Amos 8:1-10

The book of Amos and chapter 8 reading the first ten verses of the chapter for our text and study this evening. Thus have the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seeest thou? and I said a basket of summer fruit, then said the Lord unto me, the end is come upon my people Israel. I will not pass by them anymore. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, said the Lord God. There shall be many dead bodies in every place. They shall cast them forth with silence. Hear this, O ye, that sorry, that sorry. swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, when will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the effa small and the shekel grate, and falsifying the balances by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse with the money, the wheat of the wheat the lord has sworn by the excellency of Jacob surely i will not never forget any of their works shall not the land tremble for this and everyone mourn that dwelleth therein and it shall rise up wholly as a flood and it shall be cast out and drowned as by the flood of egypt and it shall rise up wholly as a flood of egypt and it shall be cast out and come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day, and I will turn your feast in the morning, and all your songs in the lamentation, and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head, and I will make it as the morning of an only sun, In the end thereof as a bitter day. May God blessed to us the reading of His sacred and holy word this evening. Now, in America, one of the standard gifts that we might give for people recovering from an illness, if they were at home or in the hospital, would be a basket of fruit. Now, a basket of bright fruit looks good, tastes good, it’s good for you. It conveys the desire for good health and strength. No one would take a basket of fruit as an ill omen, I don’t think, in our society. Just the opposite would be true. It speaks about good health. It speaks about prosperity. Now following Amaziah’s rude interruption of Amos that we looked at in chapter 7 verses 10 to 17 in a previous study, the prophet tells the people here of another vision that he’s had. He talked about three visions in chapter 7, and here’s the fourth vision he talks about in chapter 7. Here’s the fourth vision he talks talks about in chapter 8. 8. This is the vision of a beautiful basket of fruit. Now, the question, of course, arises is what is God up to here in revealing this vision to Amos. Amos’s first vision was that of deviring locusts in the early part of chapter 7. Now, that was frightening. His second vision was that of a deviring fire. That was also frightening. The third vision was that of a plum line, which may not be frightening at first, but when God explains the situation that he’s going to measure the wall of Israel, see what’s sagging, what isn’t by his standard, then that becomes frightening too. And now we have the fourth vision, which doesn’t seem frightening either at first glance, but as we shall see, it does have a terrifying message. associated with it. All these visions are very frightening. These are fearful words of doom. Even though we might not think of a basket of fruit in that manner, God seems to be doing so here in our text. What we find here in chapter 8 in the first two verses is this, that Israel is ripe for judgment. Now in this vision of the summer fruit basket, Amos sees this basket is full of fruit. And the expression refers to those fruits which were ripened toward the end of Israel’s growing season, maybe August or September. And so they’re at their peak as far as the ripening stage, the various trees, and so forth. What seems to be portrayed here is sort of a time sequence. If we follow the visions carefully, you’ll notice that the first vision talks about the grass of spring in chapter 7. The second vision talks about the summer fire, or at least the early summer fire. And here, we have more of the last summer fall fire. And here, we have more of the last. late summer, maybe even toward the fall, fruit season, is getting later and later on God’s time clock. Time is running out quickly. We can put it this way. Summer has ended. The harvest is passed, and Israel is not yet set. They’re still in a state where they’re going to perish. Now, what is the meaning of this vision? Well, just as the fruit season, in question came at the end of the summer. So also Israel’s summer is over. The harvest of judgment is coming. When fruit is ripe, there’s no further growth or development possible. In fact, once we reach that state, the only thing that’s going to happen is it’s going to start decay. It’s going to get worse. You’re at the best state you could possibly be in at this point. We look at Israel, and maybe at this point they looked at themselves and thought, well, everything is still prosperous. We’re still doing well. We’re healthy. But it’s an Indian summer. It goes late here, but the end is coming. As God clearly says here, I will not again pass. by them anymore. He says, the end is come upon my people Israel. In scripture, sometimes we read about the sins or the wickedness of a group of people, becoming fully ripe, and then God’s sending a judgment. And that seems to be what is portrayed here in this particular case. We sometimes read about the cup of iniquity being completely. completely full. You can’t put any more in it. We can’t get any riper than this. This is as ripe as you get. We all know what happens over right fruit. When it gets soft and mushy and then fungus gets on it and decay and it goes downhill. And so this is what happens. It literally rots before your eyes. And so this seems to be the meaning of the vision. The message of the vision for Israel is this. It’s to late. There is no more hope. Sort of like the plumb line situation that we saw in our last study, or a couple studies ago, God has fixed and determined the end. And there’s not