Amos Chapter 7: Locusts, Fire and a Plumb Line

father we again come before you with our Bibles open and just asking Jesus that you would be speaking to our hearts Lord that as we open your word that it would be everything you promised that it be alive and it be powerful and it's something that would show us the thoughts and the intents of our heart and just be something that you use in our lives Lord you said that in the Book of Isaiah that your word doesn't return void it accomplishes what you purpose and so God we're gonna be looking at your word and we want it to accomplish what you purpose in our lives help us have yours to hear and we ask that you do this all in your name amen okay Amos chapter seven again this is a section that is dealing with the last five visions in which God pictures the total destruction of the Land of Israel and last week we got into chapter 7 and basically in verses 1 through 3 you have a vision of locusts coming in and destroying the land in verses 4 through 6 you have a vision of fire destroying the land and in verse 7 through 9 you have this whole thing with a plumb bob and without going into that well let's read let's start in verse 7 it says thus he showed me behold the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line with a plumb line in his hand and the Lord said to me Amos what do you see and I said a plumb line and then the Lord said behold I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel I will not pass by them anymore the high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste I will rise with the sword against the house of Jeroboam and I'm not going to go go back over everything that we talked about last week in this but basically what he's speaking about is building in ancient Israel and and so they didn't build with wood they built with stone and if you had a wall that was out of plumb that was built of stone it was a wall that was dangerous and so you guys know what a plumb line is so you take a heavyweight stick it on the end of his string and that showed you plumb which you know is like this this is level this is plumb and so a plumb line you'd hold it up against a wall to see if the wall was straight up and down if you have a stone wall that's not straight up and down if it's leaning at all then it's absolutely dangerous and it literally needs to be torn down you can't fix it it's got to be torn down and you can rebuild it but you can't fix it and that's the example that God gives of the have the people of Israel that they were like a wall with a plumb line next to them and they were out of plumb and it was a dangerous thing I mean let me get to the section here you know again God has this standard and when you're out of plumb you're dangerous you're gonna fall and you're likely to do it on those around you and what we ended up last week with is with a whole example of people who are out of plumb and what happens to the people who around them and so we all know people who have had bad family backgrounds and because somebody was tweaked and out of line then what ended up happening was they not only hurt themselves they hurt all the people who were around them and we see that over and over in our culture we see that over and over and families we see that over and over all over the place and we still have this idea that out that we can sin with impunity and not affect the people who are around us is just nonsense you do not sin in a vacuum and so the the my sin is going to affect the people who around me and actually the more influence that you have the more influential you that you are the more your sin affects the people who are who you're influencing and hopefully you're very influential hopefully your your people who know people and who have an impact in their life and they see you as somebody who follows Jesus and as somebody who is supposed to be an example hopefully that's who you are because that's where we're all supposed to be but along with that comes the danger of hurting the people who are around you when you when you end up distinct distancing yourself from God and get yourself getting to yourself in a in a place where you're gonna fall that's what's being spoken about here with the people of Israel I came from Big Bear California before I moved up here I was originally from Riverside but at Big Bear California there was a church that started up there and had a couple of different pastors and the first pastor decided along with his elders I can't remember the order but one pastor along with his elders decided that it was okay to swap wives and that God was okay with that whole thing and that the wives needed to submit no matter what and that God would take care care of the situation you know just be like Abraham's wife Sarah and Abraham gave Sarah over to the Pharaoh and God protected Sarah and B and so what Sarah did was she absolutely submitted to Abraham and God took care of the whole thing right that's basically a teaching that was going around at the time and so what these guys did with that was they had wife-swapping parties with the elders okay so let me let me do a couple things or was it okay for Sarah to submit to that no she's a godly woman she should have said you know stop it and as a matter of fact when they were going down to from Cain and down to Egypt what had happened was there was a famine in the land God had told Abraham I want you to be in the land of Canaan he never told him to go down to Egypt and as they were going down they were the reason that they were going down is because Abraham wasn't trusting God and so what ended up happening was they