Amos 9:1-10

The last chapter of the book of Amos, I want to read verses 1 through 10 for our text and study this evening. Amos 9, verses 1 through 10. And I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said, smite the lintel of the door that the post may shake, and cut them in the head, all of them. I will slay the last of them with the sword. He that fleeth of them shall not flee away. He that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. Though they dig into hell, thence shall my hand take them. Though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down. Though they hide themselves in the top of caramel, I will search and take them. them out hence, thence. Though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them. Though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword and it shall slay them. And I will set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good. And the Lord God of host is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn, and it shall rise up wholly like a flood, and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth. He that calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon on the face of the earth. The Lord is his name. Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, said the Lord? Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt and the Philistines from Kaffhtur and the Syrians from Khaftur? Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth, saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord, for lo, I will command and I will sift the house of Israel, among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say the evil shall not overtake us, not overtake, nor prevent us or go before us. And God blessed to us his sacred and holy word this evening. During Hitler’s reign over Nazi Germany, he introduced a policy which he called the final solution. Hitler blamed all the assorted evils. of history upon the Jewish people. And he thought if the world could rid itself of the Jews, then everything would be right again. And so Hitler set up concentration camps for the Jews and began the process of hurting them into these areas of extinction, where they would be put to death. There was no mercy. whether it be men or women or children didn’t really matter. They were part of Hitler’s final solution, and over 6 million Jews were put to death. In our text, we find God’s final solution to a sinful kingdom, the kingdom of Israel. While Hitler was guilty of gross cruelty, God is merely meeting out holy justice. in his case. God is going to exterminate these wicked people. He will hunt them down no matter where they go and execute punishment upon. God says, I command the sword and it shall slay them. In verse 4. And God is going to destroy the nation of Israel from off the face of the land or the earth. Verse 8. tells us this only a remnant will be spared when God sists the nation there are some who will be seen as kernels of wheat or corn of some sort some grain and this elect remnant will be spared by God when he puts them through the mighty that his mightiest sieve. So we have a very sobering account here of God’s final solution. We see God’s war of extermination in the first six verses. The Lord’s appearance at the altar is spoken of here in the first part of this chapter, verse one. I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said, smite the lintel or the door that the post may shake and cut them in the head, all of them, and I will slay them, the last of them with the sword. Here we have the setting of the vision is some type of shrine, some type of sanctuary, probably the temple at Bethel, which figures prominently in this book. You recall, that God had promised to visit Bethel with the judgment in chapter three of the book of Amos. And verses 13 and 14, God says this, hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord God, the God of host, that in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him, I will visit the altars of Bethel. the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. So here is his promise and now we see a fulfillment of that promise in this vision that Amos has this evening. Now the term visit we must understand here means in this context to bring judgment upon. this is not a social visit or even God, a visit of God with a blessing. When God visits the nation by sending the Messiah that brought a blessing, but here he’s going to visit for the purpose of punishment and judgment. Interestingly enough, God doesn’t come here in the character of Jehovah. It doesn’t come as Lord with the capital letters here. covenant God, he comes as Adonai, this sovereign God. God is saying here that you are not my covenant people. I don’t recognize you as such. In fact, you have proven yourselves to be no different than the heathen, which he goes on to explain in this text of scripture. They have pursued false worship. They have turned her back on the true and the living God. And so they are going to have God’s wrath poured out upon them. The Lord stands on the altar here, signifying the end of their perverted sacrifices. It’s going to bring an end of this false worship that is taking place, this foolishness. So this is not just about, and we should see this, the temple at Bethel, but if you go as you go through this, we begin to read it. realize that it’s going to involve the destruction of all the false altars in Israel. It’s just that the major one is put for all the rest. There’s a sentence in which he’s going to bring judgment on all of them. So the