Humility or Hatred - Two Dramatic Responses to God's Word - Amos 7-8

2:05But they have gone back to those places, and instead of worshiping the Lord at the temple, where God made it clear that's the proper place of worship in Jerusalem, now the northern kingdom has made these false altars, and we'll see today maybe even some false temples where they're going to either worship other idols or worship God in a place where He hadn't prescribed. They also are greedy, they're wickedly rich in a way that they've taken advantage of the poor, and God has been communicating to them, I've seen all of these things, I've seen your fake worship, I've seen the way that you've been greedy, and judgment is coming. Okay, and so that theme is going to continue in Amos 7 and 8. But Amos 7 and 8 is going to revolve around the word of God, which really fits with our message this morning, right? What a privilege the Word of God is, and what a privilege the Jews had to be given the prophets, to be given the Urim and Thumim, to be given other conduits where the prophets could consult the Lord.

3:17It was a great privilege, but it was one that they were despising in Paul's day. And they're going to be despising it in Amos' day as well. And so the question for us is when we hear the word of God, are we going to be people who have a heart of humility that respond like Amos does, as we'll see in this passage? Or are we going to be people like Amaziah in this passage that rebels against the Word and hates the Word of God? Are we going to be humble towards the Word of God, or are we going to hate the Word of God? Let's pray before we jump in. Father, help us study this passage as we step through these verses. Help us understand this prophecy, these visions. And help us be people who love your word and cherish it and learn from it so we can know you and know your character.

4:13In Jesus' name, amen. Amos chapter 7, verse 1. This is what the Lord God showed me. Behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout. And behold, it was. Ladder growth after the king's mowings. That's the first vision, right? It'll go on in just a second. But God has shown Amos this swarm of locusts. And we spend a lot of time talking about locusts for the prophecy of Joel. And even today, in modern day, we looked at how there's these giant swarms of locusts right now in Africa that are threatening to devastate the whole eastern side of Africa.

5:02But the Lord shows a vision to Amos that he's forming some locusts and they're going to come. And it's the only place in Scripture where it really makes a difference between this latter growth and the king's mowings, but it seems to be something like the beginning of the harvest has already come. They've already gleaned a little bit, and that first part they're supposed to give to the king, something like that. That's why it's called the king's mowing. So they've had a little bit, but now the big growth is about to come. They're about to get to eat. They need this for food. And the Lord is forming locusts to come and eat that before they can eat it.

5:37Which would be a terrible judgment, right? The judgment of starvation, basically. Well, when Amos sees this, verse 2, when they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, please forgive. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. Jacob, remember, is another way of referring to that northern tribe of Israel because Jacob. Is the one who is renamed Israel. O Lord God, please forgive. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. There's no way that anyone in Israel is going to be able to stand up to this. Israel is going to starve if these locusts come, if this vision comes true. Verse 3: The Lord relented concerning this. It shall not be, said the Lord. So Amos sees the locusts. He cries out. He doesn't like what he sees.

6:29But instead of running away and hating the word of God, in humility, he prays to the Lord. And he says, please forgive us. How can we stand? Jacob is so small. Verse 4, the second vision. This is what the Lord God showed me. Behold, the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. And it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. So this seems to maybe be real fire that's sweeping through the land and drying up the water, burning the crops or something like that, or at least symbolic of a drought that's doing the same thing. Something that's consuming the crops, something else that would be incredibly devastating, like the locusts. Verse 5. Then I said, O Lord God, please cease. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. He says almost the same thing. The first time he said, please forgive. And now he says, please stop. Stop this vision also. So, verse 6, the Lord relented concerning this. This also shall not be, says the Lord God. So, so far in the book of Amos, we've seen that Israel really deserves these judgments. They really do. They've been so wicked and they've hated the word of God. And God shows Amos one kind of judgment, and Amos prays for the people, and God relents. And God shows him another kind of judgment that could come, and Amos prays for the people, and God relents. But now, in our third vision, that back and forth doesn't occur. Look at the third vision, starting in verse 7. This is what he showed me: Behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plum line, with a plum line in his hand. Does anybody know what a plumb line is?

8:21Matt? Yeah. Yeah, it's like this, I think, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but you have like a string with a weight on it because, you know, whenever we moved into our house, T. Getterman let us borrow this laser level, which is like the coolest thing ever. It just put this laser beam all around our house, perfectly level. But even the bubble levels, you know, those are really cool. I don't think they had those back then, okay? So they needed something to level. So they'd have a string with a weight on the end, and of course, gravity will do the work for you to keep it level, and so it'll pull the string down straight. And so if you hold it, It up to a wall to examine. You can see the wall's a little bit crooked because the string's going to be straight. Does that sound right for what a plumb line is? Okay, good.

