“Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept His statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked. So I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.”
– Amos 2:4–5
So this is a particularly interesting passage in light of the context that precedes it. So from Amos 1:2 all the way into Amos 2:3, you see pronouncements of judgment on different nations beyond the people of God, beyond Judah and Israel, the southern kingdom and northern kingdom among God’s people. So you see this pronouncements of judgment on Moab, and the Ammonites, and Edom, and Tyre, and Gaza, and Damascus.
Amos 2:4–5 Teaches that the Lord’s Judgement Begins with His Own People
You see these judgements on the nations, but then you get to verse four in chapter two, and God says, “For the transgressions of Judah, I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.” And that context is so instructive for us, because if we’re not careful, we can look around us in the world and see all kinds of sin, and evil, and idolatry, and immorality, and we can fail to stop and look at our own hearts, and our own lives, and our own families, and the family of God that’s called the church in the New Testament, for us to see sin, and evil, and idolatry, and immorality among us and to repent of it. If we’re not careful, we can have an open eye, so to speak, to sins around us, but a blind eye to sin in us.
Amos 2:4–5 Eyes to See our Sin first
And so we pray, God, help us to see sin not just around us. Yes God, we want to be sensitive to sin around us, that we are not pulled in by temptation. God, we pray that you would also give us eyes to see sin, and error, and idolatry, and immorality in our own hearts, in our own lives, in our own families, in the church.
Help us to see and realize the depth of our sin and to repent. God make us holy. We think about your word, talking about judgment beginning at the house of God and the house of your people. So God, we pray that you’d help us not to be blind to our sin. God, even as we pray this right now, I’m just compelled to maybe encourage each of us after this podcast is over, just to pause and consider sin in our own hearts, and our own lives, and our own minds, that we may not be seeing.
Begging God to help Us Repent
God, we ask you to open our eyes, help us see. Help us repent and to turn from any and all sin in our own hearts. And we pray for your help in self-examination. Even right now, Jesus, expose the sin in us and lead us to confession and repentance, that we might be free from it and that we might be, we want to be holy as you are holy. God, open our eyes to our sin even right now. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
