The Roar of the Lord - Amos 1-2

1:37He is prophesying around the exact same time that Jonah is. They both mention the same king of Israel that they prophesy during the ministry of. And he is from Tacoah, there's two Tekoas and one's in each kingdom, but he's probably from the one in Judah, about 10 miles south of Jerusalem. So he's from Judah, but he's preaching, he's given this message from the Lord to Israel, the northern kingdom. Pretty unique among the prophets that he's speaking directly to the northern kingdom. And it's two years before the earthquake. So another thing we hear in this verse is that these words that we're about to read today were given two years before, but then maybe later Amos puts them together into a book and says these were from two years before the earthquake or something like that.

2:32Verse 2. And he said, the Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem. The pastures of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers. The Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem. The pastures of the shepherds mourned. Mourn, and the top of Carmel withers. He's speaking to the northern kingdom, but he's saying that the Lord's voice is roaring from Jerusalem, from Zion, the city of God. God is speaking to Israel and to the other nations, as we'll see, but to the northern kingdom. And his speech is so powerful that not only is it described as a roar, but it talks about how the pastures of the shepherds mourn. So these pastures in Galilee maybe would have been the lower parts of the land, the valleys where all the green grass is and things like that, or the sides of the mountains. But all the way from the fertile lands, all the way up to the top of Carmel, the pastures wither because of the voice of the Lord. That is the power of the Lord's voice coming from Zion. Let's pray as we begin this book of the Bible.

4:10Father, we pray that you'd help us. As always, we pray this. Anytime we come to Scripture, help us to hold it high in our hearts. Help us to come to your word with an eagerness to find out everything we can about you and your character, the history of your people as you disciplined them and guided them and guarded them. And help us with eagerness find the places where we need to be convicted, where we need to change and grow.

4:59Father, help us understand, even as we study another minor prophet. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, the century that Amos is in is the 8th century B.C. And he's probably this earthquake, they discovered a huge earthquake in the archaeological record around the year 760. And so that lines up with the kings that he said he's in the ministry of. So maybe 765 BC to 755 BC, somewhere around there, is when Amos is preaching mostly to the northern kingdom throughout the book. But he starts out by preaching to all kinds of nations all around the area.

5:45This is a special time in their history because in about 10 or 20 years, the empire of the Assyrians is going to start to take off. So far, Nineveh, as we read in Jonah, Nineveh has been this city-state. It's kind of like these other small kingdoms that are based on major cities with walls and gates. And Assyria has been like that, the city of Nineveh. But in about 20 years from the time that Amos is writing this, there's going to be a new king in Assyria. There's a civil war, there's a coup, and he takes over the kingdom. He kills all the royal family, and he starts to have this very efficient system for conquering other nations. His name was Tiglath Pileser III. And it's this king that turns Assyria into a city-state, from a city-state into an empire.

6:53Well, today we're going to read about all these nations, these little nations that are around Judah and Israel that have constantly pestered them throughout their history in really violent and terrible ways. And God is sending a foreboding message to them. And I think that the fulfillment of this message is going to be Assyria. I think Assyria is going to come and be the tool of the Lord just like it was for the Lord when he used them to conquer his own. Nation, the northern kingdom of Israel. And just like he was the Lord's tool to come and punish Jerusalem, not conquer Jerusalem, but punish Jerusalem, so it seems as if God is going to use Assyria in about 20 years to devour these nations that we're going to read about today. So this is a special time in history. This is right before the big empires start coming one after another, the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and the Romans. This is kind of the last chance we see of these city-states interacting and the Lord defending his people and disciplining his people. So turn to Amos chapter 1, verse 3. Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four. Does that sound familiar? Sometimes we hear that elsewhere in Scripture, especially you might think of the Proverbs where the Lord is going to give them from the wisdom of the kings, he's going to give them three or four pieces of wisdom. And so it's maybe this idea of a completeness. Or a lot of sinned. And actually, in each of these countries that he's going to talk to, he usually only says one thing that they did wrong. He says, and every time he talks to one of these nations, for three transgressions of Damascus and for four. But then he usually only says one sin. So maybe this is the worst sin, or the one, the straw on the camel's back, straw that broke the camel's back, or something like that. But he starts each of these nations, these cities, with this formula, for three transgressions of Damascus and for four. Damascus was the main city of Assyria that was northeast of the people of Israel. And Gilead was this region of Israel that was across the Jordan. So he could either be talking about a city of Ramath Gilead, which would have been the northeast, almost as far northeast in the land of Israel as you could go, or a region of Gilead, just on the other side of the Jordan. But either way, this region would have been the most susceptible to attack by Syria. Or elsewhere in Scripture, it's also called Aram in Isaiah, whose Isaiah, by the way, is also preaching around this same time, a couple decades later. So this kingdom of Syria, the capital city is Damascus.

