For Three Transgressions, Yes, for Four

1The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. 2He said: “Yahweh will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, and the top of Carmel will wither.” 3Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; 4but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad. 5I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir,” says Yahweh. 6Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Gaza, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they carried away captive the whole community, to deliver them up to Edom; 7but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it will devour its palaces. 8I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord Yahweh. 9Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Tyre, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, and didn’t remember the brotherly covenant; 10but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it will devour its palaces.” 11Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever; 12but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.” 13Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border. 14But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind; 15and their king will go into captivity, he and his princes together,” says Yahweh.

The name Amos means “one who carries a heavy burden.” For a prophet called by God, life was probably no lighter than that; the calling would have pressed on him like a load on his back. Because he sharply rebuked the rich when they exploited the poor, people called him the prophet of justice. He proclaimed God’s will and boldly cried out to the exploiters to repent, yet for the weak among the people he prayed earnestly.

Amos prophesied in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and Jeroboam II king of Israel. In those same years Isaiah was prophesying in Judah to the south, and Hosea in Israel to the north. Amos had been a farmer on the uplands of Tekoa in Judah, a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs; that background meant he grew up with no training as a prophet. But once God raised him up as a prophet, he carried a stern word of rebuke to Samaria, a city given over to luxury and excess. It is no easy thing for a prophet from Judah to pronounce judgment on the northern kingdom, but because Amos knew God’s will, he proclaimed it boldly. He made it unmistakably plain that God never pardons injustice, and that whoever breaks the law of justice he will surely judge. At that time Jeroboam ruled Israel, and the nation stood at the height of its strength and wealth, greater than at any time since Solomon, and the people lived in plenty. The reason was that, while the two kingdoms of Hamath and Damascus were at war, Judah and Israel had seized the moment, won back the land they had lost, and grown into rich and powerful nations.

Amos 1:1

1The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

The prophet Zechariah also dates this time as two years before the earthquake in the days of Jeroboam, which tells us it was a very great one. Amos proclaimed God’s judgment two years before it struck, and two years later, just as God had warned, a great earthquake came and nation after nation suffered. Judah and Israel had once lost their land and endured much, but when everything was restored to them, they turned around and committed the same evils the Gentiles had committed.

While Israel lay under the rule of great powers, they vowed that if only they were set free, they would serve God well and work hard for their nation. Yet they fell away. We see the same thing in the church today. People promise to live wholeheartedly for God if he will rescue them from their trouble, but once the prayer is answered, they grow proud, as if they were thriving by their own ability.

Israel now persecuted and plundered the poor and powerless among their own people, just as they themselves had once been treated by their masters. Instead of giving thanks for what God had restored, they craved more and more, and in the end that greed carried them away from God.

Amos 1:2

2He said: “Yahweh will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, and the top of Carmel will wither.”

When Yahweh roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem, it means that he will begin his judgment at the temple, the place of his presence. The God who set up the sanctuary to save the lives of his people now declared that he would begin judging them from that very temple. Over more than four hundred years he had formed Israel into a nation, and it was he who set them free from Egypt. Israel must know how much it would grieve such a God to say that he will judge the people he loves. How great must Israel’s betrayal have been, for God to declare that he would abandon both the sanctuary he had raised to give them life and the people themselves?

Mount Carmel is where Elijah faced the 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah. When God pronounces the dreadful curse that he will make Carmel wither, it is clear that Israel had committed a sin beyond pardon. And yet one thing shows how truly God loved Israel: before he judged Israel, he judged the Gentile nations first. His purpose was to give Israel time to repent as they watched the nations receive their judgment. Had he judged Israel before the nations, the powerful kingdoms around could have fallen on a weakened Israel. To prevent that, God dealt first with the nations that surrounded it. Loved as they were, Israel would not repent, right to the end.

Israel was meant to bring the gospel to the nations; if Israel became corrupt, the gospel could not go out. For that reason God called them to repentance through judgment. It is the same with the church, which the Lord has commanded to carry the gospel to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. If the church becomes corrupt, no one is left to bring the gospel to the world, and it comes to the same thing: God calls his people to repentance through judgment.

Amos 1:3

3Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron;

Before he judged, God told people what sins they had committed, warned them in advance how he would judge those sins, and then brought it to pass. The nations that heard God’s judgment through Amos had to weigh which they would choose: repentance or judgment.

