Transcript

Take your Bibles and let’s go back to the old part of the book, the Old Testament book of Amos as we continue going through the book of Amos. If you’re just visiting today, we are going verse by verse, chapter by chapter through this Old Testament book of prophecy. You know, as you think about Amos, you know, I think it parallels so closely with our day and that is that the godly remnant of Israel of which Amos was a part, they must have been encouraged when Amos hit the scene and began thundering the truth of God because the godly remnant had to have been deeply grieved and troubled over the ungodliness, the apostasy, the worldliness, the false religion that they were calling true religion but really false in the land and I thought how a true committed Christian who loves Christ and loves the truth in today’s world would feel the same way. Lord, just everywhere I look, I see stuff that doesn’t seem to fit you and clear and open unashamed, just gross rebellion and vileness against what your word teaches and so it brings me to this point before I begin: it’s not over yet. It’s not over yet. They didn’t win. God wins. You don’t win, God wins.

Someone asked about, “Do you think God is on our side?” That’s not the right question: are we on his side? God wins. All of this stuff that looks like it’s going to keep going on and even if the country…by the way, Israel was very prosperous and they viewed that as, “God must be blessing us. We must be on track.” Prosperity in the nation and a household and a church doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right with God and some things may work for a while but not all things are righteous and not all things are holy. It’s a sobering book. I told you before it’s wearing me out. It’s weighty and I’m fighting my natural gifts, I guess in some ways, to try to stay away from humor and try to stay away from clever stuff because this needs to speak to us. You don’t need to leave thinking I’m cute, you need to leave thinking God’s awesome and he is.

Amos 3:9 going through chapter 4, verse 3. The prophet says,

9 Proclaim on the citadels in Ashdod and on the citadels in the land of Egypt and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria and see the great tumults within her and the oppressions in her midst.

Now look at this line in verse 10, 10 “But they do not know how to do what is right,” declares the LORD, “these who hoard up violence and devastation in their citadels.” 11 Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, “An enemy, even one surrounding the land, Will pull down your strength from you And your citadels will be looted.” 12 Thus says the LORD, “Just as the shepherd snatches from the lion’s mouth a couple of legs or a piece of an ear, So will the sons of Israel dwelling in Samaria be snatched away– With the corner of a bed and the cover of a couch! 13 Hear and testify against the house of Jacob,” Declares the Lord GOD, the God of hosts. 14 “For on the day that I punish Israel’s transgressions, I will also punish the altars of Bethel; The horns of the altar will be cut off And they will fall to the ground. 15 I will also smite the winter house together with the summer house; The houses of ivory will also perish And the great houses will come to an end,” Declares the LORD.

Ladies, this is for you,

1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria, Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, Who say to your husbands [or your lords], “Bring now, that we may drink!” 2 The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness, “Behold, the days are coming upon you When they will take you away with meat hooks, And the last of you with fish hooks. 3 You will go out through breaches in the walls, Each one straight before her, And you will be cast to Harmon,” declares the LORD.

I’ve entitled this section the line out of the earlier verse here, “A People Who Do Not Know How to Do What is Right.” There is a place you come to in sin if you are not repentant, there is a place you come to where you’re no longer able to discern right nor to do what’s right. The United States of America is there in many ways. You can’t watch television very long, especially the news, without saying, “Do these people not even know what’s right?” No, they don’t know, neither are they capable. That’s where Israel had gotten to.

Now, I’d like to say as an introduction that when you’re studying through the Old Testament, that the parallel is that Israel of old is the church of old. In other words, as God deals with Israel as a nation, that parallels to his church of the New Testament. We can draw many conclusions for ourselves. Now I’m not saying there is no application to our nation today but that’s not the primary application. The primary application is Israel represents the church.

Now when we start in chapter 3, verse 9, the prophet not only gives the prediction of imminent and inescapable doom, but he gives the reason this – listen – must happen. He tells them, “The doom is coming, it’s on you, but there are reasons why it must come upon you.” This next section is roughly chapter 3, verse 9 through chapter 6, verse 14, and it will require several messages to cover all of it, but I guess you could sum up all of it in this statement: Israel forgot God. She didn’t just casually forget God, no, she intended to forget God. She worked toward putting God behind her. Israel expresses and exposes her proud self-sufficiency as we’ll see over and over again. Even in worship and service of God, they created out of their own hearts and minds worship that pleased them. Some scholars call it self-pleasing worship. Boy, is that not popular in the professing church today. So we see Israel in her proud self-sufficiency and we see God’s deep hatred of this leading to the imminent overthrow of his people.

