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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Rev. Sjirk Bajema > The King Is Dead - Long Live The King! | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
AMOS 9:1-15
(Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Acts 15:1-21; Amos 9:1-15)
The King Is Dead - Long Live The King!
Congregation in our Lord Jesus Christ…
There is a peculiar phrase the British government announces upon the death of the sovereign.
When the reigning king or queen passes away, through the whole land, and, in fact, throughout the whole of the British Commonwealth - wherever there are those who have this person as their monarch – there is a cry that is shouted out!
And what is said is this, “The king is dead - long live the king!
For a long time, I couldn’t understand this.
Perhaps the boys and girls are wondering the same.
I mean, they have said the king or queen is dead.
So, how can he or she live anymore?
It was always a mystery to me, until I realised it was the institution of the monarchy they wanted.
In this way, the death of their king proved the point of having a king!
Confusing alright!
And especially so if your English isn’t the best in the first place!
What I began to understand in this phrase, is that your love for your country, and so your respect for the king who rules over her, is much deeper than whoever is the king, much as he may be dearly loved.
When George VI died in 1952, the empire mourned the loss of a humble and serving king.
But they also looked forward to the coronation and reign of a new Queen - Elizabeth II.
This last vision from the lips of Amos tells us something similar.
The Israel there is now has to go.
It is time for her to die.
But she will live on, because there will always be an Israel!
Did you catch the echoes of a song?
“There’ll always be an England!”
Though there won’t always be a physical Israel, the spiritual Israel will always be.
The Church of Jesus Christ will remain.
We are looking for an even better future!
First, however, there is the death.
In the words of the opening aspect to this passage, the Lord says to his people … THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU.
Amos thus far has seen four visions of judgment.
They have been devastating images.
There cannot be any mistaking the Lord’s way.
But, to top it all off, we have the Lord himself here standing right at what should be the very heart of Israel.
God is pictured standing by the altar.
Now, the imagery of God being in his temple itself is not strange.
The people knew that the presence of their covenant Lord ought to be in the temple.
And the altar is the place where his people profess to worship God, and to offer sacrifices to him.
Look at this picture again, though.
Where was the Lord God?
In fact, where is the Lord - the covenant God - for here there’s a different name for God altogether!
It is shown in the E.S.V. with Lord written in small letters – not capitals as it is for the covenant God, for YAHWEH.
It is definitely something quite different.
We know that soon enough from the rest of verse 1 through to verse 4.
You see, this is the name for the God who rules over everything - the name used for God as the Judge!
Where Amos sees this Judge now is not in the Holy of Holies.
He’s not meeting his people in the way he has before, nor by the name he has had before.
He’s at the altar, and he’s the Almighty!
Israel is completely caught out.
Their empty, useless worship, is the clear crime.
And from this God there’s no escape.
Too late!
Amos then goes on to show how there’s no escape.
The building they had so superstitiously trusted in - that will all fall upon them!
And as the tops of the temple are struck down, so will their own heads!
They can go into the depths of the earth, to try and get away, but they won’t.
They can go as high as they can, but it can’t be high enough!
As David has said in Psalm 139, the verses 7 and 8, “Where can I go from your Spirit?
“Where can I flee from your presence?
“If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”
You can’t get away from this God!
Verse 3 pictures what would have been the best possible hiding places - the top of Mount Carmel - Mount Carmel with its big forest and thousands of caves.
Verse 3 also pictures the bottom of the sea - the place where no man could be.
And verse 4 pictures the furtherest possible place away from this God.
All these are places that the people then thought would be out of the reach of the Lord.
But, like Jonah, they would find out quite otherwise!
The Lord will hunt them down and seize them on Mount Carmel.
And at the bottom of the sea, the sea-serpent, will find them, and bring them back to its Creator.
Even that far away land, where no one’s ever heard of this God, won’t stop the Lord catching up with you.
His judgment will get you there.
There is no escape!
You see, congregation, he’s got his eye on them.
And this is not keeping a look out for their good, this is quite the opposite.
This is taking something which is such a comfort for the Lord’s people and turning it right around!
The words of Romans 8, the verses 38 and 39, which tell us that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future … neither height no depth, nor anything else will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” has its gruesome parallel here.
To this people none of these would separate them from God’s wrath!
Amos then goes on to describe who it is who has his evil eye upon them.
You see, no one may simply curse someone else.
Much as the revival of witchcraft today may try to give people an extra power, it can only show how powerless they are.
For who has the power?
In the words of a second aspect to this text … THIS IS WHO IT WILL COME THROUGH.
Amos takes up the picture of the God standing by the altar.
He takes the name given there, stating it clearly.
