Judgement of the Heathen Nations #1

Transcription of the second episode of Studies in the Book of Amos brought to you by Pastor Rusty Tardo.

You can listen to the series here.

“We're going to continue our studies here. We introduced this series last Wednesday night. We're going to be doing some, a series of messages from the Book of Amos.

In fact, we're going to work our way through the whole book. It's not a very long book, just nine short chapters, but nine powerful chapters. And they will definitely speak to your heart and minister to you.

I know that this message of Amos is a message that is extremely relevant for the church today, because even as we began to share last time, Amos ministered to a society that was much like America today. Materialistic, self-indulgent, living in a time of relative prosperity and ease, and the people had become absorbed with themselves. They continued to practice their religion, but it was basically an external thing, just going through the motions, attending services, offering their gifts, and so on.

But no real reformation had taken place in their hearts. And that's who Amos addressed. So if you're there, let's pray.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we ask this evening that You would open the eyes of our understanding, illumine our hearts through this message of Your Prophet Amos. Father, make it come alive to us. Help me to speak, Father, through Your prompting by Your anointing.

And Father, let the message ring a clarion bell in each of our hearts. And Father, our sole desire tonight is to glorify our Savior Jesus Christ. So Father, let Christ be glorified here today as we cover our hearts and minds with the blood of Jesus.

Father, as we speak peace right now to every mind to prevent our thoughts from wandering. And Father, we speak peace to prevent us from being distracted. Help us, Father.

Speak to us, Father. Minister and have your way here, we pray. Be glorified here tonight, we ask, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. Jeremiah, oh, Jeremiah, Amos, Amos, chapter one.

We gave you quite a bit last week by way of introduction. I've titled the message this morning, this evening, The Judgment of the Heathen Nations. The Judgment of the Heathen Nations, because this is what Amos deals with in chapter one.

In fact, he goes through a series of judgments that he announces against the Heathen Nations. He just reels them off one after another. And in fact, he names five of the neighboring nations right off the bat.

He names five of them that are going to come under divine judgment here in chapter one. And in chapter two, he names yet another one. He goes on and names Moab in chapter two.

That's also going to fall under divine judgment. So that's a total of six altogether. But he doesn't even stop there.

He goes on and also brings out the fact that God is going to judge not only these Heathen Nations, but God is going to judge Israel, and God is going to judge Judah just as well. Now, I want you to think about the way that this prophecy transpired. Now, verses 1 and 2 is sort of an introduction to the chapter, the words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

And he said, The Lord will roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither. These introductory verses we expounded on at some length last week. But notice verse 3 as he says, Thus saith the Lord.

Now, that's going to be a phrase he will repeat time after time after time in this chapter. In verse 3, he says, Thus saith the Lord. Now, this reveals that what you're hearing is directly from God himself.

This is the prophets mantle, the prophetic anointing. This isn't him speaking. This isn't Amos' opinions.

This isn't his philosophy. He is speaking by divine imperative, by divine initiative. He's speaking.

This is what God says. He repeats that same phrase in verse 6. Notice there, the very beginning of verse 6, Thus saith the Lord.

This time he speaks to Gaza. He says in verse 9, Thus saith the Lord. At each one of these pronouncements, Thus saith the Lord, he pronounces a judgment upon one of these heathen nations.

Six times he repeats this. Five times in chapter 1, he repeats it a sixth time in chapter 2, and then he goes on and pronounces, Thus saith the Lord against Israel in Judah as well. Now, here is what transpired.

The marketplaces, the gates of the cities, or some other central place is where people gather in these ancient cities. So it would have been in one of those places that the prophet Amos took up a position as all the people are milling around and buying and selling and trading and bartering and passing with camels and donkeys and oxen and it's just a busy, prosperous city. The merchants are coming and going.

They're hawking their goods and the beggars are begging and so on. All of this is going on and the prophet Amos takes up his position, a position where he could be heard by all of these people. And he begins to prophesy.

And he says, Thus saith the Lord. Well, immediately, the people would recognize the prophet is about to speak. Because you don't claim divine inspiration unless you've got it.

You don't say, Thus saith the Lord, and say it lightly. Now, we believe in prophecy. We believe in prophecy for today.

We believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We believe God will use you. We believe God will give you a Thus saith the Lord.

