Judgement upon Judah and Israel

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

You can listen to the series here.

"I'd like for you to open them with me if you would to the Book of Amos.

We didn't get to share last week because we were interrupted by a parade. Praise God, that's all over with. So, we're continuing our studies in the Book of Amos.

We're going to be in Chapter 2 tonight. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, anoint your word, I pray, as it comes forth from my lips. Father, use me tonight, I pray, to minister to each of these, your sheep. Help us, Father, to learn, to grow, to comprehend, to understand, to develop and to mature into a greater degree of Christlikeness.

Father, this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amos chapter 2.

We've already looked in previous weeks at the Prophet Amos' pronouncements of judgment. Remember, he's a prophet from the southern kingdom. He has gone up into the north and has begun to prophesy.

And certainly in a public place, which is what the prophets would do, it would gather quite a crowd around and as he pronounced judgment against Damascus, which represented the Syrian nation, an ancient enemy of Israel, I'm sure the people were pleased to hear that. He pronounced judgment against Gaza, the ancient Philistine nation. I'm sure the people were pleased to hear that.

He pronounced judgments against Tyrus and then against Edom and Ammon and Moab. And each time I know that all of those surrounding nations were enemies of Israel, and I know that the Israelites were pleased to hear it. But then we find a transition at this point.

We're reading in verse 4, where Amos now departs from prophesying against the surrounding nations, and he begins to prophesy against Judah and then against Israel. Let's read verse 4. Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they have despised the law of the Lord and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked.

Now, you recognize the familiar pattern he uses at each time. Thus saith the Lord, his claim for divine anointing, that the Lord is the one who sent him with this message. It isn't a message from Amos' heart.

It's a message from God's heart through Amos. And then he uses the same formula for three transgressions and for four. In other words, you know, they filled up their measure, their cup of God's wrath and anger because of their multiplied sins.

But he, instead of mentioning just one sin like he did in most of the other nations, he mentions actually three sins of Judah right here in verse 4. He says, first of all, they've despised the law of the Lord. Secondly, they have not kept his commandments.

And thirdly, they have erred walking after the same lies as their forefathers. Now, notice here, he says, they have despised the law of the Lord. Now, the word law here is the Hebrew Torah.

In fact, the word Torah is translated law over 200 times in the Old Testament. The Torah is used in a sense to represent the whole here of the Old Testament law, including the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. But here's the way it reads in the Hebrew.

They have, verse 4, they have despised the Torah of Yahweh. The Torah Yahweh is the way it actually reads in the Hebrew. They've despised and disobeyed God's law, rejecting it.

And then it says they haven't kept his commandments. Now, you know, sometimes you read things in the Old Testament, and they'll say, you haven't kept the law, you've disobeyed the commandments, and you think that might be repetitious. Well, you already said you disobeyed the law, and then you disobey the commandments.

It's the same thing, the law and the commandments. Well, in a sense, it is. But the law or the Torah represents the whole of the Old Testament law.

Whereas terms like commandments, ordinances, those particular terms, statues, sometimes you read about statues, those refer, they're synonymous terms that refer to particular laws or specific laws. Whereas when he just speaks of the Torah or the law, he's referring to the whole of the law. So they broke the commandments.

They disobeyed God's laws, and they went after the same lies, he says in verse four, as did their forefathers. Now that's a reference to the idolatry that their forefathers got involved with. The immorality of Canaanite worship as they went after the false gods and so forth.

So God pronounces judgment upon Judah, not just upon the heathen nations, but also here upon Judah. And he says he won't change his mind. Notice again, verse four.

I will not turn away the punishment thereof. I've pronounced their judgment, and I'm not going to turn away from that judgment. They will be judged.

That's what he says. Now, here verse five is what the judgment will be. I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

So he uses the term fire. You know, that's a reference to war. That's something that he speaks of over and over in chapter one and chapter two.

He'll use war to come against Jerusalem, to come against the whole nation of Judah, the southern kingdom, and their citadels, their fortresses, their walls, strongholds, towers, all of them will be ravaged and destroyed by war or by fire as he speaks of it here. This is something that finally occurred when Babylon invaded the southern kingdom and destroyed it. Verse 5 also says, when he says, It shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

The war, the ravages of war and destruction would not escape or would not spare the holy city. Jerusalem is called the holy city several times in the Bible. It will devour even the palaces of Jerusalem.