This is the Lord, the Lord God of hosts – the Lord Almighty.
He has all the power!
Again, in verses 5 and 6, the imagery which has appeared before to show the special favour of the Lord to his people, now comes back to haunt them.
The blessings of the rain which tumbles down and waters the fields, which feeds the cattle, and which gives them food, are shown here to prove a different aspect to the Lord.
Amos challenges the belief that they have that all this glory they’re enjoying now, because of themselves.
Mankind gets like that.
We can come to believe that what we have here and now is because of what we are ourselves.
Then we think it’s us that this all comes through!
“No, no!” says the Lord’s prophet.
“You are nothing!”
Our lives are really like James describes later, in his letter, chapter 4:14.
He says, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
Modern man is no different.
He thinks a lot of what he can do - the latest discovery is just round the corner - after all!
But all of that can only be by, as one wise scientist said, ‘thinking God’s thoughts after him.’
He alone created all things!
He alone controls everything!
He alone was there from the beginning - and he has no end!
The evidence is clearly given here.
The volcanoes occur at his command - that’s the earth being melted by his touch.
And the earthquakes are all at his say - that’s the whole land rising like the Nile.
In this last of his visions, declared there where the people were saying they were worshipping the Lord, shows how far they are from him.
Apparently, they may even be singing these very words as a song to the LORD!
You see, this same chorus of ‘The LORD is his name’, has appeared in chapter 4:13 and 5:8.
Amos could well be saying back their own words!
Congregation, much as they may say and pretend otherwise, they cannot meet him as their Saviour God.
With them he can only come to judge.
And judge them he will do!
Pray that this won’t be you!
This is why our text moves on now to a third aspect … THIS IS WHY YOU WON’T DO.
And we need to take this to heart, too.
For there is no special status you have in yourself before the Lord.
We cannot presume on his blessing!
This is why Amos in verse 7 takes the event most central to Israel’s status and blows it apart.
“Are you not like the Cushites to me?” declares the Lord.
Notice, it’s the God of the covenant speaking.
He is saying that the children of Abraham are no different than the dark-skinned Ethiopians.
He is the God of them all.
It can be taken that this is about racism, and how bad it is to think that your race or country is better than others.
No doubt there was this attitude in Israel then, because of how well they were doing economically.
But we need to hear more from Amos.
He goes on, “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?”
Ouch - this hurts!
God’s special working in the exodus is reduced to the same level as what he has been doing among all the nations.
We will well wonder why.
Wasn’t it in chapter 3:2 that the Lord had said of Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.”
What is going on?
How can Amos compare the providential care of the nations by God with the Lord’s government of Israel’s history through divine revelation?
They’re as different as chalk and cheese!
Congregation, what is going on is that the people are being confronted as to their lack of divine revelation.
They are on the same playing field as those other countries exactly because they are no different anymore!
This is precisely the same thought as the apostle Paul expressed about circumcision in Romans 2:25.
There he noted, “Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.”
Israel was privileged.
But as we all learnt when children, privileges come with responsibilities.
We didn’t keep our privileges if we didn’t fulfil our responsibilities, did we?
Israel had literally lost it!
And we do too, when we don’t keep to his way.
You only need to consider those times in your own life.
Our Scripture reading and prayer life disappeared when we left God’s way.
You see, people have often disciplined themselves a long time before the elders get to visit.
And if there is no repentance at all, you can cut yourself right out of the Kingdom!
That’s why the electing love of the covenant God has left Israel.
As Amos continues in verse 8, “Behold, the eyes of the LORD God are upon the sinful kingdom.”
And they certainly are!
Here the prophet seems to repeat verse 4, “I will fix my eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.”
But this time it isn’t what the Almighty God is doing to them, as much as why they themselves have fallen short.
THIS IS WHY YOU WON’T DO!
While it may seem the same actions are being indicated as the verses 1 till 4, it’s here from this different perspective.
They have been judged and found wanting.
This seems to be the meaning of the shaking of the sieve.
The sieve appears to have been one in which corn was sifted, so that it was caught in a container underneath, while the pebbles - the rubbish - remained in the sieve.
In the same way, there is no escape for those who have left the Lord.
They’ll get caught up!
“All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword.”
This recalls the angel of judgment.
He holds the sword of the LORD.
It’s about to fall.
And about to fall on the very ones who are thinking they stand so tall!
These are the ones who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’
They feel secure in what they do.
They are the so-called ‘righteous ones’ our Lord Jesus later condemns.
Incidentally, it’s they - even though they’re ninety-nine out of the hundred - whom he leaves to seek out the one sinner.
A similar picture to this text.
You see, the LORD says, in verse 8, “I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob.”
It’s a crack of light in a huge wall of darkness.