left and went down there and it would be Sarah's responsibility at that point to say Abraham what are we doing why are we going here don't we trust God did God tell you to go here no and and but you know what we got to eat and he would come up with all the stuff that he would come up with and then one of the things that he came up with was we're going down to this land where they're liable to kill me because you're so beautiful and all the guys are gonna want you for their wife and so when we go down there you tell him that you're my sister which was a half-truth she was his half-sister okay and so was before the time that that was that was prohibited in the Bible so she was his half-sister and so basically what Abraham told her to tell everybody that was around them was a half-truth I'm his half-sister not mention that she was his wife and what Sarah should have done at that point was say no that's not gonna happen my wife told me what she should have said on the way down there pulled the donkey over and let me off that's what Sarah should have done but she didn't and in any case what God did was he protected her so what happened with that pastor and all those elders is that obviously God God took care of that whole situation and got rid of them then the next pastor comes along and he's a child molester and so this church has a has a pastor who swaps wives with the elders and then the next pastor is a child molester and so what kind of effect do you think that that had on the people in that church you know there were 75 people in that church and I was hearing about it and actually I had a good friend that I worked with who had a real hard time he would not go to home home Bible studies because some of the stuff that happened in in both those situations happened in home Bible studies the guys were freaky and that's where they felt like they could they could get away with that stuff and so consequently his wife didn't want to go to him and he didn't want to go to them and he was just tweaked and it was like 13 years later that he was still having problems with this and it was one of those things that you heard about and heard about and heard about over and over and the reason is because when you fall and you have an influence on people around you the fall can can be catastrophic and this that it causes real pain to the people who are around you and so one of the things that we need to be obviously is careful we need to be influential we want people to follow Jesus because of our example and we want to be people who are sharing the gospel with people but when you do that you need to recognize that you you come under attack at that point and what Satan wants to do is make you fall he wants to make you fall and so it's really important as believers that we have integrity and we have a real trust in God and we have a real reliance upon the power of God not on our own power because if you don't then then your you just got a target on your on your chest anyway and if you're relying upon your own strength and what's gonna end up happening is you're gonna just get plastered because you can't stand up against the devil Jesus can and greater is He that's in you than he that's in the world but it's not greater the greater greater are you than he that's in the world that's not what the verse says greater is He that's in you than he that's in the world and so having a real dependence on God having heart that wants integrity I'm just gonna do the things that Jesus tells me to do on the inside when I'm by myself when nobody else is looking I'm gonna walk with God and I'm gonna do it right and you do that and you're plumb and if you don't then you're getting out of plumb and there's a there's a good chance that you're gonna topple and hurt people in the next verses here you have Amos and Amaziah as an example of this verse 10 it says then Amaziah the priests of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel saying Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel the land is not able to bear all his words and so obviously a messiah did not like what amos was saying for thus Amos has said he says verse 11 Jeroboam shalt die by the sword and Israel shall surely be led away captive from their own land and what you have here is a situation where a messiah literally has no year for God's Word he does not want to hear it he does not like the message he does not want to hear it never run into people like that don't like the message don't want to hear it have you ever been people like that I have there been times when I've heard a message and I and it's like yeah I don't want to hear that I don't like that and I you know I would really rather that the Bible didn't say that thank you you know and again you have that with Amaziah then it says verse 12 then Amaziah said to amos go you seer flee to the land of Judah there eat bread and there prophesy but never again prophesy at Beth Alfred is the king's sanctuary and it's the royal residence and then it says that Amos answered and said to Amaziah I was no prophet nor was i son of a prophet but I was a sheep breeder and a tender of sycamore fruit then the Lord took me as I followed the flock and the Lord said to me go prophesy to my people Israel now therefore hear the word of the Lord you say do not prophesy against Israel and do not spout out against the house of Isaac therefore thus says the Lord your wife shall be a harlot in the city your sons and daughters shall follow by the sword your land shall be divided by survey line and you shall die in a defiled land and Israel shall surely be led away captive from his