SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: I appreciated greatly the way Scott prayed for us a little bit earlier, reminding us of the fact that we have much for which to rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: We of all people to be singing our guts out because of what Christ has done for us.
SPEAKER_01: We are so privileged to be in the family of God and have received so many great and awesome gifts from His hand.
SPEAKER_01: That concept of privilege has gained a significant voice in the last few years.
SPEAKER_01: Privilege is that idea that a particular segment of society or culture has an identifiable right or advantage.
SPEAKER_01: Now generally it's assumed that those with privilege are a small number compared to the whole, and that that number is a disadvantage.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, however, that is flipped, and those who are not privileged are in the minority of the population, and so they feel as though the majority is looking down on them.
SPEAKER_01: Privilege exerts influence in a number of areas, I think far more than we often realize.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps the most obvious in recent years in our country are cultural and racial areas, but privilege also appears in many other areas: wealth, employment, education, background, politics, parenting, law, medicine, gender, even religion.
SPEAKER_01: Now there are two important concepts at the heart of privilege: possession and comparison.
SPEAKER_01: Privilege consists first of possession.
SPEAKER_01: That is, what is it that I have?
SPEAKER_01: What is it that I possess?
SPEAKER_01: Or, on the flip side, what is it that I lack?
SPEAKER_01: What is it that I do not have?
SPEAKER_01: Nearly all of us in the United States of America have privilege in this sense.
SPEAKER_01: We possess far more than most of the people in many areas of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And we lack far less.
SPEAKER_01: That privilege, though, is driven by comparison, by evaluating ourselves in light of someone else or something else.
SPEAKER_01: That is, if we compare ourselves negatively, it feeds our natural tendency to sin.
SPEAKER_01: So if I compare myself to my neighbor, I might be tempted to desire or crave or covet what he has because I don't.
SPEAKER_01: On the other side, if we compare ourselves positively in our own minds, we can be feeding our pride and our arrogance and develop attitudes of superiority towards others.
SPEAKER_01: Now, did you know that God created human beings at the very beginning with a measure of privilege?
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve were given the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: What a privilege! The greatest place that ever has existed in God's creation.
SPEAKER_01: They were given that.
SPEAKER_01: They were given God's commands.
SPEAKER_01: It's a privilege.
SPEAKER_01: They were given freedom.
SPEAKER_01: They were given authority to exercise dominion in God's creation.
SPEAKER_01: More importantly, they were given access to the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: From the first page of the Bible to the last page, access to the Creator is the greatest privilege ever afforded to humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Access to God was granted to Adam and Eve as they walked with God in the garden.
SPEAKER_01: Access to God is how all things will end as the new heavens and the new earth are made to be what Eden was intended.
SPEAKER_01: There is only one privilege that will truly matter to you for all eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And that is whether or not you are allowed to come into the presence of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: That is the only privilege that you will care about in all of eternity is do I have access to a holy God?
SPEAKER_01: We have been pursuing that kind of access ever since Adam and Eve lost it when they sinned.
SPEAKER_01: They hardly had time to enjoy God's presence before they lost that kind of privilege.
SPEAKER_01: And they lost that privilege of the presence of God through comparison.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't compare themselves to someone else.
SPEAKER_01: No one else existed besides themselves and God and his angels.
SPEAKER_01: They compared themselves instead to God's command.
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember when the serpent said to them, Has God really said?
SPEAKER_01: They began to compare what they had versus what God said.
SPEAKER_01: They possessed many good things, but they didn't possess the fruit from one particular tree.
SPEAKER_01: That was a privilege they were not given.
SPEAKER_01: And they pursued that privilege and they lost the one that truly mattered.
SPEAKER_01: And it was mostly downhill from there for the human race.
SPEAKER_01: Full steam ahead to the great flood of God's judgment.
SPEAKER_01: But humanity still sought for that greatest of privileges even after the flood, because we see in the building of the Tower of Babel that same desire.
SPEAKER_01: You remember they built a tower and their desire was to build it so high that its top reached into the very heavens where God lives.
SPEAKER_01: They desired to pursue that kind of access, but God scattered them in confusion over their language.
SPEAKER_01: And then we arrive at Genesis chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: And there God spoke to a man named Abram.
SPEAKER_01: And it's there that we begin to see about the closest thing we have to access to God since the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: There God came to Abram and he granted a new privilege.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Abraham's descendants would be a special people, called by God out of all the families on the earth to receive his blessings, his care, and his guidance.
