10: Minor Prophets - Amos 3:7-5:27

[Dunkle] All right. Welcome back to Minor Prophets class. So we're carrying on. We're in the book of Amos. And you might remember we, in our previous class, we introduced the book of Amos, covered the five W's, covered all of chapters one and two, and got into chapter three. And I don't want to resummarize all of that, but I'll mention in chapter three, in verses three through six, there's a series of rhetorical questions—so asking things where the answer is obviously, well, no. You know, a lion won't roar if he doesn't have prey, and a bird won't suddenly be snapped up if it didn't get caught in a snare.

So these are all rhetorical questions, I believe largely to establish the idea of cause and effect. See if I can say that properly—cause and effect. So we're saying, you know, the evil that's going to be brought on the nation, you know, is going to be because of their sin. You know, and God is saying, look, this happens and that happens. This happens, that happens. You ought to see it coming.

So one of the things Amos could have added—now he didn't, so take this with a grain of salt if it's just Dunkle saying this—but he could have said, would all of God's prophets have the same message against Israel if they hadn't been inspired by God to give that message? And it's, no, that wouldn't be true. And he goes on in verse seven to say something kind of important and powerful. Verse seven of chapter three: 

“Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

Okay, so this is an important promise we could take from God. He gives warning ahead of time. He doesn't just suddenly, out of the blue, wham, hit people. Let's think of some examples. Before the flood came and destroyed almost every living thing on the planet, God warned Noah. And there's some indication that Noah tried to preach a warning to the world. Before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, God came and visited Abraham and talked to him about it. 

Before the famine in Egypt, God gave Joseph the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream to let them know. We could say that before the catastrophe that's going to come at the end of this age, we have the warning that Jesus Christ gave and which God also inspired other prophets to tell. So we have warning of things to come. You know, we can read Matthew 24. We can read the book of Revelation and others. And Israel had ample warning—repeated warning—of what was going to happen. In verse 8, he comes back to saying: 

“A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8).

In a way, Amos here is saying, you know, I'm giving this message because God has sent me. I'm not just making this up on my own. And in a sense, he's saying, I couldn’t not give this. He's not the first or only person writing in the Bible to have that kind of a message.

In Jeremiah chapter 20 and verse 9, it's part of a longer discussion that Jeremiah is having with God, because Jeremiah is a little put out at that time. And he goes through being depressed. At one point he says he was going to just not preach—I'm not going to prophesy God's message. And then it comes back to him saying he just couldn't hold it back. It was just something he had to let out. And I'll add 1 Corinthians chapter 9:16 is where the Apostle Paul said, woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. So Amos is in good company.

And it kind of makes me think of our situation. You know, we're to be witnesses for God, for Jesus Christ, of the truth. And it's something we should feel—this obligation. We have to be ready to give an answer when someone asks a reason of the hope that's within us. We have to be letting our light shine as the light of the world.

Okay, I'm not going to dwell on that too long, because Amos doesn't dwell on it too long. But we do seem to change gears a little bit in verse 9, getting back more to the message. And he's using a little bit of an illustration. Excuse me.

He says, “Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt: ‘Assemble on the mountains of Samaria.” 

So, you know, we know Egypt's down here. Samaria is up here. Now, if this is a correct translation, Ashdod is on the way from Egypt to Samaria. I said if because there are some translations that say Assyria rather than Ashdod. And if that's true, then you're looking from one end to the other around Samaria. And it's like the peoples of distant nations, both to the east and to the west, are being called. 

“Assemble on the mountains of Samaria. see great tumults in her midst, and the oppressed within her. For they do not know to do right,’ says the Lord, ‘who store up violence and robbery in their palaces’” (Amos 3:9–10).

What this seems to be saying is God is metaphorically calling the pagans who haven't known God to come and witness what's going on in Samaria. And it's not hard to make this analogy because we see it a few times here and there in the prophets. It's like God is calling these pagans to say, look at what my people are doing. They're worse than you guys. You're my witness that they're committing these sins, and I'm going to punish them. And that seems to be what's happening here. So in verse 11 he says: 

“Therefore, thus says the Lord God: ‘An adversary shall be all around the land.” An adversary? What adversary? Well, we'll come back to that in a moment. “He shall sap your strength from you, and your palaces shall be plundered” (Amos 3:11).

Maybe God left this indefinite because there were different adversaries for His people at different times. In the era soon after Amos, it would be Assyria as an adversary for Israel. Later on, it would be Babylon as an adversary for Judah. We could look to the end of the age and say it'll be Mystery Babylon the Great for the end-time descendants of Israel and for God's Church. So it's sort of an ongoing thing. God will have an adversary ready to oppose those who need to be punished for sin. And more result in verse 12—there's a pastoral analogy, rather fitting for Amos. Remember, he's a shepherd. 

