In chapters 7-8 God gave Amos 4 visions. "This is what the Lord GOD showed me." God showed Amos two visions of the final judgment, and said, this shall not be. It is not time yet for that. Then he Amos two visions of the judgment of Israel. The vision of the plumb line, and the vision of the summer fruit. God tells Amos that judgment is at hand. Israel is out of plumb. They are crooked and have deviated from God's law. And Israel is like a basket of summer fruit-ripe for the harvest of destruction. Now Amos sees the final vision. But this time, he sees the Lord himself.

Amos sees the Lord standing beside the altar (or perhaps, "on the altar"). God has come to earth to visit his people in judgment. In the first four visions, there was a dialogue between the Lord and Amos. But here, Amos is silent. God declares the coming judgment upon Israel, and, after eight and a half chapters of judgment, declares that there will be grace in the end. Only now does Amos reveal that the judgment of Israel will be the restoration of Israel. And here we see most clearly how Amos points us to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The first four verses make it clear that God's judgment is inescapable. God will judge the temple of Bethel, and when he judges the temple, he will judge the people. The capitals were the pillars of the temple- which will come down on the heads of the worshipers. And God declares that those who survive the destruction of the Israelite temple will be killed with the sword; "not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape." You cannot escape the judgment of God. There is no place that you can run, no place to hide.

And God gives five examples: 1) If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them. No matter how deep you dig, you cannot hide from God. You cannot even hide in the grave. 2) Likewise if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. You can fly to the moon in a spaceship, but you cannot get away from God. 3) If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them. 4) And if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. Neither the mountains nor the seas provide any place of refuge. 5) Even if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.

When God brings judgment upon Israel, there will be no place to hide. Even exile will not be a place of refuge. Israel must learn the penalty for apostasy. Those who claim to believe in the Lord GOD, but refuse to love him or love their neighbor, will be destroyed.

Having warned Israel of the coming judgment, The Lord GOD of hosts reminds them who he is. He is the God who does what he pleases. He touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn, and all of it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt. The Nile River would flood every year, which was the basis for the Egyptian economy. The Nile basin was a rich and fertile land because of the annual floods. And in the same way that the Nile controlled the economy of Egypt, God controls the entire earth. It is he who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth. The ancient world believed that the heavens were spread out like a tent, or dome, upon the earth. Amos uses the same imagery, the language of ordinary experience, to speak of the vault of the heavens "founded" upon the earth. Unlike the pagan gods, each of whom ruled a different part of creation, The Lord GOD of hosts rules both the earth and the heavens. But not only does God rule the earth and the heavens, he also rules the seas. It is he who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth. Yahweh is his name. There is no place to hide from God, because he is the ruler of every part of creation.

But he is not only the ruler of every part of creation, he is also the ruler of every part of humanity. Usually the Old Testament focuses on the unique covenant status of Israel, and Amos frequently does that as well. But in verses 7-10 God explains that he is not only the God of Israel, but he is sovereign over every other nation as well. Speaking to his covenant people, he says, "Are you not like the Cushites to me, O people of Israel?"

What? Israel no better than the Cushites? But God ruthlessly drives his point home: "Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt?" Remember, this is the great Old Testament act of redemption! This is where Israel gained its peculiar covenant status! "And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? What good is you unique covenant status, if you persist in rebellion?! Who cares if you are the covenant people of God? If you reject the Word of the Lord, if you refuse to worship the living God, and treat your neighbor like trash, then you are no better than the Cushites and the Philistines. "Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, declares the LORD" (v8). There is some use in being the covenant people! Because God has made a promise. He never made a promise to the Philistines. Yes, he brought them from Caphtor, and gave them the land of Philistia, but he never established a covenant with them. All nations must acknowledge that the Lord Yahweh is sovereign over the earth, and over all nations. But no nation has any promise regarding future blessings. Only Jacob. "For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, 'disaster shall not overtake or meet us'" (verse 9-10). God promises that the remnant of Israel will be delivered. Those who mock God's judgment will be destroyed, but God will preserve the righteous.

