Book of Amos 28: Their False Religion

turn with me if you would to the Book of Amos chapter 7 we're now in the fourth section of the book which is the five visions the vision of the locust the vision of the fire the vision of the plumb line division of the summer fruit and the vision of the stricken doorpost now we've already covered the first two visions the vision of the locust and the vision of the fire so now we're ready to move on to the third vision which is the vision of the plumb line that's why I brought out a level and a plumb line so follow along with me as I read verses seven through nine in Amos chapter seven then he showed me another vision I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line he was using a plumb line to see if it was still straight and the Lord said to me Amos what do you see I answered a plumb line and the Lord replied I will test my people with this plumb line I will no longer ignore all their sins the pagan shrines of your ancestors will be ruined and the temples of Israel will be destroyed I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to a sudden end now in the first two visions Amos immediately understood what he saw and what it meant but in the third and fourth vision he didn't so God had to explain what he was seeing and what he meant or what in what it meant in fact in both visions God asked Amos what do you see and after a mistook him then God explained what it meant so look at the third vision and let's go through this verse by verse starting in verse number seven says then he showed me another vision I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line he was using a plumb line to see if it was still straight now everyone knows what a plumb line is right how many of you own a plumb line how many of you have ever used a plumb line they're very very useful in fact I went to get my ode plumb line and it wasn't really what I wanted it was made out of rubber it but it's brass this is a brass one this is a plumb line now a plumb line is a string that's attached to a lead or in this case a brass weight that can be used for a variety of things in construction but in the old testament times it was used primarily by stonemasons to make sure that the walls they were building were vertically straight or what we would call plumb and I can remember when my dad first had me out we were learning to build or he was teaching us how to build something and he pulled out this level and he said son look look and see if that wall is plumb well I didn't know what plumb meant and I always thought that you used to level just to make sure that things were level and so what you would do is you would place this on whatever was there and you would look to see if this bubble was between these two lines that's level but if you're measuring something vertical you want to see if it's truly vertically straight you want to know if it's plumb and so what you would do is you would plop this up here and you would look to see if the bubble was between the two lines if it was then it's plumb it's what carpenters would call true true to plumb so in Old Testament times they didn't have levels so they would use plumb lines to make sure that the walls that they were building were actually vertically straight or what we would call plumb they also used it to check older walls to see if they were beginning to lean or if they were still vertically straight after all of those years that they had been standing look back at verse number seven and you'll see what I'm talking about says then he showed me another vision I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line so what they did is they built this wall with the plumb line basically they would build a tripod and they would get down to the foundation make sure that the foundation was level and they used water to be able to do that and then they would build this foundation they would measure diagonally to make sure that it was good and square and if it was the same as they measure diagonally they knew that it was square and then they would build this tripod over each quarter and they would drop down this plumb line to the very point that they wanted it to be and they would start building their walls to make sure that the corners were plumb by these plumb lines now over time what would take place is sometimes those walls would saddle and when they settled they were no longer plumb they were no longer vertically striped so notice what it says verse seven then he showed me another vision I saw the landlord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line so originally this wall was vertically straight but then it goes further he was using a plumb line to see if it was still straight so as you can see they built walls using a plumb line to make sure they were vertically straight but they also used to plumb line to check older walls from time to time to see if they were starting to lean or if they were still true to plumb now at that time most city walls and public buildings were built out of cut stone that fit together almost perfectly so they didn't use any mortar and they didn't need to because the stones they used were so large and so heavy they didn't shift or move and because of the size of the stones their walls were extremely strong in fact some of the stones in Herod's temple weighed as much as a hundred and sixty thousand pounds now when I say as much as that kind of makes it sound like you know the rare exceptions but to be honest with you the majority of the stones in Herod's temple weighed about a hundred and sixty thousand pounds around 280 tons in fact there is one stone on the western wall that is 41 feet long at 11 and 1/2 feet tall and 15 foot wide and it weighs 500 metric tons does everyone know what a metric ton is a metric ton is 1,000 kilograms or because we never went to the metric system Thank You Jimmy Carter I'm glad we didn't 2,000 204 pounds so we're talking 500 times 2,000 204 pounds which is 1 million 102 thousand pounds one stone in fact if you went to Israel with me and we went to the western wall if you