In the sermon 'The Lord is Standing' by Peter Allison, the speaker discusses a vision from the book of Amos where God is depicted as standing by the altar, signifying imminent judgment on Israel for their persistent sin and apostasy. The sermon emphasizes that no physical place, such as the temple, provides protection from God's judgment if one is not truly following Him. It further explores the omnipresence of God, illustrating that there is no escape from His surveillance and judgment. Despite the forewarnings, the sermon highlights God's mercy, explaining that past blessings do not exempt His people from future judgments, and calls for repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the path to salvation. This message is underlined by the assurance that God's elect will be preserved through His grace, even amidst judgment.

Please turn in your scriptures, copy of God's Word, to Amos chapter 9. Hosea Joel Amos. I'd like to begin reading at the first verse. I saw the Lord standing by the altar and He said, Strike the doorposts that the thresholds may shake, and break them on the heads of them all. I will slay the last of them with the sword, he who flees from them shall not get away, and he who escapes from them shall not be delivered.

Though they dig into hell, from there My hand shall take them. Though they climb up to heaven, From there I will bring them down, and though they hide themselves on top of caramel, from there I will search and take them. Though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. Though they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword, and it shall slay them. I will set my eyes on them for harm, and not for good.

The Lord God of hosts, He who touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell there mourn, all of it shall swell like the river and subside like the river of Egypt. He who builds his layers in the sky and has founded his strata in the earth, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth. The Lord is his name. Are you not like the people of Ethiopia to me, O children of Israel, says the Lord? Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Kaffdor, and the Syrians from Kyr.

Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. For surely I will command and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve. Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say the calamity shall not overtake nor confront us." May we choose these as precepts, that His hand may become our help.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word that You have preserved to us these thousands of years, Word that You have preserved inerrantly. We ask now that we might receive this word, that as we hear it, it might be mixed with faith. And may you Instruct us out of Your Word and direct our steps by it. And I ask that You would sanctify my sinful lips this morning and set them apart to proclaim the Gospel of Your Grace. In Jesus Christ, Amen.

Amen. Amos was a prophet in the earlier middle part of the divided kingdom who was sent by God to bring a message to the northern kingdom which we call Israel in the divided kingdom. Israel is the north and Judah represents the southern kingdom. And here at the end of this book were a series of five visions where God showed Amos something. And so, four times, God says, Thus says the Lord, Thus the Lord God showed me.

Thus the Lord God showed me. We now come to this fifth and final vision, this fifth and final word picture, and Amos now sees the Lord standing by the altar. This final picture message to apostate Israel conveys yet again in very direct and graphic terms that God really is serious about these coming judgments. He's really, truly serious. This isn't just God speaking empty words.

God sends this message in word, picture, and metaphors to make it very plain. So even the children who are among us this morning, if you can understand a picture book, you can give them a book and they can tell you that has pictures in it and they can tell you the story from the pictures. And they can do quite a good job at it sometimes. And so God is giving this message of His coming judgment upon apostate Israel for their stubborn, persistent refusal to repent and to return to Him. But God is merciful, as we saw in our reading in Exodus 19.

God is merciful. His mercy extends into the heavens. And so even in this final message, this final part of Amos's message to Israel, even in this final vision, Jehovah extends His mercy. He extends hope to those who hope in His mercy. And so, we want to look this morning at this final vision that he sees his final message of God.

And look at five points that Amos makes about this judgment. It's five word pictures that Amos gives. And the first one that he gives, this first word picture about God's judgment, is that the temple affords no protection from Jehovah's judgment upon the wicked. The temple of God affords no protection from Jehovah's judgment upon the wicked. The temple of God affords no protection from Jehovah's judgment on the wicked." this first picture here is Amos sees God standing.

Amos sees God standing beside an altar. Now what is the significance of standing? Well, when God's work is finished, he is said to sit down. He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father because his work of redemption was finished. But when God moves in judgment, God is said to arise, to stand up.

When the ark set out in the wilderness journey, Moses would say, rise up, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered. They were embarking on that journey to conquer the land of Canaan that God had given them. And there are many other places like that where God is said to arise. Psalm 9 says, arise, O Lord, do not let men prevail. Let the nations be judged in your sight.

