A Godly Giver
Sermon Transcript
Blessing for God's people. Restoration for their brokenness. All this and more was prophetically foretold to come through The Promised King. Join Dr. Marty Baker as he takes us through Amos 9:11-15 and helps us see more clearly the Messiah born on Christmas day.
God speaks in profound, sometimes jaw-dropping ways if you are listening and evaluating the evidence of whether He has spoken or not. Take, for instance, what happened in a phone call I made one evening in 1984.
My mother’s mother, my grandma Islare, was very close to me. Not only did we live on the same street I grew up on, so it was easy to see her when my grandfather died of brain cancer at 56, she put her arm around me after the funeral and said, “Marty, now you are going to be my little man.” At twelve years of age, I did become her little man. Until I left for college, I cut her yard, trimmed her bushes, edged the perimeter, and cared for whatever needs she had at her small, modest home. To say the least, I loved her and showed my love for her by being there as needs arose.
Fast forward from 1969 to 1984.
Disease took its toll on her aging body, and she rested comfortably in a coma state at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, California. She had not spoken to anyone for days, so her children sat quietly by her side, waiting for the inevitable.
At the time, my intense studies and lack of financial resources kept me from traveling to say goodbye to my beloved grandmother. So, I made calls occasionally to see how she was doing. When she became non-communicative, it broke my heart I’d never hear her voice again. That didn’t stop me from calling anyway.
One Thanksgiving evening, I felt compelled to call her room to speak to my mother or Aunt Roberta for an update on Grandma. After a few rings, someone slowly picked up the phone, and then I heard my Grandma Islare’s voice, “Hello?”
“Grandma, hi, it’s Marty. Wow, I didn’t expect to get you.” At the precise moment I called, my Aunt Roberta had just stepped out of the room, and when the phone rang, my grandmother said she woke up to receive the phone call. It proved to be not only the last time I spoke with her but one of the more extraordinary gifts God has given me.
When I asked her how she was doing, she replied, “Honey, with this illness, I’ve been taken through the valley of the shadow of death, and I’m tired and ready just to go home.” She did head home that night when the angels came for her, and a grandson, now a husband and a father, received the gift of one final conservation to say all he needed to say and hear what he needed to hear.
Friend, don’t tell me God doesn’t speak. There are moments in your life when He providentially sets things in motion with such precision that you know that He is present and has spoken most definitively.
If Christmas is about anything, it’s about God perfectly aligning world events so that His Son was born at the right time in human history. It’s also about God showing how all the precise sixty prophetic dots pointing to the coming Messiah were fulfilled by the baby born that holy evening in a stable in 5 B.C. Arranging a phone call one evening to bless a grandson was easy for the omnipotent and compassionate God. Giving you specific evidence pointing to the messiahship of Jesus is equally simple for God. What will you do with this evidence and this Messiah? The question is: Will you, like the wise men, bow in faith and worship before Him?
One fantastic prophecy concerning the Messiah’s arrival is tucked away in the book of Amos, chapter 9, verses 11 through 15. In this short passage, the prophet isolates not just the person of the Messiah but His activity. From these verses emerges this motif:
The Messianic King Will Bless The World Through Israel (Amos 9:11-15)
The demons are working overtime in our world today to whip up anti-semitism towards the Jews, God’s first chosen people (Deut. 7). I’m sure their thinking runs something like this: “If we can remove the ‘problematic,’ ‘colonists’ Jews from Palestine, and hopefully from the planet, then there will be no land over which the Messiah can reign.” Sadly, anti-semitism this Christmas is being fanned into a raging flame from Ivy League campuses to halls of world politicians.
What anti-semites fail to comprehend, conversely, is God unconditionally promised to bless the entire world through these special people (Gen. 12:1-3). That blessing, of course, was prophetically tied to the coming of the Messiah, as the angel Gabriel revealed to Mary, would be mankind’s Savior (which is denoted by the very meaning of His name, Jesus, which in Hebrew means “to save”) and King of Kings (Luke 1:26-38). As we have studied over the years, in Isaiah 53, God revealed the Messiah would die a sacrificial death to become our Savior from sin, and in 2 Samuel 7, verses 10 through 16, He would also become the King of Kings from the Davidic line.
Writing some 240 years after David received this unconditional promise of a King and a Kingdom through which the world would receive a blessing, the Lord picked a humble, uneducated farmer from Tekoa, a no-nothing village about five miles south of the future birthplace of the Messiah in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:1-2) to be His powerful prophetic voice to the wicked northern empire of Israel. In God’s Davidic Covenant to David in 2 Samuel 7, He promised/warned He would judge their leaders and people for sin, but their wickedness would not annul His covenant to bring the King of Kings, the Messiah, to earth.
