus didn't

die for us

so we could

continue regardless

and have him

like an insurance

policy that we

can slap on the

desk at the end

and say,

well,

that the great

love God has

shown us

must invoke

a response.

Faith in the

past,

what Jesus

has done,

gives us

infinite hope

for the future

which must

encourage us

to pursue

holiness in the

present.

Or else we're

just playing

at it.

And so

Israel's trial

has arrived.

Israel's trial

is here

but it's

not going to

go well

because the

trial itself

is a

formality.

This would

be the worst

courtroom drama

anyone's ever

conceived.

From the

opening credits

everyone knows

how it's going

to go.

No one in

the jury

is sitting

on the edge

of their

seat waiting

for the

next bit

of evidence

no one

in the

public

gallery

is even

dreaming

of

acquittal.

And so

in verses

4 to 6

we get

the charges

read out,

the indictments

read out.

These are

not new

crimes.

These have

been the

very things

that God

has been

on that

case about

since chapter

2.

God even

uses the

same

imagery,

these twin

sisters of

social injustice

and hypocritical

worship.

Look what's

mentioned.

Verse 4

trampling

on the

needy.

People going

to the

cash machine

to get

their

hundreds

out and

not even

going around

the beggar

on their

way to do it

but just

walking over

the top

of it.

Keeping

to oppress

them.

Keeping

them down

in the

gutter.

Doing

away with

the poor.

It's not

bothering.

Leaving

them to

their own

devices.

No

charity.

No

social

justice.

And

them

exterminating

themselves

because

they

can't

survive.

The

dishonest

trading is

unbelievable.

Look

halfway down

verse 5

there.

Skimping

on the

measure,

boosting

the price,

cheating

with dishonest

scales and

mixing in

the sweepings,

the chaff of

the wheat.

That is

quadruple

extortion,

right?

That is

not giving

people what

they pay

for,

asking them

to pay

too much,

measuring it

on scales

that are

stacked in

the vendor's

favour,

and what

they're paying

for isn't

even the

real deal

anyway.

It's just

the sweepings

off the

factory floor.

Quadruple

exploitation.

Quadruple

extortion.

And not

just trading

commodities,

but trading

people.

Buying the

poor with

silver,

taking

advantage of

people's

destitution,

buying them

as slaves

to ease

the comfort

of your

own lives,

but doing

nothing for

them.

Even

using a

pair of

sandals.

What a

way to look

on the

poor,

to think,

oh,

buy these

with my

spare pair

of Birkenstocks,

come,

come and

be my

slaves.

social

injustice

woven into

the very

fabric of

Israelite

society.

This makes

the subprime

mortgage look

almost ethical.

Yet now

the God

whose heart

beats

specially for

the widow,

orphan,

and stranger,

that God

who defines

what pure

and faultless

religion is,

is going to

roll up

its sleeves

and weigh

into this

iniquitous

inequality.

See,

also there's

hypocritical

worship at

the beginning

of verse

five.

When will

the new

moon be

over that

we may

sell grain

and the

Sabbath be

ended that

we may

market wheat?

People

sitting in

church,

not listening,

not taking

part,

but thinking,

when can I

start earning

money again?

This whole

religion thing

has become an

incredible

inconvenience.

It's halting

my commerce.

stopping me

getting my

produce to

market.

Utterly

distracted,

utterly

duplicitous.

Yes,

we're there

in body,

but our

mind is

thinking of

the marketplace.

It's a

real grave

warning,

isn't it,

to sitting

in church,

but just

totally

consumed

with Monday

morning.

Totally

consumed

with this

and that,

being here

to feed

our spirits,

but thinking

it all about

shopping and

selling.

That's what

these people

are doing.

I'm sure

that there's

many husbands

in here

who will

have that

occasion where

your wife is

speaking and

you've zoned

out.

Quite often

she's telling

you really

important stuff

and you've

totally missed

it.

I wonder

how many

times we've

been in

church and

God has

been speaking

to us and

we've totally

missed it

because we're

thinking about

the Grand

Prix or

that meeting

or that

legal drama

we were

watching.

