Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that you are a God who speaks.
We ask, Father, that you help us to be able to hear your word, to listen to your word.
We ask, Father, that your word would come into our lives in such a way that we will be free
and that we will bear much fruit in this world to your glory.
And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
In the early days of, for the first three or four years of our marriage,
my wife and I always lived in a house with other people,
sort of a bit of a, I guess almost like a bit of a move-in type house before there was a move-in,
but we'd live in a poor type of area, live with some other Christian couples
and maybe at least try to pray with each other and do a few things in the neighborhood.
And in one of these cases, it was a house, there was us, Louise and myself, I think we had one or two kids.
There was another couple with a kid, I think, one kid, one child.
And I think there were two single people.
And the four of us came to the conclusion that the other married couple,
that there was just some really unacceptable behavior going on.
And we had to ask them to leave.
And from my point of view, regrettably, it was unanimous amongst three of the four of us
that I should be one to have the conversation with the other couple.
And so I prayed about it and asked the guy out for coffee.
And, you know, there's no way to hope that, by the way, you should move out of the house.
We'll just naturally come up in conversation.
So we sat down, and I can still remember, I sat down and I looked at him and said,
I almost said his name, call him Bob.
Bob, four of us think you have to move out, you and your wife and your child.
I mean, I don't know, there's just, I couldn't think of any, you just had to get right to the topic.
And you couldn't sort of beat around the bush or anything.
Sometimes with awkward conversations, you have to do that.
And so I guess, although I have sort of led you into it,
the text today is an intimation, a harbinger, a hint, a pointer to the reality of hell.
That's what Amos 8 is amongst other things.
It's an Old Testament text which lays the groundwork and points to the Christian doctrine of the reality of hell.
And that's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very unpopular topic in Canada, even amongst churches.
And so that's what we're going to look at.
So if you have your Bibles, open them up and we'll look at Amos 8.
And the text begins in a way that doesn't make it look like it's talking about hell at all.
In fact, it begins in a very, very, very odd way.
And just before we start reading Amos 8,
I mean, one of the things that people might say,
in fact, often it happens when Christians try to talk about how the Bible,
in this particular case, it's not really the doctrine of hell,
but it points to the reality of hell.
And it points to the doctrine that will be developed in the New Testament,
not the Old Testament, but in the New Testament.
And so people say, well, George, you know, you're just taking things out of context.
The Bible doesn't really teach this.
Like, George, it's all just filled with poetic imagery.
And here's the thing.
Here's the way the book of Amos is structured,
just so you understand that this isn't just something which is,
you know, George just has this, he's anal.
And, you know, he's getting really old, and he's getting more and more grumpy.
And so he just wants to talk about an anal grumpy thing.
It's not like that at all.
The way Amos is set up, there's three different parts.
The first two chapters is one part.
And it's very interesting.
It's a series of eight poems, or oracles.
And it talks about some besetting or main sins
of the six nations that surround Israel and Judah.
And then it talks about the sins of Israel and Judah.
So it's a general picture of how God is judge of both Israel, Judah, and all the nations.
And then in chapters three, four, five, and six, it's the second section.
It's a bit of a different literary structure, a bit of back and forward.
And some people comment that it's almost as if somebody's making a legal brief
and trying to say to Israel,
these are the things that are going on in your nation,
which are really, really, really wrong.
And it means that you're under God's judgment because of it.
And they're grouped around three types of things.
In chapters three, four, five, and six,
it's grouped around economic and political oppression and injustice.
And it's not just an anti-capitalist rant.
It's not just about government.
It's everything.
It's talking about how at the level of the culture,
at the level of government,
at the level of religious and spiritual institutions,
at the level of business,
and at the level of just private behavior,
that there's economic oppression and injustice that's going on
that God hates.
He hates it.
It goes completely against him.
And the second category of sins is false religion.
And the third category of sins is that their habit,
their ever-deepening habit of telling God to shut up,
to silence God.
And that's what goes on in chapters three, four, five, and six.
And in the third section of the book of Amos,
seven, eight, and nine,
it's organized around five visions.
And the visions are sort of talked about.
And chapter seven had three of them.
Chapter eight is all around the fourth vision.
And chapter nine, the first part of it,
is around the fifth vision.
So that's the context.
I'm not just taking this out of some type of context.
It's not a proof text.
Because I'm getting really old.
And, you know, maybe you think I'm anal and I'm getting grumpy.