Israel’s thirteenth king, Jeroboam II, stood a long line of godless, arrogant, power-hungry men who eventually led the nation into captivity under the Assyrians in 722 B.C. During Jeroboam’s reign, which was the king Amos addressed, the ten tribes enjoyed military peace through power and abundant wealth and luxury. However, under the surface, as we learn from Amos, religiously, morally, and socially, the leaders embraced evil, leaving the country on the verge of a chaotic collapse.
Enter Amos. In the first two chapters, he warns the nations surrounding Israel of God’s impending judgment for their anti-semitic activities concerning Israel. In chapters three through six, he warns the Israelites that God will discipline them for departing from His Word and ways and loving unrighteousness and lies instead of righteousness and truth. From chapter 7, verse 1, through chapter 9, verse 15, the prophet gives Israel five visions explaining how and why the Lord will discipline them. Sin always . . . and eventually . . . meets with the judgment of a holy God.
The highly negative book (and rightly so) builds shockingly to a positive climax in chapter 9, verses 11 through 15. Yes, in wrath, God always remembers mercy. Within these jaw-dropping, comforting verses, God promises that He is still working to fulfill His promise to bring the messianic Davidic king to His rightful throne, and when He does this, the world will, in turn, be blessed beyond measure. Note to self: sin never derails, distorts, or destroys the providential kingdom and redemptive plan and purposes of the living God.
God develops this precise prophetic message in three movements within these five verses. Watch how He does this, and then learn how this applies to us in our dark day and age, where Israel has become the object of world hatred. Our day is not much different from the brave prophet Amos's times.
The Messiah Gives Us The King (Amos 9:11)
When it appeared Israel’s enemies, coupled with the wrath of God brought against them for their stubborn, selfish sins, might cost them everything God had promised through the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Palestinian, and Davidic Covenants, God placed a phone call to wake them up to reality:
11 In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David, and wall up its breaches; I will also raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old . . . (Amos 9).
Amos 9:11
בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֔וּא אָקִ֛ים אֶת־סֻכַּ֥ת דָּוִ֖יד הַנֹּפֶ֑לֶת וְגָדַרְתִּ֣י אֶת־פִּרְצֵיהֶ֗ן וַהֲרִֽסֹתָיו֙ אָקִ֔ים
וּבְנִיתִ֖יהָ כִּימֵ֥י עוֹלָֽם
“In that day” is an instructive term in Hebrew. It is first used in the Old Testament in Genesis 15, verse 18. Here God unconditionally promised Abraham to eventually give His people, the Jews, a kingdom stretching from the Nile River on the East to the Euphrates River on the West:
Genesis 15:18
On that day, the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:
Genesis 15:18
בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֗וּא כָּרַ֧ת יְהוָ֛ה אֶת־אַבְרָ֖ם בְּרִ֣ית לֵאמֹ֑ר לְזַרְעֲךָ֗ נָתַ֙תִּי֙ אֶת־הָאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את
מִנְּהַ֣ר מִצְרַ֔יִם עַד־הַנָּהָ֥ר הַגָּדֹ֖ל נְהַר־פְּרָֽת
As we learned in 2 Samuel 7, these land parameters represent the political center for the messianic Davidic king prophesied to come. Never before has Israel enjoyed rule over this vast portion of the Middle East, and they certainly haven’t known it forever, as prophesied and promised by God.
Amos gave Israel more information about the coming Davidic Messiah in verse 11. By saying, “in that [eschatological] day” God will restore the Davidic empire, Amos used a phrase other prophets used to limit this day to the Lord’s coming in final worldwide judgment. After Isaiah described how the Messiah would rule and reign from Jerusalem when He returned (Isa. 2:1-4), he turned and warned of the time of cosmic judgment from God against sin and sinners (Isa. 2:5-22). Throughout this warning, Isaiah used the phrase “in that day” (Isa. 2:11, 17, 20) to identify it as the day of the Lord.
WTT Isaiah 2:11 עֵינֵ֞י גַּבְה֤וּת אָדָם֙ שָׁפֵ֔ל וְשַׁ֖ח ר֣וּם אֲנָשִׁ֑ים וְנִשְׂגַּ֧ב יְהוָ֛ה לְבַדּ֖וֹ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַהֽוּא׃
WTT Isaiah 2:17 וְשַׁח֙ גַּבְה֣וּת הָאָדָ֔ם וְשָׁפֵ֖ל ר֣וּם אֲנָשִׁ֑ים וְנִשְׂגַּ֧ב יְהוָ֛ה לְבַדּ֖וֹ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַהֽוּ
Isaiah 2:20 בַּיּ֤וֹם הַהוּא֙ יַשְׁלִ֣יךְ הָאָדָ֔ם אֵ֚ת אֱלִילֵ֣י כַסְפּ֔וֹ וְאֵ֖ת אֱלִילֵ֣י זְהָב֑וֹ אֲשֶׁ֤ר עָֽשׂוּ־לוֹ֙ לְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֹ֔ת לַחְפֹּ֥ר פֵּר֖וֹת וְלָעֲטַלֵּפִֽים׃
Interestingly, John quoted from this section (Isa. 2:19-20) in Revelation 6, verses 15 through 17. By so doing, John helps us understand the time Isaiah and Amos prophesied about concerned the Tribulation and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (Rev. 19). Hence, after the Tribulation, Amos prophesied that God would rebuild the tattered and battered and seemingly insignificant Davidic dynasty [viz., hut]. According to God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7, David’s eternal dynasty, headed by the Messiah, would be a mighty “house,” not a hut.
