The Public Auditing of a Corrupt House Text: Amos 3:9-15
Introduction: Inviting the Pagans to the Courtroom
When a family is falling apart, when the father is a drunkard and the mother is faithless and the children are running wild, the last thing they want is for the neighbors to be invited over to have a look. The curtains are drawn, the doors are locked, and the pretense of normalcy is maintained for as long as possible. But God is not interested in maintaining our respectable pretenses. When His covenant people begin to act like the pagans, He does something startling. He invites the pagans to come and be the jury. He calls the Egyptians and the Philistines, notorious sinners in their own right, to come and sit on the mountains overlooking Samaria and observe the utter moral chaos that has erupted within His chosen nation.
This is a profound humiliation. It is like a father, whose son has disgraced the family name, calling the town scoundrels to come and witness the discipline. God is putting Israel's sin on public display. Why? Because their sin was not done in a corner. They had become a stench in the nostrils of the nations, and so God was going to make their judgment a public spectacle. They had prided themselves on being separate, on being God's chosen, but their syncretistic worship and their gross social injustice had made them indistinguishable from the heathen, except for the fact that they should have known better. And when you have been given the light of God's law and you choose to live in the dark, your darkness is far blacker than that of those who have never seen the light at all.
The prophet Amos is God's prosecuting attorney, and in this passage, he is calling the witnesses to the stand. The charge is covenant infidelity, which has manifested itself in two primary ways: corrupt worship and the oppression of the poor. These two things always go together. When you get your worship wrong, you will inevitably get your ethics wrong. If you bow down to a god you have made with your own hands, you will have no problem trampling on men who are made in the image of God. Amos is here to tell them that their citadels of pride, their winter homes and summer homes, their ivory palaces built on the backs of the poor, are all about to be audited by the righteous judgment of God. And the bankruptcy will be total.
The Text
Make it heard on the citadels in Ashdod and on the citadels in the land of Egypt and say, “Gather yourselves on the mountains of Samaria and see the great confusions within her and the oppressions in her midst. But they do not know how to do what is right,” declares Yahweh, “these who hoard up violence and devastation in their citadels.” Therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, “An adversary, even one surrounding the land, Will pull down your strength from you, And your citadels will be plundered.” Thus says Yahweh, “Just as the shepherd delivers from the lion’s mouth a couple of legs or a piece of an ear, So will the sons of Israel inhabiting Samaria be delivered, With the corner of a bed and the cover of a couch! Hear and testify against the house of Jacob,” Declares Lord Yahweh, the God of hosts. “For on the day that I punish Israel’s transgressions, I will also punish the altars of Bethel; The horns of the altar will be cut in pieces, And they will fall to the ground. I will also strike the winter house together with the summer house; The houses of ivory will also perish, And the great houses will come to an end,” Declares Yahweh.
(Amos 3:9-15 LSB)
Pagan Witnesses to Covenant Corruption (v. 9-10)
We begin with the summons to the foreign nations.
"Make it heard on the citadels in Ashdod and on the citadels in the land of Egypt and say, 'Gather yourselves on the mountains of Samaria and see the great confusions within her and the oppressions in her midst. But they do not know how to do what is right,' declares Yahweh, 'these who hoard up violence and devastation in their citadels.'" (Amos 3:9-10)
God commands Amos to act as a town crier, but his audience is not Israel. He is to shout his message to the fortified palaces of Ashdod, a principal city of the Philistines, and to the palaces of Egypt. These were Israel's old enemies, pagan to the core. God is saying, "You think you've seen wickedness? Come and get an education in Samaria." He invites them to assemble on the mountains surrounding the capital city of the northern kingdom, to look down into it as though it were an arena. And what will they see? "Great confusions" and "oppressions."
The word for "confusions" speaks of tumult, of a society in chaotic uproar. There is no peace, no order, because there is no justice. Where God's law is ignored, society begins to disintegrate. The second thing they will see is "oppressions." The rich and powerful were crushing the poor and the helpless. This was not just an unfortunate social problem; it was a direct violation of the covenant God had made with them. The law of Moses was filled with provisions to protect the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner. But Israel had forgotten her God, and so she had forgotten her poor.
Verse 10 gives God's own diagnosis: "they do not know how to do what is right." This is a stunning indictment. This is not to say they were ignorant of the Ten Commandments. It means they had lost the moral instinct, the spiritual muscle memory, for righteousness. Their consciences were so seared that they could no longer distinguish between right and wrong. They were like a carpenter who has forgotten how to use a hammer. They had become morally incompetent. And what did they do instead of what was right? They hoarded "violence and devastation in their citadels." Their beautiful, fortified homes were not filled with treasures honorably gained; they were warehouses of plunder, filled with the proceeds of extortion and robbery.
The Inescapable Consequence (v. 11-12)
Because of this public sin, God announces a public and devastating judgment.
"Therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, 'An adversary, even one surrounding the land, Will pull down your strength from you, And your citadels will be plundered.' Thus says Yahweh, 'Just as the shepherd delivers from the lion’s mouth a couple of legs or a piece of an ear, So will the sons of Israel inhabiting Samaria be delivered, With the corner of a bed and the cover of a couch!'" (Amos 3:11-12)
The logic is simple and severe. "Therefore." Because you have filled your citadels with violence, your citadels will be plundered. The punishment fits the crime precisely. The very "strength" they trusted in, their fortified cities and their accumulated wealth, will be pulled down. An adversary, the Assyrian empire, is coming. God is summoning them. They are the rod of His anger. He will surround the land, and there will be no escape.