And I probably am getting grumpy as I get older.
You can pray about that for me.
Nobody should want to get grumpier and grumpier as they get older, by the way.
And so here's the context.
And now after all this, you're going to go,
George, the beginning seems lame after that long introduction.
But it's important.
Listen to it.
Verse one.
In the first half of verse two.
This is what the Lord God showed me.
Right?
It's a vision.
Behold.
In other words, look.
Okay?
Whoa, look, look, look.
Okay?
A basket of summer fruit.
Lame, right?
After all that introduction.
A basket of summer fruit.
And God said, Amos, what do you see?
And I said, a basket of summer fruit.
And then we'll get to what the Lord says in a moment.
So here's the first thing about it.
The vision is something which actually, if anything, it's not, most people would see that.
Here's the thing about that.
I was thinking about that all this week.
Barbara Allen, she really likes it that two or three times a year we have special bulletin covers.
God bless her.
And I don't mind it.
One of them is Christmas.
One of them is Easter.
And the other one is Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving.
And so every Thanksgiving we have a special bulletin cover.
And in fact, a basket of summer fruit might very well be our bulletin cover.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if in churches in North America, on Thanksgiving Sunday, many of them have bulletin covers with baskets of summer fruit.
All of the nice produce, the fruit and the vegetables of the year, nice big basket, tasteful display.
In fact, many churches, when we used to have a church building, we would actually have, you know, pumpkins and fruit and all and all up at the front to decorate it for Thanksgiving Sunday.
So on one hand, it's a very, very innocuous image.
But this sort of, it's just a minor, I don't know, do I have points, Andrew?
You do.
Okay, so this is a very, very minor point, but it's really an important one to keep remembering, is that the Bible reports and interprets.
That's what the Bible is.
The Bible reports or records and it interprets.
And both parts of it's important.
The Bible tells us the things that God has done, how he created the world, how he delivered Egypt, how he made a covenant, how he, you know, destroys the Tower of Babel, how he sends Jesus.
And there's all these things that the Bible records God doing, but the Bible also interprets it.
Because as we know, it's very, very hard just from seeing something to be able to interpret what on earth it means.
And so we have this sort of surprising vision, a basket of like the end of the harvest and here's all of the harvest and it's really bountiful.
And it's a surprising vision.
Because it's easy to look at this and say, oh, it's a good thing.
It's going to be a hopeful vision.
It's filled with fruit and veggies.
But now it takes a very, very sudden and surprising turn.
And if you read verses, we'll read all of verse 2 and we'll read verse 3 again.
So we'll read verse 2 again.
And he said, Amos, what do you see?
And I said, a basket of summer fruit.
Then the Lord said to me, the end has come upon my people Israel.
I will never again pass by them.
The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, declares the Lord God.
So many dead bodies.
They are thrown everywhere.
Silence.
Now partly, I didn't know this before I looked up, although the Bible, many of your Bibles have a little note that may be helpful.
In Hebrew, there's a bit of a play on words.
And the word in Hebrew for summer fruit and the word in Hebrew for the end are two different words.
But in spoken Hebrew, they sound the same.
So then in a conversation, you'd have to know from the context whether or not it's referring to summer fruit or the end.
And if it was written, you wouldn't have to know.
You would just know it by looking at it.
But spoken, it's a play on words.
And it's a very, very interesting vision because it's, I mean, with the play on words, it's a little bit, I guess, like how a comedian in his or her diatribe, they'll take a word out of one of the stories to segue into their next story or joke.
And then they'll take a word or a phrase from that to move into their next thing.
And that's, in a sense, what Amos is doing, what God is doing through the vision and through the interpretation.
But it's very, very interesting because, you see, it's partly the vision is dealing with the gap between Israel's self-perception and self-assessment and the reality.
And Israel really was very much in the year 750 BC or 740 BC.
It really was very much like Canada today.
It was a country where there's lots of different spiritualities, where there's still a type of formal religion.
It was a country that was very, very prosperous.
And it was a country that was very, very safe.
But it was safe and prosperous primarily by accident, just like Canada is.
I hope I don't offend you, but Canada is safe by accident.
If we had a border with Russia, we would have a very different country.
I mean, our military would be five times bigger, just to put it quite bluntly.
Might even have to be ten times bigger than what we currently have.
We really, in a sense, it's just because we have these really friendly, very prosperous neighbors to the south that we have a lot of our prosperity.
