Amos (Session 4) Chapters 7-8

where we're exploring the Book of Amos and we're in the fourth of five sessions and tonight we're going to talk about chapters 7 & 8 and we'll pick up a few verses of chapter 9 in order to leave the climax for next time that I'll explain when we get there as you know we had an introduction to Amos for a couple of verses then we went through 8 judgments and Gaza Tyre Edom Ammon Moab and Judah and and then the judgment on Israel it's interesting that the first six of these were heathen nations Syria Philistia the Phoenicia and then Edom Ammon and Moab then we got to Judah now Amos was from Judah but commissioned by God to go to the Northern Kingdom called itself the house of Israel it's interesting as he goes here what he does he he knocks these things off with a few verses either to get them out of the way he talked about the heat of the nations talks about Judah that's really not his focus his focus will be the judgment on Israel using Israel as a term for the Northern Kingdom not not to be confused with Israel the whole nation know the northern kingdom and I'll use the word northern kingdom what that confusion as we go but I want to alert you that even that's even though that's his primary focus Israel the northern kingdom we're going to see this is going to open up to a whole nother subject that's much broader than just the northern kingdom but after that then he turns to three sermons in chapters three and four a first and second sermon and then last time we took the third of those three sermons chapters five and six if you will then we now then enter into five visions of judgment visions of the locusts with some surprises I'll come to vision of the fire vision of the plum line then there's a little historical interlude we'll do is just of seven verses and then visions of the summer fruit vision of the of course so when you get to the vision of the of the doorposts that is the first 10 verses of the next chapter we're going to slip that into this thing in order to be able to focus next time on really a whole other thing that emerges here the Davidic Kingdom that's restored and that actually is even alluded to in the New Testament specifically in the pivotal event of the book of Acts the Council of Jerusalem in acts 15 so we'll get to that but last time we took the 3rd sermon chapters 5 and 6 so this time we're going to focus on chapters 7 & 8 and a few verses of 9 on these 5 visions if you will and they will raise more questions than the answer so we'll just jump right into this here and so the first of these five visions are chapters chapter seven one two and three and then well actually one through six for those two there's sort of a unit the first two visions make up a special unit and there's a Hebrew word go of which means large grasshopper locust but whether it's really go over or not we'll talk about when we get there and locusts are all through the prophets as you know especially in Joel and the locust of course devour every green thing and yet their prize for food interesting enough in both leviticus and matthew but before we get into this i want to talk about a mystery most of you are if you're a student of the serious student of the Bible you're obviously a student of prophecy to some extent if you're that at all you've certainly heard about Ezekiel 38 very popular topic and it introduces a person called Gog he's obviously the leader of Magog but it's very strange term the Sumerian word Gog means darkness so it when that links to it or not it's possible but one of the questions about Gog is how can he show up after the Millennium the Gog and Magog battle Ezekiel 38 is clearly before or coincident with the second coming of Christ and yet when we read about the Millennium at the end of that thousand years Gog and Magog occur again there's actually two occurrences that confuses many people well how can Gog show up after a thousand years if that's it well it's a title that's the first point that you realize it's the title not a person and why is this significant the reason Ezekiel 38 so significant God intervenes in history on behalf of the nation Israel and that passage describes the apparently anticipates the use of nuclear weapons they have energy for seven years clean up and all that all the details there so Magog is well identified by the ancient historians as the the forbear of the skiffins which in turn are the forebears of what we know today is the true Russians Hesiod in the 7th century BC identifies the Magog ian's as the skin thien's which of course are the Russians so does her own atlas the father of history in the 5th century BC Josephus of course deals with us in great detail as does Philo these are all well-known historical authorities the wall of China was called the ramparts of gog and magog soon-young admiral the mitai was built to keep the Magog ian's out caucasus most many of you have on your passports that you're Caucasian well what it really means is it's from the caucasus and that's actually a term strange enough that appears to come from the term we referring to god's fort by the way so out of central asia for what it's worth so who is this guy gog what is so strange if you study your Bible it's very unusual for the Holy Spirit to introduce a major person of some kind without some background God just shows up here in Ezekiel 38 and he's a key player obviously there is a strange anomaly we're going to encounter in the first few verses of chapter 7 of Amos so I wanted to you know highlight for you this lingering puzzlement about the identity of God because there's a hint here that most people are not aware of and we'll get into that Amos chapter 7 verse 1 has a very strange verse strange for many reasons thus hath the Lord God showed unto me and behold he formed grass shoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth and lo it was the latter growth after the Kings mowings really what does that mean I have no idea okay well they're obviously some translational problems in the difficulties of the Hebrew here apparently a swarm of locusts will completely overwhelm Jacob or the nation thus hath the Lord God showed me the word and and behold now that that's a very abrupt participle they're deliberately designed grammatically to to be an abrupt he showed me and behold he formed the granite so forth so forth now the Springer ladder reins are typically in March or April they're known as the MAL gosh and god's also means mowing or shearing but even that doesn't help as much what on earth does this verse mean well the next verse does give you a little perspective here and it came to pass that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land then I said O Lord God forgive I beseech thee by whom show Jacob arise for he is small in other words Amos is interceding on behalf of Jacob or the nation Israel so that whatever this means