Amos 2:4-16 | Does God Care about the Conduct of His People?

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Would you take your Bible and open it to the Old Testament Book of Amos?

The Old Testament prophet Amos, a little bit beyond the middle of your Bible if you're unfamiliar with those short Old Testament prophets.

Last Sunday, if you're not with us, we began a series of sermons working our way through the book of Amos.

We'll have seven sermons on these nine chapters, intending to answer the question, does God care?

Does God care?

Now, we're going to add some extensions to that question as we go along.

So last time we asked the question, does God care about the conduct of nations in our world?

This morning we will answer the question, does God care about the conduct of his people?

And there will be others to follow as we work our way through.

So this morning I would like to pick up where we left off last week.

That is in Amos chapter 2, beginning in verse 4.

Amos 2 · chapter mention

If you have a Bible, I'll be reading here, and you can follow along through the end of the chapter.

Again, Amos chapter 2 and verse 4.

Amos 2 · chapter mention

Thus says Yahweh, for three transgressions of Judah, for four, I will not turn back the punishments, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh and have not kept his statutes.

But their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked.

So I will send a fire upon Judah and shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.

Thus says Yahweh, for three transgressions of Israel, and for four I will not revoke the punishment.

Because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted.

Man and his father go into the same girl so that my holy name is profane.

They lay themselves down beside every altar, of garments taken and pledged, and the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been flained.

Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorites before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was as strong as the oaks.

I destroyed its fruit above, and his roots beneath.

Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorites.

And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazarites.

Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?

declares Yahweh.

But you made the Nazarites drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying, You shall not prophesy.

Behold, I will press you down in your place as a cart full of sheaves presses down.

Flight shall perish for the swift, and the strong shall not retain his strength, nor shall the mighty save his life.

He who handles the bow shall not stand, and he who is swift of foot shall not save himself.

Nor shall he who rides the horse save his life, and he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, declares Yahweh.

Amen.

The Indonesian tsunami death toll is now over 2,000 souls, with an approximate 5,000 folks still missing as the search has been called off.

Reports say that scientists were surprised by the strength of the tsunami that followed the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that shook the Indonesian islands.

Astonishingly, the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics issued a tsunami warning after the earthquake.

And then they retracted it.

Even as the destructive waves were already beginning to approach the island of Sulawesi.

And then the earthquake and the following tremors destroyed the lines of communication that prevented new alerts from being issued.

Therefore, the towering waves and destructive force of the water took many by surprise.

As one publication declared, the monster waves were unexpected for this particular quake.

What might it have been like to be taken by surprise like that?

Some of you who lived through the flood here a couple of decades ago have some sense of that, although that flood, as I understand it, was much more gradual than a tsunami, which just comes in surprising everyone.

Perhaps you've been taken by surprise by some kind of disaster that's different.

Maybe you've had the surprise of a family member whose life was taken in an accident.

Or maybe a sudden health crisis or financial disaster would go on and on.

The mind-numbing effect of that kind of surprise is astounding, but so too is the pain that is felt along with it.

In a similar but different way.

If you can, imagine, imagine being told in 1999 that two years later the iconic Twin Towers in New York City would crash to the ground as a result of jet airliners successively plowing into the upper floors of those buildings.

Now today, of course, in our present world, we might not think that that was so surprising.

We might think it even plausible, possible, or even likely.

But in 1999, we would have considered it ludicrous and passed it off as the musings of a conspiracy theorist.

And then on September 11th, we were all surprised.

In Amos' world, the judgment declarations from the sovereign Lord were like the Indonesian earthquake.

They shook the earth in a shocking way.

But they were only a prelude to the disaster that was to follow.

Or it's like a no-name, humble pastor of some country church announcing to the fully assembled Congress in 1999 that terrorists would topple a symbol of American strength within two years.

You see, it's our nature as human beings to dismiss warnings when things are going well.

As warnings of recession are difficult to heed in times of prosperity, prophecies of judgment are laughable when you are God's chosen people.

Warnings of injury are often dismissed because of the energy of youth.

So too, declarations of destruction are incomprehensible to those who believe themselves to be safe in the hands of their God.

Disaster is most surprising to those who think themselves safest.

So too, God's judgment is most surprising to those who feel safe in their religion.

It was a combination.

