Dr MJ Du Plessis Reformed Church Bellville 29 October 2006 (morning) Scripture NIV

REFORMED CHURCH BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 29 OCTOBER 2006: MORNING SERVICE

Sing before: Psalm 21:6

Let us commence this meeting with God by declaring openly to one another and to God:
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Beloved grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Psalm of praise: Psalm 48:6

Confession of faith: Apostolic

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into Hell, the third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, a holy catholic* Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.
Amen.

After the reading of the Law we confess our guilt and pray for forgiveness and a new life before God with Psalm 84:4.
Law
Psalm: 84:4

Prayer:

Doxology
Worship
Confession of sins
Forgiveness
Gratitude
Prayer for the need of the congregation for the church, the authorities and the sinful world and appeal to God's promises.
General prayer
Enlightenment from the Holy Spirit for the sake of the ministry of the Word.

Amen

Psalm: 94:1

Scripture: Amos 4
Text: Amos 4:12

"Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel".

Perpetual sins summon us to appear before the throne of God!

It is not the purpose of this sermon to terrify you as a congregation and to let you believe that your sins are so great that the Lord only wants to destroy you. The purpose is to make you reflect.

Let us consider what went wrong between Israel and the Lord before the Lord allowed Samaria to fall and Israel to be taken away into exile.
Nobody can build a future unless he avoids the mistakes of the past.

In this chapter in the Bible we must reflect on two matters in the explanation of this passage:
1.         Social and religious sins
2.         The Lord's punishment of His people

1.         Social and religious sins

Various groups of people in the people of Israel are being addressed by the Lord about their sins. Eventually nobody is left out of the proclamation of judgment.

Verse 1 addresses the wealthy women of Samaria. Disrespectfully they are called the "cows of Bashan".
Bashan was the Northern part of the territory of Israel that lay on the other side of the Jordan.
It was an area with good grazing.
For that reason it was allocated the tribes that had the most cattle. (Numbers 32:1; Deuteronomy 32:14; Ezekiel 39:18 and Psalm 22:13)

"Cows of Bashan" plainly means well-fed cows.

The use of the expression indicates that these women lived in luxury and plenty a life of indulgence.
The prophet (with some distaste) tells of the sins of these women.
They oppress the poor and despise those whom they consider below their position.
They tell their husbands to prepare luxurious feasts for them.
The husbands can't afford the costs thereof.
The husbands squeeze the money out of the poor.

This invites the Lord's judgment.

The Lord swears an oath. God swears by Himself, by His holiness.
The Lord's holiness is in the Old Testament equal to the Lord Himself.

To Amos the temple is the place where the Lord resides. (Amos 1:2)

He therefore is not against the sacrifices themselves.
He is angry with the people who offer the sacrifices, because at these sacrificial feasts they indulge in immoral and heathen practises.

The elaborate description of the feast by Amos indicates that the people were preparing for such a sacrificial feast.

In ironic fashion the prophet encourages the people to carry on with the feast and to sin more.
His exhortation to bring their free will offerings shows that such offerings were wrong.

His exhortation shows that the people departed from the feasts and sacrifices as prescribed by the Lord.

In verse 5 the departure is shown clearly with reference to the fellowship (peace) offerings.
According to Leviticus 7:11-12 an animal was to be slaughtered.
It is true that with the animal there was to be an addition of a grain offering but that was not put onto the altar as was being done by them.

The greatest error was that the feasts were to honour the calf statues that Jerobeam had put up.

Jerobeam introduced this idolatry to ensure that the people would not go to Jerusalem to sacrifice there.
The sacrificial feasts were therefore not to honour the Lord, although much of what was being done was the same as when the Lord was being honoured, for example the bringing of tithes and morning offerings.
It is typical of Satan to copy the worship of the Lord with things that closely resemble that which the Lord wants and in that way cause the faithful who take part in these copied ceremonies to sin.

The people had no compunction about these copied feasts.

When the Lord swears an oath it means that the matter is of the utmost seriousness. (Hebrews 6:13)

The reference to the holiness of the Lord highlights some points:

The majesty of the Lord.
His abhorrence of sin.
An indication of punishment.

The punishment will come for all the people, but the Bible describes what it will be like for those wealthy women. They represent all the people.

They will be taken away with hooks.
Like a fish taken by a hook out of water, these wealthy women will be violently pulled out of their wealth and luxury.