going to be any delay, any bypassing any longer. In the first two visions, God relented. God relented. It a reprieve for a short period of time. No more reprieve. Amos is pleaded. The Assyrians were held back a bit on the first two plagues as we saw, but now in this case, judgment will not be held back. Amos’ message was no longer than one of warnings so much as one of judgment is coming. And it’s coming soon. Amos probably felt like the physician who had to inform his patient that he’s terminally ill. He maybe has a liver cancer or something that he’s going to die within weeks. And there’s nothing he can do to help. There’s no way to relieve the situation. There’s no cure available. All he could do to spare the nation, he’s done. It can’t be done now. There’s nothing more to do. So Israel is ripe for judgment. Then he talks secondly tonight about the catastrophe that awaits Israel. In verse 3, and then verses 8 through 10, verse 3, and the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, said the Lord God. There shall be dead bodies in every person. place, they shall cast them forth with silence. Then verse 8, shall not the land tremble for this? Everyone mourn that dwelleth therein, and it shall rise up wholly as a flood, and it shall be cast out and drowned as by the flood of Egypt, and it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darkness and I will darkness upon I will darken the earth in that clear day and I will turn your feast in the morning and all your songs into lamentation and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head and I will make it as the morning of an only sun and the end thereof as a bitter day. Here we have a picture of the terrible thinning, if you would, of Israel’s population. Versus 3 and 10. The happy songs that are traditionally sung during the harvest season when we thank God for the blessing on the crop are going to be exchanged for wailings here when just judgment strikes. Dead bodies will be strewn about the land just as the stalks and stubble they’re left after the harvest has been cut and gathered. Now whether Israel died in battle by the hands of the invading Assyrians or whether they died during the siege of Samaria, it doesn’t really matter the bodies or they died by some type of plague. some type of disease that befell them, it doesn’t really matter. The dead bodies are going to pile up. And it’s a very sobering catastrophe. Silence will prevail. Verse 3. Respectful silence, because God’s name will be revered in that day. We’ve already studied this in chapter 6 and verse 10. Not a word will be spoken against the Lord. It’ll be a bitter day. A day of real sorrow, real anguish. A terrible thinning of the population is mentioned here. And then we read about the violent destruction of the land that’s coming. Three pictures are given to us here about the violent destruction. The first is that of an earthquake. Talks about a trembling. of the land. The second is that of a flood. These are in verses 8 and 9. Third is that of some type of eclipse where the sun is darkened. So these are the three things that are mentioned here. Now there are those who would like to take this in a literal sense and I suppose it’s possible. At least literal things could happen. After all, Amos opened. up about the two years before the earthquake, he began his ministry in chapter 1 and verse 1, so I guess it’s possible. However, I’m inclined to take these words in a symbolic manner. I think that’s what the Lord intends here. I don’t believe Amos is talking about a literal earthquake or eclipse or a flood here. As you know, if you studied prophetic books and those of you who have gone through the Book of Revelation with us and some of the other minor prophets are fully aware that God uses a very picturesque language of very figurative language at times to convey a way that he’s going to judge the nation. And I think that’s what we have here. A flood here is used in scripture for the overrunning of an enemy invasion. Just like a flood would come in and just overwhelm the land, just cover it over. We have the idea of the armies of the enemy just flowing throughout the land and just overrunning it, so to speak. Look at Jeremiah as an example. There’s several we could look at it. Let me just pick one out for you. I’ll let you ponder this for yourself. I think it’s good to be aware of this type of language so that when you come across it, you weigh whether you should take it symbolically or literally. But you’ll notice Jeremiah 46 and verses 7 and 8. Who is this that come up as a flood? Whose waters are moved as rivers. Egypt riseth up like a flood. And his waters are move like the rivers, and he said, I will go up and will cover the earth or the land. I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof. Come up, ye horses, and rage, you chariots and so forth. You mighty men. So here it is talking about an enemy army. And Egypt’s army coming up like a flood just to cover the land to capture. So we have this kind of idea with flood. Now in verse 9 we have this idea of an eclipse. The light goes out. Notice the sun, the moon, the stars, everything gets dark. And this speaks of the lights going out for a nation. Perhaps we could put it this way. When God smiles upon you, it’s the light of his countenance. But when he frowns upon you, you’re in the dark, so to speak. And so a nation is destroyed and removed. from its place and all is lost. We have the idea of darkness. No hope. No light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Let’s take one example of this, Isaiah chapter 13. Now I pick this particular passage because it’s a past event. We’re talking about the fall of Babylon by the Medes and the Persians. Notice it starts out in verse 1 of chapter 13 of Isaiah. the burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amos did see. This is something heavy that refers to the Babylonian Empire. Some type of judgment that’s going to fall. Then jump down to verses 9 and 10. