Transcript

Well, take your Bibles and let’s go to Amos 9. That’s the last chapter in the book and I predict we have two more messages from there. Amos 9. God is an exacting God. He is all-encompassing in what he does. He is as exacting in coming in retribution and wrath against the wicked as he is exacting in securing the eternal redemption of his elect. Did you hear that? It’s almost like we want to say, now, when it comes to God saving his children, he’s thorough, he’s perfect, he accomplishes this through the magnificence of the work in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, he’s so exacting, but he is also equally as determined, personally involved and exacting in emitting or bringing forth just retribution of eternal punishment against the wicked because that’s what a holy God is and that’s what a holy God does.

We just sang about the holiness of God. Do you remember the two things I always try to bring out I want you to remember the two aspects of God’s holiness? Could you do that this morning? Could you say in your own words the two aspects of God’s holiness? The first one being that in every way God made us like himself, he’s yet immeasurably superior to us. There are some things we can do like God can do except he’s immeasurably superior. He made us to be loving beings but he’s immeasurably superior to us in that. He made us to tell the truth. We fail but he’s immeasurably superior at being the truth. Then there are those in-commutable attributes. There are some things about God that are radically unlike anything we can comprehend. He’s eternal. He’s Spirit. He’s omniscient. He’s omnipresent. So in those ways, we just can only study the Scriptures and marvel over this God so he transcends us. He’s beyond us. He’s past us. He’s higher than us. So when we come to the Scriptures – listen to me, church – and as we exegete the text, it should cause us to be startled at times, it should cause us to be stirred and troubled at times because this is not the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause. He’s God.

So we come to chapter 9 and I’ve entitled this chapter “Retribution and the Remnant.” Retribution and the remnant. Amos 9, beginning in verse 1. Look at it there. Amos says,

1 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said, “Smite the capitals so that the thresholds will shake, And break them on the heads of them all! Then I will slay the rest of them with the sword; They will not have a fugitive who will flee, Or a refugee who will escape. 2 Though they dig into Sheol, From there will My hand take them; And though they ascend to heaven, From there will I bring them down. 3 Though they hide on the summit of Carmel, I will search them out and take them from there; And though they conceal themselves from My sight on the floor of the sea, From there I will command the serpent and it will bite them. 4 And though they go into captivity before their enemies, From there I will command the sword that it slay them, And I will set My eyes against them for evil and not for good.” 5 The Lord GOD of hosts, The One who touches the land so that it melts, And all those who dwell in it mourn, And all of it rises up like the Nile And subsides like the Nile of Egypt; 6 The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens And has founded His vaulted dome over the earth, He who calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the face of the earth, The LORD is His name. 7 “Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to Me, O sons of Israel?” declares the LORD. “Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt, And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir? 8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, And I will destroy it from the face of the earth; Nevertheless, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob,” Declares the LORD. 9 “For behold, I am commanding, And I will shake the house of Israel among all nations As grain is shaken in a sieve, But not a kernel will fall to the ground. 10 All the sinners of My people will die by the sword, Those who say, ‘The calamity will not overtake or confront us.'”

Retribution and the remnant. I. Let’s notice the all-consuming passion of God’s righteous retribution. The all-consuming passion. Listen to me: God is expressing that he’s putting everything he has into making sure every single sinner deserving of divine wrath will receive that divine wrath. Are you hearing me? God is consumed with that passion. I’m sorry if that’s not the kind of preaching you often hear in America today. That’s what the Scriptures tell us. This all-consuming passion.

In verse 1, Amos says, “I saw the Lord.” Now he’s been seeing these visions of this impending doom God’s bringing against Israel but this time God does not ask Amos what he sees like we saw in the previous text. Amos just only states here that he sees God. Amos now is not seeing an illustration of the destruction to come but he’s seeing an image of the destruction itself. Now, this no doubt picks up on the previous vision of God’s deep anger and impending wrath upon this counterfeit church that has been set up by King Jeroboam. We saw that in 8:14.