Lord’s appearance of the altar. And then we see the final solution executed here in the second part of verse 1 through verse 4. He that fleeth of them shall not flee away. He that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. Though they dig into how, thence shall my hand take them. Though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down? Though they hide themselves in the top of karma, I will search and take them out thence. Though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them. And though they go into captivity before they. their enemies thence will I command the sword and it shall slay them and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good. Now Amos sees here at Bethel or this temple, the sanctuary, that it’s full of people. We don’t know if it’s a Sabbath day. We don’t know if it’s a festival day, but it’s loaded with people. Suddenly Amos hears that the Lord is ordering to destruction of the temple. This destruction includes those within the sanctuary itself. It’s not just a sanctuary, but he’s got to cut it in the head, if you would, a fatal blow on the head of these people. Kill them with a sword, smite the nation, even those who perhaps flee away and panic. Those who escape somehow the immediate judgment that falls. will not escape ultimately. With horrible realism here, Amos describes how the wrath of God will track down these people like a hound dog, tracking a wild game. He was not going to be relenting in his searching out of these people. There is no supernatural refuge as verily. verse 2 tells us neither down into shield here the place of departed spirits if they could drill their way or dig their way down there nor in heaven whether we talk about the heavens of the atmosphere or even the third heaven where God dwells it doesn’t really matter which way they go God is going to bring judgment upon them there is no natural reference whether they go high up on Mount Carmel and maybe try to hide up there among the woods or something of that nature or where they go to the bottom of the sea that will not offer any protection either even the sea serpent hidden in the depths will be God’s servant to devire Israel now the serpent that he mentions here is probably a reference to Leviathan. You’ll recall Leviathan is called in Isaiah chapter 27-1. Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan, the crooked, the crooked serpent. Psalm 41 describes Leviathan as some type of sea monster, like a dinosaur-like creature. and it’s a monstrous creature that no man can stand up against. And he’s saying, I will cause him to search you out and get you. There is no political refuge. Even if they surrender to the Assyrians, even if they submitted to captivity in a foreign land, even then God says, I will bring the sword against them. so that they’re slaughtered. So not only the serpent of the sea, but the sword on earth will bring judgment against these individuals. God is going to be on hot pursuit of these people. He’s on their scent, and he’s not going to spare them. They’re not going to escape. Now, the one who directs this attack upon the nation of Israel is supposed. in verses 5 and 6. And the Lord God of host is he that toucheth the land and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn, and it shall rise up holy like a flood, and shall be drowned as by the flood of Egypt. It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven and have founded his troop in the earth. He that, calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth. The Lord is his name. So this judgment is underwritten, if you would, by the sovereign Lord that we’ve mentioned. Highly figurative language is used here. We have the same idea as chapter 8, verse 8, some type of melting of the earth, maybe like in a terrible earthquake, or some type of flooding that is going to occur, massive flood. God is the one who is going to bring this judgment, to melt the earth, or to sweep it away like the overflowing of the waters, let’s say of the Red Sea, that came as they were escaping Egypt, and the land will be flooded. And then to describe himself, God says, He builds the upper chambers of the heavens. Literally, he says, I build the layers of the heavens. In Genesis chapter 1, God separates the firmament. He has a firmament above and a firmament below. So we sort of have the, what we might call the sky, the atmosphere, and then there’s the outer space. Scripture even talks about a third heaven on top of that, if you would, that where God abides, where paradise is to be found. So he has layered to heavens, if you would. He has established that for us. He’s the one that founded his troop. Now this is sort of an obscure phrase. The word troop here means a band, a bunch, or a bundle. It seems to be used in the book of Genesis when God did something about the sea that covered a whole face of the earth. He caused it to heap up, if you would. He bundled it, so to speak, so that the dry land would appear. Perhaps similar to this idea here. God making the seas, causing the dry land to appear. God, of course, is the one who brings the rain. He pours it out upon the earth. It causes the flood one place and not in another. Whatever God is revealing to us here, the idea is that he’s not a paper tiger. He can carry out whatever he designs as a judgment upon these people. He’s certainly capable of doing that. He’s the one who directs the attack. So here is God’s war of extermination. And secondly, we see the sifting of the house of Israel in verses 7 through 10 here. How God views the nation of Israel here, the northern kingdom as a whole is found in verse 7 in the first part of 8. Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me? Oh, children of Israel, saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt and the Philistines from Kaffthor and the Syrians from Kurd. Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful nation and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. We always look and we see Israel taking pride in their family tree. We’ve talked about this before, that they are the offspring, if you would, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, So they looked upon themselves as favored people that the Abrahamic covenant was their blessing. They felt on the basis just of their birth that they were entitled to this blessing, the automatic favor of God. God says shockingly, I’m sure, to them, you’re just like the Philistines to me. You’re no different than the Ethiopians or the Syrians. God is saying here, you stand before me just like the heven. That’s what he’s telling them in this passage of scripture. These words must have shook up the people to hear such things. As God once said through Hosea, you are not my people, and I will not be your God. And that’s what he’s saying here. Israel might take some comfort, yes, but didn’t you redeem us from the land of Egypt. Didn’t you deliver us from Egyptian bondage? Can’t we look back on that as your favor toward us? And the Lord God reminds Israel here that is just as responsible for the migration of some heathen nations as he is for them. The Syrians, the Philistines, Israel’s enemies here. Since Israel rejected true war, worship, God says here, your exodus is no more of practical importance than the movement of these foreign powers. How are you any different, the Ethiopians, or the Philistines, or the Assyrians, or the Syrians, I should say. I had to be shocked. He brought the Philistians, he says, from Kathor or Crete. And he came over, remember, and landed on the shores of Palestine and that’s where they set up their land for the most part. And the Assyrians also were delivered from Kerr here. They had their exodus. How is anybody, how are you any different than that? The first part of verse 8 here is seemingly an adaption from the passage in Psalm 34, if you want to look with me there. Psalm 34 and verses 15 and 16. God says this. Though the eyes of the Lord upon the righteous in its ears are open under their cry, the face of the Lord is against them to do evil, to cut off their remembrance of them from the earth. Or at least the land. here. If you are declared to be righteous, we have to understand that this means, of course, that they have faith in Christ. They’re granted his righteousness. He says, I will hear your cry. I will be your God. You recall that this is the same as what he said in Psalm 32 verses 1 and 2. Romans 4, verses 5 to 8, where he talks about the blessed is the to whom God does not impute sin. He does not count it against them. What a wonderful blessing that is. But if you live sinfully, God says, I will cut off your memory from the face of the earth. You are not my people. My people are made righteous by the Savior Jesus Christ, and you are not my people. The people of Israel are called a sinful nation and therefore they are removed. Exterminate. A change of status for Israel has looked upon here. What they thought they were is not what they are. The elect remnant, however, will be spared by God sifting. Now, interestingly enough, when it seems like the whole nation is going to be destroyed, God puts a little bit of a caveat here in here. He gives a little bit of a bit of light in all this darkness. He says here, saving, verse 8, that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord, for lo, I will command, I will sift the house of Israel among all nations like as corn is sifted in a sieve. Yet shall not the least, grain fall upon the earth. It’s not that there’s going to be none left of the house of Israel. The majority of them will be destroyed. But God will not destroy the righteous that are among them with the wicked is what he’s telling us here. All the sinners who have officially done evil and will not serve the Lord God. They’re going to die. Those who deny his message. Doesn’t matter whether kings or government officials or who they are. Priest, it doesn’t matter. But God promises the sift the people of Israel as he scatters them among the nations and separates the corn or the kernel here of the wheat or the green. Or the grain from what is the chaff. This is the point that he makes. The chaff, of course, would be the non-elect. In other words, I’m saying he’s saying he’s going to separate the elect from the non-elect, the righteous from the wicked. There are a few believers in the nation of Israel have not bowed the knee to Bethel and their false worship and the golden idols and so forth. God will make sure that they are not overlooked in this great upheaval, in this great flood of an enemy invasion and so forth. He says, I will take care of them. None will slip through the sieve and perish. I’m going to separate them. So the nation here as a whole will be destroyed because they are never part of God’s true Israel. That’s the bottom line here. Only elect remnant will enjoy God’s favor and blessing ultimately. That’s always true. That’s always true. So here we have the sifting of the House of Israel. This is God’s final solution. Now let me conclude tonight with two practical thoughts. The first thought is