In the sermon 'Judah: Despisers of God's Law,' Peter Allison explores the biblical text from Amos 2, where God pronounces judgment on Judah for their repeated transgressions and rejection of His law. The sermon draws a parallel between Judah's historical disobedience and the contemporary rejection of God's commandments in modern societies. Allison uses the narrative of God's deliverance of Israel from slavery and their subsequent ingratitude as a metaphor for how societies today have benefited from God's blessings but have turned away from His statutes. He emphasizes that Judah's contempt for God's law is not just negligent but a willful and pervasive rebellion that mirrors the apostasy seen in today's world. The sermon concludes with a call to repentance, highlighting God's enduring grace and mercy, as He is willing to forgive and restore those who turn back to Him. Allison underscores the importance of genuine faith and obedience, urging the visible church to remain diligent in upholding God's commands amidst a culture that often disregards them.

Please turn in your copy of God's Word to Amos, chapter 2. Beginning at verse 4. Thus says the Lord, For three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept His commandments. Their lies led them astray, lies which their fathers followed. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

May the Lord give us understanding that we may know His testimonies. Heavenly Father, as we continue to worship You, we ask that You would speak to us now by Your Word and by Your Spirit, and give us ears to hear what Your Spirit says to Your Church. Grant us faith or to understand and sanctify my sinful lips, that they may proclaim the riches of your grace in Christ. Amen. Well, suppose for a minute, and you may not have to suppose, you may already be familiar with this, but suppose for a minute that you received word of an orphan in a faraway land.

Somebody who had not only no parents, but was working in essentially slavery, bondage, a little child with no hope. And you feel compassion for this little one who you've been told about. And at great expense, you take a leave of absence from your job, your work. And you travel at great expense to the faraway country, whether that's Nepal or China or Russia or some other place, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, any number of places that have countless orphans like this, and with great difficulty because travel isn't always easy in these sort of places. You make your way to where this little girl is.

And you make arrangements with the place where she is to pay all of the expenses for her and to adopt her and to bring her back to your country and to provide for her. And maybe she needs surgeries. And so you provide for those surgeries that she didn't have when she was little. And you provide for her education. And you at your expense hire tutors to teach her those things that you don't know very well.

And you take care to ensure that she learns music and that she hears the Word of God and she learns about the world that God made in the light of the word that He's given us. And of course you provide for her food and a place for her to sleep, a bed, and a home that is comfortable and peaceful. And you protect her. And you bless her with the goodness and the abundance that the Lord has given to you. And then she comes of age.

And she says, you know, I don't think I need you anymore. I don't really like what you have done for me. I don't really like the rules of your house. I don't want to live here anymore. I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore.

By. What would you think? Well, that is exactly. The situation in the text this morning. That is exactly what Judah has done.

These people that God has delivered out of slavery, in a foreign land, where they worked under hard and grueling conditions, with no hope. Their children were killed. Their sons were killed. Just because they were their sons. And they labored under hard labor.

They were beaten if they didn't get enough done. And God delivered them. And not only did He deliver them, but He delivered them in a mighty and amazing way. He plundered this nation so that they poured their gold and their silver and their clothes upon these people so that they would go away. And they left with great wealth.

And not only that, but God parted a sea thousands of feet deep so they could walk across on dry land. And then He drowned the army that was chasing them to bring them back into slavery. He drowned the chariots and the horses and the men riding those chariots. So their dead bodies washed up on the shore and they could see the dead bodies of their captors, previous captors. And God provided food for them in the wilderness when there was no food.

They didn't have to plant, they didn't have to water, they didn't have to weed, they didn't have to harvest, They didn't have to can and freeze. And those of you that have done that know that's hard work. Just the canning and the freezing part's hard work. Never mind the planting and the plowing and the weeding. They didn't have to do any of that.

God just gave them food on the ground. All they had to do was go out and pick it up. Their shoes never wore out. They didn't have to get new shoes. He took care of them.

He carried them on his wings. And he brought them to a land flowing with milk and honey. And even there, they did not have to plant and harvest. They walked right in at the end of the harvest to a land that was overflowing. And they walked right in and were able to take that harvest.

God gave them that harvest for themselves. And then they grew up and they said to the Lord we don't care about what you say. We don't care about your laws. They despised the law of God. For three transgressions and for four.

That means a lot of transgressions. This is a broad statement. It's not just one time. It's not just one failing. Gargad is merciful.

Merciful. Slow to wrath. Abounding in loving kindness. This is for three and for four. This means this is just an ongoing thing.

