Hear This Word, Children of Israel

1Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying: 2“I have only chosen you of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins.” 3Do two walk together, unless they have agreed? 4Will a lion roar in the thicket, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing? 5Can a bird fall in a trap on the earth, where no snare is set for him? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when there is nothing to catch? 6Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and Yahweh hasn’t done it? 7Surely the Lord Yahweh will do nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets. 8The lion has roared. Who will not fear? The Lord Yahweh has spoken. Who can but prophesy? 9Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see what unrest is in her, and what oppression is among them.” 10“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.” 11Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “An adversary will overrun the land; and he will pull down your strongholds, and your fortresses will be plundered.” 12Yahweh says: “As the shepherd rescues out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be rescued who sit in Samaria on the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a bed.” 13“Listen, and testify against the house of Jacob,” says the Lord Yahweh, the God of Armies. 14“For in the day that I visit the transgressions of Israel on him, I will also visit the altars of Bethel; and the horns of the altar will be cut off, and fall to the ground. 15I will strike the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory will perish, and the great houses will have an end,” says Yahweh.

Dr. Paul Ekman, who studied how emotion shows in the human face, reported that people can express more than three hundred emotions. Human facial expressions, he says, begin from six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, and surprise. As these six mix, they produce a wide range of expressions. Fear mixed with joy expresses desperation, while fear joined to sadness produces a look of anguish. Joy combined with sadness reveals hope, faint though it is, and joy combined with surprise shows itself as wonder.

So many emotions lie hidden in the human heart, and they blend to produce still other emotions; what a remarkable creature a human being is! Each of us is ruled by our own particular feelings; when someone acts reasonably and thinks logically, it shows that the mature character and reason within them have mastered a multitude of emotions. On the other hand, some people simply do whatever their feelings tell them.

Those who act on impulse, whether handling a hard problem or reacting to circumstances, not only make many mistakes but may end up living a misguided life. So there is nothing finer than a person who thinks clearly and acts reasonably while still expressing a rich range of feeling.

People who express their feelings honestly yet conduct themselves with propriety and humility win everyone’s respect. What emotion takes up the most room in your heart right now? Those full of anger and temper find it hard to govern their feelings by reason, and because their moods swing so widely, the people around them are always uneasy. On the other hand, those who govern themselves well by reason do not readily show their feelings, which leaves them with the weakness of not mixing easily with others.

The person God desires has a firm, unshakable faith, a gentle heart that shows mercy, and the ability to judge wisely. If we blend our emotions well and always show the same face, within a character that is gracious, reasoned, and rich in feeling, we will win the approval of God and of people. A face is the person; by looking at a face we can tell what someone is thinking now and how they have lived. Because the face speaks for the feelings we cannot see, expression is a kind of second language. So even without a word, our emotions will give us away in the end.

Even when we want to hide our anger, our eyes speak for us; even when we want to conceal our feelings, our faces show them plainly. God created people so that their hearts would be written on their faces.

If even people can tell someone’s state from their face, how could a human being possibly deceive God, the Creator? It was God who made all three hundred and more human emotions, and the expressions that reveal them as well. To try to deceive so perfect a Creator is in itself both foolish and wicked.

The world may not know it, but believers must know that no effort of ours can escape God’s eyes or deceive him. What is more, because God loves the people who bear his image, he knows us better than anyone does.

God first created everything in the world, so that people would lack nothing as they lived, and only then created human beings. Heaven and earth and all things were made because people needed them to live; that is why human sin cannot help bringing a curse on all creation too. If children who have received and enjoyed such overflowing love and grace betray God, they are laying bare the filthiest and ugliest desire of all human emotions.

The dictionary defines betrayal as forsaking trust or loyalty, and treachery as forsaking trust and faithfulness and turning one’s back. Those who give in to the feeling of treachery not only abandon God and their brothers and sisters in the faith; their opportunity to receive grace is gone forever. Such people never give up their own ideas even when they hear the truth, and there is no way to lead them to the eternal heaven to which we must all go after death. They will not admit they are on the wrong road, and they cut off their relationships instead. That makes it hard indeed to bring them to stand before God.

The prophets grieved when Israel, specially chosen by God, forsook him; but because the people would not receive the word, all the prophets could do was pray with tears. When the prophets proclaimed that Israel must give up the pleasures of the world, Israel persecuted them and told them not to prophesy God’s word. We too give thanks and rejoice when we experience his miraculous works, but as time passes, we easily cast off that grateful heart and live in the place of betrayal without any sense of guilt. Turning away from God’s love and grace takes only a moment. We must keep in mind, then, that unless we are always on guard, we can commit the same sin as Israel.

If God were to call you today to lay aside this body and come home, could you go to heaven joyfully, singing his praise? I hope you will look back over your life and ask.

Matthew 26:25

25Judas, who betrayed him, answered, “It isn’t me, is it, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You said it.”

