I told you so!
Don’t we hate to hear it? While occupied in our own daily trespasses we stop up our ears to any who would warn of our sins: “Thus the Lord GOD showed me, and behold…”
And to make things worse, in the day of our demise the seer such as Amos could well lament, “I told you so, but you refused to listen.”
Amos 5:
Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel…
We’ve heard Amos previously warn:
Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.
Now the seer shows signs he tells Israel’s leaders ‘the Lord GOD showed me.’
Would a leader – a king, premier or president – dare ignore something that a seer [Amos] says the Lord God showed me?
How could a priest serving a people pledged to God not hear Amos when he demonstrates ‘what the Lord God showed me?’
Wailing in the streets
16 Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the Lord,
“There is wailing in all the plazas,
And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’
… For I will pass through you,”
Says the Lord.
It is not as if the LORD leads them out of their troubles as before from Egypt through the wilderness and before Israel subduing her enemies in the promised land.
Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord!
Amos 5:18 CSB
What will the day of the Lord be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
The seer shows the fear of the LORD that will consume a man fleeing an enemy arrived safely at home, but there bitten by a snake.
Are we not all prey of the serpent of eden without the Lord God?
Rather than consuming Israel’s offerings for sin on the altar the Lord would consume Israel!
The Day of the Lord
20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light,
Even gloom with no brightness in it?
21 “I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
We will have more about festivals to consider when returning to the Gospel of John shortly.
22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them…
The Lord will no longer accept Israel’s worship!
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs!
25 “House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness?
Amos reminds that they had nothing to offer there before the pillar of fire of the LORD!
Idolatry
NO OTHER GODS!
The Law of the Living LORD our God is quite clear: He IS GOD and idols (even of good “Saints” or a Jesus of stone) are not. Yet Israel became a whore on the mountaintops of the stone images of idolatry.
26 וּנְשָׂאתֶ֗ם אֵ֚ת סִכּ֣וּת מַלְכְּכֶ֔ם וְאֵ֖ת כִּיּ֣וּן צַלְמֵיכֶ֑ם כּוֹכַב֙ אֱלֹ֣הֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר עֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם לָכֶֽם׃
Amos 5:27 WLC
27 Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,”
Says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
Woe to those at ease
We have heard this before from the Prophet Isaiah who also preached against rituals and idolatry after Amos. The true prophet so often warns, “This is what the LORD God showed me.”
Warning & Advice to Scoffers Who Rule
Isaiah speaks to scoffers of God. Yet are your ears this day so filled with twisted speech that you do not even understand the significance of his warning?
Amos now warns the rich who govern and direct worship in Israel.
3 Woe to you who put far off the day of doom,
Who cause the seat of violence to come near;
4 Who lie on beds of ivory,
Stretch out on your couches,
Eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall;
5 Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments,
And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David;
6 Who drink wine from bowls,
And anoint yourselves with the best ointments,
But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
… now go into exile … And the sprawlers’ banqueting will pass away…
Judgment on Jacob
8 The Lord God has sworn by Himself,
The Lord God of hosts says:
“I abhor the pride of Jacob,
And hate his palaces;
Therefore I will deliver up the city
And all that is in it.”
God showed me five signs
I will leave it to you to read the five signs Amos tells us, ‘the Lord God showed me.’
Let the Holy Spirit convict the church!
The Lord Jesus, Redeemer of Israel, later showed signs no other Prophet could ever do. Yet even the Messiah Jesus was not believed.
So how do you think Amos was received by the leaders of the land and their appointed teachers and priests?
The five signs build in intensity and importance.
A brief glance
7:2 When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! … So the Lord relented…
4 The Lord God showed me this: The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. 5 Then I said, “Lord God, please stop! …
“This too shall not be,” said the Lord God.
7 Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the Lord said to me,
“Amos, what do you see?”
And I said, “A plumb line.”
Opposition
10 Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying,
“Amos has conspired against you right here in the house of Israel. The land cannot endure all his words…
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer!
Amos responds to the priest with the anointing of the Lord in his calling.
“I was no prophet…, But I was a sheepbreeder.
I will spare them no longer
What do you think?
The Lord has relented from punishment for sin. Will you repent?
And once again, the Lord holds back and does not punish. Will you now repent?
So the Lord measures the place of your worship, the people of His pasture. It is a time for harvest, a festival of blessing in times before.
3 In that day the temple songs will become wailing”—this is the Lord God’s declaration.
“Many dead bodies, thrown everywhere!
Silence!”
Do you now FEAR THE LORD?
4 Hear this,
you who swallow up the needy,
And make the poor of the land fail…
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth
and every head to be shaved.
I will make that grief
like mourning for an only son
and its outcome like a bitter day.
11 Look, the days are coming—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
when I will send a famine through the land:
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and roam from north to east
seeking the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
SILENCE! of the LORD. Do you hear it?
God’s Judgment Unavoidable
Did you repent when you heard the word of the Lord?
And did you bow down when the Lord showed you mercy?
Now, therefore, the Lord stands beside the holy altar of worship and Amos speaks the unspeakable judgment of the Lord upon the people of His Own covenant.
I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said,
“Strike the doorposts, that the thresholds may shake,
And break them on the heads of them all.
I will slay the last of them with the sword.
He who flees from them shall not get away,
And he who escapes from them shall not be delivered.
“Though they dig into hell,
The word of the LORD – Amos 9:2 NKJV
From there My hand shall take them;
Though they climb up to heaven,
From there I will bring them down;
The further words of the Lord paint a fearful judgment and death of the people of His promise, a covenant Israel has broken.
The Prophet Amos confronts you and says, God showed me all this that you might repent. Do you?
All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
Amos 9:10 KJV
The ending that is not yet the end
Amos offers only a distant glimmer of hope.
“On that day I will raise up
The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down,
And repair its damages;
I will raise up its ruins,
And rebuild it as in the days of old…
The Lord God will once again accept worship by the sons of David. Yet how?
We will learn more of this next in returning to the Good News of John.
וְשָׁפַכְתִּי֩ עַל־בֵּ֨ית דָּוִ֜יד וְעַ֣ל יֹושֵׁ֣ב יְרוּשָׁלִַ֗ם ר֤וּחַ חֵן֙ וְתַ֣חֲנוּנִ֔ים וְהִבִּ֥יטוּ אֵלַ֖י אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁר־דָּקָ֑רוּ וְסָפְד֣וּ עָלָ֗יו כְּמִסְפֵּד֙ עַל־הַיָּחִ֔יד וְהָמֵ֥ר עָלָ֖יו כְּהָמֵ֥ר עַֽל־הַבְּכֹֽור׃
http://blb.sc/009Nio
“I will pour out on the house of David
and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the Spirit of grace and of supplication,
so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced;
and they will mourn for Him,
as one mourns for an only son,
and they will weep bitterly over Him
like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
Zechariah 12:10 NASB
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