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, delay the land desolate, and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it were the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light. The sun shall be darkened and is going forth and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And then jump down to verse 17. Behold, I will stir up the meads against them. What shall not regard silver and as for gold they shall not delight in it. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes shall not spare children and Babylon the glory of kingdoms and beauty of the Caldez’s excellency shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorra. So here we have the idea of an eclipse, meaning the fall, the total collapse of the nation. Finally, we have here the trembling of the land that’s mentioned in verse 8 of the book of Amos. Now the word trembling here could be referring to the fear of the people with these events occurring. Deuteronomy 2865 says that he shall give there a trembling heart. So that could refer to that. However, it can be used also, and it is used in scripture. of an earthquake, the trembling of the actual land, or at least it’s portrayed as an earthquake here. The literal earthquake is used in 1st, 161 1415, where the trembling of the land occurs, but symbolically of some earth-shattering event, some great upheaval, if you would, in the land. If you look at the book of Hague-I, a few books toward the end of the Old Testament here. The last three books, you have Hegei, Zechari, Malachi. Hegiahe, Chapter 2, and beginning with verse 20 through 22, we read this, and again, the word of the Lord came unto Hegei in the 4th-daye day of the month, saying, speak to Zerubable, Governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the Hewai, heavens and the earth. What does that mean? Verse 22, I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen. I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them and the horses, and their riders shall come down every one by the sword of his brother. So a collapse of the nation, upheaval in the nation. Terrible loss. in battle and so forth. Now in the New Testament, this passage is quoted, and so I direct your attention to Hebrews Chapter 12, where we have a little bit more of a reference to this passage. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 25 to 29. The writer of Hebrews, which I believe is Paul, says this, see that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not, who refuse, used him that spake on earth, much more shall we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised saying, yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signified the removing of those things that are shaken, and of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. Now briefly here, why should the Jews not go back to Judaism? Why should they not return to the temple worship with its sacrifices and ceremonial aspects that were connected with that worship. Why should they cling to the kingdom of God? Well, he tells us here, the kingdom of God is an everlasting kingdom. But guess why? Temple worship, ceremonial worship, ceremonial worship, come to an end. God says he’s only going going to shake the land, which he did, and to overthrow of the nation, but he’s going to shake the spiritual things associated with the heavens too, and this seems to be referring to their worship. The Old Testament way of worship with the temple. The temple would be destroyed. And the way of bringing their sacrifices and so forth to Jerusalem, all that’s going to be gone. So why would you want to go back to that? We have a better high priest, we have a better sacrifice, we have a better kingdom, and so forth, as Book of Hebrews has pointed out. The Jewish war with the Romans would end in 70 AD with the complete destruction of the temple, burning it to the ground. Every stone removed, just as Jesus said. Temple compound leveled. So when we get to the book of Revelation, you remember chapter 6 and verses 17 to 19, when it talks about the fall of Babylon and we believe, at least I do, that Babylon refers to Jerusalem. Chapter 11 seems to indicate that’s the city where our Lord was crucified. So I take it that’s what he’s talking about. It says it’s going to be a great earthquake. And the city is going to be destroyed. A great upheaval. Apostate Israel will be no more. It will be overrun and destroyed by the Romans. And thus, in Revelation 18, there is the weeping and the wail. because Babylon the Great has been destroyed. It will not rise again. Is what we’re told. So these passages here would indicate we put them all together here and get the picture. He’s just looking at it from different angles, but he’s saying the same thing. It’s coming to an end. I’m going to destroy the land. So their world is going to be turned upside down. Dark, or evil, disaster is going to overcome. Not a glimmer of hope. Right now, maybe Israel is in high noon. Maybe it’s in a clear day, as the prophet says. Yeah, but there’s what’s coming. Darkness is coming. And God says he’s going to cause the sunshine in their lives, the grow pitch to black. So the catastrophe that awaits Israel. Finally, the case against Israel is mentioned in verses four. through seven. Let’s look at that. Amos chapter 8 verses 4 to 7. Hear this, O ye, ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, when will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat, making the F small and the shekel grate, and falsifying the balances by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat. The Lord hath sworn by the Excellency of Jacob, surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn that dwelleth therein. Here we see the merciless treatment of the poor. This is not something that is just mentioned once. He has repeatedly mentioned this throughout the book. The national pastime was