Judas Iscariot had already made every preparation to sell Jesus, yet he sat at the Last Supper with what was in his heart hidden. He thought that as long as he kept his face under control, Jesus and the disciples would never know. With that confidence he stayed by Jesus’ side as if nothing were wrong. But Jesus said plainly that the one who dipped his hand into the dish with him would betray him, and that woe would come to the man who betrays the Son of Man; in this way he made known how great a judgment awaited Judas the betrayer.

Of course, it was God’s will that Jesus bear the cross, and he did come into the world to proclaim the Kingdom of God; but it was Judas Iscariot himself who chose the part of betraying Jesus and handing him over. Judas had been so loyal when he first met Jesus; what was in his heart, that he had to sell him for thirty pieces of silver? Where did it come from, the heart that turned against the one who had called him to be a disciple and embraced him with the word and with love? Perhaps Judas had hoped that if Jesus became a king of this world, he too would gain great power, and then, hearing Jesus speak of bearing the cross and dying, he would have fallen into despair. When a hope someone has longed for turns to despair, they lose their judgment like this.

He was a disciple taught face to face by Christ, who is the light, yet when his gratitude could not overcome his greed, his heart was captured by Satan.

Luke 22:31-32

31The Lord said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have all of you, that he might sift you as wheat, 32but I prayed for you, that your faith wouldn’t fail. You, when once you have turned again, establish your brothers.”

These are the words Jesus spoke to Simon Peter. By saying, “when once you have turned again,” Jesus told him beforehand that he would betray him; even so, Peter answered with confidence that he was ready to go with the Lord to prison and to death. But as he watched Jesus being flogged, he cursed and denied him, swearing he did not know the man. Because his love for Jesus could not overcome his fear, he denied him three times, with Jesus right before his eyes.

When Peter, unable to master his fear, said he did not know the man, we can imagine how the heart of Jesus, who had foretold it, ached. Satan arranged every circumstance to sift Peter as wheat, but because Jesus prayed for Peter’s faith to the end, Peter did not fall away. Peter had heard Jesus’ warning in advance and still betrayed him; and when Jesus told him to establish his brothers once he had turned again, he was showing a love that would wait for him. In the same way, it was love in God’s heart that made him judge the Gentile nations first, to give Israel a chance to return.

Amos 3:2

2“I have only chosen you of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins.”

Amos asked fallen Israel whether they knew that, of all the families of the earth, Yahweh had made them alone his special possession. The greater the love, the deeper the pain of betrayal, he said; in the same way, the judgment Israel must face for betraying God’s love could only be great. God labored to make Israel a holy people, but they lived by human instinct as the world does. Even so, to give them a chance to repent and return, God sent them hardship, worked miracles, and rebuked them.

Would they not turn back, he wondered, if he showed them his love and pleaded with them earnestly? If he showed them wonders from heaven, would his people not love him more and trust him? So God agonized over it, and he labored. To make known that he is the Creator, he showed miracles beyond human limits, and he raised up prophets to convey his heart so that the people would repent of their sins. And at the last, for sinners who would not wholly receive him, he sent Jesus into the world and made him the one who would atone for their sins.

Isaiah 5:2

2He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

The prophet Isaiah exposed Judah’s sin, telling them that God had planted the choicest vine with great care, yet they had yielded wild grapes. Judah and Israel had received God’s special love, yet they could not shake off the world’s temptations and fell into idolatry. God told Israel that among all the nations he had eyes for them alone, showing how much he loved them, but they committed the sin of breaking his commandments.

Amos proclaimed judgment on Israel, which had spurned God’s special love and left him, but the people were already in the grip of pleasure, pride, and greed, and these kept them from heeding the word. It was not that they had never heard God’s word; they refused to heed it, and that is why they could go on sinning and why judgment came on them. Because of their sin, God could no longer hold Israel close. Israel and Judah came under judgment because they were the ones who first broke their covenant with God, and did so on their side alone. Even after hearing the prophet warn that judgment was coming, they paid it no attention. Yet it is not as if Israel had always lived in plenty. They suffered badly at the hands of foreign enemies and endured great hardship when food ran short; but once their poverty was behind them, they grew proud.

God does not judge and rebuke people according to his moods. He waits a thousand years as if it were one day, patient, giving love and chance after chance. Because of that patience, once he has decided on judgment, he does not easily withdraw it. Of all the nations of the world, God had chosen Israel alone, yet they abandoned him without hesitation. Blinded by wealth, they sold the righteous for silver and committed the evil of selling the poor for the price of a pair of shoes.

Amos wanted the people to know how terrible God’s judgment is, but they had already shut their eyes and ears and would not listen.

Amos 3:9

9Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see what unrest is in her, and what oppression is among them.”