SPEAKER_01: Now fast forward with me from there, about 400 or so years, to just before the Hebrew nation would cross over the Jordan River to take possession of the land promised to Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: They are on the verge of the Jordan River, and Moses is speaking to the people of Israel, and he says in Deuteronomy chapter four, See I have taught you statutes and rules, as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
SPEAKER_01: Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people, for what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as Yahweh our God is to us.
SPEAKER_01: Moses was pointing to their place of privilege.
SPEAKER_01: There is no other nation on earth that has this kind of access to God.
SPEAKER_01: And God spoke to them again and again, not exactly like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: But God spoke to his people.
SPEAKER_01: We see that a little bit later in this same chapter in Deuteronomy chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: Moses says, Did any people ever hear the voice of a God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard?
SPEAKER_01: God spoke to his people.
SPEAKER_01: To you it was shown that you might know that Yahweh is God, there is no other beside him.
SPEAKER_01: Know therefore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh is God in heaven and on earth beneath, there is no other, therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments.
SPEAKER_01: See, in a small but significant way, Israel regained by God's grace some of what was lost in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: God was present with them, and God spoke to them.
SPEAKER_01: Through Moses, of course.
SPEAKER_01: God was present in the tabernacle and later in the temple, and as time went on, there were some rough moments, to be sure.
SPEAKER_01: But God never walked away from his promises.
SPEAKER_01: Over time, though, God's people began to take their position of privilege for granted.
SPEAKER_01: They assumed that nothing had changed with their God, even though their distance from God grew greater and greater.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually God's chosen people split apart.
SPEAKER_01: Two groups, each on the same trajectory, but at different paces.
SPEAKER_01: And God blessed them because he called them.
SPEAKER_01: He made them his own, and God showered his blessings on them.
SPEAKER_01: And as their possessions increased, they began to compare themselves with the nations surrounding them.
SPEAKER_01: And as they possessed more and more, receiving the blessings of God, they began to increase the abuse of their privilege, never thinking that that would be a problem.
SPEAKER_01: And then Amos appeared on the scene in the northern kingdom of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: This farmer turned prophet declared God's judgment on seven nations surrounding Israel, finally settling in on Israel as the eighth, because Israel had greatly abused her privileged position.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, That's going to end.
SPEAKER_01: As we consider this morning, continuing on in our series of asking question, does God care?
SPEAKER_01: Specifically from Amos chapter three, does God care about privilege?
SPEAKER_01: In Amos chapter three, we read, Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt?
SPEAKER_01: You only have I known of all the families of the earth?
SPEAKER_01: Therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.
SPEAKER_01: Do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet?
SPEAKER_01: Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey?
SPEAKER_01: Does a young lion cry out from his den if he has taken nothing?
SPEAKER_01: Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth when there's no trap set?
SPEAKER_01: Does a snare spring up from the ground when it has taken nothing?
SPEAKER_01: Is a trumpet blown in a city and the people are not afraid?
SPEAKER_01: Does disaster come to a city unless Yahweh has done it?
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord Yahweh does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.
SPEAKER_01: The lion has roared, Who will not fear?
SPEAKER_01: The Lord Yahweh has spoken, who can but prophesy?
SPEAKER_01: Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see the great tumults within her, and the oppressed in her midst.
SPEAKER_01: They do not know how to do right, declares Yahweh, those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, an adversary shall surround the land and bring down your defenses from you, and your strongholds shall be plundered.
SPEAKER_01: Thus says Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and a part of a bed.
SPEAKER_01: Hear and testify against the house of Jacob, declares the Lord Yahweh, the God of hosts, that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end, declares Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Does God care about privilege?
SPEAKER_01: And how does that impact us?
SPEAKER_01: It might seem strange to go to an eighth century BC prophet to answer such a modern question, but I don't think it's at all appropriate, as I trust we will see.
SPEAKER_01: Commentator Michael Bentley has written, Israel was continuing to live under the delusion that because God had chosen and loved them, he would protect them to the very end of their days, regardless of their behavior.
SPEAKER_01: Like a child who clings tenaciously to their favorite toy, Israel clung tenaciously to their privileged status as the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, like many Christians today, they treated the sovereign God like a toy.
SPEAKER_01: A thing to be abused and used and forgotten, then remembered and forgotten again.
SPEAKER_01: The people forgot, perhaps conveniently, the portions of God's word demanding that they walk with God in loyalty, in love, and in faithfulness in order to enjoy the blessings of their privileged position.
