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All right, good evening. Welcome. Glad you're here. You can turn in your Bibles to the Book of Amos. That's where we will be tonight. Lord willing, we'll finish the Book of Amos tonight. As you're turning there, I'd like to pose an open question. We do this every now and then.

Responses are welcome. The question is, why do people, and I mean people in general, why do people respond poorly to correction? Why do you think? Any thoughts? Hard of heart. Heart of heart. Ah, you were paying attention this morning. That's good. Why else? You're not the boss of me.

Right, yeah. Kind of this feeling of moral superiority. It ain't fun. Yeah. Nope, correction is not fun. You have to admit that you're wrong. Yes. Admitting that you're wrong. That's hard for me to do. Yeah, I think your responses are accurate. I can relate to all of those.

And just for clarification, you know, sometimes we can respond to a correction that is an error and actually recognize the error of that correction for what it is. But I'm talking here about a biblical correction. Have you ever had this happen to you? Has someone ever approached you with the Word of God and maybe in a one-day word?

One-on-one scenario where maybe from the pulpit you've heard a word from the Lord and it's cut you to the heart. It has rebuked you and corrected you for something that you may be doing wrong. How do you respond to that? How have you responded to that? And the reason I bring this up in the book of Amos is because we're getting now to the end of Amos' prophecy, and so far it has been a book full of correction.

I mean, that is evident, plain as day. Amos is going about to his generation, his land, and he's telling them what they're doing wrong, and he's giving some harsh words about it. The judgment of the Lord is coming. You remember the phrase, prepare to meet your Maker, O Israel.

So this is Amos' message. And now that we get to the end of Amos, we start to see how people are responding to this. And there is, as we'll see, there is a proper way to respond. And there are some pretty poor ways to respond. The thing about correction, at least biblical correction, is that the Bible teaches that it's good for us.

Do you know that? Correction is good for you. You know, 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17, it's a well-known verse. Scripture is God-breathed, and it is useful for what? For training, for correction, for reproof, for teaching. Why? So that the man of God can be equipped and complete.

You know, these things that make us more like Christ, we can get behind the teaching and the training. Yeah, those sound good. Those, you know, I like training. But reproof? Not so much. The thing is that when we encounter the true word of God, we will receive correction.

It's inevitable. Hebrews 4:12, the word of God is what? Living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing the bones and marrow. What does it say? Discerning the intentions of the heart. So there's no two ways about it. If you're truly reading the Bible, and I mean the true word of God and not some watered-down reinterpretation of it, but when you're confronted with the true word of God, it will correct you.

So I'll ask again: how will you respond? When we get to chapter 7 in the book of Amos, we see a shift in the narrative. Up until chapter 7, Amos has been proclaiming the words of the Lord, and you'll see, you may even see it in your heading.

Now he's going to shift to visions of the Lord. He's going from words to visions. And I like this because I use a PowerPoint, so if God can use visual aids, I can. To. And the rest of Amos is taken up by these visions of judgment. And our goal tonight, I actually have two goals tonight, is to walk through the five visions for the rest of the book of Amos.

There's five visions, three chapters. I think we can do this. Let's walk through them, see what they mean. But I also want to focus on this idea of response. And I think, Michael, you were on point when you said a response is born out of the condition of our heart.

And to be honest, I didn't know that Thomas was teaching over Exodus and Numbers this morning when I was preparing this. I even whispered to Beth, I said, you know, Thomas is taking all of my points. But it's good, it's good, it's good. Why? Because this is a different generation.

It's the same story. This happens again and again and again. It's almost like it's the point of Scripture is kind of shaking us by the soldiers. Like, we need to get this. Don't harden your heart when you hear the voice of the Lord. This is what's happening in Amos' generation.

And so we're going to pay attention to how they respond. Let's read. Amos chapter 7, starting at the beginning, verse 1. Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold, he was forming a locust swarm when the spring crop began to sprout. And behold, the spring crop was after the king's mowing.