First, because Damascus had committed three transgressions, yes, four, in crushing Gilead, God said its king and people would be taken captive. It threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron, and that alone shows how cruel its people were. Damascus was the capital of Syria, and its people were brutal enough to torment the people of Gilead with whips set with iron; Gilead’s suffering was so savage that words can hardly describe it. Look closely at this: God did not go straight to judging Judah and Israel. He judged the Gentile nations first, and only then the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. Beginning with the nations farthest from Judah and Israel was itself a warning to them, yet they did not hear it as a warning and did not repent. Their refusal is what brought them down before the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar.

The second and third nations judged were Gaza and Tyre. Their sin was selling captured Israelites to Edom as slaves, burning palaces, and bringing a nation to ruin, and for this God said he would judge them. Gaza is a city in what is now the Gaza Strip. The crime of the Philistines was to use the order of society itself to sell people for profit, and when God saw it, he brought down the buildings, the king, and the people of Philistia completely. Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia, delivered captives up to Edom and broke the treaty the nations had signed to protect one another: three transgressions, yes, four. Tyre’s judgment came, it is recorded, in BC 322, when Alexander the Great besieged the city for seven months and took it; six thousand were killed, two thousand were executed, and thirty thousand were sold as slaves.

Fourth, Edom committed three transgressions, yes, four: it acted with hostility toward its own brothers, mercilessly trampled them once they were defeated, and burned their palaces. Seeing these sins, God sent fire on Teman and Bozrah. Around BC 400–300 he caused the Nabataeans, one of the Arabian peoples, to conquer Edom, making Edom suffer greatly.

Fifth was Ammon, descended from Ben Ammi, the son born to Lot’s younger daughter. To enlarge its border, Ammon committed the atrocity of killing the pregnant women of Gilead and their children, who had no strength to defend themselves. This merciless nation was conquered in BC 734 by Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria; its palaces went up in flames, and its king and people were led away captive.

Sixth was Moab, descended from Moab, the son of Lot’s elder daughter. Among its three transgressions, yes, four, was the great wickedness of digging up the tomb of the king of Edom and burning his bones to lime. Such acts were immoral and inhuman crimes, and that is why Moab was judged. This was not done against Israel, but it was still rebellion against the Lord. Moab had insulted human beings made in God’s image and committed blasphemy; for this God caused Moab to perish miserably at the hands of Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria.

Seventh came Judah and Israel. Judah in the south, God’s own people, despised the law of Yahweh and worshiped idols. Israel was judged for three transgressions, yes, four: breaking the law, sexual sin, idolatry, and more. In his anger God chose this way of judgment: in BC 586 King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the palaces and slaughtered the royal family, and God made the royal house and the people suffer as they were carried off to Babylon.

For Judah, the judgment was especially heavy, because the palace stood together with the temple. Israel sold the righteous for silver when they could not pay their debts, and sold people for the price of a pair of shoes. The courts conspired with the rich and would not give just verdicts, which was nothing less than trampling God’s people underfoot. The people God had chosen also sinned with the prostitutes and concubines who served at the temple, father and son going in to the same woman. The people of God were profaning his holy name. Nor was that the end of their sins. They took the millstones and cloaks of the poor, things as vital to them as life itself, and at every feast spread them out beside every altar to show off their power, so the account goes. Only those who mock God could do such things, and they amount to idolatry, the exalting of foreign gods. When God saw Israel and Judah committing such evil, he did not leave their sins unpunished. They had been deeply loved by God, and their betrayal likely drew a rebuke from him as great as the love they had been given.

God called Israel out of Egypt in a special way and raised up Moses as their spiritual leader. Through the sacrifice of the prophets he caused his word to be proclaimed, and through the lives of the Nazirites, set apart for him, he showed how his people ought to live. Yet for all this love, they forced the Nazirites to drink wine and threatened the prophets, telling them not to prophesy. It is frightening and astonishing that a people who had received God’s absolute love could do such things without a second thought. They forgot the God who had always stood beside them to protect them, and they worshiped idols; such a life deserves judgment.

Only when Judah and Israel hold to an upright faith is the temple holy and the word of God precious. Once the people fall into corruption, all of it loses its worth. So God abandoned even his temple.

Amos 2:13

13Behold, I will crush you in your place, as a cart crushes that is full of grain.

In his wrath God said he would judge Israel the way a cart full of grain crushes what lies beneath it. Once the judgment began, he said, even the swiftest runner could not escape, the strong would have no strength to use, and the mighty could not deliver themselves. The one who handles the bow would not stand, the swift of foot would not get away, the horseman would not save his life, and on that day even the most courageous among the mighty would flee away naked.

As a result, the northern kingdom of Israel was invaded by Assyria in BC 722, its people were carried off as captives, and it was utterly destroyed. Judah and Israel, who had lived so long as God’s people under his love, were cast off and brought to complete ruin.

