In the sermon titled 'God's Gracious Offer,' Peter Allison discusses Amos chapter 5, where the prophet Amos delivers a lamentation to the house of Israel. Amos condemns Israel for its fallen state despite its apparent prosperity, highlighting their oppression of the poor and perversion of justice. The speaker uses modern examples, such as inflation and property taxes, to illustrate how economic systems oppress the less fortunate. Amos urges the Israelites to seek God sincerely and repent to escape judgment, emphasizing that false gods cannot save them. The sermon underscores the importance of recognizing one's fallen condition, the dangers of ignoring rebuke, and God's gracious offer to seek Him and live. The speaker warns of severe consequences for refusing this divine offer, drawing parallels between Amos's message and contemporary issues.

Please turn to Amos chapter 5. I'd like to read the first 15 verses, Amos chapter 5. Hear this word which I take up against you, a lamentation. O House of Israel, the Virgin of Israel has fallen. She will rise no more.

She lies forsaken on her land. There is no one to raise her up. For thus says the Lord God, the city that goes out by a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which goes out by a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel. For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, seek me and live. But do not seek Bethel, nor enter Gilgal, nor pass over to Beersheba, for Gilgal shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

Seek the Lord and live lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph and devour it with no one to quench it in Bethel. You who turn justice to wormwood and lay righteousness to rest in the earth. He made the Pleiades an Orion. He turns the shadow of death into morning. He makes the day dark as night.

He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth. The Lord is His name. He reigns ruin upon the strong so that fury comes upon the fortress. They hate the one who rebukes in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks uprightly. Therefore because you tread down the poor and take grain taxes from him, though you have built houses of hewn stone, yet you shall not dwell in them.

You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink wine from them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins, afflicting the just and taking bribes, diverting the poor from justice at the gate. Therefore, the prudent, keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil that you may live. So the Lord God of hosts will be with you as you have spoken.

Hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. The Word of God is very pure. May we, His servants, love it. Heavenly Father, Your Word is so very true and purified seven times.

Sanctify us Lord by your word. Your word is truth. Please open our hearts that we might receive this truth as your word to us. And sanctify as well my sinful lips that they may proclaim faithfully and without deviation your message to us today in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, this is a good message and a terrifying message that Amos has today. It's a very gracious offer from the Lord. Amos has been rebuking, admonishing, warning the Israelites. They were, according to Amos' description of them, very wealthy, apparently wealthy, having summer homes and winter homes, great luxurious homes that Amos calls houses of ivory, and they were in need of nothing or so they thought. They were, as he says later, at ease in Zion.

They thought that everything was good. They thought that their relationship with the Lord was as good as their finances appeared to be. They had recovered some of the land that had been taken from them earlier by Syria. They were enjoying a respite from some of the foreign oppression that had troubled them in earlier days. And then Amos comes to them and takes up a lamentation.

A funeral dirge is a lamentation, a woe, oh house of Israel, because the Virgin of Israel has fallen. So that's His message. The Virgin of Israel has fallen. We want to look at that message, that proclamation to them that they have fallen, and why He says that. We want to see secondly the desperate nature of this fallen condition.

The desperate nature of it. And thirdly, the gracious offer of God to these who are desperately fallen. And that's why this passage is an incredibly gracious and wonderful message to people who are in desperate condition. The virgin of Israel has fallen, she shall rise no more. There is no one to help her.

Now why does Amos say that this society, this culture has fallen? How is it that she has fallen when things look so apparently wealthy, when things look so apparently prosperous. Well, these three points are interwoven throughout the passage that we read. These three points, the fallen condition of Israel, the desperate nature of that fallen condition, and the gracious offer of God are interwoven throughout this passage. The offer is repeated on several, three times.

This explanation of why she is fallen is elaborated on, as is the desperate nature of her falling condition. So why she has fallen is recounted in verses 7, 11, and 12b. And we read there in these statements that she treads down the poor. She turns justice to wormwood, lays righteousness to rest in the earth. Verse 11, treads down the poor, takes grain taxes from him.

And God says, though you have built these houses of stone, you're not going to live in them. And though you've planted these wonderful vineyards, and though everything looks really good and looks like it's prospering, you're not going to enjoy any of this because you're not prospering. You've actually fallen. And then in verse 12, Amos says, or giving them God's message to I. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins, which are afflicting the just and taking bribes, diverting the poor from justice at the gate.