And we definitely have all of our safety.
And in Israel, it was the same thing at the time.
It was a very, very prosperous country and very safe.
And their safety really had to do just because of the fact that it came during several decades where there were internal problems in two big empires that were nearby.
That kept them preoccupied with each other and kept them worried about getting out of their own boundaries, lest the other one engage in a war.
And that was going to come to the end some 20 years or so after the writing of Amos, when in fact Assyria arose triumphant.
And in 722, maybe about 20 years after the writing of Amos, the northern nation, the nation of Israel, is invaded by Assyria.
And it's completely destroyed.
And there's no Jewish people left from that kingdom.
The people that Amos is speaking to, objectively, historically, some 20 years after the writing of Amos, ceased to exist.
After the Assyrian invasion.
So their self-perception is, and I think I talked about this last week, but this is true by coincidence.
I had to go to Vancouver and back this week for some denominational business.
And I was getting on the plane on Thursday.
And there's this young woman way up ahead.
And she had looked like she had like a two-year-old and a four-year-old.
And it looks like she was trying to get a two-year-old and a four-year-old by herself into a plane.
And so the whole lineup to get into the plane stops while she's trying to wrestle the kids, put them in the seats, get stuff up on bins.
And I'm just standing there holding my stuff.
And I'm in first class.
And I just look around.
And, oh, there's Beverly, the Supreme Court Justice of Canada, beside me with her husband, Frank.
Oh, sort of neat.
They're just sitting there working.
But here's the thing, right?
If you, I've said this before, how would, how, if when the Supreme Court meets, when the cabinet meets, when the mayor meets,
what is their perception of themselves spiritually and economically?
They would see us as being on the right path, things to still work on, as us being a prosperous nation, that things are going well.
It's a basket of summer fruit.
And God uses this vision to try to puncture by this wordplay to make them realize that their self-perception and self-assessment is completely different than the reality.
that, in fact, they're under God's judgment.
And so there's this very, very powerful image.
Nothing will ruin a yoga class more than God showing up.
Nothing will ruin the worship in many cathedrals than God showing up.
And one of the things we have to pray for ourselves is that if God shows up, it wouldn't ruin our day.
In fact, actually, I mean, I don't know what's going on in our hearts, but even the way that the Anglican worship is structured following the Book of Common Prayer,
it's that the model is in the first part of the service is that Jesus gathers his people.
And then God speaks to us by his word.
Then we enter into holy communion as we remember Jesus' death upon the cross and his mighty resurrection and the Lord's Supper that he instituted.
And then the Holy Spirit leads us out.
The whole way of the structure of the service is hopefully that we understand that it's Jesus who gathers us,
that God speaks to us, that we remember and receive grace as we partake of communion and think about Jesus,
and then the Holy Spirit leads us out.
But that's what happens here in verses 2 and 3 is that they're in worship and God shows up,
and it means wailing and death.
Because for many cathedrals and churches, the worst thing that could happen would be that God shows up.
Now, some of us might say, George, isn't this a little bit unfair of God?
Like, it seems a bit extreme.
It seems a little bit anal.
In fact, George, it seems really anal.
Not just a little bit, but a lot.
Well, remember, that's why I said at the beginning, you know,
here's how the book of Amos is structured of the three sections.
And the three visions that we looked at last week are also this God bearing witness to his people,
God speaking to his people about what's going on.
And the text itself helps us to remember these primary things that Amos,
that God has been speaking to Israel throughout all of Amos.
And it goes immediately into a time of remembering us.
If our reaction is, well, God shows up and it leads to all of this death and wailing,
and surely that seems a bit extreme.
Immediately, Amos, I mean, God, interpreting this vision.
Look at verses 4 to 6.
Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
and bring the poor of the land to an end.
Just actually pause here before we go any further.
The word for needy here, it's a very, very good word.
It could also be translated as weakling or underdog or powerless person.
And so needy is, you know, if you think about it, they're all good words.
Needy is a very, very good word.
Like some of you might say, George, I don't run Google.
I'm not a deputy minister in the government.
I'm not the Supreme Court, the head of the Supreme Court of Canada.
I'm not in Justin Trudeau's cabinet.
Like, I don't run a business.
I don't do any of these things.
And so it's easy for us to hear.
In fact, I've heard Amos preached,
where it just merely becomes an anti-capitalist rant.