SPEAKER_01: And God's patience finally came to an end.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the sovereign God is not like us, but if he were, we might read verse 1 and part of verse 2 with a measure of frustration.
SPEAKER_01: We might hear God say, listen up and look at me when I'm talking at you.
SPEAKER_01: The people I brought up out of Egypt, the ones I chose, listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: You of all people are the ones that I brought up.
SPEAKER_01: See, the identifying marks of Israel's privilege are all over this passage.
SPEAKER_01: And it begins in the first verse with this idea of family.
SPEAKER_01: That is God's family.
SPEAKER_01: You are my family.
SPEAKER_01: I chose you to be my family.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I brought you up.
SPEAKER_01: Continues in the verse 2 with the emphatic, you only.
SPEAKER_01: And then of all the families on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody else has these kinds of privileges.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2 extends the details of chapter 2, verses 9, 10, and 11, where God said over and over again, it was I who did this, it was I who did this, it was I who did this.
SPEAKER_01: And he takes them all the way back to Genesis chapter 12, where God chose Abram out of all the families on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And he called Moses to be their representative.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses talked with God like Adam talked with God.
SPEAKER_01: God was in their midst.
SPEAKER_01: He was with them.
SPEAKER_01: He gave them his word so that they might know him, that they might love him and obey him.
SPEAKER_01: They possessed what no other nation on earth had or has.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities.
SPEAKER_01: That's just astounding.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet Hosea parallels Amos to some extent.
SPEAKER_01: Hosea came a few decades after Amos, just before the destruction that Amos prophesied actually came.
SPEAKER_01: Hosea says, Of these same people, they have deeply corrupted themselves.
SPEAKER_01: God will remember their iniquity, he will punish their sins.
SPEAKER_01: He continued on to say that God hated Israel.
SPEAKER_01: God said, Because of the wickedness of their deeds, I will drive them out of my house.
SPEAKER_01: I will love them no more.
SPEAKER_01: And Hosea concluded that section with his own personal agreement as a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: He said, My God will reject them because they have not listened to him.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it requires too much thought to conclude that with God, great privilege brings with it great responsibility and great accountability.
SPEAKER_01: And we might even add, great judgment if you fail.
SPEAKER_01: Now we are not God's chosen people in the same sense as Israel.
SPEAKER_01: But spiritually, Peter tells us that we are chosen.
SPEAKER_01: That God has chosen us as his own people, a holy people, adopted even as members of God's family.
SPEAKER_01: We have just sung that just previous to this.
SPEAKER_01: We could even argue that we as God's people have an even greater privilege than Israel because we have actually been grafted into God's family through faith in Christ, and now, because of our faith in him, we are sons and daughters filled with him.
SPEAKER_01: As a result, we must hear the apostles' command much more clearly.
SPEAKER_01: I urge you, therefore, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
SPEAKER_01: We have just sung through Ephesians chapter 1 to the praise of his glorious grace.
SPEAKER_01: And we've been reminded with great clarity about the height and the depth of our privilege in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Look what you have.
SPEAKER_01: That's a mindset we must develop.
SPEAKER_01: God offers a position of privilege to all who come to trust in Jesus, coming in repentance of their sin and in faith in Him as His Savior and Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And if that describes you, then you possess the greatest privilege this world will ever see, regardless of language, upbringing, culture, or color.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ you are privileged, just as Israel was privileged.
SPEAKER_01: So we must not forget that that carries with it great responsibility and great accountability.
SPEAKER_01: With that, Amos set the stage for his audience.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Yes, you are unique.
SPEAKER_01: You are in a privileged position.
SPEAKER_01: And what follows then in verses three and following is a series of questions expecting the answer no.
SPEAKER_01: Again and again, no.
SPEAKER_01: A negative answer.
SPEAKER_01: Do two people agree to go down to the greenway to walk together unless they have first agreed to meet?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: You first agree to meet.
SPEAKER_01: So no, people don't go and walk together unless they first agreed to meet.
SPEAKER_01: Does the lion roar before he catches his prey?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Does a young lion cry out if his hunt wasn't a success?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Does a bird become caught in a snare if no one actually set the snare in the first place?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Does a snare get tripped if there's nothing to trip it?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Does the trumpet, the shofar, get blown and not bring fear?
SPEAKER_01: They have to understand that the shofar would have been blown if enemies were on the way.