Afflicting the just and taking bribes, diverting the poor from justice at the gate, flicking the just and taking bribes, diverting the poor from justice at the gate. They're denying the poor access to the courts, or effective access to the courts. Now, Israel might have been wondering why do we oppress the poor? Why do we afflict the just? Why do you say we turn justice to wormwood?

Well, I don't know all of the ins and outs of their culture and the exact ways in which they were doing this. But We have some hint of it in various places. In chapter 8, if we look ahead there a minute, it talks about trading wheat and making the ifa small and the shekel large. It's one of about four or five places in the Scriptures that speak about this. That's speaking of what today we would call inflation.

Inflation. It's making our money worth less so it doesn't buy as much. And you say, well, how is that unjust? I mean, it's something that we live with in our culture every day. We don't really think about that we are being unjust, especially unjust to the poor.

And I can imagine the Israelites in Bethel, to whom Amos was speaking, may have had the same reasoning, the same thinking. How are we not being just? How are we oppressing the poor because of making the ifa small and the shekel large? Well, a very well-known but very immoral and perverted economist once said that inflation is a tax that not one man in a million can recognize or diagnose. So if you have a thousand dollars or whatever unit you want to talk about, ounces of gold or silver or bronze, you have a thousand units of money and inflation destroys half of that.

So it only buys half of the house that it used to buy. If you're, you might, maybe Let's say a house, just to put this in perspective, so we use consistent terms. Let's say you can buy a house for $100. You actually used to be able to do that, buy a house for $100 in gold. You have $1, 000 and you lose half of your money.

You still have five hundred left over in terms of buying power. You can still buy your house for a hundred dollars. But what if somebody only has $100, and they lose half of their money? They only have $50 left through the tax of inflation. They can't buy a house anymore.

You see how The exact same tax, the wealthy can afford it. They can pay that tax and still have a house to live in, still have a car to drive, still have money in the bank, still be able to send their children to college, or set them up in a business. But a poor person, that tax of inflation robbed them of the ability to buy a house. And that's, you can take that example and use it in any way. Inflation is a tax that hurts the poor, especially.

And that's why in our country today, we're seeing more and more people unable to buy a house. The wealthy can still buy a house, the poor can't, due to the tax of inflation. And in my neighborhood, there is a development going in that I understand, I'm told, is just be rental properties for people that can't afford a house. Now typically, in a community, you might have a few houses that are rent houses for people that can't afford a house or need a temporary house. But here they're building a whole subdivision that's only going to be rental houses.

That's a new development. That's a new low. That's a new form of example of this oppression that Amos is talking about that hurts the poor. Another example of this kind of oppression in our day that hurts the poor, that oppresses them specifically, is property taxes. It's actually one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto.

You might wonder why are we implementing one of those. But it is something that affects the poor disproportionately for the exact same reasons. The rich can pay that tax and still live in their house. But for many people, they can no longer pay the tax to live in their own house. And it's not uncommon at all for people to have to sell property because they can't afford the property tax on it.

Especially people that have... The rich can afford to essentially buy their house over again every few years. That's what property tax makes you do. You can never really own your house. You have to buy it over and over and over again.

The rich can afford that. They can afford to buy many houses. They had summer houses, winter houses, ivory houses. They can buy their house many times over. The poor can't.

It's all they can do to buy one house and the property tax is often that thing that prices them out of a house. And so they are without a place to live. And who's responsible? Well, there's no one person that they can take to court and bring a lawsuit for defrauding them. Because that's not so easy to prove.

It's diffuse. It's scattered throughout the economy. It's dispersed by the very way we do business, by the very way we have banking. This is what Amos is talking about when he speaks about treading down the poor, afflicting the just, diverting the poor from justice at the gate. Amos was telling those people of his day that their culture, their economy, and apparently from chapter eight, they must have had some kind of situation just like we did do today, was profoundly oppressive.

They are fallen because in verse 10, they hate the people who point out their fallen condition. If we fall and we listen to somebody who can point that out to us and help us to be restored, who can instruct us, then we are no longer fallen anymore. But If we hate those who point out our fallen condition, then we are of all people most miserable. Because if we never accept or recognize the fact that we're in our fallen condition, we can never begin to get out of that, right? The first step of solving a problem is to first recognize that you have one.