Verse 12 provides one of the most striking and sarcastic images in all of prophecy. Amos uses the illustration of a shepherd. When a lion attacks the flock, the shepherd might be able to fight it off and recover a pathetic, bloody scrap of the sheep, a couple of leg bones or the tip of an ear. This was not a rescue; it was merely evidence for the owner that the sheep was truly dead and not stolen by the shepherd. God says this is what the "deliverance" of Samaria will look like. The remnant will be laughable. It will be the corner of a bed, a scrap of a couch. The luxurious furniture from their ivory houses, the very symbols of their oppressive wealth, will be shattered. All that will be left are pathetic fragments, just enough to prove that a great and prosperous nation was once there before the lion of God's judgment devoured it.
Testifying Against the Root of the Rot (v. 13-14)
God now formally calls for testimony and identifies the core of Israel's problem: their corrupt worship.
"Hear and testify against the house of Jacob,' Declares Lord Yahweh, the God of hosts. 'For on the day that I punish Israel’s transgressions, I will also punish the altars of Bethel; The horns of the altar will be cut in pieces, And they will fall to the ground.'" (Amos 3:13-14)
The command is to "hear and testify." The evidence is clear, and the verdict must be rendered against the "house of Jacob." And notice the title God uses for Himself here: "Lord Yahweh, the God of hosts." This is the commander of the armies of heaven. This is a declaration of war.
And where will the first blow land? Not on the marketplace, not on the courthouse, but on the altars of Bethel. When God comes to punish Israel's sins, He goes straight for the heart of the problem, which is their apostate worship. Bethel was one of the two centers of the corrupt, syncretistic state religion set up by Jeroboam I. He had set up a golden calf there to keep the people from going to Jerusalem to worship, for political reasons. It was a worship system designed by man, for man, to serve the state. It was a direct violation of the first and second commandments. And because their worship was rotten, everything else became rotten. You cannot get justice in the streets if you have idols in the sanctuary.
The "horns of the altar" were the most sacred part. They were where the blood of the sacrifice was applied, and they were a place of refuge. A fugitive could grab hold of the horns of the altar and claim sanctuary. But God says He will cut them off and throw them to the ground. There will be no atonement and no refuge for Israel in their false religion. Their very source of supposed spiritual security will be demolished. When God judges a nation, He begins with the house of God.
The Collapse of Affluent Vanity (v. 15)
The judgment that begins at the false altar will extend to the houses built by the proceeds of false living.
"I will also strike the winter house together with the summer house; The houses of ivory will also perish, And the great houses will come to an end,' Declares Yahweh." (Amos 3:15)
Here we see the extent of the wealth that the elite of Samaria had accumulated. They had winter homes and summer homes, a luxury for different seasons. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of "houses of ivory" from this period, homes with furniture and walls exquisitely inlaid with ivory. This was opulent, conspicuous consumption. And it was all funded by injustice. They were living in luxury while the poor were being sold for a pair of sandals.
God's declaration is simple: it will all come to an end. The winter house and the summer house will be struck. The ivory will perish. The "great houses" will be annihilated. All the things they trusted in, all the things they sinned to acquire, all the status symbols they used to measure their success, will be gone. Wealth is not evil in itself, but wealth acquired by wickedness is a curse. It provides a false sense of security that insulates men from the fear of God. But on the day of judgment, all that gold and ivory will melt. It cannot save.
Conclusion: The Public Auditing of the American House
It is very easy for us to read a passage like this and cluck our tongues at the wickedness of ancient Israel. But the Word of God is a mirror. Amos is not just a prophet to Israel; he is a prophet to any nation in covenant with God that has grown fat, proud, and unjust. And that includes us.
We too have invited the pagans to look in. For generations, America has proclaimed herself a Christian nation, a city on a hill. But what do the nations see when they look at us now? They see great confusions. They see deep and bitter political divisions, racial strife, and a sexual revolution that has descended into utter madness. They see the slaughter of millions of unborn children, a form of oppression that makes the injustices of Samaria look tame.
And what about our citadels? We have hoarded up immense wealth. We have our winter homes and our summer homes, our technological ivory palaces. But how much of it is clean? We are a nation built on debt, a people drowning in materialism, and we have exported our decadence and violence around the world through our entertainment. We, like Israel, have forgotten how to do what is right. We have convinced ourselves that blessing is a birthright, not a covenantal consequence of faithfulness.
And the root is the same. The judgment must begin at the house of God. The American church has, in many quarters, made its peace with the world. We have erected our own altars at Bethel, altars of pragmatism, of seeker-sensitivity, of political correctness, of therapeutic deism. We have trimmed the hard edges off the gospel to make it more palatable to a rebellious culture. We have tolerated sin in the camp and called it love. And as a result, the church has lost its prophetic voice. We cannot speak with authority to the culture about justice because we have not been faithful in our worship.
The message of Amos is a severe mercy. God is warning us that the lion is coming. The adversary is at the gates. The pathetic scraps of our former glory will not be enough. The only hope is to flee, not to the false altars of our own making, but to the one true altar, which is the cross of Jesus Christ. The horns of that altar will never be cut down. There, and only there, can we find forgiveness for our oppression and our idolatry. There, and only there, can we find the grace to tear down our own citadels of pride and begin to build a house founded on the true worship of God and justice for all.