So he says, “As a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear…” (Amos 3:12). Now the lion has to be kind of passive for the shepherd to do this, but two legs or a piece of an ear—you know, a remnant, just parts that are left. “…So shall the children of Israel be taken out who dwell in Samaria—in the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch!” (Amos 3:12).

It's talking about only fragments left, only a few survivors of the nation. I'm pausing there. If the nation is being called on, repent, change your ways, or there's going to be punishment—and the punishment will be so severe that what's left of the nation will be like a shepherd finding a piece of an ear and a leg that the lion left over—you'd rather avoid that. You know, that's what it will be like for the children of Israel who dwell in Samaria, in the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch.

I'll say the Hebrew there is a bit vague, according to the scholars. Some translations put it differently. Some say that it really should be talking about a couch in a corner rather than the corner of a couch. And that might seem really odd either way, but people who study the culture say they actually had a type of piece of furniture that was a luxury piece that fits in the corner of the room, and it's the place—the seat of honor.

So if you're wealthy, if you're spoiling yourself, you have the couch in a corner. Kind of like if you go out and buy a leather-covered Lazy Boy with the motorized function to help you get up and all these things. I don't know, maybe that's not the best example, but it made Matt laugh. So it's basically talking about the people who are living in luxury. That's a theme that Amos will come back to. But he's going to move on. 

“Hear and testify against the house of Jacob,” says the Lord God (Amos 3:13). “In the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel; and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground” (Amos 3:14).

Altars of Bethel—I was going to ask what you know about this. I know we haven't covered it in class, but this is not an altar for the true worship of God. That would be in Jerusalem. At one time it had been in Shiloh before God had moved to the temple.

Bethel is one of the two places where, when Jeroboam caused the division of the kingdom, he said, it's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. I'll make gods for you to worship—one at Dan, the other at Bethel. So this is referring to Bethel, a center of false worship. And the horns on that altar are going to be cut off and fall to the ground. God is going to bring destruction on that false worship. Along the way, in verse 15: 

“I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house; the houses of ivory shall perish; and the great houses shall have an end,” says the Lord (Amos 3:15).

So once again, these are symbols of luxury—a nice large house, houses of ivory. I've got to confess, a house made out of ivory doesn't sound very comfortable to live in, but it's probably decorated with ivory. There's a record, though, in 2 Kings 22:39—I said that pretty quickly—2 Kings 22, verse 39. King Ahab, you know, the one who confronted Elijah, it says he had a house built of ivory. I suspect probably not all the structure made of ivory, but probably a lot of ivory used in the decoration, showing off his wealth, indulging himself.

So Israel enjoyed the wealth, enjoyed the self-indulgence, and God is saying it would come to punishment. Yeah, I said that was—yeah, it's also houses of ivory are mentioned in Psalm 45:8. I have that reference—Psalm 45:8. It's not a historical reference, but it's a similar condemnation.

So then we have a chapter break. And I promise I'm not trying to see how fast I can go through this, but we're skimming a bit because the message is pretty clear. You know, sin brings destruction, and Israel is careening toward that destruction. It's kind of neat, though, in a way, to stop and see some of the poetic imagery that God inspired Amos to use. And we see some of that coming into chapter 4, where he says: 

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy…” (Amos 4:1).

Cows obviously are symbolic of people. You know, actual cows are not oppressing the poor or doing anything else. We should note—let me do reference to the map—Bashan is in the Trans-Jordan. It's the northern part of the eastern side of the Jordan River, and it's known as good prairie ground. It's great land for livestock. So the cows of Bashan are going to be well-fed, you know, healthy, fat cows. Some scholars go out of their way to point out it doesn't say bulls of Bashan. And since after it talks about crushing the needy, it says: 

“…Who say to your husbands, ‘Bring wine, let us drink!’” (Amos 4:1). 

Some people think this is sort of getting at the women in the nation who are living in self-indulgence and appealing to the needy or oppressing the needy.

Let's pause, though, and say this might not be as sexist as some might think. I'm not sure if that would have been anyway, but other scholars have said this could be referring to the nobility of the nation who have become rather effeminate. When it's in verse four where it says, say to your husbands, the Hebrew there that's translated husbands is ba‘ali, which can just as well be translated masters. So instead of saying, say to your husbands, it could be say to your masters. So the nobility who are kind of weak and soft but oppressing the poor could be calling out to the royal family, the king—bring us wine, let's keep partying. And God is going to say punishment will come. In verse two: 

“The Lord God has sworn by His holiness: ‘Behold, the days shall come upon you when He will take you away with fishhooks, and your posterity with fishhooks’” (Amos 4:2).