And it came about when it had finished eating the vegetation. Of the land, that I said, Lord God, please pardon. How can Jacob stand, for he is so small? The Lord changed his mind about this. It shall not be, said the Lord. Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold, the Lord was calling to contend with them by fire.

And it consumed the great deep, and it began to consume the farmland. Then I said, Lord God, please stop. How can Jacob stand, for he is small? The Lord changed his mind about this. This too shall not be, says the Lord God. I'll stop there. So we have the first two visions, and they go by pretty fast.

We have a vision of locusts and a vision of fire. And we've seen these before, right? These are pretty common when it comes to prophetic literature. Fire in particular has been a theme of Amos. If you remember the first two chapters, as Amos is declaring judgment against the nations, very often he'll conclude by saying that they'll be judged with fire.

Locusts haven't really appeared in Amos a whole lot, but you might remember that they are a main feature in the book of Joel. So immediately as we read these visions, we can see the point. We can see that this is judgment, and it's coming, and it's going to be destructive.

And notice the particular emphasis. On vegetation and farmland. Amos, he was part of agricultural life. He was a sheepherder and a tender of figs. We'll read that later on. And so he knows just how devastating this would be. The locusts, for example, you get some details in the first verse that talks about when the spring crop begins to sprout after the king's mowing, this would be the second harvest.

This would be the fallback harvest. If the first harvest fails, we at least have the second harvest. But this is the one that the locusts are attacking. And so Amos is going to say, we can't survive. Lord, please pardon. We can't do this. Please stop. The same thing with the fire.

It's unclear if the fire is kind of a consuming fire like the one you see in the picture or if it's just symbolic of a very severe drought. But either way, the farmland is ruined. And Amos cries out to the Lord, you know, please cease. Jacob is small.

He cannot stand. And the amazing thing is, in both cases, the Lord relents. Those beautiful, beautiful words, this shall not be. And so we have in Amos, we have our first example of how to respond to correction and rebuke. And it's actually a positive example. Amos responds with humility.

Oh, there's my shall not be. Humility. God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble. I know a lot of us are familiar with that passage, but that is one of the threads throughout the entire scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

In particular, God responds to our prayers, our humble prayers, just like this prayer of Amos. It's a short prayer. There's not a whole lot to analyze here, but there's two things I want to point out. Amos, in his prayer, there's a recognition of liability. Amos recognizes that the problem of judgment is not God's fault that this is happening.

No, it's Israel's fault. It's our fault. You don't forgive something that is someone else's problem. You ask for forgiveness for something that's on you. And so that's why he says, Lord, please forgive. The second part of his prayer is man's inability. Two things. Man's liability, man's inability. And you see that in the second part.

How can Jacob stand? He is so small. Have you ever prayed a prayer like this? You ever been. A season of life where you feel small. I know I have. I think it's in those moments where my heart is truly broken before the Lord, where I can come before him and pray a prayer like this.

But this is the prayer that moves God. It moves his heart. It says here in the NASB: it changed his mind. Think about that. Our prayers can literally change the mind of the Lord. And if we really believe that, wouldn't we pray just a little bit more? See, I don't want to be a man who just prays during the hard times of life when I'm broken.

I want to pray like this all the time. I want to be on my knees. I want to intercede for the lost. I want to intercede for you, Emmanuel Baptist Church, for the body of Christ. But it's not the content of the prayer. It's not the words. It's the posture.

It's the humility. And this reminds me of the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, right? You know, the tax collector, he's the one that went home justified before God. And it's a very similar prayer. You know, have mercy on me, oh God, a sinner. Man's liability, man's inability.

Let's move on to the third vision. Chapter 7, verse 7. You can pick up with me there. Thus he showed me. And behold, the Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, What do you see, Amos?

And I said, a plumb line. Then the Lord said, Behold, I'm about to put a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will spare them no longer. The high places of Isaac will be desolated, and the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste. Then I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

I'll pause briefly there to describe what's being seen here. Now, I had to do a little research on this because I didn't know what a plumb line was. I'm sure many of you out there know what it is, but it's essentially what's pictured up there, kind of a string with a heavy weight attached to it.