And Israel didn't even want to recognize that they were in their fallen condition. They hated the people who brought rebukes in the gate. The gate is the courts of the day. They hated that. They stifled that voice.

And if you've ever followed any court case, especially a criminal case, you know that is often what happens. The voice of truth is disallowed. The judge will prevent that testimony from even being heard, even though it might be very relevant and necessary to make a just decision. They very carefully guard the testimony that you can hear. And when you only know half the truth, it's pretty hard to come to a just conclusion, a just verdict.

So they hate the one who rebukes in the gates, and they abhor the one who speaks uprightly. So Amos says they're fallen. They're fallen because they've also silenced the voice of public wisdom, or the public voice of wisdom. Verse 13 says, The prudent keeps silent. The wise keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time.

The prudent keeps silent for a couple reasons. One, it's a waste of time to speak because no one is listening to them. And there's nothing that a person with answers likes least than to have nobody willing, interested in the answers they have. And so the prudent don't speak. They also don't speak because it's dangerous to speak.

They make enemies pointing out the truth to those who don't want the truth. And so we see unsolicited statements of the truth are not always necessary. Sometimes there's a time to speak and sometimes there's a time to be silent and not cast your pearls before the swine. Other times we are called to speak and called to testify to the truth regardless of the consequences. And as we'll see, Amos is in that situation, as we'll see shortly in the next chapter, I believe.

Now what, so that's their fallen condition. Their society is pervasively oppressive to the poor especially. They hate those who point out that falling condition, and they've silenced the public voice of wisdom. But what makes their condition desperate? That's in verse 2.

They've fallen and they can't get up. And there is no one to help them. It's bad enough if you fall, if somebody's there to help you back up. But if you fall and there is no help, that's a desperate condition. The virgin of Israel has fallen.

She will rise no more. She lies forsaken on her land. There is no one to raise her up. Now why? Well, the army, in verse 3, is annihilated.

The army, the militia, has been destroyed. The city that goes out by a thousand, the city that sends out a thousand soldiers, there's a hundred that come back. The city that sends out a hundred only has ten left to come back. That's decimated is to lose one in ten. This is far worse.

This is to be annihilated, to be utterly destroyed other than a small remnant. So their army that they trusted in, the armies that have won back this land from Syria, that army, Amos says, is going to be annihilated. And also, their false gods can't help them. Don't seek Bethel, don't enter Gilgal, don't pass over Beersheba in verse 5. For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing." See, Bethel was that place where Jeroboam set up the golden calf and told the children of Israel that this golden calf was the God that delivered them out of the land of Egypt.

He actually made two of those cows and put them in the cities. And he said, Jerusalem, it's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. It's too far to go. Here are your gods. Oh Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

You see rewriting of history is essential to apostasy and to tyranny. Rewriting of history that's why the control of history is such an important thing. Are we going to get Moses version of history? That the Lord God Jehovah delivered you from the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage? Or Jeroboam's version of history that these golden calves did it?

Golden calves did it. Did you know that when the the wicked were plotting how to bring down America in their minutes of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace in the early 1900s, around 1910, a few years before, in the years right around there. When they opened those minutes up to a committee from Congress investigating some of these foundations, what one investigator read out of those minutes was nothing short of astounding, but it was exactly this point. They recognized that they needed to control the telling of history. If they were going to prevent a reversion, a return to the former way of living in America after World War I.

They recognized that to do that they had to control the telling of history. They had to rewrite the history books. And they, in their minutes, these trustees discuss plans to do that, how they were going to do that. And judging by the fruits today, I would say their plans in one sense have succeeded. Maybe beyond their wildest imagination.

In other ways, they've absolutely failed. But this is another aspect of the desperate nature of their fallen condition. These gods that they were taught had delivered them out of Egypt, they're going to fail. Gilgal is a name that means circle of stones. And it was, there were several, this is a name that's applied to several different locations in Israel.

Probably the most well-known, most famous location, and probably the one being referred to here was a location near Jericho, just to the east of Jericho. There were a number of significant events that happened there. That's where Joshua and the Israelites camped after crossing the Jordan River. And it is there that Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been taken from the dry bed of the river. And arranged as a monument, a memorial.

It was there that the Israelites in Joshua 5 were all circumcised having come into the land because all the Israelites in the wilderness generation had not, because they didn't believe, they had not been allowed to circumcise their children. And so all these people coming into the land were uncircumcised, and if they were going to celebrate the Passover, they needed to be circumcised. So they are circumcised. And it's there that they then celebrate the Passover. And it's there that they prepare for the conquest of Canaan.