this. There’s a sense in which when we look at this, we can get a glimpse of the final judgment. This last vision of Amos represents, in a way, a striking picture, or at least in a symbolic manner, the last judgment when Christ returns, when he visits, to judge both the living and the dead. And there will be no place to hide from him who sits upon the throne. Hell. the place of departed spirits of the damned will give up it will not be you can’t hide in hell even it will give up the dead in it according to Revelation chapter 20 and they will stand before God those in heaven right now will not be excluded from the final judgment they will stand before God his sheep on his right hand and the goats on the left, but they will be there as the scripture indicates to us. So that all will give an account of what they’ve been done in the body whether it be good or evil according to 2 Corinthians Chapter 5. Those that are still living when Christ returns will find no refuge in a mountain peak or in the depths of the sea. In fact, the Bible says the sea will give up the dead which are in them, according to Revelation 20 as well. Everyone, the small and a great, are going to appear before God, the assembled universe of human beings from Adam to the last human being ever born. Omega Man, if you would. The last one. It’ll be a day when God will cause all sinners to die, in this case, eternally. Punishing them with the second death, which the Bible says is to be cast in the lake of fire, according to Revelation chapter 20. It’s going to be a day when the wicked will be destroyed off the face of the earth, for God is determined that there will be a new heaven and new earth, where it dwelleth righteousness, and the wicked will be exterminated. And all the pleading on that day will not move God. Lord, aren’t we your people? Haven’t we done? many wonderful works in your name? Surely you recognize us as your people. And Christ is going to say, you’re not my special people. I don’t recognize you. I don’t know you. You are workers of inequity. Depart from me into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels and off they will go. They may think they are people of God. They’re not. Sin is. is going to be punished in a very strict manner. You know, the only safe place to be in that day is to be found in Jesus Christ, who he is the one who imputes us with a righteousness so that we are acceptable in the eyes of God. It’s the only hope that anyone ever has. Calvary, when we look back on it, is the place where God’s wrath was poured out upon his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was a substitute for sinners. and therefore only those who believe in Christ, who are in Christ, if you would, are the ones who will be spared because the wrath of God toward them has been paid for, suffered by the Savior, suffered by the Savior. Jesus Christ, therefore the wrath can’t fall the second time. God has said, I’m satisfied. He shall see the travail of Christ’s soul and be satisfied, the book of Isaiah Chapter 53 says. God says, that’s it. that’s enough. I accept that. When we think about Golgoth, it’s a horrible place, but it’s a wonderful place. It’s horrible when we think about all the judgment that was poured upon Jesus Christ and why he had to suffer, but it’s also a wonderful place because when we look at that, we find it is also a place of mercy for us in the Savior. So when God shakes this earth, and when God causes the elements to melt with heat, we read about the melting here and the earth here, it’s in Christ is where you want to be. That’s where the protection is to be found. It’s the only place of peace when the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God is poured out on that day. The second thing I suggest you tonight is this. The Lord sifts those who claim to have a relationship to him. I wonder if you ever thought about this. God is always sifting people. As long as there is a professing people who say, who claim that they are following the Lord, we might call Christiandom in our society today. They’re like a massive heap of grain with chaff mixed in the middle. God won’t put down his sieve. He’s going to keep sifting when that situation is present. God sifts people by various different means. We talked about this briefly this morning in the parable of the sewer. Think about the way that God sifts people in this life. There is the sifting of persecution. When you think about the days of the Roman Empire, we studied that in the Book of Revelation and all the judgment that came through that upon the people of God. They were martyrs. We could talk about the days of the popes and how they were slaughtering Christians and putting them to death. And Christians suffered greatly at that time. God was sifting people who claimed to be his fault. He was separating the chaff from the wheat. I don’t think that God’s elect have come to the end of persecution by government or by false religion. I think those days are still going to come upon us. It may be that you and I are going to have to pass through this sieve. May God grant us grace, but he’s separating the kernels of wheat from the chaff. There is the sifting of heresy. Think about how serious this testing is. Why is this? their heresy among the people of God. Why does it exist? Paul talks about this. He says, there’s heresy among you so that those who are approved may be seen, may be known. There’s a sense in which God uses heresy to separate the chaff from the wheat all around you. There’s all kinds of teaching