So, for example, it was perfectly acceptable for them at the time to worship the fertility gods of Ashcareth and Baal while at the same time worshiping the golden calf that represented Yahweh that had been set up in the city of Samaria.

It was acceptable for them to ignore parts of God's law that were uncomfortable for them or that went against another aspect of another religion, or it would be okay to ignore God's law if it was simply not helpful or beneficial to you.

The consumerism of today's religion, specifically of today's Christianity, is not much different than the ideology of Amos's time.

Consumerism of today's Christianity says I can pick and choose what I like to have.

If I don't like something here, I can go over here and find it.

If I don't like something here, I don't have to participate in that because I can participate over here.

So we have a culture that is conditioned to be able to choose what we like, what we want.

And we pursue that.

Our consumeristic Christianity is not so much different than the consumeristic idolatry of Amos' time.

You might say that the common faith among God's chosen people in the time of Amos was the religion of self.

Pleasure and personal benefit were the rule.

Whatever was best for you drove the faith of Amos's world.

But that had a way of segregating their society.

As people pursued what was best for them, the prosperous began to be set apart from those who struggled.

And then the prosperous were tempted to see their prosperity in an elitist kind of way, leading them to take advantage of those who were less fortunate.

So the powerful took advantage of the weak, and partiality ruled the day with judges and kings.

Last Sunday we described how God's people, his chosen people, were separated at this point in time.

There was the people of Israel in the north and the people of Judah in the southern part.

But both of those groups, by this point in time, had begun to drift away from a worship of God and into an idolatrous syncretism.

And now they were about to receive the gravest warnings of God's judgment they had ever heard.

And in their prosperity and their safety, they refused to hear it.

Like a predator slowly closing in on its prey, perhaps even luring it into believing that it was safe, not in harm's way, Amos recorded words of judgment on all of the people groups surrounding Israel and Judah.

The hearers, Israel, would have been nodding their heads in agreement with God's judgment on Syria, on the Philistines, and on the Phoenicians and Tyre.

It would have made sense to hear God's judgment on the Edomites, on the Ammonites, and on Moab as God made his way all around Israel and Judah.

Nothing appeared concerning to them, all the while feeling smugly safe hearing God quaking in judgment all around them.

The terrors of judgment on the people surrounding them did nothing to sway them.

And then Amos mentioned Judah.

Those ancient family members of the people of Israel.

We might imagine, because of the hostilities that had gone on for decades and centuries between those two people groups, that the ancient family members, Israel, got a bit of a grin forming around the corners of their mouths as God began to address the sins of Judah.

For three, transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not provoke the punishment.

Because they have rejected the law of Yahweh and have not kept his statutes, but their lives have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked.

So I will send a fire on Judah, and it shall devour the stronghold of Jerusalem.

As with the nations surrounding them, God had said to Judah, your sin has reached the pinnacle.

Continuing is three plus three plus four, equals seven, theme from the first chapter, Amos loved the southern nation of God's people in with all the pagan peoples around them.

He said, You are no different.

You are just like them in the extent of your sinfulness.

Now the way in which they sinned was different.

The pagan nations surrounding them, as we saw last time, had all pursued sinning against humanity.

Their treatment of God's creation was an affront to God himself.

Judah, though, is not said to have sinned in the same way.

Her sin is twofold.

First, not keeping God's law, and then following the lies their ancestors followed.

The prophet Ezekiel, ministering to the exiles of Judah and Babylon some 80 years after Amos, said of Jerusalem and Judah in Ezekiel chapter 5, I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.

Ezekiel 5 · chapter mention

And she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her, for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes.

That's a Jerusalem in June.

The very same people group that Amos is addressing here.

You see, they lived with God's temple in their midst, in Jerusalem.

They ought to have known God's word.

They ought to have followed its requirements.

Instead, they ignored and rejected what God said.

Think about yourself for a moment.

Perhaps we ought to be brought up short by recognizing the blessings that God has given us as Christians.

The New Testament tells us that in Christ, those who come to faith in him are now part of God's chosen people.

In Christ, we are His.

The people of Judah possessed the Word of God.

The temple contained a copy of the Scriptures.

If they wanted to hear God speak, they could go to the temple and hear the scriptures read and hear the scriptures proclaimed.

