 We'll begin reading here in the book of Amos in chapter 4, at verse 1, and I'll read to verse 5 and we'll get into our study. Amos chapter 4, beginning at verse 1, reading to verse 5. Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, bring wine, let us drink. The Lord God is sworn by His holiness, behold the day shall come upon you when He will take you away with fish hooks, and your posterity with fish hooks. You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you will be cast into harm and says the Lord. Come to Bethel and transgress at Gilgal and multiply transgression. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days. Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, proclaim and announce the free will offerings for this you love, you children of Israel, says the Lord God. And so as we look at this particular portion of Scripture, we know that God is bringing a word of judgment against the nation of Israel, actually represented by the northern tribes. And as we look at this, we're going to see that Israel is being judged for various reasons. We'll break it down in this way, verses one through three, we'll speak about God's judgment against Israel for their oppression to the poor. In verses four and five, God will judge them because of their idolatry. And then in chapter four verses six through eleven, He judges them because of their hardened hearts that have resisted repenting and returning to Him. And so we're going to see that the Lord is bringing judgment and is declaring that. As a matter of fact, when we get to verses twelve and thirteen, notice what He says there. He says, Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel, and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel. For behold, he who forms mountains and creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is, and makes the morning darkness, who treads the high places of the earth, the Lord God of hosts, is His name. And so He's going to close with a call to prepare for judgment, a judgment that He has already prepared for them. As I've been sharing with you here in the book of Amos, God uses reminders of past judgments to reveal what happens in the future. And we're going to be seeing that here in chapter four. Now I want you to notice how He begins. This one, how He simply says, Amos says, Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, Bring wine, let us drink. And so Amos is declaring that the oppressors will be humbled, but the idolaters will be hardened. The one who has done wrong, he's saying, is going to receive according to the wrong that that one has done. And in this judgment that God is bringing, God's holiness will be revealed, His justice will be served. The Psalmist in Psalm 140 verse 12 said, I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and justice for the poor. And so you see this as we begin here, that God is bringing a word of judgment and He's speaking to them concerning how they have oppressed the poor. And that's where the judgment is going to ultimately begin. So people are going to receive what they have stored up for themselves. They're going to be judged because they have been storing up wrath against the day of wrath. It's not God's fault. And we need to begin by saying that, not as if the Lord needs me to apologize for His holiness. But it isn't God's fault that man is getting judged. Sometimes we look at God and I think we see him through the view of New Testament revelation that is especially based on the grace of God and the mercy of God. And so when we read the Old Testament, we say to ourselves, I can't see this. It's almost like you've got two different gods, one in the Old Testament and one in the new. The one in the Old Testament always seems to be mad. But the one in the new seems to always be filled with grace and love and mercy. But the fact is it's one God who is revealing both sides. One is that He is holy and just. The other is that He is merciful and gracious. And we have to see this as a composite picture of the one God and the Lord in the Old Testament here in Amos is speaking a word of judgment. And I mentioned to you as we were going through in the introductions that he began first and foremost by speaking concerning the nations that were surrounding Israel. We saw that in the first couple of chapters. But he went on to speak to Judah. Now he's speaking to Israel. And he's saying to them that judgment is coming and there are reasons for it. It's not his fault that judgment is coming. They have rejected him and they don't want to repent. They've resisted him and they don't want to turn from their sin. So ultimately what's going to happen is they're going to be receiving what they have stored up for themselves. When you look in the New Testament, Book of Galatians chapter 6 verses 7 and 8, Paul said it like this. He said, Do not be deceived. One is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. You sow to the flesh, he says, you will reap from the flesh. Romans chapter 2 verse 6 says that God will render to each one according to his deeds. And this is what we're seeing. They're going to reap what they've been sowing. And so he begins in an interesting way. He says, Hear this word, you cows of Bashan. And no, he's not speaking to overweight people. I know you're thinking that. Now what he's speaking about are the cows of Bashan. The cows of Bashan were known for their size and the cows of Bashan were known for their strength. And he's speaking concerning the place that they would graze on the hills of Samaria. And the point he's making here is a very simple one. He's illustrating the greed of the oppressors by making reference to these particular cows because they were known for their size, they were known for their strength, and they were also known for being extremely valuable. They would feed, like I mentioned a moment ago, on the lush pastures of