And similar language is used in a number of other Psalms, Psalm 3, Psalm 7, 10, 12, 17, 44, and a number of other Psalms speak of God arising when He moves in judgment. And so the significance here of Amos seeing God standing by the altar is that judgment is eminent. God has arisen. He is standing by the altar. Now which altar is He standing by?

Is He standing by the false altars that were erected in Dan and Bethel, and to which Jeroboam told the people that here go worship at these altars and these calves. They are the ones that delivered you from Egypt. Or is he standing by the altar in the true temple in Jerusalem? I think that's a legitimate question because Amos' message, primary message, was to the northern kingdom of Israel. And that message was delivered in Bethel, and to Bethel.

But I believe in this case that the altar here is the altar in Jerusalem for a couple of reasons. One, Amos did bring a burden against Judah back in chapter 2. So even though his primary message was to Israel, Judah was not completely ignored. There was a message of judgment to them. Secondly, as we'll see in a minute, this refers to parts that are connected with the temple in Jerusalem.

And the end of this chapter, which we'll get to next week, Lord willing, refers to the tabernacle or temple of David being restored. So I think the context of this passage is the temple in Jerusalem. And third, the altar at Bethel was to an idol, a false god. And God would certainly not countenance the altar of an idol to stand by it. It is the altar in Jerusalem where God's glory dwelt, the temple in Jerusalem.

And so I think the temple in Jerusalem best fits here. And God orders then the destruction of this temple. Strike the dorpos. Now the word dorpos is the word kaftor. And if you remember our scripture reading, that's mentioned a little later in verse 7 as a place from which the Philistines came.

But that word, kaftor, is used for the knobs that adorned the lampstand and were often on the capitals that are on top of the pillars in the temple. So at the top there was decoration of those around the pillars. And Zechariah too uses that this word for Dorpos, this kaftor, in the same sense. He says both the pelican and the bittern shall lodge in the capitals of her pillars. That word capitals is this word caftor.

So God is saying here strike the capitals. Strike the top of this pillar that holds up the temple. Strike it so that the entire pillar shakes, and not only shakes, but strike it so it shakes so hard it falls down and kills everybody in the temple. Kind of reminds you of what Samson did in the temple of the Philistine god, Dagon, when he collapsed the pillars that held up the temple and it fell down on the people and killed, and it says that Samson killed more people in his death than he did in his life, because all these worshipers, idolaters worshiping in the temple. And that's what God says here.

Strike this capital such that this pillar collapses onto the heads of these people and so that they die. These are people, God is saying, who go to church. These were people in His temple. The only people that are going to be impacted by the collapse of the temple are the people that are in it. God is saying He's bringing His judgments on the people that go to church, that claim to be Christians, that claim to have His covenant promises.

God is saying, you are not My people, you are covenant breakers. And he orders his destruction. He orders his destruction of the temple to show that the temple affords no protection from God's judgment. Remember, sometimes people would run into the temple and seize the horns of the altar if it was some sort of protection for them. Adonijah was one person that did that.

I believe Joab did it as well. The Israelites under Eli thought that having the ark physically present at their battle with the Philistines would somehow give them a victory, somehow give them an advantage because God would certainly never allow His ark to be captured by the uncircumcised Philistines. And yet that's exactly what God did. And you remember, He didn't need anybody's help to get it back either. The Philistines sent it back.

They were glad, more than glad, to send it back of their own accord. And God didn't need any person, you remember, to do that. He used animals to do it. See, what God is saying here in to strike this temple is that there is no protection in the temple. This building will afford you no protection.

You're claimed to be a part of the church. You're claimed to be in the church. You're claimed to come and to worship every week in the church. That's no protection from God's judgment if you are not following the Lord. If the true temple, this true temple in Jerusalem affords no protection to the covenant breakers from the judgment of God, how much less protection will Israel's false temples and altars provide from the judgment of God.