But we are far more blessed.

Not only is it incredibly simple and affordable to have your own personal copy of God's word, most of us have multiple copies.

If you use modern technology, most copies of scripture are even free.

Most of us live within a few minutes of a gathering of God's people like this, where we can come and be built up together.

And yet we still struggle to walk obediently with our God, don't we?

God might legitimately wonder if we have ignored or rejected his word.

The end of verse 4 identifies a second category of sinfulness.

That's significant because the other nations surrounding them, the pagan nations, only had one category.

But no, Judah has two.

The second issue God has with his people was buying into lies.

Lies that led them away from God.

The prophet Jeremiah came on the scene after Amos, and he detailed this indictment.

We read in Jeremiah chapter 23.

Jeremiah 23 · chapter mention

Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongue to declare the word of the Lord.

Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, which I did not send them or charge them to do.

So they do not profit this people at all.

You can look at Ezekiel chapter 13, 10 verses or so for even more detail tonight.

Ezekiel 13 · chapter mention

Bottom line, friends, is this to depart from following God's word is to set yourself up to buy into lies.

God's people rejected his law, rejected his word, and they were led astray by prophets who spoke lies.

How many times have we all, all of us, witnessed a friend or a family member be raised within the church, within the community of God's people, to learn God's word, to know God's word, and then for one reason or another, they go out on their own, leaving behind the word of God, and they end up buying into all of Satan's worldly lies, leaving behind a faith that you all thought they had.

I mean most of us know someone like that.

Now, imagine God as the father of his people, seeing all of his children leave his ways and buy into lies.

This is why the New Testament places such strong emphasis on the need for elders of local churches to know the Word of God, to live by the Word of God, to hold fast to the Word of God, and to lead churches in the same way.

In fact, that's exactly what the Apostle Paul told Titus as he was appointing elders.

He said, elders must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give sound, proper, correct, right instruction and doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

Because if they don't, the church will buy into lies and be led astray.

God declaring the end of his patience and the coming judgment would have taken God's people by surprise.

Much like announcing 9-11 two years in advance.

The announcing of judgment was like feeling the shaking of an earthquake.

But the warning soon faded.

The tsunami of an Assyrian army would come to destroy.

Does God care about the conduct of his people?

Clearly, he does.

Being God's sons and daughters does not remove living with the consequences of our sin.

We are not immune to the consequences of our sin.

In fact, we could say that being the people of God brings with it greater accountability.

That's why Peter would write in his New Testament letter, it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.

But you might say to me, Pastor, Christ rescues us from judgment.

Yes, he does.

And I hope that you have been rescued.

I hope that you have come to trust in Christ Jesus the Lord as your Lord and Savior, coming to Him in His payment for your sins so that your judgment, your eternal judgment, has been taken care of.

But He's not promised to keep us safe from the consequences we face for our choices in this life.

Judah looked around and saw God judging them, judging the peoples all around her.

Israel looked and saw God judging all the peoples around her and sat slowly thinking, I'm saved.

I'm saved.

We must not look at people around us facing the choices for their sin and feel immune to the consequences of our sin simply because we will only ours.

Judgment may begin with us if we are not prepared to be.

Our lives Must be lies of repentance.

Otherwise, we might find ourselves in Israel's shoes, feeling a false sense of security as those around us are experiencing the judgment of God.

Now, with each successive judgment against the nations surrounding her, I would suggest to you that Israel, the northern group of God's people, would have felt even more secure.

Judah became the seventh group in the line of God's judgment.

Went through six of them last Sunday, and then Judah is the seventh.

We've already seen in the first chapter how that idea of seven or three plus four indicates the fullness or the completeness or the perfection of God's judgment.

And the fullness and the completeness of people's sin.

Well, as the seventh group, Judah, as mentioned, that may have given Israel the feeling that he escaped.

We don't have to worry about that.

The seventh nation to receive God's wrath would surely complete the expression of God's anger against sin.

But no, Israel now in verse 6 becomes the eighth nation, as though it was their sin that spilled over, bringing the accumulation of sin not only to the top of the cup, but spilling over.

And so to pouring out Judah.

Judah was indicted.

She would not escape.

But Israel's sin had been going on for much longer, without any kind of repentance.

Not only did she worship foreign God, but she failed to carry out God's law and live in God's way.