Samaria. And they grew huge. Amos was a herdsman. And he was using the language of his occupation as he described this. Now what he's doing is he's saying that the rich are living in luxury. And as they're living in their luxury, they are calloused and they are greedy. These are people who have been given entirely over to meeting their own physical sensual desires. And what they're doing is they're squeezing everything they can out of the poor in order that they might finance their own luxuries. That's what it says in verse 1 when it says that they oppress the poor and crush the needy. They're squeezing everything out of the needy to finance their own desires. They're taking advantage of the poor because the poor cannot help themselves. That's not something new in our society. That is something that's been going on for the longest time. When I was 18, I decided to burglarize a jewelry store, Hudson's Jewelry in Whittier. I got a tyarn. Actually a friend of mine and I went to a liquor store and I stole a half gallon of seagrams. We went to a friend's house, drank. Got a little liquid courage, decided to go and burglarize a jewelry store. So I took the tyarn and I broke the plate glass window on Hudson's Jewels. Reached in and took a handful of diamond rings. My friend reached in and took some himself, put them in our pockets. It was about 11 o'clock midnight. He took off running, got into his car and sped on down Whittier Boulevard and within a minute or so, as we're there in Whittier, within a minute or so there's a squad car that begins to follow us. We go into a neighborhood and we turn our lights off and we're trying to evade the police. We end up in somebody's driveway. I tried to climb out of the car but he got so close to the house I couldn't get out. He got out but he was a cow of bachon. He was too heavy to run. So the policeman pulled up right behind us, arrested us, went to jail overnight, got bailed out. My dad got a lawyer from Beverly Hills, Stanley H. Brown. For many years he kept sending me Christmas cards hoping I'd get in trouble again. Went to court. I had taken $2,000 worth of rings. That was back in 1968. So that would probably be worth quite a sum of money much more now than then. It was a felony. At that time $100, anything you stole that had a value of $100 was regarded a felony. The young man who went before me had taken a check and he was standing before the judge. He had stolen a check from his employer and it forged an amount on that with his employer's name for a little bit over $100. And I still remember as I was seated there in that courthouse waiting for my turn before the judge, I still remember the judge looking at him and sentencing him for that $100 worth of larceny to a few years in jail. I stole $2,000 worth of rings. This guy took $100, a little over $100. And I'm there thinking, oh boy, I'm in some trouble now. But my dad had gotten a lawyer and this other man didn't have anybody to defend him. He was poor. Not that we were rich. My dad actually mortgaged our home. He took a second on the home, took a loan out on his own house to pay for this lawyer. But I saw then back in 1968 how that if you have a little money, you have a better chance sometimes than the one who has nothing. So it's nothing new. I didn't do any time at all. I didn't even get probation. All we had to do is pay for the broken window that I had smashed with that tire iron and less than $100 in court fees. I didn't get any problem at all. And I took 20 times the amount that this young man had taken. I had representation he didn't. Sometimes it just really isn't just. Sometimes it just isn't fair. And that's what's being spoken of here right now. The rich were taken advantage of the poor. They were squeezing everything they could get out of the poor. And they were doing so to finance their own luxurious living. They were crushing the poor and taking advantage of them because the poor could not take care of themselves. And obviously as you read the Bible, God is against this. Psalm 10 verse 2 says, the wicked in his pride persecutes the poor. Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised. Psalm 35 verse 10 says, all my bones shall say, Lord, who is like you, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him? Yes, the poor and the needy from him who plunders him. God hears the cry of the poor. Now when it says here again in verse 1 of chapter 4, hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria. When he speaks of the cows, Jay Vernon McGee makes an interesting point here and I'll just repeat what he says. He's one of the commentators that makes studying the Bible much easier for me to be honest with you. He says, it's interesting that he chooses to use the word cows of Bashan. He doesn't say you bulls of Bashan, he uses a feminine, cows. And so Jay Vernon says that this could speak of women who are living in luxury, cows of Bashan, who are living in luxury as a result of the oppression of the poor. But he also said, and this I found kind of interesting, that it could refer to men who are actually very feminine. And he was saying that often the nation's values are revealed by the way its female population dresses. He pointed out that when the women dress well it will reveal that the nation has affluence and there's some truth to that. Well the point he's making is very simple. He's saying that here Amos would be speaking of not simply the women, we'll say because it says at the bottom there, last portion of the scripture you say to your husbands, it could be that he's speaking in the feminine sense of women, it could be speaking in another sense of feminine men possibly, but it also could be referring to the rulers because when it says who say to your husbands, that word husband, I looked this up in the Hebrew language, that word husband in the original language actually speaks of more than any