that’s contrary to the scriptures. And Satan is very deceptive in this because his servants are like angels of life. They say they’re going to lead you to the truth when actually they’re leading you to damnation. They’re smooth-talking people. They’re very crafty. There’s so much out there. I always liken it to a maze so that you can’t find the right path to get where the truth is. In other words, he tries to make it very difficult for you to find the truth. And the only way you can have your soul anchored in these situations is to know the truth of God’s word. So he uses heresy to sift. He uses public opinion to sift. Have you ever noticed that if you adhere to biblical truth, it’s quite unpopular in this world? If you want to be unpopular, just start professing something you find in the Bible. I don’t care whether it’s creationism. I don’t care whether you talk about the discipline of children or the inerrancy of scripture or salvation by sovereign grace. Talk about something biblical that God is in control of all governments and so forth. Talk about something biblical and see what happens. Now the question is when you do talk about something biblical and you find people are hating you for it, how do you respond? Are you offended? We talked about that this morning. People get offended. The bare mention of God’s name to offend some people because you’re bringing God into the picture. As long as you curse, use God’s name and a curse, it’s okay. Don’t ever use them in a reverent manner and bring him into whatever you’re talking about, whether it’s how you live your life, society, government, We can’t have that. Many professing Christians can’t handle peer pressure. They’re like the stony ground hearer, and therefore they for a while believe in then they sell out. Friendship to the world is enmity with God. He separates a chaff from the wheat. There’s a sifting of temptation. Judas couldn’t overcome the greed of being covetous. He was a covetous man. That greed that comes with that. He couldn’t overcome it. It killed him. It destroyed him. His life was, if you look at this life, it’s full of all kinds of traps and pitfalls in this area. It’s like slippery ice. God talks about in Psalm 73 is setting people’s feet in slippery places. And them falling and perishing. There are temptations that come along that come along, that undo people. There’s the daily temptation that affects you at work, at home, on the street, even in church. So you have to guard against these temptations. Because it’s going to test your sincerity sincerity to Christ and exposes hypocrisy. And there is the sifting of the trials of life. I may say that in some ways, this may even be the most severe testing, the most severe sieve that you pass through. Remember what Satan said to God about Joe, take away the hedge you have about him and he will curse you to your face. Take away the protection. What if God takes away the protection? What if God puts you through a severe trial in his life? Will you falter? Will you? you curse God and die? Will you blame him for being unkind, unconfirmed, unconfirmed, unloving, unfaithful to you? God gives you grace if you’re a true trial of God to sustain you under these kind of pressures, these trials of life. You endure hardship. And you do it in such a way that you don’t murmur against the Lord. And then there’s is the sifting that comes at the hour of death. You know, there’s a sense in which the true reality where you stand with God comes to light. When you’re facing that hour, when you’re going to die, when you’re going to pass out of this life. Many people have felt the mask of their hypocrisy ripped off of them in the hour of death. And they discover that there’s a wreaking pollution that exist within their hearts. That they were never truly healed by God in this life. They’ve covered over perhaps their corruption by being religious, being involved in things of, you know, church talk, religious speech, and so forth. But on the deathbed, there’s a moment of truth. And it’s a tremendous sieve too. Now the most comforting thing that I can give you tonight from this passage of scripture, there’s not a lot that’s comforting. But in 8B and verse 9 in particular, we see this idea that God shall not cause the least grain to fall upon the earth. Yes, you may be tossed to and fro. You may go through all kinds of trials and troubles and be disturbed in your earthly life, but here’s the comfort. God is saying here, he’ll carefully watch over you, even the tiniest kernel of wheat. He’ll watch over it. God doesn’t sift you because he’s cruel and he’s harsh. God sifts you because you’re precious to him. He’s removing chaff. The farmer uses the sift to save, to spare what is profitable, what is useful, what’s valuable. So all the tossing and the churning and the tumbling is just to remove chaff, that’s all. As a child of God, all your afflictions are God’s proof of his love for you. For whom he loves, the Bible says he rebukes and he chases. It’s because God sees you as his gold that he sifts you, that he puts you through the fire, so he might purify. You might remove inequities from you. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, the psalmist tells us, in Psalm 3419, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. That’s the promise. God never loses one true kernel that he sifts. Let us praise God’s name for his mercy to us in these times when he does sift us and we go through these trials and tribulations of life. Well, let us close with the word of prayer tonight.