Amos 9

okay this is our Tuesday night Bible study for the seventh of November and what we've been studying is some of the Dead Sea Scrolls some of the writings of the the Essenes what I wanted to look at tonight is something I kind of ran across and forgot about it and kind of put it together but Amos chapter nothing at chapter nine and it's it's an interesting chapter specifically because of what we have been studying and what the their sub commentary from the Church Fathers on Amos 9 and also some commentary from the Dead Sea Scrolls and from the book of Acts so we kind of wanted to to pull it together they're very very interesting I'll start off by saying when I started studying the major and the Minor Prophets from where I came from like a Baptist Nazarene type background the question that I always ask is I look at maybe the destruction of this country or city or whatever was that way back then with Nebuchadnezzar or someone like that or is it yet future what part is future what part is you know past or maybe both you know that kind of a thing and a lot of the liberal people will say it's all just written history it's all done and over with because the majority of them don't believe in prophecy and so it's interesting to me most of us would accept most evangelicals would accept Ezekiel 38 and 39 the GOG Magog war as being future okay and so I'm looking through these things trying to see this and I run across prophecies it'll say in the day of the Lord or right before the day of the Lord and I'm thinking does that mean right before the Tribulation Period or could it be translated something like the day the Lord moves and destroys which was you know way back then with Nebuchadnezzar or somebody so I'm looking at this trying to figure out what is prophecy and what is not and I'll start out by saying this is pretty interesting according to the Dead Sea Scrolls the the concept that the Essenes taught is that and this is amazing to me they said that the prophets that we know of which being like from Isaiah to Malachi the major and minor prophets they all wrote the books of the prophets that are in the scriptures they also wrote other prophecies that were not included in the scriptures and the way they teach it is the prophecies that they wrote that are not in the Bible the reason they were not included in the Canon is that they were local prophecies King you just did something wrong if you don't repent in the next two days there's going to be a skirmish and he either repented or he didn't but it's not symbolic of anything in the future all done and over with so it's not put in the Canon and so that was interesting but then the flip side of that whole concept is that means that the prophets from Isaiah to the end of the Old Testament all focus on the end times so that's a pretty powerful statement now I'm not saying I totally believe that's true or not but that's the that would be the teaching of the Essenes whereas the Pharisees they'd probably say like our liberals today oh it's all done and over with it's interesting that they took they take the book of Daniel and they put it in the history section not in the prophets section of their Bible it's like the Book of Daniel half of its prophecy about a quarter of it's not fulfilled yet though so that with that being the case it's interesting so we want to look at for instance Amos and know that if it's a prophecy against Nebuchadnezzar then it probably was fulfilled but somehow it's still a front of a pattern you know like we see Antiochus Epiphanes in Daniel 11 well he is a pattern of the Antichrist the way that he took control was by flatteries by deception not by an army and we're told the Antichrist will take control the same way so even though it's definitely him and not the Antichrist there's something in the pattern that still endtime and thinking about that way that's pretty interesting I'm gonna have to go back and reread all of the all the prophets just to see if there's anything extra so looking at Daniel 9 it's basically a few sections the first big hmm I said Daniel did not I meant Amos Amos chapter 9 Amos chapter and I hope just reading from the King James starting in verse one this is about the destruction of Israel so I'm assuming that's all back then somehow it also plays a part in some scenario an endtime but it says I saw the Lord standing upon the altar and he said smite the lintel of the door that the posts shake cut them in the head all of them I will slay the last of them with the sword he that flees of them will not flee away and he that escapes will not be delivered so he's talking you know Amos were basically talking about the northern tribes who went away from the Lord and finally judgment comes and he's going to destroy the altar of the calf creature that they had made there in bethel so you're probably talking about Bethel so he sees this vision of the Lord standing above that pagan altar that they made in Bethel and he's gonna smash the altars chopped off the heads of the statues completely destroy them the people that run away and flee that don't repent he seeks them and destroys them so this is obviously judgment back then that still continues or it's just judgments kind of the same just like we talked about the flood and and Halloween and that should remind us that there was a time that we had the pre-flood world and they thought nothing would ever happen to him they can do whatever they want eventually judgment came we see the same kind of stuff going all the way through the minor prophets some of the minor prophets even say things like the prophets don't even remember that the temple is in Jerusalem they got that corrupt doing their own little idolatry thing some of the northern tribe priests didn't remember that that's pretty bad it's one thing to debate on whether we should or should not do a part of the law a certain way or to forget about the law to even forget there's