10:30Northeast, and they have been incredibly violent to the city or the region of Gilead. I will not revoke the punishment because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. So, that's the picture of that is like when you're rolling over grain to thresh the grain. They aren't just rolling over it, but they're using iron to do it. And it's just this maybe gruesome, but at least intense picture of somebody just being run over and totally decimated. That's what Damascus has done to Gilead. Verse 4: So I will send a fire upon the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-Hadad. He's also going to say that to every nation. He's going to send a fire, and it shall devour either the household of a leader or a city. I will send a fire, it shall devour. Verse 5: I will break the gate bar of Damascus and cut off the inhabitants from the valley of Avon, and him who holds the scepter from Beth-Eden, and a people of Syria shall go into exile to Kir, says the Lord. So God is prophesying to them that there's a coming a time because they have been so violent towards the people of Israel in Gilead that...

12:00God is going to break down their gates and cause them to go into exile in the land of Cure. Turn over, if you will, to 2 Kings chapter 13. 2 Kings chapter 13. In 2 Kings 13, towards the beginning, you hear about all these raids over and over from the Syrians, which is where Damascus was. You hear that they're perpetually being this wicked people. And then in chapter 13, verses 14 through 21, we hear about the death of Elisha. And one of the last acts that Elisha does is the king comes to him and says, shoot an arrow out the window. And he does. And that is a prophecy of the victory that Israel is going to have over Syria. And then bang the arrows on the ground.

13:05And the king struck three times. And Elisha is upset because he should have struck it more, because that's going to be how much they strike down the Assyrians. In verse 20 through 21, we hear about the Moabites. They also have been attacking. But in verse 22, now Hazael, king of Syria, oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. But the Lord was gracious to them and had compassion on them. Toward them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, nor has he cast them from his presence until now. Verse 24, when Hazael, king of Syria, died, Ben-Hadad, his son, became king in his place. Those are the two kings that we just read about in Amos. Then Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, took again from Bin-Hadad, the son of Hazael, the cities that he had taken from Jehoahaz, his father, in war. Three times Joash defeated him and recovered the cities of Israel. So Assyria had been attacking him over and over, taking these cities. The Lord prospered Israel, though, and they were able to take these cities back. Now, turn over to 2 Kings 16.

14:19This is later. 2 Kings 16. We'll read about, starting in verse 6, at that time, Rezin, the king of Syria, recovered Elath, for Syria, and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pelesser, king of Assyria. That's the king I mentioned earlier. So this is about 20 years later, just like we spoke of earlier. This is this king that's changing Assyria into the empire. Ahaz, the king of Judah, sent messages. Messengers to Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel who are attacking me. Remember, this is directly in disobedience to Isaiah's Lord's command through Isaiah, who told Ahaz not to do this. Ahaz also took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin. You can turn back to Amos. So just as God had prophesied in Amos in about 760 B.C., about 30 years later, in 733 BC, God does cause Assyria to come and conquer the people and take them into exile and to cure, just like he said. We have biblical historical record that that happened just as God said it would. So this nation comes against Israel. God sees them attacking his people. He says, I'm going to tell you exactly what's going to happen to you. You're going to be defeated and you're going to be taken into exile to this city.

16:18And 20 to 30 years later, that's exactly what happens in fulfillment of the Lord's word. Let's look at the next nation, verse 6. Thus says the Lord. For three transgressions of Gaza and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom. So I will send a fire upon the walls of Gaza, and it shall devour her strongholds. I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon. I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God. So again, instead of just saying the Philistines from the beginning, he mentions their main city at this time, Gaza. He mentions several other cities there: Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gaza, four cities. He doesn't mention Gath. I don't know if you remember. That was one of the main cities of the Philistines that always got mentioned with these other ones. And that's probably because it was just conquered by Judah.