husband, though it can be translated literally as a husband. It also speaks of a master or a ruler, it can speak of men and it can speak of a prince or a king. If it's in reference to a husband then he would be saying the wise are influencing their husbands to evil. If it refers to masters of the poor it would speak of a confederacy that unites together to hurt the poor and would be referring to banqueting at the expense of those who are at least able to provide for themselves. So when he says who say to their husbands bring wine, let us drink it would be another way of expressing that they were living well off of the poor. The poor who had nothing were financing the luxurious lifestyles of their own oppressors. What does he say about that? Well verse 2, the Lord God is sworn by his holiness, behold the days shall come upon you when he will take you away with fish hooks and your posterity with fish hooks. You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her. You will be cast into harm and says the Lord. We'll look at that for just a moment here. When it says in verse 2, the Lord God is sworn by his holiness, the days are coming. He's speaking of how they're going to be taken against their will by an invading army. Notice how it says when he will take you away with fish hooks and your posterity with fish hooks. He's going to be an invading army that's going to come. And then he goes on to say in verse 3, you'll go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you will be cast into harm and says the Lord. And so you're going to go out through broken walls. If you think that your homes, your walled homes and your palaces will protect you is what he's saying, you're wrong. That phrase cast into harm and I thought that's an interesting, what do you mean you'll be cast into harm and because that's a word that doesn't even sound Hebrew. It didn't sound like a city in the nation. So I thought I'd better look that up and see what he's referring to. And the word harm and there actually is translated a palace or a castle. And so what he's referring to very simply is it's speaking of casting that which has value to you into harm or into a protective enclosure. It's speaking of the fact that they have a fortified portion of a castle that is used for protection and that is not going to protect you from losing everything that is dear to you. And so that's what he refers to and I want to note this with you. Notice in verse 2 again, when he will take you away with fish hooks and your posterity with fish hooks. Now here's something that is interesting in that during that day there was a nation that was known for its extreme cruelty and they would put fish hooks in the noses or in the lips of the prisoners. Sometimes they would even pierce the chins with these huge hooks and they would link them on chains and they would have lines of prisoners, each one of them being attached by a hook. And that was the nation of Assyria. And as I was looking that up I took this quotation from some information that I used in my study and this individual said, there are many examples revealing Assyrian severity. A captured king was taken to the capital and compelled to pull the royal chariot of triumph. Rings were put through their lips or noses and sometimes hands, feet, noses and ears were cut off. They were blinded and their tongues were torn from their mouths. Prisoners were skinned alive and set on fire. Their skins were also hung near enemy city gates in order to collect tribute. The Lord allowed the ruthless Assyrians to capture the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC because of Israel's rebellion against him. And when you look into 2 Chronicles 3311 it says, the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters and carried him off to Babylon. So God is saying that in the oppression of the poor, in that you have squeezed every dime from them, you will be judged. You can take those treasures that you have and try and put them in a fortified citadel palace but the walls are going to be broken down. You're going to be taken from there and you with hooks will be taken into captivity. So the Lord is speaking concerning a coming judgment that is fulfilled when Assyria came into Israel. He goes on in verses 4 and 5 and says, come to Bethel and transgress at Gilgal, multiply transgression. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tides every three days. Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven. Proclaim and announce the free will offerings. For this you love, you children of Israel, says the Lord God. So come to Bethel and transgress at Gilgal, multiply transgression. So what is he doing now? Secondly, he's spoken against their oppressing the poor and now he speaks of judgment against their idolatry. When you read your Old Testament, you discover a couple of interesting things. One, Bethel was a site of an alternate worship kind of altar. I mentioned to you that in the reign of King Solomon, he left his kingdom to his son Rehoboam. Rehoboam had an issue with another man named Jeroboam and I've been mentioning to you that Jeroboam had gone into exile in Egypt upon the death of Solomon, returned to the nation of Israel, met with Rehoboam, demanded that Rehoboam show him and his people more courtesies, if you will, to release them from the pressure that they were under because of Solomon in the taxation and instead of Rehoboam reducing that, he actually said I'm gonna increase it and that caused Jeroboam to go into rebellion against the king of Judah, which at one time was the king of all of Israel and the 10 northern tribes separated and when the 10 northern tribes separated from the relationship with the two southern tribes, they built two alternate places to worship, one in Dan and the other in Bethel. The word Bethel means house of God and what they did is they created alternate worship sites and