In other words, the text is for other people to listen to rather than us.
But here's the question for each of us before we go any further.
How do we treat, or how in our history have we treated, weak people who can't do anything against us if we're mean to them?
Like in your office or in your class, is there a socially, or in your family,
is there a socially awkward person that nobody likes,
and people either talk about them behind their back,
or even to their face, do things that are mean and laugh at them?
And when that happens, do you rise to their defense?
Or do you let it happen?
When there's a chance at a party,
or at lunch,
do you make a point to seek out that socially awkward, weak person to sit with them?
Or are you worried that if you identify too closely
with the socially awkward, weak person,
it will affect your status?
Do you trample on
the weak?
Do I?
When I point to you,
I have three fingers pointing back at myself.
I'm not trying to say I'm somehow exempt.
Like in a moment,
I'm just going to talk about honesty.
Do we, when we try to
tell about what's going on
in the office,
or in school, or some other way,
do we exaggerate,
do we hide the popular person's faults,
or exaggerate what they've done in a good way?
Do we exaggerate our own
accomplishments,
and try to hide the things that we've done that are wrong?
Are we honest about that?
When we have a yard sale,
or we want to try to sell something on Kijiji,
do we misrepresent what we put on Kijiji,
and say,
oh yeah, it's lightly used,
it's only three years old,
and we don't tell them
that it actually came from a home daycare
with 20 completely and utterly out of control kids
who jumped on it?
In other words,
are we dishonest?
Because you know what?
Come on,
this is really worth it.
We should get at least another 50,
you know, 20,
10 bucks,
at least another 10 bucks.
Are we dishonest for just a couple of dollars?
And it's going to talk in a moment
about being in church
and thinking about other things.
And I'm not going to say that,
George,
you don't have to worry about that.
You're up there trying to remember your sermon.
You don't know what it's like to listen to you.
Good grief,
to listen to you,
to listen to you.
George,
no wonder my mind is wandering.
You know,
I go to other services
and Bible studies
and other types of things
where other people are leading,
so I understand that it can be really hard.
But what does our mind drift to?
Often what our mind drifts to
reveals our idols.
And if our mind is always drifting,
if we're in a meeting
and our mind is drifting to
that mean thing
that somebody said to us
and how we want to get them back,
if our mind drifts
to some pornographic images
or adultery,
if it drifts to
imagining that we're really great in sports
or in singing
or in business,
like,
what our minds drift to
help to reveal to us
what our idols are.
like,
when you're in a business meeting
at work,
does your mind drift
to what the Bible says?
And I'm not trying to be hard on us.
I'm just trying to help us
to understand
how easy it is
when we hear the Bible
to think that the Bible
is talking about other people,
not about ourselves.
Listen to verses 4 through 6.
Hear this,
you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land
to an end,
saying,
when will the new moon be over,
that's a religious festival,
that we may sell grain?
You know,
that's in other words,
they're in a church service
and the Sabbath
that we may offer wheat for sale.
They're in church,
they're in a religious festival,
all they're thinking of
is making money.
Their bodies are there,
their minds and their hearts
are somewhere else.
And then it even gets worse,
that we may make the effa small
and the shuckle great
and deal deceitfully
with false balances,
that we may buy the poor
for silver
and the needy
for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff
of the wheat.
So the text is talking about us.
And it's trying to touch
our own hearts.
So remember that the vision
is a vision of summer fruit
and he uses the vision
of the summer fruit
to talk about the end.
And the end is that
God actually shows up.
He actually shows up
and he shows up
in the middle of worship.
It ruins worship.
And as I said,
as we get deeper
into the interpretation,
we see that it's a hint,
a rumor,
a pointing to the doctrine of hell.
And some of you might say,
well, George, okay.
I mean, that was probably true
about those moral things.
And you are probably right
that I do tend to look at this
and think,
well, I don't do anything
with deceitful false balances,
so I don't have to worry
about this.
Text doesn't really refer to me.
And gosh,
I sure hope that mean guy Trump
is listening to this text
because it'll really nail him
right between the eyes
like is what I want,
is where our mind starts to go.
Where Hillary Clinton,
$156 million
from a few donors
to get access.
I mean,
we can think about
how these things
affect the politicians
and others
and not think about
how it affects us.
But George,
isn't a lot of it
just poetry?
Like George,
I mean,
in a few moments
it's going to talk
about the moon,
I mean,
the sun going dark
and the rivers rising.