But let me just make this clear. Don't use that term unless you know God has anointed you to speak. Because if you say, Thus saith the Lord, when the Lord is not saying, when instead it's Thus saith rusty, or Thus saith the flesh, then you can bring upon yourself a great deal of trouble, because God doesn't look lightly upon such things.

He says, Thus saith the Lord. And then he begins to call out God's judgment against Damascus, first Damascus. Then he goes on and mentions Gaza.

And from Gaza, he goes on and mentions Tyre and Phoenicia, and he mentions these other nations. All of these nations were the neighboring nations of Israel. And keep this in mind, as Amos begins to denounce these nations, as we'll read in this chapter, as he denounces these nations, he will follow a procedure.

First, he speaks of their sin, what they've done. And because of this sin, God is going to judge those nations. And then he pronounces a particular judgment upon them.

Now, think about what kind of crowd that would gather. Now, in my mind, I can picture this prophet as he stands and begins to prophesy, Thus saith the Lord, against Damascus, because of your sins, the multitude of your sins, because of your iniquities, the transgressions you've committed against God's people, against Israel, then thus saith the Lord, here's the judgment that will befall you. Now, I can hear, I can just picture to my mind, this crowd of people, as they hear this prophet denouncing their ancient enemies.

I can just see in my mind's eye, their heads beginning to nod. That's right. They are a wicked people.

I can... can't you just picture that? As the enemies of the nation are denounced, the people would just nod in agreement.

That's right. They deserve judgment. That's right.

Because of what they did. Because of the way they've treated Israel. Because of the sins they've committed.

They deserve judgment. And then the prophet doesn't stop there. Then he goes and mentions another nation that has been a long-standing enemy of Israel.

And he says, because of your sins, because of your transgressions, thus saith the Lord, this judgment will befall you. I can see the crowd nodding their heads in agreement. That's right.

That's right. God's going to judge them. Look at their sins.

And then he mentions another nation and another nation and another nation. And each time the crowd would have to agree. That's right.

That's right. But then Amos didn't stop there. Because as he gets over into chapter two, after he has denounced all of these nations, and I can just see that great crowd out there saying, that's right.

That's right. Then he says, and as for you, Judah, and as for you, Israel. Thus saith the Lord.

Judgment against you. Well, I would imagine at that point, the heads got still and the crowd probably fell into a hush as Amos pronounced judgment, the same judgments against Israel and against Judah because of their transgressions and because of their sins. So this is the setting, the background of what transpired in this book.

You could imagine if someone stood up on the steps of our capital or whatever and began to pronounce judgment upon, let's say, one of the enemies of our own country, like one of our ancient enemies, Russia or China or Iraq or Iran or Cuba or whatever, they begin to pronounce judgment against those people would nod in agreements. That's right. God's going to judge them for their sins.

God is going to punish them for what they did. And as one of America's enemies after another would be sentenced to judgment, the crowd would just nod their head. That's right.

That's right. That's right. But then what would happen if the prophet's voice said, And as for you, America, thus saith the Lord, because of your iniquities, because of your sins, all of a sudden, everybody would be saying, shut that man up.

We don't want to hear what he's got to say. Get that clown out of here. Well, that's pretty much the reception that Amos received.

They liked him as long as he prophesied against the other nations. But when he opened his mouth against Israel, well, then they they weren't too happy with Amos' message. They don't like the message of a genuine prophet.

Well, I want you to notice this. In verse 3, we're going to read this verse. Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Damascus, and for four.

This is an interesting Hebrew figure of speech where he says for three transgressions, and for four. This is what's going to happen to you because of your sins. He repeats this same figure of speech every time that he denounces these nations.

Down in verse 6, he says, Thus saith the Lord, to Gaza, for three transgressions, and for four. God's going to judge you. He says the same thing each time.

In verse 9, when he speaks to Tyrus, he says, for three transgressions, and for four. Now, let me just clarify this figure of speech to you. The point here is that he's simply saying through this figure of speech that God has more than enough reasons for judging these nations.

His reasons for bringing divine wrath and judgment upon them, there's more than enough. Not just for three. I mean, that's a representative figure, but even for four.

I mean, four would have been the final straw, the one that broke the camel's back figuratively. In other words, their cup was full. They had sinned to the limit.

They had gone beyond the limit. God had been patient. He said, God, now God is going to let you go no further.