17:33But God says that he has seen their sins as well. He's watching them. He's seen that for three transgressions of Gaza and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom. This seems to be that God is saying that he's seen the way that they attacked Judah. So Syria had attacked Israel, which makes sense because they're in the north. But the Philistines, Who are in the southwest of Judah, they have attacked Judah. And we have a record of this attack in 2 Chronicles 21. You can write that down. 2 Chronicles 21, verses 16 through 17, it talks about how the Philistines teamed up with the Arabians from the south and conquered Jerusalem and took all of the king and the royal family, the wives and their sons, and only left one person to rule. In Joel 3, I believe we hear about this same attack, that the Philistines are mentioned along with Tyre and Sidon. So these two other city-states were involved in this as well. So you have Philistia, all these cities mentioned that we read in Amos, plus Tyre and Sidon. And then in Obadiah, which we also just studied, we hear about how Edom has been complicit, I believe, in this same attack. So this is all happening about 100 years, maybe 80 to 100 years before Amos is writing. And all of these nations together have come and have rejoiced at what has happened to Judah. That the Philistines have attacked them in conjunction with Tyre and Sidon and Edom. That the people of Judah have been sold to Edom, sold to Tyre and Sidon, who would then sell them to the Greeks.

19:29Because. This is why the Philistines are getting this judgment, because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom. We'll see that this event gets mentioned over and over in the next few nations. But let's look at the punishment of the Philistines, verse 8. I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod, and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon. I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish. God is saying about the Philistines, since you have attacked the southern kingdom, my people, or at least, if we're not sure that it's that attack, if it's some other nation, if you have been so violent to this whole people and sold them to foreigners, since you have done these things, I'm going to cause you, all of these big cities, to be destroyed, even the remnant of the Philistines, even the leftover people, nobody's going to survive. Or at least, none of the army is going to survive. The Philistines also were conquered by this Assyrian Empire in 734 BC, a year before Syria, which we mentioned earlier, in fulfillment, I believe, of what God is saying here. They weren't totally destroyed when Assyria overtakes them. They'll be attacked again by the Babylonians and destroyed eventually by the Maccabeans, the Jewish.

21:00The Jewish group before, that was here before Jesus lived. But you can write down 2 Chronicles 21, Joel 3, and Obadiah. If you want to read more about this account, how all these nations came together, attacked Judah. But what God is saying to them in Amos is, I've seen that you did that, and for those sins, you're going to be punished. Let's look at verse 9. Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Tyre. That's one of the cities we just mentioned. This was north of Judah and Israel, north of both of them. For three transgressions of Tyre and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they delivered up a whole people to Edom and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood. So, what makes Tyre especially bad is that they seem to have had this close relationship, like a brother, with the people of Judah in Israel. They had this working relationship where they traded together and stood together against some of these larger kingdoms, and yet they still were fine with joining in with the Philistines and joining in with the Edomites as the people of Judah were sold and conquered. Verse 10: So I will send fire upon the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour her strongholds. He doesn't give details like he does for the other nations here, but he still says, the fire is coming, and you're going to be devoured.

22:30Like these other nations. Again, in fulfillment of that, by 738 BC, so maybe as short as 25 years later, or 20 years later, the kingdom of Tyre was already paying tribute to Assyria. They would also be decimated by Assyria, decimated again by Babylon, and finally destroyed by Alexander the Great in fulfillment of this prophecy. Let's look at the next prophecy that the Lord will fulfill. Verse 11, Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Edom, and for four I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever. So I will send a fire upon Timan, and it shall devour the strongholds of Basra. These were two big cities. We've seen Timan before when we studied some of the other minor prophets.

23:39These great cities of Edom are going to be destroyed. God's going to send the fire to them. He does. They also are conquered by Assyria. But again, you have maybe even more devastating. Remember, the nation of Edom comes from the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, whom the Israelites come from. It is this brother nation that, as we read in Obadiah, stands by aloof as the people of Judah are being attacked and then accepts their prisoners as they're sold to them.

24:15God says that he will not revoke their punishment because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever. So rather than this nation seeing his brother nation and having pity on Israel, he'd never stopped being angry and wrathful. This nation never stopped being angry and wrathful towards the Israelites. And so they jumped in with all the other nations as Judah is being attacked.

