X1pmiTtY5GY

0:31But it is a good one. Of course, I'm going to say that, preaching through it, but I hope as we go through it, you just fall in love like I have with the minor prophets to see how they spoke to their audience in their day and to be able to draw the connection that we worship and we serve the same God that they serve. And that's really what I want to get across in this series. Now, I do have one correction to make from the bulletin this morning. This is Amos part two, but tonight we are only going through chapters five and six. So there will be a part three. So come back next week for the rest of Amos. But we're going to work our way through chapters five and six this evening. And since it's been a while since we did the first four chapters, let me give just a brief recap on what the book of Amos is all about. So last time we were here, we read in 1 Kings 12. 28, that Israel was under this time of, we might call it, economic prosperity but spiritual poverty. Amos is a shepherd and he's prophesying during the reign of Jeroboam II. That's confusing because there's Jeroboam II and there's Jeroboam I. 1 Kings 12 talks about Jeroboam I. And what he did was he would set up false altars. He set up two golden calves. And that should be a red flag for anyone that studied the Old Testament. But he does it anyway. He sets up two golden calves, one in Dan, that's a city in the north of Israel, and one in Bethel, and that's the city in the southern part of the northern kingdom. And that becomes important here in the chapters that we're studying today. But this is known as the sin of Jeroboam. Now, Jeroboam II, now he's the king while Amos is prophesying. You can read his story in 1 Kings 14, 23 through 29. Now, Jeroboam II is actually, he establishes peace in the land. And yet, he is judged because he did not correct the sin of Jeroboam I. So, this is where we get this idea of it's a time of economic prosperity. There's peace in the land. Everyone has their own vine and fig tree, so to speak. There's a burgeoning middle class, and yet their hearts are far from the Lord. And so, Amos. Shows up on the scene and he starts prophesying about the enemies of Israel and how each of the enemies of Israel is going to get their just deserts. And he goes through this seven-part prophecy, each time mentioning one of Israel's surrounding neighbors. And he ends the same way. Each of these nations is going to be judged by the Lord. But then Amos gets to an eighth nation. And you guessed it, that's the nation of Israel itself. Now, they thought that they were exempt from the judgment of the Lord. So you can imagine their surprise at being included in these judgment oracles. And the point is that God's justice does not discriminate. Israel is not off the hook because they wear their Israelite name tag and say, oh, look at me, I'm one of the chosen ones. No, in fact, they are more subject to the discipline of God because of their status as the chosen nation of God. Amos continues in chapters 2 and 3 to describe Israel's sins that they've been committing. The first one is that they've been despising the poor that's among them. Amos 2, 6, they sell the righteous for money and the needy for a pair of sandals. Next is that they despise the prophecy of God. Amos accuses them for saying, you made the Nazarites drink. Wine, and you commanded the prophets, saying, You shall not prophesy. And lastly, they were despising God's covenant love. Remember, their covenant status as a nation was this adopted sons of God, and they thought that that let them off the hook, but in fact, they lived like it let them off the hook, when in fact, God's adoption meant that they were subject to a higher standard, not a lower standard. Amos 3:2 says, You I have known among all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities. And that gets us to chapter 4. And in chapter 4, you see this common refrain that's repeated five times in verses 4 through 11: yet you have not returned to me. You know, God is sending these warning signs again and again and again, beckoning Israel to turn from their sin and turn to the Lord, and yet each time they do not return to Yahweh. And so you have this grand climactic statement in Amos 4:12. It says, Therefore, thus I will do to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.

5:46And that, my friends, is the theme of Amos's prophecy in a nutshell. Prepare to meet your God, O Israel. And man, that should make a Start trembling in our boots just a little bit. And I hope it did for Amos' audience as well. This is a timeless truth because, after all, each of us is going to meet our God. Let me ask it this way: if you knew that you were going to meet your God soon, maybe tonight or tomorrow, what would you do differently? Would you do anything differently?

6:29I think Amos has some suggestions, some exhortations on what to do differently in light of the fact that Israel is about to be judged. Let me tell you the story briefly of a Christian evangelist named John Harper. Now, he's someone who lived his life differently. Like I said, he was a Christian evangelist in Scotland in the early 1900s. And something that made him such an effective evangelist is that he lived every day like it was his last. He didn't meet a single person where he would not attempt to tell them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, he was so effective that Moody Church in Chicago invited him to come speak on the topic of evangelism. And so John Harper gets on a boat departing out of England for New York to come speak in Chicago. And that boat was the Titanic. And we know what happens. Next, right?