Now, there are passages in the Old Testament, like 2 Chronicles chapter 36, 2 Kings chapter 25. You can mark these in your notes if you like. These passages are the fulfillment of Amos' prophecy when Babylon invaded Judah, destroyed the nation.

In fact, they even tore down the temple, Solomon's temple, burned the temple, and took off all of the implements of the temple. The silver and gold were all melted down and brought off into Babylon. The brass and so forth was all taken.

All of the implements of the temple were confiscated. The temple itself was destroyed. It's the last time you ever hear of the Ark of the Covenant.

In fact, you don't even hear of the Ark of the Covenant after the Babylon invasion. Let me just read one of these passages to you. You don't have to turn here unless you want to.

I'm going to read 2 Chronicles, chapter 36, beginning in verse 11.

Zedekiah was 21 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord as God, humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet, speaking from the mouth of the Lord. He rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God, but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel.

Moreover, all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and they polluted the house of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of his father sent to them by his messengers, rising up at times and sending, because he had a compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

This is a powerful passage of Scripture, because it speaks of how God put up with the abominable practices of his people, how he loved them, how he gave them grace. They kept sinning. He gave them grace.

They kept sinning. He sent them prophets. They kept sinning.

He gave them grace. They kept rebelling. And finally, it says, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

They got to the place where it was just they had gone too far. Wherefore, he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age. He gave them all into his hand.

And all of the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God. That speaks of Solomon's temple.

And they break down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the kingdom of Persia. 586 BC.,

Solomon's temple was destroyed. Babylon captured Judah, burnt the temple down, carried all the precious things out of the temple. You never hear about the Ark of the Covenant.

It is not specifically mentioned in that account, which has lended some people to think that maybe the Ark wasn't taken. In fact, there is an old Jewish tradition that says Jeremiah the prophet actually snuck the Ark of the Covenant out of the city and hid it in Mount Nebo in a cave. Of course, that's just a tradition.

Nobody knows whatever became of the Ark of the Covenant. We do know that the Bible says in this passage, as well as in 2 Kings 25, that all of the precious items, gold, silver and such as that, in the temple was confiscated by Nebuchadnezzar, melted down and taken off into Babylon. So, that's probably what became of the Ark.

You know, when people sin, and their sin continues, and God gives them opportunity to repent, God didn't even spare his own house. He didn't even spare his own people. And it points out or illustrates to us the severity in which God deals with continual sin, hard-heartedness, rebellion, defiance, when people will not harken to the voice of God.

So, here his own people, he gave over to Babylonian captivity. By the way, it was at that point that young Daniel was brought off, as he was a young man at that point, and he was brought off in that invasion into Babylonian captivity where he spent his whole life. But back in Amos, Chapter 2, Amos didn't even stop there.

Now, he made that prophecy against Judah, the southern kingdom, and I'm sure at this time, the people of Israel, he had their full attention, because he's prophesying in the northern kingdom, remember. So now, I'm sure he's got their complete attention, and beginning in verse 6, on through the rest of the chapter, he prophesies against Israel and speaks of the judgment that is going to befall them. Notice in verse 6, Thus saith the LORD, for three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof.

Here it comes. Now he's going to pronounce judgment against the people of Israel themselves. Now, I just want to remind you, at this point in Israel's history, they were dwelling in relative ease.

In fact, over in chapter 6 and verse 1, it's a passage that preachers have preached ever since Amos prophesied it. Woe to them that are at ease in Zion. Familiar verse of Scripture.

But keep in mind that Israel, at this point in their history, was experiencing great prosperity. They were at peace with all of the surrounding nations, or at least they were not a vassal of any other kingdom like they had been so many times in their history. They were an independent nation.

They were exercising their own sovereignty. They were prospering. Their merchants were prospering.

Their trades were prospering. In fact, at this point in their history, they were probably basking in one of the most prosperous times that they had ever experienced. They were not struggling like they had so often with things like poverty or the ravages of war or famine.

They were dwelling at ease. They actually were. This was a good time for them as far as their prosperity and so forth.

Militarily, they were strong. They were powerful. But they had some very severe problems in Israel at this time.