own land and again when you when you look at these two you have a complete contrast one has no ear for God's Word the other one listens and so amos says i was no prophet I was just and I wasn't the son of a prophet I didn't I didn't come into this in the family business or anything I was just a guy all I did you know I hung out was sheep and sycamore fruit and that's who I was and the Lord called me and said to me go prophesied of my people Israel and that's the second thing that you see one refuses to obey and instead tattles to those who will sympathize and that's what that's what a messiah is doing I don't like what Amos is saying and so I'm gonna go tattle a Jeroboam the guy that can get Amos and take care of him the other one hears God's voice and responds accordingly and so Amos here's what the Lord has to say and so what he does is he does exactly what God tells him to one casts away the message of God and the other faithfully proclaims it and you see again in verse 12 and 13 go you seer flee to the land of Judah dairy bread there prophesy but never again prophesy at Bethel where it is this king sanctuary and it's the royal residence you don't belong here you're not you're not part of the people of Israel you're from down in Judah anyway and so I want you just go home I want to hear what you have to say what do you have to say to us and again that kind of that kind of attitude and so he casts away the message of God but again the other one faithfully proclaims it and one is plumb and that's obviously Amos and the other is gonna be torn down and that's a messiah and the tearing down is in verse 17 your wife shall be a harlot in the city and your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword and your land shall divided but be divided by sir be aligned and you shall die in a defiled land and Israel shall surely be led away captive from his own land and what he's talking about is the consequences of a messiahs rebellion against God because because of this guy and again what you have is a situation where the guys influential Amaziah is a prophet in the city of Bethel he's a he is a priest in Bethel he is the one who is in charge of worship at that place and he doesn't like what a Amos is saying about what God's going to do with the people of Israel because of their unfaithfulness and because of his mouth what's going to end up happening is the people of Israel are going to continue in the way that they're going and they're going to end up judged and not only are they going to end up judged he's going to end up judged and so what's going to happen is the people of Assyria and this is what happened historically are going to come into that area and they're going to kill people and some of the people that are going to be killed are your sons and you're done they're gonna fall by the sword you're gonna be taken off into captivity because what the Assyrians did was they took the nobles and they took the you know kind of the upper crust the the higher paid people and they took took them off into captivity off into the land of Assyria and it wasn't even the land of Assyria it was a place that was conquered by Assyria that's a place that we don't even know where they went they just went off and disappeared into Gentile land and what Amos says is you're going to go off into a defiled land Gentile land that's where you're gonna go and your wife's gonna be left here without any possibility of taking care of herself and so she's gonna become a harlot in the city because of your mouth and your rebellion and again what you have is a total contrast between two people they both heard the Word of God they both have been presented with the absolute truth and one has gone okay and the other one has gone no and not only no but I don't want to hear it and they get the consequences that come from that and so that's a that's a great picture when you get to chapter 8 chapter 8 starts with the fourth of five visions given to Amos concerning again God's judgment on Israel in the first vision is the vision of the summer fruit and look at verses 1 through 3 here it says thus says the Lord thus the Lord God showed me behold a basket of summer fruit and he said Amos what do you see so I said a basket of summer fruit and then the Lord said to me the end has come upon my people Israel I will not pass by them any more and the songs of the temple shall be wailing in that day says the Lord many dead bodies everywhere they shall be thrown out in silence when you when you see that whole thing with summer fruit again let me get to the passage when you get to when you see that whole thing with summer froot the the word for summer fruit is caius and it literally means ripe time or cutting time it's time for this to be harvested is basically what the what the term itself means and basically what God's using that basket of fruit as is the picture of the end has come summer fruit was the last fruit fully ripened with a short edible life you cut it and you ate it because there was no more time for ripening and so if you've if you've ever had a garden if you've ever had an orchard actually we have some of the stuff going on when we go down to get vegetables and stuff in the grocery store they don't pick those things ripe they pick them somewhat green so that they'll ripen on the way and there they're not tree-ripened or ripen on the vine and that kind of stuff and you have the opportunity to do that before this last cutting but when you went in for the last time this is the fruit that's been hanging out on the tree that you haven't picked and and again if you have fruit trees you