SPEAKER_01: So, no, it doesn't get blown without fear.
SPEAKER_01: Does disaster come on a city if God does not bring it?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: The answer to each of those questions brings a response of, of course not, from a listener.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you asking us such stupid questions, Amos?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
SPEAKER_01: What we often fail to recognize is that these questions function as a verbal trap.
SPEAKER_01: See, Amos would have delivered this message first orally.
SPEAKER_01: He would have spoken it.
SPEAKER_01: And asking questions with that same answer again and again sets the listener up to answer yet again, another time, no, without really processing what they're saying.
SPEAKER_01: You see, God had declared disaster.
SPEAKER_01: But Israel thought her privileged position made her immune to judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Not so, Amos said.
SPEAKER_01: God is sovereign over all, and if disaster comes to any place, God is sovereign over that disaster.
SPEAKER_01: So Israel could suffer by God's hand.
SPEAKER_01: Verses 7 and 8 then show us what Amos was thinking in that verbal trap.
SPEAKER_01: He says, for, here's what I'm thinking about.
SPEAKER_01: No one, but especially Israel, would really enjoy hearing Amos' message of disaster.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's going to welcome that.
SPEAKER_01: God's chosen, though, would never believe that this message from a farmer was from God.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, they tell him a little bit later in chapter 7: go home, farmer, go back to your farming and your ranching and shut up.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to hear from you.
SPEAKER_01: But as the series of questions demonstrated, there is a purpose and a reason for everything.
SPEAKER_01: The sovereign God is behind everything that occurs.
SPEAKER_01: He is behind every situation and every circumstance that takes place in his creation.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, for Israel, God would speak to a prophet so that his people would know what he was going to do.
SPEAKER_01: As a lion roars over its prey when it has success in its hunt, the sovereign Lord has roared from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Because he has hunted his people, and he is successful.
SPEAKER_01: Amos heard this from God, and as his prophet, Amos can do nothing but speak.
SPEAKER_01: The question is, will the people listen?
SPEAKER_01: See, God gives great privilege, but when he gives that privilege, it means that prophets must speak and God's people must listen.
SPEAKER_01: Years later, the prophet Jeremiah would write, If I say, as a prophet who's received the word of God, I will not mention him that is God, or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah very vividly said, I can't hold God's words in.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise I'm going to burn up in the inside.
SPEAKER_01: It's impossible for a prophet to receive God's word and not declare it.
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's one prophet that tried.
SPEAKER_01: Sure you know his name, Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: God gave him a message and said, Speak my message, and Jonah said, Ah, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01: In the end, he said, I can't help but declare God's word.
SPEAKER_01: So when Amos asked, The Lord Yahweh has spoken, who can but prophesy, the answer is again a negative.
SPEAKER_01: No one.
SPEAKER_01: It's not possible.
SPEAKER_01: If Yahweh has spoken to a prophet, there is nothing he can do but declare it.
SPEAKER_01: If God speaks through a mouthpiece, that mouthpiece must deliver the message.
SPEAKER_01: It is part of the privilege of being a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Prophets must speak, and God's people must listen.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 7, the leaders of Israel would refuse to listen.
SPEAKER_01: That is a direct violation of the intention of their privileged position.
SPEAKER_01: What has God said to them from the very beginning?
SPEAKER_01: Let's think back to being at the crossing of the Jordan River again, just before they crossed over, before Moses died, he spoke to them one last time, reminding them of what God said.
SPEAKER_01: We see in Deuteronomy chapter 4, God says, Gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words.
SPEAKER_01: I'm speaking to them.
SPEAKER_01: It's a privileged position in which to be, and that's because I want them to learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and pass that on to their children, so their children will listen.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy chapter 5.
SPEAKER_01: Hear, O Israel, listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: The statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today.
SPEAKER_01: You shall learn them and be careful to do them.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 6 of Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to me and carry it out that it may go well with you.
SPEAKER_01: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: You are in a privileged position to hear me speak, just like Adam and Eve in the garden.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: See, being God's chosen people carried with it an expectation that they would listen to their God.
SPEAKER_01: And if they did not listen, God said, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm glad I'm not them.
SPEAKER_01: But does it matter?
SPEAKER_01: Does it matter if I'm not Israel?
SPEAKER_01: Because in Deuteronomy chapter 18, Moses spoke of the promised Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: God said to Moses, I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak them, and whoever will not listen to my words that he speaks, I will require it of him.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, but speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is our prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Do we listen to him?