please don't let it happen the Lord repented for this it shall not be saith the Lord now in addition to not knowing what it really says it doesn't matter because whatever is it didn't gonna happen okay God said it's gonna happen whatever this is Amos says hey please don't hey Jacob small give him a break God says okay I won't oh why is that here then if God said he's gonna do it and Amos talks him out of it that could be just an anther morphism but okay why is it here in the text it reminds me a little bit in the book of Revelation in chapter 10 we have the seven thunders under their voices John says I was about to write Oh see do it not so he doesn't you were well why did John even tell us that there were seven thunders uttered their voices who wasn't allowed to write it's a very important reason for that which you can find out if you get our commentary on the book of Revelation Amos intercedes like Moses did Minh the same thing God was going to do these big things and and Moses pleased with God not to and so God says okay well what it shall not be saith the Lord that says puzzling to me as whatever it is the thing was talking about Lord apparently changes money the prophesied event didn't happen so why is it even here well this is the way it reads in your King James Bible or whatever translation is pretty close to it probably because this is taken from the Masoretic text the master reach did worked in about the 9th century AD thus hath the Lord God showed unto me and behold he formed grasshoppers at the beginning of the shootin up of the latter growth and lo it was the latter growth after the Kings mowings so it's somehow involved with locusts but exactly what's going on here isn't very clear let's take a look at a translation that is a thousand years older earlier than the master etic text this is in the Greek the Old Testament was translated into Greek three centuries before Christ's ministry on the planet Earth seventy scholars were impaneled in Alexandria - translated the best Hebrew scholars that new to translate into Greek that product is called the Septuagint version and most of your quotes in the New Testament when they quote from the old are quoting from the Septuagint they're not quoting from a theoretic that isn't done until ninth century AD they're quoting from Hebrew Scriptures whatever they are and we're not sure or more more you see usually they're quote from the septuagint because the average Jew on the planet Earth after during the time of Alexander the Great and following spoke Greek he used Hebrew pretty much the way the Catholics use Latin for ceremonial reasons maybe but his real command of language was in Greek that's what he grew up with that's Alexander enforce that and it's an incredibly precise language so the Christians in the New Testament when they speak of the Scriptures they're talking about the Septuagint version because they co-opted that really that's what led to the Council of Yom knee and 90 AD and for the Jews to get their own translation which is what the master is produced and that's what most of our our Old Testament translations are placed but this is in the Greek now understand the lxx is an abbreviation for susceptor it's a it's a Latin way of expressing seventy scholars it's the widely used abbreviation for what we would call the Septuagint version in the Greek in it there's over a thousand years older than the macerated text it's the version of the Old Testament quoted in the new as the basis of translation here's what it says translating the Greek the Lord hath shown me and behold a swarm of locusts were coming and behold one of the young devastating locust was God the King Wow I won't get into the subtleties in the Hebrew that causes the this translation to be clearer it that gets a little complicated but it's interesting that the term their God the king is is in the Greek the Greek is more precise it's also older and I'm going to submit to you that three centuries before Christ's ministry the best Hebrew experts put it into a unambiguous precise expression in the Septuagint now God the king but wait a minute there's a contradiction here and by the way a little clue anytime in your Bible where you find an apparent prediction rejoice because it isn't a contradiction it's an insight so that it's what a Hebrew rabbi would call a remiz a hint of something deeper one of the young devastating locust was God the king however well if you know from proverbs 30 verse 27 the locusts have no king well how can these locusts have a king well they must not be a natural locust it's an idiom or a metaphor for something locusts like namely a demon okay how do I know that the locusts see proverbs 3:27 the locusts have no king yet they go forth in bed it's mentioned incidentally in proverbs but it's important the natural locusts have no king demon locusts do however and what are the places that we learn that very clearly is Revelation chapter 9 the first 11 verses let's take a look at it and the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit who where's the bottomless pit by the way it's only one place it can be in the center of the earth right that's the only place in the earth where every direction is up you can't go down from there right the bottom spit and the open the bombs pit and there arose a smoke out of the pit the smoke of the great furnace and the Sun in the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit and there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth and unto them was given power as the Scorpions of the earth have power and it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth neither any green thing see they're not that kind of locusts here are they and neither any tree but only those men who have not the seal of God in their foreheads and to them it was given that they should not kill them but that they should be tormented five months and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man and in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them incidentally of all the verses the book of Revelation that's the one that I understand the least I don't understand that how people can seek death and death shall flee does that mean they can't kill themselves that's what it seems to suggest I can't visualize you would think if if I decided I want to really blow myself to smithereens you think I could I'm not recommending it as much as some of you wish I would no no those days shall men seek death and shall not find it they shall desire to die and death shall flee from them Wow is that just a metaphor to describe the extreme tension here or is there something more I don't know I don't know that's that's one of the verses that really puzzled me and the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle and by the way if you ever looked at a regular locust under a microscope you know they really look they're horse