Now, I see several things that come out. It’s a difficult section to analyze and organize but I see these sections coming out. Here’s what this people looked at as they had forgotten God, pushed God aside. 1. They became hedonistic. They became hedonistic. What it means here is you make an idol out of pleasure. Gaining pleasure becomes the purpose and the goal of life. Now, be balanced here. There is a Christian hedonism, as such. I didn’t coin the term but I agree with it generally, that is, that God made us to want pleasure but so that we could be transformed by the Gospel and the work of the Spirit so that in our hearts we’d begin to find treasure in God and pleasure in God, not in temporal worldly sin. Now that’s a journey all of us are on so there is a righteous pursuit of pleasure but don’t rob yourself by only immersing yourself in the pleasures of this world that are temporal and are passing and lead to judgment. Learn. Fight. Discipline. Fight the good fight in your own hearts and lives to find the deeper pleasures of God. But that’s not where Israel was. They were not looking for the deep pleasures of God, they were looking for the deep pleasures of sinful lust and indulgence.

Notice it there, if you will, in verse 9. The prophet is giving us a figurehead image to think about. “Proclaim on the citadels in Ashdod and on the citadels in the land of Egypt and say, ‘Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria and see the great tumults within her and the oppressions in her midst.'” Here we see all kinds of sins in the fabric of the people. He uses the word “tumults, oppressions, violence and robbery” here.

Now, when he says, “Proclaim on the citadels of Ashdod,” Ashdod is the chief city of Israel’s enemy, the Philistines, and a citadel is like a palace; it’s like a high level place in a palace where you could get a good view. So he says, “Go to these high flat roofs so you can look at what’s going on in Israel.” So the prophet is saying to God’s enemies, “Go and get on a high place and look at the chief cities of Israel and just look at what they’re doing.” In effect God says, “I’m going to proclaim to and through your enemies how deep your transgressions and your guilt is.”

Now Samaria mentioned here in verse 9 is the capital of the northern kingdom. It’s rimmed by high mountains making it a very safe city to defend. But here again, God invites Israel’s enemies to take a seat on the mountains and see what’s going on.

One of the things he says I want you to notice is, as Israel’s enemies look on her, notice the “tumults within her.” The word “tumult” here means “confusion; disturbance; panic; chaos; even anarchy.” It’s a loss of decency. It’s a loss of law and order. It’s every man does what is right in his own eyes. There is no community consensus of what is moral or what is true or what is right or what is wrong. All people are just giving in to their own base lust and cravings and all law is turned upside down because, by the way, if there is no absolute outside of us, if we’ve rejected God, then we are all our own little gods and my lusts and desires are as valuable as your lusts and desire; my view of morality is just as valid as your view of morality. So everybody gets to be their own god and make up their own rules. There’s a problem with that though, you can’t live in a society like that. There has got to be some objective standard we all agree upon. So I guess we let two or three professors in some Ivy League school in classroom help all of us understand what the new progressive elitists have decided are the new standards for all of us, until those change of course. Then they’ll create new ones and hold by their own definition, we’re always evolving to something better. But we’re not really, we’re devolving to something worse. Proverbs 15:16 reminds us, “Better is a little with the fear of the LORD Than great treasure and turmoil with it.” They would have been better off not to have had these days of prosperity and advancement and increase in wealth than to have increased in wickedness and godlessness the way they have.

He uses the word “oppression” here. He says to these enemies of Israel, “Go look on these high places at my people and notice they’re oppressive.” It means they are manifold in ever repeated acts, men crushing other men, men trampling upon other men, and primarily as we see from the balance of Amos’s prophecy, it’s the wealthy and the powerful trampling on the weak and the vulnerable.

Now here we have Israel that’s experienced redemption, a miraculous redemption when they were in Egypt and brought out, redeemed out from that slavery. Here we have Israel that has received the light of revelation through the prophets and the fathers. She’s seen redemption and she’s seen revelation but Israel has now fallen so low what the prophet is pointing out here, those with no redemption, the Philistines and the Egyptians, those with no revelation, the Philistines and the Egyptians, are able to come and look at you and declare you as guilty. You’ve gone so far down even the heathen with no light can righteously condemn you for your conduct.

We see a picture of this very principle in 1 Corinthians 5:1 in the New Testament. It’s actually reported that there is immorality among you, an “immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife.” Paul writes to the church, God’s church at Corinth, and says, “You have such a sexual immorality in your midst that even the Gentiles would call this wicked.” Well, that’s what’s happening in Israel.

