In the sermon titled 'Jehovah's Visit,' delivered by Peter Allison, the focus is on Amos Chapter 3, where Amos, a prophet, calls for witnesses from Ashdod and Egypt to observe and testify against the injustices in Samaria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Amos describes a society rife with social tumults, oppression, and a lack of true justice, drawing parallels to contemporary issues. The message emphasizes that calamities are acts of God, who acts only after revealing His purposes to prophets. This sermon highlights the importance of divine justice and accountability, warning that God's judgment will lead to the downfall of Israel's strongholds and false spiritual refuges, such as the altars of Bethel. Amos employs vivid imagery, comparing the remnants of Israel's destruction to the remains a shepherd might recover from a lion's attack, signifying complete devastation. The sermon also reflects on the broader implications for modern societies, urging reliance on God's justice and highlighting the peril of ignoring divine warnings.

Amos chapter 3. Amos Chapter 3 beginning at verse 9. Amos, one of the earliest of the prophets, the second only to Jonah and possibly Joel. Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble on the mountains of Samaria, see great tumults in her midst and the oppressed within her. For they do not know to do right, says the Lord, they who store up violence and robbery in their places.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, an adversary shall be all around the land, and he shall sap your strength from you, and your palaces shall be plundered. Thus says the Lord, as a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be taken out who dwell in Samaria. In the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch, hear and testify against the house of Jacob, says the Lord God, the God of hosts. That in the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel. And the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.

I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of Ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, says the Lord. May the Lord redeem us from the oppression of man that we may keep these, His precepts. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word that You have preserved to us. And that though this Word was first given thousands of years ago, yet it is true today.

It continues, endures. We ask that you might open its truths to us, that you might feed us, Lord, with this word and nourish us with it. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips, that they might proclaim the riches of your grace, and that you would keep me from error. In Jesus' name, amen. Amos began this book a couple chapters ago with an introduction, a very simple introduction of the speakers and the time of his ministry.

He identified it down to the year. And the speakers, if you remember, were himself. These were his words, he said, the words of Amos. And the Lord God, Jehovah, because he was bringing Jehovah's message, the Lord's message. But very Quickly, by the third verse, he began listing the sins of the surrounding nations.

He started out with something we saw that would be palatable to the ears of those to whom he was preaching in the northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes called Samaria. And so he began with these distant nations, relationally speaking, and he moved in closer and closer in relationship until he concluded speaking about Judah, the sister nation to the south, all before he got around to indicting the nation to whom he was speaking, and that is the northern kingdom of Israel. And we saw that in that indictment, he listed several aggravating factors compounding their sins. He talked about their miraculous deliverance from Egypt, their preservation in the desert for 40 years. God preserved them, their shoes did not wear out.

They had food every day miraculously in the manna. And then he talked about how he had driven out the Canaanites, a fierce people, where they were described by the first spies as the Israelites were like grasshoppers compared to these Anakin in the land of Canaan. God drove out these mighty nations and brought Israel in. We also saw last week that God had a special relationship with them. And They threw it away, which only added to their guilt.

They had, as a result of their special relationship, they had privileges that these other nations did not have. And then Amos made the point in a rather winsome way through a series of rhetorical questions that, one, calamity, if calamity falls on a city, God is the one who does it. We like to ignore that. We like to think when a hurricane comes upon us, well, that's just a work of nature. Well, yes, God controls the nature.

Maybe we acknowledge. But but Amos says if calamity falls on a city, God brought that calamity, and He brought it for a reason. And we would be wise to think about that when we experience calamities of nature. They are calamities that God is bringing. Secondly, the second point Amos made was that God does not act without revealing His purposes to His servants, the prophets.

He doesn't come in judgment without bringing a warning, without sending His servants the prophets. As He says, rising up early, and not just one, not just two, but many come. That's just part of God's mercy. And thirdly, Amos made the point that when God speaks, His servants must prophesy. And that's why He was standing in front of them because God had spoken.