But a crack nevertheless!
There is hope.
The king is dead - long live the King!
And he will!
The King is going to live forever!
In the words of the fourth aspect to this text, the LORD now says … THIS IS WHERE I’M GOING TO START ANEW.
In verse 11 Amos says, “In that day I will raise up the booth of David’s that is fallen.”
That’s all which seems left.
No mighty and splendorous temple.
Just a tent.
The tent which is only a simple shelter made of the boughs of trees and the branches of palm trees.
What should have been great things for the house of David, was not like this primitive, wilderness shelter they had had during the exodus journey.
In similar imagery to Isaiah’s twig out of a stump, Amos shines out this light.
A light, by the way, which some commentators don’t think he actually did shine.
They suggest that this is a later addition, and that Amos was only full of doom and gloom.
Like the way many think about our churches.
Apparently we are so focused on how bad we are, we can’t possibly have any grace!
So how else are we going to notice that there is light if we don’t know it’s dark?
Congregation, how often don’t the so-called inconsistencies in the Bible prove how consistent God is?
As if we could dare to think he ever stopped being who he is!
For isn’t it true he loves the day of small things?
In brokenness and humbleness he works out his will.
When we’re not full of ourselves, we can begin to be filled with him!
That’s the covenant he takes with his people.
The covenant of the mighty king with a much smaller vassal.
The covenant which he made with us when there was no need for him.
There was only love.
Congregation, the promise to David in 2nd Samuel 7 will come true.
He would bring about blessing for the whole world through that House.
While his people may be faithless, he must be faithful - for he cannot deny himself.
It’s no coincidence that an early name for the coming Messiah is this humiliating phrase in verse 11.
God’s people described the Christ to come as ‘he who had sprung from a fallen hut.’
It’s a start, nevertheless.
A new beginning, for this would be the Israel that extends its power in the most extensive way possible.
That’s where Edom fits in.
She was related to Israelites - the descendants of Esau.
And she was the power which most strongly always fought against Israel.
Edom would come under Israel.
That would show the line of the King.
And it would be shown first of all with the return of Judah from exile.
Israel, though, never did come back.
But the New Testament shows this promise fully realised in the coming of the Lord Jesus.
His gospel came not only to Israel, it also went out to the other nations, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
In Acts 15, James used these very words of Amos.
He saw that God was not only restoring the people of Israel to know his great salvation, he was further causing “the remnant of men” to “seek the Lord.”
These would be “the Gentiles who bear my name.”
Then, what a harvest there would be!
The words of Deuteronomy 30, the verses 1 till 3, about the fortunes restored when God’s people take to heart his Word, come true!
This is the covenant fulfilled.
This is the King living forever among his own!
The king is dead - long live the King!
The thousand generations of Exodus 20:6, are shown the Lord’s love.
Congregation, we are part of those many generations.
The Church is being planted all over this world.
Though, more than that, the Church is being established for all eternity in the Lord’s electing love.
In contrast to chapter 8, when the use of God in the first person pronoun decisively spelt out the results of God’s judgment on sin, here is his blessing upon salvation!
He says in verses 11, 14, and 15, “I will raise up … I will repair … I will restore … I will plant…”
We have to take comfort and strength from that.
The morality of our age is next to non-existent.
The prospect for the churches in our society is grim.
We cannot depend on the virtues our country once possessed.
We have to see what we have as the Church in Christ.
Then, no matter what happens, we are ready.
God still has his people, small though they might seem, growing as wheat among the weeds.
There was a Church Father who lived through the same.
His name was Augustine.
He lived through the time of the fall of Rome.
He saw the civilisation which for many people had meant everything to them - all their security and prosperity - overrun by barbarian hordes.
He saw the world suddenly cast into a darkness from which it wouldn’t recover for hundreds of years.
Still, he didn’t despair.
He simply wrote, “There will be an end of every earthly city.
“It is only the city of God that remains.”
Congregation, it’s this hope which means we can believe spiritually what the English meant physically with that declaration upon the death of the monarch.
Because there will always be the King!
And we will always be his citizens.
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
O please give us, Almighty God, the sight to see all around us the signs of how unhappy you are.
Make us realise how it is we ourselves who have done this to you - we’ve provoked your wrath.
It’s not only those of this world who fight against you, and who despise your many and excellent blessings, it’s us first of all!
O Lord, stir your Spirit in us, so that we remember your covenant.
That way we’ll keep looking to you, through your Son, our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ.
And then we will, one day soon, share in that glory which your Son has worked for us.
Even now his grace is poured out freely upon us.
In his Name, we pray, Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
The source for this sermon was: www.rcnz.org.nz
(c) Copyright, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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