But here in this vision, he says in verse 1, “I saw the God standing beside the altar.” An interesting place. This must be the altar in the temple, or what I call the counterfeit church that King Jeroboam has set up there in Samaria. The altar that King Jeroboam set up in place of or to replace the God-ordained temple in Jerusalem. So this altar which was, of course, centered in Baal calf idolatry with some orthodox Jehovah worship added on to give it some legitimacy, was the center of God’s focus of wrath. I mean, Israel loved the sensual enjoyments and entertainments associated with Baal worship but they were Jews and so while they loved all the sensual enjoyments and entertainments that Baal worship brought, they could not give up their Jewish custom so they just did both. They would bring their offerings like a faithful Jew and their sacrifices like a faithful Jew and would observe the festival days like a faithful Jew, but the centerpiece of their worship were these golden calves they had brought in on carts, the Baal idols, because that let them indulge in fleshly enjoyments and entertainments in the church.

So here we have the Jews, Jehovah’s people, coming with their counterfeit sacrifices and offering Jehovah sacrifices under Baal calves and doing it in the name of Jehovah. Utter syncretism of two things that should never go together. A deep blasphemy. Scholars tell us that the custom was that they would bring their offerings and kiss the golden calves and bringing sacrifices for the atonement and forgiveness of their sins in such a way, they were actually sinning in bringing them. So Amos sees God standing at that kind of an altar and he sees God executing judgment and condemnation upon it.

Now notice the thoroughness. Notice the all-consuming passion God has about punishing them. First of all, he says, “I will punish them in their churches.” And again, I use the word “church” to represent their religious center of the day; their temple, if you will. Notice what he says in verse 1, second phrase, “I will smite the capitals so that the thresholds will shake.” Now, the word “capital” there just refers to a sphere shaped top of a great column and that’s the way Jeroboam had built his counterfeit fake church, his fake temple. He would build columns and put a sphere shape at the top because this way it resembled the true temple down in Jerusalem.

Then it says, “the thresholds will shake,” from top to bottom. Now, I believe this is a command that God was giving to a mighty angel, that he was just to shake the whole thing. God said, “You like your counterfeit fake church? I’m going to shake the whole thing up.” I believe it was a mighty angel. We know it was a mighty holy angel of God that visited the Egyptians on the night that God killed the firstborn of every household that did not have the blood applied and that’s what brought redemption to Israel. It was a holy angel that visited upon Sennacherib’s army and killed 185,000 soldiers in one night. It was a holy angel that stood with sword drawn before David when he presumptuously sinned against the Lord by numbering the people. And here in this vision, I’m convinced it’s an angel. It’s not mentioned but I’m convinced it’s an angel who was to come and give a mighty blow to this fake church, this fake temple they put all their confidence in, and he’s going to shake it, it’s going to stagger and it’s going to fall.

But it’s not just going to fall, notice what it says in verse 1, it’s going to fall on the heads of them all. Third line, New American Standard says, “And break them on the heads of them all!” God says, “I don’t want the temple to just fall, I want it to fall and crush the heads of the worshipers.” I believe this represents the hardened idolaters who had clamored into and crammed themselves into these fake churches, these temples Jeroboam had set up all over the land, because they are literally fleeing for their lives from the invading blood-thirsty Assyrian army that was the tool of God’s judgment. So here they run into these temples crying out to their god and the angel of the one true God whose law they broken, whose name they had mingled with Baal idolatry, that angel is going to bring the whole thing crushing down upon them. So this is, I believe, a distinct group of the most hardened and certainly the leadership of these idolatrous, cult, counterfeit, church temples, if you will, and God says, “I’m going to bring even the buildings that you think are so majestic and wonderful, crushing down upon them.”

Well, he continues on and he brings out another section of people. He said, “Then I will slay,” the middle of the verse, verse 1, “Then I will slay the rest of them with the sword.” I think this is the rest, maybe not as hardened in their idolatry, not as thoroughly trusting in Baal worship and the false temple, but they flee throughout the land trying to escape the Assyrian army which is, again, the instrument of God’s judgment and God says, “I’m not going to allow any of them to escape. They will receive judgment too.”