The cup of wrath is full. Now judgment is going to fall upon you. And he has more than ample reasons for judging these nations.

Then it's interesting that though God says this, he says, for three transgressions and for four, or for your multitude of transgressions and you've gone even over the limit, I've been more than patient with you. You have a vast catalog of sins, all of which deserve judgment. Then he only mentions one.

In each nation that he condemns here, he says, for three transgressions and for four, judgment is going to fall. But then he mentions one judgment, or rather one transgression that they committed, one sin that they committed that would bring the judgment on them. And it seems like that one sin would have been the one that what we would say was the last straw, the one that broke the camel's back.

So I just wanted you to understand this expression. It's a Hebraism, a figure of speech, and it simply means that God's not going to put up with their foolishness anymore. He's not going to put up with their transgressions.

So let's look first of all at this pronouncement of judgment upon Damascus. That's verses 3 to 5. Thus saith the LORD, For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron.

But I will send a fire into the house of Hazeel, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad. I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven. And him that holdeth the scepter from the house of Eden, and the people of Syria, shall go into captivity, into Ker, saith the Lord.

So verses 3 through 5 pronounce judgment upon Damascus. Damascus was the capital of Syria, the ancient nation of Syria. Damascus is supposed to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world.

Damascus. Well, God pronounces judgment upon Damascus, and Damascus, as the capital of Syria, of course, represents the nation itself. God is pronouncing judgment upon the whole nation.

It would be pretty much like, you know, judgment pronounced upon Moscow as representing judgment upon that whole nation of Russia. Judgment upon Washington, DC as a judgment upon our whole nation. So Syria is going to be judged by God.

Syria was one of Israel's long-standing ancient enemies. The conflicts between Israel and Syria go back almost to time immemorial. By the time of Amos' prophecy here, Syria was no longer the world-dominating power that it had once been.

It wasn't as strong militarily anymore, but God had not forgotten the aggression of Syria, nor had God forgotten the atrocities of Syria. The Syrian people, and here's something for us to remember, people in the Middle East in general, I'm talking about these heathen people, besides, I'm not speaking about Israel as God's people, but the people in the Middle East in general were known as a vicious, unmerciful, brutal, cruel people. And today, they still are.

They still are. These things as things that we would consider inhumane, the cruelties that people can perpetuate upon another people, you know, we'd be appalled by them because of our own minds and our own type of civilization. But these ancient peoples grew up in a land where cruelty was practiced widely.

And Syria was certainly no stranger to cruelty. Verse 3. I want you to notice something over here in verse 3.

Verse 3, the latter part of this verse, God says, I will not turn away the punishment of Syria. Now, it may not be a world power anymore, like it was in previous years. It may not dominate the world anymore, like it did in previous years.

But God said, their punishment will not be turned aside. It will not be averted, nor will it be delayed. Now, notice what he says.

Because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron. Now, one version reads this way. They have threshed Gilead with instruments of sharp iron.

Now, what this is in reference to was a real atrocious act that had been committed by the Syrians in a time of war some 50 years previous to this, when the armies of Syria under the Syrian king Hadad, Heziel, rather, and Ben Hadad, they destroyed the Israelite army in Gilead. Now, there's an interesting thing recorded over in 2 Kings 13. I want to read this to you.

You can turn there if you like. Keep your finger here or you can just listen. But 2 Kings 13 records this very incident that Amos, under divine inspiration, said, is the final straw that's going to bring divine judgment upon Syria as a nation.

Now, listen to this, 2 Kings 13 and verse 3. 2 Kings 13, 3. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael, king of Syria.

Now, remember, this is a judgment pronounced against Syria. And remember that name, Hazael, the king, and into the hand of Ben-Hadad, the son of Hazael, all their days. So because of Israel's sin, God said, I'm going to turn them over to Syria.

I'm going to let Syria capture them. I'll let them go into captivity, and they will just become vassals unto Syria and have to pay homage and tribute and so forth. Now, look in verse 7.

Notice this. There was a war between Israel and Syria. Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz, but 50 horsemen and 10 chariots and 10,000 footmen.

Now listen to this. For the king of Syria had destroyed them and had made them like the dust by threshing. Now here's what history tells us Syria did.

They took their threshing machines. Now the ancients had machinery just like we do. Now they weren't mechanized.