Verse 10, he has the phrase beginning “they just do not know how to do what is right.” This is a terrible indictment that people can get to, a church can get to, a nation can get to, an individual can get to if they keep walking in sin without humble repentance. That’s why true, strong, Bible preaching and teaching is important because it shocks you back to repentance. You need shocked back. You don’t need to leave church just feeling blessed and happy. That’s okay if that happens. You need to come to church to be shocked back to repentance because here’s why: because if you go on flirting with sin, you’ll continue on excusing sin, you’ll continue on and start to embrace your sin, you’ll continue on to begin to celebrate openly your sin, and as one goes down this funnel of degradation, a blindness and a mental warpedness follows. Did you hear that? A blindness and a mental warpedness follows. One scholar called it the miserable blindness of sin. One who embraces sin without repentance will soon enough find himself completely unable to even see that it is a sin and he finds himself completely unable to do good and unable to discern good from evil. That’s where Israel was getting.

Amos could walk right in there, proclaim the law of God and they just didn’t get it. They just couldn’t see it. They honestly from their hearts couldn’t get it. They were not lying and rebelling when they said, “We don’t agree with you, Amos. We can’t follow that.” They really couldn’t follow it. They really thought what was wicked was good and they really thought what was good was wicked. Does that remind you of anything you’ve seen or heard lately? 2,800 years ago and this is just like today’s headlines. These people do not know how to do what’s right.

Now, here’s the scary thing: all of you regenerated of God who love God, you have proneness here, it’s just that you have God the Holy Spirit to grab you and help you before you get too far down the funnel. Isn’t that good? “God, help me!” Well, utilize God’s means: have your prayer times, have your Bible study time, have your quiet time, sit under sound preaching, fellowship in a true church. Those are all God’s means to keep us from getting there. God help us, we have professing Christian congregations today that are actually helping people get to sinful blindness and warpedness, condoning these things because they don’t want to contradict the world. I’m not out to confront the world or contradict the world, I’m out to stand on the truth, it just so happens that very often that does confront and contradict the world. We’re not about confrontation, we’re about truth, amen? Trust me, I’ve proven I can face conflict. Got the record to show it. I don’t want any more unless I have to, unless standing on the truth requires it, then it will be what it is.

So in this multiplication of sin and blindness, this heathenistic spirit, they’re beginning to store up something against them. Notice what he says here in the last part of verse 10, “these who hoard up violence and devastation in their citadels.” Now, I can imagine when Amos preached that, “you’re hoarding up violence and devastation in your citadels,” they thought, “What is he talking about? He actually means treasuring up, we’re storing up, we’re hoarding up. He’s acting like we’re working toward destroying ourselves.” That’s exactly what Amos is saying. The more you sin, the more you rebel, the more you pervert God’s true worship in your mixture Jehovah-Baal false worship you’re all about in your temple at Bethel, the more you do all these things, the more you’re just storing up wrath against yourselves. They had lost the capacity to see how by their wicked oppression, crushing the poor, living for wealth and affluence and pleasures, they were amassing not the treasure they thought they were amassing. They were actually amassing the treasure of God’s wrath against them; in God’s providence, they were storing it up.

Amos is right here. The New American Standard translates it well, they are hoarding up destruction and wrath against themselves. They congratulated themselves on how wise and how clever and how advance and how progressive they were because, “Look, it’s working. The people love religion, they love to come to worship, we’ve got lots of money, our prosperity is great, our borders have advanced, we’ve got new trade routes, it’s all great and the economy is up, we’ve got better homes than our children had. It’s all good.” And Amos says, “Yeah, you’re hoarding up wrath to come against you, is what you’re doing.” Now, wealth is not evil. A good economy is not evil. But, sir, make sure your wealth is righteous wealth. Make sure you see it and say, “O God, this isn’t mine, this is yours. Thank you that I can enjoy it but I yield to you. You are my treasure, not this stuff.” Businessman, stay there. Stay there. Don’t drift into a hedonistic view of life. Stay Christian in your view of wealth. Wealth is not evil but it’s the way you view it and the way you handle it. Well, these guys had turned over to a purely hedonistic view. Pleasure, pleasure. More, more. And they did so much of this on the backs of the poor.

So the prophet’s wording here is quite ironic. He states the case that while they are joyously working to build their empire, they’re actually joyously working to destroy themselves. They are so blind and so warped in their thinking as to embrace and treasure the wrath and destruction that their actions are accumulating. That’s what he’s saying.