Even in the eyes of the Gentiles living in Ashdod and in the land of Egypt, Israel’s sins were grave. Israel killed and violated the poor wherever they found them. So God prophesied that he would make Israel receive, at the hands of the Gentiles, the full recompense of its sins. Even for a prophet who speaks God’s word exactly as it is given, it is no easy thing to announce to his own people a judgment beyond what they could bear. How terrible would Israel’s judgment be? It would be the terror of a sheep that meets a lion leaping without mercy on its prey, with no way to flee and nowhere to hide. Amos knew it would be as ghastly as rescuing two legs or a piece of an ear of a dead sheep from the mouth of the lion, and he was afraid even to proclaim it.

But their ears were already closed and their hearts covered with sin; however loudly Amos cried out judgment, they would not listen. They may not even have realized that what they were doing was wicked enough to bring judgment on them. In the same way, Jesus has said that he will return on the last day and that this world will face judgment by fire, yet because the Jews, and even Christians, care nothing for judgment, they live as they please. Even so, we must not forget that Jesus Christ will surely come again.

This is what has grieved me most in my years as a pastor.

When people who were humble in the fullness of faith grow proud, they parade their own righteousness and no longer fear God. They do not realize that they are passing judgment on God’s work and standing in its way. But advice given to people in their pride only makes them worse, leaving me nothing to do but grieve. When every judgment they make revolves around themselves, counsel stirs up serious discord, which means I cannot even exhort them.

Perhaps this is how Amos felt as he proclaimed judgment on Israel. How terrible must Israel’s judgment be, if those who barely escape with their lives, clinging to Samaria and Damascus, are called blessed? From now on Israel will carry on only through the few who have barely survived.

Amos 3:15

15I will strike the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory will perish, and the great houses will have an end,” says Yahweh.

The rulers of Israel seized what belonged to the poor, built summer houses and winter houses for the seasons, and lived in luxury in lavishly adorned houses of ivory, enjoying fine views and rich food and indulging every pleasure. These beautiful houses, built with wealth seized through the abuse of power, will be destroyed, and the wicked who built them will suffer through judgment. The rebellious will be broken, and those who forsake Yahweh will perish; they will wither like an oak whose leaf fades and suffer like a garden that has no water.

Isaiah, who prophesied in the same era as Amos, told an Israel under judgment that those who had oppressed the weak would burn like tinder, and there would be no one to quench the fire.

People reap what they have done. The righteous receive good fruit for their good deeds, and the wicked will be repaid with evil fruit for what their hands have done. Israel’s judgment was harsher than that of the Gentile nations because God’s hopes for Israel were special and he cared deeply about their faith. The people on whom he had poured out all his care and love betrayed him, and they tormented and slaughtered their poor kinsmen; for that he could not forgive them.

It was because he loved them that he could forgive them all the less, and because he had a great purpose for them that the betrayal cut all the deeper. Yet because God had given them his love without holding back, he had no regrets. When love has been given without conditions and the other betrays it, the fault lies not with the one who gave but with the one who received; nothing is left to regret.

Having given Israel everything without holding back, God had no regret even in judging them. But think about it more deeply: the judgment he brought on Israel aimed not at suffering but at repentance, which makes that judgment, too, an act of love. Those who have loved unconditionally and labored to build others up learn much from what they have given, even when they are betrayed. They have learned how to love, they have learned that giving is happiness, and they come to learn even the heart of the God who loved them. God still had to save Israel, though it had betrayed him. As his way of saving them, he summoned strong Gentile nations and made them attack. Only through the pain of the rod and staff would Israel come to know how precious God’s protection is, and for this reason God judged them resolutely.

Can you feel the deep love of God, who chose judgment? The hardship we are going through now may be God’s love toward us, or it may be his voice of wrath telling us to cast off sin. I truly hope you will never betray God as Israel did, and never betray your brothers and sisters in the faith, because betrayal in itself wounds God.

This is why Israel is judged by God: the sin of silencing the prophets, the sin of making the Nazirites drink, the sin of exploiting and selling the poor, all of it has come up before God. We must fear God and treasure our brothers and sisters in the faith, because when God’s judgment begins, no one will have anywhere to hide, but together with them we can be comforted even in the midst of suffering. Judgment is fearful and dreadful beyond anything we can imagine. I hope you will not be like the fool who says there is no judgment. May you never be like the wicked who side with Satan and say that Christ will not return.

The return of Jesus will come as surely as the flood came upon those who did not board the ark, and he will come like a thief, at an hour no one knows. We must therefore stay spiritually awake. With the signs of the end in our ears every day, wars and earthquakes, floods and droughts and plagues, we need to labor to keep our faith.

May you never forget that judgment is coming and that Christ will return, and may you live today honestly and faithfully, holding fast to your faith. If you do not follow the ways of the wicked but live with a good heart, God will pour out his grace so that neither the wicked nor evil spirits can torment you. I earnestly hope that you will live as holy saints, faithful in extending the Kingdom of God and giving your utmost to keep your faith in Christ.