know that it works this way so I have peach trees and I have apricot trees and stuff like that and there's a there's a point in time where you go out and you have to go harvest this stuff because the majority of the fruit on the trees is ripe but you can be going through harvesting this stuff and some of it is is still green and if you have the ability to come back later what you want to do is you want to lift the leave the stuff that's green on the tree so you can come back later and and get it when it's right but once you get it at that point you have to eat it because that's the last of it it's about to go bad pretty quickly and again that's the point that's being made here God is using this the the picture here to show that Israel was ripe for a frightening harvest and that the end had come he goes on and says here this you who swallow up the needy oh excuse me verse 3 he says the songs of the temples shall be wailing in that day says the Lord God many dead bodies everywhere they shall be thrown out in silence and so again basically God is telling them you know you're you you think that life as you see it is going to continue the way that you've always experienced it and what I'm telling you is that there's not you're not going to be any more songs all you're gonna have is death and wailing wailing again because of your sin he goes through and he begins listing their sin again and in verse four he says hear this you who swallow up the needy and make the poor of the land fail saying when will the new moon be passed that we may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may trade wheat making the e fall Aoife small and the shekel large falsifying the scales by deceit that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals even sell the bad wheat and let me go through and explain some of that the new moon and Sabbath's were monthly and weekly days of rest and so you know what the Sabbath day is you you work six days and on the seventh day he rested and in ancient Israel the Sabbath day is Saturday okay when we when we worship on Sunday we're not keeping the Sabbath day the Sabbath day was always a Saturday worship on Sunday it happens because that's the day that Jesus rose from the dead that's why the church has always gotten together on a Sunday in the book of Acts and all the way through the Bible the church has always gotten together on a Sunday and so we're not doing to keep the Sabbath Jesus is actually our Sabbath he's our rest when we come in to Jesus we cease from our own works and it's God's work in us that changes us so I'm not working for God I'm resting in him okay so you had the weekly Sabbath you also had monthly Sabbath's and the monthly Sabbath's was every time that there was a new moon and so new moon is when you get that that first little sliver of the moon at the at the beginning of a month and that's what started the the Jewish month and and so on those days you had these you had these days of rest okay so new moons and Sabbath's were monthly and weekly days of rest and so basically what was happening it says when will the new moon be passed that we may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may trade wheat and these guys are fidgeting impatiently waiting for the days of worship and honor to the Lord to be passed so that they could get back to that which they really loved which was making money and so they had they had no desire to honor God and actually it was an imposition on them they didn't like it okay and then it talks about the fact that these guys were ripping the people off and so when it says making the ephah small well the ethos is a is a measure of volume it's about three and a third gallons so so think of three gallons of milk and another third and that's the size of an ephah if you poured that into a basket that's an ephah and when it says making the ephah short it's the idea of shortening the basket so that again you tell somebody I'm selling you an ephah of whatever but you've kept some back so that you can make more money on it you ever gone to a restaurant where at the very beginning of the restaurant they have all kinds of food on the plate and then over time what happens is they start figuring out we need to make some more money so they start skimping on the food and so I have a favorite restaurant that has I like Chinese food so I have a favorite restaurant that has shrimp so there's this lunch plate that has shrimp on it and when I first started going there there were five shrimp on that plate was awesome five shrimp and then other things too and then after probably about two years it went down to four shrimp right and I just went there not too long going it's only three shrimp I'm getting a little irritated because they're short in the ephah here right no actually I like the people that are that are involved there and you know it's it's like it's it's way too much food for me to eat anyway but it's it's kind of that picture there then when it says you make the shekel large it's the idea of the shekel on the balance and shekel was a measure of weight it was a it was a amount of money we don't usually think of money as weight but when you when you think of for example going over to England you know what the currency is in England it's the British Pound and there's a reason that it's called a pound right and so it had to do with weight and it's the same thing with shekel and so when when these guys would buy stuff they had balances basically scales and you would have weight on one side of the scale and then people would put money on the other side of the scale and that weight was