A Basket of Overripe Fruit: The Serious Nature of Sin (Part 2)

This was the problem that the prophet Amos faced. The Northern Kingdom of Israel would not take their sin seriously enough to change! They thought that their sin was “no big deal.”

Several weeks ago we began the visions section of Amos. Beginning in Amos 7 and continuing on to Amos 9 God showed the prophet five visions. We looked at three of those five visions in Amos 7 as we reflected on the difficult nature of ministering to others. In Amos 8 God sent Amos a fourth vision to show the people of Israel just how seriously God takes sin.

God wanted the Israelites to understand and see sin and all of its consequences as He sees it.

If we are to kill sin in our lives, then we must see sin as God sees it. We must understand just how serious sin is and look to change.

How do take sin as seriously as God?

Amos give us three statements from the Lord that reveal exact how seriously God takes our sin.

I. God will never overlook sin (vv. 1-3)

Justice:

In order to drive home the end of sin God showed Amos a fourth vision. This fourth vision and its intended meaning are nothing less than shocking and abhorrent. Our reaction to this vision I think reveals just how different our view and God’s view of sin really are.

What is this fourth vision?

Amos 8:1 ESV

This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.

Amos 8:2 (ESV)

And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.

God makes three statements in Amos 8 that show the serious nature of sin. And in each statement we find this idea of something that God will never allow to happen. Here in v. 2 God promises to never again pass by them.

And what will that end look like? What did it look like for the Northern Kingdom of Israel?

Amos 8:3 ESV

The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord God. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” “Silence!”

V. 3 describes the fierceness of the justice of God. The songs of the temple that would normally be filled with joy and worship will instead become piercing wails in that day. And what will be the cause of such wailing? The dead bodies of the people of Israel. And not just dead bodies but a multitude of dead bodies, “So many dead bodes!” that will be thrown everywhere!

Perhaps there is even a grotesque connection between the over-ripe fruit in the basket and the dead bodies that will surely bloat and “ripen” after they are thrown haphazardly everywhere!

This is shocking! This is abhorrent! And what are we tempted to think? How could God do something like this? And that reveals the deceptive and sick nature of our hearts. We don’t think about sin the same way that God does! We are too cavalier in our thoughts about our sin! Our thoughts on sin are light and flippant! We think our sin is “no big deal!”

The message of the prophet Amos is meant to shock us awake and cause us to see reality as God reveals to us in His Word. Sin is serious! God will never overlook sin. That ought to cause us to wake up from our slumber and pay attention.

Grace:

We see the justice side of God’s holy character. He promises Israel, “I will never pass by them again!” God will never overlook sin. It is exactly what everyone one of us deserve. What about the grace that God offers?

Colossians 2:13–14 (ESV)

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Take sin as seriously as God. How do we do that? How do we see sin this way? First, we must understand that God does not overlook sin. Second, we must understand that:

II. God will never forget sin (vv. 4-7)

Justice:

After Amos gives the people of Israel a gimps into the future judgement that is coming because of their sin, he again lays out the charges why why such a judgement is on the way.

Amos 8:4 ESV

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end,

Amos 8:5 ESV

saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances,

Amos 8:6 ESV

that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

Amos 8:7 (ESV)

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

The Hebrew phrase for “surely I will never” has the idea of forever or an unending time going on into the future. For an unending time stretching on into the eternity future I will never forget any of their deeds! Wow!

This is the justice and the righteousness of our holy, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal God.

What about His grace?

Grace:

Hebrews 10:17 ESV

then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

How is this possible?

Romans 4:6–8 (ESV)

just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

My friend there is great grace available for you because of Jesus! God shows grace to those who humble themselves and cry out unto Him.

Take sin as seriously as God. How do we do that? How do we see sin this way? First, we must understand that God does not overlook sin. Second, we must understand that God does not forget sin. Third, we must understand that:

III. God will never let anyone escape the judgment for sin (vv. 8-14)

Justice:

Sin inevitably brings God’s judgement. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, but he will by no means clear the guilty. If you do not humble yourself and repent, then be sure that judgment is coming.

Amos 8:8 ESV

Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”

Just as the Nile would inevitably rise in flooding, just as unavoidable as that destruction would be so too was the judgement of God on the land and everyone in it.

Amos 8:9 ESV

“And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Amos 8:10 ESV

I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

Illustration: Mourning for an only son- Pastor and wife who lost their daughter to suicide because of depression. “Unearthly sound” that came from his wife.

This is where sin leads to! I have heard believers who didn’t head the warnings of God for their sin mourn and laments with bitter cries because of their sin. Sin always leads to shame and death. If you know Christ you no longer have to fear the wrath of God judgement of sin. But if you are God’s child He will not let you go on sinning. Like a loving father he will discipline you, he will correct you. And sometimes that correction is unpleasant. It brings about mourning and wailing.

Hebrews 12:7–11 ESV

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

The judgement gets even more severe than that!

Amos 8:11–12 ESV

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.

1 Samuel 28:6 ESV

And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets.

Israel and Amaziah got their wish!

Amos 2:12 ESV

“But you made the Nazirites drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘You shall not prophesy.’

Amos 7:12–13 ESV

And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

Amos, Obadiah, Jonah A Fainting from Thirst for the Word of the Lord (8:13)

Worse than strong words of judgment from the Lord is no word from the Lord, an ominous and foreboding silence. To receive no word from God in response to cries for help meant that God had hidden his face from them, rejected and abandoned them to their enemies

Amos 8:13 ESV

“In that day the lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst.

Amos 8:14 (ESV)

Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’ they shall fall, and never rise again.”

Their judgement was sure, God would never let them escape the judgement for their sin.

Grace:

John 5:24 ESV

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

John 5:28–29 ESV

Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

How can this be? How can those who believe in Jesus not come into judgement? Are we right we we said God never lets anyone escape the judgment for sin or not? Does the Bible contradict itself?

Romans 3:23–26 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Friends, we must see sin as God see it! We must understand just how serious it is and turn from it! Our sin can never be overlooked, or forgotten about, our judgement can never be escaped without the grace of God! Without God’s grace we are helpless and hopeless in our battle with sin.

“Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart but fear of shame among men or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ's, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts.”

“So did Joseph. "How shall I do this great evil," saith he, "and sin against the Lord?" my good and gracious God. And Paul, "The love of Christ constrains us;" and, "Having received these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all pollution of the flesh and spirit," 2 Cor. vii. 1. But now if a man be so under the power of his lust that he has nothing but law to oppose it withal, if he cannot fight against it with gospel weapons, but deals with it altogether with hell and judgment, which are the proper arms of the law, it is most evident that sin has possessed itself of his will and affections to a very great prevalency and conquest.”

Romans 5:20–21 ESV

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Will you avail yourself of God’s grace today? Sinner won’t you come? Come to the Savior who is ready to forgive!

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