And the purpose of this string was to determine true vertical, right? You know, it works via gravity, and gravity would hold it down, and you could measure if a wall was straight or not. And today, we use a bubble level. Have you seen those? It's the same principle.

And that's a plumb line. It is a standard of measurement. And the reason you would use a plumb line, let's say that you are passing by this wall every day, every day, and it looks all right most days, but then you see a day where it's leaning ever so slightly.

And then the next day comes, and it's leaning. Ever so slightly, a little bit more. And finally, there becomes a day where you can pass by it no longer. That's the language used here when you read that God will spare them no longer. I will pass by them no longer.

Now, this is the idea. This actually happened to me recently. We recently found out that our foundation needs to be repaired. How did we find that out? Well, it's not that I stood back and looked at my house and said, hmm, it looks like my foundation is not level.

No, it was cracks in the wall, over the door frames. It was little things here and there where finally I couldn't pass by it no longer. I had to call a friend of mine, and he brought this really fancy machine that measured all the corners of my foundation.

And he told me, hey, guess what, John? Your foundation's not level. And imagine if in that moment I got really angry at my friend. I said, how dare you tell me my foundation's not level? Get out of my house. I never want to see you again. That would be pretty silly.

It would be pretty ridiculous, not to mention foolish of me. But we read that this is how one man responds to this vision. This man's name is Amaziah. Let's read how he responds in verse 10. Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent him to. Word to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel.

The land is unable to endure all his words. For thus Amos says, Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go from its land into exile. Then Amaziah said to Amos, Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat your bread, and there do your prophesying.

But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal residence. Then Amos replied to Amaziah, Am I not, I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet, for I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs.

But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go prophesy to my people Israel. Now hear the word of the Lord, you are saying, You shall not prophesy against Israel, nor shall you speak against the house of Isaac. Therefore, thus says the Lord, your wife will become a harlot in the city, your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be parceled up by a measuring line, and you yourself will die upon unclean soil.

Moreover, moreover, Israel will certainly go from its land into exile. And we can stop there. So you see what's happening. Amaziah is a religious leader. He's a priest at Bethel. You may remember that Bethel. Bethel was one of the centers of false worship that was going on in Israel at the time.

It was one of the places where the first Jeroboam put a golden calf. So that's one strike against Amaziah. He's already part of the crookedness of Israel that's being measured, right? Amaziah is well positioned to make things right. You know, he has influence among the people. And it would have been a different story if, like Amos, Amaziah had responded to rebuke with humility.

But instead, he responds with hostility. And that's the second response we're going to look at. He responds with hostility. Now, we can draw parallels to when we feel threatened. Just in any scenario, when we feel threatened, we have this fight-or-flight response, right? This would be the fighting response.

Have you ever felt this way when someone approaches you with correction? Has it ever made you just feel angry? Like you want to kick them out of your sight, like you want to push back and rebuke them? How dare you tell me what to do? You know, this is the reaction of hostility.

And what Amaziah does is that he takes that reaction, he takes it out on God's messenger, he takes it out on Amos. And he's going to learn. The hard way that an attack on God's messenger is an attack on God. And we looked at that a bit this morning with Moses.

Let's make this real for a minute. Think in your life: who has God sent to deliver some good old-fashioned godly correction? Now, who is that messenger? Is it a biblical counselor, a pastor, a godly mentor, a good friend? And when you receive that correction, what is your gut response?

Do you want to humble yourself before the truth that they're speaking from God's Word, or do you want to start pointing the finger at them and say, hey, how dare you come to me? And this is aggression. This is hostility. It's not physical, but that doesn't matter. If you are murdering them in your heart, as Jesus says, then this is hostility towards the word of God.

