1. God’s grace
2. Man’s response
3. Man’s conviction
4. God’s judgment
How many times have you ever heard a sermon that you thought, “Boy, I wish so-and-so was here.” Or, “I hope so-and-so is listening.” One thing, preachers love hearing Amens. So much so, that some will fall into the trap of pulling out amen lines. What are amen lines? Well, a sure way to get amens is to preach against somebody else’s sin. Something that I don’t have a problem with. If you want to get real loud amens, preach in front of a ladies group about how their husbands are supposed to act. That’ll work every time. That’s why Amos was getting such a willing audience. Now remember who Amos was. He had the deck stacked against him. He was a no-name, nobody from nowhere. And he was an outsider. He was from Judah and God called him to preach in Israel. So imagine how well received he would have been if he had come right in with guns blazing preaching against Israel. They would have thrown him out without even listening. So, what did he do? He started off preaching about other people’s sin. As you look through the first and second chapter, Amos preached against each of the nations that surrounded Israel. He started with those dirty rotten Syrians. Their capital was Damascus and they were northeast of Israel. Amen! God needs to judge Damascus. Then he moved to the Philistines in Gaza. They were southwest of Israel. Well, you know what a pain the Philistines have been. They’ve been causing problems since before Goliath. Amen! Get ‘em God! Next was Tyre. Tyre was on the coast, northwest of Israel. They were no good, too. Right Amos—God can get them too. Then Edom and Ammon and Moab. Those nations formed a triangle off to Israel’s southeast. Israel had had problems with each of them throughout their history. Amen Amos. All of them are bad—judge ‘em God! Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. That was six nations. Hebrew literature is very dependent on numbers. And they viewed six as an incomplete number. So no preacher in his right mind would have had a sermon with six points. So Amos’ listeners knew one more was coming. And they knew it was going to be a big one. The seventh and last point was always the biggest. Hebrew tradition called for saving the best for last. So, who was Amos’ seventh point? Judah. Amos’ home country. Israel’s closest neighbor. The other half of the divided kingdom. Those people who thought they were so special because they had Jerusalem and the temple. Now we know what God really thinks about them. He’s going to judge them just like all the other nations around us. Amen—good sermon Amos! Boy, you really stepped on some toes there! You can almost hear the Bible covers zipping, can’t you? Israel was done listening, but Amos wasn’t done preaching. Oh, by the way Israel, I’m not quite finished yet. I have an 8th point. Chapter 2 in the first part of verse 6 says: “Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof.” Oh, yeah Israel—God’s going to judge you too. I imagine you could’ve heard a pin drop. There were certainly no amens anymore. In this passage that runs from 1:3 through the end of chapter 2, Amos is telling Israel about God’s pattern of judgment. And God displays His pattern in how He pronounces judgment on the nations, on Judah, and finally on Israel. Times have changed and the names on the map have changed, but God remains the same. But not only does God remain the same, man’s response to Him remains the same. And because of those two things, God’s judgment remains the same also. Tonight, I want each of us to avoid God’s judgment by responding to His grace in the right way. In order to do that, we’re going to look at four elements in God’s pattern of judgment. The first element is God’s grace.