supposed to determine how much money went there so if you're using a shekel of gold you would have a one chuckle weight and they would put that much gold on it right and if you make your shekel as it says in this passage making the shekel large if you take your shekel weight and make it more than an actual shekel guess what you're getting more money at that point and so again what you're doing is you're ripping people off and when it says falsifying again falsifying the scales by deceit that's what it's speaking about and then when it says even selling the bad wheat that's the idea the bad wheat was when when you went out and you harvested a crop you would take for example you would cut the grain the wheat for example has the these ears on on the top of the thing you take and beat that then you throw it all up in the air and the wind would blow off all the chaff which is like the the the branches and and all the little flaky parts on the on the branches and the grain was heavy so it would fall down and so the good wheat is the stuff that's not actually hitting the ground it's the stuff that's on top of the pile the bad wheat is what you have left over when you got most of the good wheat off and it's mixed with chaff and dirt and grit and and that kind of stuff and what these guys would do is is you know they're selling an ephah full of wheat and they'd take some bad wheat throw it on the bottom of the basket and it would make the basket a little bit heavier and it's just a way that they're using to try to make more money on the backs of people who are trusting them to sell them something decent when it's so selling the poor that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals it's the idea of selling the poor into slavery because they they can't make the payment on a pair of sandals or you can't pay me for sandals then you're going have to go to jail you're gonna become a slave until I get my money and so we've been talking about that on Sunday mornings if you couldn't pay your debts or if you stole something and you couldn't you couldn't pay for what you stole then they would sell you as an indentured servant a manservant or a maidservant and you would have to serve a household for seven years or well actually was six years you got freed on the seventh year you would have to serve a household for six years and the money that came from your service because you would get paid would go to the person you owed the debt to and so what you have here is a situation where these guys are so stinkin greedy that somebody comes up to buy a pair of sandals and they don't have enough to mitt you know maybe they're doing it on payments or something and they don't have enough money to make the payment and so the guy goes off to you know off to indentured servant hood with you and now you got to work for six years for a stinking pair of sandals because the guy has no mercy and again God sees all that stuff and you know a lot of times people think that you know they seriously live their lives like God is not watching and he is you see in verse seven it says the Lord is sworn by the pride of Jacob surely I will never forget any of their works shall the land not tremble for this and everyone mourn who dwells in it all of it shall shall swell like the river even subside like the river of Egypt and what God's saying here is I'm not forgetting what you've done you're not going to get away with it and I'm not going to forget it there's a passage in Psalm 50 this is this is a great one for people who think that they're getting away with their sin and it's a it's a good one to keep memorized at least where it's at and it says this but till the wicked God says what right have you to declare my statutes or take my covenant in your mouth seeing you hate instruction and cast my words behind you when you saw a thief you consented with them and have been a partaker with adulterers you give your mouth to evil your tongue frames deceit you sit and speak against your brother you slander your own mother's son these things you've done and I kept silent you thought that I was all together like you but I will rebuke you and set them in order before your eyes now consider this you who forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver whoever offers praise glorifies me and to him who orders his conduct or right I will show the salvation of God and the point that God's making there is that that the that there is a large portion of humanity that thinks that God thinks like they do or the dot God doesn't care about what they're doing and that they can go out and do wicked stuff and still come to church or do wicked stuff and still carry a Bible around for a photo-op or do their wicked stuff and still throw out the name of God in a political speech or in you know in other issues and stuff and what God says is the fact that I I kept silent while you were doing this doesn't mean I approved of it what it means you know God keeps silent on a lot of stuff that people do and the reason that he's doing that is because he's giving them an opportunity to repent Romans 2 says it's don't you know that it's the goodness of God that leads you to repentance and so God will back off from people and let them go through stuff and let them do certain things and a lot of their conscience to be at work in them so that they'll turn that way but in the end what they're what they end up doing and this again isn't out of Romans chapter 2 is they store up judgment for themselves they store up wrath for themselves and what God's saying in this passage is there's coming a time when he's gonna rebuke