And perhaps you go off and slander them behind their back. You know, this is now breeding sin in your life. And I think a lot of us have this tendency. When we're corrected by someone, we want to turn around and we want to attack them back. I think instead, we should perhaps consider that God is using this person.

To correct you because he loves you. He loves you. And even if this person does have sin and baggage, even if they are correcting you with improper motives, can we at least acknowledge the truth of God's word that they are speaking, that he's trying to drill into your heart?

And can we not be humble towards that? So that's bad reaction number one. Don't respond with hostility. We're going to move to vision number four, chapter eight. Let's read, starting in verse one. Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold, there was a basket of summer fruit. He said, What do you see, Amos?

And I said, A basket of summer fruit. And the Lord said to me, The end has come for my people, Israel. I will spare them no longer. The songs of the palace will turn to wailing in that day, declares the Lord God. Many will be the corpses. In every place they will cast them forth in silence.

Hear this, you who trample the needy, to do away with the humble of the land, saying, When will the new moon be over, so that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may open the wheat market, to make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger, and to cheat with dishonest scales, as to buy the helpless for money and the needy for a pair of sandals, that we may sell the refuse.

Of the wheat. The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob, indeed, I will never forget any of their deeds. We'll stop there for a minute. So let's start with this vision. This is a basket of summer fruit. And to be honest, this kind of threw me for a loop a bit.

You know, the first two visions were clearly bad, but a basket of summer fruit, that sounds delicious, right? You know, surely this is a happy thing. Well, it would be unless you are the fruit. And this is kind of the point of the judgment. It's actually, this doesn't really come out in our English translations, but this is a bit of a Hebrew wordplay.

You know, the word for fruit sounds a lot like the word for end. And you see that there in verse 2. You see, it's a basket of summer fruit, and the Lord says, the end has come for my people Israel. Now, in English, we might use a phrase like, they are ripe for judgment.

That's the idea that's being communicated here. Israel is ripe for judgment. So, what is making them ripe for judgment? Well, if you could boil it down into one word, I would say that's the word pride. It's the word pride. And you actually see that word. You see it in verse 7.

If you have some different translations, actually qualify this word. The LSB says lofty pride. This is supreme. Elevation of self above the Lord, above his commandments, above anyone else in the land, accountable to nobody. That's what pride is. You know, C.S. Lewis has a famous chapter on pride and mere Christianity, and he talked about pride as playing God, playing God, or demanding to be God.

And I like that definition in this context because that's exactly what Israel is doing. Why would they bow to God when they are their own God? Why would they use just measures? And why would they honor the poor when their righteousness, when their moral standard says we don't need to do that?

When their moral standard says, you know, it is better for us to get ahead. It is better for us to raise our altar higher and higher. Because after all, we are our own God. That's what pride does. It elevates your lifestyle. It elevates your desires, your passions. And you can read through kind of the beginning of Amos 8, and you see that that is evident in their deeds.

And just to list them quickly, what are their deeds? They're trampling the needy. Verse 4. It says they are doing away with the humble. They're causing the humble to cease. You know, that's. Also, verse 4. And then you get verse 5, which says, you know, there are times when there are these religious festivals where you're supposed to be worshiping the true God, Yahweh.

But if you are your own God, what are you going to be thinking about? When is this thing going to be over? That's exactly what they're doing. And not only that, but they are plotting, they're scheming as they're supposed to be worshiping. You know, how can we milk just a little bit more money out of the poor?

How can we make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger? Essentially, how can we sell less for more? Right? Now, that strikes a chord, inflation, right? How can we make dishonest scales? How can we, you know, deceive people into thinking they're getting one thing but giving them another?

He even talks about buying the helpless and trading the poor for a pair of sandals, just this utter despising of the helpless. Verse 6, selling the chaff of the wheat. You know, this is more economic corruption. The chaff is worthless. You can't make bread out of that. But they would put it on the scales, you know, to make it a little heavier so that they can up the charge.