It's there that the Gibeonites made their treaty with Joshua. It's from Gilgal that Joshua marched to Gibeon's rescue. It's there that Caleb requested that he be given the hill country around Hebron. And it's probably there at Gilgal that the allotment of territory to each of the tribes was made. So there's a lot of historical and spiritual significance to this location.

It's one of the three cities from which Samuel judged Israel. And it was there that Samuel reaffirmed the kingship of Saul after he delivered Israel from Jabesh-gilead. And it was there that Saul had gathered the troops together to go to war, but then when his Troops began to desert him. He offered the burnt offering himself rather than waiting for Samuel And Saul's This was where Saul was finally rejected as being king. And it's also where David was reaffirmed in his kingship after Absalom's treason.

So this is a significant spiritual place, and it's possible that considering all the historic events that happened here, that this may have become like a shrine and was worshipped itself instead of simply being a remembrance of what God has done and a place where God was worshiped for His wonderful deliverances and acts. This is an example of the beauty in some of the high literary form in the book of Amos in Hebrew. This, for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity. The word for captivity or going into captivity is a word that sounds very much like Gilgal. And in Hebrew, sometimes, when they want to emphasize something, they will simply repeat that verb again.

We have this in Genesis 3 where God said, I will multiply your sorrow to the woman. It's the same verb, It's just repeated twice. One's an infinitive and one's a different tense. But it's saying it strongly. And so that's what you have here.

The word for going into captivity is repeated twice. And the New King James translates that, surely you will go into captivity. But literally, it's going into captivity, you will go into captivity. And that word for going into captivity, it's a lot of words in English, it's just one word in Hebrew. And so you basically have the same word essentially repeated three different times.

One right after the other. God is saying surely you will go into captivity. And Beersheba, Bethel will come to nothing and these things that you're trusting in, this false religion, it can't deliver you. But here's the wonderful gospel truth embedded right into this pronouncement of woe and judgment. Seek Me and live.

Seek Me and live. Two parts. Seek Me. Seek me out of a true desire of your heart, and you will live." This was what God had promised to His people. In 2 Chronicles 15, God's promise was that the Lord would be with you while you are with Him.

And if you seek Him, He will be found by you. But if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. But it must be a sincere desire of the heart to know God, a desire not just to escape the judgment of God, but a desire to know God. A sincere desire to be in relationship with him. Jeremiah 29, Jeremiah told the people of Judah, you then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all of your heart.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all of your heart. Nobody can ever say that God would not save them, though they sought for it. God says, When you seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart, I will be found. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart, and I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive." That's a promise of God.

That all those who seek for Him with all of their heart will be found. God says, I will be found by all those who seek for me with all of their heart. See God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Ezekiel 18, I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore turn and live.

Turn and live. Don't seek your false gods. They can't give you life. Verse 6, Seek the Lord and live. Amos repeats it again.

This very gracious offer. Seek the Lord and live. See, this is not a new message. This is exactly what Moses had told them before they entered the promised land. In Deuteronomy 4, he said, "'Take heed to yourselves as you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He made with you, and make for yourself the carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you.

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Seek the Lord, ' Amos says in verse 6, "'Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph. Seek the Lord. Lest He break out like fire and devour it with no one to quench it, no one to help. That's exactly what Moses had told them.

God is a consuming fire. When you beget children, Moses went on, and grandchildren, and have grown old in the land and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything and do evil in the sight of God and provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you will utterly perish from the land." And don't think God is any different today. Remember, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And this very statement is repeated in Hebrews 12, for our God is a consuming fire. And false gods cannot rescue us from the wrath of God.

But God can. And He calls us and gives to us His very gracious offer. Seek Me and live. Verse 14, this is repeated again. Seek good and not evil, that you may live.

That says that there must be repentance involved. There has to be a change of heart. They must stop doing what they have been doing, oppressing the poor, treading them down, denying justice in the courts. They must stop that. They must stop loving evil and hating the people who speak up rightly.

They must hate evil, Amos says, and love good and establish justice in the courts. There must be repentance. When we seek the Lord with all of our heart and the Lord is found, there is repentance. There is a change. And we love what we didn't used to love and we hate what we used to love.