7:32As the Titanic hit the iceberg and started to sink, John Harper puts his niece and his sister on a lifeboat, and then he starts swimming from wreckage to wreckage, looking for people to evangelize. And we don't know how many people he talked to or how many people he converted, but we do know of one, the last one. He swims up to this man and he goes, Man, are you saved? And the man answers, No, I am not. So John Harper says, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And a few minutes later, John Harper disappears under the icy water.

8:19John Harper was well prepared to meet his God. And the truth is, whether it's today or tomorrow or 50 years from now, all of us will come face to face with the Creator of the universe. And we prepare for a lot of things. We prepare for exams, we prepare for marriage, maybe a big presentation at work. Last month there was this big freeze, so I made all these preparations to my house. So why wouldn't we prepare to meet God? Seems a little more important, doesn't it?

9:00Well, maybe a better question is: how should we prepare to meet God? And this is where Amos turns next in his prophecy. So we're going to read Amos chapter 5. We're going to start together, and then we'll talk about the exhortations that Amos gives on how to prepare to meet God. God is coming. Get ready, prepare. So if you're with me, you can read along in Amos 5, and I'll read chapters 1 through 15, a pretty good chunk. It says this: Hear this word which I take up for you as a dirge, O house of Israel. She has fallen, she will not rise again. The virgin Israel, she lies neglected on her land, there is none to raise her up. For thus says the Lord God: the city which goes forth a thousand strong will have a hundred left, and the one which goes forth a hundred strong will have ten left to the house of Israel. For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, Seek me, that you may live. But do not resort to Bethel, and do not come to Gilgal, nor cross over to Beersheba. For Gilgal will certainly go into captivity, and Bethel will come to trouble. Seek the Lord, that you may live, or he will break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph. And it will consume with none to quench it for Bethel. For those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness down to the earth, he who made the Pleiades and Orion and changes the deep darkness into morning, who also darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name. It is he who flashes forth with destruction upon the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress. They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks with integrity. Therefore, because you impose heavy rent on the poor and exact a tribute of grain from them, though you have built houses of well-hewn stone, yet you will not live in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, yet you will not drink of their wine. For I know your transgressions are many, and your sins are great, you who distress the righteous and accept bribes, and turn aside the poor in the gate. Therefore, at such a time, the prudent person keeps silent, for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and thus may the Lord the God of hosts be with you. Just as you have said, hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the Lord God of hosts may be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. Let's stop there.

11:58So the question is, how do you do? Should you and I prepare to meet our God? Well, the first one, seek him. Seek the Lord, and you may live. We find this in verse 4. We find this in verse 6. Amos's prophecy is meant to convict the nation of sin. And the natural question that comes with conviction is: what do we do now? And in this short phrase, Amos gives us three answers to that question. What? Seek the Lord. Excuse me. What? Seek. Who? The Lord? And why? That you may live.

12:43I don't know about you, but it never ceases to surprise me and make me marvel that God saves us from his own wrath. Satan does not send people to hell. God does. And Amos brings this out. He who made Pleiades and Orion and changes darkness into morning and also darkens the day into night. He who calls for the water of the sea and pours them out on the surface. The Lord is his name. This is the powerful God that we are talking about. It follows then that to be saved from an all-powerful God, we need this all-powerful God. We have to reckon with that. We have to. To reconcile with him. And so, a fourth question is implied. How? How do we reconcile with a holy and just God?

13:42We seek him. We seek him with all that is in us. We seek him. But we have to seek him where he can be found. Which is why in verse 5, Amos says, do not go to Bethel. Do not go to Gilgal or Beersheba. Remember, these are false centers of worship in Amos' day. These are golden calves, altars to a perverted form of Yahweh. These cities represent empty religion. Those places had all the markers of Yahweh worship. They sang songs, they did feasts, they made sacrifices. But there's just one problem: Yahweh wasn't there.

14:32Amos says that empty religion is no religion at all. Now you can imagine this. We just celebrated Valentine's Day. Now, imagine if I got all dressed up for a date with my wife, and I wore the clothes that she likes, and I made the food exactly the way that she likes it, and I bought her favorite flowers, and I bought her favorite chocolate, and then I drive down the street to an empty house to have my date. She's not there. Have I done anything to please my wife? No, it doesn't matter how well I'm dressed or how much I thought about the date. She's not there. It's an empty house. And a house without my wife is like empty religion without God. It does not please God. In fact, it's offensive to God. So think about it in our context. How often do we go through the motions of Christianity and never meet Christ?