9:10Behold, the Lord is standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, a plumb line. Then the Lord said, Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people. I will never again pass by them, or I will no longer spare them from this judgment. God is saying, I'm measuring my people. I'm seeing how they measure up the way that they're crooked or straight. And of course, we know from the rest of the book of Amos that they're very crooked right now. And so we know what the Lord is going to find when He comes and examines them with this plumb line.

9:51God says, I will never again pass by them. I'm not going to relent from this judgment anymore. I relented from the locusts. I relented from the fire. But Amos, don't ask me again. Judgment is coming. I have examined my people. Judgment is coming. And it's coming soon. It's not going to come through locusts. It's not going to come through fire. It's going to come through the sword of the Assyrians, as we talked about a few decades later. But God says in verse 9: the high places of Isaac, another father of Israel that the northern kingdom could. Be referred to as, the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

10:42Notice God doesn't say, I will rise against Jeroboam with the sword. He says, I'm going to rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. And that's exactly what happens: that this northern kingdom is taken into exile. These places are destroyed, and the descendants of Jeroboam, his, I believe, his grandson, I can't remember right now, but his descendants, the house of Jeroboam, is killed with the sword. But when Amos says these things, the right response that the people should have should be one like Amos. Oh God, please relent. The right attitude should be repentance and sorrow over the wickedness they've done and fear over the judgment that's coming. But instead, you get this picture that they're starting to spread rumors about what Amos said. Maybe that he's getting paid to do this.

11:40Or they're changing the message a little bit. Let's look at verse 10. Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, one of those places where they worship that they weren't supposed to, Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to be. To bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from the land.

12:11And so Amaziah is this priest at Bethel, this priest who's wickedly living as a priest. He's not doing what he should. He's not in the place he should be if he's going to be a priest. And he hates hearing what Amos has said. Amos has already spoken over and over and over about the wickedness at Bethel. And so Amaziah fabricates this story that Amos himself is conspiring against the house of Jeroboam. That there's this maybe even assassination plot against Jeroboam himself, maybe based off of the fact that Amos has said that the Lord is going to judge the house of Jeroboam. So he says, Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. We don't even want to listen to his words anymore. King, do something about this. This wicked man says, verse 11, for thus Amos has said, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land. Okay, so this priest has the opposite. He doesn't believe Amos is speaking the words of God, or if he does, he doesn't care. He's a wicked man. He wants to get rid of Amos. So verse 12, and Amaziah said to Amos, O seer, go, flee away to the land. Of Judah and eat bread there and prophesy there. So eat bread there is like make your living there. Go back down to Judah. Go back down to the southern kingdom where you're from. We don't want you up here. Go make your money down there and prophesy down there. And you even get this picture of maybe he's charging Amos of saying these things just so he can make a little money. Maybe Judas paid him to come and prophesy or something like that. But he's saying, go back to Judah, make your living there, prophesy there. Verse 13, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom. So Amaziah is standing in his wickedness against the Lord's prophet. And he's saying, no, we're going to keep this temple and this altar going. The Lord had said it was wicked, and Amaziah is saying, no, this is the temple of the kingdom. We don't want what you're saying. You go back down to Judah.

14:33Verse 14. Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go prophesy to my people Israel. So Amazon. Amaziah has said to Amos, go back to Judah. We don't want you up here. Go prophesy down there. And Amos' response is not to run back to Judah and listen. Amos' response is, look, I didn't ask for this.

15:18I'm just a shepherd. I take care of fig trees and sheep. I didn't ask for this. I wasn't a prophet. I wasn't a son of a prophet. That could be him saying that his dad wasn't a prophet, but there seems to be this school of people who studied the scriptures at this time called the sons of the prophets. And they would know the words or something like that. So it seems like he's saying, look, this wasn't my profession. It's not like I set out somehow to be a prophet or to be a son of the prophet. This isn't what I do. I was just a shepherd. I'm not telling you these things to make a quick buck. I'm not here because this is my career choice. Instead, verse 15, but the Lord took me from following the flock. And the Lord said to me, Go prophesy to my people, Israel. And I think what's implied there is Amos is saying, no, Amaziah, I'm not just going to go back. I didn't just come up here of my own accord. God told me to come up here, and I'm going to obey him and do what he says. And I'm going to keep prophesying in Israel.

