Visions of Mercy & Judgement
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Ministry is hard. Ministry involves sacrifice. Real Christlike ministry is possible only by means of God’s grace. This kind of ministry involves transformation. Our old sinful, corrupt, selfish hearts must be transformed into new grace-filled, loving, and humble hearts. This kind of transformation is only possible by means of the power of God. This is what we called progressive sanctification or transformation into Christlikeness. And if we are to do the work of ministry, as Jesus did, we must diligently work to overcome our old corrupted sinful nature and its tendencies.
Sharon and I lived in MN for two years while I worked on my MDiv. In order to pay bills I worked as a 3rd shift security guard, which involved mostly sitting at a desk. I then attended classes which involved mostly sitting at a desk. And then I went home and collapsed on my bed for how every many hours of sleep I could get. Not a very active lifestyle. I also didn’t have the best eating habits. I mean, they would provide free doughnuts every morning before class! As a result I gained a lot of weight. I remember taking a trip back to WI during that time for some special church event. We ran into a family that we knew from a previous church. And the first thing the husband said to me after years apart was, “wow, you gained a lot of weight.” Let me tell you, my disposition for ministry toward this gentleman was not very Christlike in that moment.
I have been screamed at for witnessing on the street. I have been told I am chemically imbalanced for believing in a God. I have been rejected at many a door for attempting to tell others about Jesus. Ministry can be very difficult.
And what is our natural response when we face these kinds of obstacles to ministry? “Fine, have it your way. I’m done with you.” We tend to cloister ourselves away from people. I will just be concerned about me and my own. If you are going to treat me that way then I want nothing to do with you.
But, then what happens to our ability to do ministry?
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
Sometimes, if we are not Holy Spirit filled, we slip back into those old tendencies of our flesh. And it ruins our opportunities to accomplish real ministry in the lives of other people.
God has called us to something different. God called the prophet Amos to something different.
We just finished the section of WOE oracles in Amos 5-6. Now in chapter 7 we begin the prophetic vision sections of the prophet’s ministry. In chapters 7-9 we find five visions that the Lord shows the prophet Amos. Here in chapter 7 we are going to look at three of those five visions and how these visions put on display what effective ministry takes to accomplish.
And we can learn a lot about the ministry God has called us to through the example of Amos.
God wants all of us to be effective in ministry.
What does the ministry that God has called us to involve?
This morning I want to examine two truths about the nature of effective ministry.
I. God has called us to be intercessors for adversaries (vv. 1-6, 10-13)
I. God has called us to be intercessors for adversaries (vv. 1-6, 10-13)
Ministry is hard, and sometimes God calls us to minister to those who are, at least temporarily, our adversaries. God wants us to reach even those who behave like enemies. This is exactly what Amos did for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And God reveals Amos’ effective ministry through the use of prophetic visions. There are five of these visions in the remaining chapters of Amos. Let’s look at the first one.
This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.
In this first vision the Lord God, or the Sovereign Lord, showed Amos a vision of locusts. The Lord was forming or making or creating swarms of locusts.
The timing of this creative act is important. God was forming the locusts “when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout.” It was also after the king’s mowings.
This puts the locust swarm at the end of the rainy season. This is the spring crop. Spring was the time when most of the rain would fall and the food produced during this season was meant to sustain the people until the end of the dry summer season. So God was planning to send the swarm once the grass used up all of the moisture from the spring rains. In other words, this would have been the absolute worst case scenario for the people of Israel.
The king’s mowings may refer to the extraction of grain taxes from Amos 5:11.
Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
A swarm of locusts during that time could devastate a nation, but such a swarm sent by the hand of the Sovereign Lord, at the worst possible moment would have led to Israel’s utter destruction.
Knowing this full well, the prophet Amos, intercedes on behalf of the people.
When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, “O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
Notice the words Amos uses: “O Lord God.” Again we see Yahweh Elohim. Sovereign Lord, covenant keeping God. Please forgive! The word forgive is actually an imperative, but Amos isn’t in this context commanding God to do something. This is what is called an imperative of entreaty and it expresses the prophet’s sense of urgency for the fate of the people of Israel!
