Like a Roaring Lion – Part 14 Amos 9:5-10 Morning Worship – November 29, 2020 First Baptist Church – Kearney, Missouri Dr. Kenneth J. Parker, Senior Pastor Last week, from 9:1-4, we noted just two things: 1. So, God despises pretense. 2. God cannot be evaded. Detour - God does as he pleases and what he pleases to do, he does quite well (9:5-6). And, at the very least, anytime something of this magnitude happens, as hard as it is to get our minds around, we have to recognize, at the very least, if God didn’t cause it, he allowed it. • These two verses comprise what one writer refers to as a “hymnic doxology of judgment [that] glorifies the majesty of the Lord.” Can the clay ask the sculptor, “Why?” and expect to be answered? God does as he pleases and what he pleases to do, he does quite well. 1) There is a call to repentance for the people of God (9:7-8a). “‘Are you not like the Cushites to me, O people of Israel?’ declares the LORD. ‘Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? Behold, the eyes of the LORD GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground . . .’” • Verse 7 offers two rhetorical questions and • The gist of the text is the idea that the same divine government is operational over the whole earth. • And don’t think for one moment just because we still have “In God We Trust” stamped on our money that our flagrant flaunting of immorality in America is going unnoticed to God. There is a call to repentance for the people of God. 2) There is a cry of judgment from the God of the people (9:9-10). There is a call to repentance for the people of God. There is a cry of judgment from the God of the people. 3) There is confidence for survival through God to his people (9:8b). “‘. . . except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,’ declares the LORD.” So while I still have to live with the negative effects of sinful people and sinful leadership at times in our own nation, provided I strive to live righteously, I will not ultimately be held accountable for their actions. 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” • To the point, no one else is the standard. God is the standard. And rather than seek to make someone or something our true north, we should recognize God and only God as such.