Read Amos 1:3–2:16
Questions from the Scripture text: Who is speaking in Amos 1:3a? Whose sin is He addressing (verse 3b)? How many? What won’t YHWH turn away (verse 3c)? Why—what have they done to whom (verse 3d)? What will YHWH do to whom in response (Amos 1:4-5)? Who is speaking in Amos 1:6a? Whose sin is He addressing (verse 6b)? How many? What won’t YHWH turn away (verse 6c)? Why—what have they done to whom (verse 6d–e)? What will YHWH do in response (Amos 1:7-8)? Who is speaking in Amos 1:9a? Whose sin is He addressing (Amos 1:11b)? How many? What won’t He turn away (verse 11c)? Why—what have they done to whom (verse 11d–g)? What will YHWH do in response (Amos 1:12)? Who is speaking in Amos 1:13a? Whose sin is He addressing (verse 13b)? How many? What won’t He turn away (verse 13c)? Why—what have they done to whom (verse 13d)? To what end (verse 13e)? What will YHWH do in response (Amos 1:14-15)? Who is speaking in Amos 2:1a? Whose sin is He addressing (verse 1b)? How many? What won’t He do (verse 1c)? Why—what have they done to whom (verse 1d)? What will YHWH do in response (Amos 2:2-3)? Who is speaking in Amos 2:4a? Whose sin is He addressing (verse 4b)? How many? What won’t He turn away (verse 4c)? Why—what have they done to Whom (verse 4d–e)? And what have they done to themselves (verse 4f–g)? And what will YHWH do in response (Amos 2:5)? Who is speaking in Amos 2:6a? Whose sin is He addressing (verse 6b)? How many? What won’t He turn away (verse 6c)? What have they done to whom in verse 6d? And what to whom in verse 6e? And what to whom in Amos 2:7a? And what to whom in verse 7b? And what to whom in verse 7c? And what to Whom in verse 7d? What are two examples of how they combine false worship and oppression (Amos 2:8)? What had YHWH done for them (Amos 2:9, cf. Numbers 21:21–32; Deuteronomy 2:26–3:11)? What else has He done for them (Amos 2:10)? And what else (Amos 2:11)? But what have Israel done (Amos 2:12, cf. Numbers 6:1–21)? What does the Lord say about them and their sins (Amos 2:13)? What is He going to prevent in response (Amos 2:14-15)? And what will happen to whom in Israel (Amos 2:16)?
What nations are accountable to God for what they do with His law? Amos 1:3–2:16 looks forward to the first serial reading in morning public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these twenty-nine verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that all nations are accountable to God for what they do with His law.
Amos might have been a popular preacher for a minute. It was common among ancient near eastern peoples to have “prophets” denounce other nations and predict their downfall, especially when their own nation was about to go to war with them. Amos’s prophecy isn’t connected to any planned military campaign of Jeroboam II that we know of, but he certainly was hitting all of the surrounding rivals with zingers. And when he hit Judah (the southern kingdom) with prophetic denunciation number seven, this surely tickled his northern listeners. As we are reminded by the “for three and for four” repetition throughout (Amos 1:3, Amos 1:6, Amos 1:9, Amos 1:11, Amos 1:13; Amos 2:1, Amos 2:4, Amos 2:6), seven is a number of completion, and they were likely to think that this was the climax. But he was setting them up, and the denunciation of Israel would be as long as any three of the others taken together.
These prophecies of judgment are absolutely certain. They are each bookended with “thus says YHWH” (Amos 1:3, Amos 1:6, Amos 1:9, Amos 1:11, Amos 1:13; Amos 2:1, Amos 2:4, Amos 2:6) and “says YHWH” (Amos 1:5, Amos 1:8, Amos 1:15; Amos 2:3, Amos 2:11, Amos 2:16), and include the divine declaration of finality “I will not turn away its punishment” (Amos 1:3, Amos 1:6, Amos 1:9, Amos 1:11, Amos 1:13; Amos 2:1, Amos 2:4, Amos 2:6). The first six address “secular” nations. Of course, the idea of “secular” is exposed as a great fallacy in this passage. Nations are under obligation to the living God. He has always been King over all the nations, and now does so all the more, exercising that reign through the mediatorial kingship of His Christ, the God-Man Who sits upon the throne. If Syria, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab were nationally accountable to God and His law then, how much more is this true of nations now, under the reign of Christ!