That's Amos' message. But it's also a warning to Judah. As he prefaced in chapter 2 earlier, He brought a warning to Judah. Now the second image, the second point in Amos' final sermon is that Jehovah's judgments cannot be evaded or avoided in any way, by any means, known or unknown to man. God's judgments cannot be avoided.

God is everywhere present. And there is nowhere that we can go to escape the sight of God. People talk about the surveillance state. In China, I understand, I haven't been there, but I understand from many witnesses, is very far advanced in being able to recognize anyone's face, almost anywhere in public, inside or outside, on the street or in buildings. They're able, even with masks on, they've developed the technology to be able to recognize people's faces as they walk down the street and identify everything about them.

But their surveillance state is nothing. It's nothing like the Lord's surveillance. Look at what Amos says. Those who flee the temple collapse won't be able to escape God's judgment. They're not going to get away.

You can flee, but you can't get away from God's surveillance state. He says they can dig into shiel, but My hand will reach down and take them. Why would people try to hide and shield? Well, when people try to hide, they typically want to be covered with something. If you're ever chasing an animal, They want to get under stuff.

They will dig under stuff. Animals will dig into the holes they've buried under the ground because that seems to be a safe place to hide, something to cover you. When Saddam Hussein was trying to escape the American mercenaries looking for him, he hid in a hole in the ground. But it wasn't deep enough. He was easily found when his hole was given away.

But God is saying here that if you dig the deepest hole possible, If you dig down into Sheol, God's hand will reach down and take hold. And you can't escape God's judgment even if you could dig the deepest hole you could possibly dig. See, God is there even in Sheol. Hell is not the absence of God, as some would have us believe. It is the absence of God's grace and the presence of His unmitigated wrath.

Amos also speaks about people trying to climb up to heaven. You can't escape to the moon or to some other planet, or even into space, the space station. You might be out of reach of the FBI up there, or the other mercenaries, but you're not out of reach of God's hand. He says, from there I will bring them down. Or how about the bottom of the sea?

Well actually before that it's hide themselves on Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel is a place that has a number of caves. And these caves have evidence of being occupied from ancient times, ancient occupation by humans. Amos is saying that Mount Carmel is where Haifa is today in modern day Israel and it's still a mountain, still a very steep mountain. And this was right in the land of Samaria.

So this would be like, we don't have any mountains in Texas, but it would be like something like the gulf, something that's nearby, relatively nearby. He says, though they hide themselves on top of Carmel, from there I will search and take them. Now there's all these caves that people would go up and hide in. God says you can't hide from me on top of Mount Carmel. I will go in there and search in there and find you.

Though you go to the bottom of the sea, though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea. None of these places actually are very safe places to be, as we notice, but God is saying even down there, and even today, the bottom of the sea is relatively inaccessible to most people. Even in submarines that want to come back, don't go that deep. They don't go to the bottom of the sea. Most submarines today would implode if they went to the bottom of the sea.

It's a hard place to go to. It's beyond human reach. If you could get down there, it's beyond the human reach. But God says, I can get you down there. I can command the serpent, and that's not a snake as much as it is a sea beast.

It's a sea beast. God says, I can command the serpent down there and get you, bite you, or bite them. In other words, there's nowhere you can go. All the places that are completely inaccessible to man, God says, I'm there. I'm there.

I see you there. You can't hide. And I can even command animals to execute my judgment upon you. There's no place that you can go to escape. You can even go into captivity and think, ah, I can go into prison and be safe.

Some people do go into prison for protective custody, trying to protect themselves from people trying to kill them. Sometimes from even so-called government actors trying to kill them. But God says He'll command the sword and it will kill them, even in captivity, even in a faraway land. I will set my eyes on them for harm and not for good." It's a terrifying thing, the Bible says, to fall into the hands of an angry God. And there is no place that any of us can go, even in the most inaccessible parts of the world, that we can escape this hand of God.

But David actually takes great comfort. This attribute of God's omnipotent presence, His being present everywhere, His all-powerful presence everywhere throughout the creation, is something that should be a great comfort for us as well. You know, David says in Psalm 139, you know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought afar off, you comprehend my path and my lying down. Lord knows his people where we go too.