And he as God's messenger must prophesy that message. Or his own life is at risk for failing to carry out the message, to bring the message that he'd been given. For failing to warn these people of the judgment that they are under. Amos' own life would have been at risk. He risked his own life if he failed to speak the message that God gave him.

And so we pick this up then in this sermon to the Northern Kingdom here at verse 9 in chapter 3. And Amos is about to get to the heart of his sermon, where he mentions specific people, specific sins, all the specific chastenings, the calamities that he sent that they ignored as merely acts of nature, and completely unrelated to their spiritual condition. This is a sermon that extends all the way through chapter 6, a message. But before he launches into the details, Amos makes one more preparation. He convenes the court.

He convenes the court. He calls for the jury from the surrounding nations, the judges, the people that will hear this case that God is bringing against His people. He calls for a jury from the surrounding nations to assemble on the mountains of Samaria and to review the evidence that will be presented and to render judgment. This is the way God works. Remember, He did this on Mount Carmel as well.

Elijah convened a court, and then he set it up so that he had all these witnesses. And he used the court of Israel because Ahab was not carrying out God's law and was not punishing, bringing God's vengeance on the idolaters of the land, the prophets of Baal and so on. Elijah convened the court and he had them watch for all morning as these false prophets worshipped Baal. And then he had them render a judgment. Well, this is what Amos is setting up here.

And this call for the judges to assemble, for that we would call them a jury today, jurors are really the judges. They are the ones who examine the evidence that is presented and then decide on the guilt or innocence. It's not the judge's job. That's in our system. It's the jury that sits in judgment.

So they are really the judges of the case. And so this call for these judges or this jury was to be proclaimed in two specific strongholds, or palaces. The word palace is literally a stronghold. First is in Ashdod. Ashdod was a Philistine stronghold city about three miles or so from the Mediterranean Sea.

It stood on the highway between Egypt and Palestine, the northern route. And so it was a very strongly fortified city. Being in a traveled road, it was right on the path of any armies that were transiting back and forth. So it was a fortified city, meaning it had a wall around it, it had defensive protection. It wasn't just houses set out in the open.

It would have had a fort and it would have had soldiers garrison there might have even had a inside these cities were often a an additional fortification in the palace a tower so that if the city wall was breached, you could retreat into the inner stronghold and perhaps be saved. In some places, houses, some countries, this is still done. Where people are not armed and they have no protection, because they can't have guns, the only thing they can do is create a strong room in the middle of their house and lock themselves in it when their home is invaded and hope that the attackers get tired and go away before they run out of food and water. And that's the basic idea of these inner strongholds, which are called palaces here. Joshua records that this city belongs to the tribe of Judah.

Ashdod is specifically named as a part of inheritance given to Judah, but it wasn't conquered under the days of Joshua. It wasn't conquered under the days of David even, but it was conquered in the days of Isaiah. Presumably some time after Amos is speaking here because he's still referring to it as a stronghold, which wouldn't exactly make sense if it was a city that had been conquered by Judah. So presumably Amos is speaking before Aziah conquered it, although Amos is a prophet in the days of Aziah. The New Testament calls this city Azodas and in the account of Philip's return from Gaza.

So God says proclaim in the strongholds or palaces at Ashdod. Proclaim a message. The other place they were to proclaim it is in the palaces in the land of Egypt. Egypt was an ancient military power. It was later conquered by Assyria after Amos' day, and by all the other subsequent world kingdoms like the Greeks and the Romans.

So Egypt ceased to be a great military power in its own right when Assyria conquered it. But at this time, and historically, it had been a great military power. These are both people or lands that were known for their oppression. These were not righteous people in themselves. Now, what is to be proclaimed in these strongholds?

What's the message? Well, it was that they should assemble themselves on the mountains of Samaria. That's what was proclaimed. It was a call to them to come and watch, probably a figurative call. And they were to assemble on the mountains.