that's what's being referred to here when it says come to Bethel and transgress. He's saying you're going to Bethel, an alternate worship site that is actually pagan. Now when he speaks of Gilgal, when the children of Israel under the leadership of Joshua were entering into the Promised Land, the first place that they actually stopped at all was in a place called Gilgal and Gilgal was a place that was very, very significant. It actually in its history for Israel had become a place that was looked at with a certain sense of sacredness but Gilgal eventually became a place associated with both rebellion and idolatry. When you read the book of Hosea chapter nine verse 15, it says all their wickedness is in Gilgal for there I hated them because of the evil of their deeds, I will drive them from my house. I will love them no more. All their princes are rebellious. In Hosea 1211 it says though Gilead has idols, surely they are vanity, though they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal, indeed their altar shall be heaps in the furrows of the field. So Gilgal became associated with rebellion and idolatry so he's speaking concerning this and that's why he says come to Bethel and transgress and at Gilgal multiply transgression. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days. The invitation is to come to Bethel and transgress, multiply transgressions at Gilgal. What is he saying? He's saying you are idolaters. You're bringing unacceptable offerings, thinking that they're gonna be received by God but your offerings are leavened. Your offerings are filled with that which is unacceptable to God. In the Old Testament very often, not always but very often, leaven is associated with sin. And he's saying the offerings that you are making to me are unacceptable because they are filled with sin. This is sarcasm by the way. It would be like God today inviting people to come to church in order that they might be able to sin. Come to church in order that you might sin. And the thing that he's saying and this is something worthy of noting for a moment, he says in verse five, offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, proclaim and announce the free will offerings for this he said, for this you love. It's obvious that this lifestyle is acceptable to you and that you are resolved to do whatever you desire to do regardless of what God says is right. How do I illustrate that? I don't wanna say things to you that don't make any sense and half the time I feel that I am because in some ways what I wanna share with you very often can be misunderstood because it can appear to be a judgment against people and I know of the sensitivities of many today that anything that appears to be critical is immediately looked at as being unloving. And so I'm real sensitive to that because I don't want to misrepresent the Lord to this congregation and I don't want people to misunderstand the point that's attempting to be made and it becomes very complicated because in the earlier days I would just say what was there and because I was speaking to people of my generation they had an ability to kind of like sort it out and the generation that is coming up now I wanna be sensitive to be able to communicate in a language that makes sense. So I'll say it this way and let's see if it makes sense. All the gray hairs will go yeah I understand it. Then you forget it tomorrow. I got saved because I hated my sinful life. I got saved because I hated my sinful life. I was hurting people. I was lying, I was stealing. I was hurting people, those who loved me the most, my family, friends. I got to the point that I began to just despair of life. I began to think there's no point in being alive. And not that I ever got suicidal, I didn't but I did get extremely depressed because I was messing everything up. People who loved me were being hurt by me. I couldn't have friendships, I didn't have relationships. I was just messed up and I got to the point and some of you can identify with this. I know you can. I got to the point where I said, God you gotta do something because I can't take it anymore. That's what led me to getting saved is I just got tired of hurting people. I hurt my mom, I hurt my dad, I hurt my sisters, I embarrassed my brother, I hurt girlfriends, I hurt friends, I hurt everybody. I was mean-spirited, I was a thief, I was still for my own friends. Lied, I used to create lies just to lie. I lied because I loved to lie and I would make up crazy lies just for the attention. I did crazy things for attention. I felt so like I was invisible so I would say things to try and make myself seem important. I would do things so that people would notice me and I began to discover that I was going down instead of becoming better. And when I started hurting people, when I started seeing my mom cry over me, when I saw my father so ashamed of what I was doing, I said, God you gotta help me. I hate what I am and I hate what I'm becoming. Anybody understand that? Did that make any sense? I hate what I am and where I'm going. The drug abuse, the alcohol, the stealing, I was at a place in Monterey, California, called the Monterey Pop Festival. Some of you may have heard it, it used to go on many, many years ago. I dropped a drug called psilocybin. Magic Mushroom. It was a hallucinogenic and I was wired and loaded as I was walking through the Monterey Pop Festival. And I walked by a guy, a woman and a little boy or girl, I don't remember because the hair was real long. They all had stringy blonde hair, I do remember that and it wasn't hallucination. And as I looked at it, I noticed, I actually stopped, I still remember stopping there in this big festival, seeing these people walk by, and the woman was wearing a long peasant dress the way that the girls used to wear at that time. And the guy was wearing a shirt and pants and the little boy, little girl was wearing