24:50Next, another family nation in verse 13: Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of the Ammonites and for four, I will not revoke the punishment. Remember, Moab and Ammon were the descendants of Lot through his two daughters. For three transgressions of the Ammonites and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border. So again, we have Gilead being attacked, and it seems like, you know, man, this region is getting totally beat down by the nations, but that makes sense because if you think about the southern kingdom of Judah, Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel, and you have this region that's part of that, but on the other side of the Jordan, and it's hard to defend, but it's still part of Israel. It makes sense that this part is the part that's being attacked by Syria from the northeast and from the Ammonites, which would have been just north or just east of them.

25:52So, verse 14: So I will kindle a fire in the walls of Rebah, and it shall devour her strongholds, with shouting on the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind. And their king shall go into exile, he and his princes together. So, just like all these other city-states, these nations that have been coming against Israel and Judah, they also are going to be conquered and destroyed, taken into captivity. This happens in 734 BC, the same year that Assyria does, that Assyria conquers Philistia.

26:31The Ammonites have been so disgustingly violent to even rip open pregnant women just so that they can expand their territory. That God has seen this. God has seen this and has paid attention and is going to bring a tool against them to destroy them as well. Next, thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not revenge. The punishment because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom. This one's different, right? This one is not necessarily because he is attacking Israel or attacking Judah. Instead, this is a sin against an enemy of Judah, one of the enemies that was just cursed. And yet, what Moab has done is so violent, he's burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom, that God still says, I've seen you, I'm paying attention. You also are going to be destroyed.

27:33So I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth, and Moab shall die amid uproar, amid shouting and the sound of the trumpet. I will cut off the ruler from its midst and will kill all its princes with him, says the Lord. Moab is conquered by Assyria in 735 B.C., before even the other nations that we've been studying already. Verse 4: Thus says the Lord. Here's a big surprise: for three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked.

28:31So I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem. So if maybe as we've gone nation by nation, it's been easy to tune out, or it's been easy to get distracted or something like that as we study all these nations. All of them can be summed up as they were violent probably towards Israel or Judah. We're not positive. He doesn't say exactly who they're violent towards, except for Moab and a couple of the others. But probably these nations are violent towards Israel and Judah.

29:08Violent in warfare, selling their captives, being ruthless as they wage war. And God is saying, I'm going to destroy you. You're going to be destroyed by Assyria. Well, now he gets to his own people, the southern kingdom of Judah, and he doesn't have a lot to say to them, but he still uses that same formula that he's been using for all the nations. For three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not revoke the punishment. God's saying, you're just like them. You're sinning just like them. You're supposed to be my people. But just like them, I have seen how much you've sinned, and I will not revoke the punishment. Only for Judah, their sin is not violence in warfare.

29:57It's not taking captives. It's not. Treating poorly the covenant people of God. Instead, their sin is that they've rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his statutes. But their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked. So their sin that the Lord has seen is that they have put aside God's law. They've rejected that in favor of lies. They had the Lord's law, and they willingly chose to disobey that and reject that and not keep his statutes because they want to follow lies that their ancestors had followed as well. God says, I see that sin as well.

30:55And it is surprising, I think, that as Amos is preaching to the northern kingdom of Israel, he's speaking about these foreign nations. And really, if he's talking to the northern kingdom of Israel, Judah, another kingdom, even though it's all part of the descendants of Abraham, Judah, another kingdom, is a foreign nation that he's prophesying against. But it is a surprise. All these other ones all around that we've seen, they all have been violent. God says, I've seen these obvious sins, and I'm punishing you. For them. But maybe it's a little bit of a surprise to us that God says the same thing. He's still going to send the fire. It's still going to devour. But the sin that he's seen now in his people is that they've rejected his word and not obeyed his commandments.

31:49Well, now is the biggest surprise in the longest oracle. Look at verse 6, all the way down to verse 16. The last nation that God speaks to, and the nation that he's going to speak to for the rest of the book, is the northern kingdom of Israel. It might have been easy as the people were hearing the words of Amos, as they hear all these wicked nations that God is condemning and cursing. It might have been easy for them to puff up their chest and say, yes, they're finally going to get it. These annoying and violent nations that are always giving us trouble, they're always sinning against the Lord. Now the Lord is going to see their sin and he's going to bring something to come and attack them and punish them for their sins.

32:40But then God doesn't stop and he turns right to them. And he says in verse 6, Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not revoke the punishment. For All the other nations, God has given one or maybe two sins, even though he's been saying three or four. And for Israel, he's going to list three or four or five, however you count it. For three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not revoke the punishment. He has the most to say to this nation. He's not just picking on the other nations. He has the most to say to this group of people that should be worshiping him, that should be his people. But instead, in the second half of verse 6, because they sell the righteous for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals.