Now notice in verse 2 he starts reeling off these things. “Even if they dig into Sheol, I will find them.” Middle of the verse, “If I go to heaven, I’ll bring them down.” Verse 3, “If they try to hide on Carmel, I will get them there. If they try to conceal themselves on the floor of the sea, I’ll get a serpent to go and get them and bite them.” In verse 4, “If they go into captivity before their enemies, I will command the sword to slay them.” In other words, God is saying, “I am omnipresent. When I come out to vindicate my holiness by passionately executing judgment on the deserving wicked, I will not miss a one because I can be everywhere at one time. There will be no way to escape.”

Just when you think you find a place to get away from God, you’ll find God was already there. The unforgiven sinner, the sinner that would not respond to grace, would gladly dig himself into any hole he could to get away from God because – listen to me – God is more awful than anything or anyone else. Listen to Revelation when our Lord returns. Revelation 6:15-16, when he returns, “Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and,” look now, even the other demographics of the countries, “every slave and free man,” what did they do? They “hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.'” Get us away from God. We can’t take it! He’s too fierce in his wrath! It’s too awesome! It’s too terrifying!

Well, Amos here unfolds this all-consuming passion of this omnipresent God to punish sinners. He says, “First of all, I will punish them in their churches.” Secondly, I should say, “I’ll punish them in death and in hell.” Look at verse 2 there, if you will. He says in the first part of verse 2, “Though they dig into Sheol, From there will My hand take them.” Now, “Sheol” is a word that we can’t quite know for certain what he means. It means “the realm of the dead.” It can include the eternal punishment of the dead so I just go ahead and call it death and hell. Men would like to crawl into the grave, even cast themselves into hell itself if they could just get away from God, just get away from his punishment and his retribution. But listen, there’s a great truth neglected by our culture and too often taught in the church today and that’s this great truth: God lives in hell. God goes to hell. God goes to hell, in fact he’s been in hell since he made it and he’s never left.

Psalm 139:8, the Psalmist in a positive sense says, “If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.” You see, my friend, when you go to hell, God will be there waiting for you. You will meet God in hell. He will not be there in his lovingkindness. He will not be there in his mercy. He will not be there in his kindness or in his grace or in his favors and eternal pleasures and blessings. No, he will be there against you in his anger. He will be there in his retribution and wrath and eternal damnation. You see, it is God who makes hell, hell. All this foolish comic book nonsense about you’ll go to hell and be with the devil. You better wish you could go to hell and only be with the devil. The devil is not your problem, sinner, God is your problem. It is God in holy wrath, in holy justice, in holy retribution, that never leaves. He never grows tired. He cannot die. You will go to hell and God will meet you there in his wrath.

He said, “If a man could go down into Sheol.” He literally says in this verse, “There I’ll take him by the hand.” In other words God said, “Alright, I thought you might try to sneak down here. Here. Come on. You’re going to face what I told you you were going to face.” Take him by the hand. God has his agents everywhere.

Not only that, not only will he punish them in the church, he said, “I’m going to make a great angel crash it all down on those most ardent idol worshipers. Not only will I punish you in death and in hell,” he said thirdly, “I’ll punish them in the heavens.” Now this is figurative language, of course, but Amos wants to bring out what God was showing him, that’s God’s all-consuming passion to bring retribution.

The second part of verse 2 in your text, “And though they ascend to heaven, From there will I bring them down.” If man can somehow flee from God and hide out in the celestial heavens like the fallen angels who make their domain in the celestial heavens. He said, “If you tried to hide there, I will find you there. I will already be there. You will be apprehended and I will bring you down to judgment.”

Not only in those places, but in earth’s holes. He said, “Some may just try to find a hole somewhere and hide out.” Notice how he says it in verse 3 of our text, “Though they hide on the summit of Carmel, I will search them out and take them from there.” Now, Carmel was a huge mountain region. Mt. Carmel was about 1,700 feet above sea level and scholars say it has up to 2,000 caves and crevices. I mean, it’s a place you can really get lost and no one will ever find you. I mean, a man could find a hiding place there and no human being could possibly find him, but if you were to go slip back into the deepest, darkest, most twisted cavern or crevice in the whole region of Mt. Carmel, when you got back into the very back and it got quiet, God would say, “Hello. I’ve got you. I was already here.” God says, “You’re not getting away from me when I come in my holy retribution.”