a temple and you're supposed to be worshiping the one true God that's pretty bad so he moves to destroy he says though they dig into hell since events shall mine hand take them though they climb up to heaven dents I will bring them down though they hide themselves in the top of Mount Carmel I will take them out from thence and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea thence I will commend the serpent and he will bite them and though they go into captivity before their enemies I will command the sword and they shall slay them I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good so this is just judgment and of course they go into captivity and a lot of them are slain and it's interesting if you think of Jeremiah and his remnant Jeremiah said this is what's gonna happen Nebuchadnezzar is going to come down and this is going to happen so if you know that's the Lord's will either leave town or if you're gonna stay here submit to the new king and those that are false prophets are saying no just attack them so naturally the false prophets and people who follow them are always killed you know so again follow what the Lord is doing goes on in verse 9 and says the Lord of Hosts is he that touches the land and it shall melt melting the land if that's literal that does sound more in time ish but anyway touching the land and it shall melt and all that dwell therein shall mourn and it shall rise up wholly like a flood and shall be drowned like the flood of Egypt it is he that builds his stories in heaven and has founded his troop on the earth he that calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out in the face of the earth the Lord is his name so basically saying he doesn't need an army to punish you know we think of all the times where the Lord used the fire and hornets and the wild beasts and earthquakes natural disasters to either stop an invasion or something like that my favorites are all the ones that you see in the Old Testament where Lord an enemy went to attack Israel and the Lord sent confusion amongst the enemy were one side of the enemy attacked their own troops thinking they were the enemy then there was that one place when I think was Moab and Edom came against Israel and the Prophet said have all of your troops don't dress for battle take large knapsacks go up on the hill set down and watch the show and then they came in the Lord sent confusion they attacked and they actually watched as every single one was slain by themselves and then the Prophet said now go take the loot go home have a party bless the Lord he saved you you know that's not you you didn't have anything to do with it and we see in some of the prophecies that the same kind of thing happens to Iran here in the near future they get confused and next thing you know they're totally destroyed by fire so it'll be interesting to see actually see that but that's happened several times throughout the Old Testament verse 7 says are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me Oh children of Israel says the Lord have I not brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt and the Philistines from kafir and the Syrians from ker so in other words the Lord is able to take care of people doesn't matter if you're do or Gentile are you serving Lord says behold the lies the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful Kingdom and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of jacob says the lord and that happened back then there's always a remnant and in the end times they'll be around it for lo I will command and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations like the corn is sifted in a sieve yet shall not the least of the grain fall to the earth all the sinners of my people shall die by the sword which say the evil shall not over cake or prevent us so that section right there is pretty much just the Old Testament what happened back then but we can still see this kind of a this whole idea the Lord destroying the sinners from among his people the ones that say they don't really believe in the Lord that he won't really do anything so that makes sense now what I thought was interesting in this passage here though it does say that he will bring his people from among the nation's so he gathers him back and this is what's interesting because in Chapter in this chapter specifically it's a very tail end of it the Church Fathers looked at this and said well there's two two returns of Israel and let me stop just for a second and go to Isaiah 11 he says it best and Isaiah 11 talking about the Israel coming back in Isaiah 11 11 it says it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people and it goes on and talks about where they come back from and everything but that's interesting because the Lord set his hand to recover the remnant the second time so if you think about this they became the children of Jacob or Israel they went down into Egypt if he came and slaved Moses brought them out into the land and then they inherited the promised land so then they were there so many years the the the judgment came they were exiled into Babylon and then brought back from captivity the first time that was 536 BC with under Cyrus then they existed there for a while and then they were scattered to all nations not just that one north country but all nations they were brought back from all nations from the Roman exile in 1948 ad so the church fathers taught when you're looking at prophesies to kind of compartmentalize them so when you see a prophecy and it says I will bring his ro back from the north country okay well that's Babylon so when it says I'll bring them back from the north country for instance I'll do one two three four five those prophecies happen somewhere in the neighborhood of 536 BC okay enough it says I'm going to bring Israel back from all nations and when I do that then I'm going to do one two three four five those