Also, social problems, spiritual problems. They had a very wealthy upper class that was growing even more wealthy. They had a class that you could call the filthy rich, which is what they were.

And then they had a class that were called the poor, the dirt poor. Unfortunately, the middle class of society was being squeezed out of existence. The poor were being oppressed and exploited by the rich.

The rich were getting richer, unfortunately. The poor were getting poorer. Corruption, corruption throughout government was commonplace at every level.

This was one of the things that Amos continues to hop on throughout this short book. And we're going to see it repeated over and over as Amos constantly pounds away at the corruption in the government, corruption in their politics, corruption in their court system. It's one of the things he deals with over and over.

So, they had some real problems. And spiritually, their religion was nothing more than a ritual. There was no heart in it.

The people weren't really interested in spiritual things. It was just a ritual. They offered their sacrifices.

They gave their gifts. They attended the services. You know, they kept the feast days, but their hearts weren't in it.

Their hearts weren't there. It's just like a lot of people who sit here. Their hearts aren't here.

You can look out here and see them. They're not here. They occupy a seat, but man, they're a thousand miles away.

One day, you may get the opportunity to stand where I stand, and you just see, you see people who occupy seats, but they're not here. They're not here. Amos has a message for you too.

Then Amos does something that's unusual at this point in his prophecy, something very unusual. Whereas between, when he dealt with all the other nations, he mentioned a particular sin, he'd say for three transgressions and for four, and then he'd name one particular sin, or maybe two. When he comes to dealing with Israel, he lists five sins that are certain, he said, to bring divine wrath upon them as a nation.

He said, God says he will not turn away his wrath, and this is why. He names five sinful practices that had begun to characterize the entire nation of Israel. And this made them a stench in the nostrils of God, to the point that God was going to destroy them.

And I'm going to tell you, as we read each of these indictments that God brings against Israel, you're going to see the United States in every one of them. You'll see modern America. You'll see ourselves.

I'm going to tell you, this Book of Amos has America name and address on it. It really does. It's just got our name written all over it.

And it's a very sobering, very sobering passage. This whole book, very sobering. It's very relevant.

Notice this, verse six. This is his first indictment against Israel. He says, you have corrupted the justice system of the nation.

Verse six, for three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof because they sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes. They sold the righteous for silver. In other words, the point he's making here is that they perverted justice and dealt harshly with their fellow Jews for the sake of financial gain.

Society had come to the point in Israel where only one thing mattered. Now, you know what was important to the average Jew? Here's what was important to him.

Money. People didn't matter. Their neighbor didn't matter.

God didn't matter. Justice didn't matter. Truth didn't matter.

Right didn't matter. One thing mattered. Money.

That's all that they were concerned about. Money mattered. The indictment that God makes through his prophet Amos is that their very court system, their judges, their officials, the whole system had been corrupted because the rich paid for them.

The rich bribed the judges. The rich corrupted the courts, and they actually paid them to bring judgments against the poor. That's the whole idea.

Verse 6, he says, They sold the righteous for silver. The innocent were pronounced guilty because the judges and the courts were bought by the rich. The rich got away with every kind of crime, every kind of exploitation because they paid the judges, because they owned the courts.

And in those ancient days, in the times of Amos the prophet, pity the poor man who was arrested, pity the poor man who was drug before the courts because there was no justice for the poor, no justice at all. If he had no money, if he was poor, he had no money to pay a lawyer, no money to pay a judge, no money to pay someone to represent him. He had no money to defend himself.

He had no money to pay off a jailer to let him go. He had no money to bribe a judge. God helped him because God's own indictment against his people was you sell the poor for silver.

They were sold into slavery because they had no money. They were paid off by the rich. I don't think it's a whole lot different today in America.

I really don't. I believe our court system has become so corrupted. Our officials have become so corrupted.

You can't hardly go a week without reading something in the newspaper about some judge indicted, some other political figure indicted. Our own governor has been indicted so many times, our former governor anyway, that I don't think we've got enough fingers to count how many times he was indicted. But just yesterday, a local judge was indicted, or the day before.

You may have read about that in the newspaper. The mayor of the capital of the United States was indicted some months ago. You also find that we live in a society where laws favor the criminal.

The courts today protect the criminal. The criminals have all the rights. They walk the streets while the poor live behind bars.