We see this emphasized even by the inclusion of “fire” in each of the first seven judgments (Amos 1:4, Amos 1:7, Amos 1:10, Amos 1:12, Amos 1:14; Amos 2:2, Amos 2:5). Whatever the other details of how He would bring them down, it would be an expression of the fire of God’s wrath. Nations don’t fall as coincidences or natural consequences of various power dynamics. They fall because God is furious with them and sends His fire against them. He has established a certain amount of sin that He will tolerate from them in history, and as they approach the end, they are filling up the full measure of their sin (cf. Genesis 15:16, Matthew 23:32).
This is because nations’ sins are against God. That which Syria and Ammon did to Gilead was done to the covenant God of Gilead. That which Philistia, Tyre, and Edom collaborated in doing to Edom’s brother (Israel) was done to the covenant God of Edom’s brother. But Moab is judged especially for what was done to Edom. Now, Edom was a son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, but the great sin in treating Edom as if he was under Moab’s divine wrath was their self-deification and despising God’s image in his neighbor.
But the more “Christian” a nation is, the more the guilt of its sin against God is aggravated. Judah is judged for what they did to God’s law (Amos 2:4). And Israel’s great guilt is especially over-against their covenant with God.
God raised up righteous among them, and gave them poor as an opportunity to display the righteousness of the nation in how it cared for them, but these they abused (Amos 2:6). Their sexual perversions (Amos 2:7c) were especially offensive to the holy Name that was upon them (verse 2:7d, cf. 1 Corinthians 5:1–2). Their abuse of the poor and condemned was mixed with immorality and drunkenness in worship (Amos 2:8, cf. 1 Kings 21:8–16).
And this was all in the face of great deliverance (Amos 2:9-10) and even greater grace (Amos 2:11). The holy God had taken from among sinners prophets to put His words in their mouth? He had worked graciously in the hearts of their young people to stir them up to take vows of devotion to Him to spend a season of life concentrated in fellowship with Him in the means of His grace?! Marvelous! And yet, these prophets they had attempted to silence, and these young people they had tried to overturn their zeal for the Lord (Amos 2:12).
Readers/users of this devotional are likely among the greatest debtors to God’s grace that this world has seen. Whatever the Lord has done for us demands from us love and obedience, consecration and justice. And the guiltiness of our sins against Him is greatly aggravated by all of this grace. And this is corporately true for families and congregations that have been spiritually blessed and nations that have had among them the knowledge of God. Let those who have been shown such mercies take heed!
In the midst of the swelling economic and political/military success of Jeroboam II, Israel must have thought themselves great, like an abundant harvest of sheaves of grain, and the Lord uses this metaphor in Amos 2:13 to describe them as great—a great burden!
None of their greatness or their great ones would be able to deliver them from the judgment that was coming. The swift, strong, mighty, armed, mounted, and courageous would be stripped of their hope and made to flee in the day of Israel’s destruction (Amos 2:14-16).
What nations or churches do you know of that are filling up the full measure of their sin against God? How does His wrath express itself against them in time/history? Of what greater wrath is this a reminder/indicator? What are some nations that have known and received more grace than others? Some churches? Some families? What grace have you been shown, and how does this make your sin against God worse than others’?
Sample prayer: Lord, forgive us for how careless we are about sin and guilt. We have not considered that there is a measure of sin that we might fill up and bring upon our house, our church, or our nation inescapable judgments in time. And while we have looked at those around us and agreed with Your justice and wrath against them, we have forgotten that the greatness of Your grace toward us makes our sins all the more guilty before You. Your justice is sure; it will not be turned back. And Your justice is great; it burns like fire. But like Israel in the time of Amos, we have been lulled to sleep by the comfort of our wealth and power, as if it were safe for us to provoke You to wrath continually.
Thank You for arresting us by Your Word before You, rather than by the breaking into our lives of a display of Your wrath. Forgive us, and make us tender of conscience, so that as those who have been shown so much grace, we would not willfully sin against that grace. And give us more grace until You bring us at last to be sinless altogether like Your Son, Who is already our righteousness before You, and in Whose Name we ask all of this, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP29 “You Sons of the Gods” or TPH141 “O LORD, to You I Call”
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