Additionally, we know the great forest of Mt. Carmel was a hiding place. The Scripture tells us about hordes of criminal bands who would hide out in the forest of Carmel. It’s likely that Elijah ran to this region to hide himself from wicked Queen Jezebel. Carmel was the westernmost part of the land. It extended to some degree out over the sea. It was the last place a fugitive could hide and it was a great place to run and a great place to hide unless you’re hiding from God. You see, that’s why he’s writing, the Jews understood exactly what he was saying. You’re not getting away from it.

Well, he also says, next to last, he said, “I’m going to punish them in the deep sea.” Again, figurative language, even if they could go there. Look at it there in verse 3, the middle part, “And though they conceal themselves from My sight on the floor of the sea, From there I will command the serpent and it will bite them.” We know sea snakes live in the ocean and there are some sea snakes whose venom is many many times more powerful than our land snakes like the copperhead or the rattlesnake that we have to deal with. God commissioned a great fish to swallow Jonah and should someone be able to hide themselves in the depths of the ocean, God has his agents there too and at his bidding, they will apprehend and destroy the one trying to flee from God’s wrath.

Can I ask you, sir, today: where are you hiding right now? In what are you hiding today? Is it drink? Is it drugs? Is it sexual indulgence? Are you hiding from God in the idolatry of your children? Filling your life with what your children are all about? Are you committing idolatry today by swallowing yourself in the pursuit of money? Nothing wrong with doing well and working hard and getting ahead. God blesses that and does that but has money become your god? Do you think because your bank account and your retirement is in good shape, you’re okay? What are you hiding in today? Where are you hiding from God? You can’t do it.

He said even in captivity. This is the last one he lists here, verse 4, “And though they go into captivity before their enemies, From there I will command the sword that it slay them, And I will set My eyes against them for evil and not for good.” Captivity was a horror, to be carted away. Sometimes they put rings through their nose and led them out of the city and led them into slavery in captivity. The women and the girls carried away as to be concubines for the men and the soldiers often, to be menial servants. But God says, “Even though going into captivity there might be some who would be tempted to say, ‘Well, it’s horrible but at least there’s some security here,'” God says, “No, that’s not going to do it because I’m going to have the armies of Israel to take you captive and then slay you.” You can’t get away from the wrath that way either. Esther records and history records just how the nations of the world in this day held the Israelites as just chaff and just animals and just slaughtered them ruthlessly.

He says in summary, “I have set My eyes against them for evil.” That’s a horrible thought. Do you realize, dear friend, do you realize that if you have not come to Christ, if your faith and your trust is not in Christ and Christ alone, God in his holy omnipotence, Almighty God has his heart and his intentions set against you for evil and not for good. It’s not the devil you need to worry about, it’s not the world you need to worry about, it’s not the guy in North Korea you need to worry about, it’s not the firebrands that our President seems to keep throwing out there that you need to worry about, it is God who you need to be concerned about.

He said, “I will set My eyes against them for evil and not for good,” because of all their sin, all their idolatry and all of their unbelief, generation after generation. You know, this has been going on since Jeroboam I, roughly 150 years they have been in just wanton and outward wickedness before God and to them he says now, “I will be only and utterly evil and I will do them no good.” Again, that’s another parable, if you will, or illustration of what hell is like. In hell, you will dwell for eternity with God’s eye set to do evil against you forever.

II. The all-encompassing greatness of God. Who is this God that would do such a thing? Who is this God that functions in this way? Look at it there, verses 5 and 6, “The Lord GOD of hosts, The One who touches the land so that it melts, And all those who dwell in it mourn, And all of it rises up like the Nile And subsides like the Nile of Egypt.” So who is this God that should do this? Well, he answered it. He is the one who creates all things. He is the one who is sovereign over all things. He is the one who commands and all things obey. He is the hope of his children and he himself, personally, is the utter hopelessness of his enemies.

He touches the land and it melts and all in it mourns. The point is his will – listen – and the fulfillment of his will are one. There is no other God like that who wills something and it’s done. His will and the fulfillment are one thing. Many so-called gods of the ages threaten and declare and speak but they’re not like this God. If he says it, it’s done. No other being like him. He’s the only one who is truly the Almighty. When he speaks, men, the mightiest of men melt. When he speaks, armies are dissipated before him. And one day at the end of the age, the earth, the heavens and everything that exists will burn, melt and vaporize before him. That’s who he is.