remember we went through this tunnel that ran naw or North directly in line with the Western Wall and we came to that one stone and hopefully you remember that they pointed it out it was 41 feet long Levin half feet tall 15 foot wide and it weighs 1 million one hundred two thousand pounds now if you had a wall made out of huge stones and it was starting to lean people that was a major problem for two reasons first of all a wall that was true to plumb was strong and stable but the wall that wasn't true in plumb a wall that was beginning to lean was weakened unstable which meant it could come tumbling now secondly it usually indicated that the foundation wasn't solid and it was either crumbling or moving as I said walls were built using a plumb line so if a wall was starting to lean usually meant that the foundation was beginning to give or move and it would only be a matter of time before the wall became unsafe now you didn't want two walls to fall not only because it would kill anyone that it fell on but also because it would be a nightmare to try and move those falling stones you see the stones they used were too large to move by hand I know that seems like common sense but most of us won't put two and two together you couldn't just say hey Bill hey Bob hey Tom come help me let's each grab a corner and we're gonna lift the stone no you couldn't even lift the stone that was one ton let alone 80 tons so you couldn't just get out and begin to lift it by hand so if a wall was starting to lean it usually meant that that foundation was beginning to give or move and it was just a matter of time before it fell and when it failed they would all come tumbling down on each other some of the stones would be broken so you wouldn't be able to reuse them but the worst thing is it would be a nightmare trying to get those stones out of the way to begin to move them look at the pictures and you'll see what I'm talking about here are some pictures of walls that are still standing from over 3/4 from over a period of 3,000 years look at that notice how they fit together no mortar in there why because they weren't meant to now let's look at the second picture look how big those stones are notice there's no mortar they just stack them on top of each other go to the third picture if you don't mind of course this is at the Temple Mount you can begin to see how they fit these things together so the only way you could move stones this large was with pulleys and cables but if the stones fell on top of each other you couldn't position the police and the cables where they needed to be in fact you couldn't get any equipment into that area to move the stones without a lot of difficulty in fact you see this this is a wonderful picture of how they moved of these big stones this was the ancient equivalent of a crane and what they would do is they literally had these two I guess you'd say Timbers coming up you had all of these pulleys that were hooked to them but then you would also attach these to make sure that they didn't move to the ground the problem is if you had all these stones that were on top of each other because the wall had come crumbling down there was no place to be able to bring these these uh Timbers in to sink them in the ground and you had no way to come in and secure them except to tie them to other stones and so it was a it was a really big hassle to be able to do that so you really didn't want to have to do that so you definitely didn't want a wall to fall on its own instead if a wall was leaning you wanted to tear it down one stone at a time because that was much safer and it was much easier so every few years you would check the walls of a city with the plumb line you actually had people that worked for the king and that was his job from time to time he kept a record of when he checked these walls and he would make sure that these walls were still plumb if the walls were beginning to lean and almost always indicated a problem with the foundation so you had to dismantle the wall and rebuild it on a solid and true foundation now the problem with Israel is that they had built their Kingdom on a different foundation than the one that God had originally laid they had built their Kingdom on a foundation that wasn't true so their Kingdom was not true and it had begun to lean and the only thing God could do to fix the problem was to dismantle the kingdom in other words tear down their kingdom so God was going to tear them down in order to remove the faulty foundation they had built their kingdom on look at verses 7 through 9 again and you'll see what I'm talking about then he showed me another vision I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line he was using a plumb line to see if it was still straight and the Lord said to me Amos what do you say I answered a plumb line and the Lord replied I will test my people with this plumb line I will no longer ignore all their sins in other words he was measuring their actions against the Mosaic law and they were way off instead of the plumb line what we would think of what he was measuring them against was the Mosaic law and what he found is they were really leaning they were way off they weren't true so then he goes further the pagan shrines of your ancestors will be ruined and the temples of Israel will be destroyed I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to a sudden end so God was going to tear down their kingdom and the foundation that it was built upon which was their false religion so God told them that he was going to tear down their pagan shrines their idolatrous temples and their monarchy and even the people would go into exile allowing their kingdom to be built upon a wicked and evil foundation rather than upon God's foundation which was the Mosaic law now in well before I go further and look at the new tests let me go a little bit further that's why their actions were so far off from the Mosaic law they weren't basically basing them on God's law what they had done is they had created their own apostate religion and as a result of that it wasn't a true foundation