Now that's literally true. You drive down any poor community, any poverty type area community, and you know what you'll find? The criminals own the city at night.

They literally own the city at night. And the poor are the ones who live behind bars, because they have to literally bar their homes up, doors, windows, and they live in terror behind those doors. They're afraid to walk out of their houses at night.

In fact, almost everyone in America has become afraid to walk out of their house at night. That's the way it is, because the criminals own the streets by night. The laws, unfortunately, protect the criminal.

The poor gets sold out. The laws do everything, it seems like, to protect the rights of the wicked, just like in Israel's day. Law protects the rights of the wicked, while the poor, who protects the poor?

Who helps the poor? I tell you, things, sometimes you just hear and read about what's going on in society, and it makes you wonder about what's happened in America. We know of a case where an 80-year-old lady, an 80-year-old widow right here, locally, had vandals damaging the front of her home, ripping the screens off of her house, throwing eggs on her house.

They throw several dozen eggs. She stood in front of her house throwing eggs on the house, tearing her screen porch apart. She called the police, and they said, We can't come.

They're just Mardi Gras revelers. There's nothing we can do. This was in a subdivision, in a neighborhood.

Nothing we can do. They didn't even come. An 80-year-old widow.

Who protects the poor in our society? Who helps the widow? Even the police don't respond.

Anybody read today's paper? Or maybe it was yesterday's paper. I forget.

I lose track of time. About the shootout they had over on North Carrollton Avenue. Tony, just a couple blocks away from the shop.

A shootout on North Carrollton Avenue. People in the restaurant sitting there eating at the Italian restaurant there had to hit the floor because gunfire breaking out everywhere. They called the police.

The police wouldn't come. They called them again. The police still didn't come.

Three times they called them. The police never did show up.

You know, you just wonder, what's going on? The criminals, I'm going to tell you, the criminals own the cities at night. They literally run the city.

He says also, notice here in Amos chapter 2, the latter part of verse 6, he says, not only do they sell the righteous for silver, they sell the poor for a pair of shoes. That's just an ancient expression, a figure of speech. It's kind of like we say, you know, well, he bought it for a song, or he sold it for a song, you know, for a trifling sum.

That's what we mean. Well, that's what they're talking about here. Here a poor man who may have some trifling debt, just a trifle he owes.

If he can't pay, the wicked, the rich, will just sell him off into slavery for that little trifling sum. In other words, it reveals a state of hard heartedness, of callousness, of wickedness towards people, where they didn't care what happened to people. The rich had become so hardened that even if this poor man owed him a trifling sum, he didn't care.

If he couldn't pay, he went off into slavery. They didn't take into account the fact that he might be a father, that he might be leaving behind a wife or children, or that he might be somebody's son. They didn't care about people.

People did not matter. Money mattered. You see what we were saying?

Money mattered. They had no concern, no care. They were so cold, so heartless, so callous that they could sell a person off into slavery for a trifling sum.

Now, that reflects the state of heart that had captured Israel. One thing mattered in their lives that was themselves and their money, their profit. They didn't care at all about anybody.

They didn't care about people. Here's another indictment, a second one. They oppressed the poor.

That's not only the latter part of verse six, where they sold the poor for a pair of shoes, but also verse seven, the first part of verse seven, that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turned aside the way of the meek. In other words, they actually were deriving some sort of a perverted pleasure by oppressing the poor. The wicked in Israel, the wealthy wicked, actually received some kind of perverted pleasure in oppressing the poor, some kind of sadistic pleasure.

This is an interesting phrase right here in verse 7. That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor. Now listen to this.

This whole phrase here, this word pant in the Hebrew, actually means to sniff out a prey, the way a dog, a hunting dog, sniffs out a rabbit or sniffs out whatever it's chasing. You know, it's prey. That's what the rich would do to the poor.

You know how you get these hunting dogs, they put them on the trail of a victim, and I'm going to tell you, that dog will sniff that thing out, it will sniff the ground, and man, it's off on the chase. A person can, or the rabbit can jump high, jump a creek, whatever, but that dog is going to sniff that thing out. It won't give up.

It's dogged in its search. It just doesn't give up. This is the phrase, this is the vernacular, the terminology that Amos uses to describe the way the rich pursue the poor.