It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit changing our very nature that we can seek God and that we can repent and that we can hate evil and love good and establish justice in the courts. Now who gives this offer? Who gives this wonderful, gracious offer? That we will live when we seek Him, seek the Lord? Well, Amos describes this God in verse 13 of chapter 4.

And then he continues that in verses 8 and 9 of chapter 5 in our text. Let's go back to chapter 4 from last week where he said, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel. And then he introduces this God. It is He who forms mountains, He who creates the wind, who declares to man what His thought is. God knows the thoughts of our heart, And He can reveal to us the thoughts of our own hearts.

Just like through Joseph, God revealed to Pharaoh what His dream meant. Or through Daniel, God revealed to Nebuchadnezzar what His dream was that even He didn't know what the dream was. This is the God who makes morning darkness, who treads the high places of the earth. And then in verse 8, He makes the Pleiades and Orion. He's the creator of the stars.

The stars are incredibly powerful. We don't even know exactly how hot they are. They're just way, way hotter than anything we can imagine. Very, very hot. And that's just based on the temperature of the light that's coming from the surface.

We know inside the sun where the light is made, it's far hotter. But this is God who makes these. He controls them. He controls the course of the sun. He makes the sun go down and He brings it up the next day.

He controls the hydrological cycle. You ever tried to carry water anywhere? You know, you get a five gallon pail in each hand, and that's ten gallons, and that's kind of a limit for most people. But 10 gallons of water doesn't go very far. You ever know how fast you'd use 10 gallons in your house to take a shower or something?

Just imagine how much water is in just an ordinary rainfall. It's tons and tons and tons and tons of water. Like God lifts out of the ocean, lifts out of the lakes, lifts out of the trees and the land, and carries it effortlessly miles and miles away and drops it on the earth. Just think about that simple little thing that we see without even thinking about it many times. And just think about the power.

Just think if you had to hire a company to move that water from 500 miles, 1, 000 miles, wherever it's coming from, Tons and tons and tons of water. Just think how hard that would be. Think how many trucks that would take. And yet God does this also effortlessly. He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth.

The Lord, Jehovah, Jehovah is His name. His name means the one who is. He's the one who exists, and He's the one who gives existence to everything else. You can't run from Him. You can't ignore Him.

You can't refute His wisdom. And we're certainly not going to impress or wow Him with anything that we could ever do. As great and powerful as we think it might be. And we're certainly never going to impress or wow him with any external superficial acts of worship It is those who seek him with all of their heart who desire to know him To have to know him as a father to know him as Our Savior To have a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. It is these whom God saves by this power.

And it is this gracious offer that He gives to us to seek Him. Seek Him and live. This is not an offer though that can be refused with impunity. This is not an offer like you might receive from somebody inviting you to dinner, that you can politely decline or accept as your circumstances dictate. Sometimes we might think of that offer that way, but that would be a serious error.

This is not the case with the offer of the Gospel. Paul said in Thessalonians, those who do not obey the Gospel are destroyed. The offer of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one who makes the stars, who determines the course of the sun, who moves the water from place to place effortlessly. His offers and the offers of his ambassadors cannot be rejected without very significant ramifications and consequences. Deuteronomy 20 provides us an example of this offer, this kind of offer in this context.

Deuteronomy 20 verse 10 says, When you come near to a city to fight against it, you shall offer it peace. And if it answer you again peaceably, open unto you, and open unto you, then all the people that is found therein will be tributaries to you and serve you. But if it will make no peace with you, but make war against you, then you shall besiege it. And the Lord your God shall deliver it into your hands, and you shall smite all the males thereof with the edge of the sword." This is a picture of God's justice. His offer, His gracious offer to seek him and live will be destroyed in his wrath for our God is a consuming fire and we will one day stand before him.

May we do so close with the righteousness of Christ. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for this gracious offer. We thank You for Your patience with us, that You do not deal with us as our sins deserve, and that you are slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and tender mercy and not desiring the death of any. Lord, may we never be guilty of presuming upon Your grace, of presuming upon such a gracious offer. But Lord, may we flee to You and to seek You with all of our heart.

May we do so all of our days. Pray Lord for each young one here this morning that they may seek you now in the days of their youth while you may still be found. And that each of them might never know a day outside of your courts, outside of your people, outside of your church, and the blessings of your covenant This we ask in Jesus name Amen