If you study Assyrian history, you'll see they literally would lead slaves with hooks sometimes through their noses. And the Assyrians were cruel, nasty people. Now I want to say in how they treated their enemies. You know, if you knew an Assyrian—say he lived down the street from you—he would probably mow his lawn and treat people decently like anyone else. But the Assyrians as a conquering people were cruel and vicious.

You know, they were known for sometimes taking some of their captives and skinning them alive, boiling some of them in pots of oil just to watch them, you know, beheading bodies and building mounds of skulls. And I'm sorry if I'm giving a gruesome picture, but it was gruesome. The Assyrians were known for this harsh cruelty. So just putting a fishhook through your nose as I lead you off to slavery sounds mild compared to some of the other things. And God is saying that's what's going to happen. You'll go out—this is verse three—

“Through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her” (Amos 4:3).

What this indicates is the wall's been destroyed. You don't have to line up and get to the gate. The walls are destroyed, so you can just go straight out of the city into the captivity that is being brought about because of your sin. “You'll be cast into Harmon, says the Lord.” Here's where I'll stop and say I don't know where Harmon is. Scholars have come up with various different views that I'm not going to bother to discuss. I think the main point is you're leaving home. You've been conquered. You're being taken out. You're hooked by a hook, led out of the city, going someplace that's not home.

Why? Because living in indulgence and ignoring God and oppressing the needy. So God is laying out to—sometimes scholars use the term indictment oracles for this type of thing. And an indictment is when someone is accused of a sin or a crime. They're indicted. God sometimes has these indictments of Israel: you've done this, you've done this, and then He goes on to the punishment. Going on in verses 4 and 5: 

“Come to Bethel and transgress;” What? Well, Bethel was a center of idol worship. Remember the altar of Bethel that Jeroboam established. So yeah, come on up and transgress. “At Gilgal multiply transgression;” Gilgal also became a center for false worship. “Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days” (Amos 4:4).

Tithing every three days seems a bit difficult. Many Hebrew scholars believe this is a mistranslation—that it should have been every three years. And if we go back to the Pentateuch and the law God gave Moses, it did show a system that we refer to as third tithe—every third year devoting a tithe toward the poor and the needy. So God is referencing, it seems, that.

“Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, proclaim and announce the freewill offerings; for this you love, you children of Israel!” says the Lord God (Amos 4:5).

This could sound like He's saying, you know, you're in big trouble. Now you're worshiping properly. But we want to remember they're going to Bethel and Gilgal, not to Jerusalem. It seems that God is noting that the people like the form of religion. They like to bring sacrifices of thanksgiving. What's so great about the thanksgiving sacrifice? Well, we get to eat most of it—not just the priest. It doesn't all get burned up on the altar. It's we're having a party. We're having steak, you know, and mutton, and we've got this good bread with it and wine.

So He's saying, yeah, you're doing that. We could say it's the ritual practice without the devotion to God. And that fits within a theme we see throughout the prophets. God is not impressed with the show of righteousness. He wants the form. He wants what's inside us to be righteous. You know, and we could say in our modern setting, He does want us to show up here on the Sabbath. He wants us to sing the Psalms and bow our head in prayer, but He wants us to mean it. You know, He wants us to obey the law, but He wants us to obey the letter of the law most of all.

And I'm pointing this out not to accuse any of us of not doing that, but I'm wanting to show God's consistency. He wanted that from ancient Israel. He wants it from the Israel of God—the Church—today. And that's what He's going to have in the Kingdom. That's what He's going for. You know, true worship from the heart, not just the outward show.

I'm going to pause here because in my notes I've got to say, enough is enough.

Now, starting in verse six, we're going to see a series of punishments. And I'm going to summarize this rather than read through all of it, although I'll confess a lot of times when I say that, I end up reading most of it. But He's going to list six different punishments—six calamities—and all of these kind of relate to the promises back in Deuteronomy 28 of, you know, if you obey Me you'll get these blessings, but if you disobey Me there will be curses. These are curses from disobedience.

So the first one is famine, poetically described as cleanness of teeth. It doesn't mean you've got a good dental hygienist. It means your teeth are clean because you don't have food to eat. And at the end of verse 6, I want to note, he says:

“…Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord (Amos 4:6).

I'm going to summarize the rest of these, but I'm going to come back and note that momentarily, because the second punishment is drought. It says:

“I also withheld rain from you…” (Amos 4:7). 