When Jesus, the Davidic son, was born, He came to secure our salvation through His death, but before He accomplished this, He offered Himself as the Davidic King. As stated, the angel Gabriel identified Him as the Savior and the Davidic King, going so far as to say He would reign on David’s throne over Jacob, viz., Israel, forever (Luke 1:30-32). The Magi traveled from the East to worship at the feet of the Davidic King of the Jews (Matt. 2:1-2). Obviously, they had learned of His coming through the prophetic ministry of Daniel, who had resided and taught in the East. As prophesied, John the Baptist heralded the coming of the messianic Davidic King:
1 Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 3 For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight!'" (Matt. 3).
And Jesus also notified the Jewish people the King had arrived; hence, the kingdom was, indeed, imminent:
17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4).
Further, Jesus instructed the disciples to notify the Jews specifically that the Davidic kingdom was near because the prophesied King had arrived:
5 These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them, saying, "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; 6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 "And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand' (Matt. 10).
Sadly, the people rejected the King (Matt. 12 23:37), but the King’s work had only begun. He went to the cross to die sacrificially and lovingly for man’s sin, and He arose from the grave on the third day so He could be not only man’s Savior, but also the eternal King prophesied in the Old Testament.
We now await the ominous and glorious Davidic King’s arrival (Matt. 25; Rev. 19), or should I say return at the end of the Tribulation. When He arrives, He will judge the wicked and instantly start repairing the Davidic hut of a dynasty so it can become a mighty dynastic house that will stretch into eternity. The question this Christmas is simple: Will you embrace the King and Savior by faith so you can instantly be part of His family and Kingdom, or will you push Him away? He awaits your decision, and the prophetic clock winds down.
Second,
The Messiah Gives Israel The Land (Amos 9:11-12)
Who gets the land? Israel. Not Hamas. Not Hezbollah. Not Syria. Not Turkey. Not Iran. The land parameters for the Davidic empire’s headquarters belong solely to Israel.
11 "In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David, and wall up its breaches; I will also raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; 12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by My name," Declares the LORD who does this (Amos 9).
God’s purpose in rebuilding the Davidic dynasty under the leadership of the messianic Davidic King, Jesus, is so that Israel finally enjoys their divine inheritance. The Hebrew for “possess” here comes from the word yarasch (יָרַשׁ ), which means “inheritance.” What is Israel's divinely appointed inheritance? The messianic Davidic King, for one. For another, the land parameters revealed by God to Abraham some 1,500 years before the prophecy of Amos. Interestingly enough, this same word is used in that passage of promise in Genesis 15:
Genesis 15:7
And He said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it."
Genesis 15:7
וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אֵלָ֑יו אֲנִ֣י יְהוָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֤ר הוֹצֵאתִ֙יךָ֙ מֵא֣וּר כַּשְׂדִּ֔ים לָ֧תֶת לְךָ֛ אֶת־הָאָ֥רֶץ הַזֹּ֖את
לְרִשְׁתָּֽהּ
As stated a few moments ago, the actual parameters of this land inheritance are given in Genesis 15, verse 18. Amos merely tapped into what God had promised His people, Israel, under the Abrahamic, Palestinian, and Davidic Covenants; however, he fine-tuned it by speaking about Edom, Israel's ancient and ruthless enemy (Obadiah 12). Since they were located southeast of Israel, God promised Israel through Amos that their southern border in the kingdom would extend even to this region, which is currently part of the Jordanian kingdom. Talk about an expansive empire! God went even further and used Edom as a representative of all nations who opposed or will oppose Israel. Ostensibly, this means that King Jesus’s empire will be worldwide when He returns. Will you be part of it because you embraced, by faith, the Savior and King? Or will you be barred from it because you rejected the Savior and King?
Today, as prophesied, the nations are aligning themselves against Israel to drive them from the Land of Promise (Joel 2-3). They will not succeed for the King they crucified was the God-man as prophesied (Isa. 7:14; Mic. 5:1-2). By His mighty power, He rose from the grave on the third day, and He is now preparing to judge sinners for daring to attempt to destroy His people and claim their land, which is theirs by divine inheritance. According to Revelation 19, saints will enjoy the Davidic Kingdom when the Davidic King, Jesus, returns. Yes, we will join Israel in the joy and wonder of their inheritance. Again, I ask you: Jesus was born to become the Savior and the Davidic King over a spiritual and an earthly empire. Are you part of both kingdoms by placing your faith in the only One who can save and make you a kingdom member? Here is how Peter puts it:
10 let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead-- by this name this man stands here before you in good health. 11 "He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the very corner stone. 12 "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4).