Three and four add to seven, the number of perfection. They've broken all the laws of God. Their transgressions are pervasive, extensive. They've completely broken The law of God. It's a lot of things.

But it's all summed up in this one statement. They despised. They despised the law of God. Now when that word is used of a person it means that God has passed them over for somebody else. When it's used of the law, it means to disregard it, to not obey it, to be mocking it or just ignoring it.

Samuel said to Saul, when Saul asked him to come back and sacrifice with him after Saul had disobeyed God's law and not killed the Amalekite king Agag? Samuel said, I'm not going to return with you, for you have rejected The word of the Lord. You have despised the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. And the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go to this Bethlehemite that I will tell you of and I will anoint Him.

You will anoint Him. And don't look at His appearance or at His physical stature, the Lord said to Samuel about Saul, because I've refused him. That's the same word that Israel, that's used here to describe Israel and their rejection of the law of God. Isaiah 30 says, Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel, because you have despised this word, His word, and trust in oppression and perversity and rely on them. He said, in that day every man will throw away his idols of gold and silver.

I'm going to throw them away, I'm going to reject them. That's what Israel, Judah has done to the law of God. They've just thrown it away. They've just disregarded it. They've just said It's not something we really have to worry about.

It's not something that concerns us. Their sin here is contempt for the Word of God. It's really the sin of apostasy to reject the Word of God, to show contempt and despise the Word of God is a very grievous matter. You cannot despise the Word of God without insulting His Majesty. This is a personal assault, affront to God.

Amos here isn't condemning Judah. And remember, Amos is speaking to the northern Israel. He's speaking this of his own country, of his own church, if you will. His own people. He hasn't even gotten to Israel yet.

And we talked in previous weeks of why he did this. You see, this is a very grievous matter. He's not saying that they were negligent and they weren't careful to obey the Word of God. But he's saying they knowingly, they willfully departed from the commandments of God and devised their own way of worshiping God, their own way of living. Stephen described them this way at his stoning.

He said, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Stephen's saying to the Jews in front of Him that you are stiff-necked and hard-hearted and you are rejecting, despising, resisting the Holy Spirit. Just like your fathers did. Just like these people that Amos is talking to.

They resisted, willfully, stubbornly resisted the Holy Spirit. And they worshiped idols. After God had delivered them in such a marvelous way, and time and time again showed His grace to them and blessed them and delivered them from their enemies. Under David and under even the judges, they were time and time again delivered from their oppressors. Under David, they had great deliverances, such that all the nations around them didn't even dare to make war against them.

Jeremiah wrote in Kings, Yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all of His prophets, every seer, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments and my statutes according to the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. Nevertheless, they didn't hear. They wouldn't hear. They stiffened their necks like the necks of their fathers who did not believe the Lord God. And they rejected his statutes, and they rejected his covenant which he made with their fathers, and his testimonies with which he testified against them.

They followed idols, they became idolaters, and they went after the nations, king says, the nations who were all around them. That's 2 Kings 17. They went after the nations who were all around them concerning whom the Lord had charged them. Specifically, do not follow the nations that are around you. And so they left all the commandments of the Lord their God.

They made for themselves a molded image, a carved image, and that's what the second commandment says, you shall not make unto yourselves any carved image, any graven image. That's what that is, a carved image. They made for themselves a carved image and two calves and a wooden image and they worshiped them and all the hosts of heaven and they served Baal. And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through fire and they practiced witchcraft and soothed saying and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the lord and to provoke him to anger. Therefore the lord was very angry with Israel and he removed them from his sight and there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone And also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord, but walked in the statutes of Israel, which they had made.

That was God's indictment on Judah. And our history is so very similar to theirs in so many ways. It's so very easy for us to read about these people who made their sons pass through fire and who worshiped Baal and to just think, well, we don't do that. We don't do that. And these dire judgments that God promised would come to them, we tend to think, well, that was for them.

And we don't think. Those are for us. This word of God to His people in the Old Testament is His word of God to us today. Our history is so very similar. God delivered an oppressed people from England, from Holland, from Germany.

And He brought them to a land that was filled with what? Canaanites, pagans, who had no knowledge of God. They were brilliant in many ways, but they were utterly wicked. With the exact same sins, the exact same transgressions that the Canaanites practiced, the people in this nation practiced. And God displaced them from the land.

