Amos 7:1-6

The prophet Amos, chapter 7, reading the first six verses for our text and study this evening. Thus half the Lord showed unto me, and behold he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth. And lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s moings. and it came to pass when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land. Then I said, oh, Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee. By whom shall Jacob arise, for he is small. The Lord repented for this. It shall not be, said the Lord. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto God. me and behold the Lord God called to contend by fire and it devoured the great deep and did eat up apart then said I O Lord God cease I beseech thee by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small the Lord repented for this this also shall not be, saith the Lord God. God blessed to us, His sacred, and His Holy Word this evening. If I could put you in Amos’ shoes tonight and update it just for our sake and thinking about this, suppose you received a vision from God about the United States of America and 20, 50. Suppose it portrayed the United States being absolutely devastated by North Korean nuclear weapons and thus you were witnessing the end of the United States. How would you react to that? How would you respond to that? Because this is what confronts Amos and our text deceit. evening. God reveals to Amos what he intends to do to the northern kingdom of Israel. And Amos responds here with intercession, begging God to relent and have compassion on Israel. Amos tells us here in verse one and also in verse four, thus hath the Lord God showed unto me. We understand this is in a vision that Amos sees these two events in symbolic fashion of what God is going to do to the nation. Actually, we’re going to find here that Amos is given five visions regarding the judgment that’s going to fall on the Northern Kingdom. And there’s clear progress as the series of visions go forward. The first two visions that we’re going to look at tonight is the vision of the grasshoppers and the vision of the fire in the six verses of this chapter. We find here the swarm of grasshoppers. We find here the swarm of grasshoppers. We find here the swarm of grasshoppers, and a deviring fire. And in this, God shows compassion and he relents and says it shall not be. That Israel is going to be spared complete destruction at this time. But in the following three visions that we will look at, in chapter 7, verses 7 and 9, the plum line, the basket of fruit in chapter 7, 8 verses 1 through 3 and then also the Lord at the altar in chapter 9 verse 1 the judgments are irrevocable and they bring about the destruction of the nation which Amos has been prophesying and the captivity and so forth So let us start tonight by looking at the visions here of the grasshoppers and the fire The vision here of the devouring grasshoppers. Now you’ll notice here that the Lord would be the cause of this disaster. According to verse 1 he says, Behold here, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth. And lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings. Amos seized this huge swarm of grasshoppers or as they are sometimes known as locusts. The Hebrew word here, goby, means giant grasshoppers. Some understand this as the locusts from its grubbing stage as a larvae. But either way, we have the same idea being portrayed. In Palestine though, this signifies a major catastrophe. Major catastrophe. You remember what happened in Egypt when God sent the plague of the locust. Notice that Amos explicitly tells us that the Lord formed the grasshoppers. And we have here the indication that this large swarm didn’t come about accidentally, but God purposely brought it to by. In our time, we sort of try to explain all catastrophes on the basis of the cycle of nature, global warming, or maybe a mere chance events, once in a lifetime happening, once in a hundred years. But note that the scripture is very clear in saying, the Lord is bringing this to pass. He is sending it. It comes from his hand. Jeremiah 1811 says, Behold, I frame evil against you. And that’s what we find here in our text. These grasshoppers were formed to eat, to gobble up, all the grass of the land. Thus a vast quantity of them are prepared for this purpose by God. Now, the time of this terrible plague is also mentioned to us here in verse one. This plague is going to begin when the second crop was starting to sprout and shoot up. It would happen in the late spring after the king’s early crop has already been gathered. Now, the king’s mowings were a form of income tax, if you would. He would take the first cut, if you would. If you’ll excuse the pun, he took his cut off the top. The remainder then would be for the farmer, and he would use the, this is fodder, this is coarse food for his stock, his cattle, his ox and his sheep, whatever he was feeding, and they would eat on this stock until the following year. But if these grasshoppers wholly devired the grass, then he wouldn’t have anything to feed his stock, and then things are going to be very bad. going to lose his stock. And so these great grasshoppers in this vision speak about total ruin upon the whole countryside. And this is why Amos is so intent on trying to avert this disaster. He sees what’s going to happen. Now, we might look at this, and I think obviously as we look at this, we know something’s bad, going to happen. But what exactly does this mean? I like what you read in Zechariah, sometimes the angel the Lord will say to Zechariah, understandest thou what I seeest? No, I don’t. And so in a sense, we might get the gist of it, but we’re not sure exactly what is he talking about here? What does he mean by this? We’re just talking about grass here? In