Amos 18: The Future Victory
Amos: Prophet of Judgment & Justice • Sermon • Submitted
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Opening
Opening
Good morning! Welcome to those in the room and those who are virtually in the room this morning to our Family Worship service. I’m Bill Connors, senior pastor, and I am so grateful that we are here together this morning to worship our Lord and Savior together.
We have spent much of the last 18 weeks looking at the book of Amos, likely the earliest of the prophetic books in Scripture, and one which focused very directly on judgment and justice for God’s chosen people Israel. Since the first message in this study, we have seen that “The Sovereign Lord roars,” and He has done so through Amos against the injustice and inhumanity of other nations, but mostly against the failings of His own people. Over and over in this book, we have seen His declaration of the condemnation and coming judgment and punishment against Israel. There have been a couple of brighter moments, but on the whole, this has been a challenging and convicting message as we have sought to put ourselves as the people of God in the shoes of Israel, to see where we may deserve the same or similar consideration from the Lord.
I have been personally challenged and convicted myself, but I really believe that I have grown through this study in my understanding of Israel’s history, in my own personal commitment to the Lord, and in my role as a pastor of this group of God’s people. But I say without reservation that I have been looking forward to today’s passage, because it is the brightest message of hope found in the book, and it is a reason for us to celebrate this morning, regardless of what else we may be facing.
So let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we open to the last little paragraph in the message of God through Amos, chapter 9, verses 11-15:
11 In that day I will restore the fallen shelter of David: I will repair its gaps, restore its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, 12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name— this is the declaration of the Lord; he will do this. 13 Look, the days are coming— this is the Lord’s declaration— when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the one who treads grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it. 14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel. They will rebuild and occupy ruined cities, plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their produce. 15 I will plant them on their land, and they will never again be uprooted from the land I have given them. The Lord your God has spoken.
PRAY
If you were to stop reading Amos at verse 10 of chapter 9, you would likely come away with almost zero hope for God’s people. After all the messages of judgment, we might think God is just done with Israel. But we saw last week in verse 8 that He’s not. Amos ends with a great promise of what is to come in Israel’s future—a future victory over not just their enemies, but over their past, as well. While the message of Amos is going to come to pass, and so Israel (specifically the Northern Kingdom) will cease to be a political entity, and Judah (the Southern Kingdom) will eventually go into exile in captivity to Babylon, God’s promises to His people through their ancestors Abraham, Moses, and David have not failed.
The second king over all of Israel was King David. God made a covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7, promising that David’s line and His throne would always endure, and that David would always have a descendant on the throne of Israel. Amos’ message makes this seem all but impossible. But nothing is impossible with God.
So here in this passage, the Lord makes four promises about the future of His people, Israel: God promises that He will restore them, expand them, bless them, and secure them. Sometimes in Scripture, we see promises that have a kind of double-meaning of fulfillment. So, in approaching this passage this morning, the first thing that we need to do is address the fact that this message of hope is being given to Israel, and is being given immediately following verses 8-10:
8 Look, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom, and I will obliterate it from the face of the earth. However, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob— this is the Lord’s declaration— 9 for I am about to give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations, as one shakes a sieve, but not a pebble will fall to the ground. 10 All the sinners among my people who say, “Disaster will never overtake or confront us,” will die by the sword.
Verse 8, as I mentioned before, gives us just a little glimpse of light. God promises that He will not “totally destroy” the house of Jacob (all of Israel, both kingdoms), and specifically those among His people who have not believed His word will perish. In fact, we see in other passages that the Lord always has a remnant among His people who have not forsaken their relationship with Him. The promise that we find here is a definitive promise that has ongoing meaning for the Hebrew people.
Scripture makes it clear that God isn’t completely done with Israel. While the central work that God planned to do through Israel—the bringing forth of the Messiah—has been completed, in Romans 11 we see that God is still working on their behalf because of His promise. There, Paul writes that Israel is experiencing a temporary hardening of their hearts as those who are not Hebrew are being saved and brought into His kingdom. God is going to deliver the faithful in Israel and save by His sovereign grace that certain faithful remnant, and He will do so through Christ, by “grafting them back in.”