Verse 3 tells how they will be driven off into exile.

Through the holes in the walls of Samaria they will go.
To the mountain of Harmon – that is North, towards Assyria.

The prophet then turns to the people in Israel.

The Bible reveals here that the poor and despised people do not deserve our sympathy either, for their own lives were unrighteous before the Lord.
The people sinned because they practiced sinful cults at Bethel and at Gilgal: "On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground". (Amos 3:14)

"Though you commit adultery, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. Do not go to Gilgal; do not go up to Beth Aven, and do not swear, 'as surely as the Lord lives!" (Hosea 4:15)

The prophet Amos definitely disapproved of the cults practiced at Bethel and at Gilgal.

"... do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile and Bethel will be reduced to nothing." (Amos 5:5 and see Hosea 4:15 and 9:5)

They liked them and participated enthusiastically.
Amos' message to them is – carry on and increase your sin.

2. The Lord's punishment of his people

A number of catastrophes are described.

It is remarkable that the Lord speaks of these catastrophes in the past tense.
They had not occurred yet when Amos prophesied.
It is done so because the Lord prophetically takes the people past his judgment to let them look back to what would befall them as from the day Amos prophesied until the fall of Samaria.

The catastrophes are prophetic because at the time when Amos prophesied Israel prospered. (Isaiah 9:7-10:4)

In Amos 4:6-11 it is prophesied that the Lord will send a number of plagues over Israel in order to bring them to repentance but without success.
Every time it is added sorrowfully that the people would not return to the Lord.
The impression one is left with reading this refrain is that the Lord would have stopped His punishment had His people repented. (Verses 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11)

The punishment appears to consist of natural disasters.

Famine, drought, failed harvests, a plague of locusts, disease, defeat in war and eventually total laying waste of their land.
The Lord expected of them as believers to see beyond the natural disaster – because they were warned by the prophets, and to recognize the Hand of the Lord in the signs of the times.

Because the Lord knows that the people are hardheaded and that they will carry on with sinning a final warning is issued.

"Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!" (Amos 4:12)

These words are no longer a call to repentance.

It is a final prophecy that because of their sins there is no escape from the Lord's judgment.
The Lord comes with His judgment and the people must be prepared to meet Him.

Are we less hardheaded than these people? We all know that the answer is no.

We read the signs of the times as badly as they.
Like them we fail to see the Hand of the Lord in all that happens to and around us.
Like them we shall meet God.

There is nobody and no people who can avoid this meeting. Those of us who shall meet the Lord while persisting in unbelief shall suffer greatly for they will be crushed by the Lord's judgment.

What will become of us when we meet God?

By the grace of God it will be different for the believers than for the unbelievers.
Someone else met God in the place of the believers.
He stood before God on their behalf bearing all their sins.
It was not a friendly meeting, for Jesus stood subject to God's complete judgment.
He bore God's punishment.

This punishment was terrible.

It was not a light punishment as that of Israel when the women climbed over the ruins of the city but still alive.
Jesus was abandoned by God and He had to sacrifice His life so that we might live.
When we meet with God we shall stand there in all our sins but we shall not be destroyed because the Lord Jesus Christ has already borne the punishment for it.

This compels us to live our lives more carefully.

We must not like the women of Samaria become earthly and injure the glory of the Lord even in our manner of eating and drinking.
We must ensure that in our dealings with all people the kingship of God is reflected.
We may not like the wealthy men of Samaria take our frustration out on defenseless people.

In our worship we must ensure that our worship is true and that we worship joyfully.

We must ensure that our worship is according to the Lord's wishes.
Israel's own inventions (that partly resembled that which the Bible prescribed) was so repugnant to the Lord that He sent all kinds of disasters to bring the people to repentance.

We should remember clearly:

The future is not limited to tomorrow or the next five or ten years.
The future is from tomorrow onwards unto eternity – until after all time and history and the earth are past.

The greatest part of the future we shall live on the new earth where the presence of the Lord shall be with us.

Let us aim for that day and await the meeting with God.
It is a most important moment for that is the moment when the Lord Jesus shall let us enter his eternal kingdom.

Amen

Closing prayer
Closing Psalm: 119:1

The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make His face shine on you and be merciful to you.
The Lord turn His countenance to you and give you peace.
Amen

Dr MJ Du Plessis
Reformed Church Bellville
29 October 2006 (morning)
Scripture NIV