He continues on in verse 6 and says, “The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens And has founded His vaulted dome over the earth.” The upper chambers is that realm of heaven that’s above the atmospheric heavens where the birds fly and the celestial heavens where the solar systems are, then there’s the upper heavens. It’s a greater and more glorious place. In other words, the point is he’s the highest of all. He is the greatest of all.

He continues on in verse 6, “He who calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the face of the earth, The LORD is His name.” He’s referring back to the great flood of Noah’s day. He said, “You know how that went, didn’t you?” God declared the flood and no one escaped except those whom God gave the ark to, Noah and his family. God has the power to do all these things and why should he not do them? He’s God.

Friend, have you learned to let God be God and get your sentiment out of the way? Have you learned to repent – listen to me – to repent of your notions, your preconceived notions of who God is and let this book form your image of who God is? He’s an all- encompassing God of greatness.

III. Israel’s great fall from grace. Israel’s great fall from grace. Now I’m not referring to an individual experiencing regeneration, I’m not referring to an individual experiencing redeeming grace. We know that once that God saves an individual in redeeming grace and that individual repents of sin and places their faith and trust in Christ as Lord and Savior, that’s settled for eternity. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Israel, nationally speaking, was unusually favored and unusually blessed. They had a grace with all this favor and all this blessing and they fell away from it. They did not honor it.

Look there at verse 7 where he says, “‘Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to Me, O sons of Israel?’ declares the LORD. ‘Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt?'” I mean, to their very last day, their boast would have been that they were of the bloodline descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were physically, genetically, of the lineage of Abraham, God’s chosen race, God’s chosen people, but they had not the heart of repentance and love for God that Abraham had. They had not the heart of repentance and love for God that Isaac had and that Jacob had. They were Jews but Jews in name only. They were Jews but Jews only in the physical genealogy. They were not Jews of the spirit. They were not Jews from the heart, that means God’s people from the heart.

Romans 2:28-29, Paul speaks of this very truth when he says, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit,” that means we’ve been spiritually reborn, we’ve been changed from the inside by the Gospel and the Spirit of God, “not by the letter,” not by just following some letters on a page and trying to keep some works, no, “and his praise is not from men, but from God.” They weren’t that kind of Jew. They were counterfeits. Outwardly Jews only.

So God says, “Now you are to me like the Ethiopians.” What does that mean, the Ethiopians? Well, the Ethiopians were the descendants of Ham and Ham was a particularly cursed line of people in God’s sight. He said, “Now you’ve become like a cursed people to me. You are no longer the people of favor and blessing.” You’re like the Ethiopians, those furthest away from God’s blessing and God’s grace.

Now let me just add a side note here. This is a truth that the white supremacists have perverted for years in the word of God. He’s not saying that there’s some ever-enduring, eternally-enduring curse on the descendants of Ham, basically dark skinned people. That is a wicked perversion of the text. That is not what he’s saying here at all. What he’s actually saying is though there was a season of rejection on the Ethiopians, also there’s been a season of rejection on Israel when they rejected the Gospel but that doesn’t mean Jews can’t get saved and that doesn’t mean Ethiopians can’t be saved and be God’s people because when you are in Christ, no matter what you were, you can be an Ethiopian and become a child of God. But if you reject Christ, you’ll be of the most rejected people of all time like the Ethiopians were for a period.

He says in verse 7, “I have brought you up from the land of Israel to the land of Egypt.” In other words, “I sought you while you were in Egyptian bondage. I redeemed you out of Egyptian bondage to make you a people. I promised to be with you, to protect you and preserve you – now listen – if you retained me as your God and kept my law.” That was a grace. They had all these grace favors done for them. You see, God chose Israel that they might choose him. Did you hear me? God chose Israel that they might choose him but by casting God off as Lord and Savior, they cast themselves out of God’s protection. They separated from him and now he views them as strangers. He uses the figurative language like the Ethiopians. His calling of them out of Egypt had lost its meaning for them.