You know, these are things that, you know, surely we don't do today, right? And if this is what's making Israel ripe for judgment, you know, these little Cheats and schemes, these little things that maybe they're justifying in their own mind and their own heart. They're blinded by their pride.

And if those things are making them right for judgment, then how do we compare? How do you and I compare? How does our society compare? I'll point out just briefly that Jesus also compared his generation to a harvest, but he uses it as a motivation for evangelism. He says to his disciples, get out there.

Why? Because the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. And so we can see what's around us. We can see kind of the evil that's going on. And I'll admit, I see a lot of this evil going on today in America. So what can we do about it?

Well, we can clean up our own act and establish justice at the gate. We talked about that, but we can also get out there and recognize, you know what, time is short. Let's get out there. Let's pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers and let's volunteer to be those laborers because the harvest is ripe.

Let's get as many as we can before it's too late. And we'll read on in verse 8. This is what happens when it is too late. Verse 8 says, Because of this, this being the pride of Jacob, will not the land quake? And everyone who dwells in it mourn?

Indeed, all of it will rise up like the Nile, and it will be tossed about and subside like the Nile of Egypt. It will come about on that day, declares the Lord, that I will make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight.

Then I will turn your festivals into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. And I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins and baldness on every head. And I will make it a time of mourning for an only son, and the end of it will be like a bitter day.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and from the north even to the east, and they will go to and fro seeking the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

In that day, the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint from thirst. As for those who swear by the guilt of Samaria, who say, As your God lives, O Dan, and as the way of Beersheba lives, they will fall and not rise again. So you see the judgment for responding in pride.

If you are playing God, what's going to happen when the real God shows up? Think of it that way. In verses 8 through 10, give exactly what that'll look like. The land will quake, the day will turn to darkness, the destruction will be so bad, it'll be like mourning.

Loss of a child. But that's not actually the worst thing that will happen because of their pride. The worst thing is not for God to show up. The worst thing is for God to withdraw. Let me read verse 11 and 12 again. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord.

People will stagger from sea to sea and from north even to the east, and they will go seeking the word of the Lord, and they will not find it. They will not find it. This is a judgment from God. The word of the Lord will become scarce. There will be a time where there will be no prophets to correct the people of Israel anymore.

And a time will come where they will seek correction. They'll want to hear the voice of the Lord. But the voice of the Lord won't be there. And we know that this happens. You know, there were 400 years between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament.

Those years are known as the years of silence. God did not send prophets to his people until John the Baptist comes in the New Testament. We might call that the famine of the word of God. But you know, this reminds me of another passage in Romans chapter 1.

We don't have time to turn there and look at it, but I encourage you to write it down just so you can reference it yourself, particularly verses 18 through 32. Romans 1, 18 through 32. And in this passage, Paul is unfolding this argument. This argument that there are those, there are some who are so prideful, who know the law of God.

They know the law of God because it's plain to them. It's evident in the things that are seen. And yet they don't see fit to acknowledge God as their creator. And what's the judgment for those people? What does God do? It says that God gives them up to their debased mind.

He gives them up. He withdraws. And it says that they receive in their flesh the due penalty for their error. That is the worst thing that can happen. And that's what pride tricks us into thinking that we are our own gods, that we will be fine on our own.

And so God says, all right, you think you'll be fine? Let's see how that works out for you. What about today? Are we in a spiritual drought? I think that's an open question. I think, on the one hand, we have an incredible amount of access to truth, to the Word of God.

And I think our problem isn't necessarily that truth is withheld from us. I think our problem is that we withhold it from ourselves. And I think we can do this in a few different ways. Particularly with this abundance of social media and podcasts and information, there is so much many options out there that we get kind of analysis, paralysis, right?

We don't know where to turn or we turn so many places. There's so much noise and confusion that it's hard for us to see what the true word of God says. I think there's a passage in 2 Timothy, I believe chapter 4, where it says that people will accumulate teachers to suit their own passions.

