The Loaded Wagon

“Behold, I am pressed under you” calls us to see the weight of sin upon God’s heart. Today, we reflect on mercy, justice, and the cost of rebellion. Let us examine our lives, repent, and flee to Christ, who lifts the heaviest burdens from our souls.

"Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves."—Amos 2:13. We have been into the cornfields to glean with Boaz and Ruth, and I trust that the timid and faint- hearted have been encouraged to take the handfuls that are purposely left for them by the generous order of our Lord. Today, we go to the gate of the harvest-field with another purpose—to see the wagon piled high with many sheaves, creaking as it moves along and leaving ruts in the field. We come with gratitude to God, thanking him for the harvest, blessing him for favourable weather, and praying that he continues it until the last sheaf of corn is brought in, and the farmers everywhere celebrate the "Harvest Home."

What a picture a wagon loaded with corn gives of you and me, as if we were loaded with God’s mercies! From our cradle until now, each day has added a sheaf of blessing. What more could the Lord do for us than he has already done? He has daily filled our lives with benefits. Let us worship his goodness and offer him our heartfelt gratitude.

Alas! that this same image could carry another meaning. Alas! that while God loads us with mercy, we load him with sin. While he piles favour upon favour, we also pile iniquity upon iniquity, until the weight of our sin becomes intolerable to the Most High, and he cries out because of the burden, saying, "I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves."

Our text begins with a "Behold!" and rightly so. "Behold" is used in Scripture like a sign outside a shop to attract attention. Whenever we see "Behold" in the Bible, it signals something new, important, or worthy of attention.

I see this "Behold!" standing, like a maiden on the steps of the house of wisdom, calling, "Come in, you wise-hearted, and listen to the voice of God." Let us open our eyes to "behold," and may the Spirit guide our hearts through our eyes and ears so that repentance and self-abhorrence may take hold because of our wrongdoings toward our gracious God.

It must be understood before we go further that this text is figurative. God cannot literally be oppressed by humans; all the sin that man commits cannot disturb the serenity of divine perfection or even cause a ripple in his eternal calm. He speaks to us in human terms, bringing the mysteries of heaven down to the limitations of earthly understanding. He talks to us as a loving father might to a small child. Just as a cart creaks and bends under excessive weight, the Lord says that under the load of human guilt, he is pressed down until he cries out, because he can bear no longer the iniquity of those who offend against him.

The first and most obvious truth in the text is that sin is extremely grievous and burdensome to God.

Be astonished, O heavens, and be amazed, O earth, that God should speak of being pressed and weighed down! Nowhere in Scripture do we read that the weight of creation is any burden to the Most High. "He takes up the isles like a very little thing" (Psalm 136:16). Neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, nor all the mighty orbs created by his power cost him any labour to sustain.

The heathen picture Atlas stooping under the globe, but the eternal God, who upholds the pillars of the universe, "faints not, neither is weary" (Isaiah 40:28). Even distant providence does not tire him. He watches both night and day; his power goes forth every moment. He brings forth the constellations in their seasons and guides Arcturus with its sons. He upholds the foundations of the earth and holds its cornerstone. He commands the morning to know its place and sets a limit to darkness and the shadow of death. All things are sustained by his power, and nothing exists without him. Just as a wave carries its foam and the foam disappears, so would the universe vanish if God did not sustain it every day. This continual work has not weakened him, nor is there any hint of weakness. He works all things, and when they are done, they are as nothing in his sight.

Yet strange, most extraordinary, miraculous among miracles—sin burdens God, though the world cannot; iniquity presses the Most High, though the weight of all creation is like a tiny speck in the balance. Ah, careless sons of Adam, you think sin is trivial; and you sons of Belial, you think it sport, saying, "He does not notice, he sees not; how could God know? And if he knows, he does not care for our sins." Learn from God’s Word that the truth is the opposite: your sins grieve him, they are a burden and load to him, until, like a cart overloaded with sheaves, he is weighed down with human guilt.