Look, if you will, down at verse 9 now, “For behold, I am commanding, And I will shake the house of Israel among all nations As grain is shaken in a sieve, But not a kernel will fall to the ground.” Hosea prophesied and he’s a contemporary, Hosea prophesied that they would be scattered. They would be wonders, rather, among the nations. But has not God indeed scattered the Jews like shaking grain in a sieve to scatter them all over the nations of the world? It’s as if God has taken a great sifter, if you will, that’s what that means, and just shook some out everywhere. That’s exactly what we see of the Jews today.

But then he says, “not one kernel will fall to the ground.” What does that mean? Here’s what it means: the chaff, the husk, the dirt, the dust, anything that’s not a genuine grain, everything that’s not of genuine meal, it will go through the screen and it will just be scattered everywhere. But the point is: all true Israel, all true believers, I believe this in this context refers to Amos and the remnant that followed Amos’s preaching, they would not be lost. They would be shaken but the shaking would purify them. It wasn’t a shaking unto punishment but a shaking unto purification.

Listen to Romans 11:1-2 and then Romans 11:5, “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too,” that’s Paul speaking of himself, “I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?” Verse 5, “In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.” And that’s what Amos is prophesying here. God, the nation as a whole will be destroyed but there is a remnant and we’ll talk about that in just a second, a remnant that will not be destroyed.

Now we know the Old Testament saints became God’s true children by trusting in the promise of the coming Savior, Jesus Christ. New Testament believers are made Christians, children of God, by looking back on Christ who has come and died on the cross and was buried and rose for our justification. But all the elect of all dispensations are God’s true grain. They are the wheat of God.

Verse 10, “All the sinners of My people will die by the sword, Those who say, ‘The calamity will not overtake or confront us.'” God’s great patience has run its course. He is about to exact his justice upon them and, again, there is an exacting measure of justice against sinners just like there’s an exacting measure of grace to eternally save his children but what he’s saying is not one sinner will escape.

He continues on in verse 10 and says, “Those who say, ‘The calamity will not overtake or confront us.'” You know, they were utterly confident in their standing before God and I want you to think just a second: they were so comfortable, they were so sure that this religious system they had developed was good and okay, they were damned fools. They wanted to believe a lie and they believed it so long they finally fully believed it and as the Bible says in the New Testament, God gave them over to a reprobate or a depraved mind to believe those things which were false. I believe the false prophets literally as the Assyrian army marched through their towns and villages slaughtering them, I believe the false prophets kept yelling out to them, “Trust in our God! Trust in our God! He will save us! He will deliver us!” So they ran into the temples crying out and trusting their Baal calves and the Jehovah worship they connected to the Baal calves and God said, “I hate every bit of it. I’ll tell you how much I like the way you’ve created your little fake, false, counterfeit churches, I’m going to crush it all down on your heads.” And that’s what we saw in verse 1.

You know, there is one thing worse than starting out in a lie and that’s ending in a lie. All of us started out in a lie, did we not? All of us started out in the lie that we can be our own gods; that we can do our own thing; that we can make God fit in our hip pocket; we can kind of just tack God on somewhere and get our free ticket out of hell and into heaven. All of us start in all of these lies. We’ll just be a good Baptist, we can go through the motions, we can walk to the front, we can get dunked in the baptistery. All of us started in a lie but thank God by grace we don’t have to end in a lie. Somewhere along the way he apprehends us and causes us to see the woeful depravity of our souls and the promise of salvation in Jesus Christ.

So they had followed this lie of worshiping Baal and connecting Jehovah worship with Baal worship and then they congratulated themselves on their wise effective concoction of a new, great, creative religion and irony of all ironies, what they were secure in was actually the basis of their doom. Bringing those offering and participating in that worship and being faithful at it actually built the wrath against them. That’s the irony of it all. They were perishing in a double misery. They were held up by this false confidence and it was that very confidence in that very thing that assured their own destruction. Just because somebody is passionate and somebody is faithful and somebody is committed and somebody has good morals and ethics in the community and in the neighborhoods does not mean they’re God’s child. They may have concocted some sort of idolatry they’re believing in and not the Christ of Scripture.