That's like a throne of judgment, just set high above the courtroom. A place where they would have a commanding view of everything that happens in that country, in that courtroom. And what were they going to witness? What was this jury that Amos said should assemble in the mountains of Samaria? What were they going to witness?

Well, Amos says this is what you're going to see. This is what you're going to see when you come. You're going to see tumult in the midst of Samaria. Panic, confusion in the streets of this land because there is no true justice. What happens when there is no justice?

Well, we're seeing that in our country right now, right? When there's no justice. What happens? Well, the unjust people assemble in the streets. The wicked assemble in the streets.

They riot. They destroy property. They abuse people. And there are no consequences that come to them, or very minimal. So there, the wicked are rioting.

They're in a tomb alt. The just are protesting because there is no justice. The prisons are filled with the oppressed, unjustly imprisoned, denied fair trials because they were too poor to buy their freedom. And the righteous are protesting these things. They're down at the city hall peacefully, but nevertheless, there's a presence there.

And whenever there's a crowd, even if they're peaceful, that makes politicians nervous, especially if they are condemning what's happening. So there is a tumult. Amos says you're going to see a tumult in the middle of Samaria. There are oppressed. You're going to see oppression within her.

They will witness this oppression. The poor Having their rights destroyed, trampled on. Justice not being done. Their property, they're being destroyed. Their livelihoods being taken.

Their money being debased. These are all forms of oppression. When the wicked seize power, they let the wicked go free And they condemn the righteous. They let the wicked go free. Yes, they say don't prosecute these kinds of crimes.

Don't prosecute murders and theft and so on. They end up prosecuting the innocent, the people that are getting in their way, the people that are challenging their injustices. God says these people, In verse 10, they don't even know or acknowledge what is right. They are so accustomed to acting lawlessly that they've even forgotten what justice is. They don't recognize it anymore.

They're so entrenched in their injustice that it seems perfectly fine and reasonable what they are doing. Everybody around them, all the other peers, are acting in the same way. When a ruler, the Proverbs says, when a ruler is corrupt, then all of the court becomes liars as well. They follow. People follow.

There was an experiment that a psychiatrist did a number of years ago called the milligram experiments maybe you've read about these and he had people sit at a board that had a row of switches on it And it started out the switches were numbered with voltage, you know started out at low voltages like 1 volt 2 volt and got up to High voltages like thousands of volts and it said and there are little signs. I would say mild severe dangerous above these switches, right And they had somebody in a white coat sitting next to them in the same room. And in a room where they couldn't see, right next door, but they could hear, was somebody who was being taught. That's what they were told in this experiment. They didn't know.

All that they knew is that they were sitting here and they were told when the person being taught in the next room gives you the wrong answer, you need to lift up one of those switches and zap him. We're doing an experiment, and this is your job in this experiment. You're to zap him if he gives you a wrong answer. And so they would read the questions and hear these answers, and they would wrong answers. What they didn't know is that it was an actor in the other room, somebody who was in on this experiment.

This was a scientific experiment published in peer-reviewed journals. And every wrong answer, they were to move up one switch and increase the voltage. And the person in the other room, they'd get the wrong answer, and they'd give the voltage, they started crying out, they'd go, ah! And they would start saying things like, stop, you're hurting me. And the people doing this experiment were getting nervous.

And they would look at the man in the white coat, And the man in the white coat said, Continue, this is part of the experiment. And they would listen to him. Almost everybody, without exception, listened to the man in the white coat telling them to continue. Some people went all the way up. Even to the one that said severe shock, danger.

They would give it because the man in the white coat said to. There were very few people, one or two, that said, no, I'm not doing this. This isn't right. It was an amazing experiment that demonstrated just how simple people are in willing to follow a leader, a perceived leader, even into gross injustice. And that's what was going on here.

These people didn't know God says. They didn't even know to do right. They cast aside all restraint and shame and had abandoned themselves to every and any wickedness in their oppression of the poor." And so though the Egyptians and the Philistines here are void of any light themselves, yet the injustice of the Israel, of the Samaritans, is so palpable, it's so egregious, it's so extreme that even these Wicked nations in their own right will be able to see and recognize the injustice that's going on. There is no necessity for any subtle distinction. The injustice in Israel's day was carried on with such violence and such lack of moderation and such absence of any shame that even these people could witness it.