They are determined to destroy the poor. They are determined to bring them to nothing. They are determined to wipe them out, to take everything they own.

They are determined to cause them to throw dust on their heads in misery and ashes. You know, that's the whole picture that you have right here. They throw the earth on their heads.

You know who did that in Israel? People who were in great grief, who experienced great tragedy, people who were in mourning, they would take the dust of the earth and throw it on their heads as an expression of their great grief. The picture is that the wicked rich were not contented until they totally consumed the poor.

That's the heart, that's the spirit that had entered into them. And this theme, this oppression of the poor is another of the themes that is repeated over and over in the Book of Amos. They were not satisfied until they destroyed the poor.

They derived a perverted sense of pleasure in seeing the misfortune of the poor. They enjoyed tormenting them. They enjoyed hounding them.

They enjoyed exercising a perverse sense of power over the poor. They actually wanted to see them come to grief. That's the way it's pointed out here.

They were so heartless, they actually enjoyed seeing the poor come to grief. Notice also verse 7. Right in the middle of the verse, it says, And they turn aside the way of the meek.

Now, you know who the meek are. The meek are the people of God, the children of God, the ones who want to do right, the ones who want to serve God. The meek are God's servants.

Well, these wicked rich in Israel did everything they could to hinder the walk, the way of the righteous people. Any obstacle they could throw in their path, they would do it. They did everything they could to make life difficult for God's people.

They would hound them, harass them, oppress them, slander them, persecute them. They would do anything to hinder the way of the righteous. The flock there.

Their purpose, demons were driving these people. And you know, this too, God, this was part of the judgment. God said, this is going to bring judgment upon your head.

Your oppression of the poor, the way you seek to turn the righteous from their paths, trying to get them to stumble, to get them to sin, to tempt them, lure them, destroy them, hinder them, oppress them. These are the things that will bring judgment upon a nation, a nation upon a people. And I'll tell you, I just see America all over in these things.

Notice this also. Here's the third indictment against ancient Israel. Gross immorality.

God was going to judge them because of their gross immorality. Notice the latter part of verse 7. He says, And a man and his father will go in unto the same maid to profane my holy name.

A man and his father. And you know, the reference here is clearly that father and son would have immoral sexual relations with some woman. Now, the Hebrew here says a young girl or a young maiden.

I believe it's a reference to temple prostitution that was so common among the Canaanite nations that surrounded Israel. But God is condemning Israel because they had become so corrupted in their faith and in their morals that they routinely participated in the sinful, immoral practices of Canaanite festivities, Canaanite worship, and they just got involved in all of the things that that included. Now keep in mind that Israel, these were supposed to be the people of God.

They were supposed to be different from the world. They were supposed to be different from the wicked inhabitants of Canaan. But they had become just like the world.

Do you see that? They had become just like the world surrounding them. Not only in their ethics, but even in their morals.

They adopted the morals of the surrounding nations. And listen, brothers and sisters, this is a danger that we all face. In fact, we face it every day of our lives.

The same danger Israel faced. We face it each and every day. Whenever you live in a society that is as polluted as ours, that is as morally bankrupt as ours, just like Israel did.

The society they lived in was morally bankrupt. The society we live in is morally bankrupt. Whenever you live in such a society, the danger is that the evil of that society, all the gross immorality, the deceit, the materialism, the greed, all of those things, you know, they bombard us every day.

Every day we're bombarded with those things. We're exposed to it every day. Just in the community we live in, we're bombarded with these things.

The danger is that all of that sin would begin to lose its sense of horror to us, that we no longer consider it a really horrible, evil thing, and that slowly, slowly, it breaks down our resistance to it. So that eventually we come to look at things that we once considered horrible and abhorrent, we would never yield to such things that gradually over a period of time, since we're so constantly bombarded with these sins, these evils, this immorality, this greed, this materialism, gradually it makes inroads into our lives. Gradually, we begin to feel like maybe those things aren't so bad after all.

I mean, after all, everybody else does those things. What's so wrong with it? And, you know, we've just got to keep up with the 90s.

And you follow what I'm saying? Until gradually, insidiously, it makes such inroads into our lives that we're no different than the world, that we're just like them. And we find ourselves religious.

We believe in God. We go to church. We put our money in the bucket.