This becomes clearer if we consider what sin is and what it does. Sin is the great destroyer of all God’s works. Sin turned an archangel into a fallen angel and angels of light into spirits of evil. Sin looked on Eden and withered all its flowers. Before sin entered, the Creator said of the new earth, "It is very good" (Genesis 1:31), but when sin entered, it grieved God at his very heart that he had made humans. Nothing tarnishes beauty like sin, for it spoils God’s image and erases his imprint.

Moreover, sin makes God’s creatures unhappy. Can we imagine God tolerating this? God never intended any of his creatures to be miserable. He made them to be glad; he gave birds their songs, flowers their fragrance, the air its freshness; he gave the day the smiling sun and night its crown of stars, intending joy to be worship and gladness to be the incense of praise. But sin has made God’s favourite creature a wretch, bringing down the offspring of God, made in his image, to nakedness, poverty, and misery. Therefore, God hates sin and is pressed down by it, because it makes the objects of his love unhappy at their core.

Sin attacks God in all his attributes, assails him on his throne, and strikes at his very existence.

What is sin? Is it not an insult to God’s wisdom? O sinner, God commands you to do his will; when you act against it, you are essentially saying, "I know what is good for me, and God does not." You are declaring that infinite wisdom is mistaken and that you, a creature of a day, are the best judge of happiness. Sin challenges God’s goodness by implying he withholds what would make you happy, and this is not the action of a good, loving father. Sin attacks God’s wisdom with one hand and his goodness with the other.

Sin also abuses God’s mercy. When you sin boldly because God has been patient with you, when you indulge in wrongdoing because you face no immediate consequences, you turn the mercy that was meant to guide you to repentance into an excuse for further rebellion. It grieves a loving father to see his mercy turned against himself. Every sin is, in effect, a defiance of divine power. It is like lifting your puny fists against the majesty of heaven and daring God to punish you. Each act of disobedience defies the Lord to see whether he can enforce his law.

Is it a small matter that a tiny creature challenges the Lord of all ages, the God who sustains everything by his word? Well may he be burdened by such provocations! Every attribute you may mention has been affronted by sin; every aspect of God’s character is slurred by it. Sin is evil, and it is continuously evil; in every perspective, it is offensive to the Most High.

Sinner, do you know that every act of disobedience to God’s law is virtually high treason? Each time you swerve from his will, you put your will in his place; you make yourself a god and diminish the Most High. Is this a small offence, to snatch from him his crown and sceptre? Such an act cannot be ignored by heaven; if it were, the moral order would collapse. This treason against God will be punished.

Finally, sin is an attack on God himself; sin is heart atheism. No matter the religious profession, the sinner in their heart says, "There is no God." They wish there were no law and no Supreme Ruler. Is this trivial? To be a Deicide! To desire to remove God from his world! Can this be ignored? Can the Most High hear it and not be pressed down beneath its weight?

I do not exaggerate against sin and disobedience. It is beyond human imagination to fully convey the evil of sin, and no mortal tongue, even if touched by God’s own fire, could speak the enormity of the smallest sin against God. Think, friends: we are his creatures, and yet we will not obey him.

He feeds us, sustains our breath, yet we waste it in murmuring and rebellion.

We are always in the sight of our omniscient God, and yet his presence is not enough to compel obedience. Surely if a man insulted the lawgiver in his presence, that would be intolerable; yet that is exactly our situation. We must confess, "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight" (Psalm 51:4). We offend knowingly. We do not sin like the ignorant or the savage. We in England sin against extraordinary light and understanding; is this a small matter?

Can we expect God to overlook wilful, deliberate offences? Oh, that these lips could speak, that this heart could burn, for if I could declare the horror of sin, even Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar would tremble. It is terrible to rebel against the Most High. May the Lord have mercy on his servants and forgive them.

This is our first point, but God himself must teach it through his Spirit. May the Holy Ghost make you feel that sin is exceedingly sinful, grievous, and burdensome to God.