them and set those things in order before their eyes in other words he's gonna go this was your life this is what you did you thought I was like you I'm not guess what and then he talks about to consider this you who forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver in that in an interesting phrase how'd you like Jesus to say you don't stop I'm gonna tear you in pieces I don't ever want to hear that at all I never want to be in a position where I hear anything like that God and so again you know you need to we need to be taking the Lord seriously in Luke 12 1 through 3 Jesus talks about the the leaven of the Pharisees and he says this he began to say to his disciples first of all beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy for there's nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known therefore whatever you've spoken in the dark will be heard in the light and what you've spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops now just think of that everything that I've spoke in the dark all the things that I've done and whispered you know whispers to people is going to be heard in the light and everything that I've spoken in the ear come up to somebody's ear and said is gonna be shouted from the rooftops and it's the idea of there's nothing that God doesn't see he sees it all and so again as believers we need to be acting accordingly God sees everything that I do he sees my thoughts he sees everything that I say and all that kind of stuff and so I need to have a life that's a life of integrity these guys didn't and God let them know I know that you didn't and I'm not gonna forget it and so it's coming Bucky and so again don't be that way and you know it's good that Jesus changes this huh so he talked about the fact that the land is going to tremble for this and that's the idea of the land heaving and subsiding basically at the approach of God earthquakes heaving the land and the ultimate fulfillment that you see of that is in the last days the Bible talks about the the earthquakes that are literally going to level cities that kind of thing yeah good Psalm 50 verses 16 through 23 and and so again the ultimate fulfillment of that you see in the book of Revelation where radical earthquakes takes take place the Bible talks about literally the mountains down and that every island disappears that's a pretty rowdy earthquake and there's some kind of cool stuff that goes along with that you know we're not gonna we're not going to get much further so I'm going to get weird with you okay it goes on here and it says it shall come to pass in that day says the Lord God that I will make the Sun go down at noon and I'll darken the earth in broad daylight I will turn your feasts in the morning and all your songs into lamentation I will bring sackcloth on every waste and baldness on every head I will make it like morning for an only Son and it's in like a bitter day and so God talks about this whole thing with earthquakes heaving in the land and he talks about darkness and in the New Testament when you get to the book of Revelation those are two things - the major cataclysms that you have during the tribulation period it's really interesting stuff have you guys heard of the blood moons okay so here's the thing with with the Blood Moon in the Bible the blood moons in the Bible have it's not just the moon terms red that happens routinely so I'm into like I'm kind of a home astronomy guy I've got a couple of telescopes and I like to go out and why and look at things and so when there's meteor showers I take my family out and when there's a when there's a lunar eclipse which is that's when the moon turns red and all that stuff I will take my I will get my family up and take them out in the middle of the night they're all excited about that all the time and I show them and you know what there's one coming up and so it's gonna be a pretty cool thing because I just think that's always cool but it's not gonna be anything like you see in the pictures because those are long exposures and stuff so you look at the moon and it's gonna look kind of dark and and that kind of stuff but it's cool because it's going in the shadow of the earth and that's the reason that it turns red is basically because every sunrise and every sunset on the planet is being seen from the moon because of it because the moon is over here and the earth is right here the Suns on this side and so when the sun shining on the earth it's shining all around the edges of the earth and the the light is red because it's all sunsets and sunrises and that light is shining on the moon and so that's why it turns red it's kind of a cool thing right but it's happening that way because the moon is behind the shadow of the earth when it happens in the Bible that's not what's going on when it happens in the Bible something else is going on because at the same time that the moon turns red the Sun is darkened and so what that lets you know is that there's something passing in front of the Sun and it's not the earth because when when you have a lunar eclipse the Sun doesn't darken you know again it's basically the sun's right here the the Earth passes in front of the Sun the sun's not darkened the only reason is it's it's darkened from the moon it's because the earth is in the way but we're talking about the Sun being darkened and so something has to be in between the earth and the Sun at that point what are you saying yeah I would have to be pretty big well it depends on where it's at and so something's got to be in front of the Sun for that to happen and so you have something large going