so when God came to measure them against the Mosaic law they were way off and the reason they were way off is because they weren't based upon the Mosaic law that's what God was showing him their foundation they were using was unstable it was not solid it wasn't what God had laid down now in the Newton Paul uses a very similar analogy it's a little bit different he doesn't talk about the plumb line but he does talk about the foundation and we need to understand in the Book of Amos what God is actually saying in this because he expects you to understand how walls are built and how a plumb line is used if a wall begins to lean the reason it's leaning is because the foundation has moved the foundation is not solid and true they had a religion that was not solid and true because it wasn't based on the Mosaic law it wasn't based on God's foundation now in the New Testament Paul is gonna use a similar analogy he's not going to use the plumb line but he's going to talk about the foundation because we all build our lives on a foundation even if you're not a Christian you build your life on a certain foundation that foundation is your core values it's what you believe but if your core values and your beliefs are wrong your life's gonna be way off well how do you know that Mike if my core values are way off how do you know if what I believe is way well if it's not based upon what God says your value should be and what you should believe in it's way off because only God has a true and solid foundation and Paul talks about this in the book of first Corinthians chapter 3 verses 11 through 15 notice what it says for no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have Jesus Christ so the question is do you have Jesus Christ as the foundation for your life now let's keep reading anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials you can use gold you can use silver you can use jewels you can use wood hay or straw but on the Judgment Day fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done the fire will show if a person's work has any value if the work survives that builder will receive a reward but if the work is burned up the Builder will suffer great loss the Builder will be saved I noticed this even if what he built on the foundation burns up he says the Builder will be saved do you see that but then he goes further but but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames now if a person's work is burned up why are they still saved well the reason they're still saved is because the foundation still exists which is Jesus Christ but if you don't have Jesus you don't have a true and solid foundation so not only will your works be burned up but so will your so now here's what's interesting the Northern Kingdom they abandoned the Mosaic law they had they practice what we call syncretism in other words they took parts of the Mosaic law but they mixed it with a pagan religion and as a result of that they didn't have a true solid foundation so when they built their kingdom on this foundation their actions were not based upon the Mosaic law but was based upon this religion and therefore when God measured it it was not true that's what he's saying so I'm going to have to dismantle you now we're going to find out that the southern kingdom which was called Judah they built their Kingdom on the Mosaic law but they didn't always practice it so they had the true foundation but the problem was their lives did not measure up according to it and so in five around 586 the Babylonians come in and they carry them into captivity they destroyed Jerusalem and we all know the story of the Babylonian captivity of course the Northern Kingdom went into captivity in 722 why did they go so much earlier because their foundation wasn't the Mosaic law their actions were so far off God had to dismantle it he also had to do the very same thing with the southern kingdom but it lasted it were remained a lot longer because it had a true foundation though their lives didn't measure up to it but here you can see in the New Testament it's the same with us if you lay the foundation of Jesus Christ then you have a true foundation to build your life on and hopefully gonna study God's work and based upon God's Word your core values are going to be what the Word of God says they should be your beliefs are going to be based on God's Word and as a result of that the works that you do will be gold silver or precious stones so one day when your life when you stand before God for your life to be judged and they pass your life through this fire all of the works that you have if it is gold silver or precious stones then it will come back and show that it was worthy but if you built your life on your own core values on your own beliefs but you still have the the foundation of Jesus Christ when you stand before God and they judge your works it will be passed through the fire if it's wood hay or stubble it will be burned up but you will still be saved why because your life was still built upon the right Foundation which was Jesus Christ the problem is you won't have any rewards remember we're saved by grace but were rewarded by what works and most of us don't like to hear that most of us are sacrificing eternity for this temporal time we have here on this earth we're grabbing all the things we can in this temporal world not realizing that we're sacrificing the rewards that we will receive one day in eternity now let's go further as you can imagine when Amos began prophesying that God was going to the school destroy the nation's shrines the temples and even their monarchy it sounded like a conspiracy or even worse there sounded like treason so a messiah who was Israel's high priest at the time he stepped in to shed Amos up and to forbid him from prophesying look at verses 10 through 17 and follow along as I read this passage of Scripture then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel Amos is hatching a plot against you right here on your very doorstep what he is saying is intolerable in other words inexcusable what he is is treason he is