33:51This seems to have been a mostly prosperous time for the northern kingdom. Not always, but mostly prosperous. There were rich and there were poor. Society was doing okay. And yet, this society had targeted the poor and the needy who were the righteous in their community. They had targeted them and captured them and sold them for silver and for sandals. The law says that they were meant to be mindful. Of the poor. They were meant to be thinking about the needy and how they can take care of them, but instead they were doing the opposite. They were considering themselves. They looked out and saw an opportunity as they looked at someone else, and they took advantage of that opportunity to make some money and get a new pair of sandals. Verse 7. Those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted.

35:05Rather than lifting up the head of the poor and helping them, they trample the head into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the wicked, of the afflicted. A man and his father go into the same girl so that my holy name is profaned. The people of Israel were meant to be mindful of the poor. They were meant to administer true justice. They were meant to be sexually pure as the Lord's people. And yet a man and his father go into the same girl so that his holy name is profane. Verse 8. They lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken and pledged. Do you remember in the law, they weren't supposed to take these garments. Maybe there was debts that were owed. They weren't supposed to take. Someone's cloak as security because it's cruel. You could cause them to freeze in the night or something like that. All of that is spelled out in the law, and yet these people are ignoring that. They're happy to take someone's garments. And then they go and lay down next to an altar. The end of verse 8: And in the house of their God, they drink the wine of those who have been fined. So they're living off the interests of these people that they're taking care of. They're charging them money. They're taking their cloaks. And then they're wearing those and drinking the wine in the house of the Lord. This wine that they've bought or taken from those who have been fined.

36:41All of these sins the Lord sees. He's seen how Judah has ignored his law. He's seen how Israel is completely ignoring his law, taking advantage of the poor, being sexually immoral, being ruthless lenders, and even worshiping the Lord improperly at the altar of idols or at fake altars of the Lord. Verse 9. Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was as strong as the oaks. I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.

37:30Story we read earlier. Remember when the people looked in the land and saw these Amorites, they thought they were giants. They thought they could never conquer them. And then we hear about how Joshua, after this covenant with the Gibeonites, goes all night and marches to defend the Gibeonites, and the Lord fights for them. And it's not like the people of Israel were so great that they conquered the Amorites, these five kings. No, that was God. God was the one who caused them to be in a panic. God was the one who sent the hailstones from heaven. God was the one who caused the sun to stand still so that they could defeat the armies and then capture the kings in the cave and kill them. God is saying, that was me. And you're forgetting and you're not paying attention. Verse 10. Also, it was I who brought you out of the land of Egypt and led you 40 years in the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite. Not only did I conquer the Amorites, I was the one that got you out of the old nation and brought you all the way through the wilderness to get you there. Verse 11, 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 the Lord. God gave them these gifts, the prophets, to teach them the truth, the Nazarites to be this holy group of men that paid attention to the Lord. Verse 12. But you made the Nazarites drink wine, which they weren't supposed to do.

39:07And you commanded the prophets, saying, You shall not prophesy. So the people of Israel, even though God had brought them all this way, conquered the nations, given them these gifts, they said, We don't want those gifts. We're going to make those Nazarites drink wine. We're going to make those prophets stop talking. Therefore, verse 13: Behold, I will press you down in your place as a cart full of sheaves presses down. You can see that picture, right? A cart that's weighed down heavy. We just built a patio a couple weeks ago, and I had to have sand and paving stones in the back of my truck. And when the truck dropped it in, my truck dropped like a foot. I thought it was going to hit the ground. But this cart that's weighed down full of grain that goes over something and presses the ground down, leaves its treads.

40:06God says, Behold, I will press you down in your place as a cart full of sheaves presses down. Flight shall perish from 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. He who is stout of heart among the mighty, Shall flee away naked in that day, declares the Lord. The punishment of Israel is coming soon. It's going to come, and they are going to be pressed down, and even the strongest of them, the mighty and the stout of heart, they're going to run away naked because they're so scared of what's coming.

40:51And just as God had fulfilled his message of Assyrian or of domination over all of these cities through the growing empire of Assyria, that's exactly what's going to happen to Israel. They're soon going to have to start paying tribute to this growing empire. Then they'll rebel, and this empire will come and crush them and take them into captivity, just as he said. That happened in 722 BC, which was 30 to 40 years after the message that we're reading in Amos today.