And that's described in verses 7 and 8. So God is very descriptive of the drought. Then in verse 9 there's crop destruction through blight and mildew. Okay, so crops are being destroyed. 

“I blasted you with blight and mildew” (Amos 4:9).

And verse 10—the fourth punishment—is plague, disease. 

“I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt” (Amos 4:10). 

And also in that verse is war, defeat in war: “Your young men I killed with the sword” (Amos 4:10).

And then if you go all the way to verse 11: 

“I overthrew some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah…”“…You were like a firebrand plucked from the burning…” (Amos 4:11).

That's an interesting phrase. It seems to describe a narrow escape—a firebrand pulled out. And if you don't realize, a firebrand is like a small stick that would be in there you might carry. And it's about to burst into flame, and you pull it out and get it. That's saved not at the last minute, but after the last minute. There's a reference to that in Zechariah 3:2, where a brand plucked from the fire shows someone who's a sinner but who is pulled out and saved. Okay, so we've seen what? Famine, drought, crop destruction, plague, defeat in war, overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah. And after each of these—I noted in verse 6—

“…Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord (Amos 4:6).

Verse 8: “…Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord (Amos 4:8).
Verse 9: “…Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord (Amos 4:9).
Again verse 10: “…Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord (Amos 4:10).
Verse 11: “…Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord (Amos 4:11).

We could say this is a literary device. I believe it is, but I think it's showing God's purpose for punishment. What is it God wants to accomplish when He punishes? He wants Israel to return to Him. When we are punished, God wants repentance—return to Me. Remember, the Hebrew for return could be translated repent. So it's turn from going that way of sin and come and go My way. So God is punishing to get that effect.

And I think we can make an argument: if after the famine they returned to God, there wouldn't have been drought, crop destruction, and plague.If after the drought they turned, then they would have saved those others. And so on for us in our lives. Many times, if we'll just turn to God, we can save ourselves so much trouble. So if we don't remember anything else from all of this part, we want to remember that God does not punish for spite. He doesn't punish because He's angry and He wants revenge. God punishes to bring repentance.

That's the reason it's there. He wants a change—a change for the better, a change for the good. And I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to want. We haven't finished the chapter, though, and I'm intrigued with how this chapter ends, because we can interpret it two different ways. In verse 12 he says: 

“Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God!” (Amos 4:12).

Boy, if you hear that—especially if I say it that way, right? Oh yeah, you're doing this—prepare to meet your God. That sounds like death, destruction. And that might well be what it means. Okay, when I said there's two ways to look at this, one of them is looking back at this punishment that happened. And generally, if you tell someone prepare to meet your God, it's because you're going to die. In the next waking moment you're going to meet God.

But there's another way that's intriguing to consider. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new phrase, looking ahead. Because if we just start with the phrase, prepare to meet your God, O Israel, then in verse 13 it says:

“For behold, He who forms mountains, and creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is, and makes the morning darkness, who treads the high places of the earth—the Lord God of hosts is His name” (Amos 4:13).

The Eternal—Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel—is His name. It's like God says, okay, you don't know Me? Let me introduce Myself. I'm the one who made all things, who has all power. I'm the ruler of Israel. Glad to make your acquaintance. I think we could say something for Amos' poetic ability if he did that on purpose—where the “prepare to meet your God” is in the middle, and it could be looking back as a vengeful, harsh statement, or it could be looking ahead as an introduction to begin a new life and a new relationship.

Makes me wonder—one of these days I'm going to meet Amos and I'm going to ask him. Or I might ask God, what did you mean for Amos doing it that way? Either way, it's kind of—like I said—I find it intriguing. And then we come to chapter 5.

“Hear this word which I take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel” (Amos 5:1).

It seems from the wording that we could see this as—love to say this phrase—a new prophetic utterance. So a prophetic utterance is like a self-contained statement, a prophecy that God has inspired, often given at a different time. So Amos is not saying, on the such-and-such year of King whatever I saw a vision and so I wrote this down. But it's possible that it came at a different time than when he wrote chapter 4 or chapter 3. We're left to wonder.

It's a lamentation.A lamentation is generally a sad poem or a sad song, often mourning something bad that happened. So we don't use the term lamentation very often these days, but we  talk about sad songs, right? Elton John wrote a sad song about sad songs. Okay, some of you are nodding—you know the song. I'm tempted to start singing, but yeah. Well, as I get—turn it on, turn it on, turn on those sad songs…And when all hope is gone, the sad song says so much.  Okay, that was terrible singing. I'll do better next time. So we're going into a sad song, a lamentation of the house of Israel. And we see in verse 2: 

“The virgin of Israel has fallen.” Now it's hard to consider Israel as a virgin when we know—and we're talking spiritually—that they've committed harlotry with the other gods, to put it in the phrasing from the prophecies. So it could be saying that she's lost her virginity. She has committed fornication and/or adultery by worshiping false gods. So that's why she's fallen.