I'm sure

that's what's

going on

here.

The church

attendance has

become a

chore.

Doing the

religious thing

has become a

real inconvenience

and really

dented profits.

God brings

charges and

Israel is not

looking good.

There's no

excuse,

no mitigating

circumstances,

no legal loophole,

no technicality.

The charges

are read out

and the

defense attorney

stays seated.

No questions,

your honor,

they say.

And this is

what we've

seen.

These twin

themes of

social injustice

and hypocritical

worship are

one thing.

Jesus says

the most

important thing

is to love

God with

all your

heart,

soul,

mind and

strength

and to

love your

neighbor as

yourself.

You fail

to do this

one and you

start not

doing that

one.

The two

are connected.

this is the

most one-sided

court hearing

in history

proceeding at

a pace as

God prepares

to give his

verdict and

here it

comes.

Verse 7,

the Lord has

sworn by the

pride of

Jacob.

In Amos,

God has

sworn two

oaths already.

In chapter

4, he

swore by his

holiness.

In chapter

6, he

swore by

himself.

And in

chapter 8,

he swears

by the

pride of

Jacob.

And that's

very interesting

because what

is God

swearing by?

He's swearing

by that

which is

immutable,

that that

does not

change.

He says

God's

holiness,

it will

not change,

so my

oath is

pure.

Because

swearing by

my holiness,

my holiness

won't change,

so therefore

my vow

won't change.

In chapter

6, the

Lord does

not change,

so when he

swears by

himself.

It's that

same

immutability

that his

vow will

not be

broken,

but see

what he's

done here.

I swear

by the

pride of

Jacob,

they've

got to

the point

where their

pride will

not be

quelled,

where they

cannot be

humbled.

He's

using a

destructive

trade in

their lives

and saying

you're so

stiff-necked

you won't

change,

therefore

it's

worthy of

an oath.

I swear

by the

very thing

I'm judging

you for

because I

know you

will not

change.

the sun

has hardened

the clay,

their arteries

have become

so clogged

and calloused

with themselves

that they

have no

time for

God.

And the

judgment is

seismic.

I will

not forget

says God.

Chapter 2

verse 7

he says

I will

not

relent.

The

God

disposed

to

casting

sin

into the

sea of

forgetfulness

that is

his nature

is so

provoked

by his

people

that he

says I'm

going to

write

these

sins

indelibly

on my

eternal

memory.

So

heinous,

so

persistent,

so

habitual,

has this

sin

become?

Will not

the land

tremble

for this

and all

who live

in it

mourn?

that's a

very ominous

verse

considering

where we

started in

chapter 1

verse 1

two years

before the

earthquake.

And here

he's talking

about the

earth

trembling

as he

judges his

people.

And the

Nile is

symbolized,

the hydrological

cycle of the

Nile where it

floods.

and then

the flood

waters

dissipate

but leave

nothing.

Even

mentioning

the

Nile is

haunting

geography

for God's

people because

the Nile is

synonymous for

Egypt and

Egypt is

synonymous

with slavery

and bad

times.

It's kind of

like talking

about

Bannockburn

for English

people or

talking about

Glencoe if

you're from

the McDonald's

clan.

worse God

says I'm

going to

judge you.

I'm going to

judge you but

this time not

sending you to

Egypt.

And then

rescuing you

after 400

years like we

were looking at

this morning.

I'm going to

judge you and

it's going to

be Assyria.

And return is

not going to

be on the

cards.

Worse than

that it'll

be like

de-creation.

Halfway through

verse 9 the

God who said

let there be

light now

says I'm

going to

bring darkness.

I'm going to

undo all that

I did at the

beginning.

It's going to

be a complete

reversal.

Day to

night feasting

to mourning

singing to

weeping plush

garments to

sackcloth shaved

heads.

I will make

you mourn as

for a first

born.

only son.

It will be

bitterness

everywhere.

This is a

verdict of

pure catastrophe

and absolute

horror.