God utterly cut them off, and He gave the land to a people that were serving Him. By His grace. By His grace. Most of the people that came over at that time, They saw these original inhabitants of this land as in need of the Gospel. And they sent missionaries to the Indians to bring the Word of God to them.

And there were Indians that were saved, that heard the Gospel. But many didn't. These people that came over established Christian governments with biblical laws. And they even put the Scripture references in the text of their civil laws. Have you read some of those laws?

By the founding fathers of our nation? For example, the Massachusetts body of liberties was enacted in 1641, just 20 years after the very first people got to this land from Europe and stayed in permanent settlements. There were earlier attempts that didn't last. But this Massachusetts body of liberties was the law of the land for the better part of two generations here. And what are some of those laws?

What did they enact? Well, I'll read you one of the laws, and I'm not adding these scripture texts. These scripture texts are in the law. Deuteronomy 13, 6 and 10. Deuteronomy 17, 2 and 6.

Exodus 22, 20. Massachusetts Body of Liberties, Section 94, if you want to look it up. Paragraph ninety-four. If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other God but the Lord God he shall be put to death. Because that was what God said.

Leviticus 24, 15, and 16, Massachusetts Body of Liberties, section 94, If any man shall blaspheme the name of God the Father, or Son, or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous, or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse God in the like manner, He shall be put to death. Leviticus 20-13. If any man lies with mankind as he lies with women both of them have committed abomination they both shall surely be put to death. Exodus 21, 16. If any man steals a man or mankind, he shall surely be put to death.

I'm not reading about the laws in Israel under Moses. I'm reading about the laws in America under Americans that were enacted in our country by these people, righteous people who came over from Europe because they were oppressed there. If any man rise up by false witness, wittingly or of purpose, to take away any man's life, he shall be put to death." Yet where are we today? We have despised the law of God. And in despising the law of God, we have assaulted His Majesty.

We have spit in His face After he's been so very gracious to us, to us, we here enjoy the blessings of God. We're not, haven't been living as slaves. In fact, we've lived as a very wealthy nation. Because it's the Lord that gives power to give wealth. We've enjoyed great blessing from the Lord.

We've enjoyed great freedom From war. How many of us have had? Seen armies come in and take over our house. Or seen our homes destroyed by bombs. My great grandmother in Germany had her house occupied.

Thankfully it was occupied by the Americans coming in and not people who destroyed it. But these are all the blessings of God that we as a people have enjoyed. And yet what has been our response? Well, we've said you can't pray to God in our schools. And it's not just that bad things happen or sins are committed.

What constitutes a despising of the law of God is when those actions are part of our laws, when they are the official actions of the leaders of our land, the covenant leaders of our land. Because when those, When the leaders of a nation say something and do something in their official capacity as a leader, they include all of us. When our legislatures enact evil by law, They are speaking for us. And our Supreme Court said that you can't compose a prayer and say it in school, even if it's denominationally neutral. And even if you allow people that don't want to hear it to leave, you can't do it in our schools.

You can't read the Bible in our schools. In 1963, The Supreme Court added to their ban on prayer a ban on reading the Bible. At that time, 13 states had a law that said you had to read the Bible and open with prayer or open with the recitation of the Lord's Prayer every morning. And the Supreme Court said you can't do that. If that isn't despising the Law of God.

If that isn't a personal assault and affront to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, what is? In 1953, our law in Texas was changed to redefine a human as someone that is born and is alive. Who does that exclude? It excludes, of course, all the people that are not yet born and are alive. That was very deliberate.

That wasn't an accident. That wasn't a careless omission. It would have been bad enough if that was. This was a deliberate act to say you can do whatever you want to people that aren't born, who are still made in the image of God, who are still living souls. They just said we don't care about what God said.

We don't care that they're made in God's image. They're inconvenient to us. They can be killed. Or what about these vaccine mandates so recently? Laws that require medical treatment that is known to be harmful.

It really doesn't matter how many people are harmed. Or how many people are helped. If even one person is killed by a treatment, that's murder. Or with respect to the seventh commandment. As of 1960, all states had laws against homosexual fornication.

In 1961, the American Law Institute Model Penal Code. Now, you have to understand something about how laws get passed in our nation. There are these think tanks, and in this case, American Law Institute. And these organizations write the laws. And then they go find a legislator to introduce that law.

There's something called the Uniform Commercial Code, and if it's part of the Uniform Commercial Code, many states will just pass it en masse. And that's, they've already, I've just found out they've already passed laws about digital currencies under that UCC, Uniform Commercial Code, even here in Texas. But in 1960, every state had laws against homosexual fornication. The Model Penal Code came out and advocated the repeal of all these laws where there was consensual behavior. And that Model Penal Code was specifically based on Kinsey's criminal research that was published as respectable academic research.