prophecies are sometime after 1948 ad and so the Church Fathers they didn't know when that when the second return would be that it would be in 1948 but they taught that you compartmentalize them that way this one has passed this one is in the future whenever Israel comes back so there's different sets of prophecies like that so I thought that was pretty fascinating so and it says the same thing here when he brings him back from all nations so we're kind of talking about end times endtime prophecy so looking at go back here the rest of this chapter just a few few verses but I wanted to look at this so he's talking about this judgment and then he'll bring the children of Israel back so when Amos verses 11 or not chapter 9 verses 11 to 15 is the last part of what we're looking at verse 11 will go a lot slower verse 11 says in that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen and closed the breaches thereof and raised up its ruins and I will build it as in the days of old that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all of the heathen which are called by my name says the Lord who does this so they possess the nation's who are called by the Lord's name so this is interesting I look at this and I remember when I first read this I'm thinking well I remember the tabernacle of Moses before they built the temple and David had a tabernacle of course before because he wanted to build the temple the Lord wouldn't let him so Solomon actually built the temple so what is this temple of David you know I kind of pictured maybe somebody finds the old a tabernacle of David and brings it back but what's interesting is if we go into the New Testament and let's see here and acts I believe it's chapter 15 yeah chapter 15 verse 15 in acts 15 is the time when there were some people that were saying that in order for a Gentile to become a believer in Messiah you had to convert to Judaism and so because of that you have to be circumcised that Moses dictates and circumcision is not just one thing it's what you do after you convert so if I wanted to convert to Judaism I would go before a rabbi and if I grew up kind of sort of Jewish I would know everything it'd be real quick if I'm Gentile and I know almost nothing it would take me a long time to study basically when I started I'm supposed to be given one year in one year's time I should be able to study everything and learn to eat kosher and do the rituals and live the lifestyle a Jew would live and then start living it the end of one year the rabbi would be watching me and said he if he would say okay you've got it mastered you know what you're doing your deal walking the walk talking the talk you are for all tents and purposes one of us so then you'd be circumcised baptized and then you would be equal in their community just like you were born Jewish okay and so these guys were saying well these guys are Gentiles they need to go through a full conversion process and be circumcised otherwise they can't be saved that's what it says in verse 1 in chapter 15 so they come before the the group here with Peter and James and Paul and several of the other people and they just start giving testimonies Peter tells him about the the sheet incident which was recorded in acts Peter says well I was I I was working for the Lord I was sitting there getting ready for launch I fell asleep had this weird dream about the sheet coming down and these weird creatures in it and the Lord said arise kill and eat and he and I told the Lord no way I've never eaten non-kosher in my entire life there's no way I'm gonna kill one of those weird creatures and eat it and the Lord says what I've called clean don't call unclean and he wakes up and he realizes it's one of those dreams that it's not just you this is a message from God so what in the world could this mean while he's thinking about it he gets a knock on his door and this guy said there's the Centurion who's a god fear wants you to come and talk to him and it's like okay the current tradition is that a Jew not entered the house of a Gentile okay and that's kind of a perversion of the law you're not supposed to enter a town a pagan temple and then fellowship with him and eat food from pagan sacrifice or anything like that and so the tradition became well if this guy's maybe a Centurion he probably has to be around idols so the food that he has in his home is probably from idols he might even have a little idol in the back room so it's kind of sort of like entering up a temple so that's why we don't do that well number one that was for priests you're not supposed to do anything with idolatry but you know if I walk into your house and see an eye at all I'm supposed to say you know that's an idol you notice forbidden if you got a hammer I hope you smash it you know and if you say no that's my house oh god I like that and I'll excuse myself and leave that's what I'm supposed to do but I'm not supposed to be scared to enter your house least to idle grab me or something but that's kind of the tradition they had which is kind of silly anyway because this guy's a god fear not just to pagan this is a guy who loves God with all his heart and is around idols and weird food at work but I doubt he'd have this an idol or anything in his hub I wouldn't so anyway so he decides to go and talk to this guy which is normally not something you would do as you Jew but he begins to explain to him that Jesus is the promised Messiah and He fulfilled these prophecies and this is what happened and he died on the cross and resurrected and if we you know he's preaching the gospel to him standing out in the courtyard kind of and just telling him all this stuff all of a sudden the Centurion is baptized with the Holy Spirit starts speaking in tongues and just like they did several days before and so this whole thing Peters saying now think about this this guy said God fear so he's not directly sinning moral he's not