IV. The remnant shall remain. God has always had a remnant and he’s always been faithful to them. In other words, as I’ve told you before, when I was texting with one of our church planners this week and I tell these guys, some of them take over existing congregations sometimes and try to build a church out of it and I say, “Well, you’ve got a congregation but you’ve got to find a church in there somewhere,” and that’s exactly what God is saying here. There is a great Israel, now I’ve got to find the true Israel in there somewhere. Of course, he didn’t have to find them, he knows who they are. There is a true remnant in there somewhere and that one, God says, will remain.

Look at verse 8. First of all in verse 8 he says, ” Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, And I will destroy it from the face of the earth.” Notice the thoroughness, the exactness. But the last part of verse 8, look at this hope, “‘Nevertheless, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob,’ Declares the LORD.” The kingdom as such, the great big bureaucracy, the great big national machine that was Israel, I’m bringing it down but within it, in our context I believe it’s Amos and the remnant that followed him, they will be preserved. They will remain.

God, you see, is ever alert, watching all that goes on in the sinful kingdom and he misses nothing. Let me just focus on that for just a moment before we close, at the first line there, verse 8, look at it again, “the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, And I will destroy it from the face of the earth.” You see, the wicked can run and rant, the wicked can revile and rebel, they can philosophy and protest and promote their sin and even get the government and the media and the politicians to congratulate them and affirm them and agree with them, but there is one thing the wicked cannot do, they cannot stop the omniscient holy God from seeing everything and further, they cannot prevent the same omnipotent God from executing judgment upon them. That’s what this means.

Folks, it looked like the counterfeit temple and the counterfeit church of Baal worship with some orthodox Jehovah worship mixed all in it, wickedness in the land, injustice in the judicial system, abusing a running over the poor just to take advantage, all the wickedness, it looked like that was working, it looked like that’s just the way it is, it looked like that’s just the way it’s going to be, but God was just being patient. Here’s one thing, always remember this: as you see the wickedness of our day and you see it going on and on and on and on and on, it should make you marvel at the great patience of God but make you tremble that he’s equally great in the retribution he’s bringing when he does bring it. He’s not just great in patience, he’s great in wrath, and as he says here, “But I will not totally destroy Jacob.” Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! He’s also great in his grace toward his children.

“Nevertheless, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob.” The godly remnant and, again I believe that refers primarily in this context to Amos and those who followed him, they would be spared. The nation will be destroyed but the godly remnant will be preserved. I think Daniel is a good example of this. Daniel was a teenage boy but Daniel was a true believer. Daniel loved God. Daniel was carted off into captivity but how God preserved him, kept him safe, kept him safe through the lions’ den, kept him safe so that he would not bow to worship the image idol raised up in Babylon, even favored him to the degree that at one point the king decreed that all the nation of Babylon had to worship Daniel’s God. You may go through some hard times, there may be some hard journeys as God illustrates or executes his displeasure to an unjust people but God will be faithful to his remnant. He always has and he always will. And one day when Jesus comes again, he’s going to build a new heaven and a new earth and only those who are the remnant will dwell there with him forever and ever and ever.

Now look, there are going to be a lot of individuals in the Catholic system of worship that are not of the remnant. There are a lot of individuals in the Methodist systems of religion that are not in the remnant. There are a lot of individuals in the Presbyterian system of religion that are not in the remnant. There are a lot of Baptists in the Baptistic bureaucracies of religion that are not in the remnant. But there are some who are and he will be faithful to them. Make sure, child of God, or make sure, dear friend, that you are a child of God; that you have come to see the weight of your sin and you’ve embraced Christ and Christ alone as your Lord and Savior. Don’t trust in the systems of religion that have been set up – listen – trust only, only, only, only, only in Christ and him crucified. I suppose in a way it’s okay to say, “My pastor was Jeff Noblit and he told me,” as long as what you’re about to quote after that is the truth. What I want you to say is not, “Well, Bailey Smith or Junior Hill or whoever it is, told me.” No, that’s not what I’m saying. Do you trust Christ? Are you resting in Christ and him alone to save you? That’s where I’m resting and those will take it for time and for all eternity.