Verse 11, he says here’s what’s coming to all of it. “Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, ‘An enemy, even one surrounding the land, Will pull down your strength from you And your citadels will be looted.'” An enemy surrounding them, it’s as if Amos can see this happening in his prophetic thinking. They’re going to be just all wrapped all around with this impenetrable net. He said, “I’ll pull down your strength,” and all the loftiness and the pride that they have been standing in. Notice this has been going on for at least 150 years. Get that: 150 years. You see, their fathers and their grandfathers and their great grandfathers and their great great grandfathers and their great great great grandfathers thought, “We’re doing a good thing handing this down to our kids. Man, the country is doing great.” And they’re actually handing down the coming wrath of God. Sir, you listen to me: if you are living in willful sin, now we all struggle and we all sin but you can be a repenter about it and humble about it, but if you’re living in willful sin, “Well, my kids are doing good. My grandkids are doing good.” Where’s the payment? It may not be the next generation or the next but it may be the next one where the payday comes due. 150 years later, the prophet says, “I’m going to bring it all down. I’ll pull down your strength. The loftiness of all your pride is going to be brought down.”

He says, “Your citadels will be looted.” The key truth here is that they had sinfully acquired wealth and treasure and that is bringing upon them the treasure, again, of holy wrath against them. They sinfully oppressed the weak. Now they had the truly weak and the truly vulnerable in their day and they just trampled upon them for more wealth and expansion. You see, man’s sins in God’s providence are the means of his own punishment. They became experts in sin. They learned precision in wickedness so the prophet in effect says, “God’s going to bring precision wrath against you. I’m going to take what you built and I’m going to bring that specific thing down.” Their hedonistic idolatry. Pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure. God said, “I’m going to judge it.”

Secondly, they became materialistic. Closely akin to their hedonistic tendencies, of course, but a little different. Materialistic. Now again, material things are not evil. Having material things and having more material things than somebody else is not evil unless it becomes your god, unless it becomes something you live for and begin to forsake the truths of your God to gain it.

Notice what he says here in verse 12, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Just as the shepherd snatches from the lion’s mouth a couple of legs or a piece of an ear, So will the sons of Israel dwelling in Samaria be snatched away,'” that means snatched away in judgment, notice, “With the corner of a bed and the cover of a couch!” Well, first of all, you had to be very wealthy in this day to even have a bed or a couch. They slept on floors on a little pallet, the average guy did. So the fact that they had beds like you and I know beds and couches and earlier we saw that they had ivory carved couches, that shows of their great exorbitant wealth.

Now, when he says a shepherd will keep a leg of a lamb that’s being attacked by beasts or an ear, it just means that they’re not going to have anything left. They’re going to be snatched away and all that will be left of the great luxuries and material things that they lived for and trusted in will be just the corner of a bed, a little piece of the fabric perhaps. We do know that the shepherd in this day was required to bring to the sheep’s owner at least a leg or ear or something if a wild beast took one of the sheep away, but the point is, when that shepherd brought it, he’s bringing a token of what used to be but is no more. That’s the point the prophet is making. “You’ve had all this great material wealth but you worshiped it and loved it and not God so now it was yours, but soon it’s not going to be yours anymore. I’m taking it all away in judgment.”

I do think there’s a word of hope here. In all of God’s dealing and in all the times that God brings judgment against his people, he always preserves a remnant. Now, they may be tiny in comparison but he always preserves a remnant and I think that’s a picture here. There is at least a piece left. There is at least the bottom leg of a lamb left. There will be a remnant left because they loved God and they were grieved by the evil and the wickedness they saw in the city. They were not, generally speaking, the wealthy of the day, they were not the prominent of the day, they certainly weren’t the priest or the civic or religions leaders of the day, they were all corrupt. They were, generally speaking, the poor of the day but 1 Corinthians 1:26 and 27 reminds us about whom God calls to be his own. “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” And I believe as God judges, he leaves some that they would have scoffed at and trampled upon. God has chosen the foolish to shame the wise, “and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.”

Now look at verse 15 as we continue to see something of their materialistic idolatries. God says in verse 15, “‘I will also smite the winter house together with the summer house; The houses of ivory will also perish And the great houses will come to an end,’ Declares the LORD.” The prophet talks about how the elite of the country had amassed great wealth and, again, by manipulation of the common man. They manipulated religion, they manipulated in business life, and they manipulated in the judicial system how to trample upon the poor to make themselves even more wealthy.