And so Amos approached this northern group of God's people with God's message, landfasting them with the condemnation of a holy God.

In fact, the rest of the book is directed towards them.

No one else, just the northern group of Israel.

It would be several decades before Judah in the south faced her reckoning, but Israel was on the precipice of disaster.

God's judgment against them would not only be a surprise, but it would come upon them with such a horror that they could not express.

What could cause that?

Well, I appreciate scholar John Phillips' summary of Israel's sin.

He says their sin was injustice, immorality, idolatry, ingratitude, and intolerance.

All that was brought God's wrath.

Well, let's think about what Amos wrote here and what he said to these people in those terms.

Let's think first of all about injustice.

We see this in verse 6.

God says they sell the righteous for silver and the knee for a pair of sandals, and trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and they turn aside the way of the afflicted.

The righteous are otherwise known as the innocent.

Charges were often brought against the innocent, and instead of justice being served, the innocent would often be sold into slavery for the benefit of the accusers and the judges.

The powerful and the rich perverted justice by using their wealth to strip the poor and the needy of anything they possess.

In fact, later in chapter 5, in verse 14, Amos said, Seek good and not evil that you may live.

And so Yahweh, the God of hosts, will be with you.

Hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gates.

And it may be that Yahweh, the God of hosts, will be gracious.

Establish justice in the gate.

The gates were the corporates of ancient cities.

The elders and the judges of the city would hold court at the city gates.

They were there to determine God's justice.

They were to hear cases, hear disputes, and to rule as God Himself would rule.

With great and perfect righteous justice.

Instead, they filled their pockets at the expense of the less fortunate, and they turned aside the rights of the afflicted.

The picture that we have here is that the afflicted and the downcast are coming to the judges to have their case heard.

The righteous and the unrighteous and the wealthy and the strong are coming and shoving them aside so that he can't even have his case heard.

There are two layers, I think, to this.

The most obvious being a failure to fulfill God's command.

But the more important layer is that the failure to uphold God's rules indicates a failure to know God.

God's people did not know their God.

We're told verse 7 that the man and father and son abused the same prostitute, probably in connection with idolatry, the worship of a false God, both of which were direct violations of God's law.

Justice was stolen for the innocent, immorality was pursued for personal pleasure, and idolatry replaced genuine worship of the true God.

But injustice, immorality, and idolatry apparently weren't enough because Israel was also ungrateful.

Look at verses 9, 10, and 11.

Very fascinating.

God said that look at what I did for you.

It was I who destroyed the Amorites.

That's the people groups that were inhabiting the land of Palestine before God brought Israel in.

And said, it wasn't you and your armies.

I destroyed you.

I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.

A poetic way of saying, I wiped you mount.

He did not come in the day.

I brought you up out of Egypt.

I led you in the wilderness for 40 years.

I raised up for your sons, prophets, and Nazarites.

I, I, I, I, I, I.

And then there's this condemning question, is it indeed not so, O people of Israel?

What do you say to that?

The sad part is that that's not all that God could have said.

He could have said, I chose you from out of all the families and the nations of the earth.

I set you apart for myself.

I gave you my word.

I gave you my promises.

I promised you a future.

I gave you myself, and you have done nothing but rebel against my grace.

What if God said that to us?

What if God said that to us?

Hear this word of the Lord.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nature, a people for his own possession, that you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, might urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

Keep your conduct among the nations honorable, so that when they see you and speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify your God on the day of visitation.

Is it not indeed so, O people of Christ?

Does God care about the conduct of his people?

Of course he does.

He cares about the conduct of his people.

Because his people reflect him.

He has created his people in his image and in his likeness.

He says we are a new creation.

All things are gone, they're behind us, and all things are in.

What is he doing?

Well, he's remaking us into the image he intended us to be in Eden, in the Garden of Eden, to bear and to be the image of God, to reflect him.

Why would he then not care how his people reflect him?

Oh, but there's one.

Israel was also impolitive.

God gave prophets to his people, to declare his word to them, to teach them, to lead them, to guide them.

He gave them Nazarites to demonstrate his holiness.

You see, Nazarites were commanded to not cut their hair, to not drink any alcohol.

That was to be a symbol, to be a picture of God's holiness, of God being completely separate.

