1 God s Wrath and Mercy - Amos 9 Argyle 11/22/15 Amos Introduction to Scripture The Book of Amos ends with a glorious description of the restoration of Israel. But before Amos got to the glorious restoration, God had one more terrible vision of destruction for him. (Read) (Pray) Introduction It might be helpful in understanding the terrible judgment described in Amos 9 to review how we got here. The story begins all the way back in Genesis 12 where God promised to a man named Abram that he would bless Abram s descendants and through them bless the whole world. This was the beginning of the Jewish people, the Israelites, God s chosen people. Fast forward a few hundred years and the Israelites are in slavery in Egypt. God miraculously rescued them and established a covenant relationship with them. We read about this covenant in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. In the covenant God promises to be the God of the Jewish people. As with any covenant there are requirements that the people must live up to. They are listed in what we call the Ten Commandments. The covenant goes on to list the blessings the Israelites will experience if they obey these commandments and the judgment they will experience if they don t. Fast forward another 500 or so years through kings Saul, David and Solomon to a catastrophic split of God s people that took place in 930 bc. The ten northern
2 tribes formed the nation of Israel under King Jeroboam and the 2 southern tribes became the nation of Judah. The southern kingdom of Judah continued to worship God in Jerusalem, but the northern tribe needed to build counterfeit temples in places like Dan and Beersheba. Counterfeit temples led to the counterfeit worship that plagued the northern kingdom throughout their short history. Fast forward another 180 years and there is another Jeroboam on Israel s throne and God has sent Amos to prophecy the destruction of Israel. And what was the cause of this destruction? The people had failed to live up to the covenant God had established through Abraham and Moses. And what would be the consequences? The judgment that had been spelled out when God and the Israelites first made the covenant. God s Judgment on Israel We are going to look at three things this morning, starting with God s judgment on Israel. There are three things about God s judgment that I want to point out. The first is where it takes place. Verse 1 says, I saw the LORD standing by the altar and he said... Judgment begins in one of those false temples Israel had built. As we have seen all throughout this book, one of the things that especially angered God was how hypocritical their religion and worship had become. Reading Amos has caused me to reflect on Jesus words to the church in Laodicea that we read in Revelation 3. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm neither hot nor
3 cold I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:16 & 17) The people of Israel in Amos day are a perfect example of this principle. They were very religious, but their religion wasn t genuine. Their religion consisted of religious activity, but not righteous living. Commenting on these verses J.A. Motyer wrote, This then is what the Lord thinks of pretense; this is how He reacts to it; this is His judgment upon it. The essence of pretense is the throwing of a cloak of religion over a life motivated towards self. (repeat last line) A second feature of God s judgment is as one commentator said, its utter inescapability. These words are chilling. Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Bring them down on the heads of all the people; those who are left I will kill with the sword. Not one will get away, none will escape. 2 Though they dig down to the depths of the grave, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up to the heavens, from there I will bring them down. 3 Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. 4 Though they are driven into exile by their enemies, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good. God s judgment will be utterly inescapable. The third thing about God s judgment that I want you to see is God s personal involvement in it. Let me read again some of the phrases we ve just read. (Read bold
4 above) These phrases highlight for us the elephant in the room, the elephant that has been in the room throughout our study of Amos. God s Wrath Against Sin The elephant in the room is God s wrath against sin. In his article Five Truths About the Wrath of God Joseph Schuemann writes, The doctrine of the wrath of God has fallen on hard times. In today s world, any concept of God s wrath upsets our modern sentiments. It s too disconcerting, too intolerant. We live in a day where we have set ourselves as the judge and God s character is on trial. J.I. Packer agrees. His book, Knowing God (picture), has had a great impact on my understanding of God. In a chapter on God s wrath Packer says, The modern habit throughout the Christian church is to play this subject down. He asks, How often in the past year did you hear, or if you are a minister, did you preach, a sermon on the wrath of God? Having studied Amos this year, we are good this year, but that is not normally the case. Packer points out that although we tend to avoid the subject of God s wrath, the Biblical writers do not. He quotes A.W. Pink who said, A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury and wrath of God, than there are His love and tenderness. (Attributes of God) Joseph Scheumann s article is a helpful summary of what the Bible teaches about God s wrath. Here are his Five Truths about the Wrath of God. 1. God s wrath is just - God s wrath is in proportion to human sinfulness. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans, But because of your stubbornness
5 and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:5) And in Ephesians Paul wrote that because of our we are by nature deserving of wrath. Packer says in Knowing God that God s wrath is always something which people choose for themselves. 2. God s wrath is to be feared - Having spent 9 weeks studying Amos, I don t think I need to elaborate on this. 3. God s wrath is consistent in the Old and New Testament - It is common to think of God in the Old Testament as being mean, harsh and wrath filled, but in the New Testament as being kind, patient and loving. But, as we have seen in our study of Amos, despite their sin, God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. This phrase is one of the most frequent descriptions of God in the Old Testament. On the other hand, no one talked more about hell then Jesus and the most terrifying descriptions of God s wrath are the ones that describe Jesus return. We see God s wrath and God s mercy equally represented from Genesis to Revelation. 4. God s wrath is his love in action against sin - Think about the terror attacks in Paris last Friday. What kind of God would he be if God didn t hold those folks accountable for their actions? What if he didn t hold those who abuse children accountable for their sin? What if he
6 didn t hold those accountable who take advantage of the poor? What if he didn t hold accountable those who...fill in the blank? In the short run we may wish God would look the other way on some of our sins, but in the long run I don t think any of us would want God to turn a blind eye toward sin. We understand God s hatred of sin because of his holiness, but God also hates sin because of how it hurts those he loves. 5. God s wrath is satisfied in Christ - One of the most important words what we never use is the word propitiation. The gotquestions website says, The word propitiation carries the basic idea of appeasement or satisfaction, specifically toward God. Propitiation is a two-part act that involves appeasing the wrath of an offended person and being reconciled to him. The New Testament writers used this word to describe what Jesus had accomplished through his death on the cross. In Romans 3 Paul wrote,...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. John wrote, In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (I John 4:10) God s wrath is satisfied in Christ and that is what Amos was pointing toward in the
7 final section of his book when he talked about God s restoration of Israel. God s Restoration of Israel Amos wrote, In that day I will restore David s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, 12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name, declares the 13 LORD, who will do these things. The days are coming, declares the LORD, when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. 14 I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them, says the LORD your God. Wow, where did Mr. Sunshine come from? Some people don t believe that Amos wrote these last 4 verses since they are so different from the doom and gloom that characterizes most of the book. But Amos is just continuing to point people toward the covenant that God had made with them. Sure they needed to hear about the consequences of the covenant that they would experience because of their disobedience. But he also wanted to remind them of the promises God had made to them in the covenant. Among the promises that Amos highlighted were that the Davidic ancestral line would continue, people from all of the nations would believe,
8 the curse on the land would be broken and the people of Israel would return to the land. Conclusion Next Sunday we begin our celebration of Advent where we celebrate that God s promises which Amos talked about are coming true. In Jesus first coming a descendant of David was back on the throne this time forever. In the early days of the church Gentiles began to be included among God s people. At the council in Jerusalem which we read about in Acts 15, the Apostle James pointed to these verses in Amos as proof that God had intended all along that Gentiles would be included in his family. Not all of God s covenant promises have been fulfilled, yet. As we ll talk about next week, the rest of them will be fulfilled when Jesus returns. The end of Amos 9 has been a good preparation for our celebration of Advent which begins next week.