What are they going to witness? Or what does God say they will see? What else does God say they will see? They don't know to do right, says the Lord. They store up violence.

Now you probably know that Hebrew word, Hamas. You ever hear of Hamas? The Israeli group, that's the Hebrew word for violence. This is a group that's saying they are violent. It can be used of physical violence, such as violating the law.

Zephaniah 3, 4 says, her prophets are insolent, treacherous people. Her priests have polluted the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law. But it's also a physical violence as well. But this is...

Amos is probably using it in both senses here. These are people that have done violence to the law as well as violence in the physical sense. And robbery is also here. Oppression. Oppression.

The word is oppression, literally. Violence and oppression. It's stored up in their strongholds, in their courts. Now we might ask, why does God call these external witnesses? Well, I think the first thing we can say is that God's justice is able to withstand the utmost scrutiny.

There are no backroom proceedings in smoke-filled rooms. There are no hidden deals between the prosecutor and the judge. There's no collusion going on. When God acts, He acts transparently. His justice is perfect.

And so it's open to being scrutinized. But secondly, the law itself required this. God's own law required this. Now God's law only isn't something that God is subject to as if this is some extra thing that is outside of Him to which He is subject. No, God's law is simply a reflection of who he is, of his own character, of how he defines justice and truth and righteousness.

And so the death penalty required at least two witnesses, you remember. Deuteronomy 17, 6 says, Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses. He shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. And even this is how God lives. Even regarding matters of our salvation.

He swears by Himself because He could swear by none greater. The Lord swears. The Lord takes oaths. The Lord assembles witnesses. He has here two witnesses because you couldn't put someone to death on just one witness.

And so He invites them to come and examine the evidence for themselves. This also demonstrates to Israel that even their non-Christian neighbors that don't know the law of God know what they are doing is wrong. In other words, they can't say, well, God's being too strict with us. God has gotten these nations that in themselves are oppressors, and He's going to use them to convict. It would be like going into, what's the most anti-death penalty city in the country?

I don't know what it would be. Maybe it's San Francisco, maybe it's New York, maybe it's someplace in Illinois, and assembling a jury from those people and then getting a death penalty conviction from them. That's essentially what God is doing. He's not going to the hang them high place and getting some people that hang everybody high, He's going here to these nations that are themselves oppressors. And He's saying even these people will be able to convict you.

This also serves as a warning to the witnesses themselves. If judgment begins with the house of God, what will their place be? What will be the end of those who don't obey the Gospel, Peter says. So they get to see God's judgment. This is a mercy to them.

And I think it should be also a warning to us, us in America, that we pride ourselves on being a light on a hill, the city on a hill. But over our recent past, at least two decades and probably many more decades, We've spent trillions of dollars projecting military might, bombing roads and bridges and airports and terrorizing civilians and assassinating leaders of sovereign nations. And China, this great wicked nation that is undoubtedly wicked, there's no question about that, has been spending trillions of dollars projecting economic might around the world, developing buildings and building all the kinds of things we've been destroying. And so the result is that our military, the military might of the United States and its pregnant, feminized, and transgendered forces have become a laughing stock in the world. Just witnessed the withdrawal from Afghanistan recently.

Our dollar is no longer the reserve currency in the world, and it's as of recent events. We have no moral authority. We've pushed our own enemies into alliances against us. Amos' message is very relevant to us today. Now, what is the summary of God's judgment that He gives in these next verses?

Therefore, thus says the Lord. Amos loves that, all of God's prophets do, but especially in Amos. Amos is always saying, this is the Word of the Lord. It's not just me. It's the Word of the Lord.

What's going to happen to them? Well, their land will be surrounded by foreigners. Foreign invaders. An adversary shall be all around the land. He will sap your strength from you." That word sap is literally to bring down.