grasshoppers? Well, I think there’s a figurative meaning associated with this vision. If you study the scriptures carefully, you will notice that an army of grasshoppers is also used to portray a great enemy army invading the land. an enemy that would come plunder the countryside, leaving it barren, like a swarm of locusts, like a swarm of giant grasshopper, just destroying everything. They would trample the people under the foot, they would loot the cities, they would carry off the Israelites into captivity, they’d leave the land barren. People gone from the land, depopulating it, taking away all the people. Taking away all the cattle and all the sheep and everything else. This imaginary judgment symbolizes that. He’s visualizing this and God gives him this vision. It’s not happened yet, but he sees it and it speaks of the complete destruction of the people of Israel who are as the grass of the field. Look with me tonight. At Psalm 37 in the first two verses, if you would. We have to look up some verses of Scripture tonight. I’ll try not to be too tedious in this. But I think it’s helpful as you read the scripture, you pay attention to some of the figurative language that is used because it’s often used in prophetic teaching. Psalm 37 says, fret not thyself because of evil doers. Neither be thou envious against the workers iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass shall wither as the green herb. Look with me also at Isaiah chapter 32, excuse me, verse 37 and verse 27. Isaiah 37 and verse 27. This verse is more appropriate to the exact situation that we’re dealing with here. God’s dealing with a judgment falling on the nation. Therefore, their inhabitants were of small power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were as the grass of the field and as the green herb, as the grass on the house tops, and as the corn blasted before it be grown up. Then if you would look at Isaiah chapter 40, In verses 6 and 7, maybe a more familiar passage for most of us. The voice said cry, and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass. And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field, the grass withereth. The flower faded because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. So here are some passages that give us some indication perhaps of the symbolism that we find in this passage of scripture. So we’re talking about the people being destroyed. Now, in addition to this, we might say that the Syrian army is going to be coming in as a swarm of grasshoppers or locust. The Word of God uses locusts or grasshoppers to represent a massive invading army. Look with me in the book of judges. And chapter 6, verses 1 to 6. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. And because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them dens, which are in the mountains and caves and strongholds. So it was when Israel had sown that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites and the children of the east, even they came up against them, and they encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass, for they came up with their cattle in their tents, and they came as grassmen. hoppers from altitude, for both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land to destroy it, and Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Medianites, and the children of Israel cried under the Lord. And chapter 7, verse 2 as well, excuse me, verse 12. The Midianites and the Amlicites and all the children of the East lay along in the like grasshoppers for multitude, and their camels were without number as sanded by the seaside for a multitude. You could look at Joel, chapters 1 and 2, and there’s this huge locust plague, but if you read it carefully, it starts talking about a nation coming against the land. It talks about the heathen ruling over them. And so we see the locust plague is actually referring to an invading enemy army. And I’ll leave that for you to examine a little bit further on your own. But these kind of passages would give us an indication then of what we’re talking about. This is the predicted captivity that we’ve talked about repeatedly in the book of Amos. Remember chapter 5 and verse 27, chapter 6, verses 7 to 9, and also verse 19, each one of these passages talked about this captivity. And so this is a reality that Amos is seeing here. He’s seeing it in a vision, but this is what seems to be being portrayed for us. Now, the second vision is the vision of the divine fire. And that’s found here in verse 4. Thus, at the Lord God showed under the divine, me and behold the Lord God called to contend by fire and it devired the great deep and did eat up apart. Now in this second vision, after God relents on the first one, Amos sees here that God is calling for a judgment by fire upon the land. He sees the fire coming and it’s going to be devastating, so much so that it would lick up the fire. deep the water wouldn’t even be able to quench the fire part of the land at least is going to be destroyed by this so this this fierce fire sort of like the fire that fell from heaven on mount karma when elijah called down the fire after he put 12 barrels of water on the sacrifice remember and it licked up all the water still consumed the sacrifice that’s the kind of fire God says. Now we shouldn’t be surprised that fire would be used for God’s judgment because we saw it in chapters one and two. How many times he said he’s going to spend fire upon this country or that country? Israel was one of the ones that was included in that judgment in chapters one and two. So here in this judgment the land is pictured as being consumed. And again, we have a similar picture. Very similar situation. The only difference is it seems that the position of unrepentant Israel has become worse at this point. Whereas