But in Israel, at least, God's people did not like being confronted with God's word from the prophets.

They did not like being confronted with God's holiness and the Nazarites.

And so, in some way, we're not told how, they sought to make the Nazarites impure by drinking wine and they sought to silence God's prophets.

We will see the king of Israel doing that very thing to Amos in a few times.

In response to all of that sin, God will send a devastating army.

That's why he says in verse 13, Behold.

Wake up, watch, see what I'm about to do.

And he begins to describe in verses 13 through 16 we have seven elements of God's judgment.

Again, illustrating that God's judgment, just like their sin, is going to be complete.

It's going to be full.

Behold, I will press you down in your place.

Because a heart full of sheaves presses down.

Astounding.

Verses 9, 10, and 11.

We heard all these amazing things that God did for his people.

All these benefits, all these blessings, all of these amazing, gracious things.

And now God says, I'm going to squash you.

Have you ever tried to drive a vehicle through the mud and got stuck?

Or as a kid been pulling a wagon through mud and not been able to get it all the way through the muddy pit?

That's what verse 13 describes.

Except in this case, that's what God would do to his people, Israel.

They would seek to run away and they would end up being bogged down and unable to escape.

He goes on.

It's a military picture.

He says, those desiring to flee from an incoming army would be unable to do so.

The strong would suddenly become weak.

Those who believed themselves to be mighty would die.

The archers of the army would not be able to stand firm long enough to send their arrows fly into the enemy.

The runners of the army would be too slow, and those driving chariots would lose their lives.

The invasion would be so terrible that the most courageous would drop everything, even their own clothes, in an effort to escape to save their lives.

That was God's judgment on his own people who rejected him.

Being prepared and having the greatest of armies is no match for Yahweh of hosts when he comes in judgment.

The most technologically advanced missile defense system cannot compete when Yahweh comes in judgment.

Now last time we asked the question: does God care about the conduct of the nations?

Pretty clear that he did.

He does and he did.

As we move into the second chapter of Amos' prophecy, we encounter a shift.

God is no longer simply dealing with individual groups of people, individual nations.

He is.

But even more than that, he is directing his attention at those who should know him.

The pagan nations all around him, God says they shouldn't necessarily have the same knowledge of me that you have.

Instead, he saw people who had become altogether like the people around him.

Those who have been called by the Lord Jesus Christ to put their trust in him and to answer his call to take up their cross daily and follow him are now his chosen people.

That can be you if you've never taken that step of faith, to trust in Christ alone.

He welcomes you and says, Come and be a part of my chosen people.

But just put your faith in me that I have paid the price for your sin.

And if that is you, then your judgment for your sin has been paid because Christ has taken your sin and he is nailed to the cross.

I hope that describes you.

Because of your faith in Christ, the greatest of all judgments against you, has been forever nailed to the cross because Christ bore the judgment for your sin.

And as a result of that, in response to that astounding grace, we are to be no different.

We are to be different, pardon me, from the world around us.

We are to be living as his image bears.

See, there is to be a noticeable difference between God's time and the rest of the world.

That's never changed.

God expects that all throughout the scriptures.

In fact, we see that even in the New Testaments, where we find that many who claim even to be Christians and who are in the church sometimes walk a very dangerous line.

To Titus, the apostle Paul wrote, of those folks, they profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.

They are detestable disobedience, unfit for every good.

That's why James encourages us to think about ourselves.

So deceives.

Do you show the people around you that you have come to trust in Christ the King and you are seeking diligently to mirror him?

I'm incredibly thankful that there is grace and mercy in Christ.

I'm incredibly thankful that there is forgiveness in him when we come in confession with repentant hearts.

I'm also thankful that there are reminders like these of what we are to be.

If we are in him, we know who we are.

We're his.

But sometimes we need to be reminded of what we are to be.

And that's why the apostle would write to Titus these words, which we also should hear.

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

For we ourselves were once foolish.

We were once disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.

Not by any works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his own mercy.

By the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, who be poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

So that being justified by grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

And so this saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

These things are excellent and profitable for all.

Lord Jesus, we come to you seeking your help.

We want to mirror you.

We want to be pleasing to you, we want to obey you and follow what you have to say.

But we need the help of your spirit because we need that empowerment, that name.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree dot com.