What was Amos’ argument for why God should forgive?
How can Jacob/Israel stand? He is so small!
Do you think this nation that Amos was interceding for would have thought of themselves as small? No they were the “first of the nations” (6:1).
Humanly speaking there were not that small, but when compared to the Sovereign Lord they were nothing more than grasshoppers.
Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
While the proud hearted people of Israel refused to realize this truth, Amos knew it to be true. So Amos interceded on their behalf!
Amos 7:2 (ESV)
“O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
How did God respond to Amos’ intercession?
The Lord relented concerning this: “It shall not be,” said the Lord.
What an amazing God we serve! One commentator said this, “One person made a big difference because God is approachable and merciful.”
God is not done showing Amos visions however.
This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.
In this second vision the Lord God, the Sovereign God, was calling for a judgment by fire. And this fire was so great that it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.
What exactly is this judgment?
The “judgement by fire” is most likely a vivid description of a supernaturally intense drought. God was going to send an intense heat and a lack of rain for an extended period of time so that the “great deep” would be devoured. This is likely referring to the underground water sources that sustained the people. Not only would the lakes and rivers dry up, but the under ground supply of water would vanish as well so that the fiery heat would eat up the land.
How does Amos respond to this vision? He again fulfills his prophetic calling of interceding for the people. Like Moses, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel before him, Amos pleads for God’s mercy.
Then I said, “O Lord God, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
And how does God respond?
The Lord relented concerning this: “This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.
“It is striking that God is the one who “relented” of judgment, while the people of Israel were too hard-hearted (and hard-headed) to repent of their sins. The prophets present a God who is quick to relent of judgment.” —Furr & Yates
and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
What a beautiful picture. You see God who is merciful and slow to anger, the One who relents from disaster. And you see Amos, the one who is quick to intercede for the people.
This ministry of intercession is all the more striking when you consider the historical interlude recorded for us in v. 10.
Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words.
For thus Amos has said, “ ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’ ”
Amaziah was the one of the leading priests in the king’s site of worship at Bethel. He is playing informant on Amos to the king of Israel. Why would Amaziah do that? Well apparently he doesn’t like Amos very much and he is doing everything in his power to get rid of this pesky prophet. He claims, “the land is not able to bear all his words.”
And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there,
Notice the double command: “Go, FLEE AWAY.” Lit. this is the idea of “get out” and “run for your life!” In other words Amos faced some hostility, some opposition. The people of Israel, and least most of them, didn’t want to hear what Amos had to say.
“Get out of here!” “Run for you life, Amos!” Go back to your homeland of Judah. Eat bread there, prophesy there. We don’t want you here any more.
If only Amaziah had known just how close he had come to total destruction at the hands of God! Amaziah had narrowly avoided death by starvation once a plague of locusts and a supernatural drought had destroyed his kingdom. And who did Amaziah have to thank for that? Amos!
Amos’ role of an intercessor is all the more shocking once we consider just how much opposition his ministry faced.
They didn’t want him there, they didn’t want to listen, they were ready to run him out of town or kill him if he didn’t flee.
but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”
And still Amos endured and ministered to them.
Here is an example of effective ministry. Sometimes, God calls us to intercede even for those who are our adversaries.
What is the natural inclination of our flesh when someone says to us, go away, flee for you life, never again talk to me about Jesus! What do we tend to do?
Friends, has anyone ever hurt you so deeply that you find it difficult to even forgive them of their offense? Someone crosses your “line” and they get put on the “list” and they are essentially dead to you!
Do you find it hard to forgive? If we are to have effective ministry to other people in our lives we must be like Jesus. We must be ready to forgive! Even when people treat us like enemies.
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Then do you remember the parable of the unforgiving servant? The servant owed his master how much? 10,000 talents. In today’s economy that is like hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. It is an insurmountable debt. And yet the master had pity for him, he release him and forgave him the debt! Can you imagine?
But, what did that servant then go out and do? Found his fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii. How much is that? It is not a trivial amount. It is a humanly speaking “large” amount. But even though he had just been forgiven billions he would not forgive thousands. So, how does the story end?