like it's amazing anyway prepared about and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold and their faces were of the faces of men and they had hair is the hair of women and their teeth were as the teeth of lions and they had breastplates as it were breastplates of iron and the sound of the wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running in the battle when there are prophecy authors that like to describe these as weapons helicopters and stuff using trying to transfer in impute to the tasks modern weaponry missing the point of the text and they had tails like unto scorpions and there were stings in their tails and their power was to hurt men five months and they had a king over them ahah these locusts have Kings they had a king over them which is the Angel of the bottomless pit whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon but in the Greek tongue hath his name apollyon I assume from John pointing out both the Hebrew and the Greek that they have names we're talking about somehow a specific individual albeit a demon king one woe is past and behold there come two oh two woes more Hereafter this is the first of three woes of the of a revelation they had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless pit whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon Greek and his name is apollyon well getting back to our passage in Amos it came to pass that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land then I said Oh Lord forgive I had beseech thee by whom so Jacob rise for he is small apparently they're going to be destroyed by a king a king of worship the Prince of Persia moon God all kinds of speculations here but whatever it is Amos intercedes like Moses did in numbers 14 and incidentally there's no argument on merits only grace that isn't the forgive I beseech thee by whom shall drink of arise strictly grace the Lord repented for this it shall not be saith the Lord so okay whatever that all is about it doesn't happen so why is it there Wow well perhaps it's to give us a glimpse as to who of the identity of GOG so that when we get to Ezekiel 38 we have a glimpse of what what GOG is really all about and that would be just like the Holy Spirit he does that often the little insights are tucked away in the little nooks and crevices all the way through the scripture there's also our hermeneutics lesson here and there was a period of time when I used to go down I was up the mountains over LA and Big Bear but once a week I'd go down and teach at how Lindsay's Church in Torrance and after a teaching I would spend the night at Hal's home and that was some of the most fun part of that because we would be in this study till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning just talking about stuff it was a great time because that next morning I'd do a Bible study at the local a local restaurant and then had do some other errands and go back up the mountain so so I'm with Hal that night and I'm all excited because I've discovered this thing in Amos 7-1 about God and identity and so forth and I said yeah he said let's check it out so he grabs his copy of this up to we look through it and we have four there's four different versions of septuagint around but this is not even a variant reading here this is it it's what it says and and I was excited you know and I'm stunned I'm just a layman I'm not really you know exegetically qualified this is for my point of view discovery and he agreed and I was just absolutely stunned he wasn't at all no check that just Daniel 12:4 what in Dania for there's a verse says and knowledge men shall go to and fro and knowledge shall be increased and many many people apply that to knowledge in general but the context is knowledge about the Word of God and hell's point was as we get closer and closer to the end times we should not be surprised that passages that have escaped understanding the past suddenly started to become clear he felt that's just a fulfillment of prophecy we can expect especially the field of prophecy things become clearer as the years go by because we're getting closer and closer to the consummation of it I was stunned he was not no I'll never forget that that was his he from his point of view this whole thing was just a an emergence of that because this wasn't something I found in a commentary it's not like you you don't find this in commentaries that's what that's what puzzled me that wasn't really correct he says absolutely that's one of several things like that the GOG identity the demon king identity solves several interpretive problems it would supply the missing background linkage regarding a key eschatological illogical personage GOG is very pivotal in Ezekiel 3839 this helps us it puts light on that if you will it also explains though how gog and magog could reappear at the end of a thousand years may gog is the people let's understand the book is the nation a group of people if logically can survive a thousand years but also see Magog is the people gog is a demon title some say is satan not necessarily maybe one of his top lieutenants okay but it's a title see just like pharaoh isn't a person it's a title of the king of egypt caesar there are many Caesars Caesar title GOG is a demon title that's the point well let's get back to our outline here this was the vision of locusts which doesn't happen there's a vision of fire that also we want to talk about verse for thus hath the Lord God showed unto me and behold the Lord God called to contend by fire and it devoured the great deep and the did eat up apart the vision of fire is a probably analogous to Genesis 19 and the sodom and gomorrah a revelation 18 a similar thing the great deep that to home the deep that seem to suggest subterranean floodwaters then said i that same is speaking o the lord god seaside beseech thee my home show Jacob arise for his small same plea okay see cyber CC aim again in his praise praise for mercy so the vision of fire is also halted the Lord repented for this that this also shall not be saith the Lord God so here's another one that the Lord announces sort of tentatively I guess because a missus please don't do that okay whoa hey strange this also doesn't happen okay now let me get down to this is a plumb line oh now this may be by way of contrast because we got there's two that didn't happen three that are gonna happen thus he showed me and behold the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line with a plumb line in his hand no there's there our exegetical experts that have different views as to what is really said here the Hebrews little tricky the Syriac lexicon the word anak here in Syriac would be kin the Akkadian Ana ku is ten so maybe this is a wall of tin and as if this could be a partition of Britain and there's speculations here and of all the commentaries I use a lot of them but Finley is one of the best