But ethically, we live the same way the world does. We've begun to lie. We've begun to cheat.

We've begun to stretch the truth. We've begun to deceive. Morally, the horror of immorality doesn't seem as horrible anymore.

You follow what I'm saying? Profanity isn't as bad as we once thought it was. It increasingly finds its way into our vocabulary.

Hello? Until little bit at a time, we become less like Christ, more like the surrounding nations. That's what happened to Israel.

That's exactly what happened to Israel. You know, if we're not vigilant, if we're not ever vigilant, the world will rub off on us.

The world's always trying to impose its morals, its standards, its values on us. And if we're not vigilant, and constantly vigilant, we'll wind up like Israel did. The world just worms its way into our lives, our thoughts, our homes, our marriages, our practices, our beliefs, our values, until we're no different than the rest of the world.

Let me tell you, this is a constant struggle. We're all in it every day. Every day we're in a battle.

Every day. Every day we've got to keep our minds, our hearts, our thoughts under the blood of Jesus. Every day.

It's a war. We're at war here. It's a war we can't afford to lose.

We have to win this struggle with society that's trying to absorb us. It's trying to pull us out of Christ's church and into the world's ways, the world's system. You know, with Israel, they had become so corrupt.

Look at this, verse 7, that entire families were corrupted, so that even father and son would go into the same woman. Now, the picture it paints is that immorality, the grossest forms of immorality had become so commonplace in Israel that even family members no longer hid their sins from one another. Now, you know, normally, if a child is, if they're sinning, they're going to try and hide that sin from their father.

Or if a father is sinning, he tries to hide that sin from his parents, from his children, you know, to at least maintain some semblance of propriety. But here, immorality had so devastated their morals that there were no morals. They didn't hide their sins from one another.

They didn't care. They just had abandoned morals altogether. Well, no one would deny, for a moment, that immorality is a plague to our own nation, just as it was in Israel's day.

There is no shame in America. There is no sense of propriety. There is no sense of decency.

There is no more morality, not hardly, not much anyway. It's unfortunate, but even in the church, morals have been thrown to the wind. That's why I say, when you read this indictment against Israel, you see America here.

You see God's indictment of America today. Now, here's another indictment he makes, the fourth one, verse 8. Self-indulgence.

And they lay themselves down upon clothes, laid to pledge by every altar, and they drank the wine of the condemned in the house of their God. Now, what he's saying here is, you know, the garments that people wore in those days were valuable. The garment was worth something.

People didn't have forty changes of clothes, you know, like a lot of people have today. Their garments were worth something. That garment protected them from the cold.

It protected them from the heat. They often slept in it. And many times, garments were used as pledges for the repayment of a debt.

What these corrupt officials were doing was taking those garments and taking the fines that were paid by the poor and buying wine with the fines that the poor paid. They would sit at the religious altars, which, you know, the religious altars were supposed to be holy places. Of course, Israel had long ago corrupted true worship and they worshiped calves.

They had calves set up in Dan and Bethel, and they had set up groves and idols and so forth all over the country. But still in all, they were supposed to be places of righteousness, but now there were places where the wicked congregated, lying down in beds of ease upon the confiscated garments of the poor, drinking wine and drunken and reveling by buying wine through the fines paid by the poor. And it just paints a picture of utter profanity, utter unholiness, that there was no such thing as a sacred place, that these wicked rich had brought their filth, their greed, their immorality, their feasting, all of that into the temples, that the people were irreverent, they were proud, they were haughty, they were flaunting their sins and their oppression of the poor.

There were public displays of greed and wantonness and revelry. The rich didn't really care. They didn't care one whit about the poor, about others, about their neighbors, about their fellow Jews.

All they cared about was themselves, their own ease, their own self-indulgence. In fact, they even deprived the poor of their very garments, their cloaks, their coats and so forth, so that the rich could recline upon them. They would take what they didn't even need, in other words.

They would take what little the poor had to add it to their own accumulation, which they didn't even need. It just reveals utter greed. They were totally consumed with greed.

They didn't care about the poor. They didn't care about God's law. God's law forbid you keep from keeping someone's cloak or garment as a pledge, but they did it anyway.

So they were totally consumed with self-indulgence, luxury. They were the only thing that mattered, themselves. They didn't think about others.