Secondly, some sins are especially grievous to God. The context of our text helps to show the force of this truth.

There is no such thing as a “little” sin, but still, there are degrees of guilt. It would be wrong to claim that a sinful thought has the same degree of evil as a sinful act. A sinful imagination is indeed wrong—completely sinful and serious—but a sinful action carries a greater degree of provocation.

Some sins particularly provoke God. In the context of our text, we see that licentiousness does this. The Jewish people in the days of Amos appear to have reached a very high level of fornication and lechery. This sin is still common today; our midnight streets and divorce courts bear witness.

I will say no more. Let each person keep their body pure; for lack of chastity is a grievous evil in the sight of the Lord.

Oppression, too, according to the prophet, is another great provocation to God. The prophet speaks of selling the poor for a pair of shoes, and some would crush widows and orphans, making labourers work without pay. Many businesspeople have no “compassion.” They form themselves into societies, then demand excessive interest on loans from the unfortunate who fall into their hands. Clever legal loopholes and evasions of rightful debts often amount to heavy oppression and certainly bring down the anger of the Most High.

Idolatry and blasphemy are also highly offensive to God and extremely heinous. The text says the people “drank the wine of false gods.” Anyone who sets up their appetite, their gold, or their wealth as their god, and lives for these instead of the Most High, commits idolatry. Woe to such a person, and equal woe to those who worship crosses, sacraments, or images.

Blasphemy, especially, is a God-provoking sin. For blasphemy, there is no excuse. As George Herbert said, “Lust and wine plead a pleasure; there is gain to be pleaded for avarice; but the profane swearer lets his soul run for nothing.” There is no benefit in profane speech; cursing brings no pleasure—it offends for the sake of offending, and is therefore a high and crying sin that makes the Lord weary of humanity. Some of you may find these words personally directed. Do I address the lecherous, the oppressive, or the profane? Soul, what mercy God has shown you for so long!

The day will come when he will say, “I will ease myself of my adversaries,” and how easily he could cast you off to a terrible destruction.

While some sins are grievous because of their particular heinousness, many people are especially offensive to God because of the length of their sin. That grey-haired man—how many times has he provoked the Most High? Even young men have reason to consider their years and apply themselves to wisdom because of the time they have spent in rebellion. What can we say of those who have been in open rebellion against God for fifty, sixty, seventy, even nearly eighty years?

Eighty years of mercy met with eighty years of neglect; for eighty years of patience, they have returned eighty years of ingratitude. O God, how weary you must be of the length and number of human sins!

Furthermore, God takes special note of sin mixed with obstinacy. Oh, how obstinate some people are! They seem determined to be damned; nothing can stop them. They act as if they would climb mountains to reach destruction and swim through seas of fire to ruin their souls. Some have recovered from serious illness only to return to sin. Some have suffered business failures, lost wealth, fallen into poverty, yet continue in sin. Another child dies; the wife is sick; starvation threatens the family—but they persist with arrogance. This is true obstinacy. Sinner, God will let you have your own way one day, and that way will be your eternal ruin. God is weary of those who persist in wrongdoing despite warnings, invitations, and entreaties.

The text also suggests that ingratitude is especially burdensome to God. He reminds the people how he brought them out of Egypt, defeated the Amorites, raised up prophets and Nazarites—yet they still rebelled. This struck me deeply when I first came to God as a guilty sinner—not only the visible wickedness of my life, but the particular mercies I had enjoyed. How generous God has been to some of us who never lacked anything! He never let us fall into poverty, nor leave us to infamy, nor abandon us to evil example. He preserved our morality, encouraged love for his house even when we did not love him, year after year. And how poor have been our returns! What joy, deliverance, love, and comfort we have received—and yet we have sinned openly! Well may he be like a cart pressed under a heavy load of sheaves.

Notice also that the Lord’s burden is so great that he even cries out. Just as a heavily loaded cart groans under its weight, so the Lord cries under the weight of sin. Have you heard these words?