15:35How often do we show up to an empty house and call it church? I think the message is the same today as it was back then. Seek the Lord and live. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. In other words, there is no salvation from the wrath of a holy God apart from Christ. Where do we seek the Lord? In Christ, and only in Christ. It matters that you come, but it also matters how you come. Empty religion is not the answer. Only by putting on Christ through faith and repentance can we seek the Lord and live. That brings me to number two, which is very similar to number. 1, seek good and live. Now, this comes from verse 14. And many commentators have pointed out the parallel construction between seek the Lord and live and seek good and live. There is no seeking the Lord apart from seeking good and shunning evil. And this was Israel's mistake. Despite their empty religion, they weren't seeking good. You can just read the verses that come before, starting in verse 10. Their habits were reproving their elders. They were abhorring the one who speaks with integrity. They imposed heavy rent on the poor, and they would distress the righteous. They would accept bribes at the gate.

17:18So, in contrast to this empty religion, what does pure religion look like? Well, the book of James gives us an answer to that question. And James 1:27 says, Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this, to visit the orphans and the widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Pure and undefiled religion. So, what does this mean? Well, I think the book of James is just a great place to flesh out this question. James 1:23 says, Be doers of the world. Of the word, not hearers only. And James gives the example of caring for widows as an example of doing the word of God, doing good, seeking good. An empty religion, by contrast, is like an empty corpse. It's dead. And James calls it dead. He says, faith without works is dead. Now it's not the good works that save, but it's the works that make your faith alive.

18:30So if you are truly seeking the Lord, you will also be seeking good. But there's another side to this coin as well. You see it in the very next verse. You will hate evil. And this is non-negotiable. If you love good, you will hate evil. We like to talk about the love, right? All about love. But it's important that we hate evil. And to do this, we need to ask ourselves two questions. One, am I disgusted by the sin that is in the world today? And number two, am I just as disgusted by the sin that's in my heart today?

19:21Both of these questions are important. It's really easy to hate sin and to hate evil when it affects you, when it's out there. And you feel like you're a victim of it, it's easy to be hurt by injustice, and I can relate. I know what that feels like. I think it takes a lot more godliness to hate evil that hurts people that are unlike you. People at the fringes of society, the orphan, the widow, the sojourner. But Scripture teaches again and again that these people on the fringes of society are no less made in God's image, and they are no less qualified to receive the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. And we need to remember that. This is why the second question is so important: Do you hate the evil that's in your own heart today?

20:13Jesus says in Matthew 15, 19, for out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, slanders. Do you hate that evil too? Just as much as you hate the evil that's out in the world. Do you hate it enough to make drastic measures to root it out? Will you cut out your eye if it causes you to sin? Or maybe to update it to our language, will you throw out your smartphone if it causes you to sin? Some of us are really hesitant.

20:46You can't say that you truly seek good unless you also hate evil, all evil, even when it comes from your own heart. Brings us to number four. Establish justice at the gate. This is also in verse 15. What is justice, and why is it at the gate? Well, justice in those terms in that day and age is very much like justice today. He's talking about official proceedings. These would be people who would preside over disputes and try and make appeasement. This would also include contracts like buying and selling and marriage and inheritance. So the legal systems of that day were very similar to the legal systems of today, with one big difference. They didn't have courtrooms. Where would these proceedings take place? Well, they would take place at the gate. We actually have an example of this in the book of Ruth. You remember Boaz? You know, he's trying to marry Ruth, but he's got this conflict with the nearest Redeemer, and so he goes to the gate, which is where all the elders are. And so he negotiates this contract there, right at the gate. This is where judicial proceedings took place. I nabbed a couple of pictures of this. This is a gate of a town in Israel, and there's kind of a winding path getting into this town. And I'm not sure if I have a.

22:18Yep, there we go. Here's the outer gate, and you wind around to the inner gate, and right here there's these compartments. And in these compartments would be where the elders of the town would sit. And here's a close-up on one of those compartments. Right there. You can think of this as the courtroom of those days, and you can think of the gate, I think in our terminology we would say the bench. Establish justice on the bench. So here's the point.