on Amos but this he admits here that he's not sure how this goes in the Septuagint it's clear it's a man standing and apparently is measuring it for the plumb line ideas measuring it punishment and he spared the Northern Kingdom for 170 years from Jeroboam the first to Jeroboam the second so 470 years they were spared and so the Lord said unto me Amos what see us now he said I a fun line then said the Lord behold I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel and I will not again pass by them any more now the Northern Kingdom was in there are two hundred and tenth here actually and America also has been about two centuries and I want to remind you of the oft quoted passage in 2nd chronicles 7:14 if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I turn from here from heaven forgive the sin and heal the land God's always available for repentance but this apparently was not operative for that I mean the northern came did not repent the point we're gonna see that their judgment is clearly inescapable because he continues here in the high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword so this is clearly the Northern Kingdom it's in view here the sanctuaries of Israel the remove the false religious system and the places of Isaac is a synecdoche the general for the specific a selectee is a term in rhetoric where you use the general term to mean a specific thing or you use a specific thing to mean the general guy has a new car man you got some neat wheels there guy see we're using the wheels to mean the whole car that's a call to synecdoche and and and and you so and so sure sets a beautiful table doesn't mean the place said it means that food so that's what a senate and so this is anyway and sanctuaries the mikdash demon was the holy places same word use it for tabernacle owns it exodus straight-backed Amos did not pray to stop this judgment so this one stands now we have a little historical insert here for about seven verses then Amaziah the priests of Bethel sent to Jeroboam the king of Israel saying Amos have conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel the land is not able to bear all his words so the high priest Amazigh the priest he's probably the high priest in their situation Bethel and Dan were the two places there were altars that were pagan altars and idol worship now it's not surprising to see attempts by you know of the authorities to silence God spoken here and bear in mind Amos was a foreigner he was from the southern kingdom commissioned by God to come up here and deliver this he was not popular okay and we always see authorities upset when you hear the word of God that was true a pilot that was true of the high priests in Christ's ministry so forth that was true of Ahab when he gets confronted by Elijah and it's certainly true here with with Amos not able to bear or indoors perhaps a better thing the Hebrew word is cool I like that the land is not able to stay cool at all his words alright okay mister translation okay Jeroboam ii died of natural death his son Zechariah was assassinated the house was replaced by another family Amos prophesied the Exile of the nation Jeremiah later on in another period similar situation when he preaches a similar message he puts the they put him in prison for treason for the same assay if Jeroboam shall die by the sword and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land and indeed they were now assisting Emma Zion is this all part of his accusation see that the he didn't credit the two occasions where Amos interceded for the people twice Amos was on their side and I'm as I also said uh name unto Amos oh thou seer go flee away in the land of Judah go back home where he came from others and there eat bread and prophesy there let's go home get out of here and Messiah by the way me Oh Messiah that's a strong as your Diwali but prophesy not again anymore at Bethel for it is a King's chapel and is the king's court so that's the that's you know the high priest of the pagan North saying get out of here and then answered Amos and said to a messiah I was no prophet neither was I a prophet son but I was a herdmen and a gather of sycamore fruit interesting thing you're missed by many see Amos is saying I'm not a traveling minstrel working for cash did I yeah I didn't charge you for Miami raising money here his aim is not to make a living but to deliver a message he was what we would call today probably an industrialist an agricultural industrialist if you will he was a livestock dealer he also grew sycamore figs and what makes that interesting he came from Tekoa okay and they don't have sycamore figs in Toccoa okay they there are lower elevations and so he must have owned substantial properties in addition to where he came from he's a wealthy guy and he was a herdsmen and a breeder in a in a and so forth the Lord took me as I followed the flock and the Lord said unto me go prophesy into my people Israel Israel here being used as the idiom for the Northern Kingdom now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord they'll say us prophesy not against Israel and drop not the his word against the house of Isaac here's what you're gonna get next verse is your reward buddy therefore thus saith the Lord this name is talking about on behalf of the Lord therefore thus saith the LORD thy wife shall be a harlot and thy sons and thy daughter shall fall by the sword and thy land shall be divided by line there's a plumb line and thou shalt die in a polluted land and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land wife harlot Wow hole disruption of the royal high society obviously the pseudo sophistication immorality paganism immorality and paganism will bring its own upon them it's amazing to me that government's love social crises because it gives me excuse to expand budgets and take away freedoms and what causes social crisis immorality so why are we surprised that governments promote immorality that closes the loop doesn't it polluted land Wow see appreciate concern was for ritual purity but to be interred on in payment in the pagan ground okay we get to a couple more of these visions there's visions of summer fruit and now we're moving to chapter 8 verse 1 the vision it's the fourth vision very vivid language but uses illusions that may escape us you've got to visualize a bowl of fruit that is ripe or perhaps even overripe and this but the concern that's being expressed here is the sinful condition of Israel the first six verses here and you also to be sensitive to the double year issue here the Jews have a double year the the traditional well the religious years which was instituted in Exodus 12 is the starts with nice on the month at which Passover takes place and the civil year starts with Tishri which is the seventh month of the religious year but the first month of the civil year that's the genesis calendar