It's a vision

of national

torment and

universal loss

that God

rains down on

a stubborn

heart-hearted

entrenched

people that

have dulled

their ears to

his voice and

seared their

hearts to their

own sin.

And see God

is intimately

involved in

verse 9.

Who is the

protagonist of

this judgment?

Well it's God.

I will.

I will.

I will.

I will.

God is there.

He is so

enraged by

their sin that

he says I'm

coming and I'm

coming to judge

and I'm going

to be at the

forefront.

That as Hebrew

says it is a

terrible thing to

fall into the

hands of the

living God.

Well Israel are

going to learn

just how terrible

it is.

in chapter 4

God has said

prepare to

meet your

God.

In chapter 5

he talks about

it all going

bad because

God is going

to pass through

their midst.

And in chapter

8 he's here

and it's national

and it's total

and it's final.

That's not even

the worst bit.

The worst bit

comes as he lays

out the punishment.

Verse 11

God will send

a famine.

Not a physical

famine.

We're not going

to be phoning

Bono and Bob

Geldof and

trying to get

Band-Aid back

together.

It's going to be

a spiritual famine

a famine of

God's word.

God declares

that I will send

a famine through

the land not a

famine of food

or a thirst for

water but a

famine of hearing

God's word.

God has

declared it but

Israel has

incited it because

in chapter 2

they've told the

prophets to shut

up the people

that were bringing

God's word.

The Nazarites who

were to be a

pillar of God's

word are the

ones that are

told to drink up

your wine and

don't worry too

much about your

vows.

And now God

has given them

what they wanted.

A famine of

hearing God's

word.

God is going

to stop

roaring.

He's going to

stop speaking.

God's word is

going to disappear

from the land.

God will

withhold his

life-giving,

life-changing,

life-granting

word from his

people because

they've had so

much of it and

they've done

nothing.

And the picture

is horrendous of

people staggering

from sea to sea,

wandering from

north to east,

searching for the

word of the

Lord, but they

will not find

it.

it's like

the walker,

the hiker,

being lost in

the highlands,

but the mobile

phone signals

out, the map

has blown

away, the

tent is ripped,

the sleeping

bag's wet,

the fog has

descended,

and the

blizzards come

in.

That God

says you are

lost, but I'm

going to withhold

from you my

word, which is

the only thing

that will bring

you back.

God says

thirst.

The results

are devastating.

First 13, the

lovely women and

the strong young

men will faint

because of

thirst.

If you go into

a pub in

Edinburgh, there's

two groups of

people that will

be well hydrated.

There'll be

strong young men

who have the

money and the

lovely young

women who will

be the recipients

of many drinks.

thirst.

And here, they're

thirsty.

So, total is

this judgment.

The lions now

stopped roaring.

The lion, he

was roaring in

chapter 1, verse

1, is now

prowling in the

shadows.

It is a

catastrophic

judgment.

Idolatry exposed.

What's going on

in verse 14 is

the sin of

Samaria.

I think it's a

reference to the

worship of the

God.

God as

Asherah, this

fertility God.

And I think it's

come round about

that they've been

worshipping this

fertility God in

secret who

legitimates all

their high living

and luxurious

life.

And this God

who was supposed

to bring fertility

has only actually

ripened them for

judgment.

No more

harvest.

They will fall

never to rise

again.

total.

My people are

like a basket of

ripe fruit.

They're ripe for

judgment.

Their sin has

remained unrepented

of.

It's going to be

catastrophic earthquake

and everything's

going to be

different.

And they'll fall

and never get up.

What a thoroughly

depressing evening,

right?

A lot of you are

thinking I should have

just stayed.

antiques,

roadshow and

songs of praise

would have done

me tonight

rather than

come and

listen to this.

It's heavy.

However,

before we give

up,

I think there

is hope.

Hope,

not from this

passage.

This passage is

devoid of hope,

but as those

that know the

end of the

story,

I think we

can read

hope into

it.

That way in

the shower on

Monday morning,

we might not

just be tempted

to just stay

there.