22:46It's a bad sign for your society if there is no justice at the gate. Why? Because if you would expect to find justice anywhere, it would be at the gate. But apparently, this was where corruption was happening the most. And you can read this up in verse 12. Amos is just describing the practice of accepting bribes at the gate and turning away the poor, probably because they had no money to afford the bribes. So what does this mean for us? You know, I'm not a judge. I don't have an official bench, so to speak. But I think it'll have a sphere of influence somewhere, and we can choose to establish justice or to accept bribes or do the equivalent of injustice. Here are a few examples. Accountants, have you ever been pressured to fudge the numbers on a client's account? Well, establish justice at the gate. Engineers, have you ever been tempted to cut corners on a project to increase productivity? Establish justice at the gate. Students, where is your gate? Have you ever claimed to complete an assignment that was only half done? Have you ever been part of a group project and responsible for a portion of an assignment? Well, establish justice at the gate. What about stay-at-home moms? Do you pick favorites with your kids? Surely not. Do you hold yourself to the same standard that you hold your kids to? Establish justice at the gate of your homes. And I think you see my point. The gate is where God has put you to establish justice. We all have one. If you truly want to seek good and not evil, that's where you start. It starts right where you are.

24:41All right. How are we doing so far? Are y'all tracking with me? Excellent. We're about halfway done. We've got four more exhortations to go, but let's read a little bit more in Amos before we get there. I'm picking up in verse 16. Y'all can read along with me. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, there is wailing in all the plazas, and in all the streets they say, Alas, alas. They also call the farmer to mourning, and professional mourners to lamentation. And in all the vineyards there is wailing, because I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord. Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light. When a man flees from a lion and a bear meets him, or goes home, leans his hand against a wall, and a snake bites him, will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it? I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them. And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. Take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Did you present me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for 40 years, O house of Israel? You also carried along Sikkoth and your king, and Kiyan, your images, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves. Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. We'll stop there.

26:40All right, so there are some more ways that we can prepare to meet our God. And this next one, I admit, seems a little bit counter-intuitive. Number five, do not long for the day of the Lord. This comes from verse 18. I'll read it again in the LS. B translation says, Woe to you who are longing for the day of Yahweh. For what purpose will the day of Yahweh be to you? It will be a day of darkness and not light. So, the reason I include this as an exhortation, because a woe statement like this has an exhortation strongly implied. Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord, i.e., don't long for the day of the Lord. So, why not? Shouldn't the people of God be excited for God to return? And that depends. And there's a clue here in the preceding verses of why that depends. So, if you look back up to verses 16 and 17, you'll see that Amos is speaking about this great wailing that's going on in the land and in the streets. And it's this great lament because the Lord has passed through the midst of the people, which has resulted in a great destruction. Now, does this sound familiar?

28:06This is the language of Exodus. Specifically, Exodus 11, verses 4 through 7. This is the last of the ten plagues. And Amos' audience would have recognized this. Now, think about the last plague in Egypt, which is the death of the firstborn. Can you imagine if the Egyptians were looking forward to this event? I think this is why Amos says, Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord. He's making the point: you're the Egyptians now. You are the ones that are hardening your hearts before God. You are the ones enslaving my people, the poor, and not letting them go. Do you really want God to come now?

28:57Of course, the answer is no. That would be ridiculous to desire the judgment of God. Well, what about today? There's another day of the Lord coming. Is it wrong for us to desire the day of the Lord? And I would say that that also depends. Are you an Egyptian or are you an Israelite? Here's what I mean by this: if you're an Egyptian, if you are not in Christ, then I would say count the patience of the Lord as your salvation. The Lord tarries so that you might be saved. Think about that.

29:42The Lord tarries that you might be saved. So seek the Lord and live. Seek him now because a day is coming when it will be too late. But if you're an Israelite, if you are In Christ, then guess what? The wrath of God has already been poured out on the Passover Lamb, and you have taken refuge under his blood. The blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. If you are in Christ, then the day of the Lord will be deliverance.

30:29At the end, there will only be two kinds of people: those who are under the blood and those who are not. So consider carefully before you long for the day of the Lord, which one are you? Number six, remove the noise of your songs. Take away the tulip of your songs. It's the LSB version. This is verse 23. Now, what songs is Amos talking about? Well, I think this is very clearly a reference to religious music. You can look back at verses 21 and 22 to support this. God is talking about the religious festivities. He says in verse 21, I hate, I reject your festivals. I do not delight in your assemblies. I will not accept your offerings. I will not even look at your peace offerings.