You are acquainted with all my ways, for there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it all together. You have hedged me behind and before and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence? David took this very same principle that I Amos is applying to the certainty of God's judgment and our inability to escape it, and he sees it as a source of great comfort, because where can we go from God's presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, surely the darkness shall fall on me, even the night shall be light about me. Indeed the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to you." I always like to tell my children that when they were little, really young children sometimes are afraid of the dark. The darkness and the light are both alike to you." I always like to tell my children that when they were little, really young children sometimes are afraid of the dark. The darkness and the light are both alike to God.

And this is a comfort to us that there is nowhere we can go, there's nowhere that He will call us to go in service to Him, that His Spirit does not go with us, that His hand cannot hold us. Remember, He says, fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I will help you, I will strengthen you. Yes, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." That right hand can always hold us wherever we go when we are walking with the Lord and in obedience to His commandments. But when we stray, That same presence can always find us to bring his chastening judgment upon us.

Well, in verse 5 and 6 we have yet another picture, the third picture in this final sermon of Amos that if Jehovah has the power to create the earth, then he has the power to destroy the earth. And so Jehovah has the power to affect his judgments. Amos proves that Jehovah has the power to do these things He's saying He's going to do. And He proves that from God's power to create the world. If He has the power to speak the world and all that is in it in existence from nothing, then it should be no surprise that his touching the earth would cause it to melt.

It says that he builds the steps or layers in the sky. Yes, the sky has layers in it, the Bible says. And we know that from our study of God's wonderful works. There are different layers to the atmosphere and then all those different layers do a number of things, one of which is provide for radio communication around the earth. There's different layers and reflect radio waves around the earth, but there are layers around the atmosphere And God says that God builds His layers in the sky, His steps, as it were, in the sky.

God put those layers around the earth, all the way out to the top layer where there is nothing, no atmosphere, where we can't even live apart from taking air from the earth up there. He also, it says, He's founded the strata in the earth. And we know about those layers as well, from our drilling down into the earth, there's layer upon layer that God has built in the earth, the crust and the mantle and the pillars of the earth that uphold that crust that are down in the mantle. Upon then the foundation of the earth, which the Bible says God laid upon nothing. So he also controls or governs this hydrological cycle of taking water from the sea and bringing it over and dumping it on the earth.

You remember a few years ago in Hurricane Harvey how much water God took out of the sea and dumped right here on top of us. It was feet of water in some places over every square inch of land. And when that water flows together, it overwhelms houses and buildings and everything in its path. It removes roads and destroys things. That's God's doing.

It's His power that raises this water out of the sea and pours it on the face of the earth. Amos says, the Lord, Jehovah, that's His name. He's the one that does this. So yes, the Lord has the power and He demonstrates it every day to us. The Lord has the power to effect these judgments that he's pronouncing here.

And then we see in verse 7 and 8, the fourth reason Amos gives why God's judgment is to be taken seriously, and why the Israelites should not think that because God has said that they were His peculiar people, that somehow they were exempt from God's judgment and didn't have to take these warnings seriously. And that is that Jehovah's past blessings do not provide immunity to His future judgments. Jehovah's past blessing of those who were in his church, of his people, doesn't provide immunity to his future judgment. And he gives us an example here. He says to Israel, you're just like the Ethiopians.

You're just like, are you not like the people of Ethiopia to me? Oh, children of Israel, says the Lord. There is nothing in us that causes the Lord to choose us. It's His grace. And so the Lord can say there's nothing different about His people than there are the Ethiopians other than what the Lord has done for them.

And Moses said, he took Israel up from the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Kaffdor, and the Syrians from Kyr. In other words, the Israelites being delivered from Egypt, that wasn't unique. That's that word, Kaffdor. The Philistines came from Kaffdor. Moses says this in Deuteronomy, or God tells Moses to write this, and when you come near the people of Ammon, do not harass them or meddle with them, for I will not give you the land of the people of Ammon as a possession.

He said, I gave that to Lot. And then he talks about the Ammonites. He drove out from that land as people as great and tall as the Anakim. And he said he drove them out of the land just as he had done for the inhabitants of Esau, where he destroyed the Horhites from them. They dispossessed them, that's the Edomites, and they dwelt in their place even to this day.