if you will so they really observed both Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the civil year but it's the it's the seventh month of the religious year with Feast of Trumpets and so on a feast of yeah Feast of Trumpets and Yom Kippur and sukkah the set the Lord God showed unto me and behold a basket of summer fruit end-of-the-year fruit if you will probably figs sounds like gets or the end by the way the end has come cick ayats and LSATs and wordplay going on here the end has come for my people Israel the time for plucking the year end was the time for plucking remember Jesus cursed the fig tree in in in the New Testament and he said Amos what seus thou and I said a basket of summer fruit then said the Lord enemy the end is come it's a word playing thing going on here the end has come upon my people Israel I will not again pass by them any more strange phrase passed by them God will no longer Joseph them yes off it which means to add I will not add that's what the word Joseph really meant and adding I shall not add or an increase that was in Genesis from an echo from Janis 30 the Northern Kingdom was also called the house of Joseph because of Joseph that tribe had two representative from and Manasseh but Ephraim was the largest one in geographical distribution and the word Ephraim is often used as a synonym or a synecdoche if you will for the northern kingdom and so the North King the house of Joseph the greatest recipient of God's blessing is gonna not pass by them the word Eber means to cross over a pass over a Hebrew it was one that crossed over the river that's where the term came from he would no longer Hebrew the Northern Kingdom I will no longer Joseph or Hebrew them is the thought here again a little wordplay going on in the Hebrew and the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day saith the Lord God there shall be many dead bodies in every place they shall cast them forth with silence the wicked can sing their songs of scorn in God's face for only so long there is a concept here I haven't perhaps emphasized but it's probably a good place to sort of insert it here there are a number of rats of God there is the there is the eschatological wrath like we see in Revelation with all its trumpets and bowls and also there's also the catastrophic wrath like the flood of Noah it's a form of God's wrath there's several others but one of them if you make a list of these can be discern is called his abandonment wrath when God gets angry all he has to do is stand back and fail to shield you from that's which he has been shielding you from that's a form of wrath it occurred to Samson that third visit to Delilah when each time when she woke him up Felicity's be upon you he'd break the bronze and that she tied him up with and show that he was better than that the third time which is that the flesh needs around you he gets up to throw off his bonds and he can't and he realizes God has abandoned him can you imagine the terror in his heart he took that so for granted through his whole life Samson that was this he took that for granted certainly we had got in abandon him and you know the story that's exactly what God tells Hosea when Hosea is contemporary with Amos he's also preaching to the Northern Kingdom and God says there's a ax leave Ephraim alone they're joined idols part of the from 10 chapters the last 10 chapters the book of Hosea is God's indictment against the Northern Kingdom they're gonna get wiped out they're not gonna go into captivity like Babylon like the sudden the southern kingdom goes from bad to worse and they should have even learned from the northern kingdom but don't so they're even more culpable if you will God they go into captivity in Babylon for 70 years then to return the northern kingdom goes into captivity and gets distributed and has never again seen in history as an entity as a collective enemy and why was the southern kingdom spared that extreme only one reason the duration is because that was the duration they failed to keep the Sabbath the land that was expressed in in the in chronicles chapter 36 but the reason they were spared is because of God's promise to David and that's going to be very very important next time to understand the uniqueness of David's throne but in any case here we're dealing with the northern kingdom and they're gonna be cast forth in silence Israel the northern kingdom is right for judgment why because of harmful and dishonest business practice really I wonder of that echoes of enron or you make the list huh trample the needy the show-off to pant after to breathe hard and racing after the prey they made a practice of abusing the poor Sabbath is dealt with in verse 4 and wicked cause the poor to cease to be Sabbath if you will in verse 5 the people who loathed the Sabbath who did not want their souls and spirits turned to God which would make them feel guilty about their sins they didn't want to feel guilty it's important to feel guilty like a small child shouldn't touch a hot stove well I won't touch myself well go ahead you're gonna you're gonna read they're the result of it the Pharisees turn God's day of blessing into an occasion to catch people in violation of their own man-made ordinances that's big con job going on and Jesus spoke against that during's ministry here there so either swallow up the needy even to make the poor of the land to fail God has a special place as heart for the poor saying when will the New Moon be gone that we may sell corn and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat making the ephah small in the shekel great and the falsifying the balances by deceit Wow Aoife was the basic volume volumetric measure the shekel was a coin they made the volume that you really get cheated it's smaller you know the bottle isn't quite full so to speak and the shekel great the pennies are made bigger so to speak the falsifying the balances by deceit that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes yay and sell the refuge of the wheat they allowed people be sold into slavery in order to secure from them such items as a pair of shoes sold refuge as if it were a genuine commodity Satan's counterfeit dealings with this world his merchandise always turns out to be false the Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob surely I will never forget any of their works Wow seven letters written by Jesus Christ that are in your book of Revelation chapters two and three seven epistles how many pistols are they in the New Testament 21 no no no no there's 28 everybody looks the seven that Jesus himself write and each one when he speaks to each of those seven churches I know your works you realize that you're you have you have an audience for everything you do an audience of one he's watching little boy asked his grandpa and God see me when I'm alone kind of nervous about that aspect grandpa says