31:35Now, Amos could be describing a church service here. These are all things that we do on the outside. We sing songs, we give offerings. But the word that Amos used to describe these songs is noise. And as I mentioned in the LSB, it's translated tumult, which makes sense. If you go into this word in Hebrew, it's a word for agitation and turmoil. And the English word we might use for this is the word discord. Discord. Now, what is discord? Discord occurs when two notes are played out of harmony with one another. And you know it when you hear it. Am I right? It's offensive to our ears. It's hard to listen to. This is what happens when you have religion without a broken and contrite heart. There's something out of harmony. There's discord. In Psalm 51, which we read earlier this evening, David is using this musical metaphor in the same way, but he's talking about repentance. Psalm 51, verse 14, David is saying, Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing. Of your righteousness. For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise, I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

33:15So, what's in harmony with a broken and contrite heart? Excuse me, what's in harmony with our acts of worship? A broken and contrite heart. The point is, don't be out of sync. Don't be out of harmony. Make sure that your heart is in harmony with your deeds. And if it's not, then go and address your heart first before you come to the altar. Then you can come to church. Then you can come to God with your songs and your sacrifices.

33:45How do you know if your heart is out of sync? Well, I think this next one tells us, the very next verse, verse 24, says, Let justice and righteousness flow. And keep in mind that this is directly contrasted with the noise of empty religion. If empty religion is the noise that God hates, then justice and righteousness is the noise that God loves. Because justice is in harmony with a repentant heart. Amos uses the metaphor of a flowing stream. And I think it's a good metaphor for several reasons. One, a flowing stream makes noise. This is the verb rolling down.

34:30And this sound of waters rolling down ought to be louder than the sound of our festivals and offerings. A flowing stream has a source, and we've talked about this. Justice and righteousness come from somewhere. And that somewhere is a heart that is broken before the Lord, that is obedient to his moral standards. In other words, this is a heart of repentance and faith. True justice always comes from repentance and faith. A flowing stream has a destination. Repentance doesn't just stay in your heart. It's not just a feeling. It moves you to action. It affects the people around you by the way that you live. It comes out in various forms of justice and righteousness. And lastly, a flowing stream has life. A flowing stream is called living water. It's not stagnant. You can drink it. It brings blessing and refreshment. Sometimes we can think of justice as cold and brutal, but this is not God's justice. God's justice gives life to those around it, life and blessing. I think this is how we ought to think about establishing justice and righteousness. Justice flows from a heart of repentance that has turned to the Lord. Lord, and not the other way around.

36:04There are many Christians who use this verse, Amos 5:24, to justify a pretty questionable cultural agenda. They might say that you need to start with social reform before you can approach someone with the message of repentance. And I would say that they've got this backwards. They might even go so far to say that the gospel is synonymous with social justice. And I would ask: does Scripture support this? Let me give you briefly just two, what I think are unbiblical errors about social justice that we can fall into. The first error is that social justice is not important. And the second error is that social justice is all important. And here's what I mean by this: the one error, social justice does not matter. Well, you read, in fact, here in Amos for starters, that social justice does matter. It matters to God. And all you have to do is look at the life of Jesus to support this. Jesus says in Matthew 11, He came to preach good news to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, and to declare freedom to the captives. To be Christian, to be Christ-like, is to care about the things that Christ cares about. And he cared about the marginalized. He cared about the poor and the hurting. And I think many of us, and I'll include myself here, fall into this, I would call the error of apathy. We might see injustice in the world, but we don't do anything because we just don't care. Now, on the other hand, the other error is that social justice is all important. It's the only thing that matters, maybe even the main thing that matters. And here I think Scripture comes back against that. In John chapter 6, you know, this is the passage where Jesus says, Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and guess what? They died. But I am the bread of life. All who come to me will never hunger. Jesus says in the same passage, Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which I will give to you. So you see, Christ came to preach good news to the poor. We can affirm that. Amen, amen. But the good news is the good news of repentance and faith. The good news is not social revolution. So here I say again: social justice flows from the gospel, but it is not the gospel. A great example of this is the missionary William Carey. He arrived in India, and one of the first things he saw was this practice of.

39:00Burning. And yes, widow, a person would go up on their husband's funeral pyre along with his possessions, and they would light it up and she would perish with her husband's belongings. And this was considered normal in that culture. And here, William Carey comes along, and he sees it for what it is. You know, this is injustice. And he's faced with a decision: do I do nothing? Do I just kind of accept it as not my culture and I don't understand it? Or do I come in with guns blazing and I say, okay, I'm going to come here and reform everything and change everything?

