Christ Church Washington D.C.

If you would turn with me in your copy of the Word of God to Amos chapter 1. I’ll read the first two verses and I’ll be giving an introduction to the book as a whole this morning. And while you turn there, let me just say it’s a joy to bring God’s Word to you this morning. I bring you greetings from the saints at 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
I grew up in a CREC church in Canada that began in 1999 where my dad still pastors. So the CREC will always be near and dear to my heart. And I do earnestly pray that the Lord would bless you as a church plant, that he would pour out his grace upon you and establish the work of your hands here in Washington as you seek to be salt and light in a city that desperately needs the gospel.
Amos, beginning at verse 1. Let’s give our attention together to the infallible, authoritative, and life-giving word of God.
And in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. And he said, The Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem. The pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of the carmel withers.
But the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray together. O Lord God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. You are watching over your word to perform it. Your word will not return void. Amen.
This morning we come to the book of Amos. Amos is a minor prophet with a major message. There are 12 minor prophets in the Old Testament and they’re called the minor prophets not because of their insignificance but because of their length. The minor prophets are much shorter than the major prophets.
Daniel. Now who was the prophet Amos? We’re given a brief biographical sketch in chapter 1 verse 1. Amos was from Tekoa, a little village in the southern kingdom of Judah about 10 miles south of Jerusalem. His assignment however was in the north. Amos was a southerner prophesying in Yankee territory.
He prophesied in the days when the nation of Israel was divided between the north and the south. You had the northern kingdom called Israel and the southern kingdom called Judah. More on that later. And in fact Amos is one of only two Old Testament prophets with an assignment in the north.
The other. Every other Old Testament prophet has their assignment in the south. The kingdom of Judah. Now Amos was a shepherd and arborist by trade. Chapter 1 verse 1 and chapter 7 verse 14.
Amos was not an ivory tower theologian or academic. He had no fancy titles or credentials. No, he simply had a divine call to proclaim the word of God, to speak the truth, even when it’s unpopular. God called Amos to prophesy during the first half of the 8th century B.C.
And by this time, the northern kingdom of Israel was on its last legs. Of course, Israel was perfectly oblivious to this. They presumed on God’s grace. They presumed that their kingdom would endure forever and ever. But in reality, their days were numbered. They had been tried in the heavenly courtroom and been found wanting.
It was ticking. And Amos comes to sound the alarm. He comes with a message of judgment. The Lord roars from Zion. The day of the Lord is coming. And that day would come just a few decades later when the nation of Assyria would rise up and invade Israel in 722 BC.
Of course, during Amos’ ministry, by all appearances, everything seemed to be going all fine and well in Israel. In fact, though Israel had had their fair share of turmoil in the past, the beginning of the 8th century BC, before the Assyrian invasion, was a time of unprecedented prosperity and stability.
The Old Testament timeline here to situate where we are in Israel’s history. You have Abraham called by God in roughly 2000 BC. 600 years or so later, God delivers Israel from Egypt. They wander in the wilderness for 40 years because of their rebellion. Then around 1400 BC, they enter the promised land. They conquer the Canaanites.
As they get settled, God establishes the monarchy, beginning with Saul. After Saul comes David, who unites the 12 tribes of Israel into one nation. Then after David comes Solomon, around 1000 BC. Solomon marks the golden age of Israel’s history.
Dominance, power, and prestige. But what comes after Solomon really marks the beginning of the end of the United Nation of Israel as we know it. It’s all downhill after Solomon. Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, rips the nation apart. If Solomon was known for his wisdom, Rehoboam was known for his folly.
We can find the story in 1 Kings 12. It’s a famous story. It’s a timeless fable that serves as a warning against the rashness of youth. Rehoboam inherits the throne from his father Solomon.
He starts by consulting the old men. He goes to the wise men, the seasoned men, who’ve seen kings come and go, and they urge Rehoboam to rule as a servant of the people, to seek the well-being of the common man.
Seeking the common good of all, being a servant, that’s weakness. That’s overrated, the young men say. And Rehoboam heeds their counsel. He says to the people, my yoke will be far heavier than my father’s yoke. I will squeeze you for everything you’re worth. My thumb will be thicker than my father’s thighs.