41:30So Amos dates his prophecy that God had a message for each of these nations and for Judah and for Israel. God had specifically seen each of their sins. He was paying attention. And God declared that there would be judgment on each of those nations. And within a few decades, he Brought it to pass just as he said he would. He always keeps his word. As we look at a text like this and we recognize that it's from Scripture, it's not meant just for us to have a history lesson, to hear a bunch of names that we might not remember, or a bunch of dates that we might not remember.

42:27As we come and learn from this passage, what do we learn? We learn, of course, always about the character of our Lord, that he sees our sins. It's right in front of his face. He sees our sins, and he has a plan for judgment. He knows what we had done. And that if we're believers today and if we are confident that we're going to be saved from that judgment, it's not because God wasn't looking. It's not because God didn't see or that he doesn't judge. He does see, and he always judges. And we get that message loud and clear in this text today. And so if we are going to be saved from the wrath to come, it's only because we've been shown mercy and grace. Our sins, they are many, but his mercy is more.

43:28And so we can give thanks. To the God that was so kind and generous to us to make a way when Jesus died on the cross, a way for our sins to be paid for totally, for our sins to be forgiven, as we read in Psalm 32 tonight. We can praise that God that we are not going to experience this fire that devours and be pressed down in judgment like we deserve. But also, as Christians, we can come to this text and we can look at their mistakes. Obviously, the most wicked mistakes, we shouldn't be violent, we shouldn't be ruthless, we shouldn't treat our enemies in that way. Instead, we should love our neighbor and even love our enemies.

44:21These people in Israel looked out at people that were poor and needy, and these nations looked at other nations, and their thought was, there's an opportunity for me there. If I am violent enough to those people, I can expand my territory. If I capture those poor and needy, I can sell them and get new sandals. Let us have the opposite thought that when we look out at our neighbor, we don't see Over and over, opportunities for ourselves. How can I take advantage of that person? Or how can that person help my status or my well-being?

45:10Instead, we love our neighbor selflessly. Another application: the people of Israel and the people of Judah had rejected God's law. The people of Israel had said to the prophets, You shall not prophesy. They hated God's word. Let us be people that are the opposite of that as believers. How often have we looked at our Bible on our nightstand and said, You shall not prophesy? Instead, let's be people who are cherishing God's Word, who are eager to study it, that are the total opposite of this community that hate God's law and hate God's prophets. Let's be people that lift up even books like the minor prophets and the gospel that we studied this morning and all of Scripture and lift it up and cherish it.

46:11Cherish God's Word. Love your neighbor. And finally, the people of Israel also had this issue of not appreciating the gifts that He had given them. The prophets and the Nazarites, let's be people that are so thankful to remember what God has done for us. God had miraculously delivered Israel. From these enemies in the days of Joshua, God had given them the prophets, God had delivered them from Egypt, God had drawn them through the wilderness, God had even given them the Nazarites. They looked at all those gifts and said, No, thanks. We don't want your law. We don't want your prophets. We're not going to live that way. Instead, let's have the opposite thought and think of all the life-altering things that have happened to us.

47:01That we've been saved and not only saved, but as we miss each other during this time, that we've been brought into a body of believers that we don't deserve at all. The gifts that have been given to us through other members in the church as people serve the Lord. Let's be thankful. Let's cherish God's word. Let's love our neighbor. Let's be thankful. Pray with me. Father, I pray that tonight, as we studied your word, that it would be a time that was useful to all of us.

47:43It can feel far away in time, and it can feel far away in geography. It can feel like a different world. And yet, it's so clear that your message to them as you saw their Sin, and you're judging them for their sin. And just like always, all of your words were fulfilled. So help us to trust your word. Help us to be eager to keep studying even this book. Help us to be eager to learn from your word and cherish it, to mine all the truths that we can out of it about your character and how you deal with your people and how you deal with the nations.

48:37Help us remember the things that we learned and help us be the opposite of the wickedness that we saw tonight of an ungrateful people, of a people that hate their neighbor, of a people that hate your word. Let us instead be people that love our neighbor, that cherish your word, and are genuinely thankful for the things that you have done in our lives that we certainly don't deserve. Thank you for the grace and the mercy that you've shown us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.