39:42And ultimately, William Carey does not stay silent. You know, he speaks out about this injustice, but he also doesn't let it distract him from sharing the gospel. And this is exactly what happens in those Indian cultures. Reform happened, but how did reform happen? He preached repentance. And as the Hindus repented and started coming to Christ, they saw that this was wrong. And when they repented and followed Christ, social justice followed after that. Justice flowed down like a mighty river. And this is a model for us today.

40:22Justice and righteousness always flow from repentance and faith. And I would say this: if justice and righteousness are not flowing, then odds are. Pretty good that genuine repentance has not occurred. That was the case that Amos was addressing, and let it not be so with us today. Which brings us to the last one. I'll read just the first eight verses of chapter six to close us out. Amos says, Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and those who feel secure in the mountain of Samaria. The distinguished men of the foremost of nations, to whom the house of Israel comes, go over to Talna and look, and go from there to Hamas the Great, and then go to Gath of the Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than yours? Do you put off the day of calamity, and would you bring near the seat of violence? Those who recline on beds of ivory and sprawl on their couches, and eat lamb from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall, who improvise the sound of the harp, and like David have composed songs for themselves, who drink wine from sacrificial bulls, while they anoint themselves with the finest of oils. Yet they have not grieved over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore, they will now go into exile at the head of the exiles, and the sprawlers' banqueting will pass away. The Lord God has sworn by himself, the Lord God of hosts has declared, I loathe the arrogance of Jacob. I detest his citadels. Therefore, I will deliver up the city and all it contains.

42:08So you see there this final exhortation, which also takes the place of a statement of woe. Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and those who feel secure in Samaria, i.e., don't be at ease in Zion. Don't feel secure in Samaria. Why not? What's wrong with being at ease? What's wrong with lying down on your couch and enjoying some lamb chops? I guess on the surface, it's not wrong. It's not a sin. But the problem isn't the couch. The problem is what's going on around the couch. Now, this is the tragedy of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. It indicates utter disregard for what's happening outside your window. Amos has been abundantly clear to this point that the day of the Lord is coming. Prepare to meet your God. And he calls out specifically the vehicle that the Lord is using. This is the Assyrian army that's coming to take them into captivity. And so Amos says, get up off your couch. Get up and grieve over the ruin of your people. Get up and grieve. Grieve the destruction that is coming upon you. Get to work making things right. Don't you know that the Lord is coming?

43:41The Lord in verse 8 calls it out for what it is: arrogance. Utter arrogance. And God loathes it. Another word for this is complacency. I think complacency is one of the most demonic lies in our Western culture today. Why? Because the lie of complacency is that everything will work out just fine. Just enjoy life. Stay on the couch. You can repent later. The day of the Lord is far, far away. For Christians, stay on the couch. Don't worry about the poor. Don't worry about the loss.

44:32Friends, the message of Amos is that we cannot count on later. John Harper, you did not plan on the Titanic sinking. You and I could be called to eternity today, tomorrow, on the way home tonight. We know conceptually that this is true, and yet most of us live our lives on the couch. This is what it means to be at ease and to be secure. And I think this is why the road to destruction is wide and broad, and the road to life is narrow, and few find it.

45:13Matthew 7, 22 says, Jesus is saying, Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? In your name, cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Did you know that this was the verse that the Lord used to save me? Because I was that complacent kid who thought that I had everything figured out. I had no need for a broken and contrite heart. Repentance was for sinners, not me.

45:59That was the lie that kept me in bondage for so, so long. And the cure for me was the fear of the Lord. Good old-fashioned fear of the Lord. And maybe that's what you need today. Seek the Lord and live. Seek the Lord because He's coming. But He is also patient and He is merciful. Not wishing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. So let me encourage you, it's the same words that Amos used. Prepare to meet your God.

46:46Perhaps this is coming to repentance for the first time. Maybe this is repenting for the hundredth or two hundredth time. Keep repenting. Keep living like you've repented, as evidenced by the justice and righteousness that flows from your life. Either way, we have work to do, so let's get busy. Let me pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for sending your Son to bear the wrath that I deserve. Oh, God, let that good news never grow stale. Let it be fresh every time we approach your throne.

47:41And that it wouldn't just be words in our mouth, but it would be the meditations of our heart, the actions that we do. That everyone here would have a faith that is alive, a faith that breathes, a faith that multiplies, that others would see your. Good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. And when we reach that day, you will look on us and say, Well done, good and faithful servant. So we thank you for your word. In Jesus' name, amen.