They were not blessed by God for their hard work and righteousness. Now, we’ve got families in our church that I’m convinced watching their lives, they’re certainly not perfect but they’ve been blessed by God for their hard work and general righteousness. They don’t work any harder than their brother next to them on the pew and they’re not any more righteous but God has just chosen to bless them. But that’s not where these folks were. They were not blessed by God for hard work and righteousness, no, this wealth became their idol and they had a practice of running over the vulnerable and the weak to gain all that they possibly could.

The prophet brings this out over and over. They had these luxurious homes. Of course, they didn’t have heating and air conditioning we have today so they’d build one home that would face to the south in the winter and one home that would face to the north in the summer so that they would be more comfortable. He’s just saying, “You’ve just got so much.”

Then he talks about their ivory houses and then their great houses. In other words, he says, “But I’m bringing it all down.” Sir, make sure your wealth is righteous wealth. Make sure from your heart it’s yielded to God. Make sure you have a regular prayer time to God and say, “O God, thank you for how you’ve blessed me but, God, keep teaching my heart that you are my treasure, not this stuff. I want this stuff to be used to bless my family and advance your kingdom for generations to come. I don’t want you to have to come destroy it because I made it my god.”

I think there’s an interesting note here that we see all these houses here: summer house, winter house, great house, house of ivory and then Jacob’s house is also mentioned a little earlier. Interesting. And then you see the altar of Bethel is going to be brought down, we’ll talk about that a little more in a moment, but the church house is going to be destroyed. But here’s I think what you need to understand: the altar of Bethel was the church house and it was wicked. He had brought in a golden calf and combined it with Jehovah worship to make it more fun for the people. Listen: when the church house goes bad, the great house goes bad. The great house likely represented the civic authority, the government house. When the church house goes bad, the great house, the government goes bad. When the church house falls, the government begins to fall and your summer homes and your winter homes, the regular households fall. When the church house falls – listen – everything eventually falls.

Do you know why? He calls them the house of Jacob. “Well, they don’t resemble the house of Jacob at all. They’re not like the spiritual descendants of Jacob and their godly forefathers at all.” That’s what he’s saying. Listen, are you listening, church? They forgot where they came from. They forgot where they came from. I could take you back through Baptist history when Baptist people were the off-scourings of the culture. They were the poorest of the poor. They were ridiculed, scorned, rejected, mocked at, laughed at by the state churches of Europe. They were nobodies. They just found Bibles and read them and believed them and they were persecuted for it. I think sometimes Baptists have forgotten where we came from. Nothing wrong with God blessing us with material wealth. That’s not the point, but if that becomes your goal, I’ll say it right here with all of my heart and all of my conviction: take this land, take this building, take these buildings, the new chapel, raze it to the ground but give me Christ and a congregation that loves him and his truth. You can have the rest. You can have the rest. Do I enjoy it? Sure I do but it is not my treasure. Not my treasure. But hopefully in grace we can have both, amen? And if we get too big for our britches, maybe he’ll have to tear something down but hopefully we’ll stay humble and in grace and be able to enjoy things.

Go ahead and do III on the screen, brother. They were polytheistic. They had lost God and in losing God they wanted to be open-minded. They wanted to be inclusive. They wanted to be liked by others so they knew they had to open their arms. In this case, particularly it was bringing Baal in and combining him with Jehovah.

Notice how he says it here, verse 14, “For on the day that I punish Israel’s transgressions, I will also punish the altars of Bethel.” That’s their worship center. “The horns of the altar,” which represents the strength, the help that your religion gives you, “The horns of the altar will be cut off And they will fall to the ground.” So Israel could see the impending destruction from the enemy that was coming and they would run as the enemy would come with their destruction, the Assyrians, and they would run to their church in Bethel and they would cling to the false altar there praying and crying out to God and there at that false altar where they profaned God’s name by blending carnal worldly amusements and pleasures of Baal worship with true Jehovah worship, and they would find that far from these clever contemporary worship centers being a source of help when the catastrophe is on, they become the centerpiece of God’s very wrath and displeasure. They run to the church at God says, “What are you going to church for? My judgment is starting there. Why are you going in there to pray? You’re going to meet me in there and I’m not happy.” That’s what he’s saying, we’ll tear down the altars of Bethel.

God for upwards to 150 years had in grace endured this vain alien worship. They thought this allowance that God had allowed them for so long combined with the growth and prosperity of the nation was evidence of God’s approval and God’s blessing. They were wrong. As a matter of fact, they were dead wrong. This 150 years was not an evidence of God’s approval, it was evidence of patient mercy but they didn’t repent. No, on top of all the other sins they’re going to be judged for, they will be judged for the gross profaning of God’s name through sensual superstitions in worship in combining Jehovah’s name to it.