he loves you so much he can't take his eyes off you the excellent city of Jacob for the pride of Jacob God Himself is the pride of Jacob and the tempo the arrogance of the Northern Kingdom the gone the pride can-can Oh glory glory springy but it also can mean pride or arrogance and that's the term it's used here the Lord does not forget or pass over the sins of the unrepentant that's bothering you remember the Christians bar of soap first John 1:9 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness it's his faithfulness you can count on chill not the plan tremble for this and everyone mourn that dwelleth therein and it shall rise up holy as a flood and it shall be cast out and drowned as by the flood of Egypt there's an idiom of the Nile that you won't understand that idiom unless you understand how the Nile works he talks about here tremble tremble for this the word quake may be an echo of the first verse of the first chapter of Amos remember the Kurth quake that was remembered 250 years later it was quite an earthquake natural disasters can be the result of God's disapproval of the nation it's astonishing to compare the statistics of Katrina with the statistics of Israel's evacuation of Gaza the percentages in terms of population are identical the implications are astonishingly in parallel bill koenig writes his books based on the correlation of natural disasters with the pressures of the White House on Israel's partitioning I never really bought into that too much until Katrina and that makes a pretty convincing case when you look at the details and also there's an allusion here to Noah's Flood sodom and gomorrah floods hurricanes riots fires successive winter cold earthquakes these are all in fact your insurance industry has a phrase for that includes all those you know what it is the legal language in your insurance contract acts of god that's a term used by lawyers sound familiar the Nile for a minute see the knife and the Nile flows from the Sudan where the white and blue Niles's are called meet in Khartoum in June the water turns green from the microorganisms in July the color becomes red as those organisms dying from August to October the waters rise 21 to 25 feet in good years if it's less than 21 feet lateral flooding is insufficient to grow the crops if it's more than 28 feet towns become flooded there's a window that's ideal not too small that's what normally is between 21 21 feet the life of Egypt River the El Neel both irrigates and also leaves a thin red brown layer of natural fertilizer that annually renews the land that's the concept and it works it made a gypped one of the earliest global empires metaphorically of course this refers to the Assyrians also violent shaking flooding tossing and the subsiding and shall come to pass in that day saith the Lord God that I will cause the Sun to go down at noon and I will darken the earth in the clear day now this is referring to the nation past its zenith to be cut off the darkness is often used to signify calamity in God's displeasure some people try to tie this to an eclipse that's fine but I don't think that's what it's talking about it's talking about a much deeper darkest here and I will turn your feasts in the morning and all your songs in the lamentation and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head and I will make it as the morning of an only Son and the end of thereof as a bitter day it's interesting and you study the Book of Jonah and the king of the world in that time who whose capital was Nineveh when he was confronted with the forty days comes destruction he not only repented he puts a cloth on the cattle I mean they really put the word out refusing to remove the offensive calf worshiping festivals God will deal with it they wouldn't remove him God will remove them the word bitter Mar and for like Mara from Exodus 15 and bitter your drink drinking cup is the term used in Zechariah and several other places behold the days come saith the Lord God that I will send a famine in the land not the kind of famine you're thinking of I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but of hearing the words of the Lord Wow do you realize we have a famine of that in our land did you know that well wait a minute that's not true we have the Word of God is more available today than it ever has been on the planet Earth you can go into the Hebrew and the Greek without knowing Hebrew Greek but putting your little computer cursor over any word little box pops up which explains exactly what word it is it singular plural parts of speech all that stuff you can get at the Word of God many people in your phones we carry half a dozen different Bibles and different translations and you can there weren't searchable and the apply 'information appliances we enjoy are fantastic the Word of God is more available so how can that be wait a minute I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but of hearing the words of the Lord you can go into probably I'm guessing 8 or 9 out of 10 churches and not hear the Word of God you'll talk about all kinds of interesting things make you feel good how to get along better with your neighbors how to maybe heal your marriages or all kinds of worthwhile things it would seem but do you hear about the blood of Christ as a remedy for your sins that's the gospel it's defined for you 1st Corinthians 15 first 4 verses this is the gospel how that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures that he was buried he rose again the third day that's the gospel when Paul defines it there he doesn't talk about Jesus a great teacher or a great example or any of those things or a miracle worker that's not the point no no that's not the point point is that the gospel is that he died didn't just disappear the best-documented death on the planet earth he died he didn't just die he fulfilled hundreds of specifications this genealogy and every detail the manner of death was predicted laid out in advance in Eden by the way died for our sins for a purpose our sins in our place he was buried Paul emphasizes because he makes a big case about baptism around that and that he rose again the third day according to scriptures that was all specified famine this is the famous famine in Amos Amos chapter 8 verse 11 talks about a famine on the planet Earth famine of the hearing of the word of God if they don't wish to hear God's Word they're gonna get their wish they won't hear his word a famine of God's Word we have no grasp of what that can mean and yet we can in a sense begin to experience that here in our own culture try finding a church that really preaches the Word of God praise God for the ones that do but they're a minority famine is a lack of food knowing desire is the typical concept of the word the woman at the well the Samaritans in Christ I'm the survivors of God's judgement will now crave what