16:26Verse 16, now, therefore, hear what the word of the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. You say, Do not prophesy against Israel and do not preach against the house of Isaac. Therefore, thus says the Lord: Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword. Your land shall be divided up with a measuring line. You yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land. Wow.

17:00Amaziah has made himself the enemy of the Lord, and the Lord responds, saying, You said, Do not prophesy against Israel and do not preach against the house of Isaac. Well, God has given Amos a message for Amaziah, the one who has made himself an enemy of the Lord. And it's that when this devastation comes, his sons and his daughters are going to fall by the sword, he's going to die in an unclean land. With him and his sons and his daughters gone, his own wife is now alone and going to have to turn to prostitution in the city.

17:43His land that he owns is going to be divided up with a measuring line, no longer his, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land. Amos didn't back down, and the Lord gave him another message specifically for Amaziah. The one who refused to listen to the Lord, the priest who refused to be humbled and say, I am sorry. I should be worshiping in Jerusalem, not in Bethel. Instead, Amaziah said, I don't want to hear any of this. I don't care what you say, Amos. Go back to Judah. I don't want to hear the word of the Lord. Well, one more vision for tonight. Look at chapter 8, verse 1.

18:25This is what the Lord God showed me. Behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what do you see? And I said, a basket of summer fruit. And the Lord said to me, The end has come upon my people Israel. I will never again pass by them. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, declares the Lord God. So many dead bodies, they are thrown everywhere. Silence. That's the next vision. So, what does the fruit have to do with this? The word for the fruit sounds like the word for end. So, he sees the fruit, and then the Lord says, The end has come upon my people, Israel. And that makes sense to us because we use the same kind of terminology. You know, we might say somebody is ripe for judgment, right?

19:22Sounds familiar. And that's what I think the Lord is saying: that the end has come upon my people, Israel. I'm not going. To relent anymore, they've been so wicked. The end is coming. I'm not going to pass by them anymore. And it's going to be devastating. This temple that they worship at, instead of the songs being joyful or something like that, they're going to be wailings in that day, mourning, because there's so many dead bodies. They're thrown everywhere. They're silent.

19:52A devastating picture. Why? Look at verse 4. Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, When will the new moon be over? That we may sell grain and the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat. Okay, so what's going on in all of these verses? It's people who are so greedy to get money that they're resorting to anything to keep getting more and more money, whatever way they can. It doesn't matter how deceitful. And so, in verse 4, they're willing to trample on the needy and use them, use the poor of the land to increase their own riches. Verse 5, when they're supposed to be worshiping and having festivals of the Lord, when they're not supposed to work during the new moons and the Sabbaths, instead of actually worshiping the Lord, their mind's just on the money again. When's this Sabbath going to be over? You know, I want to make some more. Money. It's all they're thinking about. I want to offer wheat for sale. That's what they're thinking about on the Sabbath. That we may make the ifah small.

21:12So if they're measuring out these measurements, they're going to make the things that they're selling smaller than they're supposed to be. They're going to trick the person buying it. And they're going to make the money great so that they're weighing these things differently. They're dealing deceitfully with false balances. And then, verse 6, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, or even enslaving the poor or using them for cheap service, low wages, and sell the chaff of the wheat. So instead of selling the good stuff, the good part of the wheat, they're mixing in there all the chaff so that it increases the weight, you know, if they're selling by pound. And they're just another scheme to make a little bit more money. So they're greedy. They have this false worship.

22:03And as we've seen throughout this book, they're also incredibly prideful about all of this. They think they're untouchable. They think the Lord doesn't see. And so look at verse 7. Last time in this book, we read that the Lord swore by himself because everyone knows that God never changes. Well, there's something else everyone knows never changes. Look at verse 7. The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob. They're so prideful all the time that it's like a constant that you can swear by. And the Lord swears by the pride of Jacob, surely I will never forget any of their deeds. I've seen all their stuff that they've done, all their greed, all the ways they've taken advantage of people and participated in false worship. Verse 8. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile and be tossed about and sink again like the Nile of Egypt.

23:04If you've ever heard that expression before, the Nile has, in the rainy season, the shores of the Nile swell up and they flood and make these marshlands. And then after that, they come back down and they go down. And he's saying that's what's going to happen in your land with the grief and the fear. As the land trembles and everyone mourns, this judgment's going to rise and then fall again. It's going to spread throughout all the land. Verse 9. And on that day, declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation.

23:48I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. This judgment is coming soon, and it's going to be totally devastating. As if you had an only son and he passed away, how desperate that grief would be. That's what your grief is going to be like, nation of Israel, when the Lord comes to judge you very soon.