I mean,
George,
you're going to try to,
you're trying to take something
which is really fundamentally
just a poetic text
and try to make it look
like it talks about
something real like hell
because George,
I think you're talking about
as if something like hell
really exists
and George,
this is poetry
that we're talking about.
This is poetry
that we're talking about.
Well,
oh actually,
I missed a point.
Andrew,
could you put up
the second point?
Sort of a bit out of order
but I still want to put it here.
Meeting God
is inevitable.
Meeting God
is inevitable.
It's one of the constant messages
of all the book of Amos.
It's inevitable.
But let's look at this
imagery language here.
It's going to come up
right away in verses
7 through 10.
The Lord has sworn
by the pride of Jacob,
surely I will never forget
any of their deeds.
Shall not the land
tremble on this account
and everyone mourn
who dwells in it
and all of it rise
like the Nile
and be tossed about
and sink again
like the Nile of Egypt
and on that day
declares the Lord,
I will make the sun
go down at noon
and darken the earth
and broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts
into mourning
and all your songs
into lamentation.
I will bring sackcloth
on every waist
and baldness
on every head.
I will make it
like the mourning,
M-O-U-R-N,
mourning,
for an only son
and the end of it
like a bitter day.
The end of it
like a bitter day.
The hard part
for us to understand
this text
and obviously
on one hand
there's something
poetic about it
but it's more
than just poetry.
It's trying to communicate
to us something
which our culture
helps to,
in a sense,
program us
to not to be able
to hear.
Andrew,
if you could put up
the next thing.
I am a creature
living in creation
with a creator.
But we think
of ourselves
as being masters
or gods
who live
in a self-made
or technologically
made world.
That's how we think
of ourselves.
But we're not.
We're not.
We aren't masters
or gods
with small g's.
who live
in a world
of our creation.
When I was coming
home in the plane
yesterday
there was this guy
who was really,
really grumpy.
I heard him
talking to the poor
women who were serving.
He was really grumpy,
really aggressive
because he wanted
to go to the bathroom
and they were still
serving food
to other people.
And you could see
that he thought
that everything
in the plane
and all of their
work habits
and even other people
being able to get
their coke
or their tomato juice
should all revolve
around his particular
needs when he had
to meet them.
But, you know,
there's a system,
there's fairness,
there's other people,
it doesn't work that way.
But in our lives,
you know,
we tend to think of like
that all of it is like
there's a room like this,
well, we can rent this room
and this is a self-made room.
But we forget the fact
that we are creatures.
We really are.
We were born.
We will die.
We live in a created order.
We're dependent upon
the planet hurling around
the sun at a certain speed
and turning on its axis
at a certain speed
and we're dependent
on gravity
and we're dependent
on an environment
and we're dependent
on everything.
We are just completely
and utterly,
we cannot exist
apart from a created order.
And that created order
has a creator.
And that's who we really are
and we find it
profoundly uncomfortable
to be reminded
that we had a beginning
and that we will have an end.
We find it profoundly uncomfortable
to be reminded
that we're creatures
and that there is in fact
a creator.
We find it very,
very uncomfortable
and unsettling.
And even if we can
take it in church,
it's so easy for us
to go out and walk
and begin to live
as if that's not the case.
There is no creator
and it's not a created order.
That we are somehow
masters of our destiny,
masters of our fate,
masters of the universe
and we're part of Canada
and if the water doesn't work,
the electricity doesn't work,
it's somebody else's fault
and maybe I should even
be able to sue them
and get some money back
for the discomfort
that it's caused me
because we believe
we've made it,
we control it,
we're masters,
but we're not.
We're not.
The Bible
is more realistic
about human existence
than Hollywood
or universities
or our culture
that maintains us
in illusions
of what the world
is like
and what we are like
in existence.
And so what we see
in this text
is like in Genesis
chapter 1 and 2,
God creates human beings
and he makes the entire,
everything that exists,
he makes everything that exists,
he makes human beings
alone as ones
who bear God's image
and they have a special role
to tend the earth
as stewards
for the glory of God
and in fellowship with God,
in fellowship with God
as his stewards
to tend the planet.