In his research, and you can go get his books, and you can look in there at criminal behavior that's still criminal today, even despite the onslaught of these model penal codes. The things that he reported on, the things that he described, constituted people engaging in criminal behavior. And yet this was passed, or this was regarded as a standard. And so the model penal code recommended the repeal of all laws dealing with consensual behavior. And in 2003, the U.S.

Supreme Court said that Texas law prohibiting homosexual fornication was not a valid law. Never mind the fact that they have no authority to do that. It's what they said. They utterly despised the law of God. They said people have a right to engage in whatever consensual activity they desire.

That's a specific denial of God's ownership of us. His right as our Creator to govern our lives. This is actually what the wicked say. Psalm 12 says, may the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things who have said with our tongues we will prevail. Our lips are our own, whose Lord over us.

The Bible says the Wicked talk like that. Our bodies are our own. Who's Lord over us? We can do whatever we want as long as the two that are engaging in it are consenting to it. God says that's wickedness.

Just speak like that. God owns us. He's provided for us. He's made us. He's cared for us.

He's given us every breath that we have. The life that we have, He's given it to us. The food that we eat, He's given it to us. He owns us because He made us. And it's to utterly despise His law to say our bodies are our own and if everybody's in agreement, we can do whatever we want.

See, the God of a culture is that being that the culture acknowledges as the source of life and the lawgiver. That's the God of the culture. Whoever is acknowledged as a source of life and the source of law. Who do we acknowledge as the source of life? Officially today.

We acknowledge Officially that life came from matter. So what God is created has become what is acknowledged as as a source of life. And the creature has been exchanged for the creator. And the creature has been worshiped and served more than the creator, as Paul describes it in Romans 1. Just look, go into any national park, go into any museum.

And that's what you will read. Who has the right to tell us what we what is to define justice, to tell us what we can and can't do? That's That's who you acknowledge as a lawgiver. So the court, The second reason this Supreme Court found the Texas law was valid is that they say, well, these laws that exist, they're not enforced. And that they were really laws that dealt broadly with non-procreative sexual activity.

But they're not really enforced and they really weren't about homosexual fornication. They were just a broad category of non-procreative sexual activity that they were banning and everybody knows you can't ban that stuff. It's essentially what they were saying. The third reason was that the U.S. Had been criticized by other nations for these laws and that most other western nations had rejected these laws.

And so we really ought to do that too. Doesn't that sound just like Israel saying we want to be like all the other nations? We want to be just like them. We want to do what they do. We want to have laws like their laws.

We want to have a king like their king. And God said, they despised. They despised the Word of God. Or take the Ninth Commandment. On October 7, 2016, in a case, Presley Hardwick versus Marshaev Rekin argued before the Ninth Circuit Court, that's the liberal court out, regarded as the liberal court out in the West.

CPS lawyer argued that CPS certainly has a right, it is free to lie if they are needing to remove parents or remove children from the parents. That The CPS can lie. They can cover up evidence. They can change evidence if they are needing to remove children from their home. That's what the lawyer argued in court.

You can listen to it. These proceedings are recorded. And that's what our government has officially believed for years, that they have a right to lie. There's a document signed by the highest levels in the Defense Department. It's in the National Archives from the early 60s.

And it basically says, one thing we could do to get into a war is to kill a few people and blame it on somebody else. It's right there. Our own officials, our own leaders are saying it's okay to kill a few people, innocent people, and then lie about it if that's what we need to do to get where we need to go. If that's what we need to do to get the American people to support a war, because that we need. This is to despise the law of God.

This is to despise the one who He made us and loved us. What do we learn from God's indictment about Judah and as we see ourselves despising the law of God. Well, what we think of God's Word is demonstrated more by how we act than what we say about God's Word. Their lies lead them astray. Their lies lead them astray.

If we say that we believe God's Word and we're for truth and we're for justice, but we are careless or loose in how we observe God's Word, then we're lying. 1 John 1 says, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and we do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say one thing and don't walk that way, then we're liars.

Our actions are the real measure of our loving the Lord. James 1 says, but be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving ourselves. If we say one thing but do another, the Bible says we're deceiving ourselves. We're lying to ourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror.

He observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he is. James 1 also goes on to say, if any among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but what? Deceives his own heart. This one's religion is useless. What we think of God's Word and whether we are despisers of it is demonstrated more by how we act than by what we say about God's Word.