And this passage in Amos certainly had a positive meaning for the Hebrew people at the time, both Israel and Judah. While God did declare that He would wipe out the Northern Kingdom politically, that did not mean that they would be completely obliterated individually. If that had been the case, since nearly all of every tribe of Israel was a part of the Northern Kingdom, it would be impossible for God to say in Revelation 7 that some from nearly every Israelite tribe will be sealed by the Lord. Some of them must survive.
God is going to deliver the faithful of Israel, and He will do so decisively. God still has a plan for them for His own glory and for their blessing and benefit. He is simply being patient in bringing it to pass. The faithful in Israel have much to look forward to—a future victory in the Lord as He brings them to His promised Messiah.
But for us, having approached Amos primarily through the lens of a message to His people, and an understanding that we are now His people as the church, we can now come to this message with the same kind of celebration perspective. This is because, in connecting these promises with the kingdom of David, God clearly connects them to what He will do through the descendant of David, Jesus the Messiah. This promised victory has four components here in Amos:
1) Through Christ, God will restore His Kingdom.
1) Through Christ, God will restore His Kingdom.
When I say this, please hear me that I’m NOT saying that God has ceased to be King of kings, sovereign over the whole cosmos at any time. This is an unchanging fact. However, His people had gone their own way, worshiped their own gods, and the kingdom that God had set up through David had been fractured. While the Lord was still fully in charge, the house that God had built through David was in shambles because of the sin of His people. So we read in verse 11:
11 In that day I will restore the fallen shelter of David: I will repair its gaps, restore its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old,
The most important thing to realize in this verse, in my opinion, is the actor of each of these things. There is one main idea: the restoration of the “fallen shelter” of David, with three aspects of that restoration: repairing the gaps, restoring the ruins, and rebuilding it. But who is the one doing this? The Lord Himself. He says, “I will...” This isn’t a work that His people are going to undertake. This is something that God Himself will do.
But the problem with God’s people is deeper than walls and buildings. It’s a heart problem. David’s “shelter,” which really is just a tent, is filled with gaps and is in ruins because of sin—because His people haven’t responded to God as King, as Lord, as we have seen throughout this message.
So God renews His promise here that He is going to correct the brokenness of the line of David, and ultimately, that brokenness would be corrected in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the descendant of David according to the flesh, who will reign on David’s throne forever, as promised to Mary in Luke chapter 1:
31 Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”
(We will look at the full context of these verses in a couple of weeks as we begin our Christmas series: The Gifts of Christmas… Plan to be here for that series!). Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God near: the righteous rule and reign of God in His people. And while He is most certainly the promised Jewish Messiah, we find in Amos that His victorious reign will not be merely over Israel:
2) In Christ, God will expand His Kingdom.
2) In Christ, God will expand His Kingdom.
Since the Kingdom of God is the righteous rule and reign of God in the lives of His people, it is God’s desire and plan that His glory be shown to the nations, so that those who are not Jewish would also come to the Lord and glorify Him. This was a major part of Israel’s purpose as a people. And in the next verse of our focal passage this morning, we see that it is God’s intention to bring other nations into the fold of His people:
12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name— this is the declaration of the Lord; he will do this.
One important tool in interpreting what a passage means, especially in the Old Testament, is to look at any time it is quoted elsewhere in Scripture. Verses 11 and 12 of Amos 9 were quoted by James in Acts 15. In that passage, the early church was debating the question of how to accommodate Gentile believers into the church. James uses this passage to show that it was always God’s intention to include people other than Israelites in the Kingdom of His people:
12 The whole assembly became silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul describe all the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13 After they stopped speaking, James responded, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has reported how God first intervened to take from the Gentiles a people for his name. 15 And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written: 16 After these things I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again, 17 so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles who are called by my name— declares the Lord who makes these things 18 known from long ago.
As we sit here, almost guaranteed to all be Gentiles (as there are only two types of people: Jews and Gentiles), we are the recipients of this incredible promise! Not only was David’s tent broken down because of sin, but ours is as well, and in Christ, God has provided a remedy for Israel as well as for us!