Bring down. Anything can be brought down. Think of an arm wrestler. How do you win an arm wrestle? When you bring down the arm of the opponent and it touches the table, you have brought down their strength.

That's what it literally says here. Your strength is going to be brought down. Your arm is going to be pinned to the table by somebody stronger than you. And your palaces, your strongholds will be plundered. It's common for people to trust in their stronghold.

We all have something that we put our assets in that we trust. Maybe it's the bank. Have you ever seen those bank vaults with the doors that are two feet thick, that weigh tons and tons? You ever look at the vault in the bedrock of Manhattan Island underneath the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They actually have it on their website.

It's an incredible, impenetrable vault set in the middle of the bedrock with all sorts of security as well. God is saying that these strongholds, the things that you put your trust in as safe that nobody can steal, your fort knocks, that nobody can break into, you think nobody can break into. God is saying they're going to be plundered. This inner tower in your palace that you run to and are safe. The Bible says that the name of the Lord is a strong tower to which the righteous run and are safe.

The name of the Lord is a strong tower. Well, these Israelites in these cities in this day had these inner towers, these fortified rooms inside of them that they could run to and they felt safe in there. God is saying these will be plundered. These strongholds will be plundered. You're not safe in them.

I'm going to destroy them. Brothers and sisters, the only security, the only safety is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only tower that no one can tear down. And it's our help, Our security is in His name and His name alone. And if we are blaspheming His name, if our schools are the greatest institutions of atheism and blasphemy, how can we expect to trust in the name of the Lord?

Verse 12 gives a simile of the extent of their destruction. As a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs and a piece of an ear. The shepherd wasn't able to save that lamb, was he? He gets there after the fight. After the lion or whatever.

Yes, the lion. After the lion has taken the lamb away and eaten, all he finds is two legs, a little leftover, what he didn't want to eat, or a piece of an ear. And God says in the same way, in the same way that a shepherd might find these little fragments left over from a lion that's attacked a sheep, in the same way Samaria is going to be attacked. Those who dwell in Samaria, the children of Israel, will be taken out. And all you're going to find is a corner of a bed and the edge of a couch." That's a very unusual metaphor.

The corner of a bed and the edge of a couch. And the Hebrew scholars are not sure exactly whether that's an idiom. If it was an idiom, we've lost it. We don't know exactly what it's referring to. There are a couple ideas, but nothing definitive.

So it's probably not worth mentioning. But you get the picture. If you think of your house, and you think of people being removed from it, and all that's left is the corner of a bed, The edge of a couch. In other words, a pillow. A fragment.

The picture is that there's a complete destruction. Total devastation. That's what their judgment is going to be like. That's the extent of their judgment. So God as a shepherd, though, is vindicated in his judgments.

Remember Exodus 22 provided that if a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or an animal to keep and it dies or is driven away, no one's seeing it, then there's an oath of the Lord between them that the one to whom the animal was delivered hasn't taken it himself and there was no need to make it good. But if it was stolen, then even though it was borrowed, the person from whom it was stolen had to make it good. He has to repay it to the owner. But If it is torn to pieces by a beast, so somebody has loaned his animal to somebody else, and that animal that's loaned gets torn by a beast, then he, that's the person that borrowed the animal, shall bring it as evidence, the remains, the piece of the ear and the two legs or whatever was left over. He was to bring that as evidence and He shall not make good what was torn." That was in other words an act of God.

It wasn't any fault of that person. So God here is vindicated by this evidence in the same way that a person would be. But this could also be seen as a remnant. There's a remnant left over. A remnant that is a witness to God's justice.

A remnant that is a witness to God's mercy and covenant faithfulness. So they can testify to the fact that God is a just judge and that He executes justice, but they can also, a remnant can also testify and witness God's mercy and covenant faithfulness. God rescues those who are in bondage even due to their own sin. Isaiah 1, 9 said, unless the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would have been made like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. But see, God, as the psalmist so wonderfully expresses, God delivers and rescues those who call upon Him, even when they're in desperate straits because of their own sins.