saying Jeroboam will soon be killed and the people of Israel will be sent away into exile then a messiah sent orders to Amos get out of here you prophet go on back to the land of Judah and earn your living by prophesying there don't bother us with your prophesies here in Bethel this is the king sanctuary in the National place of worship but Amos replied I'm not a professional prophet and I was never trained to be one I'm just a shepherd and I take care of sycamore fig trees but the Lord called me away from my flock and told me go and prophesy to my people in Israel now then listen to this message from the Lord you say Amaziah don't prophesy against Israel stop preaching against my people but this is what the Lord says to you a messiah your wife will become a prostitute in this city and your sons and your daughters will be killed your land will be divided up and you yourself will die in a foreign land and the people of Israel will certainly become captives in exile far from their homeland now let's look at this confrontation between Amazigh and Amos verse-by-verse starting with verses 10 through 11 let's just kind of work through this let's go back and read verses 10 and 11 then a messiah the priest of Bethel send a message to Jeroboam king of Israel saying Amos is hatching a plot against you right here on your very doorstep what he is saying is intolerable he is saying Jeroboam will soon be killed and the people of Israel recent away into exile now as you can see a messiah was the high priest of the Northern Kingdom and Bethel was the official temple of the Northern Kingdom and as the official temple of the Northern Kingdom it would have had lots of priests working there but a messiah wasn't a priest of Bethel he was the priest of Bethel do you see that in other words he wasn't just a priest who was working there he was the high priest and as the high priest he was responsible for everything that went on in that temple so if someone did something that they weren't supposed to do in the temple it was his job to stop it so when Amos began prophesying against their pagan shrines against their temples against their monarchy EMAS I had one of two choices he could either admit that what was being prophesied was right and they all needed to repent that their religion was an apostate religion that were what we're doing is wrong it's not based on the Mosaic law we've gotten away from the one true God what we're doing is idolatrous so we need to repent he could do that or he could reject what was being prophesied and put a stop to it people that's exactly what he did the first thing he did was he wrote a letter to the king accusing Amos of conspiracy and in doing so he twisted Amos words you see in his letter he didn't say that Amos was prophesying the words of Yahweh no instead he implied that Amos was speaking on his own behalf and not on the behalf of Yahweh and then he directly accused Amos of hatching a plot against him and of saying things that were intolerable in other words inexcusable we don't allow those are reasonable words now I want you to notice how he twisted Amos words notice how he changed the prophets warning about the end of jeroboams dynasty into a direct attack on Jeroboam look at verse 11 you see what I'm talking about he is saying talking about Amos he is saying Jeroboam must soon be killed in the people of Israel will be sent away into exile now people that is not one Amos said at all Amos said that Jeroboam jeroboams dynasty would come to an end but a messiah wanted the king to turn against Amos you see Emma's ayahs of 40 was over the temple not the nation so he could stop Amos from prophesying at the temple in Bethel but he couldn't stop him from prophesying in other places and he didn't have the authority to cast him out of the nation in other words say hey you can't be here anymore you're an immigrant you're not supposed to be here you shouldn't be doing these things we're going to expel you from the country he didn't have the authority to do that so in order to get what he wanted which was to kick Amos out of the country and stop him from prophesying he had to turn the King against him and the best way to do that was to accuse Amos of hatching a plot against the king and that's what he did he told the King he's hatching a plot against you right your doorstep he's prophesying that you're going to be killed now how many of you remember when there were all those protests against Trump and Madonna got up there Madonna said we needed to storm the point and all of a sudden she was quiet after that for several weeks do you remember that why was she quiet because she realized that what she done was made a threat against the president you can't do that you can't do that not just in America you can't do that anywhere next time you travel to other countries next time you travel across the sea and you're in another country just make a threat against the president of that country and see what happens you'll be locked out you be cast out of that country if you're lucky why because you can't do that and so what he told the king was amos is hatching a plot against you he says you're gonna be killed implying that he was hatching this plot for him to be murdered assassinated but that was not what Amos had prophesied he said that the dynasty of Jeroboam was going to come to an end in other words I don't know what's gonna happen I'm just telling you what the Lord says there's gonna be an end to your dynasty and of course they understood what a man he was gonna die or his his ancestors his children and his grandchildren gonna die and so that dynasty was going to be cut off but it wasn't saying that I'm gonna kill you or someone's gonna kill you I'm involved in this plot now right after Amaziah wrote a letter to the king he confronted Amos look at verses 12 and 13 then a messiah sent orders to Amos get out of here you prophet going back to the land of Judah and earn your living by prophesying there don't bother us with your prophecies here in Bethel this is the King sanctuary in the National place of worship now here's