Our sin separated us from our God, who loves us. And our sin, all of the ways that we don’t live up to God’s standard, makes us imperfect, broken. But because God loves us, He sent His Son, Jesus, to fix what our sin has broken: to take our sins on Himself, taking the punishment that those sins deserve, and giving us His perfection in place of our sinfulness, so that we can have peace with God. And that peace is a forever peace, because Jesus’ throne is a forever throne, because He defeated death and lives forever. We live forever with Him if we belong to Him by faith, trusting Him with our lives and our “forevers” through surrendering to Him as Savior and Lord.
This is what we sang about this morning, when we declared that we are alive in Christ, and when we sang about what a happy day it is when we come to Christ and He washes our sins away and changes us forever!
And not only do we have peace with God through Jesus, but we can have peace with one another through Christ as well, as He connects us with the rest of His people. Just as David’s house is being repaired, restored, and rebuilt, so we are being incorporated into that house of God’s people:
18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God—5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
God is expanding His Kingdom rule. Are you a part of His Kingdom this morning?
Along with the blessing of being a part of God’s Kingdom, there is a massive blessing that comes along with that:
3) In Christ, God will bless His people.
3) In Christ, God will bless His people.
For the people of Israel, God had promised them that if they had obeyed Him when they came into the Promised Land, then the land would provide for them abundantly. He gave them this promise in Leviticus 26:
3 “If you follow my statutes and faithfully observe my commands, 4 I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land.
However, the people of Israel had violated this by not following His statutes, and by not faithfully observing His commands. That promise to Israel was conditional. In our focal passage today, we see that God is saying that this promise hadn’t been removed, but was still out on the horizon:
13 Look, the days are coming— this is the Lord’s declaration— when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the one who treads grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it.
This is a great word picture of promised blessing for the people of Israel. Being an agricultural society, their agricultural year began with plowing after the first rains in October or November. The harvest, the reaping of the grain, didn’t occur until April or May. When God promised that the “plowman will overtake the reaper,” He was saying that their harvest would be so abundant that it would take six months to bring it in… that it won’t be completely harvested by the time it’s time to plow the ground again for the next year.
Likewise, the picture of the grape treader overtaking the sower is one of great abundance: grape pressing took place in August or September, and planting took place in November or December. Again, it would be time to go back to working on the grainfields before they were done processing the harvest from the vineyard. The grape harvest would be so abundant that “the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it.”
The Lord’s point here is that he would pour out such blessings upon them that they wouldn’t be able to keep up.
And the promised victory that we have in Christ is one of similar unending blessing, but not of grain or grapes. Instead, Jesus declares that in Him, we will never again have to thirst or hunger for eternal life, because He Himself is the bread of life:
35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.
In Christ, our blessing is greater than a material blessing, because it’s a blessing of being. Our state has been changed, and we are no longer alienated from God. In fact, through Christ we take on several titles of blessing:
1 Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, 3 and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.
Which connects us to our last point: that in Christ, we are secure.
4) In Christ, God will secure His people.
4) In Christ, God will secure His people.
The promise that God gave to His people was that they would be returned to their land, and would live in it again, forever. Even though the Northern Kingdom would be destroyed, and the Southern Kingdom exiled, God would protect them and bring them back to their Promised Land in time, and they would be secure there.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel. They will rebuild and occupy ruined cities, plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their produce. 15 I will plant them on their land, and they will never again be uprooted from the land I have given them. The Lord your God has spoken.
The people will occupy cities, they will plant vineyards and see a harvest of wine, they will plant gardens and grow things that they will get to enjoy. They will be secure in their land, and never have to leave again. Many believe, and truthfully, we may have even witnessed the beginning of the total fulfilment of this prophecy in the last century, as Israel was recognized again as a sovereign nation in 1948.
For us, we have an even greater promise of security in Christ, because the promised victory is that we will be changed, made whole and incorruptible, through the work of God. And death, which many of us see as the ultimate defeat, will instead be revealed as the ultimate victory for those who belong to Christ!
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Listen, I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. 53 For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality. 54 When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory. 55 Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
In Christ, God solves the deepest problem that we have: that we are dead because of sin. Through the work of Christ, the sting of death has been removed for the Christian, swallowed up in victory, by faith that overcomes the power of the world.
And according to John 10, we are safe and secure in Christ, and can never be uprooted and removed if we belong to Him, because no one is greater than God. If He is holding us, we can never be taken away from Him. If we belong to Jesus, we can be assured of our salvation, assured of our inheritance, assured of our victory!