Amos 1:9

9Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Tyre, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, and didn’t remember the brotherly covenant;

Since the sins of Tyre, Edom, and Ammon are alike, I want to look at them once more. Tyre was the chief port of Phoenicia and a center of trade, which made its people considerably wealthy. In the days of David and Solomon, Hiram king of Tyre was so close to Israel that he bound himself to them as a brother, and the two nations even made a pact to help each other. Hiram knew that God had raised David high as king over Israel, and for that reason he sent cedar, carpenters, and stonemasons to build a house for him.

After David died and Solomon became king, Solomon asked the king of Tyre to send cedar for building the temple; Hiram rejoiced greatly, praised God, and gladly sent it. Solomon and Hiram helped each other and pledged themselves to friendship. Yet Tyre not only broke that pledge but sold Israelites to Edom as slaves. Just as God blessed even Gentile nations when they kept good relations with Israel, so he called to account and judged any nation, whatever it was, that persecuted Israel. That is why he did not forget Tyre’s sin, but judged it.

Among the sins of the nations we have just looked at, some are beyond pardon, but others are still committed today. Judging people by their appearance, perverting justice in the courts, treating the poor as lesser people: we can still find these all around us. People do not think it a serious sin to cheat on their taxes or use false scales for dishonest gain. But God calls even such small matters sin. People do these things without a thought, yet in God’s eyes even these trifles are grave sins.

Deuteronomy records that when you have someone work for you, you must pay them their wages in full. God says that if those who are not paid cry out, he will hear from heaven and bring punishment, and this shows us that he cares about people’s everyday lives. We see that God cares not only for Judah and Israel but for the whole world, judging sin wherever it is committed. God does not dwell in the church alone; he works for the salvation of everyone in the world. Because of that, we must take care in what we say and do. We need to keep in mind that to shut God up inside our own reasoning and sit in judgment on his work is a great sin.

Edom and Ammon had sworn brotherhood with Israel while Israel was strong, but once Israel lost its strength, they did not hesitate to persecute it, and God would not pardon this sin of tormenting the weak. The nation these Gentiles are persecuting now is Israel. Because Israel is God’s people, for the nations to torment it is to sin against God. When his people sin, God uses the evil of the world as his rod; but once his children repent, the rod is no longer needed, and he breaks it. In the same way, anyone who torments God’s people because they look weak will not be forgiven.

So you must always examine yourselves in the truth, so that you do not become the rod and staff God uses to discipline his children. Even when your opinion seems right, it may differ from God’s will; you have no need to become the rod that corrects someone else. Did any nation actually turn back after hearing Amos’s prophecy? God said he would send fire to devour their palaces and cut off him who holds the scepter, but they would not heed the prophet’s warning. Can you hear the curse that is coming upon them now? I hope that we, whom God has chosen, will each look at ourselves and ask whether our faith is truly any better than theirs. To think, “Still, I have faith and I am a good person, so my sins must be fewer than other people’s,” only shows that we still do not know what faith is.

Because the Gentile nations did not know who God is, they persecuted weak Israel in the way of the world and killed Israelites to take more land. They sold the powerless Israelites for silver, and they felt no guilt even as they killed and plundered. They were Gentiles who did not know God’s law, but they had cast off a good conscience, and for that they were judged. If God judges even those who live by human instinct, then should Israel, his chosen people, sin by straying from his will, his wrath would be beyond imagining.

If a people saved by the blood of Christ do not set their hope on the Kingdom of God but give way to greed and temper just like the world, God will not forgive them. We have heard together his voice of wrath from the sanctuary and the curse that he will make all the pastures wither, and here, today, we must make a decision of faith. When God gives us peace, we need to lead holy lives, and when he protects those who are upright, we must be found faithful.

I hope you will be people who fear and revere God. The almighty God is not some god of this world whose name can be used carelessly and whose law can be defied. He is the great Creator who made heaven and earth and breathed the breath of life into man himself, and he is our Savior. Those who watch the judgment that falls on the nations and turn back are the wise. Anyone who has to be beaten before they know it hurts, or go hungry before they learn that poverty is bitter, is foolish, a fool from whom God’s rod and staff never depart.

If you are sitting in the place of folly now, I hope you will shake it off, rise, and come humbly back into God’s arms. If you are sitting in pride, may you repent. While God gives us this opportunity through the sermon, let us repent of any promise we have failed to keep, and of any pride we may have shown toward God or toward our brothers and sisters. Then God will keep the curse the prophet proclaimed from falling on us, and he will protect us so that we remain wise, always at peace in his arms.

May you live as God’s holy children, enjoying peace and rest before the holy God.