exploiting the weak and the poor. The more prosperous, the were more like the sharks who are gobbling up the little fish and destroying. The Bible doesn’t teach that the needy are any better than the rich when it comes to engross in gross injustice. when it comes to oppressing people, we can’t just say that one’s better than the other. But when poverty is in the land, it gives those who have more the opportunity to show kindness and love and share from their abundance. But the Israelites who were more like vultures, looking for the weak to pray upon them and take advantage of them. So they swallowed up the needy. We see the despising of the Lord’s Sabbath and the new moons, the worship services. Now these Israelites were very scrupulous, very punctual when it came to keeping the Sabbath. It doesn’t seem to buy any question about that. They were in their religious services on the Sabbath day. They did want to violate the Sabbath by buying or selling on the day of the Lord. They were at least keeping, they thought, the letter of the law, the wealthy, the grain dealers joined very piously in the worship of these various worship centers. The prayers and the songs of the temple went up at Gilgall and Bethel and Beersheba. They sang for their yearning to enter in the Lord’s house and sing praises to the Lord God. But that’s all the external aspect of it. The problem was, as we look at this, if you could read their thoughts and their minds, what they were concerned about was the gold. They were concerned about the money and not God. That’s what their main concern was all about. And so here they are. They’re sitting in the worship service and what are they thinking about? When is it going to get over? When can we get back to selling our grain? When can we get back to making money. Even cheating people to make money. That’s what they’re thinking about. Gordon K. An RP pastor once gave this account of an experience he had. He said, this recalls an incident I witnessed in Istanbul, Turkey some years ago. After a service in the new mosque had just concluded, some man ran out ahead of the others and set up portable tables in front of the exits and started selling lottery tickets in their enthusiastic Arab fashion. As soon as you get race out there and get that table set up, I can be the first one to set. You know what was on their mind during the service. Now, in mentioning the Sabbath day, he also mentions their crooked business practices here. So it wasn’t just merely, we want to get back to getting in an honest day’s work. They wanted to work, but they wanted to cheat people. They were going to make the F small and the shekel great. Now the shekel would be used on a scale. Back in those days, they’d have to have the balance scale. They don’t have the electronic scales that we have or spring scales that we have. So they would put the heavier shackle on the one side, and so you would have to match the heavier shekel, but they made the shekel bigger than it was supposed to be. So they could say, oh, I don’t know. money you gave me doesn’t match up here. You’re going to have to give a little extra. You have to remember in those days they didn’t have a government that was printing money. Different people would be coin makers, and they’d have different styles and different images on the coins and so forth. And so they’d weigh them. Some people had a habit of like shaving, you take a little silver off or a little gold off this coin, a little gold off that coin before you know it, you had a little pile of gold. can come out of heads. So if people were shaving, they would say, well, you know, I weigh this by a coin that’s not shaved, and we’ll see what they have. But they were cheating. They were cheating. Then, not only did they make the shekel grate here, in order to cheat on the counterbalance, but they made the alpha small. So what that meant was, as you bought, you would get less grain than you were supposed to get. So here you are paying more for it than you should have and getting less than you should have. Evidently, these grain dealers were tinkering with the scales. They falsified the balances, it says here. Somehow they were able to maybe tinker with the scales a little bit and throw them off. So they took a delight in selling the poor for money, and they robbed the poor every last penny, and they sold their freedom as well. and then when they sold the grain they didn’t even give them good grain they put the refuse, maybe some chap was in with the grain, they just sold them the chaff too. Like when you go to the grocery store, sometimes they water down the meat, see, to add weight to it so that they can charge you more for the meat. All these kinds of little tricks of the trade, so they’re, you know, the butcher putting his thumb on the scale and stuff like that. There was all these little tricks of the trade in which they were cheating people. So this is the case against the murder, crushing the poor, despising the Sabbath, crooked business practices, and on and on we could go. I have two practical thoughts tonight. The first is this. Nations have a rightness to them. And when they reach that appointed time, when they are judged to be right by God, judgment is going to We’re told by secular historians that nations run in cycles. There was a German historian Oswald Spangler wrote a well-known history called the decline of the West. And his thinking was this, that there was some type of biological or natural cycling that took place in nations, just like you would be born as well. a baby and grow up and get old and then get weaker and then finally pass off the scene. He sort of picture nations is doing the same thing. It was all normal, according to him. He uses this pattern to explode the myth of some type of universal, inevitable progress in history as though we’re all moving toward a utopian society or something of that nature. In other words, Spangler failed to understand