1 Kings chapter 12, Rehoboam says, Rehoboam chooses the path of folly. He becomes an oppressive tyrant. And civil war erupts and new territories emerge. The kingdom of Israel is divided north and south. New borders and new alliances are formed. After Rehoboam, around 920 BC,
the map of Israel is forever changed. Ten tribes united in the north, now known as Israel, and two tribes united in the south, now known as Judah. Israel in the north would be conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Judah in the south would be conquered almost 150 years later by Babylon in 586 BC.
And this is the world into which the prophet Amos enters, a kingdom divided. And he arrives as a prophet to the northern kingdom proclaiming God’s coming judgment. And he comes around 750 BC, just decades before Assyria will conquer her.
Amos 1, verse 1. In the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. Now this new geographical arrangement would soon lead to theological derangement. The holy city,
Jerusalem, was now in the southern kingdom, meaning the northerners no longer had access to the temple. And the temple, of course, was the place of God’s presence. It was where God’s people gathered to worship. So this was significant for Israel in the north. Their access to worship was cut off. But rather than trust God to provide,
they took matters into their own hands. We read in 1 Kings chapter 12 of Israel’s evil solution. They go the way of the evil nations around them. The king orders golden calves to be made and worshipped at Bethel and Dan in the north. He establishes new high places for worship and sacrifice. He establishes a new priesthood.
Plunges the people of Israel into gross idolatry. And there’s really two angles of Israel’s sin we can see that will ultimately lead to her judgment. The first is Israel’s idolatry. The second is Israel’s hypocrisy. So first, Israel’s idolatry.
Chapter 17 provides us with a commentary on the rationale for God’s wrath against Israel. It’s worth reading when you go home this afternoon. Read 2 Kings chapter 17 verses 7 through 23. It’s a harrowing picture of spiritual idolatry and its consequences. But I’ll give you just a small sampling now.
Israel’s idolatry is linked to following the nations around them. Here’s a few verses from 2 Kings chapter 17. And this occurred, that’s speaking of the Assyrian conquest of Israel, this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.
And the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. They set up for themselves pillars and ashery on every high hill and under every green tree. And there they made offerings on all the high places as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger. And they served idols of which the Lord had said to them,
you shall not do this. They went after false idols and became false. They followed the nations that were around them concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. Therefore, the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. And so we see the northern kingdom of Israel,
turned to idolatry. They polluted the worship of the true and living God. They took the practices of the nations around them and brought them into the house of the Lord. And God does not tolerate Israel’s syncretistic practices. He does not tolerate blending the world with the church. He does not tolerate blending the kingdom of darkness.
With the kingdom of light. Either God is the God of your whole heart, undivided. Or he is the God of none of it. It’s impossible to serve two masters. But the allure of the world seduced Israel. Israel wanted to be like the nations around her. She wanted to fit in.
Rather than embrace her identity as God’s chosen nation. A kingdom of priests. And a holy nation. And so the Lord roars from Zion. Brothers and sisters, this is a bleak picture. The background of the book of Amos that we find in 2 Kings chapter 17.
Bleak picture of the consequences of compromise with a sinful world. Romans chapter 15 verse 4 tells us that whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction. We’re not to read the story of Israel’s sin as merely a window looking in,
our own hearts. God intends for us to learn from Israel’s mistakes. Her history, as Paul says in Romans chapter 15 verse 4, is recorded for our instruction. There’s a lesson to be learned here and the simple lesson is this. When God’s people, when the church compromises and links arms with the world, she is no longer
the church. She is no longer a steward of the mysteries of God. Because when you compromise with the world, you compromise the gospel. You compromise the good news of Jesus Christ. The gospel is not the gospel if sin is not sin anymore. What use is good news if there is no bad news of God’s wrath?
But this is precisely the problem with progressive Christianity today, which is really not Christianity, but an entirely different religion altogether. It seeks to link arms with the world on every new orthodoxy rather than stand firm on what God has said in his word.