Closing
Closing
What a blessing to be in Christ! We are restored to a right relationship with God, subjects of a Kingdom that will never fade or end, blessed in incredible ways, and secure in that eternal relationship because of what Christ has done. What a blessing that God made these promises at the end of such a heavy message to His people. Even in the midst of the promises of God’s impending judgment and justice against their sin, there is a beautiful light at the end of the tunnel—a future victory over our pasts, over our sin, and over death itself. I’m glad we get to end on such a high note!
But we need to remember that it’s not a high note for those who do not belong to Christ. It’s only in Jesus that we experience this promised victory and find that restoration of our relationship with God, that inclusion in His glorious Kingdom, the blessing of His eternal promises, and the security of knowing that we will never be lost again. If you have never trusted in Christ for your salvation and hope, then right now, this morning, surrender your life to Him in faith, believing that Jesus died for your sins so you could be forgiven, and rose from the grave so that you could live forever with Him. All of these promises of God are only found in belonging to Jesus.
If this morning, you are trusting in Christ for your salvation, or if you have questions about Jesus, please stay in your seats as we dismiss, and I’ll come and find you. I would love to get to talk to you more about Jesus. If you’re online, send me an email to bill@ehbc.org, or respond to our contact form on the Live Stream page at ehbc.org.
If you already belong to Jesus, and you believe that God is leading you to join this fellowship in formal membership this morning, I invite you to stay in your seats when we dismiss, so that we can set up a time to talk more about the church and membership. There is a family coming this morning who has already done that. I had the pleasure of meeting with Doug and Sara Ghormley last Sunday afternoon, and we had a great talk about their testimonies and how God has worked in their lives, and they believe that Eastern Hills is where they can use their gifts. Doug, Sara, and their daughter Mindy are coming for membership this morning by transfer of letter from Vista Grande Baptist Church in the east mountains.
If you need to pray during our time of reflection now, you are welcome to come and pray at the steps. You can also use this time to give online, or you can give in person by dropping your offering in the plates by the doors as you leave this morning.
As Donna comes to play our reflection song, let’s pray.
PRAY
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Business meeting tonight at 5:30 in here. It will be streamed only to the live stream page at ehbc.org, not to YouTube or Facebook, if you would like to view the business meeting. We can’t do virtual voting. The most critical thing we will be voting on is our budget for next year, which we discussed following service last week. There are several other things that will be reported on and voted on. We will need at least 50 people here to be able to vote, so please plan to come tonight at 5:30.
Trevor wanted me to let you know that if you would like a Disciple Now t-shirt like many of us were wearing last week, you can purchase one (you get one free if you were a student who attended the event and didn’t get one yet). Contact Trevor by email at trevor@ehbc.org and let him know your shirt size. Cost per shirt is $10. I’m not sure when he’s going to order those, though, so I don’t know how long that’s possible.
Governor’s restrictions: On Friday, Governor Lujan-Grisham issued a temporary “shelter in place” health order that limits church gatherings to 25% capacity or 75 individual persons, whichever is less. We have more than 75 here this morning, and have had as many as 200 here on a Sunday since we started back in person in July. In praying with and speaking with the rest of the staff, as well as the deacons and ministry group leaders, we have decided that we will comply with this temporary health order for the next two Sundays. With that being said, for the next two weeks, service will be primarily online, with a couple of exceptions: first, since our occupancy limit is 75, we will be able to have the entire praise and AV teams and their families here in the building, as well as any other person who is up front, such as Joe and myself, and our families. That right there is nearly 30 people if all come. As far as the live stream goes, it should be about the same as it is every Sunday. We would, however, also like to invite those in our church family who have no access to streaming, and who feel comfortable coming, to join us here in the building so that your ability to worship with the church is not hampered. We would ask that you let us know during the week by a phone call to the office if you are planning on joining us if you cannot stream our services.
With that being said, next Sunday is our annual service focused on International Missions in preparation for receiving the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Perry and Donna Logerstedt, missionaries to Africa, are scheduled to come and share with us about the work of God through their ministry, and for the moment, we still plan on having them come next week, and we look forward to hearing about the work of God in Africa.
That’s all I needed to say this morning. May God bless you each today, and we will see you tonight for business meeting!