They didn't run by gasoline or diesel engines, but they were pulled by oxen and horses and mules and such as that. But they took these huge harrowing machines, furrowing machines with their disks and blades and so forth. These things date way back thousands of years.

And they ran over the prisoners. Israel's prisoners with them. They ran over the wounded with them.

They ran over the dead with them. They ran over those that had been captured, the helpless. They just laid them all out in the field and ran over them with their threshing machines.

Kyle and Delich, a set of commentators, Old Testament commentators, said that as these machines, the way they read it, that these machines ran over the captives of Israel, that these disks would chop and flay their bodies, just scattering parts all over the fields. This is the way Syria dealt with Israel when they captured prisoners. This is how they treated the wounded.

They don't know the meaning of mercy. They don't know the meaning of compassion. It was a diabolical treatment of the helpless, the wounded, the captives.

It would be a lot like farm machinery, taking farm machinery and running it over helpless people. Well, that's what Syria did. And here's what God said.

That kind of atrocity will not be forgotten, nor will it go unpunished. God will judge them because of the way they treated Israel, because of the way they treated these captives, these helpless people. God would bring them into severe judgment.

Sometimes, like we've said so many times before, sometimes it may seem like you wonder, how do these people do these atrocities and get away with them? Believe me, their time of comeuppance eventually comes. God does judge, and God pronounced judgment upon Syria.

Back here in Amos chapter 1, verse 4 and 5, here's the judgment that God pronounced upon this nation. Because of the way they treated their captives, God would treat them without mercy, just because they treated others without mercy. Verse 4 and 5, I will send fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad.

So here he says that this fire that he's going to send is representative of devastation and war and destruction. Their cities would be burned. Their palaces would be destroyed and so forth.

Verse 5, he says, I will break also the bar of Damascus. Now, the bar was the huge bar, the massive metal bar that actually held the gates of the city to prevent invaders from breaking in with their battering rams and so forth. That big bar would be laid across the gates, and it would make those gates, I mean, as a rock.

“Well, God said, I'm going to break that bar. I'm going to batter down all of the defenses, all of your defenses of Syria, and you will be an easy prey. You will fall victim to your enemies.

So that's what he pronounced against them there. He says he would cut off the inhabitants from the plain of Avan and from him that holds the scepter from the house of Eden. In other words, from top to bottom, there would be no place of escape.

The rich, the poor, the noblemen, the nobility, the kings, all would find themselves destroyed. There would be no place of escape. The city would crumble.

Everything would be cut off. The city would be burnt. And the remainder, he says, will go into captivity.

The people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kerr, saith the Lord. Within 30 years of Amos' prophecy, what he predicted came to pass. In fact, in 2 Kings 16, I was just over there in Kings, in 2 Kings 16 and verse 9, let me read this verse to you.

God brought this judgment to pass, just as he predicted. Listen, I'll read it to you. 2 Kings 16, 9.

And the king of Assyria harkened unto him, for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kerr, and slew Rezin, who was the Syrian king. So Assyria was used by God to bring this judgment against the nation of Syria. But you see, I just want to, again, point out to you that these ancient empires that surrounded Israel, by the way, that still exist today, were a people who didn't think like we think, a people who didn't know the meaning of mercy and compassion.

I don't know if any of you have heard of the things that have been going on in Kuwait, the atrocities that have been perpetuated by the Iraqis against the Kuwaitis. Now, this is Muslim against Muslim, Moslem against Moslem. But the list of atrocities, the inhuman acts performed by the Iraqis against the Kuwaitis are almost indescribable, almost unbelievable.

In fact, there was a report just recently about the same types of atrocities going on in Saudi Arabia against Americans. When Americans were arrested for various reasons over there, you know, the Muslims have their own sets of laws. You get arrested if you've got alcoholic beverages or all kinds of strange things.

One guy was passing around videotapes of movies. They weren't even nasty movies. He got arrested by the Saudis, and they tortured him.

But these are people who don't understand mercy or compassion like you or I would. But a group that would run over captives and helpless people and wounded people with threshing machines. Be sure of this, and this is one thing we'll see repeated throughout this chapter.

People do reap what they sow. Cruelty and lack of mercy will be met by cruelty and lack of mercy. Because Syria, as wicked, as cruel, as vicious as they were, were invaded by Assyria.