And then he says this, And the Avim, who dwelt in villages as far as Gaza, the Kaftorim, who came from Kaftor, destroyed them and dwelt in their place. See what Moses is saying? The Philistines who were in the land when Israel came, God said, back in Deuteronomy and here in Amos, God says, I gave them that land. I drove out this other people that have them, whom we know nothing about outside of Scripture, but they were the inhabitants of that land before the Philistines. God said, I drove them out and I gave the Philistines that land.

So Israel, you're no different. Yes, I delivered you from Egypt and gave you the land of Canaan, but you're no different from any other people." There's nothing special about the Jews. There's nothing special about them that God saw which led him to choose them in the first place. Apart from the grace of God, there is nothing that makes us to differ from any other lost person on the face of the earth. And then in verse 10, the fifth warning is that church membership affords no protection from God's judgment.

The church in the Old Testament, just like the church in the New Testament, is composed of elect and reprobate. Both are members of the visible church. Both are called the people of God in the Scriptures. And both visible church in the Old and New Testament are warned not to fall away. Not to fall away.

Jude tells us, but I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Those are the people we just read about in Exodus 19 whom God called His people. He said, you are a peculiar people, a royal nation, a priesthood, a holy priesthood. And yet, Jude is saying, God destroyed. It was those same people that God destroyed because they did not believe.

Or in Hebrews, for who having heard, rebelled, indeed was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses, now with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? These are the people that God said were his people. He was angry with them and their corpses fell in the wilderness. And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who did not obey?

So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Therefore, since the promise remains of entering is rest, let us fear, lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed, the gospel was preached to them. The gospel was preached to the Israel under Moses in the Old Testament. It was preached to them as well as to us, or it was preached to us as well as to them, but the word which they heard didn't profit them not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

See, The Israelites thought that because they were God's people, because they'd been circumcised, because they'd memorized the Torah, they'd been recipients of God's grace, they'd been delivered from Egypt, they had the covenants and the temple, that somehow God wouldn't destroy them. He really wasn't serious in these pronouncements of His judgment. And Amos says, no. No, all the sinners of My people, all those who are numbered with My people in the visible church shall die by the sword who have rebelled against the Lord who have not believed. All those people who in their arrogance say, well this calamity shall not overtake us or confront us, God says those people who presume upon God's goodness shall die by the sword, despite there being members of His Church.

But see, sandwiched in between these two proclamations of judgment on people who are part of God's Church in the Old Testament, is this wonderful promise that not one grain of wheat would fall to the ground. God would sift His people. Some true believers may even be chastened in that judgment. But Amos is very clear here that God would not destroy His elect. Not one grain of wheat, not even the smallest grain of wheat, would fall through that sieve to the ground.

This blessing is by faith in Jesus Christ. It is by repenting of our sins and turning and putting our faith and our trust in Jesus Christ and believing in Him. When the very Jews who crucified Christ were pricked in their conscience by the Holy Spirit and cried out, what must we do? Peter said, Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what Acts says, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified.

He's speaking to people here who crucified Christ, the greatest sin in all of history. But he's saying there is hope. There is hope. Repent and let every one of you be baptized. In the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is to you and to your children.

The promise of salvation in Christ is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off as many as the Lord our God shall call. And so we will look more fully next week at the richness of this promise. But we will close for now. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you that in your judgment and in your wrath you do remember mercy and that to those who are living The day of grace has not ended, but that you promise that all those who put their faith in you are saved from your wrath, even those who crucified the Lord of glory.

We Thank you Lord that you are rich in mercy. We thank you that your wrath is not forever but because you delight in mercy. We thank you that you remember those upon whom you have set your electing love in not one grain, not even the smallest grain falls to the ground. But you hold us in your hand, you preserve us and you cause us to persevere by the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord, we ask for that power, for that supernatural power of your Spirit to keep us from stumbling and to present us faultless before the presence of your glory with exceeding joy.

In Jesus' name we ask, Amen.