They didn't think about anything but themselves. And then here's the last indictment he makes against him. Ingratitude.

The sin of ingratitude, verses 9 through 12. This is what God tells him. He rehearses what he had done for Israel, and yet they continued to sin against him.

He says in verse 9, I delivered you from the Amorites. I delivered you from all those strong armies that had formerly inhabited Canaan. Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks.

Yet I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from beneath. I wiped out the Amorites. I did that for you, and yet the people were not grateful.

He says also he delivered them from 400 years of slavery and bondage in Egypt. Verse 10, also I brought you up from the land of Egypt and led you 40 years through the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite. I brought you out of that bondage, that slavery, that oppression, and yet the people were not grateful.

He says he gave them men of God, divinely anointed leaders to guard them, to spiritually feed them. He sent them prophets. He gave them Nazarites to set up a holy standard, to give them God's word.

Verse 11, I raised up of your sons for prophets and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? Sayeth the Lord, I gave you a holy standard.

I sent you messengers to keep you right, to keep you spiritually on the straight and narrow. But the people were not grateful. You see, ingratitude was one of the sins of Israel.

And it's interesting as God rehearses all the things that He had done for Israel, it makes us understand that God knows all of the blessings He's given to all of us. He knows what He's done for us. He doesn't forget either.

All the things He's provided for us, the gifts, the grace, the blessings, the mercies, not only as individuals, but as a nation, He knows what He's done for us. What we do with what God's done reveals our gratitude or our lack of gratitude. But Israel was not grateful.

Instead of hearkening to the voice of their spiritual leaders, instead of listening to the prophets or following the holy standards set by the Nazarites, they did everything in their power to corrupt their spiritual leaders and to turn them aside from their own divine mission. They tried to silence the voices of the prophets. Look, verse 12, But you gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and you commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.

So God sends the messengers, and they try to corrupt the messengers. God raises up a holy standard, and you know what they try to do? They try to corrupt the holy men.

Don't be like that. Look, everybody else does it this way. Just be like everybody else.

And to the prophets, with their stern message, they said, Don't prophesy. We don't want to hear that. We don't hear that kind of message.

Prophesy smooth things to us. Prophesy deceit. I'll tell you what, that's a picture of where the religious world is right now in America.

Yes, it is. Offer entertainment, offer smooth things, and you won't have any trouble attracting a crowd. But the Word of God just doesn't have much appeal for people today, not in America, not much.

Verse 13, God says, Behold, I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. He paints a picture here, just as a wagon is loaded down with grain, a corn, and it's straining under the load, and it's about to collapse. Its wheels are sinking, and it's breaking apart because of the load.

That's what God says. Your sins have brought me to the breaking point. Your sins have brought me to the breaking point.

So you have, then, God's pronouncement of judgment upon Israel. And in verse 14, 15, and 16, He says, I'm not putting up with your sins anymore.

Once again, He uses the picture of a war, a battle scene, to depict the judgment that's going to fall upon Israel as a nation. And here we see God turning against them, so that defeat will replace victory. God will withdraw His hand of blessing from them, His hand of protection.

He's not going to protect them anymore. He's going to give them over to their enemies. And He says on that day of judgment, there will be no escape.

Verse 14, Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift. Interesting picture. The fastest runners you have are not going to be able to outrun the judgment that I'm going to send at their heels.

They'll not be able to run fast enough. He says also, The strong shall not strengthen his force. All of the bloody horrors of the battlefield will be so horrible that they will overpower even the strongest of men, so that they will have no strength left in them.

I know just a little bit that we hear about the war that's going on in the Middle East right now makes me to realize that war is a horrible business. And things, atrocities, bloodshed, things happen so terrible in war that even the strongest, most valiant, most bravest of men can see a scene so bloody, so violent, so grotesque, so gruesome that all of his strength, all of his courage would flee from him. You know, like water running out of a broken wine skin.

That's what happens. That's what God said would happen to the valiant men, the strong men, the valiant soldiers, their courage would run away. There would be no courage left because of the horrors of the battlefield.

He says also, verse 14, neither shall the mighty man deliver himself. The most skilled warrior, the most proficient soldier will fall in that day. There will be none, no matter what his skill, no matter what his might, no matter what his armor, no matter what his experience, none will stand in this day of judgment because now God is against them.