And Assyria was the cruelest nation that ever lived. No one outdid Assyria when it came to matters of cruelty and inhumanity. So they reap what they sow.

They sow the wind, they reap the whirlwind. That's an inevitable principle. What you sow, you reap.

Then he pronounces judgment upon Gaza, verses 6-8. Amos 1, 6-8. Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Gaza and for four.

I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they carried away captive, the whole captivity to deliver them up to Edom. But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and from him that holdeth the scepter from Ashkelon.

And I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God. Now notice verse 6. This judgment is pronounced against Gaza.

Gaza stands as the city that represents all of the Philistine nation. First, he pronounced judgment against the Syrian nation. Here, he pronounces judgment against the Philistine nation.

The Philistines were enemies of Israel that date all the way back to the time of the Judges. You can recall, I'm sure, in the incidents of the Philistines fighting with young David. Remember, the Philistine wars that David was so often involved with as king and so on.

Well, Amos repeats this same formula. He says, for three transgressions and for four, just like he did with Syria, of course, revealing again that the Philistine nation had sinned long enough, and now their time of judgment was coming. Now they would get what they deserved.

In fact, their judgment, he says, is long, long overdue. And here's the sin he mentions against them. Because they carried away captive, the whole captivity to deliver them up to Edom.

What was their sin? The last straw, the final straw that broke the camel's back? They had become wholesale slave traders.

That's what they had done.

Notice, again, verse 6. They carried away captive, the whole captivity. In other words, they would march into a territory, they would march into a land and strip it of its inhabitants, and carry the people off for the sole purpose of selling them to be slaves, selling them as slaves.

This is the market that the Philistines had fallen into. There's big profits in slave trading. But of all the people in the world to sell slaves to, they sold Israeli slaves to Edom.

And the Edomites hated Israel with a passion. Now, picture this. The Edomites were descendants of Esau.

Esau, of course, and Jacob, Jacob the father of Israel, as Jacob became Israel, out of his loins came the 12 tribes of Israel. And Esau, the brother who lost the birthright, Esau's descendants never, ever had any love or kindness or compassion towards Israel. In fact, there was conflict, there was hatred, there was burning passion.

Nothing but hatred towards the Jews amongst the Edomites. Well, you take a group of people who hate the Jews with a passion, with a fervor, and then you sell Jewish slaves to those people. How do you imagine those slaves would be treated?

Well, what do you think God would think of such a thing? Well, God says it's because of the way they brought, stripped these lands, these territories, cities, and villages of their inhabitants, and brought them off wholesale to sell them as slaves, to eat them of all people, because you showed no mercy. Not at all.

You didn't spare the helpless. You didn't spare the young. You didn't spare the aged.

You didn't spare families. You just stripped the whole land of its inhabitants, entire villages, and brought them off into slavery. God says, therefore, judgment will befall you.

So here's the judgment God said He would pronounce against the Philistine nation. Verse 7, I'll send fire on the walls of Gaza. He would bring destruction upon their walls, their fortresses, their cities, their defenses, their palaces.

He would destroy those cities utterly. They would be ravaged. They would be devoured by war.

The cities would be burnt. He would send fire upon them. Then he says, secondly, I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod.

Now, notice these cities he mentions, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron. These were all the capital cities of the Philistine nation. And he mentions them by name.

Every one of them, all those population centers would be cut off. That is, their inhabitants would be killed. They would be depopulated.

The very thing they did would fall upon their heads. Just as they depopulated the villages and so forth of Israel, so God would judge them in just that same manner. I'll cut off the inhabitants from those populated areas.

And he says, even the remnant, notice the end of verse 8, even the remnant of the Philistines would perish. God was not going to leave nothing of them. You see, their desire was just to strip Israel of its inhabitants and leave nothing of Israel.

God said, that's exactly what I'm going to do to you. What you sowed, you will reap. You sow the wind, you reap the low wind.

The very acts of cruelty that they brought against others, God said He would bring against them. You know, it reminds me of passages even in the New Testament that says, with the same measure of mercy, that you meet out, that's the way it will be meted out to you. Don't ever think that you can escape this inevitable law of sowing and reaping, because some 50 or 60 years after the pronouncement of this judgment by Amos the prophet, the Philistine nation was ravaged.