“She will rise no more. She lies forsaken on her land; there is no one to raise her up” (Amos 5:2).

Now I think we could put a qualifier on this. When it says she'll rise no more, I think God means in that current era. And the reason I'm qualifying this is I've heard some people say, see, the people that were guilty of this at this time will not come up in the resurrection. That seems kind of harsh. Well, it doesn't matter whether I think it's harsh or not, but it seems like it might contradict other things in the Bible, because the Bible talks about everyone will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

And it's funny—I’ve got scriptures referring to that, but they're somewhere else where we're going to see the same theme come up. You know, God promises—we see in Revelation 20—the dead, small and great, standing and being judged. So when it says rise no more, I think it's talking about, okay, they're really dead. You know, it wasn't phasers on stun and they fall down and they'll get back up a little bit later. It's like this is it for this time period. Okay, and talking about the punishment for the nation.

Verse 3: “For thus says the Lord God: ‘The city that goes out by a thousand shall have a hundred left’” (Amos 5:3).

What's that ratio? One-tenth. That's not a large factor to survive. You know, in my study of military history, if I enter a battle and I've got 90 percent casualties, that's the worst—you know, I've never heard of a battle with that many. It just doesn't happen. Well, I can't say I've never heard of one. You go to Thermopylae or something like that in ancient history, you could have it. There's a similar ratio that's described in the book of Ezekiel, and I will turn there. I'll be coming right back here to Amos. But it's in Ezekiel chapter 20, and it might be a more poetic way of referring to it. But Ezekiel 20, starting in verse 33, says:

 “As I live,” says the Lord God, “surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you” (Ezekiel 20:33). “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm…” (Ezekiel 20:34).

I want to drop down to verse 37 if you're there.

Ezekiel 20:37 says: “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant” (Ezekiel 20:37).

Now you might say, what's that got to do with one-tenth? The idea is passing under the rod was how they would count livestock. Say they're bringing in a herd—a herd of sheep that's been out grazing in the mountains. We herd them in and we send them through a chute, and we have a rod that's over the chute, and we count them because they have to go through single file.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—pull that one out. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I'm mentioning that because this was what was done for the purpose of tithing—your tithe on your livestock, at least the increase of the livestock. But if we're picturing our people being like the livestock passing under the rod, and only one out of ten survive, that's a steep ratio.

Coming back to Amos, that seems to be what he's saying. And our guess—because nothing like this has happened in the past—it seems to be referring to the end time, the catastrophe, the cataclysm at the end of the age, when there will be trumpet plagues and vial plagues and vast death and destruction.

Now the question is, who is it applying to and how do we apply it? And some of the details I like to leave for when we're going through Revelation, where we get things lined out kind of in order. I will mention something intriguing, though. There's a prophecy in Ezekiel in chapter 5—and it goes for a number of chapters—where Ezekiel has to lie on his side a day for a year for the time of Israel's punishment. And God tells him, “Shave off all the hair off your body, divide it into thirds. Now a third is going to be chopped up, and that represents people in the war. A third is going to be burned—they're dying by disease. And a third are going to be scattered. They're the ones going into captivity.” But he says, what? “Take a little bit of it, put that in your pocket. That will be the remnant that's saved.”

Now we'll talk about that later, but what I'm getting at is that shows a third surviving. You know, two-thirds dying, which is pretty dire, but a third surviving—as opposed to here in Amos, one-tenth. They seem to be different ratios for different circumstances. And I'm going to leave it vague because I'm not sure when one happens and when the other doesn't, or if one is applying to a certain body of people and the other to a different body of people. But just to make it seem really scary—and I'm sorry to have to do this—some people have said maybe it's a ratio like if you multiply, maybe both apply, and you end up with one-tenth of the one-third left alive.

That's really, really a high death toll. I'm hoping it's not that, and we'll find out when the time comes. I haven't seen anything that makes me think, oh, it's definitely that. But because I've seen people propose it, I thought I'd share it with you—at least that possibility—and say let's hope that's not it. And if there is something like that, we can be like Amos and say, oh Lord, that Israel may stand, for he is small, and enter some intercessory prayer. Of course, we could be part of the Israel. Okay, so we have these small numbers surviving. Then we go into verse 4, where it says:

“‘Seek Me and live’” (Amos 5:4).