the first vision comes in late spring after the king’s crop has been gathered. The second vision appears to be a midsummer vision, where fire is more prevalent and more able to be spread, because of the dryness of things at that particular time. Again, thanks to the intercession of Amos, the giant grasshoppers didn’t destroy everything. And in the summer heat here of the second vision, we see the prayer of Amos again intercedes and God again. spares the nation from complete destruction. Now, fire certainly suggests divine judgment, but what again are we talking about? What are the specifics of this? Let me suggest to you that the great deep that is portrayed here, in scripture, often water, is used to represent nations. A multitude of peoples or nations or kingdoms that we are kingdoms that we, will be conquered by the Assyrians. Remember Revelation 1715, The waters which thou sawest are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. Isaiah 1713, The nation shall rush like the rushing of many waters, but God shall revute them. Isaiah 5720, The wicked are like the troubled sea, which, when it cannot rest. So here we have the idea. again, I think of an enemy invasion upon the land. And it’s going to be devastating, particularly upon the people of the Israelites. Now look at chapter 5 in verses 5 and 6, because we just looked at this not long ago, Gavis. He says, but seek not Bethel nor enter into Gilgau, pass not to Beershebra, for Gilgall shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to not seek the Lord and you shall live lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph and devirate and there be none to quench it in Bethel. So he’s saying, this idea of the fire and going into captivity are connected together and so we have a very similar type of message. Look at Ezekiel chapter 21. I’ll give you one more. I again don’t want to bewilder you with all these passages, but I think it’s useful to keep in mind the symbolism that we often see in prophetic literature that God has given us. Chapter 21 of the book of Ezekiel verse 31 and 32. I will pour out my indignation upon thee, and I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish men and skillful to destroy and thou shalt be fuel to the fire. Thy blood shall be in the midst of the land. Thou shalt be no more remembered, for I have spoken it. For I the Lord have spoken it. Again, very similar language is what we find in our text. I’m not going to look this up tonight. You can do this if you wish to later. Zachariah, Chapter 11. Versus one to six. We see this fire coming in and burns up all of the cedars and the fir trees and all the trees of the land and if you read it carefully you see it’s really God’s fire of judgment by an enemy invading army that is spoken off there. So here’s what we have. We have the grasshopper plagues sort of being averted at some extent. That’s the initial Assyrian invasion. But another, a second. The second invasion comes. And it too is averted to some extent. More damage is done, but Israel is not completely destroyed. We’ll look at this more specifically in a moment. But as soon as the third vision comes, the plumb line in chapter chapter 7 versus in verse 8, you’ll notice that the Lord said unto me, Amos what seeest thou, and I said a plumb line, then the Lord said, behold, I will set a plum line in the midst of my people, and I will not again pass by them anymore. This is it. This time I’m going to destroy them. And that is the vision here then of the locus and the fire, and some of the meaning. Now, let us look at Amos’s intercession here for Israel in God’s response to it. In verse 2, and it came to pass when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small. And then verse 5. Then I said, O Lord, God, cease, I beseech thee. By whom shall Jacob arise for you small. Here we find Amos appealing to God’s mercy. Please be merciful to the nation. Now this is, in a sense, a tender and beautiful scene when we think about it. You know, when the prophets thunder forth their judgments against the nation, either Israel or Judah, sometimes we think of them as kind of hard-hearted in their judgment, but we see that they’re not. We see here a very tender heart toward his nation. He doesn’t want to see this happen to them. So the prophet of doom here becomes a priest. He intercedes for Israel. It looked as though prophesying doom was easy, but it grieved the heart of Amos. He had spoken about Israel and the judgment being seemingly inevitable, but here he’s asking for forgiveness. Forgive them. And while praying, he appeals to God, knowing that Israel doesn’t have any real strength. He’s so small, he’s so little, how’s he going to survive? How’s he going to arise from this? It’ll destroy him forever. And so we find here he’s concerned about this. Now, Israel was exalted among the nations, at least among the ones around them, the little nations around them. But again, Syria, Syria, what chances? they have this very powerhouse that’s going to come down and take them out. And therefore, it says Israel’s so small. Show them pity. So in a way, the acts as prophet and priest, sort of like our Lord. And maybe in some way typifying our Lord’s work as well. So Amos appeals here to God for mercy. And you’ll notice that God, postpones his judgment on both occasions the first two here that we’re talking about tonight. Look at verse three. In the Lord repented for this, it shall not be, said the Lord. In verse six, the Lord repented for this, this also shall not be, set the Lord God. Now, God is said here to repent or to change his mind. He heard Amos prayer of intercession, and he turned aside here the threatened judgment twice, which could have totally destroyed the nation of Israel. Thus the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Now, when