Sure, the way into the spiritual and the earthly kingdom is narrow, but now that you know the way, you have a choice. And I would counsel you not to delay, for the King is coming again . . . and it looks like real soon from what I see in the world’s opposition to Israel.
The following two verses showcase A third blessing that comes to the world through King Jesus and His people, Israel. Here, we encounter this tremendous prophetic promise:
The Messiah Gives Israel Bounty (Amos 9:13-14)
To be sure, a faith relationship showers God’s bounty on you at the moment you profess Jesus as your Savior. He makes you His son or daughter forever. He declares you innocent of all charges in His courtroom (Rom. 5:1ff). He reconciles the broken relationship between you and the Trinity (2 Cor. 5:18-20). He gives you His Holy Spirit as your promise of future salvation (Eph. 1:13-14). That same Spirit gives you the ability to choose righteous life fruit over that which is godless (Gal. 5). He gives you personal access into His throne room whenever you like (Heb. 4:16). These are just some of the spiritual blessings Jesus, the Savior/King pours on His children. It is just how He rolls.
But there is so much more, as we learn from Amos.
13 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "When the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; When the mountains will drip sweet wine, and all the hills will be dissolved. 14 "Also I will restore the captivity of My people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them, They will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, and make gardens and eat their fruit (Amos 9).
Believing Israel plus saints from all time (Isaiah 56:6-8) are promised to live in an earthly Davidic empire wherein the curse is lifted, and the earth functions as it did in the Garden of Eden. What will it be like? Can you imagine plowing a field and planting seed, only to have the reaper and his team coming up immediately behind you to reap the bounty? It takes wheat 7 to 8 months to reach maturity. That’s now. But then, in the kingdom, we are talking about minutes or hours. You sow, and you reap almost instantly. Talk about prolific, eye-popping growth (Lev. 26:5)!
And grapes? No sooner do you prune the vines in the winter than you have ripe grapes ready for harvest. That’s why Amos says, “the mountains will drip sweet wine.” What does this mean? It means there will be so many excellent ripe grapes of different varieties that wine will flow like rivers down the sides of the mountains of the earth. I’m not a wine drinker, but you will enjoy this facet of the kingdom if you are. All the common types of wine you enjoy now will be available in superabundance to celebrate the arrival of the Davidic King, Jesus, and His long-awaited kingdom.
When the Messiah gives Israel and all of His saints all of this bounty, He will also place Israel in their land to enjoy it. The Antichrist, as we know, will attempt one final time to erase Israel from the planet (Zech. 14; Rev. 12-131); however, He will be the looser for the ultimate Jew, Jesus, the King of Kings will show up and defeat Him. After He casts this false king into the Lake of Eternal Fire (Rev. 19:20), He will return all saved Jews to the Land of Promise, wherein they will be able to build homes and plant crops without the worry they will ever be driven from the land again.
Such is the current situation in the West Bank, which historically used to be Judea and Samaria. Any Jews who build in this region fear reprisals from their neighbors who don’t want them on the land, which had been theirs for hundreds of years prior to modern history.[1] When the King arrives, this will not be the case, for He will personally give the land to those who are supposed to inherit it: the Jews. The permanence of this land ownership is expressed in the closing verse:
15 "I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land which I have given them," Says the LORD your God (Amos 9).
Will this all happen? You bet. Why will it happen? Because it is based on the “I will” of the Messiah, King Jesus. No longer will Hamas or Hezbollah attempt to drive them from the land. No longer will Iran threaten to obliterate the nation. No longer will foreign troops overrun the land as they did in days of old when the Egyptians fought the Babylonians. No, Israel will enjoy their inheritance because the divine Davidic King, Jesus, the Christ, will give it to them. Imagine what it will be like to live when peace reigns on the planet as never before. Again, I must ask you a personal question: Will you be there to experience the bounty of the King of Kings?
And how do you know Jesus is the King of Kings? The evidence from the precise prophecies from the Old Testament verifies His identity if you are willing to listen and learn. Read and study them, and you will quickly discover God does speak, and He is speaking to you. Yes, perhaps He’s making a phone call to you right now? Go ahead. Pick up the receiver and consider what He has to say about the identity of His only Son, Jesus.
[1] Mitchell G. Bard, “Facts About Jewish Settlements in the West Bank,” Jewish virtual Library, accessed, December 7, 2023: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/facts-about-jewish-settlements-in-the-west-bank.