in front of the Sun that's dark darkening that and you know I'm not trying to explain away the hand of God on this he could just make the Sun go dark okay and he could just turn them the moon red but if you're talking about naturalistic explanations it's something big going in from in between the Sun and the earth and the same kind of thing happening on the moon where the light is bent around it and you have you have the the moon turning to blood so if you can still seem that see the moon and it's turned red you know that the sun's still there and the sun's not actually gone dark because there's still light coming off the moon so what that means is something's in between the Sun and the earth and something's also between the Sun and the moon okay so what could that be the other thing that you have during that period of time is you have large things smacking the earth so the Bible talks about something the size of a mountain crashing into the ocean and a third of the ships are destroyed there's another example in the in the same chapter where a star called wormwood comes down it's basically a meteor that explodes and it and it poisons all the waters and so now you have a couple of different cosmic events that are taking place in the Book of Luke it talks about the waves and the sea roaring well you have something the size of a mountain falling into the ocean that's exactly what you're gonna get and you're going to you know we've seen some of these these movies where a comet falls into the ocean and stuff like that knees you have large tidal waves and that kind of thing that's exactly what the Bible describes in those instances and if you have something large passing through the through the solar system a lot of times it's going to have other things with it and that might be what's going on in that passage if it gets close enough to the earth you're going to have earthquakes because you're going to you're going to have tidal fluxes do you know you know that the moon raises the continents by a couple of inches every time that the moon goes around the earth the ground under your feet gets lifted up by the gravity of the Moon that's why we have tights for example and so again if you have something large going by then you can have big things happening on the earth and again God can do that without all that stuff but looking at it from an astronomical point of view that's kind of cool stuff that's sci-fi totally and that's what gods into and so actually you know what again God can do this without all of that stuff he doesn't need a large body passing through before the Sun and obviously he's already said that certain things are gonna be hid in the earth so that's just gonna happen yeah he doesn't even need a large body to make earthquakes and and that kind of thing but if he if he does it that way what should be what should we be watching for something big coming into the solar system okay and so when people talk about blood moons you know I understand the excitement that people get when when something like what's happening comes up but when you're talking about what's happening in the Bible its way huger and it's way more scary than anything that we've got you know lunar eclipses are pretty common they're pretty common you have at least two a year to learn eclipses a year and many times you have up to five per year there are two feast days that are always on a full moon guess when you have always have a lunar eclipse on a full moon okay so you've got two feast days for two Jewish feast dates that are always on full moons and you have at least two eclipses every year two lunar eclipses every year so what are the chances that they're going to land land on a Jewish feast day and it's one in six okay so it's not it's not something that's all that in common basically there are four of them that are that are going on but you know again I think that when you're looking at what the Bible has to say about this stuff it's a lot it's a lot bigger than just having a lunar eclipse on the 27th I think it's a bigger deal than that so yeah my yeah that's another thing altogether okay here's one more thing that I wanted to share with you in this in this passage right here it talks about it shall come to pass in that day says the Lord God that I will make the Sun go down at noon and I will darken the earth and broad daylight when did that happen did that ever happen there were a time when the Sun went down at noon yeah when Jesus was on the cross the Sun went down at noon and there is actually some examples of that in the Bible Wow you know what I don't know if I if I put the quotes in here oh no I didn't how did I leave those out and I can't even remember the author's there are a couple of Roman historians that both reference the fact that the Sun went down at noon and one of them references the fact that the Sun went down at noon or actually it didn't go down but it was darkened didn't him and that there was an earthquake and by thymio a large earthquake in Python a Python he has Turkey at that time and so we have one guy who references the Sun going dark at noon and an earthquake and he specifically talks about it happening during the reign of a certain Caesar yeah which puts it in the in the in the time of the of the in the time of history where Jesus was there there's another guy who's a Greek historian and he references the same thing that the Sun went dark at noon and that there was an earthquake and that it was during the time of I think it was a hundred and third Olympiad he might have been the 230 lumpy odd in any case it's a it's a Greek measurement of time and