Christianity, as Richard Niebuhr once said, presents a God without wrath, bringing men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross. It’s a different gospel. It’s not the biblical gospel. It’s a false gospel. And Christ pleads with you today, dear child of God,
he says, devote your heart entirely to me. I alone can satisfy you. Don’t lust after the things of this world which are perishing. Don’t long for the recognition of the world, the affirmation of the world. Don’t long to be like the world. It’s all passing away. Jesus says to you instead, surrender your heart to me.
And this is precisely the gracious invitation from her Lord that Israel declined. And so God, in his sovereign grace, hands Israel over to her judgment.
Her hypocrisy. I briefly read from Amos chapter 5 during our confession of sin. And these verses really capture the heart of Israel’s hypocrisy. Yes, Israel had an idolatry problem. She followed the way of the world and worshipped false gods. She followed in the footsteps of the nations around her. But she also had a hypocrisy problem.
She had the audacity to worship idols while still retaining certain aspects of biblical worship. She had the audacity to keep and observe external forms of religion, of true worship, while at the same time living in unrepentant sin.
This deep-seated hypocrisy of his people. They praise him with their lips while their hearts are far from him. They go through the motions. They observe feasts. They gather on the Sabbath. They sing psalms in praise to God. But God sees their hearts and knows their hearts are divided. He knows their lives. He knows they are walking contradictions. They have a dead orthodoxy problem.
They can say the right things, but inwardly their hearts are rotting away. They have divorced the head from the heart, their faith from their practice, their theology from their doxology. They know facts about God. They know facts about how to worship, but they don’t know him in the biblical sense of the word. They don’t know him with hearts aflame.
And so God thunders from Zion and says, Amos chapter five, beginning at verse 21, I hate, I despise your feasts. I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your harps. I will not listen. This is a sobering word from the Lord. God’s anger is kindled against Israel for her hypocrisy in worship. But his anger is also kindled against her hypocrisy in her treatment of the needy.
This is a major theme in the book of Amos that will come back up over and over again. Israel claimed to love God, but did not love her neighbor as herself. Israel oppressed the poor and capitalized on their suffering.
Amos chapter 2, verse 6. Israel tramples on the poor. Amos chapter 5, verse 11.
Israel profits from the oppression of the poor and lives a life of extravagance, ambivalent to the cries of the downcast. And God says to them, he roars, he thunders from Zion. He says, I will strike the winter house along with the summer house.
Amos chapter 3, verse 15. God is saying to Israel, I will bring your extravagant vacation homes to nothing. I will bring an end to your wealth and your greed and your oppression. Israel had an idolatry problem, a hypocrisy problem, and God will not remain silent.
God sees and God knows and God acts. God roars from Zion. Amos chapter 1 verse 2. It’s a powerful metaphor we find here. A lion. Amos presents us with a big picture of God. Amos doesn’t present God as a grandfather up in the sky,
piling down upon the world. No, Amos presents God as a lion who roars, as a powerful, holy God, full of grace and mercy, yes, but also full of truth and justice. And he will not tolerate evil forever. And so because of her sin, Israel’s protector
will become Israel’s predator. And what we also need to see this morning is that even in the face of the righteous wrath of God against sin, the prophet Amos still presents us with the mercy of God. You’ll see this in chapters one and two. There’s this common refrain as God charges the nations
and his people with their sin. God says over and over again, for three transgressions and for four, I will not revoke the punishment. In other words, God has already shown grace. This is not simply a one-time offense. They’ve transgressed three times and four. God’s disposition is to show mercy, yes, and he already has time and time again.
But his people have continually hardened their hearts. And so God hands them over to their sin. And even though God sends Amos to warn Israel that her days have come to an end, God ends with a message of hope. This is what we find at the end of the book of Amos, Amos chapter 9.
And of course, we know God is speaking of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the greater David yet to come. All who look to Him and repent will have life everlasting. Well, as we come to a close this morning, I want to,
offer just two very brief points of application. The first is that we need to understand how the judgment of God works. The book of Amos teaches us the sobering lesson that disobedience leads to judgment. And so naturally, many of us are left wondering, when I experience affliction or suffering,
is that a sign of God’s judgment on me for disobedience? Well, to begin with, the Bible doesn’t teach that whenever affliction or suffering comes our way, it must be because God is angry and judging us for our sin. You may remember that God rebukes Job’s friends for thinking this way in Job 42, verse 7.
