IN our last sermon we contemplated the awful promise of judgement given in vision and by word to Amos. This declaration of judgement goes on to chapter 9 and verse 10. Through the prophet Amos God introduces this declaration with the words 'Hear this' but before God gives the declaration, he describes what he sees in the nation of Israel which has brought about this awful declaration. The verses before us are waiting for the declaration which starts in verse 7 which commences with the words 'The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob', and because of this it is tempting and compelling to quickly pass over verses 4-6 with the thought that we can see the reason for God judging Israel. However, this is both unwise and to miss the revelation which these verses contain. It is not simply missing the sins and evil God sees in Israel, but more particularly what this seeing declares and reveals to us about God himself. It is for this reason I have chosen to spend a sermon on these verses. May God, the Holy Spirit, speak to us clearly and forcefully so that we may learn and know God better, and appreciate his grace in making himself known to us.

SINS BLINDNESS.

It is common for people to say they are not perfect, and in this we pride ourselves in our honesty and openness. Having said this we feel that we have faced reality, and been honest with ourselves and with God. The fact is we reveal, by this, spiritual blindness of a high order.

Human nature fails to appreciate the truth about itself. What we believe is that we are good at heart, and the failure we confess to is not very bad, and that really we are good and worthy of God's approbation. In this we fail to appreciate what God has revealed in the Bible, that even the smallest failure or sin is an abomination to God; and we fail to hear God when he tells us in the epistle of James, that if we commit just one sin, before God this means we have broken the whole law of God and so are eternally guilty before God. When we may feel that our failure has been bad, we still feel that we can put things right by our own effort, and fail to understand or accept the word of God which tells us that nothing we do can wash away the stain of sin in our life.

Even in this honesty of saying we are not perfect, we are totally blind to the truth about the sin we have committed and continue to commit all the time. The truth is we are blind to what is sin in the eye of God, and the sins of our mind and heart, which we feel do not constitute sin at all. When Jesus says that we commit murder when we hate someone, and despise someone, and call someone a fool, we don't believe this.

Then when we do fail in goodness we are so very good at convincing ourselves that what we are doing is not in anyway reprehensible. Even when someone points out some obvious failure in our lives we refuse to accept the justness of the observation, and are so good in convincing ourselves that we are not actually failing in that respect. We are very good at seeing sins in other people, by so blind to sins in ourselves.

The fact was that this exposé given by God through Amos, which we can see clearly as gross, Israel had convinced themselves were hardly sin at all, and constant practise of these offences had deadened their conscience so that they had no conviction of wrong doing whatsoever. Even when their conscience was pricked, they felt that it was alright, because God did not regard them because they had not been hindered in the practice for such a long time. Then they failed to appreciate the revelation that God looked upon their thoughts, and how their minds and hearts were occupied, and could not see that their hearts were filled with greed and love of the world, rather than God. God also reveals the heinousness of the fact that their thought and feelings were occupied in their greed even when they were outwardly worshipping God, and that their hearts were not concerned with God and his ways in reality, even though they engaged in outward worship and practice of the religious duties of their religion. They were also blind to the fact that outward acts of religion had no value before God of themselves, but had to be expressions of the reality of the heart after God.

The fact is this sort of blindness is in our society and in us all, and practised all the time, with no sense of sin or conviction of sin in any way whatsoever. The tragic thing is that we do not understand the truth of the fact that God as almighty, sovereign, all-knowing, and seeing everywhere, notes every detail of life in this world.

GOD SEES ALL.

What these verses before us reveal is the all seeing eye of God. In our lives we soon forget much of the past, and the details of our life fade away. We remember some of our past, but are also very good at remembering what it pleases us to remember, and forgetting the rest.

The fact is that God shows here in this passage that he not only notices every detail of the life of Israel in the time of Amos, but he has been monitoring it all the time. The imagination of the people of Israel that God was not noticing their behaviour because nothing was being done to correct it, was entirely false. God was noticing their behaviour. The blindness of the people is marked by the fact that when God spoke to them by his prophet Amos, and other prophets, they did not seem to believe that it was God speaking, but only the troublesome prophet who was God's spokesman.

What is clear from the verses we are meditating upon is how detailed is the knowledge of God concerning the sins of Israel. We must not run away with the idea that just because God addresses his words to particular blatant sins in Israel, that he does not notice all the other sins in their life and living. The passage implies that God is picking out the blatant evil in the life of the people out of the mass of sin he sees every day in their living.

This fact is well known when we consider the revelation in other parts of the Bible. When Isaiah saw God high and lifted up in the temple, and he was faced with the holiness and purity of God, he saw himself as impure and deserving of God's wrath to be poured out on him, but this sense of sin was concentrated at one point, the point of his unclean lips, that is his speaking, and that of the nation.

In fact what this passage reveals is that God marks every failure in our lives from the cradle to the grave, and all is recorded in utmost detail, and no sin is missed. In Revelation 20: 12 we read of the day of judgement and we are told that the books were opened. This is a vision of this fact that God has recorded every detail of the sins of every person throughout their life. Every sin is recorded. God judges with perfect knowledge of the truth about our life, and his judgement, therefore, is just and true. Human judges can only see very little of the truth, and so judgement is often flawed. Not so with God. Sin can be hidden from a human judge, but not from God.

This terrible and terrifying reality is mitigated only for those who have availed themselves of the Gospel offer in Christ, and had their sins washed away in the blood of the Lamb. This wonder is expressed in Revelation 20: 12 also, for we read 'Another book was opened which is the book of life', and verse 15 tells us that all are judged from the books, but all the names found in the book of life, escaped being thrown into the lake of fire. When a soul truly puts their whole trust in Jesus, their sins are blotted out and their name is transferred to the book of life.

Two more things are revealed in these verses of the all searching eye of God, and this shows how deeply God's eye is upon each one of us. It is easy for us to look at outward actions and accept that they are sinful. When it comes to our thoughts we rarely feel that there is sin committed by our thinking. We fail to realise that outward sin always commences in our mind and in our heart. God saw into the the thinking of the people of Israel. He relates to them what they thought when they were worshipping on the Sabbath and on special holy days. God exposes how they not only planned sin in their thoughts, but also showed by their thoughts their unholy hearts. Their worship was a trial to them. From the moment the Sabbath commenced, they longed for it to come to an end. They had no desire to worship God and found their religion a bore. They observed the Sabbath and Holy days with their bodies, but their hearts were far from God. They caused themselves to believe that the outward action was all that God required. The words God spoke through Amos in these verses show that God counted their outward action in observing the Sabbath valueless because in their minds and hearts was total worldliness and corruption and greed.

God takes account of our thoughts and the inclinations of our heart. Sin is committed in our thinking as well as in our acting. The all seeing eye of God notes the sins of our thinking, and marks them up in the books, and they will be judged in the same way as sins of action or inaction.

The all seeing eye of God further observes the sin of, not only neglecting worship, but also the abuse of worship, and the corruption of worship. God looks for worship to come from the heart and with the mind engaged in God. Any other worship is insulting to God. If we seek him it must be from our hearts, and only then will God be found by us.

This illustrates the truth that sin committed by those who outwardly profess to serve and love God is more heinous than the sins of the godless.

CONCLUSION.

These verses call us all to face reality. Everything is open and clear before God with whom we have to do, and give an account of our lives on the day of judgement. We may get through this life with ease and pleasure, but on the day when we come face to face with God and are called to give an account, there will be nowhere to hide. The parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 make this clear. The awfulness of hell awaits all those who are found worthless on that day.