you have a certain point where the Olympiad started it's every four years they would have the Olympics that's what Olympiad was and so you start from the time that the Olympia the Olympics started and go down through history and guess what year you come to 32 33 AD so he puts it to the year that Jesus died and he says the Sun went down at noon or what the Sun went dark at noon when he specifically says that was dark for three hours I'll get the quotes for you and bring him next week but it was dark for three hours and both of these guys attributed it to a lunar or a a solar eclipse okay so let's do some astronomy again this happened during the time of the Passover okay so that's one of the times when you have a full moon okay so if you have a full moon can you ever have a solar eclipse the answer is no you can't the reason is because the sun's over here and the earth is right here and when the moon is full it's because the the moon is on the other side of the earth you know the moon can be on the other side of the earth and you don't necessarily have an eclipse because it's kind of off-kilter and so the reason that the moon looks full is because the sun is shining full on it okay so this just happened a few nights ago and so you'll notice that when you have a full moon the moon is coming up over here and the Sun is going down over here okay and so the way that you get a solar eclipse is during the time of a new moon the moon has to be in front of the Sun so they're in the same place in the sky and so you can never have a solar eclipse at the same time that you have a full moon because they're on on different sides of the sky from our point of view follow that and so what happens is these guys say well it must have been an eclipse must have been a solar eclipse but they knew enough about astronomy back in those days to say that's nonsense it couldn't have happened and that's literally what the Christians who were quoting these guys say they say they say that they said it was an eclipse but the author says I don't see how it could be because it was during the time of the full moon and so when God caused the Sun to go dark there was no possibility of it have it having been a natural event in the sense of the of the moon coming in front of the Sun it can't have happened that way and so there's something supernatural going on there now one of the things that people will come up with is that maybe it's not talking about the Sun literally going dark maybe that what's being spoken about is the the fact that there were clouds that came in and covered the Sun at that time and so a lot of times when you watch of Jesus maybe he's dying on the cross all these clouds will come in and it'll get a little stormy and and that kind of stuff well that doesn't have an effect it wrong that doesn't have an effect in Bethea Neah that only has a fact an effect locally and so the the thing that happened when Jesus died on the cross was something that was seen across the Roman Empire the Sun went dark which is pretty wild so anyway I'll leave it I'll leave you with that and there you have all my weird astronomy stuff and in any case God's in control of there like I said I'll bring you the quotes next week they're pretty cool so let's pray get you out of here father again we we thank you for your word thank you Lord for the fact that you are God you are good and you have a purpose and a plan for our lives we you know we started off with this study I'm talking to just about being plumb and Lord we know that we have no ability in ourselves to be able to do the things that you call us to we're basically just helpless as far as doing the the right thing but Lord when you come to live in our lives and when you fill us with your Holy Spirit and when we're empowered by you we can do things that we never thought that we could ever do before because of your work in us Lord we pray that you would help us to be more and more dependent upon you Lord if you if you don't change us if you don't if you're not at work in us we're always going to stay this way we're never gonna change and so god we we just come to you and ask that that you would make us plump that you would make us what you want us to be well we never want to be in a position where you have to finally come down in judgment against us Lord we know that we're living in a nation that looks like that's what's going to be happening in a not too distant future where we pray for our nation and for our leaders that you would open their eyes that you would open the eyes of your people and that you would turn things around Lord we love you we love what you've done in our country we still live in the most awesome place that the world's ever seen in all of history and yet Lord it looks like we're losing it father we pray that you'd intervene and that you'd have your way with our with our nation we know that you are a God who does not respect persons and you don't respect nations either and if if things don't turn around you have no choice but to judge and so God we just pray that you'd be with us that we'd be the witnesses that you call us to be and that you'd be with our country lord help us to lead many people to you and just give you the rest night prayer that you bless it then you do this all in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 1,421

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Calvary Chapel (Organization), Steve Whinery, The Bible (Religious Text), prophecy, minor prophets, Book Of Amos (Religious Text)

Id: Ddu2SKLzbOo

Length: 49min 2sec (2942 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2015