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
What does that last verse mean? Does it mean we will lose our salvation if we fail to forgive? No, that is contrary to the rest of Scripture. Rather, a person who is unwilling to forgive, who is so hard hearted that he or she refuses to forgive another a minor offense (comparatively speaking) has no reason to have confidence in their salvation. A person who knows Christ and has been forgiven, forgives. The fact that they forgive doesn’t make them a Christian, rather it demonstrates that they are truly saved and transformed. But, a person who is unwilling to forgive can have no assurance that they themselves have been forgiven.
Forgiveness is key, but ministry takes it one step farther! Not just forgive, but intercede! What’s the difference? It means that you have been so transformed by God’s grace and by Christ’s love that your whole heart cries out unto God for his mercy and grace even towards your enemies!
Here is a poor example:
And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
Here is a good example:
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Or this:
Amos 7:2 (ESV)
“O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
Amos 7:5 (ESV)
“O Lord God, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
If you want to be an effective minister for Christ then you must embrace the calling of God on your life. God calls us to intercede for adversaries.
What else does the ministry that God has called us to involve?
II. God has called us to be instruments of uprightness (vv. 7-9, 14-17)
II. God has called us to be instruments of uprightness (vv. 7-9, 14-17)
Here is the other difficult part of ministry. Not only must we be ready to forgive and have hearts urgent to intercede, but we must also be instruments that God can use to show His upright standard.
Yes God is a God of grace and mercy. He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and He relents from disaster, but there is a line.
“God’s mercies should not be taken for granted; there is a line that, once crossed, cannot be retraced.” —Furr & Yates
And God’s wants to use us in ministry to communicate that message to other people.
This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.
Here is the third vision that God shows to Amos. This time the vision is of a wall and a plumb line. God is standing next to a wall and He is holding this plumb line in his hand.
Now, for all of you non-builders out there, what is a plumb line?
A plumb line was an instrument or a tool that was used in the building process to keeps things in plumb, to keep things straight.
Plumb line illustration.
And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them;
So what is the deal with this plumb line? It has to do with sin and righteousness.
In our MTP Class on Hamartiology we have been studying the definition of sin. (You should take a class BTW). In order to get a good definition we have been looking at the different Hebrew and Greek words used for sin.
Here are two of the Hebrew words for sin:
Hata—do wrong, commit a mistake or an error, miss the mark or goal, miss the way or path of right.
Significance: sin is a failure to meet up to God’s standard
Numbers 14:40 (ESV)
And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.”
‘Avah—commit iniquity, do wrong, iniquity, guilt; bend or twist
Significance: sin is an attempt to alter God’s standard
2 Samuel 7:14 (ESV)
I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,
When he bends or twists God’s standard, when he attempts to alter God’s standard- then I will discipline him.
This is at the heart of sin. When we sin we fail to meet God’s standard, or we deliberately bend or twist God’s standard.
How does this relate to the plumb line?
Plumb Line Illustration
The Israelites thought that they were fine. Their wall was straight, they were morally measuring up to God’s standard of righteousness. But, that was far from the truth. The Israelites were not fine. Their wall was not straight, it was not plumb. Because of their sin they had twisted and bent their standard of righteousness. In order to show the people just how out plumb they really were God said to Amos, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel.”
What was that plumb line? It was God’s standard of righteousness. Where do we find God’s standard of righteousness? In His Word. For the people of Israel it would have been the stipulations of the Mosaic Covenant.
How did God set that plumb line “in the midst” of the people of Israel? How did God communicate to the people his standard of righteousness? It was by means of the prophetic ministry of Amos. Amos was sent by God in the midst of the people to preach God’s standards of right and wrong. Amos was tasked with job of preaching judgement for the sins of the nation. He was tasked to go to Israel and proclaim that the sins of the nation didn’t measure up to God’s standard. And because of their failure to measure up and their deliberate choice to twist or bend God’s standard they would face God’s judgment!
Amos 7:8 (ESV)
“Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them;
“I will never again pass by them.” What does that mean?