their fathers had despised and refused now there are gaps in the prophets ministry after Isaiah and from Malachi to John the so called silent years people say no they're in your Bible Daniel chapter 11 verses 5 to 35 fills the gap between the old and new testament check it out it is so precise the skeptics have tried to argue that that must have been written later if that precisely profiles the history between the Testaments the son of God Himself said blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied praise God he called himself the bread of life we celebrate that time every time you take communion you take in your hands proof that God loves you well initial wonder from sea to sea and from North even to the East and they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it and that day shall the the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst they that swear by the sin of Samaria and say thy God o Dan liveth and the manner of bush ever liveth even they shall fall and never rise up again the guild of Samaria the calf altars at dan and beth-el are in view here the worship of the calves on those altars echoing of course the calf and Egypt at the foot of a finite bear Sheva is this most southernmost city of the ancient Israel the United Israel pilgrimages to the city of Abraham and Isaac were still common back then heritage was missing it's true significance as a result the house of Israel the Northern Kingdom will fall and not rise again not the nation Israel the Northern Kingdom okay so we got one more vision to go here and it's the happens to be in the first ten verses of chapter 9 will include it tonight so we for some reasons I'll explain in a minute 9 Amos 9 chapter verse 1 I saw the Lord standing upon the altar well that's strange I saw the Lord standing upon the altar and he said smite the lintel of the door that the Postma shake and cut them in the head all of them I will slay the last of them with a sword he that flee a--the of them shall Nephi away and he that escaped a--the of them shall not be delivered well now you see me a may see echoes of exodus 12 here where they put blood on the doorposts and on the lintel and if you try to do that you'll find yourself doing a cross right and that's maybe what's being echoed here huh standing upon the altar standing beside the altar and what's the in view here is the destruction of the temple now a number of commentators Cyril a walled head sig Hoffman Bauer Jamison say that Israel's altar and temple the golden calf at Bethel is the focus here other commentators Calvin airman Kyle they're speaking of the altar and temple at Jerusalem that was destroyed turns out they're both true both views fit history Sumerian Bethel fell in 722 BC juices of Jerusalem is destroyed in 586 BC only person from the Northern Kingdom could hide atop Mount Carmel and starting at verse 7 the restoration of the entire nation is now in view no fugitives that future is the one that flees the force of calamity no refugees that's one who finds refuge and/or safety after calamity and those terms are important give you a footnote here the difference between Adia tomania note the difference between an idiot mania the main the idiot is the one driving too slow in front of you the main aches the one who passes you know that's a little incidental okay continuing a mystery though they dig into hell vents shall mine hand take them though they climb up to heaven thence will I bring them down there's no escape from the judgment of God you must repent and come to the true altar yo Devon a and Paul quotes this in fact in Romans 10 interestingly enough salvation is available through obedience and faith and that's what Psalm 139 is all about put it you know to check it out and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel I will search and take them out Vince and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea thence will I command the serpent and he shall bite them not Carmel 60 square miles at the summit about 30 square miles available for hiding so this is all Hebrew parallelism if you will for heaven and show if you though they go into captivity before their enemies vents will I command the sword and it shall slay them and I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good little contrast you remember Joseph the best pot of our slave was safe from his brothers pot of fire threw him into prison right you know what that tells you by the way he knew that his wife was lying because if she was telling the truth he would had him killed he had to say face and do something so I threw him in prison why make him safe until God was ready for and he tells his brothers you meant it for evil but God uses it for good his whole anyway evil or not for good all the way through the scripture and the Lord God of hosts is he that touches the land and it shall melt and all that dwell therein shall mourn and it shall rise up holy like a flood and shall be drowned as by the flood of Egypt there's that phrase again this interesting Lord God of hosts of unusual title I don't know your name Ave see very often Sabby often some of your hymns some the rising and falling of the Nile initially excavations in Samaria discovered images of Isis and Horus the wife and son of Osiris the Nile God it was interesting how up in Samaria and their paganism they were really into Egyptology the egypt gods and it iums and all that occultic stuff they had fascination with Egyptian practices but that's interesting you and you you read when you go through you have to go through the museum at Cairo it's huge it's you could spend a week there it might amazing but it's all focusing on what what were they obsessed with death exactly mummification everything death death death this city of death and so on anyway is he that abideth his stories in the heavens and he has founded his troupe in the earth he calleth he that called for the waters of the sea and pour them out upon the face of the earth the Lord is his name his truth his Lord is the word trooping the earth it's an interesting term here it's an honor bundle of hyssop or it's used as the troop of men bundled or like a group of men knotted together Band of Brothers I suppose as the term you could use of course it's like the arch of heaven knitted together in the NASB they called the vaulted dome in Amos God created his bundle over the earth the sky air cloud stars whatever it is a bundle that has knotted together by the hand of the Creator and new freely if you want to get into some of that I encourage you to find out what super strings are we touch up on that in our briefing package called beyond perception I won't start on all that here we'll run out of time are ye not as children of Ethiopians unto me o children of Israel saith the Lord have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt and the felicity's from calf door and the Syrians