Who do you think ravaged them? Assyria, that same lion, the one that God called in Isaiah chapter 10, the rod of his anger. God, you know, God will take a wicked nation and use it for his own end and for his own purposes.

He took Assyria, wicked, vicious, cruel, inhumane Assyria and used them to punish these other nations. He brought them as a scourge upon the land. Like locusts, they came and just devoured everything, killing, ravishing, raping, destroying, burning, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake.

God actually calls them in Isaiah chapter 10. He said, Oh, Assyria, the rod of my anger. So that, think about this.

God can use a foreign nation to bring judgment against our own country if he chose to. It could be Iraq, rod of my anger. It could be Russia, rod of my anger.

China, rod of my anger. You know, God could use a cruel, vicious, communist, ungodly, atheistic nation to bring judgment upon another one. He said, Oh, I don't believe the Lord would do that.

He did it with Israel. They were supposed to be his people. They were supposed to be serving the Lord.

And yet, they were backslidden. They were apostate. They were idolatrous.

As Amos prophesied against them, he says, Woe unto you who are at ease in Zion, with your comfortable beds of ivory. All you think about is your own selves, your own luxuries, your own wants, your own pleasures. God will bring fire upon you.

And who do you think God brought to punish Israel? Assyria. That same Assyria to bring judgment upon his own people.

Well, you see the inevitable law, sowing, reaping. Just as these wicked nations sowed, that's the way they would reap. Thirdly, he pronounces judgments against Tyre, verses 9 and 10.

Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Tyreus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant. But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyreus, which shall devour the palaces thereof. Notice this, Tyreus.

Tyreus represents the Phoenician nation, the whole Phoenician nation. And their sin essentially was the same as that of the Philistines, trafficking in slavery, the selling of Hebrew slaves to foreign nations. Verse 9 says, they delivered up the whole population, the entire population.

So they stripped the land of its inhabitants. They were doing the same thing the Philistines had done. Also notice this, bringing those slaves to sale in foreign slave markets.

In fact, there are other passages that mention these same atrocities. If you want to put this in your notes, Joel chapter 3, verse 4 and verse 9 makes mention of this very sin of the Phoenicians, of Tyre. Then notice verse 9, where Amos says, they did not remember the brotherly covenant, the covenant of brotherhood.

Now, what do you think that has to do with? It's a reference to this. For hundreds and hundreds of years, the nation of Phoenicia and Israel had gotten along together.

They cooperated together. In fact, you can look back at the time when Solomon built the temple, back during the time of the monarchy, the singular monarchy, when the nation was not before it became divided. And Hiram, the king of Tyrus, actually cooperated with Solomon in the building of the temple.

He was a big help to him. There was a brotherhood amongst them. There was a cooperation amongst them, and they got along well.

But here, Tyrus, Phoenicia became a betrayer to their brothers, and they stripped the villages and cities of Israel simply for one thing, for the slaves, to make slaves of the people and to sell them in foreign slave markets. They betrayed the covenant. They betrayed their own brotherhood.

They sold out their own friends, their own brothers, in other words. And why do you think they did that? Why would they attack?

Why would they do that to their own brethren? It's not because they were defending their borders or anything like that. It wasn't because they had been attacked and they were retaliating.

I'll tell you why they did it. They did it for one thing and one thing only. Money.

Because there was big, big money. Big profits in slave trading, in the slave markets. So the Phoenicians attacked Israel and brought their people off captive for one reason and one reason only.

To make money. To become wealthy over it. Slave trafficking was big, big business.

But I want you to notice the judgment God said He's going to bring upon them. Verse 10, I will send fire upon the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces thereof. He says in verse 9, he said, I will not turn away their punishment.

You know what he was going to do? All of their palaces, all of the monuments of their glory, all of their towers and citadels and fortresses, in other words, all of the things that they bought and built with the money that they earned in their slave trading, God was going to destroy every bit of it. God was going to tear it down.

He was going to burn it all. They would lose every bit of it. Now, here's a very valuable lesson for us to learn.

No one profits from sin, not for long. No one profits from sin because God will touch it. God will turn it to cancer.

God will destroy it. You can't profit from sin. God will remove it from you.

Here was a people who attacked Israel, who stripped Israel of its population for one reason and one reason only, money. Well, God destroyed everything that that money built, everything that that money bought, everything that it accomplished. God took it all away from them.