having anything to do with idols he's waiting for Messiah he's a believer but he's he's a Gentile so he's not circumcised he was probably standing there eating a ham sandwich you know which they do and we don't do and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit came upon him apparently the only logical thing is to assume that if your hearts right with God he doesn't need to convert and we don't need to be scared of him and if he's a brother and we're a brother we ought to be able to enter his house so there's something amiss somewhere in all this teaching and Paul came up and basically gave similar testimonies and then James finally said okay it makes sense to me God's doing this stuff without the hand washings and the the food and so apparently that stuff is not necessary and when we go back and look and in Genesis chapter 9 with the Noahide laws it says in Genesis chapter 9 that you can't eat anything that moves okay so as a Gentile I can eat a crab or lobster or something like that something that's not kosher Jews can't eat it you know I'm not supposed to eat blood or living creatures or torture animals but kill it humanely and eat it if I want to eat it and then the other stuff comes the so they're trying to put this together do we as Christians follow this law that law pieces of it and so they finally decide that okay it seems good to the Holy Spirit to us to write them a letter and say stay away from fornication from idols from things strangled in blood which is basic Noahide law if you do that you'll be fine now obviously we need to add to that don't murder people don't lie but that's moral law everybody knows the self-evident laws but a saying this is the deal so Christians don't do the temple sacrifices and stuff like that it's not necessary so obviously it's not necessary for them to be circumcised in order to be saved which these other guys said so we know that but he's saying all this but then let me just read starting in verse 13 this is what happens and then it says after that they held their peace and James answered saying men and brethren listen to me Simon abhi Peter has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take them out a people for his name they didn't convert to Judaism but they are believers in Messiah we could even call him I don't know Christians you know he says to this agree the words of the prophets as it is written and then he quotes that passage there from Amos after this I will return and build up again the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and I will build again the ruins thereof and I will set it up that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called says the Lord who does these things that's almost a perfect quote out of what we read so at this time there's still a temple nobody's doing US Senate God Tabernacle type thing that would be against the law - Jewish law anyway the tabernacle exists for another 40 years to the end of that age and then the Lord has it destroyed through Romans not Christians not Jews the Lord intervenes and has it destroyed so at this point we have to ask what how are they connecting the tabernacle of David phrase with what's going on here the eating and the circumcision and this kind of stuff so obviously what they're talking about is not a real physical temple we're talking about a tab all in the sin of attempt in the sense of a tent when you go back to the Old Testament you have the tents of Shem that exist in Japheth and you have the historical records of Shem and Eber creating a Shiva or a school to teach everything properly you have according to the Essenes all the patriarchs which we were talking about their writings talking about how things are supposed to be God creating Jews who are supposed to do Jewish things Gentiles who are brothers because we all worship the Lord who don't do Jewish things and then even among the Jews there are those that do the Levites who do the temple stuff non Levites are not supposed to do temple rituals so what he's talking about here is the Jews had gotten off and saying that everybody's got to convert to Judaism and we saw that in our other studies that happened about 80 BC there is actually a civil war between the Sadducees and the Pharisees about this so everything got off and the prophecies were fulfilled and the Messiah was put to death by the priests and the Romans and now everything is being restored the way that Shem and Eber taught it the way that the tabernacle of David or we could say the library or the school of prophets of David the way the school of Elijah's prophets taught it and you go all the way up through this even in the book of Acts you'll say you'll see occasionally Agathis with a group of prophets running around it's part of the school of prophets but they're all believers in Messiah so it's interesting to see this so this they're interpreting this as Christians now who the the prophets and the miracles and the gifts of the Spirit are only among believers in Messiah so it's no longer just Jews we're not Jews in general but Christians are the ones that have that so it's really interesting to see so if we go back and read this then the first part of Amos is all about God destroying the people that don't believe that refused to follow and then he drifts into on that day I will raise up the tabernacle David which is fallen which is the to true interpretation of the Old Testament and it's exactly the way Paul taught it in Galatians and Hebrews the looking at the law then it goes on and says at that time behold in the days to come says the Lord this is in verse 13 the ploughman will overtake the Reaper and the Treader of grapes him that sow seed and the mountains shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall melt now most of us look at this and say this is a recent fulfillment of prophecy because over here in the United States we have summer crops and fall crops we can't plan