"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me!" (Jeremiah 7:28). Hear again: "Return, O faithless people; I will heal your faithlessness" (Jeremiah 3:22).

Better still, hear the lament from Jesus, gentle as dew: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!" (Matthew 23:37). Sinner, God is grieved by your sin; your Creator suffers over what you mock; your Saviour cries in his spirit over what you deem trivial. "O do not this abominable thing which I hate!" For God’s sake, do it not.

Cease your evil ways; why will you die, O house of Israel?

While sin is grievous to the Lord, his mercy is magnified when we see that he bears the load. As the cart does not break but is pressed, so he is pressed, yet he bears. If you and I were in God’s place, would we have borne it? Within a week we would have destroyed the world. If the law of heaven punished as swiftly as human law, where would we be? God could easily avenge his honour; countless servants stand ready to do his bidding. A mere stone, a breath of wind, a grain of dust, and all is over. Yet God restrains the servants of his anger. The heavens and the earth would gladly punish, yet God restrains. The angels are astonished at his patience. Have you seen a patient man insulted and bear it? So God bears with sinners, pressed under the weight of their guilt yet unbroken.

This brings us to a profound point: some of you have never seen sin as grievous to God. Others know how bitter evil is and wish to escape it. Not only does God bear with sin, but in the person of his Son, he bore and removed it.

These words gain deeper meaning in the lips of Jesus: "I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves." God must punish sin yet desires mercy. Jesus comes as a substitute for all who trust him. The burden of human guilt is laid upon his shoulders, sheaf after sheaf.

"The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). He is despised and rejected, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). He sweats great drops of blood (Luke 22:44). Herod mocks him; Pilate jeers; they strike him. "I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting" (Isaiah 50:6). They scourge him; "the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). Like a cart pressed under sheaves, he moves through the streets of Jerusalem.

Daughters of Jerusalem, weep, though he bids you dry your tears! Abjects insult him as he bears the cross, the emblem of our sin. He is brought to Golgotha, laid upon the ground, his hands and feet nailed, the iron piercing the tender parts of his body. The cross is raised. God forsakes him; his enemies mock. The sun refuses to shine; tenfold darkness covers his soul. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). Never was sorrow like his. Shall we treat sin lightly? Shall we toy with what made our Saviour groan? Sinner, will you give up your sins for him who suffered for them?

"Yes," you say, "if I could believe he suffered for me." Trust your soul to him, and he died for you, taking your guilt and sorrows; you may go free. Christ was burdened that you might be lightened; pressed that you might be free. Believe in him.

Finally, God will bear the load of our sins only a little while. If you are not in Christ at the end, that same load will crush you forever. Some translate the text differently: "I will press you as a cart full of sheaves presses the way beneath it." Just as a heavily loaded cart presses the soft roads, so will God crush you beneath your sin if you are out of Christ. You must apply this personally.

Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? If yes, the threat is not yours. If no, listen carefully: a Christless soul will soon be lost; they are already condemned by unbelief. How will you escape if you neglect this great salvation? "Consider your ways" (Haggai 1:5). By time, eternity, life, death, heaven, hell, I urge you to believe in Christ, who can save completely those who come to him. If you do not believe, you will die in your sins.

After death comes judgment! The trumpet sounds, the multitudes, the books, the great white throne, "Come, you blessed," and "Depart, you cursed" (Matthew 25:34, 41). After judgment, hell awaits the Christless. Who among us shall endure the devouring flame? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings? None of us can, except we flee to Christ. Fly to Jesus! I may never see your face again. My tears entreat you; let God’s long-suffering lead you to repentance. He does not wish anyone to die but to turn to him and live. This turning comes through trusting Jesus with your soul.

Will you trust him? The Spirit may compel you; if not, it will not be for lack of pleading. Come now, while mercy calls. Jesus with pierced hands invites you, though you have rejected him long.

His love defies your sin. Whosoever will, let them come and take of the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17). May God help you come, for the Redeemer’s glory. Amen.