The second thing we learn is that the visible church can fall into as many serious sins as outside the church. What Amos was condemning here was God's church, the visible church in his day, Judah. They had despised the law of God. When we are not diligent in the means of grace, the Scriptures, the sacraments, which are a part of the corporate worship of God and prayer, then we run into this same danger of falling into sins that are as grievous and heinous as those outside the church, as we have done in our land today. That's why Peter's word in 2 Peter 1 is so important for us.

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith, it's add to your faith virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness and a brotherly kindness love. For if you do these things, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the kingdom. But he doesn't do these things is short sighted, even the blindness and is forgotten that he has been cleansed from his first sins. See, there has to be a pressing on adding to our faith virtue. What's virtue?

Doing what is good, recognizing what is better than something else, to virtue, knowledge, to knowledge, self-control. We can know what to do, we can profess to do it, but self-control is the grace that enables us to do what we know we need to do. So therefore Peter's word is therefore, brethren, be diligent, be even more diligent to give heed To make your call and election sure. For if you do these things, there's the amazing promise you will never stumble. God is able, as Jude said, to keep us from stumbling.

But we need to be diligent. Or we as the visible church can fall into the sins that are as heinous as those outside. Lies, Amos said, led them astray. Lies can be false doctrine. They can believe the wrong thing.

But lies can also be pretexts and excuses that we make why we can't do what we ought to do, what we know we ought to do. But pretexts and excuses, why we can't obey, or why we can't do what we ought to do, are really just lies. And those lies serve to harden us in our wrong ways. The more we excuse ourselves, the more we justify ourselves to ourselves, the more we harden ourselves in the wrong ways and in our sins. But notice that it is lies which their fathers followed.

Their lies have led them astray. Lies which their fathers followed. You see, we're responsible for our sins regardless of the bad example that we may have gotten from our parents. Regardless of what lies they may have taught us. Regardless of how we grew up and what we were led to do by people that should have known better.

What we were led to do when we didn't know any better. We are responsible for what we do. Somebody might say, well, I got my temper from my father. Or I'm Italian, that's why I have this temper. Well, maybe.

But now it's your temper, isn't it? To deal with. See, we can't blindly follow the church, or people, or even me, or your elders. And think that's all you need. We, as individuals, are responsible to know and to follow the truth.

And fifth thing, we can see that judgment begins with the house of God. See, reward and punishment are according to works and the light that has been given to us. And to whom much is given, much is expected. Jesus said, And that servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know yet committed things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with few.

For everyone to whom much is given from Him, much will be required. And to whom much has been committed of Him, they will ask more." So if God is punishing those outside the church for their sins, as we saw in all the previous nations that were indicted, how much more is His own church not liable, which has much greater light? And this is why judgment does begin with the house of God. But the grace of Amos' message is that God preserves a remnant. That God will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob.

Amos 9 verse 8. We'll get there. God will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob. Jeremiah had these words to say, Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, The priests that did not say, Where is the Lord? And those who handle the law did not know me.

The rulers transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied, bail, and walked after things that do not profit. How can You say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after the bales. See your way in the valley, know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary breaking loose in her ways.

But return, he said, O backsliding is children, says the Lord, for I am married to you. I will take you, one from the city, two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. And I will give you shepherds according to my heart who will feed you with knowledge and with understanding. Return you backsliding children and I will heal your backslidings." That's God's promise. That's His grace.

Indeed we come to you for you are the Lord, our God. He is Ready to pardon. John Calvin commented how. Adultery in marriage can very often. Be the end of that marriage.

You know this is what we have done to the Lord. We've Lord has said we've committed fornication and yet the Lord is willing to say and does say I'll take you back I'll take you back repent and I'll heal your backsliding we can praise God for for his grace he is gracious and He doesn't retain His anger forever because He delights in mercy. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You do delight in mercy, that You abound in loving-kindness and tender mercies, and that they are from of old. We ask, Lord, that you would not remember the sins of our youth or our transgressions, but that you would remember us for your goodness' sake, and that you would teach us your ways. You have said that it is the humble that you teach your ways, and the humble that you guide injustice.

Father, we humble ourselves this morning and on behalf of our land and ask that you would heal, that you would restore the joy of Your salvation and heal the bones that You have broken. And we give to You, Lord, the praise and the glory and the honor as our King, as our lawgiver, as our savior. In Jesus name, amen.