what's sad by rejecting Amos he was rejecting Yahweh and you see that in verse 13 if you noticed and Messiah didn't refer to the Temple in Bethel as God's sanctuary and God's place of worship now what did he refer to it as he referred to it as the king sanctuary in the National place of worship that was never supposed to be it wasn't the king sanctuary if it was built on the Mosaic law you need to understand something when you go and you see how God set it up even when he established david is the king there was always a prophet and there was always supposed to be the priests that were the check-and-balance to the king remember when David screwed up and Nathan the prophet came to him and he told him this little story and David was angry and furious because this little man only had this lamb and he loved this lamb as part of this family and this other person came and he killed it and David said who did that man needs to die and Peyton looks Amy says that man is you let me tell you God set it up for the Prophet in the priest to keep that king in balance and the King was also told that every day he was to read the law why because his reign and his rule was supposed to be based upon God's foundation but here's what's interesting here in Bethel you've got the high priest and he's not referring to this as God's sanctuary God's place of worship he's referring to it as the king sanctuary the nation's place of worship he had it all mixed up how sad the people who shows Emma's Aya's heart he was a priest to the king not a priest of God and he presided over the nation's temple not God's temple you see if he would have had that reversed he wouldn't have allowed what was going on he would have been the one that would told the king I can't do this first of all I can't even be a priest because I'm not a Levite if you go back to the Mosaic law only the Levites can be a priest but you see he wasn't God's priest he was the king's priest he didn't minister at God sanctuary or God's place of worship he ministered at the nation's place of worship now look at Amos response to him look at verses 14 and 15 but Amos replied I'm not a professional prophet and I was never trained to be one I'm just a shepherd and I take care of a sycamore fig trees but the Lord called me away from my flock and told me go and prophesy to my people in Israel now the reason that Amos said that he wasn't a professional prophet that he had never trained to be one because it was because a Messiah had implied that Amos made his living by prophesy but he made his living by being a prophet and that wasn't true Amos was not a professional prophet Amos was a businessman what was he he was a shepherd and he had an orchard of sycamore fig trees and the only reason that he was prophesying was because God had called him away from his business to go to Israel and to prophesy to them to call that nation back to him if it wasn't for that he would have still remained shepherding and he still would have remained taking care of his orchard and then Amos gave a personal prophecy to a messiah because a messiah rejected yahweh by rejecting his prophet this is what would happen to him and to his family so this is a personal prophecy now here's what's kind of interesting what Amos prophesied to em Isaiah was not his own words but you need to understand something just as the Prophet is jealous of God God is jealous of his prophets even David understood that here's what's kind of interesting if you killed Saul or you even were gleeful that Saul had died or you did any of those type of things David had you killed because he always believed you don't touch God's anointed everyone understand what I'm talking about and the reason you didn't is because not only is a prophet jealous of God but God is jealous of his prophets so when a messiah personally attacked Amos then Amos gives him a personal prophecy now remember in the Old Testament when a prophet prophesied what took place the Holy Spirit came upon him he went into an overnight trance and God put his words into his mouth so this is an Amos talking to a messiah this is Yahweh talking to a messiah and this is the personal prophecy look at verses 16 and 17 now then listen to this message from the Lord Yahweh you say don't prophesy against Israel stop preaching against my people but this is what the Lord says to you a messiah your wife will become will become a prostitute in the city and your sons and your daughters will be killed your land will be divided up and you yourself will Dinah for land and the people of Israel will certainly become captives in exile far from their homeland now I'm gonna be honest with you a lot of pastors who don't know the Word of God get into all types of trouble when they read this and then they turn around and look at the people and say don't touch me I'm God's anointed if you touch me this is what's going to happen to you people that's not true I want you to understand something this isn't collective retribution how many of you know what collective retribution is collective retribution is when a whole family is punished for one member of that family sin in other words one person in the family sins against God or sins against a king or whatever and the whole family is punished for that one person sin it's usually the sin of the father but it could be the sin of the Sun that's collective retribution you need to understand something God is not punishing a mazayas family because of a messiahs sin and accusing Amos you have some pastors who preach that that is not what the Bible teaches so listen to me this is what I'm saying if you want to write this down write it down God was not specifically in purposely punishing Emma's eyes family because of Emma's is seeing no but because the king and Emma's eye of the high priest along with all the leaders of Israel had rejected Yahweh in his message the nation was going to be destroyed and the people would be carried into exile and when that happened this is what would happen to Emma Zayas family and it was Emma's Iyaz fault that this was going to happen to his family