something that looked like something that they would sleep in, but it was like a dress but it was more like a sleeper. And what stood out as I was looking at them is that they were all made, the clothing was made out of sheets. It was made out of sheets. And as I walked by, I remember looking at them, realizing that that guy there didn't have money to buy clothing, so they were taking things and just sewing them and wearing them as clothing and the thought hit me, the thought hit me, that's what you are gonna be in your future. If you don't get away from drugs, if you don't stop abusing, you're gonna be like that. Not that I'm judging them, but I saw my future in them. And it was so shocking, I went to my friend's apartment, they're at Pacific Grove, they went that night to the Monterey Pop Festival to hear the evening music. I said, I'm gonna stay here and I still remember staying in that place, smoking pot, listen to the moody blues and reading the Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien. I remember all of that, it's funny, I can't remember Cross Street where I live now, but I remember all of that 40-some years ago. And as I was there in that apartment with that fire and with that tea and with that pot and I was doing the hippie thing, I said to myself, if I don't change, my life is worth nothing. If I don't change, I'll be like those people I saw today. So when my friends came back, I said, guys, I'm putting down. Putting down means I'm stopping using. I'm no longer gonna do my drugs, I'm putting down, man. Putting down. No, because I was a loady. That means I like to smoke and do a lot of dope. I'm using old terms, I have to remember that. So I put down, I stopped doing drugs for a day. That's a fact. I didn't smoke pot the next day. I went back to it the next day. Didn't like being clean. But I did start thinking about that. I'm saying all of this for a reason, there's a reason for it and that is, I began to evaluate under the conviction of the Holy Spirit what my life was amounting to and all the people I was hurting and I got to the point where in my natural self, if you will, I began to say to myself and then I actually started to pray again. I started saying I can't take this anymore. So when the gospel was presented to me and the freedom that I could have in Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of my sins and the new life that He promised me. When I heard that, when the Bible said it, they were quoting it. If any man be in crisis and you creation, old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. When I heard that, all things are become new. That's what you call good news. I mean, I can't make myself good. I've already tried, I actually tried and I failed. Are you saying that God said that He can forgive me of my sins and make me a different person? Can He make me somebody who loves? Can He make me somebody who's tender? Can He make me somebody who cares? Can He make me somebody who can provide? Can He make me into somebody who can be responsible and trustworthy? Can He change me from what I am to something else? Can He really? That's good news. I hated my sin. I hated what it was doing to others and I was in bondage to it. I couldn't break away. I tried, I couldn't break away. I would walk away for a while and I would come right back to it like a dog, go through its vomit. I would return to it. I understand that. And so when I got saved, why would I return to sin? Why would I want to be a Christian and continue in sin at the same time? Why would I want to offer to God sacrifices that are filled with sin? Why would I think that He accepts that when He has sent His Son, Jesus, to dine across to set me free from its control of my life, from its rulership in me? And yet I'm seeing, and this may not make sense to some, it may sound harsh to others. But what I'm seeing today very often in the church is people who are doing what God is saying here. You offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven. And you love it. You want to go to heaven, but you want to live in the world at the same time. You can't have both. Joshua said it like this. He said, choose this day whom you shall serve. You want to serve the gods on the other side of the river? Go for it. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And Jesus said, no man can serve two masters. You have to make a choice. That's the essence of Christianity. It is what has been referred to. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German minister coined this. That is the essence of what is called cheap grace. A grace that costs nothing and a grace that changes no one. But what God's grace does is it cleanses us and transforms us. It is his agent of transformation, you see? So when the Lord is speaking here, he's saying, you come and you offer your sacrifices, but they're tainted with sin because there's no faith in it. You are idolaters because you're worshiping at the altar of Bethel and offering sacrifices that I have not required of you. All fence of sacrifices because they're filled with the essence of idolatry because you're not worshiping me according to my word in the New Testament sense. You're not worshiping me in spirit and truth. And so today, there's a lot of confusion that people have in this world that we live in, in the United States, where they say as long as somebody has faith, that's all that matters. And God would say, no, you have to have faith in God himself through Jesus Christ. That's what matters. And a faith in Jesus Christ that is real will transform a life of a person who has that kind of faith. And that's how people are changed. Yes, amen, amen. That's how people are changed. And that's what led to my dad getting saved because when I got saved, my sister Madeline got saved. Madeline was the closest thing to a saint that we ever knew. She was 16 years old. She didn't go