here, because he was not a believer. He doesn’t have any spiritual insight is this, that the real cause is not natural behind a nation collapsing. It’s sin. It’s their sin that causes them to fall in God’s sight and become right for judgment. And so we look at this and we say, oh, now we begin to see what the problem really is. There are such things. things as national sins. There are consequences that result in national judgments. Now, as we look at this tonight, let me draw a couple of thoughts here about the way this takes place. And the first is this. People that are nearest destruction usually are ignorant of the danger they’re facing. God often gives free. God often gives free. warnings of the fact he’s going to bring judgment. After all, this is now the fourth vision that Amos relates, but they didn’t pick up on the first three. They didn’t take any of those things to heart. So the basket of somber fruit, which doesn’t seem frightening, is because these people have no spiritual insight as to the meaning of the basket. They missed the first three warnings. We see also that God would have his people ponder carefully what he reveals to them. Amos, what seeest thou? We should meditate upon divine revelation for God would have us see what he’s going to do. Gain insight as to his purpose and his way of bringing judgment on the nations. So this is how God works to teach us. people. Another thing we see is the sin of a nation reaches a certain height, a certain level of rightness for judgment. And there’s no sparing possible. As he says in verse 2, the end is come, I will not again pass by them anymore. I’m going to send the earthquake. I’m going to send the great upheaval. I’m going to send the flood and they’re going to get overrun. It could be by Anarchic. it could be by a powerful enemy nation it could be by communist leadership taking over our country could be any of these things that brings America down there’s going to be an eclipse the lights can go out for a nation but God says enough is enough and off the scene scene of history they go in all hope of recovery is lost now God makes it clear because he points out the sins by which he’s going in this is why I’m bringing the judgment. We see this particularly in verse 4 and following. He says, hear this. Take clear account here of what I’m going to tell you, because this is why I’m going to bring judgment against you. And I won’t dwell on these four positions because we’ve talked about them before as we went through this book. But let me just summarized them for you. Oppression of the weak and the poor. A despising of the Sabbath day, verse 5. Now I remind you that when God created the Sabbath, the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. It wasn’t just made for the Jews. Jesus said it was made for man. And so, you know, instead of looking at this, well, this is Israel. It has nothing to do with it. He has something to do with you. Has something to do with you. It has something to do with our. nation when we despise God’s day that he has set aside for his worship. Corrupt business practices where you cheat people. False worship. Verse 10. Where the biblical worship has been cast aside, man-made worship prevails. Where does our nation stand with regard of these things? You think any of these things are happening in our own nation? Shouldn’t we be frightened when we see these things? Maybe there’s a basket of ripe fruit that we should be looking at. And so we see this. And let me close with the second point I want to make. And that is this. That God takes note of your attitude toward his day. The Sabbath or the Lord’s Day. Now, sometimes appearances can be deceiving people outwardly, may go to church. They may follow their religion. They may be involved in their church and attend some Sunday worship somewhere. They may sing the songs of Zion. They may bring their offering and so forth. But God looks further into the matter. He looks at the heart. Not only the fact that they’re there, they showed up, but what’s going on while they’re there, so to speak? what are they thinking about? Where are their minds? Sadly, too many people are their minds on everything else, but the worship of the Lord God. What’s your attitude toward us have? If God would evaluate you while the sermon is going on, what’s he going to find? Now, you see the attitude of these people is, when’s this thing going to get over with? When’s the preacher going to get done? When’s the preacher going to get done so we can get back to what we want to do? I suggest to you that we look at what Isaiah tells us. here, God through Isaiah, and chapter 58, verses 13 and 14. Here’s the attitude we ought to have. God says this, if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. If you honor my day, I’ll make it a delightful thing to you. I will bless you. And so when we look at the Lord’s day, we shouldn’t do so, well, here’s another Lord’s day. I can’t do what I want to do. We better come to the worship of the Lord’s day. Lord with the idea. Let’s have, it’s a joyous occasion. This is the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad they’re in it. You know, and find pleasure in the day. Set aside the worldly concerns and focus on the worship of the Lord, our God. Your attitude really toward the Sabbath is a reflection of your attitude toward God himself. So whatever you are tempted to think about how boring the minister is and how long the service is and when is it going to get over. Think about this passage. Think about what God says in this passage of Scripture. Because those who said this were the very ones that were ripe for judgment. We have to do what David said in Psalm 139, 23, and 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked. it way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. He wants to do what’s right, down to his thinking before the Lord is gone. Well, let us close with the word of prayer tonight.