Those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, bound in afflictions and irons, why? Because they rebelled against the Word of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. Therefore, He brought down their heart with labor. They fell, and there was none to help them. But they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them in their distress.

He brought them out of the shadow of death and broke their chains in pieces. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. He has broken the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron in two." And Psalm 104 goes on to describe others who through their own sin, through their own folly, have come under God's righteous judgment who are delivered when they cry out to the Lord. So God rescues those. But also, this remnant are those who are sanctified.

Through God's chastening, this remnant is restored. They are humbled. They are made dependent upon the Lord and through Him. Through them. Through These people who are weak in themselves and dependent on the Lord through them, these weak of the world, God's grace and power is demonstrated.

So God then says in verse 13, He calls for these witnesses here, here, you judges, here, and testify against the house of Judas, says the Lord God, the Lord of hosts. And He says that He will visit them. He says, in that day I punish Israel. That word for punish is the exact same word as in the next line that's translated visit. And the word is literally a visit.

I think it should be said, in the day that I visit Israel for their transgressions. God visits His people. He visits them to bless them, and He also visits them in judgment. It's a visit. God says he's going to visit Israel.

He's going to visit Israel for their transgressions, and he's going to visit the altars of Bethel. What happens when God visits the altars of Bethel? Well, these horns are going to be cut off. This altar is going to be destroyed. Now, what is the altar at Bethel?

There's significance to this. In 1 Kings 13, we read about these altars of Bethel. When Jeroboam separated the northern tribes from Israel, He was afraid that when all Israel went back to Jerusalem every year, or three times a year as they were supposed to for these feasts, he was worried that by going back, their heart would be drawn back to David and to the house of David, and that they would remove him from being king. In other words, they would be a reunion of these nations. And so to prevent that, he realized he needed to establish altars in the north that the people could sacrifice to and not have to go to Jerusalem.

And so he erected these two altars at Bethel and Dan, and he said to The Israelites, these are the gods that delivered you out of Egypt. And while God sent a messenger to Jeroboam, and I'll just read you that passage, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord, And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. So here's the problem, Jeroboam is not a priest, he's a king. And he's trying to offer a sacrifice. And this man of God cried out against the altar.

And he said, by the word of the Lord, O altar, O altar, thus says the Lord, behold, a child Josiah by name shall be born to the house of David, and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall burn on you. And he gave a sign that same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has spoken. Surely the altar shall split apart, and the ashes on it shall be poured out. So it came to pass when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God who cried out against the altar of Bethel, that He stretched out His hand and said, arrest Him! Except His arm wouldn't come back.

He was stuck. He was humbled. Because He couldn't take His arm back. He was standing there looking like a fool until the prophet prayed for him to be restored. Well, that's the altar that God is speaking about here.

I will visit this altar of Bethel. Visit it to destroy it. The horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground." See, the horns of the altar is where people could come and grab ahold of the altar as a place of refuge. Remember, Adonijah and Joab took the horns of the altar when their lives were in danger. Now you could remove somebody from the horns of the altar if they were guilty.

But it was a place of refuge. And so the horns being cut off, One, it's saying there's no more place of refuge. But also, a horn is a symbol of power. Their power is gone. They were destroyed by Assyria long before Josiah tore down this altar.

Josiah was a very late king after the northern kingdom was disbanded. But Josiah did fulfill that prophecy. The next thing we see in this judgment, this visitation, if God visits them, is that He would destroy their summer and their winter houses. The context would be that these were houses. This was wealth.

These houses represented wealth that was gotten by oppression. Zophar, one of Job's pseudo friends, says this in Job, for he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently seized a house which he did not build. And that happens today through our monetary system. We can effectively seize wealth that we haven't worked for.

But that's the context. That God is going to destroy. He's going to seize these houses. He's going to destroy them. The winter and the summer house.