And we fall,
we desire to be like gods,
and to not acknowledge
that God is God
and that he is the creator
and it bends us,
it twists us,
the theological word
is that we become fallen
and it affects
all of the created order
and all of this language
of the sun and the moon,
on one hand it is poetic,
but it's poetic
to communicate
this important truth
that when human beings
who are made
to be in fellowship
with God
and under God
to be stewards
of the created order
that when God judges
human beings,
all creation mourns
because we are creatures
in a created order
and as part of that created order
comes under God's judgment,
all of creation mourns.
And it's here
that we see
some of these
intimations of hell.
Just look back
to verse 2,
the end of verse 2.
The end has come
upon my people Israel.
I will never again
pass by them.
Look at
verse 7,
the very last bit.
I will never forget
any of their deeds.
Look at verse 10,
the last words,
and the end of it
like a bitter day.
And jumping ahead,
the very last words
of verse 12.
They shall run to and fro
to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
And the very last verse
of the whole section,
verse 14,
the very final words,
they shall fall
and never rise again.
Some people still think
that God's not fair.
I'm going to deal with that
in a second,
but in fact,
partly what this is describing
is what can only happen
if God exists
and we inevitably meet him.
And part of what we see here
is that God, in fact,
is very fair.
we human beings
don't need justice from God.
It's our arrogance
to think that we need
justice from God.
We need mercy.
I mean, we do need
his justice.
That's at the center
of the whole moral order.
We don't want God's justice
to crumble
and all of a sudden
moral orders to crumble,
but we need mercy.
But look at verses 11 and 12.
We see here, in a sense,
the justice of God,
the fairness of God.
Behold, the days are coming,
declares the Lord God,
when I will send a famine
on the land.
George, this doesn't sound
very fair.
When I will send a famine
on the land,
not a famine of bread
nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words
of the Lord.
They shall wander
from sea to sea
and from north to east.
They shall run to and fro
to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
Now, here's the interesting thing
about this text
is it isn't that God
stops speaking
or that he takes
his word away,
but the time comes
when people can no longer hear.
You see,
all the way through
the book of Amos,
God keeps reminding people
that they have developed
habits and a culture,
both personal habits
and cultural habits,
to tell God to be silent.
God be silent,
God be quiet,
God don't speak,
God I don't want to listen,
God be silent.
And at some point in time,
God gives us
what we have desired
from him,
only to discover
that it's ruinous for us.
And it's a very,
very tragic image.
Imagine a Star Trek episode
to maybe be able
to get the weight of it.
And in a Star Trek episode,
some of the crew
go down to this ship
and they don't realize
that as they go down
to the ship,
they've done something
to transgress
the ancient masters
who built the ship
100,000 years ago
or whatever.
And a strange delusion
comes upon them.
And in this strange delusion,
they're not allowed
to leave the ship.
But the ship,
every day,
every morning,
there's food
that's set up for them
in a large hall,
which they know where it is
and they go into it
all of the time.
They pass through it constantly.
And in that,
every day,
there's an entire
Chinese buffet.
There's an entire
Indian food buffet.
There's an entire
Caribbean food buffet.
There's an entire
North American carnivore buffet.
There's an entire
vegan buffet.
And it's all set out there.
And yet,
the people on the
Star Trek ship
trying to figure out
what's going on
with this crew
and they're watching the crew
and the crew are standing
right in the midst
of all of these buffets
and saying,
we're starving to death.
There's nothing here to eat.
And in the
Star Trek
Enterprise,
they're saying,
we can't let these people
back onto our ship.
There is a strange
delusion
and illness
that they are
surrounded by food
and yet believe
that there's no food there
and they're starving
to death.
They say
to the Enterprise,
we're dying of thirst.
and the Enterprise looks
and there's goblets
of water
and pitchers of water
and of beer
and of wine
and of Coke
and of everything
all around them.
And it's a strange
delusion.
You see,
here's the thing
about the justice of God
in all of this.
What would it be like
for those of us
who don't really love
the truth
to meet God
who is only truth?
What is it like
for us
who sometimes
are a bit dishonest
to meet
the being
who is pure
honesty?
What is it like
for us
who occasionally
like to trample
on the weak
and be unjust
to meet
pure
justice?
What is it like
for us
who desire
to have
some other God
any God
but the living God
to finally be
in the presence
of God himself
inescapably
in his presence
undeniably
in his presence
undeniably
in the presence
of that which is just
is perfectly true
perfectly beautiful
perfectly pure
perfectly himself
and if we have
developed
deep habits
of wanting
anything other
than that
to be
inescapably
in his presence
will lead
to our wailing.