He says, “The horns of the altar will fall to the ground,” verse 14. This was the altar designed by Jeroboam. Remember, he set all this up. Actually, it was Jeroboam I. Jeroboam II is king now. He did the same basic thing, though. This was the altar Jeroboam set up in Bethel to replace God’s true altar in Jerusalem. 150 years ago, Jeroboam I consecrated this false house of worship, this Baal corrupted so-called altar to Jehovah, and from the day he consecrated 150 years ago, he sealed its doom. I want to tell you something: you set something up in God’s house that clearly violates his truth and his word and even if the people love it so, the moment you set it up God sets his face to crush it and destroy it one day. He may be patient and give time for repentance but he’s going to clear his name because when you bring Baal into something that has his name on it, you profane his name. You pronounce to the community God’s not who he says he is. You pronounce he’s unholy because Baal worship is unholy and immoral. God is jealous for his reputation.

Jeroboam was careful to design this altar after the divine pattern in the word but this was only supposed to be built in Jerusalem, not in Bethel. That speaks of the fact that there’s one true God and he makes himself known in Jerusalem, not in Bethel or Gaza or anywhere else. So Jeroboam was careful to erect the form of orthodoxy but it had the heart of heresy. This perverse unbiblical worship established by Jeroboam to bless and strengthen the people was the very means of bringing a curse and devastating weakness upon them, and when they run to the church to pray for help, God says, “That’s the very place I’m judging first.”

Now, I think here’s an interesting insight. If they had their spiritual birth and their spiritual lineage from Jeroboam, then good. Go worship where Jeroboam ordains that you worship. Go worship the way Jeroboam ordained you to worship. Combine the golden calf with Jehovah if indeed you came from Jeroboam. But, however, if you are the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, then traditions have been handed down to you by divine revelation and thus you have inherited obligations that are entirely different from what Jeroboam is saying. Now listen: you have no liberty to invent or innovate in worship. If you do, you forfeit your privilege and you face consequences. So when Jeroboam said, “Let’s just do it this way. Everybody will really like it.” There should have been some stalwart men in the administration that said, “Sir, wait just a minute. We are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I think we should honor the God our fathers honored in the way God told our fathers their God wanted to be honored and that’s not in Bethel and it’s surely not with a dang golden calf brought in here and calling in Jehovah worship and jumping around in a bunch of orgy-like frenzies worshiping this god, letting our sensual lust just have their way.”

IV. They became feministic. They became feministic. Now, let me make a point here. There are points in this broad topic of feminism that every Christian should agree with. If one fifth grade teacher is a man and one fifth grade teacher is a woman, they should be paid exactly the same. Amen? Every Christian should stand for that. That’s not what I’m talking about. Here’s what I’m talking about: it is denying the God-ordained difference between men and women, it’s rejecting the Creator’s difference between men and women, God gave women certain strengths and weaknesses, he gave men certain strengths and weaknesses, he brings them together in marriage so they can complement one another and that’s the way the Creator made it and to rebel against that is a wicked form of feminism. That’s what we see here.

He particularly speaks to the ladies in Israel at this point as we go to chapter 4, verse 1. “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria,” and I don’t know how the ladies in Israel responded to Amos’s preaching but how would you respond to God calling you a bunch of heifers? There is a form of sarcasm. It’s cutting sarcasm is what it is but he means for it to be cutting. He means for it to get your attention. He means for you to just think about what you are.

“You cows of Bashan.” Now, the pastures of Bashan were the richest and most fertile pastures in the whole area. It was known for its beauty and animals that were fed on the pastures of Bashan were the strongest and the fattest. They were the healthiest. The Psalmist talks about the bulls of Bashan that will be gathered around the cross. It just means the worldly strength will come against Jesus on the cross. So here Amos uses not bull but the feminine word for cow. I think the main application here is that the women of Israel were like the cows of Bashan, they were rich, self-indulgent, self-pleasing and lazy. They were the opposite of the Creator’s design for true godly spiritual ladies. These lazy indulgent cows had grown to be self-consumed and carnal. One scholar points out that you know the one value a cow has? Its body and if the cow’s not healthy and fat, it can’t have offspring and nurse them. If a cow is not healthy and fat, it’s not good meat to eat. Its body and one scholar pointed out that these women became consumed with their beauty with little or no thought to their inner beauty.