It's like He said, it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to have nine-tenths of you die. Seek Me. But what you don't seek is Bethel. 

“But do not seek Bethel, nor enter Gilgal, nor pass over to Beersheba…” (Amos 5:5).

Okay, Bethel and Gilgal were places of idol worship. Nor pass over to Beersheba. Now Beersheba—that wasn't a place that was known for idol worship, but perhaps something had crept in.

And “Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing” (Amos 5:5).

This is one of the places I'll point out. “Nothing”—the Hebrew word is aven, or avin, as we sometimes put it. Because we have seen earlier in the prophecy a reference to some place that seemed to be called Beth-Avon. And I've wondered if that was a play on words, because Bethel will become avin. Is it the house of God is going to become the house of nothing—or house of vanity—because it was the house of a false god by this time? Maybe.

Again, I'm pointing out some of the perhaps poetry that's kind of fun to look at when we're not in Bethel and we're not being brought to nothing. But it's something worth noting. But God is saying, “Seek the Lord and live” (Amos 5:6). So yeah, we still want to do this.

“…Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, with no one to quench it in Bethel” (Amos 5:6). “You who turn justice to wormwood, and lay righteousness to rest in the earth!” (Amos 5:7).

So He's reminding Israel that, yeah, you haven't done justice. You've turned it to bitterness. You've been oppressing the poor, which is not what you're supposed to be doing. We're reminded of God's power, kind of like at the end of chapter 4 where God is introducing Himself, perhaps, as the One who forms the mountains and creates the wind.

Here in chapter 5, verse 8: “He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning and makes the day dark as night…” (Amos 5:8).

God can bring the light. He can take away the light. God has all power. Think of the way God introduced Himself in the chapters at the end of Job. After Job and his friends went back and forth arguing about whether or not Job had sinned, finally God steps in and says, who are you guys even to be talking about this? Can you do what I've done? And God describes His great power. Here there's just a hint of that. You know, at the end of verse 8: 

“…The Lord is His name” (Amos 5:8).

He rains ruin upon the strong, so that fury comes upon the fortress. Don't mess with God. He has all the power. There's a paragraph break—that's why I'm pausing. In verse 10 it says: 

“They hate the one who rebukes in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks uprightly” (Amos 5:10).

Okay, people don't like to be corrected. I don't like to be corrected. But sometimes we need it, and God is pointing that out. Then he moves on though, verse 11: 

“Therefore, because you tread down the poor and take grain taxes from him…” (Amos 5:11).

It seems that he's talking about the leaders, the rich and powerful who are taking advantage of the poor and the weak. You take grain taxes. Though you've built houses of hewn stone—okay, as opposed to a wattle-and-daub cottage or a mud hut—hewn stone, you're rich. You've built a really nice house because you've taken all this money from the poor.

“…Yet you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink wine from them” (Amos 5:11).

Okay, this is another thing that God sometimes uses, this theme: because of what you've done, you're going to have this frustration of planting a garden but someone else will harvest it. You'll build a nice house—someone else will live in it.

Verse 12: “For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: afflicting the just and taking bribes; diverting the poor from justice at the gate” (Amos 5:12).

Okay, again—oppressing the poor. Justice in the gate is referring to the gate not like what I have that I get into my backyard. It's like the town hall. It's where justice is meant to be done. The elders come to the gate, they hear the cases of people pleading against each other. So there should be justice at the gate. But here in Amos 5:12 it says that's diverted—diverting justice from the poor at the gate.

Verse 13: “Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time” (Amos 5:13).

Sometimes someone who's prudent keeps their mouth shut. You know, it's not something I can change. And there is a time to speak up and there's a time not to. I couldn't help but think of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:6. In Matthew 7:6 He says, “Don't cast your pearls before swine.” Literally that's a good idea. If you have pearls, don't throw them out in front of pigs. But it's talking about sharing words of wisdom to those who are not ready to hear it. Sometimes the prudent need to keep silent.

That doesn't overrule the fact that sometimes we have to be ready to give an answer to someone who asks a reason of the hope that lies within us. So both can come into play, and we pray for wisdom to know which to do and when. Moving into verse 14—well, let's say verses 14 and 15 are just a classic statement from God of what we should do in life, what we should set as our standard.

He says, “Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the Lord God of hosts will be with you…” (Amos 5:14).

So hate evil, love good. That's pretty simple. Hate the evil. The evil is Satan's way. It's in opposition to God's way.

“Hate evil, love good; establish justice in the gate” (Amos 5:15).

Love the good. Seek good. Love the good. The good is defined by what God is. And God's law is defined by what God is. So if we want to seek the good, we seek God and we seek His ways.