out, she didn't have boyfriends. She would actually stay at home when her friends are going out partying at 16. She stayed at home. She'd have her hair up in curlers, rollers, and she'd be seated between my dad and my mom eating popcorn with them on a Friday and Saturday night watching TV. She was the classic good girl who married her very first boyfriend. She's been married for 38 years to that man. She was, so my dad said, David, I knew I was better than you, but I knew that I was worse than your sister. I knew that you needed Jesus because you were messed up, but what did she need? And he said, I watched your life. I saw what happened in you. And I knew that God had an ability to transform lives when you lived in the way that you did before your mom and me. Transformed lives, the power of a transformed life. It is the gospel in human form. It is, this is what God can do in somebody. And we have kids who tell their parents, you need Jesus, and the parent says to the kid, clean your room, the kid doesn't want to clean the room. Doesn't want to clean the room, but he wants his parents to go to heaven. And all the parents see is a dirty room and a kid who disobeys. It's a power of a transformed life. It's a transformed way of being. It's a respect, it's a love, it's a peace, it's a joy. It's something that comes through a relationship with God. And so God does not want us to give to him offerings that are tainted with sin. And he says, that's what you're doing. And this, you love children of Israel. You love making these offerings because it's obvious that's acceptable to you. And you're resolved to do that which you desire to do. He moves on and says in verse six also, I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places. Yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord. I also withheld rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest. I made it rain on one city. I withheld rain from another city. One part was rained upon and where it did not rain, the part withered. So two or three cities wandered to another city to drink water. They were not satisfied. Yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord. I blasted you with blight and mildew when your gardens increased, your vineyards, your fig trees and olive trees, the locust devoured them. Yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord. I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt. Your young men I killed with a sword along with your captive horses. I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils. Yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord. I overthrew some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning. Yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord. And so I have dealt with you severely. He's speaking of their hardened hearts and how their hardened hearts have provoked them to resist repenting and returning to the Lord. And he reminds them of five judgments that he had brought upon them, judgments that they didn't learn from. I have dealt with you. He's saying this, I have dealt with you severely but you refused to repent. Your hearts are hardened in spite of the judgments that you've experienced. My judgments he's saying were intended to bring you back but you hardened your heart against me. And so he begins to outline them. First he says I gave you cleanness of teeth. Now that's not saying that he gave them toothpaste and mouthwash. He says you have cleanness of teeth because you had nothing to eat. Cleanness of teeth is another way of saying emptiness of teeth. You have nothing to eat. You have nothing to fill your mouth with. And so you've gone through a time of famine with nothing to eat. That should have turned you to me. It may speak of famine that they experienced during the time of Elijah. It could speak of the seven years of famine that they experienced during the time of Elisha. But he's saying I have withheld from you food. Food would help to remind them that man doesn't live by bread alone. When Jesus was being tempted by Satan, the tempter, and he hadn't eaten, Jesus had not eaten for 40 days and we're told that he was hungry. He was hungry, the word hungry in Matthew and Luke chapters four is in reference to, hungry is in reference to famished. And when somebody went without food for 40 days, there's a certain period of time when you're fasting that you're initially hungry, then you lose your appetite. And you will lose your appetite for a while, but when your appetite comes back and comes back with a vengeance, when you're famished, that's one of the ways that your body is telling you that you're about to die. And when Jesus was there, be tempted by the evil one by Satan for 40 days. The Bible says that he was famished. He was hungry. And at that point, when his flesh was at its weakest point, when he was really moving towards starvation or dying of starvation, that's when the enemy comes and says, make these stones into bread. When you go to Israel, you'll notice that some of the bread to this day is shaped that could look like stone. It can look like stone, it's round bread with a flat bottom. And so there are stones like that all around the Lord. And so the enemy points to the obvious and he says, if you're really the Son of God, make these stones into bread. And that's when Jesus said to him, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God. I gave you over to your hunger, which should have awakened you to a deeper need, which is to have relationship with me. The New Testament reveals to us that Jesus himself is the bread of life. So the food reminds of people that man doesn't live by bread alone. In verses seven and eight, and he says, and you have not returned to me, in verses seven and eight, I withheld rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest. I made it rain in one city withheld rain from another. God says I sent drought for three months. And this drought prior to harvest was disastrous. And that's an indication of judgment because when the Lord was speaking to the nation of Israel and giving them both cursings and blessings, a part of the cursings is found in Deuteronomy 28, verse 23. And he says to them, your heavens, which are over your head shall be bronze. The earth which is under you shall be iron. I'm gonna withhold the rain is what he's saying. Now, in the Old Testament, as well as the new, rain is a symbol of the promise of God to provide water for the children of Israel. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, Egypt is a nation that has its main water supply coming from the river, the river Nile. God said to them, I'm taking you from a nation that relies on the water of the river. And I'm bringing you into a nation that is gonna rely on rain. The Jordan River, especially in times of drought, is so small you can, in some places, almost jump over the whole river. It's that small. So God was saying, rain is gonna symbolize my provision. So rain is gonna symbolize my grace. You see that in Deuteronomy 11, where it says in verses 11 through 15, for the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot as a vegetable garden. But the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the reign of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. And it shall be that if you earnestly obey my commandments, which I command you today to love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock that you may eat and be filled. The rain that would come and would saturate the ground so they could have crops was a symbol of God's grace. And that's why Jesus would say God sends his reign on the just and the unjust alike because it was a way of demonstrating the gracious provision of God. Now the fact that one city had rain and another did not should have revealed them that God was behind this. I know some of you perhaps have experienced this where you're standing on one street and right across the street, it's raining and where you're standing it's dry. Well, that's what the Lord is pointing to. He's saying one city has rain, the other doesn't and I am showing you this because I am the one who controls the weather. And so you should have known that I'm behind this, this time of drought. That should have caused them to return to him. Again, water is a symbol of the grace of God. It is also a symbol for the water of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives to us. You don't have the bread of life in the New Testament and you don't have the water of life that comes through faith in God. Now notice when he says in verse nine I blasted you with blight and mildew. I blasted you, that's an interesting way to put it. He's talking about heat. He's talking about scorching heat that would come from the east, from the desert area and that would wither everything. He's speaking of the mildew as well as the locusts that are destroying their crops. Again, in Deuteronomy 2342 and the Lord is speaking of the curses. He said locust shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. Again, you're seeing my hand of judgment that should have caused you to return to me but you did not. Then he says in verse 10, I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt. Your young man I killed with the sword along with your captive horses. I made the stench of your camps come up to your nostrils yet you have not returned to me. He says Lord, you smelled the death. You smelled the putrefying flesh. I sent to you a plague. A plague in the manner of Egypt. Well, in Deuteronomy 2327 it says the Lord will strike you with boils of Egypt with tumors and with a scab and with itch from which you cannot be healed. It's another way of saying I've brought my judgment. You should have turned to me. Your young man he says I killed with the sword along with their captive horses. Again, in Deuteronomy 2825 the Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. You shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. He's saying the stench of the dead body should have awakened you to return. But you did not. That shows the hardness of their heart. And then finally, when he says I overthrew some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a firebrand plucked from the burning yet you have not returned to me. A firebrand plucked from the burning. The Assyrians at that time were conducting raids into Israel, into the communities, taking some captive but were not engaging in full scale war. That should have awakened them to call upon the Lord for help and to repent but they didn't. You have not returned to me. And then finally, therefore, thus will I do to you, O Israel. And because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel. For behold, he who forms mountains, creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is and makes the morning darkness who treads the high places of the earth. The Lord God of hosts is his name. What a scary statement, prepare to meet your God, O Israel. That's a scary statement. Trying to remember something one of my uncles once said. I had an uncle, his name was Jesus, but I only knew him as Wettel. And he went to Santa Fe High School. He was a few years older than me. He was my dad's youngest brother. And he was a brawler. That's what he was. He was a brawler. And there was a guy, I'll give you an example. There was a guy in Santa Fe High School who was six foot eight. And he used to pick up my brother Frank. My brother Frank is two years older than me. My uncle Wettel was, I think my uncle Wettel was about six years older than me. And my uncle and my brother were standing in front of my parents' house. My brother at that time was about 14. And Wettel was a senior in high school at that time. And this guy, he was six foot eight. This guy was walking down the street. And my uncle looks at