the Bible says that God repents, we have to understand this is using human language to describe God. God. sometimes in his scripture will give human characteristics to himself. God indeed actually never repents, as numbers 2319 indicates. God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he not said and shall he not do it, or hath he spoken and shall you not make it good. The Lord does God change his mind. I read in Job 2313. The Lord is a Lord. one mind and who can turn him who can change that mind he’s not of two minds where he’s you know back and forth on it but the idea here is sort of like what we talked about in Jonah when we studied Jonah a while back God gave Israel a further reprieve he mitigated the damage he lessened the blow for now destruction is still coming because God hasn’t changed his mind, but there’s a sense in which he is going to wait a little longer before he actually brings it to pass. And that’s all really we see happening here. Because when we get to the plum line and further, he’s going to bring it and he says, I’m not going to hold back. Sort of similar to what you read about in the parable of the fig tree and, Luke chapter 13 where the owner of the farm says this fig tree, I’ve been waiting for it for three years to bear fruit and it won’t bear any fruit. Chop it down. Get rid of it. And his servant says, wait a minute, just give me a little bit more time. Let me dig around it. Let me put some fertilizer on. Then if it doesn’t produce, then you can chop it. Sort of. Amos is given a little more time. and the people here will hear the gospel a little bit longer. But God’s full judgment is eventually going to come. Just push back a little bit. Ultimately, of course, when God decrees his judgment to come to pass, it’s going to come to pass exactly when he decrease it. But in a vision like this, where he shows the prophet what he’s going to do, the prophet intercedes and pleads don’t do this, he shows the prophet intercedes and pleads don’t do this. He shows, some patience. We have to understand that God is using Amos’ prayers here. He’s actually showing Amos this ahead of time so that he will pray, that he will intercede, and God will wait a little longer. Now, what is the historical interpretation of these visions? I’ll have to be briefed tonight. Let’s look at the vision of the locus. This is the first Syrian invasion. And actually, we have biblical evidence exactly what is being talked about here. Look with me at 2nd Kings chapter 15. This is one of those occasions where it’s very nice because we actually have time goes past Amos. Amos prophesied early. So that we have history passing it by, and so now we can actually look at it and say, oh, yeah, here is the fulfillment of this. Look at chapter 15 of the book of Second Kings in verses 19 and 20. And pole, the king of Assyria, came against the land. land, and Menahem gave pole a thousand talents of silver that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. And Menaham exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man 50 shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Israel turned back and stayed not there in the land. interesting isn’t it? Shortly after the death of Jerobolm II, who is in power when Amos comes into prophesying here, if you look at chapter 1 and verse 1, he’s mentioned, shortly after his death, pull, the king of Syria invades the land. We’re talking about 10 years after the death of King Jeroboam. Not too long. And his army seemed like a swarm of giant grasshoppers. They spread themselves through the land. They threatened its desolation. Aina is seeing this vision. He prays. And what does God do about this first invasion? The king of Assyria took a sum of money from the king of Syria, and so he turns back. He doesn’t stay in the land. And the land is spared. It stays intact as a nation. And I think that’s what it’s referring to here. Secondly, the vision of the fire. This is the second invasion of Assyria. Look at Second King’s chapter 15 again. Let’s jump down to verse 27 through 29. In the two and 50th year of Azariah, king of Judah, Pecca, the son of Remula, began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned 20 years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. departed not from the sins of Jerobol and the son of Nebad who made Israel to sin. In the days of Pecka, king of Israel, came Tigglaath Policer, king of Assyria, and took Ijon, Abel Beth Meika, and Jonah, Janua, and Kadesh, and Khadish, and Hazer, and Gilead, and Gilead, and all the land of Naftali, and carried them captive to Asi. Syria. About 20 years after the reign of King Pecca that we just talked about, the second invasion comes. Ticlaath Palacuser invades the land, but it’s only partial. It captures several key cities, much of the land of, at least portion of it, of Galilee, and the territory of Naftol. So the fire of God comes in and it devires a bit of the nation. before it’s allowed to be quenched by God. But again, Amos prays and God spares them. Damage is done, but it still stays intact as a nation at this point. But when we get the envision of the plum line of the third Assyrian invasion, look at chapter 17 of Second Kings and the first six verses. the 12th year of Ahaz, King of Judah, began Hoshiah, the King of Ila, to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up, Shalmaneser, the King of Assyria, and Hoshia became his servant and gave him presence. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshia, for he had sent messenger. to sow, King of Egypt, and brought no present to the King of Assyria as he had done by year. Therefore, the King of Assyria shut him up, bound him in prison. Then the King of Syria came up throughout all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years. And the ninth year of Hoshia, the King of Assyria took Samaria, carried away Israel into Assyria and placed them in Hela, in Hebor by the river of Gozanne and in the cities of the Means. Thirty-year reprieve was all they got. The third time, he takes them all into captivity, and that is the demise of the nation. Now, tonight, let me make a couple practical thoughts. Let’s talk about how to pray in the face of pending disaster. And I suggest, first of all, we should always recognize the root problem that needs to be addressed. What should strike you especially is the fact that Amos’ prayer in verse 2 here is, oh, God, forgive. Now, you might think it is, oh, God, take away these giant grasshoppers. Yeah, he wants the great grasshoppers to be taken away, but He starts with the root problem here. What is the problem? What’s causing this judgment of God is the sin of the nation. Forgive. It would have been natural for him to pray. God, don’t let our land be devired. You know, turn away the Assyrians who will eat up your land. But no, that’s not where he starts. Now, you and I often might pray that way. You might think about how bad something is and say, well, we’ve got to get to get. rid of this. We look at the plague that’s striking our nation here, the coronavirus. We’re thinking, Lord, take it away, spare the nation. And we can pray that as long as we back the truck up one more step and do what Amos does and say, Lord, bring our nation to repentance. Forgive our nation. Our immediate concern sometimes is what we see before our eyes. We see the fire. We see the locusts or the grasshoppers. What we need to see is things from God’s perspective. This is why the judgment has come. Anything that stands in the way of your prosperity or health or the nation’s health, that’s something you’d like to get rid of. But, friends, the problem is we would be just like, it would be just like King Pharaoh. Remember when the plagues were so great for him, he couldn’t handle it anymore. He calls for Moses and Aaron to come in. He goes, I’ve sinned, you know, get rid of these things. But as soon as they did, he refused. refused to let Israel God. He didn’t really repent. And so if God just took away the judgment and there was no true repentance, then we’d just revert back to our old ways. So Amos is getting to the root of the problem. So what’s important here is not that the Assyrians are great and powerful and threatening them. Not the grasshoppers. It’s not the fire. It’s the sin of the lane. are plagued with problems and troubles and things are difficult in our lives. One of the first things we should check is there are known sin in my life I need to repent. Not all things like this are connected with sin. Well, we know this was. Psalm 90, verses 7 and 8 says, We are consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath. We are troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. That’s why we’re being. cut down and die. Thus we have to ask the Lord to teach us how to pray a right here and think about this from God’s perspective. And I think you’ll notice that God listened to Amos because his concern really was the glory of the Lord. His concern was seeing the nation turn back to the Lord. That was his focus, not just relief. and so when we pray let us pray with that same objective that we be thinking about the glory of the Lord in how that would affect our own nation our own person in this situation that we might find ourselves. The second thing, realize the root problem that needs to be addressed. The second thing, plead for mercy on the basis of your helplessness. Israel is so small. can’t you’re never going to survive this now of course the people thought they were self-sufficient they were proud arrogant people but when we pray we need to look at things from God’s point of view and realize there were nothing and remember God gives grace to the humble Amos comes very humbly here he presents a very humbling case for Israel does us help in trouble for vain is the help of man we’re very small. It’s right and proper to plead for mercy on the basis of your helplessness. He alone can help us. He alone can end it. He alone can spare us. So plead for mercy on the basis of your helplessness. And finally and thirdly tonight, acknowledge you are receiving less than you deserve. Israel here was twice. Twice spared. complete destruction and captivity. Twice God relents. He mitigates the judgment. God proves here that he often turns back when there’s intercessory prayer and at least lessens the blood. What you experience in this life when it comes to God’s chastening or even his judgment upon the nation is always less than you actually deserve. He says, should have brought it earlier perhaps, you know, but he waits. In Ezekiel chapter, or excuse me, Ezra, chapter 9, verse 13, he speaks in his prayer of our God has punished us less than our iniquities deserve. And I think that’s true in this case. This doesn’t mean God is unjust. But God is merciful to his true people for Christ’s sake. He customarily with who holds the most severe judgment. judgment. He warns his people that we might repent. And when he deals with his own people, we have to realize that often God is such that we should be thankful that he waits, that he waits, that he may be patient. He may be patient with us. And that he is such a God that he shows patient. and his patience leads to repentance. So when you come to a situation and you’ve been chastened severely by the Lord, one of the things you ought to be thankful for is you got less than you deserved. He’s being merciful. He’s showing you compassion. He’s bringing you to this point that you may be brought to repentance and then escape the worst of the judgment that certainly could be falling upon you. We’ll let us close with a word of prayer.