And I think that's what we're living in today. You know, it is easier now with our access to information. It is easier now than ever before to build a library of teachers that suit our own passions. And I think this is spiritual drought. I think this is akin to the famine that God is speaking about through Amos.

And I think we do it because of our pride. You know, Paul says as much in 2 Timothy. It's because of our own passions that we do this, because the Word of God cuts the bone and the marrow. It's uncomfortable. It discerns the intentions of the heart. And so what can we do?

Well, we can become our own gods, and then we don't have to worry about what the Word of God says. We can tune it out. But beware. Because if we do that long enough, And if we continue to reject the messengers that God sends us, a time will come when God will say, fine, have it your way.

See where that path leads. And we know where that path leads. It leads to utter ruin and destruction. So let's take a moment to thank God for the people in our lives willing to show us the truth, willing to confront us when it's uncomfortable. That takes humility, but it's what we must do.

Got one more vision. One more vision and a few more responses. Let's read Amos chapter 9. I'll read verses 1 through 10. I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, Smite the capital so that the thresholds will shake, and break them on the heads of them all.

And then I will slay the rest of them with the sword. And they will not have a fugitive who will flee or a refugee who will escape. Though they dig into Sheol, from there will my hand take them. And though they ascend to heaven, from there I will bring them down.

Though they hide on the summit of Carmel, I will search them out and take them there. And though they conceal themselves from my sight on the floor of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. And though they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command them.

The sword that it slay them, and I will set my eyes against them for evil and not for good. The Lord of hosts, the one who touches the land so that it melts, and all those who dwell in it mourn, and all of it rises up like the Nile and subsides like the Nile of Egypt.

The one who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and has founded his vaulted dome over the earth. He who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth. The Lord is his name. Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to me, O sons of Israel, declares the Lord?

Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Kephtor, and the Armenians from Ker? Behold, the eyes of the Lord are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Nevertheless, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob, declares the Lord.

For behold, I am commanding, and I will shake the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is shaken as in a sieve, but not a kernel of it will fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, those who say the calamity will not overtake us or confront us.

We'll stop there. So here we have the last of the five visions of Amos, and this one is the Lord standing beside an altar. That's what we get. I put up a picture of an altar up there just to represent. kind of what an altar might look like.

We don't know which altar Amos is referring to. I would say it's probably not the altar in Jerusalem because Amos' whole point in this prophecy is that they are worshiping at this false altars. And it makes sense to me just kind of in this theme of God showing up, you know, be prepared to meet your Maker, that God shows up at this false altar and the people flee and the people scatter.

I think this is the picture that we're seeing here in this vision. And that brings us to another response that people have to the word of the Lord. It's the response of flight. This is Jonah, the prophet, right? He hears the word of God and he flees. He gets out of there.

Now, why is this a bad response? Why is it a bad response? Well, I think the answer to that is clear. You can't run from a God who is everywhere. You can't. You can't do it. We read together, we read Psalm 139, which is this beautiful psalm, as well as it should be.

It's all about the omnipresence of the Lord, this wonderful doctrine that gives hope to the afflicted. It's a comfort to the humble and to the hurting. But there's another side to this coin, right? The omnipresence of God is a comfort. To the afflicted, but it is terrifying if you are trying to run away from him.

It's terrifying because there is nowhere you can go where God will not find you. And that Amos draws that out loud and clear. There's nowhere we can go where God and His justice and His judgment will not find you out. But that doesn't stop us from trying, right?

You know, flight. This is this idea of escapism. If y'all heard this term, right? You know, we often don't flee from the Word of God physically. You know, we don't get on a boat and sail for Tarsus like Jonah did, but we do try to escape. We use our smartphones, right?

And, you know, play games or scroll on social media or do something because we want to tune out the problems of the world, the corrections that are coming at us. It's a lot more comfortable that way. We can bury our heads in the sand and create these echo chambers of people that agree with us and support us and encourage us.