my brother and says to my brother, is he still picking on you? And my brother looks at my uncle and says, yeah. So my uncle goes and beats this guy up in front of the house. He was a bad man. And he was talking to me one time and he said, yeah. He says, I was at this place and this guy came in and got me mad. So I told him, prepare to meet your maker. I didn't know that's in the Bible. But there it is. And that doesn't say Wettel there. That says, God said it. But what a scary thought. Prepare to meet your maker. Well, the Lord is saying here, prepare to meet your God always, real. Listen, there are two ways that you can prepare to meet your God. One, get right with the Lord. When you're right with God, then the joy and the opportunity of actually seeing Him face to face is something that your life is gonna be wrapped up in longing for. So the day that He comes, the day that you see Him will be a day of joy because you have prepared to meet your God. You know, I've shared this many times. I'll never forgive me for repeating myself, but this is how I learned spiritual lessons. When I was a little boy and I did something wrong, my dad would come home from work and he'd come pulling into the driveway. And when he drove into the driveway and I heard that pickup truck brakes that were squeaking a bit when it stopped, you know, squeak, squeak, squeak. It was like it was saying, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead, you know, cause dad was home. And cause I'd been bad because when dad came home, I was just gonna have to pay the consequences. So I could have a sense of, oh, no, he's home. But then again, there were times when then I was just anxious for him to come home to see him because I hadn't done anything wrong that day, so it was nice and dad wasn't gonna come home upset in any way and wasn't gonna get any reports of things that I had done that day. And so when my dad would come home, he'd come into the door and my brother and I would run up to him as little boys and I would climb on his leg and my brother would climb on his other leg. My dad walked like Frankenstein with these two little kids on his feet and we were, oh, daddy's home, daddy's home, daddy's home. You can have that attitude. Either you're afraid or you're rejoicing and what I want is to rejoice. I am prepared to meet my God. I am prepared, not because I have done some righteous thing myself, but I am prepared because I came to faith in Jesus Christ and he has made it possible for me to look for joy, to see him and God is speaking to the nation of Israel and saying, listen, I'm going to be dealing with you. You are going to be seeing me. You had better prepare to meet your God. Be ready because every one of us will one day give an account of himself or herself to the Lord. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 10, 31, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. That's why we must be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. God knows everything about our lives. Psalm 90, verse eight says, you have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. There's nothing hidden from you. All things are open and revealed to you. You see it and so what the Lord is going to look at in us because of Christ is the blood of Christ that has cleansed us from all sins. So on the one hand, the warning is to all be ready. But on the other hand, for those of us who have gotten right with the Lord, who said, God be merciful to me, I'm a sinner. I hate that sin. I'm not going to be offering you offerings that are filled with leaven. I'm not going to try and be religious and be right by attending a church or doing certain religious things. I'm going to follow you because you have saved me. I'm going to love you because you first loved me and the things that I do, I'm going to offer to you because I'm grateful and thankful for what you've done. And I'm prepared to meet you. I'm prepared to meet you. I am prepared to see you face to face. And the Lord says, these are the things that are going to happen. You better be prepared because the one who forms mountains, who creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is, makes the morning darkness who treads the high places of the earth, the Lord God of hosts, is His name. We don't have some wimpy God. We don't have some wimpy God. We have an almighty, powerful living God. And we are prepared to meet Him because we have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And this God who does all of that is not only the omnipotent and omniscient, omnipresent God, but he's also our father, our dad. What an amazing thing. If we could let that sink into our spirit tonight. Some of you don't know what it is to have a father who loves you. I understand. You don't know. You didn't have one. And maybe even the concept of a father may be something that isn't even appealing to you. But God is your father. And God loves you. And God provides for you. And God watches over you. And God smiles, if you will, because you're precious to Him. Your sin, no, He hates it. But He loves you. And He knows your weak. And He knows your frail. And He knows that there are times that you do things that you don't want to do. And He is merciful and gracious. And the moment you say, God, be merciful to me, I'm a sinner. He cleanses you and washes you. When you fall down and bruise yourself in life, and you say, God, help me. He picks you up, brushes you off, sets you on your feet, and walks alongside of you. You have a God who loves you. God who created the heavens and the earth and everything is your father. Prepare to meet Him. It's not gonna be that long. Prepare to meet Him. And when you see Him face to face, then be prepared to just simply say, God, I love you. Thank you for your grace and your goodness to me. Thank you for Jesus Christ. You died on the cross for me. Thank you for being my father.