We have worshipped
the uncreator
and we are
finally faced
because we believe
that we are
a self-made
person
and we are
finally
brutally
conscious
that we are
in the presence
of the creator
and all our
desires
to believe
in uncreation
or a master
of our being
our own universe
are revealed
to be complete
delusions.
If God
meets us
and God
is who he is
then to be
in his presence
inescapably
and purely
but by grace
will lead
to our wailing.
He can't
stop being
who he is.
And if all
of our life
we have said
to God
be silent
how can we
complain
if all of a
sudden
we no longer
can hear him
at all?
and the text
shows this
tragedy
of they keep
going
looking
everywhere
to hear
the voice
of God
but where
do they
go?
They go
to idols
look at
verses 13
and 14
in that day
the lovely
virgins
and the
young men
shall faint
for thirst
those who
swear by
the guilt
of Amaria
and say
as your
God lives
Odan
and as
the way
of Beersheba
lives
they go
everywhere
other than
to God
as they
die
and they
shall fall
and never
rise again.
This can
be pretty
stark
and I
mean on
one hand
for us
as Christians
it's just
a matter
for us
to be
gripped
by this.
The full
doctrine of
hell will
be discussed
and developed
in the
New Testament
especially
from the
words of
Jesus
but here's
some things
lots of
points
just in a
couple of
things
over the
last few
minutes
here's the
thing
within
the
text.
God
confronts
to
connect.
If you
could put
that up
Andrew
please
God
confronts
to
connect
and I'm
not just
saying that
because I
want to
say it
next week
you'll see
that after
eight and a
half chapters
of God
constantly
telling people
of their
danger
that their
self-perception
is completely
and utterly
at odds
of their
real need
the final
few verses
of the
book of
Amos
give the
possibility
of
redemption.
God
is
confronting
us
to
connect
he's
not
confronting
us
to
disconnect
but to
get our
attention
that we
might call
out to
him
in
mercy
and in
the
text
there's
two
places
where it
also
points
to this
possibility
of
mercy
if you
could
turn
to
verse
seven
verse
seven
the
Lord
is
sworn
by
the
pride
of
Jacob
surely
I
will
never
forget
any
of
their
deeds
he
doesn't
say
he
won't
forgive
he
says
he
won't
forget
there's
a whole
other
sermon
on this
but
you
know
for
most
of
us
the
way
we
live
our
lives
is
forgetting
the
wrong
things
that
we've
done
and
hoping
that
others
forget
and
we
live
remembering
the wrong
things of
our enemies
or those
who displease
us
and we
desire
that
everybody
remember
those bad
things
that
they've
done
and we
don't
realize
that we're
treating
ourselves
and others
to very
different
standards
and for
many of
us
when we
go to
make an
apology
we don't
actually
make
apologies
what we
do is
make a
long list
of excuses
to show
that there's
actually
nothing
that we
ever did
that was
wrong
and needs
any
forgiveness
and we're
deeply
confused
but this
text
says
that God
won't
forget
he can't
forget
he knows
all things
but it
doesn't say
he won't
forgive
there's
this
if
we're
attentive
in this
subtle thing
it'll become
more clear
next week
there's
this
chance
we can
call out
to God
for mercy
and there's
other
another
thing
in this
text
which also
points
at an
even
deeper
truth
the fact
that God
in fact
will provide
a means
by which
we can be
reconciled to
him
and it
comes
and it
comes in
listen to
it
again
and on
that day
declares
the Lord
God
I will
make
the sun
go down
at noon
and darken
the earth
and broad
daylight
I will
turn your
feasts
into mourning
and all
your songs
into lamentation
I will bring
sackcloth
and every
waist
and baldness
on every
head
I will
make it
like the
morning
for an
only
sun
and the
end
of it
like a
bitter
day
we
Christians
know
that some
750 years
or 760
years after
the writing
of this
text
there was
a day
when God
the son
of God
walked
to his
execution
and he
paused
and said
to the
woman
do not
mourn
for me
and we
know
that there
was a
day
where there
was like
the
morning
as if
the death
of an
only
sun
when the
sky
went dark
for three
hours
and where
the earth
trembled
and there
were
earthquakes
at the
moment
of his
death
it was
a bitter
day
a day
of mourning
and a
day
of sack
cloth
the same
text
which hints
at the
reality
of hell
but opens
the door