But condemnation is not the final word. Verses 11-15 conclude Amos's prophecy with the hope of restoration. "In that day." The first thing we must note is the connection between judgment and blessing. In the same day that God brings destruction to Israel, God will raise up the booth of David. There are two sections to this promise of blessing: 1) Remember the vision of the plumb line in 7:7-9? God promised to judge Israel according to plumb. Verses 11-12 speak of how the crooked nation will be rebuilt according to God's plumb line. The out of plumb nation once ruined (7:7-9) is rebuilt (9:11-12). Its breaches will be repaired, its ruins raised up and rebuilt. 2) Likewise, recall the vision of the basket of summer fruit? The overripe people (8:1-3) will once again be restored to fruitfulness (9:13-15). The days are coming, declares the LORD, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. Israel will once again be a fruitful garden, and the people of God will prosper-never again to be uprooted.

We must note that the initial fulfillment of these verse was in 722 BC, when Israel fell to the Assyrians. Before this, even the southern kingdom of Judah had fallen into idolatry and apostasy. But in 722 BC, Hezekiah, the greatest king of Judah, was on the throne in Jerusalem. Hezekiah restored the pure worship of Yahweh, and after the fall of the northern kingdom, Hezekiah called for the remnant of the northern kingdom to join with Judah to worship at the temple in Jerusalem, 2 Chr 30:11 says that while most mocked Hezekiah, "some men of Asher, of Manasseh, and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem." The booth of David was restored, at least in part. But Hezekiah did not restore the glory of the northern kingdom. Samaria would remain a mixed people until the coming of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dispensationalists think that since this promise was made to Israel, therefore the fulfillment must be solely for the biological descendants of Jacob. For this reason, they claim that this prophecy is only for biological Israel. Classical dispensationalists still await the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, and expect a day of glory and blessing for the nation of Israel.

But if you were listening carefully to our New Testament lesson, Acts 15 applies this most glorious of Amos's prophecies in a very different way. Because it was only in the coming of Jesus Christ that Amos 9:11-15 was fulfilled.

How was the tent of David restored? At the Council of Jerusalem, the apostle Peter testified to the grace of God, "That by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe." Through the preaching of Peter, the first Gentile converts were saved- apart from circumcision. Likewise, Barnabas and Paul testified to the work of God among the Gentiles (v12). Finally, James sums up the case: (verses 13-19). James is not quoting here, but paraphrasing. But how he uses Amos 9 is quite interesting. James says that Jesus is the fulfillment of Amos 9.

The question before the council was whether the Gentiles needed to be circumcised. Did Gentile Christians have to be circumcised? Did they have to follow the Mosaic law? When James hears of the conversion of the Gentiles, he immediately thinks of Amos 9. Why? Amos was the prophet who had most clearly challenged the uniqueness of Israel. He had repeatedly reminded Israel that those who rebelled against God had no claim to his covenant promises. And here, at the end of his prophecy, he had declared that the house of David would one day possess "the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name." The Septuagint translators seem to have thought that "Edom" was "Adam," an easy mistake, since the Hebrew letters are the same for both. So the Septuagint translated this: "the remnant of mankind." James follows this translation. But either way, the point is the same: The Gentiles will one day be called by the name of the LORD! And what day will that be? Amos had said that the day when the Gentiles would be called by the name of the Lord, would be the day of judgment for Israel. The day that God brought his judgment against Israel, would be the day that God restored the tent of David, and brought the salvation of the Gentiles. James looks back at what had happened to Jesus. Jesus had borne the judgment that was due to Israel. Jesus had endured the exile that we deserved. And "in that day," in the day that Jesus, the true Israel, received the covenant curse, the Gentiles were included in the restored tent of David. This is what God has accomplished in Jesus Christ! God has restored the tent of David. YOU are that tent--that temple--where God now dwells with his people. You--who are Gentiles--are now possessed by the Son of David. He has extended his kingdom over every nation, so that his gospel may go forth unencumbered.

Hear, now, O people of God, what your Savior has done! Behold, the days are coming--and indeed, now they are here!--when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed. The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them, says the LORD your God.

Jesus promised that he has established his church, and that the gates of hell will never prevail against it. His kingdom can never be shaken. Your inheritance is safe, because it is the inheritance of the eternal Son of God! The reason why we come to the table, week by week, is because we must never forget that Christ has given us a place at his table. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a merely intellectual thing. The gospel of the kingdom is addressed to our ears, but also to our lips. In the Lord's Supper we partake of the goodness of his table: the bread and the wine of our harvest, is but a foretaste of the wedding supper of the Lamb, the nourishment of eternal life. Every time we partake of this feast, we proclaim the Lord's death, we partake of his resurrection life, and we remember his promise that he will one day partake of that supper with us, in the kingdom of his Father.

Copyright © 2003 Peter J. Wallace