In His grace, God displays amazing longsuffering. One of the charges that people will often throw against Christianity is that the God of the Old Testament is so mean. They bring up His righteous judgment on people like those in our passage tonight. They say, “how can a loving God promise to burn and break and cut off and devour people?” But when they ask that question, they forget about how long God allowed them to live in rebellion. Look at 1:3
AMOS 1:3a
God says the same thing in verse 6 and 9 and 11 and 13 and 2:1 and 2:4 and 2:6. For three transgressions and for four. Like I said, in Hebrew thought, numbers were very important. They meant something. Remember when Peter asked Jesus how many times they were supposed to forgive someone? Peter thought he was being gracious when he said seven. But what did Jesus say? 70 times 7. Now, by that, did Jesus mean that we only have to forgive someone 490 times? Should we keep a little counter with us to keep tabs on how many times we forgive? No. When Jesus said 70 times 7, He was making the point that the number is incalculable. Forgive to the fullness. Seven was a number of completion. So was three. Three was a number of completion and fullness. So when God said that the nations committed three transgressions, He didn’t mean that they had only done three things wrong. God isn’t a baseball umpire. He doesn’t work on three strikes and you’re out. They had committed transgressions to the fullest. They had sinned to their capacity of sinning. God had mercifully and graciously allowed them to exist until their rebellion against Him had reached its max capacity. And then what did He do? Did He judge them? No, He let them have a little more time. And they used that time to overflow in their sin. For three transgressions—the max capacity of sinfulness. And for four—your overflowing iniquity. Now God is going to judge. His grace allowed them time. Time to repent like Nineveh did under Jonah’s preaching. Time to turn away from their sin and turn to Him. But how did they use that time instead? They used it to rebel even more. But what if God had given them more than time? What if He had given them more opportunities? More advantages? Well, He did with His people. He gave Judah and Israel every opportunity in the world. Judah and Israel were His chosen people. Chapter 2:4 says that He gave them His Word—His Law—His commandments. But in God’s grace, He gave them even more. Look in verses 2:9-11:
AMOS 2:9-11
God’s poured out His grace on them to such an extent that He gave them victory over their enemies. He gave them deliverance from bondage. And He gave them His Word and His men. God is a gracious God. He gives us far more than we could ever deserve. He offers us victory over the presence of sin in our lives. He offers us deliverance from the bondage of sin in our lives. He gives us His Word. His living Word in His only begotten Son—Jesus Christ. And His written Word in His Holy Scriptures. And He goes over and above by giving us time to seek Him. Time to turn from our sin. Time to turn to Him. But what is our response? What was the response of the people in Amos’ day? The first element in God’s pattern of judgment is God’s grace. The second element is man’s response.
When God showed His gracious longsuffering by allowing the nations to continue to exist, what was their response? Did they say, “Well God, since you gave me another day on the earth, I think I’ll turn to you.”? That would have been the smart thing to do. That was what Nineveh did. You remember the story of Nineveh. Unfortunately, sometimes it gets lost in the whole Jonah and the whale story. But God sent His prophet Jonah to preach a hell-fire and damnation message to the pagan city of Nineveh. And what was their response? They repented in sackcloth and ashes. And when they repented, God extended His grace and didn’t destroy them. They saw that God had given them one more opportunity and they took advantage of it. But what did the nations in our passage do when God graciously gave them more time? They continued in their sin and rebellion. They rejected God’s patience and continued in their vile sins. And look at some of their sins. Of course, the ones Amos calls attention to weren’t their only sins. They were the sins that were the most characteristic of their depravity. Chapter 1:3 tells us that Damascus was cruel and violent. That was evidenced in their cruel bloodthirsty attacks on Gilead. Once they defeated Gilead, they actually crushed and mangled the prisoners under the spiked iron wheels of threshing equipment. Chapter 1:6 tells us that Gaza was involved in human trafficking and forced slave trading. Chapter 1:9 tells us that Tyre was involved in slave trading as well, but they added a twist. They betrayed their relationship with Israel in order to do it. 1:11 says that Edom was obsessed with attacking Israel. They constantly engaged in border disputes and Edom treated Israel with utter contempt. Ammon violated all sense of human dignity in the way it treated their enemies’ pregnant women. They tore them open in order to kill the babies. In 2:1, Moab is shown to have been so full of hatred and revenge that it desecrated the bodies of its defeated enemies. In 2:4, Judah turned completely away from God’s Word. And in 2:6-8, Israel violated God’s people, God’s name, and God’s altar. But remember, God gave Israel extra grace. He gave them victory over their enemies, deliverance from bondage, and His Word and His men. They might not have responded to God’s grace of time, but surely they responded well to all that extra provision. Look at verse 2:12:
AMOS 2:12
The Nazarites were men who were specially dedicated to God. As part of their dedication, they vowed to never cut their hair and never to drink wine. By saying Israel gave the Nazarites wine to drink, God was saying that Israel actively engaged in corrupting people who had given their lives to Him. Not only were they actively involved in corrupting God’s men, they commanded them not to preach. They worked on their morals through social corruption. And then they worked on their preaching through legal corruption. How is our response to God’s grace different than the nations? Nationally, are we making the best of the extra time God gives us? Or are we sinking deeper and deeper into sin? God has blessed this nation. Now He continues to bless us with time. But we are using our time like Israel did. We’re using it to pass laws that make it more and more difficult to spread the gospel. We’re using it to pile up social corruption like drugs, alcohol, pornography and illicit sex. And society is thrilled when one of God’s men fall to that corruption. It makes newspaper headlines when Nazarites drink wine today. That’s nationally, but what about personally? What is your response to God’s grace? What did you do with the extra day He gave you today? What do you do with the men God has specially called out? Do you help them? Or do you tell them, “prophesy not” by getting in their way or trying to bring them down? How are you responding to God’s grace? The second element in God’s pattern of judgment is man’s response. The third element is man’s conviction.