24:23It's a terrible time and a desperate time, and even things are happening in the sky, eclipses or something like that, to where everything's dark when these things are happening. A terrible time, so that the people are grieving and wailing and fearful. But then, to cap it all off, for the people who have totally refused God's word, God has greatly privileged them by giving them his word, by giving them a prophet who is being honest with them and calling them back to the Lord.

25:04They haven't been like that prophet Amos, who's humbly accepted the word of the Lord, who's prayed about it. And when God said, Don't ask again, I'm not going to relent, he didn't. Amos accepted the word of the Lord unlike this people who wouldn't. Therefore, verse 11: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on. The land. Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.

25:43These locusts that he saw earlier and the fire that he saw earlier, that would have made a famine of bread and water. But God's saying, I'm sending a different kind of famine on this land. You have rejected my prophets. And now, someday, there's going to be a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Verse 12, they shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.

26:16This happens one other time that's recorded after Saul, King Saul was being very wicked. He kept seeking the word of the Lord, and the Lord didn't give him a word, whether from the Urim and Thumim or from the prophets or anything else. And that's when he decided to go consult the witch of Endor. You remember that story? Well, this is going to happen again on the whole nation, that they have despised God's word, and so God's going to give them a famine. He's going to cut off the prophets. They've had this steady stream of prophets for all of their history. Now God is going to cut off that communication with his people. Verse 13, in that day the lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst. Those who Swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, as your God lives, O Dan, and as the way of Beersheba lives, they shall fall and never rise again. So these ones that still swear by these altars, that still will not listen to God's voice and still are dead set on worshiping in a way that He has prohibited, forbidden, those people are going to be gone. And what's going to replace it is a famine of the words of God.

27:38Of course, in history, we hear that this happens, right? It certainly happens for the northern kingdom when they go into exile, when they're taken away. There's no prophets there for them. A couple hundred years later, when the southern kingdom is taken away, God does bless them with prophets. There's Daniel over in Babylon, Ezekiel over in Babylon, Jeremiah back in Israel while they're in exile. But when Israel is taken, they don't have those prophets. They don't have the word of the Lord. They have a famine. But on top of that, even after those prophets of the exile, after Ezra and Nehemiah and Malachi after the exile, there's this 400-year gap where there are no more prophets. And we have Revelation. Writings from that time that talk about how weird it is and how terrible it is and how quiet God is. Because Israel, throughout their history, has had this great privilege of having these prophets. And then they don't for 400 years until John the Baptist comes and proclaims Christ.

28:52Well, as we think about this passage, I think it's a call to examine our own hearts, right? There's going to be times where people speak the Word of God into your life, and it won't feel good if you're being rebuked about something. Maybe they expose a sin in your life, and they show you in Scripture where that's wicked, and your reaction is going to be like, you're going to want to be like Amaziah that says, get out of here, don't tell me that. The Lord's forgiving me. I don't need to listen to you.

29:31It puts away the Word of God instead of letting it cut to our bone and pierce us. Instead, I think we should have the attitude of Amos that, yes, responds and prays and then bows the knee and accepts the Word of God, learns from it. Graduates, again, you guys, whether you're Still here, or you're far away, you're going to be presented with so many opportunities like this to hear the Word of God, to be chastened by it, to be rebuked, to grow.

30:12And you can either recognize that you need that and change and be convicted and fill your life up even more with the Word of God. Or as you step away from Emmanuel, you can find ways to slowly get the Word of God out of your life. You know, maybe you stop reading it yourself. Maybe you stop going to church as often. And we can push and push and push and push and push the Word of God so that we're not being convicted. We're not having to grow. We're not having to change.

30:46I encourage you to do the opposite. To fill up your life with the Word of God as much as you can, even if it's convicting you. Even if you need to change something. Let's all be like that. Be humble before the Word of the Lord. Pray with me. Father, your Word does convict us. When your Word confronts our sin, it's not always our favorite thing to hear. It's not always comfortable. It doesn't always feel good. But I pray, Lord, that instead of running away from it, instead of pushing it away, instead of Covering our ears and screaming as loud as we can and ignoring the sin in our life. I pray, Lord, that we would be drawn more and more and more into your word to fill up every nook and cranny of our life with time and your word, even when it is convicting us.

31:54We thank you, Father, that through your word you've taught us about our Savior Jesus Christ, who has paid for all our faults and paid for all our sins so that we can be forgiven. Help us be people that respond to that with great joy and gratitude. Help us be people that are humble and love your word and are willing to be changed by it. In Jesus' name, amen.