You see, when God's against you, who's going to stand? When God's for you, who can be against you? But friend, when God's against you, who's going to stand?

No one will stand. No matter how skilled, no matter how powerful a warrior they are, God says they will fall. Verse 15, neither shall he stand that handleth the bow.

The man with, you know, we could put this into our modern vernacular and say that the man even with the most up-to-date weapons, the greatest technology, the most skilled and equipped and so forth, they're not going to stand in that day because God's against them. God's going to judge them. So when you see a picture like this, when he says, neither shall he stand that handles the bow, and he that is swift afoot shall not deliver himself.

Neither he that hath, he that ride at the horse, he won't deliver himself either. There will be no escape in this day of judgment as God brings wrath upon his people. No armament, no equipment, no weaponry, nothing is going to deliver you in that day.

Now let me tell you, if God is against America, it doesn't matter how sophisticated our technology is. It doesn't matter how many A10s or F16s or whatever it is that we've got. It doesn't matter how much we surpass our enemies with our weaponry.

If God is against us, we won't stand. Just like if God was against Israel, they wouldn't stand, no matter how well trained their forces were, no matter if they had better weapons, superior weapons, no matter if they outnumbered their enemies. If God's against them, they're not going to stand.

In a day of judgment, when God brings judgment upon a people, upon a nation, no one stands. And here's the picture that we, you know, if the mighty men are falling, then where does that leave the average man? Where does that leave the average person?

If the valiant, if the soldiers, if the best equipped and the best trained are falling like flies in the day of judgment, where does that leave the rest of them? In other words, they don't have a chance. They all flee in terror.

That's what verse 16 says. Notice this, And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the Lord. They'll throw down their weapons.

They'll throw down their armor. I mean, they can't wait to get away, to run, to flee from the terror that's pursuing them in the day of God's judgment. Within 40 years of Amos' prophecy, all of this was fulfilled.

When the Assyrians conquered Israel, probably the Assyrians were the most bloodthirsty, cruel, merciless people to walk the earth. Probably they were. But we see here that God utterly, totally, completely gave His people over to destruction.

Never before in the history of the world had a nation been so privileged as Israel had been. They had received tremendous light by the hands of God. They were the sole custodians, the only nation in the world that had the Word of God.

They alone were sent prophets. They alone had the holy standard of the Nazarites. They alone had the very ark of the covenant, the presence of God in their midst, the holy temple.

No nation on the earth had been so privileged, so blessed as Israel had been. And perhaps, now think about this, perhaps no nation had ever been so grievously judged as they had been either, because to whom much is given, much is required. Perhaps their judgment was greater than any nation's judgment ever.

You know, later, after the time of Christ in 70 AD., they were even dispersed as a nation, so that for some 1900 years, they were a people with no country, no home, no land.

So, their sins, ingratitude, self-indulgence, immorality, the oppression of the poor, the perversion of justice. And for those sins, God brought upon them divine wrath, divine judgment. Considering those things, those sins that brought about Israel's destruction, I think the only thing that we can say is God help us, God help America.

Because certainly our judgment must be at the door. Because those very same sins, probably multiplied times worse, characterized our nation today. Well, Father, we pray tonight for ourselves, for our country.

Father, we pray for your mercy, for your grace in our own individual lives. Help us, Father, not to be captivated by the world, not to be seduced by it. We pray for ourselves.

We pray for every parent here tonight. Help us, Father, to set a godly standard, an example in our homes. I pray for every young person, for every teenager, for every child.

“Father, we pray that you would protect and preserve them and set a hedge about them. Father, our prayer is that the allurements and enticements of this world not draw our children into its grip, into its tentacles and consume them. But Father, keep them safe, we pray, as part of your flock, your sheep, your people, your children.

Preserve our young people, Father, we ask in these wicked times. Help us to maintain biblical standards, biblical morals, scriptural ethical behavior. Help us, Father.

Help us to be a godly people, a godly church. Help us to have the influence of salt and light in our community. And Father, we pray for America, we pray for our nation, for our leaders, for those who are in authority.

Father, we ask that you would give us grace, give us repentance. Deliver us, we pray, Father, from the sins that will most certainly destroy us if we do not turn. Help us, Father, we ask.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Let's stand together.”