And he says it may be—“…that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (Amos 5:15).

We talked about justice being diverted from the poor, but he's saying establish justice—the same gate, the same center of government, the same place of power to influence the community. Establish justice. And it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

By the way, this is obviously a prophecy for the future, because it's good for us to remember that Amos is prophesying during the time of Jeroboam II. It was one of the wealthiest periods in Israel's history. It's not all that long before they will be conquered by the Assyrians, but during that time life is good. Crops are abundant, the nation is secure, and things appear stable. So when Amos talks about God being gracious to the remnant, he is looking ahead to the time of punishment—the time of drought and famine and destruction that will come later. From the perspective of the people living in Amos’ day, that future probably seemed very distant.

And it's hard to pay attention to warnings like that when life is going well. If everything is prosperous and peaceful, people naturally assume it will continue that way. It's difficult to worry about famine when the harvest is plentiful. If I'm eating a steak dinner, I'm not thinking, “I’d better prepare for fasting later.” Well, knowing me, I might think that—but generally speaking, when we have plenty, we’re not concerned about going without. Yet that is exactly why God warns them ahead of time. Even in the middle of prosperity, He calls them to seek good and hate evil, because that kind of repentance could lead God to be gracious when the time of punishment arrives. Moving on, though, Amos continues with the warning:

“Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, says this: ‘There shall be wailing in all streets, and they shall say in all the highways, “Alas! Alas!”This is describing a time of deep mourning because of the destruction that is coming. “They shall call the farmer to mourning, and skillful lamenters to wailing’” (Amos 5:16). 

Now, you might wonder, what is a skillful lamenter? And they actually, in ancient times, had professional mourners, professional wailers whose job would be to come when somebody suffered a loss in the family and make a lot of noise and help them feel terrible.

I say that there's an example, a story, you know, in Jesus Christ's ministry. It's found in Luke chapter five when Jesus Christ comes to heal the daughter of a man who asked him to heal her. When he gets there, they say, oh, she's already dead. And there's all these wailers and lamenters in the house making all this noise. And Jesus puts them out. He gets them out of there so that he can do his work in peace. So that was Luke 5:38-39. There's another reference to these skillful lamenters in Jeremiah chapter nine. So starting in verse 17, and I'll probably say a little bit more about it when we cover Jeremiah. But this is talking about getting ready, wailing the streets. Verse 17:

“In all the vineyards there will be wailing, for I will pass through you” (Amos 5:17). 

That's I'm coming. There's going to be wailing.

Verse 18, “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!” (Amos 5:18). 

Yeah. Now that could apply to a day of the Lord, such as what Amos is prophesying in the near term. But we think of the day of the Lord.

“Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness, and not light.” (Amos 5:18).

And if we look ahead to the day of the Lord, think of what we covered in Joel chapter 2 and Joel chapter 3. Isaiah chapter 2:12. The day of the Lord could be the day at the end of the age, just before Christ returns and when Christ returns, when there's going to be a time of trouble such as has never been nor ever shall be again. And I think it's fitting to say, why would you want the day of the Lord? It's going to be terrible. Darkness and not light. Literal darkness. Remember that the heavenly signs that are the sixth seal. Yeah, five is great tribulation, six heavenly signs. Or the fifth of the seven last plagues, darkness. So God is referencing that here without walking us through all of it. It'll be as verse 19:

“It will be as though a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him! Or as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him!” (Amos 5:19). 

It's like you can't escape.

“Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:20). 

It's not a happy time. Here's where I return to the thought I've had. I want to pray, thy kingdom come. We want Jesus Christ to return. I'm not so enthusiastic about the terrible things that have to happen first. And I've told you already in this class, I pray that God will let that pass swiftly. You know, I want that the plagues and the horror to go quickly. Let's get to the good stuff, the good stuff that's coming afterwards. And surely we will. Okay, God's not done yet. He's still indicting Israel. In verse 21, he says:

“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies.” (Amos 5:21). In my Bible, I double underlined your feast days. And I do not savor your sacred assemblies.

God hated the counterfeit days that Israel kept. And if you want a good marginal reference in 1 Kings 12, 1 Kings 12:32-33 is where it talks about Jeroboam telling the Israelites, hey, it's too much to go down to Jerusalem. He didn't want them going down there, lest they return to following the house of David. So he made those golden calves, one at Bessel, one up at Dan, said, here are your gods. Let's come and worship these. And we'll have a feast in the eighth month instead of the seventh.