And if someone dare offer a rebuke or a correction, then they are an outsider. They are an other. My tribe, my people, we support each other. And you can label that however you want to. But this is this tendency to flee. And when it comes to the church, I do think we see this a little more in the physical realm, right?

You know, we have this tendency, if the preacher says something that you don't like, what's to stop you from just going to the church down the street? Or maybe it's not in the church, maybe it's in the counseling setting, right? This tendency to do, I think it's called counselor shopping, where you get three or four counselors and you just stick with the one that agrees with you the most.

This is this tendency to flee the word of the Lord. And it's easier now than ever. We can ignore calls. We don't have to return emails. We can isolate ourselves. Our society is increasingly becoming that way more and more isolated. But guess what? There is nowhere you can go where God will not find you.

The word of the Lord will find you out. And guess what? That's a good thing. That's a good thing. We need that correction in our lives. We need it to find us. The second error we get from this passage is the error of denial. And we see that in the very last verse that I read, verse 10.

All the sinners of my people will die by the sword. Those who say calamity shall not overtake us or confront us. This is the idea that all these negative prophecies, all These pronouncements of woe, you know, that may apply to other people, but that doesn't apply to me.

We talked about this last week. This would be those who are at ease in Zion, Amos chapter 6. And the picture painted there is that there are those in Samaria and in Jerusalem who are lying on their couch, feasting, having a great time, when outside their window is utter ruin and destruction.

And it says there in Amos 6 that they shouldn't be feasting. They should be out grieving, grieving over the ruin of Israel. This is what denial does to somebody. I don't know if you've ever seen this happening with someone with an addiction like gambling or alcoholism. And if they're in denial, you can literally, you know, pull up their credit card statement and see, hey, look, look at the facts, look at the data, and they'll say, nope, not me.

It's insanity. It's blindness. And spiritual denial is that. It's spiritual blindness. It's an inability to see that anything is wrong with yourself. And following that is an inability to recognize that God's judgment is coming for you. I shared last time that this is what kept me from repenting for a long time.

You know, I was a good kid. I followed the rules. I thought I was saved. But I never repented because I thought repentance was for someone else, I thought it was for sinners, I thought I was for the other person. But even as a Christian, and now having walked with Christ for close to 20 years of my life, I still recognize that this is a tendency for me.

You know, when I'm confronted, when I'm rebuked by the Word of God, my go-to response is denial. That's just me confessing to you. Even just last week, Beth was giving me some constructive criticism on the sermon I preached last week, and my immediate response to my wife, who is gently correcting me, was, you don't know what you're talking about.

Denial keeps us in the dark, it keeps us blind, it convinces us that we alone have all the facts, but in reality, we need Christian brothers and sisters to point that out for us, which is why I'm so thankful that God gave me a wife who can see my blind spots and correct me.

I might not be thankful in the moment, but man, am I thankful? We're almost done. One final section to cover. This is the end of chapter 9. Still on the vision with the altar. I'm going to go back and Read, starting in verse 8 again, which says, Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

Nevertheless, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob, declares the Lord. For behold, I am commanding, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, but not a kernel will fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, those who say the calamity will not overtake or confront us.

In that day, I will raise up the fallen booth of David and wall up its breaches. I will also raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations who are called by my name, declares the Lord who does this.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows seed, when the mountains will drip sweet wine, and all the hills will be dissolved. Also, I will restore the captivity of my people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them.

They will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, and make gardens and eat their fruit. I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from the land which I have given them, says the Lord your God. And this is how the book of Amos ends.

Right? Remember, the book of Amos starts with. Surprise prophecy. And we talked about that a few weeks ago. Well, I would say it ends with a surprise prophecy. Why is this a surprise? Because the book of Amos is known for judgment. It's a hard book to read. I mean, even just these three sermons that overview the book of Amos have probably been hard to listen to.

They're uncomfortable. And yet, you get to the very end, and it's the last five verses where there's this switch. You know, we've been hearing about woe and destruction and judgment, and all of a sudden, there's this ray of hope that comes. And you start, there's this glimmer that starts in verse 8, which is then fully fleshed out in the last five verses of Amos.