They lost it all and more. They lost their lands. The Bible teaches in numerous places that He will not allow wicked people to profit from their wickedness, not for long.

They can sin and make money. They can lie, steal, cheat, rob. They can do things and make money, but they're not going to profit from it, not for long, because God will take it away from them.

God will destroy, God will bring them down and rob them of their wealth in the process. Numerous passages reveal things like this to be so. Jeremiah, let me read a verse or two to you.

Jeremiah 17, 11, he says this. Listen to this. As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.

Now, that's a powerful verse. It speaks of a partridge, some species of a bird in those lands that was thought to rob other birds of their nest and hatch out those other birds' eggs. Now, that's a strange thing.

Kick a bird off its nest and you take over its eggs. That's a lazy bird. You don't want to lay on, you see.

You just kick that other bird off and you hatch its eggs out. But what happens? Those eggs hatch out, those babies start to grow, those little fledglings, they get older, and the first thing that they realize is mama ain't like them.

That's a different species all together. And so they wind up turning on mama and leaving the mama and so forth. It all comes back to you in the end, you see, and that's the point.

You reap what you sow. Well, this is what the Lord says, verse 11. He that gets riches, you can gain wealth, you can gain riches, you can gain profit, you can make money by doing wrong.

But God says this, he that gets riches and not by right, not by doing right, but by doing wrong, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. So what does God say? You might get them, but you won't live to enjoy them.

I'll cut you off. I'll destroy you. I'll remove them from you, and in the end, everyone will know what a fool you really were.

Oh, listen, you can't cheat. You can't rob, steal, deprive, fraud. You can't do those things and get away with it.

You'll reap what you sow. Your sins will find you out. God will hold you accountable.

Don't ever think you can cheat anybody. Don't think you can cheat God either. And hold back what belongs to him, because you know what?

There are always things happen that the what you hold back from God, you're going to lose it anyway. You'll lose that and more because God will touch it. You won't profit from what you hold back, either from the Lord or what you steal from others.

You won't profit from it. You will lose it. Numerous, numerous passages reveal this to be so.

Proverbs 22, not Proverbs, Jeremiah 22, 13. Listen to this. Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong, that useth his neighbor's service without wages and giveth him not for his work.

Woe unto him. He's talking about those who exploit others, who oppress others to enrich themselves and then don't pay, and then don't give them what belongs to them. They don't pay those that they hire.

They don't take care of those that help. God says, woe unto them. I'll judge them far.

I'll bring them down far. They will pay. You know, this is true for an individual, but it's true for a nation as well.

And it was true for the Phoenicians because God reduced them to nothing. He took away everything from them. They were a nation that was trampled and battered successively by first Assyria, then Babylon, then the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans.

God totally decimated their society, their civilization until there was nothing left. And that's the story of Phoenicia. Alexander the Great in 332 BC crushed the entire nation and really brought it to its knees, brought it to nothing.

I just want to encourage you in this regard, anytime you're tempted to do wrong, to think that you can cheat or in some way defraud someone and get away with it, just remember, remember what happened to Phoenicia. Remember Tyre, because God sees, and God is the one who calls everyone to give an account. Everyone.

You will reap what you sow. You will always reap what you sow. Your sins will find you out.

No one cheats and gets away with it. Well, listen, we've got a lot more to go, but we're going to stop here for tonight, and we'll pick up here with these judgments upon Edom next time.

Let's stand together.

What we want to do in each of these lessons is not just learn interesting facts of history, but to relate these things to our own lives today and profit from them, incorporate these things into our own lives, learn valuable lessons from the judgments that God brought upon these other nations so that we don't fall into the same era.

Hallelujah. Let's pray. Father, we pray tonight that the word that we've heard would not merely be added to our notebooks or a list of interesting thoughts and facts and figures.

That, Father, these things would make an impression on our own hearts and minds. That we would have indelibly impressed upon our hearts the fact that we do reap what we sow. That you do judge, you do punish sin, and you do call all to account for their deeds.

So, Father, help us, we pray, to incorporate these things into our own lives. And that we might live a more holy and separated life, and that we might know assuredly that you will punish evildoers, that it is not our lot to punish evildoers, but that you will punish, that you will bring everyone into account for their deeds, their actions, and their words. Help us, Father.

We pray, in Jesus' name, Amen."