We stand

here this

evening as

those not

just given

the written

word of

God,

but those

given the

living word

of God.

That we're

not here

suffering a

famine of

God's word,

we have an

abundance,

a full

disclosure of

God's word

in the Lord

Jesus.

We are not

famished,

we are privy

to God's

word in all

its fullness.

But I think

it's even

better,

because as I've

read this this

week,

I realize I'm

not actually

that different

to Israel,

I want to

condemn them,

but they're

kind of as

sinful and as

rebellious and

hard-hearted as

me.

But this is

the truth,

that God

sent his

son,

the living

word,

to take all

of this

judgment on

himself that

I might have

life,

that I might

never suffer

these consequences.

God himself

was the one

who mourned

as for an

only son.

Jesus was

the one who's

hair was

ripped out

as he went

to the cross

that I

deserved,

because I

too have

hypocritically

worshipped God

and continued

in my sin

and repented.

He was a

young man

who cried

out in

thirst from

the cross.

He was the

one for whom

the son really

did go down

at noon

as he died

for my sin

on that

terrible

and awful

hell.

He was

the one

who shed

his blood

so that God

would not

say,

I will no

longer pass

by,

but he was

the one who

said,

if you

shelter under

my blood,

I will pass

by.

And you

can be one

whom

condemnation is

not a part of

your life

because you

are in

Christ Jesus.

And so

while this is

bad news for

Israel,

I think,

I hope,

it only paints

a bleak

dark black

ground so

that the

jewel,

the precious

cornerstone

of Jesus

Christ might

shine all

the more.

Because we

deserve this

and we get

that.

We deserve

this judgment

but we get

that life.

And so

three quick

things.

As we sum

up.

Response

time is

finite.

We see

that so

clearly in

this chapter.

They had

seven chapters

to repent.

There was

space for

grace but

now it's

run out.

And yes,

the Assyrians

won't come

for a while

but they're

coming.

They won't

turn back.

And this is

important for

us.

I don't care

how long

we've been

coming to

church.

If we have

not come to

Jesus in

repentance and

faith,

these guys

went to

church all

the time

but it

made no

difference to

them.

The real

difference is

made by

trusting the

Lord Jesus

that he took

our judgment

for us.

But also,

we can so

easily go out

from this

into Monday

morning.

We can so

easily go and

hang out with

friends and

colleagues and

relatives.

ourselves.

But the

clock is

ticking for

them in a

very real

way.

Because Jesus

is coming

back and

their life

is slipping

away.

And their

only hope is

to respond to

this living

word.

Response

time is

finite.

And true

life comes

through God's

word.

That's why

when God

takes his

word away,

famine and

death is the

only option.

that we

know about

the living

word by

reading the

written word.

And so if

we have no

access to

this, we

have no hope

of meeting

Jesus.

And so

true life

comes through

this living

word.

Are we

obsessed with

this book?

Not because

we like

reading words

on a page,

but we like

meeting the

God who

perfectly

reveals himself

in it.

And as I

was telling

the students

yesterday,

it's the

most glorious

virtuous circle.

As we were

reading in

1 Peter 2,

crave the

pure spiritual

milk of

God's word.

How do you

build up a

craving?

How do you

become addicted

to God's

word?

Well,

exposing yourself

to it all

the time.

That as we

learn of God,

we learn how

lovely and

beautiful and

majestic and

glorious he

is.

We see his

plan in

fulfilled and

gloriously

accomplished in

Jesus,

which makes

us love him

more,

which makes

us want to

read more

of him,

which makes

us understand

him better,

which makes

us love

Jesus more,

which makes

us want to

read more

of God's

word.

The reason

we all

struggle so

much with

Bible study

and daily

devotions is

because we

don't do

Bible study

and daily

devotions.

But if we

start,

we'll get a

real taste

for it.

We'll get a

real craving.

We'll become

obsessed with

what God has

done.

And then I

guess connected

to that,

substitutes for

God's word

bring death.

Israel does

a lot of

church,

it does a

lot of

religious

activity.

But it's

not done

them any

good because

God's word