There is no explanation for our suffering in life other than the fact that we live in a fallen world and that God is sovereignly working together all things for our good, even our affliction and suffering. But affliction and suffering can sometimes be a direct consequence of sin, as we see in the book of Amos.
The Westminster Larger Catechism is helpful on this point. Question and Answer 27 talks about the origin of sin and its subsequent misery. And it goes on to describe that all of mankind, apart from Christ, is, quote, justly liable to all punishments in this world and that which is to come, end quote.
The next two question and answers in the Catechism then distinguish between God’s punishment of sin in this world and the world which is to come. Now this is a very important distinction. Christians sometimes think that God only punishes sin at the final judgment. That is when the sheep and the goats are separated and all who reject Christ,
are cast into the lake of fire. This will indeed happen, but God also punishes sin in this life. God intervenes with acts of judgment in human history, in time and space, just as we see in the book of Amos. He judges sin even in this very present age.
Remember is this. If you are in Christ, in a very important sense, you do not face punishment for sin in this life. If you are born again, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ has already endured the punishment for every one of your sins on the cross. There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The new face in this life, however, is the discipline of the Lord, the loving discipline of the Lord. As a father disciplines his son for his good and his growth, so too our Heavenly Father will discipline us at times. If we fall into sin, we can experience his chastisement, which though is painful,
ultimately is meant to lead to our restoration. But every man and woman not united to Jesus Christ, yes, is subject to the active punishment of God even in this life. The second point of application this morning is this. The book of Amos teaches us that Christians should be concerned with justice and mercy.
Now, I know that the term social justice has fallen on hard times, and by and large that’s a good thing because it is a term that has been hijacked by Marxists to make everyone either the oppressed or the oppressor. Let me just make this very clear. You are not inherently guilty of injustice.
Because of your skin color. You are not inherently guilty of injustice because you own your own home. You are not inherently guilty of injustice because God was gracious to you and you were raised in a two-parent household. The Marxist definition of social justice has lost the plot. But the book of Amos gives us a healthy courage.
It gives us a biblical view of social justice. The book of Amos teaches us that God is angered when the strong trample on the weak. It teaches that we should be a voice, the voiceless. Whether it’s the countless image bearers murdered today in the womb or the many children,
mutilated under the guise of love, the church is called to be a voice for the helpless. She must be the pillar and buttress of truth she is called to be. And we need to keep things in perspective. Social justice must never eclipse the mission of the church, the central mission of the church, which is to draw men and women
boys and girls to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Social justice is never an end unto itself, as many today would have you think. Rather, social justice is simply a byproduct of the gospel. We can’t put the cart before the horse. The church is not primarily an activist organization.
But rather primarily a house of worship. But here’s the thing. If the worship of the triune God is primary and central, the church will produce godly, mature Christians who are concerned about biblical social justice. The church will produce Christians who will be a voice for the voiceless.
Biblical worship, faithful gospel proclamation, produces courageous Christians who advocate for the fatherless, the widow, and the orphan. We should be concerned with biblical justice. And the book of Amos teaches us that we should also be concerned with mercy.
For centuries, before we had the welfare state, it was the church that cared for the poor and the needy. Before there were even things like government assistant programs, it was the church that fed the hungry and cared for the sick and clothed the naked. The church of Jesus Christ is called to love both in word and deed.
Deficient on the deed side of things because we’ve ceded so much of the duties of Christian charity to the state. I want to encourage you as a church, as the Lord establishes you in years to come, be intentional about forming, training, and mobilizing deacons. The office of deacon is sadly
very often overlooked and underutilized by many churches today. But God never intended mercy ministry to be an afterthought. No, God established the office of deacon in his church so that as they lead the congregation in deeds of love and mercy, the people of God would be the hands and feet of Christ to those in need.
Mercy ministry is a glorious task. Jesus tells us that in caring for the needy, we care for Christ himself. As you have done to the least of these, Jesus says, so you have done to me. Amen. Let’s pray together.
Let’s pray together.