that the
God who
does not
forget
can yet
still
forgive
and have
mercy
on his
people
because he
does not
confront
to disconnect
but he
confronts
to connect
the same
text points
to that
day
in Golgotha
when God
the son
of God
will pay
the price
that you
and I
cannot pay
and offer
a sacrifice
that we
could never
offer
ourselves
and bear
in himself
that which
we did
that was
wrong
so that
God's
forgiveness
might be
available to
all who
put their
trust
in him
and so
if you're
a guest
here
or a
seeker
here
if you
walk away
from here
thinking
that I
think
that I'm
more honest
than other
people
or more
truthful
than other
people
and that
to become
part of
church of
the messiah
church of
the messiah
is that
collective
known as
people who
are only
honest
who only
listen to
God
that is
not the
case
we are
to be
people who
are gripped
by Amos
8
and recognize
that we
need God's
mercy
and have
received his
full total
and complete
mercy
in the person
of his son
and what he
did for us
on the cross
that I stand
before God
not trumpeting
my honesty
or my ability
to listen to
him
but I
humbly
and with
gratitude
stand
saying he
has stood
in my place
condemned
he stood
and the
righteousness
I stand
with before
you now
father
is not
something
that I
have earned
or accomplished
but I am
clothed
in the perfect
life of
Jesus
when he
offered his
life in
exchange for
mine
and it
is by
grace we
stand
it's God's
grace
that allows
us
to look
at those
things in
our lives
that we
have done
that are
wrong
knowing that
we can
look at
them
and begin
to deal
with them
because
Jesus knew
about that
and died
for that
too
it's as
we're
gripped by
the gospel
and we
understand
the forgiveness
offered to us
in Jesus
that we
can begin
to understand
our need
to forgive
others
that we
might be
free
it's
because of
what he
did for
us on
the cross
that we
can begin
to listen
to those
texts in
the bible
that so
terrify us
when they
talk about
money
or sex
or how to
use our
power
or how to
care for
the poor
or the
weak
or the
needy
and they
can so
terrify us
and we
can understand
because the
gospel that
God loves us
so much
that he
in the
person of
his son
died to
deal with
all that
there is
within us
which is
unjust
and dishonest
he did
all of
that for
us
and so
we can
have the
courage
to understand
that when
we listen
to his
instruction
it is
for our
good
and for
the good
of our
society
and if you
could put up
the next
to last
slide
I think
I missed
God
service
number six
God does
not offer
to forget
he offers
to forgive
and then
number seven
here's the
thing about
listening to
the Bible
I can
listen to
another
person
without
agreeing
with
them
I
cannot
listen
to
God
without
agreeing
with
him
please
stand
Andrew
could you
put up
the final
point
please
here's
a prayer
sort of
in
closing
I'll
just
say it
and then
I'll
invite you
to join
with me
in saying
it
in a
moment
dear
Lord
please
make me
a
disciple
of
Jesus
gripped
by
the
gospel
who
listens
to
your
word
and
lives
a
just
and
honest
life
for
your
glory
that's
what the
text is
pushing us
to
not to
become
proud
and conceited
about how
honest
we are
how good
we are
at listening
to God
but as
his word
convicts us
to be able
to confess
to God
God
there's
whole areas
of my
life
I didn't
realize
I was
shut
I don't
realize
Lord
that I
can't
read your
Bible
because all
I do
is think
about how
it
applies
to
Clinton
or how
it
applies
to
Trump
and I
never
think
about how
it
applies
to me
or I
think
how it
applies
to my
brother-in-law
or my
dad
but I
don't
think
how
Lord
I
didn't
realize
I
don't
listen
to
you
and as
we're
gripped
by the
gospel
as that
becomes
the basis
on which
we stand
we have
begin to
get freed
up to
have
self
examination
and then
call out
to God
for his
help to
amend
our
lives
because
who
doesn't
want to
live a
life
that is
honest
and true
like
on one
hand
that's
what we
want
we know
that's
what we
were
made
for
and it
says
we're
gripped
by the
gospel
as we
give
ourselves
to
Jesus
and
trust
him
as
our
savior
and
as
that
gospel
grips
us
that
out
of
gratitude
and
out
of
that
being
the
center
of
our
moral
map
and
our
mental
map
that
these
other
acts
and
changes
in
our
hand
times
i
government
love
of
man
li
avec
our
name
a
man