We are funny creatures, aren’t we? We’re funny, because God built us that way. He built us with an innate sense of right and wrong. The problem is, because of sin, we like to twist that sense. We like to only see the right in ourselves and only see the wrong in other people. That’s why the first 7 points of Amos’ sermon were such a hit. That’s why we like to sit in the service and think about other people who could use the sermon. That’s why we’re so offended at sin that we don’t have a problem with. Homosexuality disgusts me. So I can talk bad about it all day long. But when I talk about pride—that hits close to home. I’m not as eager to talk about that. I’m more likely to try and justify my sin than want to hear preaching against it. That’s why God inspired Amos to structure his sermon the way that he did. As he went around to each of the nations, Israel was giving him the amens. You’re right Amos—those things Damascus is doing are horrible. Amen! Can you believe those people from Gaza? Or those heathens from Tyre? I always knew those Edomites and Ammonites were no good. After all, you know who their daddy was, don’t you? As Amos listed each of the sins of the other nations, Israel agreed with him. How sinful those people are. How deserving of God’s judgment they are. Turn with me to Romans 2:1-3
ROMANS 2:1-3
The fact is that every one of the other nations’ sins that Amos listed had been committed by Israel. That’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Look at the first one—the sin of Damascus. How they brutally killed their enemies by mangling them under the sharp threshing instruments. Israel never engaged in that kind of brutality did they? When David conquered the Ammonites he did as bad if not worse. 2 Samuel 12:31 tells us: “And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem.” So, when the people of Israel were pointing their fingers at “bad old” Damascus—they were pointing their fingers right back at themselves. And it was the same in each case. Even down to the horrible sin of the Ammonites—the ones who ripped open the women with child. When Israel turned to the worship of idols, one of the idols they worshipped was Molech. Molech worship included mothers sacrificing their babies in the idol’s fiery arms. They did that to appease Molech so he would give them prosperity. You tell me which sin is worse? Purposely killing unborn babies as an act of war or killing newborn babies out of the selfish desire for prosperity? Both are evil and neither are justifiable. Both are sin worthy of judgment. And by passing judgment on the nations, Israel convicted itself. Homosexuality is easy to condemn. But what about your own lusts? Jesus said that if you look on a woman with lust, you’ve committed adultery with her in your heart already. Stealing money is easy to condemn. But what about the way you use your own money? The prophet Malachi talked about withholding tithes and offerings as robbing God. It’s easy to condemn the atheist or the idolater. But is your pride sitting on the throne of your life? Therefore thou are inexcusable, O man. The thing about God’s judgment is that He doesn’t have to convict us like a court of law convicts. He extends His grace. We respond in rebellion. And then we convict ourselves. We convict ourselves by the standard we hold up for other people. And we’re guilty as charged. Just like Israel was. They were guilty of all the sins they were condemning all the other nations of. They were guilty of sin. And God judges sin. The third element in God’s pattern of judgment is man’s conviction. The final element is God’s judgment.
God judges sin. His judgment is full and His judgment is final. He pours out His wrath on sin. But look at how He feels about it. Look at 2:13:
AMOS 2:13
God doesn’t revel in the fact that He judges sin. He doesn’t derive pleasure from pouring out His wrath on our rebellion. It burdens Him. It weighs Him down. But in order to preserve His righteousness, God judges sin. He did with each of these nations. Many of the judgments involved fire. Look at the other words He used: break, cut off, devour, turn my hand against, send into captivity, slay, die. God’s judgment of sin is serious. It’s brutal. It’s ugly. If you want to see what it looks like, picture Jesus Christ on the cross. Picture the beating He took. Picture the crown of thorns. Picture the nails. That’s what God’s judgment looks like. And He poured it out on His only begotten Son. He poured His wrath on Jesus Christ so He wouldn’t have to pour it out on you and me. God never changes. He still follows the same pattern of judgment. He still gracious. Man still rejects His grace. Man still convicts himself. And God still judges. But by pouring out His judgment on Jesus, God’s grace takes away our judgment. We’re already convicted. We’ve already convicted ourselves. We deserve God’s judgment. But God’s grace has provided a way of escape. All that is left is our response. Will you be like the nations and reject God’s grace? Will you be like Israel and reject God’s grace? Or will you accept it? Will you turn to Him in faith believing and accept His offer of grace?