SPEAKER_01: God has said, I will require it.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Acts, we see the apostles functioning much like Amos and Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: Peter and John were standing before the Jewish High Council, and they said, We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
SPEAKER_01: We have fire in our bones.
SPEAKER_01: We have to share it.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said in John 18, Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
SPEAKER_01: God's mouthpieces must speak, and God's people must listen.
SPEAKER_01: There's an odd turn now in Amos chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 9, Amos rhetorically invites the Philistines from Ashdod and the Egyptians to come and serve as witnesses against Israel.
SPEAKER_01: God is holding court.
SPEAKER_01: Israel is the defendant, and God is calling the Philistines in Egypt to come and serve as witnesses against Israel's evil, because they do not know how to do right, and those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds prove it.
SPEAKER_01: Israel grew to take her privilege as God's people as a place of undisputed superiority.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jonah knew that if he went to Nineveh, God would shower his grace and his mercy on the Ninevehes.
SPEAKER_01: And Jonah didn't want that.
SPEAKER_01: He said, No, your grace and your mercy come to us.
SPEAKER_01: We are in the privileged place.
SPEAKER_01: They are not.
SPEAKER_01: We need to hear that great privilege does not equal great superiority, especially in a moral sense.
SPEAKER_01: Israel was in court, and the sovereign Lord was the judge.
SPEAKER_01: To have Egypt and the Philistines serve as witnesses against them would have been, first of all, insulting, and secondly, embarrassing.
SPEAKER_01: Shockingly, perhaps, God said that two pagan groups of people were morally superior to Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Now that didn't change Israel's privileged position with God, but it did show that the place of privilege is no guarantee of holiness, of obedience, or of faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: And at this point in time, in spite of all of God's blessings, Israel had grown more evil than her neighbors who were without God.
SPEAKER_01: The evidence, God said, was found in her fortresses.
SPEAKER_01: She had used violence and robbery to plunder others.
SPEAKER_01: And that was proof, God said, that she no longer knew how to do right.
SPEAKER_01: What a warning that is for us.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God will have little effect if we become dull of hearing.
SPEAKER_01: If our consciences are chiseled away by continually giving in to our sin rather than fighting to kill it, then we may soon be like Israel, not knowing how to do right.
SPEAKER_01: We may even now, in this very moment, be taking our privileged position in Christ for granted, considering others not worthy of the gospel of grace while we think we are safe from judgment.
SPEAKER_01: But the sovereign Lord may look at us and call our unsaved acquaintances as witnesses against us.
SPEAKER_01: And he may say, I will surround you and plunder all that you possess as a result of my grace.
SPEAKER_01: It's my prayer that he would be gracious to us and grant us repentance if we have any sense of an attitude of superiority because of who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We are sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Human beings without difference except in the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: But God wasn't calling Israel to repent.
SPEAKER_01: She had gone too far, and repentance was no longer an option.
SPEAKER_01: The sovereign Lord was announcing doom.
SPEAKER_01: And in verses 12 through 15, Amos, the farmer-rancher, is using familiar illustrations.
SPEAKER_01: So he speaks as a shepherd out caring for the sheep and defending the sheep from wild animals.
SPEAKER_01: In that time period, lions and bears were still prevalent in the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: You had to protect the sheep from them.
SPEAKER_01: As Amos would know well, a shepherd was accountable to the owner of the sheep for every single sheep in the flock.
SPEAKER_01: So if a wild animal attacked the flock and got a particular sheep and began to eat it, the shepherd would save whatever remained to take to the owner of the sheep to prove that he was not negligent.
SPEAKER_01: Because if he was negligent, if a sheep just disappeared without any trace, then he would be required to pay for the sheep himself.
SPEAKER_01: But if he could rescue a part of a leg or a piece of an ear, then he could take that to the owner and say, I tried, it wasn't my fault, an animal got it.
SPEAKER_01: Then he would be let off the hook.
SPEAKER_01: But that isn't God's point.
SPEAKER_01: Here, the two legs and an ear show the damage a lion got to the sheep.
SPEAKER_01: And so all that would be left of Israel's carefully manipulated and stolen hoard would be the part of a couch and the part of a bed.
SPEAKER_01: Symbols of her wealth.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, God even says, you have summer houses and winter houses that are overlaid with ivory.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to take those two.
SPEAKER_01: God would even destroy the symbols of her religiosity.
SPEAKER_01: When he says the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's pointing to.