The houses of ivory shall perish. Ivory is not wrong in itself. Solomon had an ivory throne. Psalm 45 speaks of the bride coming from ivory palaces. And Song of Solomon speaks of the bridegroom having a body of ivory.

Ivory in itself is not wrong, it's beautiful. This is speaking of wealth that is ill-gotten wealth. Wealth of oppression. They're a sign of wealth through injustice. So what did we learn in this passage here before Amos gets into the details?

Well, I think one thing we learn is that be sure our sins will find us out. That was Moses' instruction to the Israelites. Be sure your sins will find you out. The Lord sees what's happening. And there's no hiding.

Just because we see apparent prosperity, just because we see apparent wealth and no apparent consequences. We need to remember that our sins will find us out. Our own sins and our own lives. The things that we harbor in our heart, we can be sure will be found out. God said of David's sin that he did it secretly, but God said he would proclaim it to all of Israel.

All these sins of oppression, Israel thought that they were very secure in. They thought that They were untouchable. They had the justice system locked up. Who was going to bring justice against them? That was their attitude.

Who's going to charge us? We're the law. We own it. We have the sheriff in our hand. We have the prosecutor in our pocket.

We have the judges in our pocket. Who's going to prosecute us? What they forgot was what God says in Psalm 82. God stands in the congregation of the mighty. He judges among the gods.

This is an example where, and Jesus even quotes this psalm in the New Testament. This is an example where men are referred to as gods because they are men in authority who execute rule. And Psalm 82 says, God is standing in their assembly. These unjust judges. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Defend the poor and the fatherless. Deliver the poor. Do justice to the afflicted and needy. Defend the poor and the needy. Free them from the hand of the wicked." That's God's admonition, His exhortation to the judges.

But what these rulers are forgetting is that God is sitting in their midst. He's right there with them because they are His ministers and when they render these sentences, it's an affront, a personal affront to the living God who is right in their midst. They don't know, they don't understand. That's what Amos says of them. They don't know and they didn't understand.

They walk in darkness. I said, you are gods. And our leaders, they're Elohim. All of you are children of the Most High, but you will die like men and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit the nations.

What happens to these unjust judges? God says He'll remove them. He'll remove them. He is the judge of the nations. And He judges with justice and righteousness.

So we can be sure that our sins will find us out. The sins of our land, the injustices of our courts, as well as our own sins and our own lives that we think maybe are hidden. But the second thing is, We don't need to fret about these evildoers. We don't need to wring our hands in helplessness about these evildoers. Psalm 37 goes to great lengths about this.

And the fact that just like Psalm 82, God will bring justice, as people we don't have to fret about evildoers. For they shall soon be cut down like grass and withered as the green herb." We can wait on the Lord. We can wait patiently for His justice, and we can pray for that justice. That's what He teaches us to do in the Lord's Prayer. Where He teaches us to ask for our food, to pray for the advancement of His Kingdom, and for deliverance from the evil one.

And all of His schemes and all of His lies and all of His minions who do unjustly. Don't fret because of evildoers, for God says they will be cut down and they're wither like the green grass. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as Abraham once said to you, Shall not the Judge of all the earth judge rightly? And you, Lord, as the Judge of all the earth, who judges with perfect justice and equity, replied that you would not destroy the earth if there were but ten righteous.

We thank you that you do not remember, retain your anger forever because you delight in mercy. For Lord, if you should mark our iniquities, who could stand before you? But we thank you that with you there is mercy. That you love mercy. You delight in loving kindness.

Lord, we ask for your mercy for us. We ask that we might know your loving kindness upon us, that you would free us from fretting and anxiety about the evil around us and the injustice. And Lord, grant us a diligence to pray. You have given to us access to Your throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, that we may find grace to help in time of need. Lord, may we avail ourselves of this great and precious access, this great privilege.

May, Lord, This reminder this morning urge us to greater faithfulness in prayer. That your justice would flow in our land. We ask this in Jesus name, amen.