Have you looked at our culture lately? Is there a consumption among women particularly with outer beauty? What does it mean when a culture celebrates outer beauty but the same women who celebrate outer beauty so greatly also want to kill their unborn babies? It means your heart is evil. You’ve got your emphasis on the wrong thing.

These ladies had grown spiritually dull if not dead. They did not love the Lord and they did not humbly view their wealth as a stewardship from God. No, they loved themselves and they loved their pleasure and they had calloused, cold hearts toward the poor and the needy.

Notice what he says in verse 1. Now, these are these women who are laying around, divas, my next want is all that matters. Last phrase of chapter 4, verse 1, “Who say to your husbands,” you could translate that “lords” and in the culture of that day they viewed their husbands as lords, “Bring now, that we may drink!” One scholar points out that Amos has to be tongue-in-cheek here. He’s your lord but you’re commanding him, “Bring us some more wine! Let’s party!” That’s not the way the ancient women talked to their husbands. It means they had grown to exalt themselves to headship. That’s what the prophet is saying.

So these domineering divas who disrespected God and their husbands sought one worldly pleasure after another just like a cow on a rich pasture gets that mouthful swallowed, where’s the next one? One worldly pleasure after another and they demanded more and more of their husbands and they did not care that their husbands had to bring in this wealth on the backs of the poor and the needy. Cold, calloused hearts.

Just a couple of quick cross references here, if I could run through this quickly. Compare this description to the woman described in Proverbs 31. “An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, And he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil All the days of her life. She looks for wool and flax,” she is diligent and disciplined. “And works with her hands in delight. She is like merchant ships; She brings her food from afar. She rises also while it is still night And gives food to her household And portions to her maidens.” By the way, this woman is wealthy. These women are wealthy. But this woman is godly, these woman are wicked. “She considers a field and buys it; From her earnings she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength And makes her arms strong. She senses that her gain is good; Her lamp does not go out at night.” Notice her kindness to others. “She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hands grasp the spindle. She extends her hand to the poor, And she stretches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, For all her household are clothed with scarlet,” she is diligent about her household. “She makes coverings for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land.” That means her husband’s leadership and advancement is greatly due to the strength she gives him. “She makes linen garments and sells them, And supplies belts to the tradesmen. Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her, saying: ‘Many daughters have done nobly, But you excel them all.’ Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” What a contrast. The Proverbs 31 woman or a cow of Bashan.

Look at verse 2 of this chapter. As a matter of fact, let me…go ahead and look at verse 2. “The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness, ‘Behold, the days are coming upon you When they will take you away with meat hooks, And the last of you with fish hooks.'” You could not think of a more bloody, brutal, violent scene than these pampered, spoiled ladies having the hooks of captivity run through their nose or their lips and carted away into slavery and the prophet said, “That’s what’s coming for you girls. That’s what’s coming.”

I think it’s sobering, men that are heads of households, to remember something here and that is that as the judgment comes upon Israel, yes, it will be primarily pointed at the leaders, the pastors, the priests who are false and who are counterfeits, but he holds all the households accountable. He holds the men and the women accountable. Make sure you lead your family to honor and worship God righteously. You’ll be held accountable.

The days are coming, he says in verse 2, judgment and eternity are always coming. Then he says they are coming upon you. The old days of your false worship and carnal luxurious self-indulgence and cruelty over the poor are over. A new day is at hand. God is ushering in this new day and there is nothing you can do to delay it or to stop it. For 150 years they had generation after generation reproduced and fostered these sins, this rebellion, and had continually congratulated themselves on their success and their prosperity and how faithfully they worshiped at the altar in Bethel that Jeroboam set up, but it was all a counterfeit. It was all a feigned allegiance to Jehovah. It was a sham and they in their hearts loved themselves, loved sin and indulgence and had convinced themselves that God was on their side. But he says, “No. No.”

There is a boomerang to sin. That’s my last point. I’ll just be a moment. There is a boomerang effect to sin. He said, “They will take you away,” in verse 2, “One day you’ll be living in wanton indulgence,” now he’s primarily talking to the ladies here. As a matter of fact, can I just throw a twist in here? I wasn’t sure I was going to mention this but one scholar points something out that clearly he’s talking about ladies, cows of Bashan, but he says later he uses a pronoun in this context that’s the masculine pronoun, and the scholar suggests it’s not the prophet saying, “Yes, judgment is coming upon you ladies for your luxury and loving indulgence and trampling upon the poor,” but the men are becoming like women. “You’re like cows of Bashan.” That’s what the scholar points out. “You men are becoming soft and effeminate. You’re not manly anymore.” And God said, “That’s not the way I created you.”