“God’s mercies should not be taken for granted; there is a line that, once crossed, cannot be retraced.” —Furr & Yates
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
This was the job of the prophet, He was sent by God to be an instrument of uprightness. And that meant boldness to proclaim the severe judgment that was coming.
the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
Drop down to v. 14. Do you remember the last thing that Amaziah said to Amos? “Never again prophesy at Bethel.”
How does Amos respond?
Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs.
You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of the common logical fallacy thrown around these days, inappropriate appeal to authority.
Usually it goes something like this, “What gives you the right to speak to this issue? Are you an expert in this field?”
What gives you the right to speak about gender? Are you an expert in biology?
This is what Amos is acknowledging up front: I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son- I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs.
Well then Amos, what gives you the right to speak about a standard of morality?
Amos 7:15 (ESV)
But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’
Amos 7:16 (ESV)
Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.
Friends you have a message about a standard of righteousness. You have a standard about gender, and sexuality, and race, and abortion. And you need to be speaking that standard, you need to be functioning as a plumb line in our dark world. What gives you the right?
This message, this standard is not our own- it is the Lord’s! Friends, you know the truth, the ultimate standard of righteousness. You cannot back down from proclaiming it! Even if that means telling people things they will not like to hear!
Listen to Amos!
Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. “You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’
Therefore thus says the Lord: “ ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’ ”
My friends, God has called us to the task of ministry and ministry means that we must function as God’s standards of uprightness.
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
In the book On the Level, the authors give several effects of the saltiness of Christians.
1. Salt Enhances Flavor
1. Salt Enhances Flavor
When you live out the joy of your salvation before the sinful world you show them the true enjoyment of God’s blessing as something to be desired.
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
2. Salt Draws Out Infection
2. Salt Draws Out Infection
Like a wound is caused to sting by contact with salt, so too, the consciences of the wicked begin to feel the sting of shame as they come into contact with the “salt of the earth.” A certain “burning” is felt by those who would otherwise fell comfortable in their sin. (pg. 49)
3. Salt Creates Thirst
3. Salt Creates Thirst
This ministry serves as a motivation to satisfy the craving for proper water.
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Christians must live out a testimony in such a way that the unsaved world sees the believer’s thirst fully satisfied in Christ.
4. Salt Preserves from Decay
4. Salt Preserves from Decay
As your testimony is observed by the lost the advance of the decay of sin is greatly reduced.
In short, as salt, believers restrain sin in the world.
And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:
How does the Holy Spirit do that? Whereever you go you are not alone. You always take another person with you—the person of the Holy Spirit.
God wants to use you, like he used Amos, as a plumb line. He wants to use your testimony, your words, your glorious transformation in progressive sanctification as a plumb line for the world. God can use you, through the work of the Holy Spirit, to show the world where they don’t measure up to His standard of Righteousness. He can show the world were they have twisted and bent that standard.
There is a warning here by Jesus however!
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
How does salt lose its effectiveness?
Corruption (loss of credibility)
Compromise (loss of contrast)
Cloistering (loss of contact)
Effective ministry means that God can use us as instruments of uprightness. How effective is you ability to minister?
Are you functioning like Amos? Are you functioning like salt in the world?
What is hindering you? Is there sin in your life corrupting your testimony? I invite you to repent and confess that sin and restore your saltiness for Christ.
Is there compromise in your life? I invite you to pursue Christ and His righteousness! Restore your saltiness.
Is their cloistering going on in your life? Have you decided to remove the effect of your saltiness from the lost world around you? Repent and confess that sin. Become again an effective minister for the Lord. Be like Amos! Determine this week to get out of your bubble! Find a way to interact with the lost. Go to a coffee shop, go to the gym, go to the park- find people and prayerfully ask God to use you as the salt of the earth.
Prayerfully ask God to help you have an effective ministry.
This morning we looked at two truths about the nature of effective ministry.
I. God has called us to be intercessors of adversaries
II. God has called us to be instruments of uprightness.
Friends, is your ministry for the Lord effective? If not how will you make changes to your ministry moving forward?