SPEAKER_01: See, an altar was generally square and it had little horns that came up on the corners.
SPEAKER_01: And it was believed that if you accidentally committed a crime, you could run to that altar and grab those horns and hold on to them, and you would be innocent, not guilty of your crime.
SPEAKER_01: God was saying their religion would not even save them.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, leads the heavenly armies, and he would lead them in battle against Israel, his privileged people.
SPEAKER_01: He would punish them for their sins, he would destroy the altars used for the worship of other gods, firmly declaring your idolatry is worthless.
SPEAKER_01: And he would destroy their lavish lifestyle that came through violence, robbery, abuse, and fraud.
SPEAKER_01: That's why when we get to this last section in verse twelve, Amos begins it with thus.
SPEAKER_01: Let me summarize this for you.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you the conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: Amos says.
SPEAKER_01: God said, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Because you rejected knowledge, I reject you.
SPEAKER_01: And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will forget your children.
SPEAKER_01: The more they increased, the more they sinned against me, and I will change their glory into shame.
SPEAKER_01: I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.
SPEAKER_01: They refused to listen to God's word.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected knowing Him.
SPEAKER_01: And yet they continued to assume that their place of privilege and all of its blessings would continue on in spite of their sin.
SPEAKER_01: Does God care about privilege?
SPEAKER_01: I think it's safe to say he does.
SPEAKER_01: But God's concern doesn't seem to be so much about whether someone possesses privilege, but how they live with that privilege.
SPEAKER_01: Today, everyone who genuinely trusts in Christ and belongs to Him is in a position of astounding privilege.
SPEAKER_01: If you have come to faith in Christ, you are in a privileged position.
SPEAKER_01: How then will we live with that privilege?
SPEAKER_01: If we refuse to hear and obey the word of our sovereign Lord, we may very well be treading down the path of abusing our privilege as children of God.
SPEAKER_01: Refusing to listen and obey is a rejection of the one who bought us out of slavery to sin with his own blood.
SPEAKER_01: If we refuse to listen, follow, and obey while assuming our place of privilege in Christ, our sin will likely bring with it all manner of evil, injustice, and abuse of others in the name of God.
SPEAKER_01: What should God do then?
SPEAKER_01: We are warned in the New Testament, in Romans chapter two, to not presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience.
SPEAKER_01: Because God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.
SPEAKER_01: Do not misunderstand me, please.
SPEAKER_01: If you have come to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, do you live an Ephesians chapter 1 life?
SPEAKER_01: In his foreknowledge, he chose you for his own.
SPEAKER_01: He set you apart and he shed his own blood so that you might be adopted as sons.
SPEAKER_01: And he guaranteed you an inheritance forever, and he gave you his spirit as a seal of that inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: We should relish in that privilege.
SPEAKER_01: We had to sing our guts out to the praise of his glorious grace.
SPEAKER_01: Relish in that.
SPEAKER_01: Do we sin that grace might abound?
SPEAKER_01: Do we not feel God's discipline in our lives when we sin, and so we then automatically just sin some more?
SPEAKER_01: Because judgment doesn't come.
SPEAKER_01: Have we misinterpreted God's patience as a lack of caring or even as a freedom to do what we desire?
SPEAKER_01: Have we grown to look down our noses at those who are different?
SPEAKER_01: Or even non-Christian, all the while tolerating unchecked and growing sin in our own hearts?
SPEAKER_01: Have we grown lax in the blessings given to us as the people of God, desiring more and more of God's blessings while we continue to ignore others?
SPEAKER_01: It's right and it's good to relish in the incredibly gracious, privileged position God gives us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In that place, let us be reminded that we bear that privilege with responsibility to the praise of his glorious grace.
SPEAKER_01: Let us hear Jesus speak in his word and let us listen so that we might know him and live out his words in a way that honors the sovereign Lord and the grace that he has given and not honors us.
SPEAKER_01: Let us relish in our privileged position in Christ and do everything we can to make much of his glorious grace.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you, acknowledging our sin.
SPEAKER_01: Surely it is often, daily, maybe multiple times a day, when we take advantage of your grace and your mercy, and your kindness and your patience.
SPEAKER_01: Grant us repentance, first and foremost, if any of us here might not yet belong to your family as adopted sons, because we have failed to repent of our sins and trust in Christ, draw us to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Grant us repentance that leads to salvation, so that we might know for certain that we have access eternally to the Holy God.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.