So now the boomerang. You’re living in these sins, it’s all going to come away. You lay in wanton indulgence on ivory couches but the next day you’re going to be headed away like cattle into forced slavery. Pusey is an excellent commentary writer on Amos. He says this, “Men put out of their minds the end of their doings.” Women, men put out of their minds the end of their doings. Meat hooks and fish hooks, he said, will be pierced through you. As a fish is yanked out of its hiding when it bites the hook, suddenly they will be snatched out of their luxury and their indulgence. It was common in this day for captives to be led away with hooks through their nose or through their lips. The point is when they are overrun by the enemy God is sending upon them, then they will be dealt with in utter contempt and they’ll walk away in utter despair and helplessness – listen- the same way they treated their poor brethren in Israel. Boomerang. You did it to them, now it’s going to be done to you. It’s coming back on you.

He says in verse 3, “You will go out through breaches in the walls,” it means just a passageway. Obviously the Assyrians had broken down these places in the wall and they’ll put these hooks in the nose and the lips and march these people out. What a boomerang effect: you live by your lust and your desires like a senseless beast and now you’ll be treated like a senseless beast as you’re carried out on a rope attached to your face, herded like cattle, like a senseless beast through a breach in the wall.

“You’ll be cast to Harmon,” he says in verse 3. It’s difficult to know what Harmon is but one scholar points out Harmon is the idea of a palace so I think that is probably what it’s talking about. Notice the boomerang effect here. He says to the ladies in Israel and to the men too, “You’re leaving your abode of luxury and indulgence and actually you’re gaining another one. You’re leaving the abodes you built for yourself in Israel to dwell in the palaces of your Assyrian captors. You lived in sensual indulgence in Israel and now you’re going to be forced to serve the sensual indulgent desires of your new Egyptian lords.” Many of the women will be forced into harems as concubines and many of the men will be forced to become eunuchs in service in the palaces of Assyria. In other words he’s saying, “You Israelites like palaces? I’ve got some for you.” That’s what the prophet is saying. “You like sensuality? You like bringing the sensualities of Baal into your worship? You like immoralities? I’m going to give you immoralities but it’s going to be the Assyrians’ immoralities and you’ll be the servants of their lust and immoralities.” Powerful stuff. Boomerang comes back on them.

Be sure your sins will find you out. He says, “‘You will be cast,'” verse 3, “‘each one of you will be cast to Harmon,’ declares the LORD.” They will be thrown into this slavery by calloused, unfeeling taskmasters just as they were the same way in treating the poor brethren back in Israel. In their former sensual self-indulgence they lived this way and now they will live this way still, that is in service to their sin captors as slaves.

Concluding thought. You say, “Pastor, Israel was God’s people and due to their sin they were thoroughly punished. Is there hope for us? We’re God’s people.” Here’s a thought to remember: Israel was called but few of them were chosen. In Romans 9:6 Paul writes to the church and said, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed,” that is God’s word that Israel is my people, because he says, “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants.” His point is: real Israel are my true children and not everybody who descended from Abraham was my true child. Again, I believe there’s a word of preservation and hope and security for the remnant while he punishes the majority who are not the true children of God.

So I think there is that parallel for the church age: God will judge the nations, God will certainly judge the false compromised church and, by the way, there is coming a day when all the false churches of all the denominations, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Assembly of God, Episcopal, Anglican, Roman Catholic, they’re all going to come together and form one great, big, giant, harlot church, false church, Revelation teaches it very clearly. This is just a picture that this spirit’s always been around and God’s going to judge that but listen: he will always take care of his true church. He will always preserve a true remnant. While he may have to punish and judge the great professing ones, he will not punish and judge in the same way the possessing ones. It’s not what you profess with your lips, it’s what you possess in your heart that makes the difference.

Do you know Christ? Do you possess him? Is he your Lord and Savior? Does he live in you? Do you know him? I’m not asking you are you perfect. We struggle, we repent, and we need to be repenters but do you know Christ? Are you forgiven? That’s your hope and that’s your only hope. Period. Not baptism. Not the church. Not what the pastor or the priest says. Not the ordinances. Not the sacraments. It is Christ.

“Oh, come you sinners, Seek his grace whose wrath you cannot bear. Flee to the shelter of the cross, And find salvation there.”

Listen to me: he is expert at saving the worst sinners. I know. I know because I feel like Paul, I’m the chief of sinners and if he will and could save me, he will and can save you.