it was not his family's fault and the whole reason God is speaking to a messiah is because he wants this to become personal to him for him to have a little bit of fear of God and for him to take a step back and go wait a minute I don't want this to happen you're right I'm wrong and repent before God and of course that Messiah doesn't do it but I want you to understand the whole reason that what that this punishment is coming upon a messiahs family is not because of a messiahs sin it's because of all of the nation's sin but Amos and Yahweh wanted a messiah to know how this was going to affect him personally so what Amos is doing he's saying you don't understand him as I I'm here prophesying for you I'm here prophesying for your family because if you don't repent this is what will personally happen to your family here it is your wife will become a prostitute in other words a messiahs wife would be left behind when a Messiah was carried into captivity and with no family members to help or no way of supporting herself she would have to sell her body to survive you see in those days if a woman didn't have a way of supporting herself she had to sell her body because that was the only way to survive you know if you want to think about it like this we have the same thing that happens today you have children who want a race run away from home and they get out on the street and before long the only way they can support themselves is to do want to begin to sell their body and many of us not out of choices because this is the only way to survive you'll see those who become addicted to drugs they'll do anything for those drugs and before long the prostituting themselves for the drugs why because they need that that's the only way they can get it and so what he was saying is Amaziah your wife will become a prostitute in this city you'll be carried into captivity all of her children will be killed there'll be no family left you'll have no way to support herself and the only thing she'll be able to do in order to provide a living for herself is to sell her body she will become a prostitute Amazigh as children would be killed you see in those days when a nation defeated another nation they would either take the people into captivity or they would make them pay tribute now if they took the people into captivity they'd to do one of two things with them they would either make them their personal slaves or they would sell them as slaves to other people other nations remember God got on to the Phoenicians because they were literally the slave trade capital of the world and so if you came in you defeated a nation you would cure the people into captivity you would choose the ones you wanted for your slaves and then you would sell the rest of them now if you didn't carry them into captivity you just made that nation pay tribute unto them and you took their most mighty warriors you put them to death and you also look to the children and you took a little toll and tax on them and you move them away so they couldn't regain strength and then rebel against you but anyway so those were the two things that you would do now if they took them into captivity they only took those that were healthy the old were usually left behind if the children were killed because they weren't owed enough to be useful as a slave but you didn't want to leave the children behind because they could grow up to become your enemies so you killed them and so what he's saying is when this nation comes in and this nation destroys you your wife is probably gonna be what rape something's gonna happen to her she's not gonna be one to beat she's not gonna be taken as a slave she's gonna be left behind only way she's gonna be able sport herself as to sell her body your children are going to be killed because they will be useless they're not old enough to be a useful slave and they don't want them to grow up so gonna kill all of your children and then Amos told Amaziah that his land would be divided up and he himself would die in a war land he would live but he would be a captive exiled far from his homeland now it's important that you understand that God doesn't punish the children for the sins of the father the one thing that I want you to understand when we look at this personal prophecy is God's heart I don't know why but when we read the Bible we always seek God is angry and so we read into the text rather than trying to pull out what it really is saying you know I love going back and watching the children when they worship and I really like it when they do those type of songs where they do hand actions with them and my favorite is Zacchaeus he climbed up into a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see and as the Lord was passing by he looked up in that tree and he said and watch what the kids do get down right now so that's how they say it because they see this the Lord was angry get out of that tree you know we always read it that way you know when Adam and Eve sinned and God comes in to tell them what the curse is we read it like man God is mad for that women you're gonna have pain in your childbirth oh yeah do you think that's bad wait until you can't have children anymore and you go through menopause oh yeah God's on you right and man you're gonna work by the sweat of your brother no see it wasn't like that I mean God comes in tells in the curse his hearts broke he says happen if you don't understand what you've done you've let sin into the world as a result here's what's going to happen and God's heart is broken but we don't ever read that into it but that's what it is that that's the true meaning of that it's the same thing here we're reading through this and Amaziah the high priest he personally accuses Amos a of hatching a plot against the king and of not being a true prophet that - prophesying only to try and make money from it and we think oh boy then Amazon and then Amos he lets loose it says because of this this is what's gonna happen your wife's gonna become a prostitute your kids are gonna die you're gonna be cured in to fournette all of your land