Amos 3
McGeeCHAPTER 3THEME: God’s charge against the whole house of Israel
Amos 3:1
Now God is ignoring the fact that the nation is split. He says that He is speaking to the whole family of Israel which He brought out of Egypt. In His eyes there were not two nations but one. The twelve tribes are one family before Him.
Amos 3:2
This is getting right down to where the rubber meets the road, which shows the kind of prophet Amos was. He didn’t beat around the bush. He didn’t mince words. He comes right out and says that God will punish Israel for her iniquities. It’s too bad the politicians and the priests wouldn’t listen to him. If they had, it could have been a different story for Israel. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” After the disaster of the Flood, man was still in such sin that at the Tower of Babel all mankind had departed from God. It was total apostasy. Then God reached down to Ur of the Chaldees and called a man, told him to get away from his home of idolatry and to go to a place which He would show him. God said that from this one man, Abraham, He would make a nation and give him a land. This is what God means when He says, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” In order to get a message through to the world, God had to use this method. At the Tower of Babel, man was not building an escape in case there would be another floodthat was never the point. It was an altar that was built, apparently, to the sun. It was a place of worship. After the Flood men had the false idea that the god of darkness and the god of the storm had brought the Flood. So now they are going to worship the sun. It was sun worship that prevailed in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and continues until this very day. In the religion of Zoroaster there is the worship of light even down to the present. God chose Abraham from among the nations, out of Abraham He brought forth the nation Israel, and to the nation He gave His Word. His purpose was that this nation would give His Word to the world. And this is God’s purpose for us, my friend. For this reason I am attempting to get out His whole Wordall sixty-six booksby all means available to me. “Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” God is saying, “I intend to judge you.” The nation Israel occupied a unique relationship to God. God had given to them His commandments. And the reason He would judge Israel so severely is because they had broken so many of His commandments. You see, light creates responsibility. An enlightened nation has a greater responsibility than a nation which is in darkness. This is a great principle that God puts down here. He intends to judge in a harsher manner those who have received light than those who are in darkness. The Lord Jesus also mentioned the fact that some would receive fewer stripes and others would receive more stripes. Many times I have made the statement that I would rather be a heathen Hottentot in the darkest corner of this earth, bowing down before an ugly, hideous idol of stone, than to be the so-called civilized man in this country, sitting in church on Sunday morning while he hears the gospel preached and does nothing about it. The man who hears the Word of God has a greater responsibility than the man who doesn’t. Therefore, there are different degrees of punishment. God makes it clear that He intends to punish them for their iniquities. Now a great many people today like to hear of the love of God. The love of God is indeed wonderful, and I don’t think any teacher has emphasized it more than I have. It is something we need to rest upon and rejoice in. The love of God is manifested in the Cross of Christ"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son …" (Joh_3:16). The Cross is where God revealed His love, and when that love is rejected, there is nothing left but punishment.
A great many folk feel that God should not punish; but, since they are not running the universe, I am of the opinion that their viewpoint will not be followed. God has already said that He is holy, righteous, just, and that He intends to punish. Judgment upon sin is the logical consequence. In fact, there will be a set of questions asked and answered, which reveal what a logical matter-of-fact prophet Amos really was. He deals with certain basic truths. He was a man from the edge of the wilderness down in Tekoa, and he draws from his long experience down there. He takes his lessons from the world of nature. He learned some things that folk still need to learn today. I shall never forget the day my daughter went to a dairy on a school excursion. She had grown up in Pasadena, so she was a city girl. She came home from the excursion that day with the most exciting news you have ever heard. She told us that milk came from a cow! She had thought that milk came from the market and had originated there. Well, this man Amos is a country man, and he has observed many wonderful things in nature. Notice his first question:
Amos 3:3
Can two walk together? Yes, but they cannot go together unless they are in agreement. I watched a young couple the other day who hadn’t been married long. They were walking down the street arm in arm. All of a sudden she turned around, stamped her little foot, and started walking back toward their homebut he kept on going. They weren’t walking together anymore because there had been some disagreement. Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Here is a cause and an effect. The cause: there must be agreement if you are to walk together with God. The effect: you will walk with Him when you are in agreement. This doesn’t mean that God will come over and agree with you. You and I will have to go over to His side and agree with Him. As someone has said, God rides triumphantly in His own chariot. And if you don’t want to get under the wheels of that chariot, you had better get aboard and ride. After all, God is carrying through His purpose in the world. It was very interesting to me to visit England and see Windsor Castle and Hampton Court. I think of Henry VI, Henry VIII, and Richard II, who were some of the boys who made the Tower of London famous because they sent many there who lost their heads. They had their way for a whileespecially Henry VIII, but no one today is paying much attention to what Henry VIII thought or to what he did. My friend, God is running His universe His way and is not asking advice from little man. If you and I are going to walk with God, we will have to go His way. Amos has stated a great principle in his first question: “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” Now here is Amos’ second question:
Amos 3:4
“Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey?” Of course not. A lion moves about stealthily, quietly, silently on his padded feet. He is noiseless until he pounces on his prey. When he has captured his prey, then you can hear him roar. “Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?” No. The little lion doesn’t make a sound because his mamma told him to keep quiet while she was away getting something for him to eat. But when she comes back with his supper, then he lets out a crybut not until then. You see, there is always a cause and a result. And the judgment of God will follow man’s iniquity. Amos has another question:
Amos 3:5
A “gin” is a trap. Of course a bird in not going to get caught in a snare unless a trap is laid for him. When I was a boy, they used to tell me that I could catch a bird if I put salt on its tail. So I ran all over the neighborhood trying to get salt on a bird’s tailand found it didn’t work! I found that I couldn’t catch a bird without a trap. In nature there is always the principle of cause and effect. If you are going to catch a bird, you will have to have a trap. Now here is another question: “Shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?” A man is not going to keep setting a trap if he doesn’t catch anything in it. I used to have six traps when I was a boy. In the fall of the year, I would ride down on my bicycle every morning before school to see if I had caught anything. In one of those six traps I would usually have a possum or a rabbit, sometimes I would have a skunk. (I always gave the skunk to a friend of mine. Although I could get more for the fur, I didn’t care for the scent.) After I had left a trap in a place day after day and caught nothing, it would be foolish for me to continue to leave the trap there; so I would move it to some other place. If you are going to put out a trap, you expect to catch something in the trap.
Amos 3:6
“Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?” God has said that He is going to judge the people, and judgment is coming. It is rather foolish to fail to respond. It should have had an effect on their lives, but they are not listening to the prophetany more than our nation is listening to the Word of God today. “Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” First of all, let’s understand that the word “evil” does not mean something which is sinful or wrong. It means calamity or judgment. Amos is saying, “Shall there be a calamity in the city, and the Lord has not done it?” This means, my friend, that there is no such thing as an accident in the life of a child of God. There must be a cause for the effect. God is not moving this universe in a foolish, idle manner. Therefore, when calamity strikes, there is a lesson to be learned from it.
I believe that if America had learned the lesson of the “dust bowl” and of the drought period and of the Depression, we would never have had to fight World War II. But we did not learn. Neither did we listen to God’s warning in World War II, so we fought a tragic war in Vietnam, and still we are not listening to God. My friend, God will not let any nation dwell in peace and prosperity when it is in sin. Oh, it may have a period of peace and prosperity, but judgment will come. Amos asks seven questions which illustrate that for every effect there is a cause and that the judgment of God which is coming is not accidental but is a result caused by the sin of the people.
Amos 3:7
Amos is saying that God will not move in judgment until He gives His message to the prophets. He will let them know what He intends to do.
Amos 3:8
The prophets were giving God’s message to Israel. The problem in our day is not that people do not have a Word from God; the problem is that they will not hear that Word from God. His warnings are given in His Word. I feel that the Bible is more up to date than tomorrow morning’s newspaper. After all, tomorrow morning’s paper will be out of date by noon when the afternoon edition comes off the press. But the Word of God will be just as good the next day and on to the end of time. It has always been God’s method to reveal information to those who are His own concerning future judgment. You will recall that during Noah’s day, God told him of a coming flood judgment and gave Noah 120 years to warn his generation. But the world did not heed his message. Also, remember that God let Abraham know ahead of time regarding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is a good thing He did that, because if He had not, it would have given Abraham a wrong viewpoint of the almighty God. It has always been God’s method to reveal such things to His own.
When He was here in the flesh, He told His disciples, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you” (Joh_15:15). There are many examples of this throughout the Bible. He gave a forewarning to Joseph in Egypt of the seven years of famine that were to come upon the earth. Also, Elijah was forewarned of the drought that would come upon Israel. He walked into the courts of Ahab and Jezebel to announce to them that they were in for a drought"…As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word[and I’m not saying anything!]" (1Ki_17:1). Then he walked out of the court and dropped out of sight for over three years.