from kir well this leads them to a verse that we're going to deal with next time but to give you a glimpse here because it deals with the future restoration of the righteous Kingdom now the question is how could God remove Israel in light of X's 12 and 20 he promised not to Israel repeatedly broke his covenant and a repeated sinfulness suspended the bond of special ownership and privilege scripture provides for that verse a behold the eyes the Lord God 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 saith the Lord oh here we go here we go I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob that's the overall package that's the nation Israel he's going to destroy the Northern Kingdom that house and it will disappear from history did the people disappear no because the faithful had migrated south according to first chronicles 11 the Levites didn't want to hang around where they're enforcing paganism they went south where they worship the temple if you're down in the south and you were kind of into paganism you went where it was politically correct you might be they commingled don't confuse everybody does confuse those terms that are geographic with the terms that are not legit they're the family trees you can be Annie from my one of two ways you'd be a descendant of these my tribe that's one way or you can live in the region call that was assigned to Ephraim okay I'm I can call myself a Californian right because I lived in California am i a descendant of native Californians no at me born in Chicago forgive me okay house of Jacob the scope suddenly broadens to the whole house of Jacob now we're gonna yeah I want you to notice there was a shifting of gears here in verse eight he shifted from the Northern Kingdom to the whole house of Israel the subject has changed here the spotlight is expanded here and it's for the sake of their fathers who really from lo I will command and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations like as corn is sifted in the sieve yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth Wow think about that one a sieve is a device separate and aerate the grain removing the bad kernels from other impurities Northern Kingdom drew out false worshippers and avert of the true worship herself the true worshipers had gone south by choice the false worshippers had migrated north where it was politically correct for a while God would not let one repentant person to perish that's what Deuteronomy 30 is all about revelation 7 speaks of the seen 144,000 we had chapter 14 not one of the hundred forty four thousand fails to make it let's remember that they were sealed all the sinners of my people shall die by the sword which say the evil shall not overtake nor prevent us in that day will I raise up oh what's this first this is verse Amos chapter 9 verse 11 why is that so important because James in the counselor of Jerusalem quotes this to resolve the issues before that council many people study x15 know that their argue about what does a gentle have to do to be saved great that's part one of a two-part problem the Gentiles don't have to observe so much right they don't have to you know avoid adultery and a few things but they're saved by grace not by the law is the point well cats only part a of a two part apartment the real working problem if a general dozen have to me become a Jew to be saved what's to become of Israel and James answers that by quoting Amos 9 verse 11 and that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen and close up the breaches thereof I will raise up his ruins and I will build and again as the days of old really oh you mean a temple no don't confuse the tabernacle David with the temple of Solomon it may be both but the point is this is a palace tabernacle of David the Fallen cyka boost singular not zhukov plural like the Feast of Tabernacles different word don't confuse it with that don't confuse it with the temple of wilderness and witness in the wilderness this was quoted by the Council of Jerusalem by James at the Council of Jerusalem in acts 15 the tabernacle of David is not to be confused with the Temple of Solomon this verse sets up the stage for our final session in our review of this Book of Amos chapter 5 session the fifth session of its five session series a final climax so what I want you to do for next time I want you to study the last four verses of the Book of Amos but I want you to also study Daniel chapter 2 and you're gonna learn something that most people I would say nine out of ten churches in America deny or ignore or try to explain away as a metaphor back in Daniel chapter 2 there was an image with four metals gold silver brass and then iron actually in two phases iron iron and iron mixed with clay and stone cut without hands might sit at the feet and it crumbles and grows into a mountain that covers the whole earth not just the middle-east the whole earth it goes over the whole earth what is a mountain in Scripture used this way it's a metaphor for a government now then we know from this the multi metals it's interpreted for us in Daniel - gold is Nebuchadnezzar you are that head of gold Babylon the silver would come next would be Persia then Greece and then Rome intact actually we discovered in two phases and so babbling was from 606 to 539 Persia from 539 to 332 they conquers the Babylonians then Greece conquers the Persians from 332 to 68 then Rome first phase conquers Greece who conquered Rome no one it broke into pieces and those pieces are going to recall s apparently and then we have the fifth Kingdom in a list of five that everybody overlooks they get all fascinated with the fourth Kingdom which is the two phase thing with Roman this that nearly no no Daniel is interpreting for you that strange dream that Nebuchadnezzar had and in the days of these kings that is the fourth King it was the days of these shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom Wow God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever that's why Matthew uses the term kingdom from heaven and your Bible may say Kingdom of Heaven no it's a genitive of source not a genitive of opposition the kingdom from him Mark Luke and John use kingdom of God which is all-inclusive indeed Daniel Mathews more vino a specific subset of that a kingdom that's going to be on the earth kingdom from heaven but it's on the earth for as much as thou sawest that the stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands and that had break in pieces they are in the brass the clay of the silver in the gold the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass Hereafter the dream is certain the interpreter Taoiseach never sure if I could do a yul brenner imitation I'd say so shall I be written so shot

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Length: 66min 1sec (3961 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2020