in the winter it's too hard you can't grow anything in the winter in Israel that's not the case they plant and harvest all year around so it's pretty interesting that that is a piece of a prophecy or a prophecy that has been fulfilled in the last you know 40 50 years then it says I will then bring again kind of a key word I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel and they will build the waste cities and inhabit them and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof and they shall make the gardens and eat the fruit of them so here he's saying this is not coming back from Babylon but when I bring them again like Isiah said the second time again so this is 1948 sometime after that they rebuild the cities plant vineyards turn it from a desert type wasteland into a beautiful country which they have done next would be the gap to get that completely colonized but then this last verse is interesting I will plant them in their land they are supposed to be the the holy plant that God makes in all the prophecies so he will plant them in their land so the Jews go back to Israel and this stuff happens and they shall no more be pulled out of their land which I have given them says the Lord and so that particular verse is what the Church Fathers looked when they said okay while they were pulled out of their land with the Babylonian captivity they were pulled out of their land the second time by the Romans so they came back the first time under Cyrus the second time under David ben-gurion so when they come back the second time they will no longer be pulled out of their land so any prophecy that says when the children of Israel come back I'll do one two three four five has to be in one of those two sections of time and if it's the north country or the country or Persia or something like that it's under saira Babylon then it's not it's 536 BC if it's from all nations or the four corners of the earth or from the four winds it says in different ways - basically from all over then we're talking about 1948 so really really interesting so in this this chapter just chapter nine we've seen that the Lord moves at a certain point when they are completely arrogant against the Lord or don't care or don't believe he'll ever do anything I can do whatever I want cuz he'll never punish me he'll never do anything he never does anything like it says in Peter when they said well since the since our fathers fell asleep everything has always been exactly the same there's no reason to assume anything's gonna happen now so at a certain point he raises up and causes destruction but he brings them back today he brings them back we have the tabernacle of David recreated and today we have the same kind of a problem that they did we have Messianic Jews that are believers in Messiah and they teach the doctrine as far as I can see properly and then we have Hebrew roots people which we're all kind of sort of Hebrew roots people we all want to study the prophecies in the in the festivals we pay attention to to Passover and know that the Passover lamb represents Messiah it's all prophetic so that's true but some of us go too far and try to follow all the laws in the Torah like we are Jews which is a kind of replacement theology if you think about it so that's something that people get caught up in and these new movements of hyper Hebrew roots groups are getting really out there so these type of things are going to be restored and we've gotten off a little bit and then things like the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Testaments of the patriarchs and the law of kings and other Scrolls out there are really beginning to explain this but it's amazing to see this just in chapter 9 of Amos the Lord causes judgment when people forsake him but there's a time when proper interpretation of Old Testament comes back and it was back then and apparently it's also now and we see that throughout all the prophets he'll be talking about something that has to be obviously the the birth of Messiah and then all of a sudden the Messiah ruling and reigning well that's like 2,000 years apart so he's skipping around in here but we see the same thing here in Amos chapter 9 I just wanted to share that with you because there's basically three little pieces but it's amazing to start thinking about these things yes that was back then but a large section of just this chapter is for our time period and we see these things happening yeah any thoughts or comments on Amos traffic Niles but he said I've often wondered about this he said now I just asked that you asked God to forgive me when I have to bow in the house of my master is gone mm-hmm I'm almost wanted to answer and I think I have it was he was not a Jew he wasn't Jewish and that was not commanded to him see he's not actually worshiping the God because he knows the God as it is but it's part of the job now a Jew is commanded to you don't do it if you lose your job you lose your head whatever that's part of the Old Testament but the GAR The Strangers the Noah hides are commanded to worship or have anything to do with idolatry but if they're forced to they're forced to they're not right right there is a difference yeah naman obviously was a believer didn't convert fully to Judaism because he's not supposed to like we saw that in GAD when the Moabite asked and Hyrum a king of Tyre both asked to convert their answer was no your gentlest a Gentile you worship God you're waiting on Messiah like we are we're all saved we're all brothers in the Lord you do your part I'm supposed to do my part we don't criss cross so it's pretty interesting

Channel: Ken Johnson

Views: 6,697

Rating: 4.84127 out of 5

Keywords: Essenes, Church, fathers, ken johnson, biblefacts, prophecy, israel, return, tabernacle, David, acts, 15, dead, sea, scroll, scrolls

Id: Y1D0HJhrx8Q

Length: 33min 59sec (2039 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2017