And so God says, I hate those days. God hates counterfeit religion. And he goes on a little bit further. He says, yeah, offer me grain offerings. I won't accept it. Take away the noisier songs. As I said before, God doesn't like superficial religion. He doesn't want to show. He doesn't want to listen to songs. He's not impressed by how much blood we can spill in sacrifices. He always wanted, you know, broken in a contrite heart. He wanted the spiritual sacrifices of praise. So he asked for that. In verse 24, he also says: 

“But let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24). That's what he wants. Justice, righteousness like a mighty stream. Love that imagery. A mighty stream of righteousness. That's what we want.

And then he turns back to them in verse 25. He says, “Did you offer Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?” (Amos 5:25).

Well, the 40 years of wandering, well, they did offer God sacrifice and offering. You know, they had built the tabernacle before the wandering started. God gave them the sacrificial system that we see described in Leviticus. So he says, yeah, you did that to me. But in verse 26, he says:

“You also carried Sikuth your king and Kion your idols, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves.” (Amos 5:26).

Now, these are Hebrew words, sikuth, a false god. Actually, the word there that's translated king is moloch. So moloch, let me see if I can write that in a…can mean king, but it also can be translated as the name of a false god, which was worshiped by some of the pagan peoples around Israel. And kion, your idols, which you made for yourselves. Now, well, let me finish verse 27. 

“Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts (Amos 5:27).

So because you did this, worshiping the false gods, you're going into captivity. Interestingly, he doesn't say it's the Assyrians here in Amos, even though we obviously know it is the Assyrians. And there's where I say maybe he's leaving it vague so that it can apply to different generations in different situations. And one of the reasons I wanted to read the rest of this is in Acts 7, in Acts 7:42-43, this passage is quoted. It's quoted by a man named Stephen. He's commonly called Stephen the martyr. He's one of the first deacons who's ordained in the book of Acts. And he's arrested.

And he gives this fabulous sermon slash oratory in front of all the Pharisees and the Sadducees talking about Israel's history. And then at the end, he says, I see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, which they consider blasphemy, and they stone him to death. Okay, so you probably remember that. And as he's dying, he says, Lord, don't attribute this sin to their cause. You know, he prays for their forgiveness.

So, you know, when he quotes this, he says that they would go into captivity beyond Babylon. So this is a technical thing. I wasted, well, I didn't waste time telling you the story, but why does he say Babylon, when he's read the Bible, he would know it's Damascus, maybe because he knows that there would be two different captivities.

One where the northern kingdom of Israel is taken away, then the southern kingdom Judah. So maybe, and as, you know, Stephen goes ahead and takes the privilege of updating that prophecy. But that's missing the most important thing in this. I wanted to get the technical part of it. But imagine, if you look back to verse 25, I know the bell is going to ring here in a moment, but if you'll let me go along, it says:

“Did you offer Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years?” (Amos 5:25).

Okay, the Israelites who left Egypt are the ones wandering. They're the ones who crossed through the Red Sea, following that pillar of cloud that turned at night into a pillar of fire. And God is saying, you had a false idol with you that whole time. You know, Sikuth and Moloch and Kion. Are you going out and gathering manna every morning and still worshiping an idol? And it boggles my mind. Apparently, some of them were.

It shows how we can deceive ourselves. Imagine I'm an Israelite and I'm walking through the Red Sea. I see a wall of water here, a wall of water here, and I've got a little idol in my hand, and I'm scared to death, and I'm squeezing it real tight. They can get me through this. If I'm doing that, which by the way, I'm not doing that, you know, I worship the true God. But imagine, you know, okay, I don't know if I trust this. And so I'm kind of following the true God, but I'm trusting this false thing that I made.

And that is how we sometimes deceive ourselves. We want to have a foot in both camps. We want to worship the true God, but we want to be superstitious or we want to worship something else. That's humanity. And when I'm saying we, I don't mean the people in this room necessarily, I mean humankind. And God has given us the ability through His Spirit to see that in ourselves. And He wants us to throw out Sikuth and Kion and Moloch. He wants us to be devoted only to Him. And I would say, only by the power of His Holy Spirit can we do that. With God's Spirit, we truly can. We can get rid of any false worship, any false belief, and we can follow Him truly and totally.

Israel didn't have that advantage. At least most of them didn't. And so we see, even with the miracles, I said, a pillar of fire at night and manna in the morning and quail, and they had trouble getting rid of the false gods. And I think there's a lesson for us. You know, God didn't bless them because they were Israel. He used them as an example for us to learn that we can do better by the power of the Spirit in us.

That makes a good stopping point. We're at the end of chapter 5, so let's go ahead and stop there, and we'll pick up with chapter 6 next time. So, let's go ahead and stop there.