And I would say that this section doesn't show us necessarily how to respond to God's Word, but why we should respond rightly to God's Word. Why we should respond in humility and not these other ways. And I would say that that's because there is hope in God's word.

There is hope. Again, verse 8 says, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob. And then it gives the image of a sieve, right? You know, this is something that would be used to shake out the chaff, but in the sieve would remain the kernels, you know, the good wheat and barley.

And God says, I will not let a single kernel fall. To the ground, even though I'm going to judge the nation of Israel, I know who I have chosen. I know my remnant, and I will not let a single one of them fall to the ground. Amos ends with this beautiful picture of national restoration for Israel.

It includes images of building, construction, and vegetation, kind of coming back to all these themes that we've seen in the other visions. Talks about economic blessing for Israel, talks about the booth of David. You know, this is the Davidic dynasty, the covenant that God made with David, that he will always have a king on the throne in Jerusalem.

And we know this will be fulfilled when Christ returns. We have visions of material prosperity, you know, this idea of the plowman overtaking the reaper, this idea that there is so much abundance in the land that the harvest just never stops. It keeps on going. And we see a couple more things that are new.

We see that this will be permanent. You know, this vision of hope, it has no end. They will no longer be rooted out. And also, it includes the Gentiles. You might have this in your version as all the nations. That's the same word for Gentiles. All who are called.

By God. And so there you have it. Even Amos is arguably one of the darkest books in the Bible, ends with this beam of light, the restoration of Israel. So can you see now why this rebuke was so important? Why Amos had to spend nine chapters rebuking Israel before he could spend five verses talking about their restoration?

Ultimately, rebuke points us to that hope, it corrects us because our hope is not based in our deeds, it's not based on what we do, it is based only in the loving kindness of God. And you see that the only reason Israel has hope is because the Lord declares it and the Lord will do it.

And that's what we set our hope on today. 1 Peter calls it a living hope. It's not a dead hope. It's not in the past. This is something that we hope for. That's found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is why correction is so important, to make us more like Christ, so that we can walk in the newness of life.

And when he returns to reign on the throne of David, that we might be more fit to reign with him. That's why scripture is used. Useful for correction and reproof, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. This is the hope that we have, and it's the hope that comes through correction, through being uncomfortable.

We need that. Why wouldn't we want to tap into that? And that's where the book of Amos leaves us. And I know, I guess, maybe just my final word for y'all sitting here is that some people really understand the loving kindness of God and the hope that comes with that.

And they need to hear the rebuke. They need to hear the correction. And the 90% of Amos that is rebuke and correction, like maybe that's what you need to walk away with tonight. And that's okay. And I hope that you respond as Amos did with humility, with repentance.

But there are some other people who really understand their sin, who really understand that they are hopeless and destitute. And a book like Amos can be really hard because it's like, you know, it's really hammering that home. They know the wrath of God is coming. They know they can't flee from it.

I would say, if that's you this evening, if you are feeling crushed by... A God of judgment and wrath, then I encourage you to look, look again. Look and see where this is going. And just to end with one of my favorite stories from Scripture actually comes from the Book of Lamentations.

Not an often-quoted book, but this is where the prophet Jeremiah is actually seeing the wrath of God taking place in front of him. This is the Babylonian captivity, you know, 722 B.C., and Israel is being carted off to Babylon. And he's weeping. The prophet is weeping. That's why it's called Lamentations, because it is a dark, dark day.

And you read through the book of Lamentations, and you see just how bad and bitter this is. And then you get to chapter 3, verse 21. And Jeremiah the prophet, he says, But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for the correctors in my life, those who speak. Your truth to me, even when I don't want it, even when I actively resist it, I pray that you would not stop.

I pray that you would not turn me over to my own passions, my own desires. Please, God, pursue me with your word. Let me receive it with humility. Jesus' name, amen.