Since it is God’s method to warn of impending judgment, our Lord told His apostles, when He was gathered with them on the Mount of Olives, that Jerusalem would be destroyednot one stone would be left upon another. It is God’s method always to give a warning of impending judgment, and that is all that Amos is doing here although his contemporaries are very critical of him. Folk just don’t want to hear about judgment. They would much rather hide their head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich. Some people will not even go to a doctor because they do not want to know that something is wrong with them. The human family does not want to hear the bad news of judgment which is coming. If you preach and teach the truth, they will say you are a pessimist, a killjoy, a gloom-caster. However, God follows the principle that for every effect there is a cause, and God sends judgment only upon a sinning people. God also makes it clear that the prophet is obligated to give His messageregardless of what it is. In fact, he ought to be in fear if he fails to relay God’s message to the people. Frankly, I feel sorry today for the liberal who is refusing to declare God’s message. He ought to be in fear. “The lion hath roared, who will not fear?” God has spoken. Now let’s speak what God has to say. Let’s get off this social gospelwhich is almost like being on dope and taking a trip of sweetness and light, rose water and sunshine, expecting everything to work out beautifully.
Well, I have been told all my life by politicians and preachers that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and we are going to arrive there shortly. But I’ve been on this trip for most of this century, and we haven’t arrived yetin fact, conditions get worse and worse. They refuse to face up to the fact that the real problem is sin in the heart of man.
Amos 3:9
“Publish in the palaces at Ashdod.” Ashdod is in the country of the Philistines. At the time I am writing this, Israel has Ashdod. They have built a great many apartment buildings, a man-made harbor, and have erected a big oil refinery there so that oil is brought into Ashdod today. A friend of mine who teaches prophecy attempts to find fulfilled prophecy in modern Palestine. When the oil pipeline came into Haifa in the northern part of Israel and an oil refinery was in operation and oil tankers were loading there, my friend said, “See, here is the fulfillment of the prophecy that Asher will dip his foot in oil!” However, that pipeline was cut, and the only oil brought into Haifa was by tankers. Now there is a pipeline across the Negeb from the Red Sea to Ashdod. Oil is piped from the tankers across to the refinery in Ashdod. It looks like it would be the tribe of Dan that gets its foot in oil today! My friend doesn’t mention the fulfillment of this particular prophecy anymore because he can see it doesn’t apply.
I personally do not think that prophecy is being fulfilled in that land at all. However, I do see the setting of the stage that will later on bring the fulfillment of prophecy. It is foolish to pick out these little specific prophecies and insist that they are currently being fulfilled. However, when Amos was giving his prophecy, Ashdod was a prominent city of the Philistines and stands here in this particular verse as representative for all of Philistia. “And in the palaces in the land of Egypt.” God was instructing His prophets to spread this word upon the palaces of Ashdod and Egypt. Now notice what the invitation was “Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof.” Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, and the palace of Ahab and Jezebel was there. Samaria was built on one mountain, but there were other mountains surrounding the city. From these surrounding mountains, people could see what was going on in the city. Sin was going great guns. “The great tumults” were riots caused by the oppression of the poor. If the pagan nations of Philistia and Egypt condemned Israel, wouldn’t a holy God condemn them?
Amos 3:10
Samaria was storing up in their palaces that which they had been stealing.
Amos 3:11
My friend, today the palaces of Samaria lie in ruinsI have seen them on several occasions.
Amos 3:12
After God’s judgment has fallen on Samaria, the remaining remnant is likened to a piece of an ear and two legs which are all that are left of a lamb after a lion has devoured it. You see, God’s judgment was severe because Samaria had light from heaven which made their responsibility great.
Amos 3:13
“The altars of Beth-el” refer to the worship of the golden calf. “The horns of the altar shall be cut off.” God is saying that He intends to remove this gross idolatry from His land.
Amos 3:15
“The houses of ivory shall perish.” Ahab and Jezebel had built on the top of the hill in Samaria. Their tremendous palace was in a most beautiful location. I particularly noticed that on my last trip there. That palace covers the very brow of the hill, the tip-top of the hill. From their palace they could look in every direction. To the west they could see the Mediterranean Sea on a clear day. To the east they could see the Jordan valley. To the north they could see the Valley of Esdraelon with Mount Hermon in the distance. To the south they could see Jerusalem. What a view! There they built a palace of ivory. Of course, the enemy in days gone by has carted away that beautiful ivory, but excavations have been going on there recently. In fact, Israel is excavating there now. Our guide told us that they have found several very delicate vessels of ivory. Apparently one of them was for perfume. The other vessels were probably for wine. Ivory was the color scheme of the palace, if you please. Everything was done in ivory. Apparently, Ahab and Jezebel had the best interior decorator of the period come up and decorate for them. It was a palace of luxury. God said He would destroy it and bring it to an end. I do not know of a more desolate spot today than the ruins of Samaria on top of that hill. I have many pictures that I took of it. God has certainly fulfilled that prophecy. Although we do not see prophecy which is being fulfilled in that land today, we can see that many prophecies have been fulfilled in the past. However, I repeat, that certainly the stage currently is being set for the fulfillment of future prophecies in the land of Palestine.