will be taken away from you and we go yeah boy don't mess with God people how and what happened even Amos heart was broken because he understood God's heart he's like a messiah you don't understand I'm here prophesying for your good if you don't receive this prophesy here's how it's gonna affect you personally and he gives this prophecy now it's important that you understand that God does not punish the children for the sins of the father collective retribution is not something that God does it's not a part of his character let me prove that to you look at Deuteronomy chapter 24 verse number 16 and then we're gonna read Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 20 this is the first one Deuteronomy 24:16 parents must not be put to death for the sins of their children thank God right parents nor children for the sins of the parents thank God for that to those deserving to die must be put to death for their own crimes so God is not into collective retribution if the father sins really on kill them all now let's go on the person who sins is the one now this is Ezekiel - 1820 the person who sins is the one who will die the child will not be punished for the parents sins and the parent will not be punished for the child sins righteous people will be rewarded for their own righteous behavior and wicked people will be punished for their own wickedness in other words you're gonna reap what you sow that is God's Way now did certain things happen in the Bible like akin and his family yes why because it's before the Mosaic law it's before God's revealing this everyone with me so sometimes they went above and beyond because it's human nature to have collective retribution if you do something against me I don't just hate I hate your whole family in that human nature we don't like them why because so-and-so did this to me what did the whole family did it no but I don't know that's human nature and so before the Mosaic law that was how it was but God comes locusts guys this is not my character this is not my nature you reap what you sow not what your children have sowed not what your parents all right so God doesn't punish the children for the sins of the father however don't we hate that however the sins of the father affect the children in other words the father's actions affect his family look at Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 9 I'll show you what I'm talking about and we're gonna make sure that you understand the difference here's what it says you must not bow down to them or worship them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God who would not tolerate your affection for any other gods I lay the sins of the parents upon their children wait a minute he said he didn't do that well let's find out what this means I lay the sins of the parents upon their children the entire family is affected hmm even children in the fourth third and fourth generation of those who reject me now this does not mean that God is punishing them for the sins of the father what this means is that God won't stop the consequences of the father's actions from affecting his family now let me give you some examples to make sure you understand what I'm saying let's suppose that I become a drug addict and my children are little and I don't take care of my family in fact because I become less than human drugs begins to do that I don't treat my kids right they have to scramble on their own I don't care whether they're in school I don't care through this and that they see me doing all types of things I'm selling this I'm selling that I'm breaking at home stealing it they grow up in that environment that's the environment they know is it going to affect them yes will it affect their children yes will it affect probably the other field their children's children yeah all the way down to the third and third and fourth generation until someone accept Jesus Christ and breaks that this is what God is saying I'm not into collective retribution I won't punish you because of what your father did but you need to understand your father's actions have consequences because you're underneath their authority if you're a drunk you're gonna affect your family if you're a drug addict you're gonna affect your family if you don't value education you're going to affect your family what you teach or don't teach your children will not only affect church fit your children it will affect your children's children and their children down to the third and fourth generations till someone breaks that curse let me tell you something at least and I understood at a very early age when our girls were little what I was teaching them would not just affect them but would affect my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren so I wanted to raise my girls in such a way that they would bless their children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren but my actions determine that and we need to understand that so this is what God teaches us he teaches us that he is not into collective retribution he doesn't punish people because of their family's sin but at the same time we need to understand that what a man sows he reaps and sometimes his sin affects the rest of his family and as husbands as fathers as mothers we need to understand that brothers and sisters that people in my family that affected our entire family because they were a problem child that's what God is saying

Channel: Cornerstone Fellowship

Views: 1,902

Rating: 4.8823528 out of 5

Keywords: Their False Religion | Amos Part 28, book of amos judgement on israel, amos judgement on israel sermon, amos sermon part 28, amos bible study chapter 7 sermon, amos sermon series part 28, amos plumbline sermon, book of amos chapter 7 explained, amos paganism explained, israels false religion sermon, book of amos explained, amos chapter 7 sermon, Amos, The Book of Amos, Amaziah, book of amos bible study, Plumb line, prophetical literature, eschatology, Old Testament, Allen Nolan

Id: LcUbfrJFs8A

Length: 45min 16sec (2716 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 07 2018