Published: June 2, 2024 | Speaker: Tim Freitag | Series: Amos - Daily Rising Early and Sending the Prophets - Part 5 | Scripture: Amos 1:1-2:5
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all right well I'm going to um try to pick up from where we were last week and I promise we're not going to spend the whole um period of instruction in Amos 1 we will eventually leave chapter 1 I'm
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circumscribing Amos 1 more as Amos uh 1 1 through 1 through 25 um because we're trying to take on the oracles that uh open the book
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as uh against the other nations um and we listed it out but I'm going to put it back up here just for this morning in order um as Amos delivers his message we
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have an oracle against
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Tire um I didn't put it on the map but siden is not far up the coast I think it's here so when you think of the Oracles of against TI and siden that show up in
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other places they're both along the
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Edom well edom's really just Edom there isn't they
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Moab and we sort of outlined my initial outline said the the oracles against the six neighboring Nations but given that this is delivered to Israel I think it is it is right and correct to include
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our seventh against Judah um and I did try to sketch out for you the sort of outlines of where we're talking about um I know my near East
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geography isn't always the best but when you talk about the divided Kingdom the borders are always shifting a little bit but we're roughly speaking about Judah down here um bethl is about
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20 miles or not bethl um tocoa I should say is near bethl but it is kind of down about 20 miles outside of Jerusalem um this is where Amos comes
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from is that approximate area Jerusalem is here um Israel as a kingdom obviously with the majority of the tribes was the northern half there um and we're not
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actually really told in most of the book specifically Where in Israel Amos is preaching um we're given to understand in chapter 7 we'll talk about it when we get there that he is preaching largely
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to the people not necessarily in the court of the king um but so when we talk about these oracles and we when we look at where these things are coming from these are the Nations that are bordering
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around Israel and Judah we're talking about when we think about the davidic kingdom this dashed outline roughly corresponds there was another lobe that
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kind of pushed this way during Solomon's time but roughly coexistent with the solomonic extents of the Kingdom um again they've sort of reached their Reed
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their Zenith they're in a Renaissance they have most of this territory back in their control but when we think about this and and I I do want to make the point as we go forward it's addressed to Israel Judah
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is outlined is outlined here they are treated as separate kingdoms but only sort of because while he's sent to Israel it is
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to the people of God it is to the tribes that made up those who were sent into the promised land um and so when we're talking about um you know Gaza and
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philistia that kind of comes in here Edom is obviously not sitting on the border of Israel proper and yet they are interacting with all of these things Israel as the as the nation state is
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interacting with all of these around them um they are roughly speaking the borders of Israel these are the Nations that sit on on Israel's borders and
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we've sort of touched on it a little bit but not ever that I can think of in my recollection of our last couple of classes directly addressed this aspect
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which is there is an ecclesiological Point here um when we talk about the why do we bother to read the prophets who cares about all of the stuff that happened in the 8th Century um you know
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Palestine what does it matter one of the things that I think we can draw out of the Prophet as we read and we understand is there's a message to Israel about how they should be behaving among their
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neighbors and we know that Israel is the precursor Israel is the um the origins of where we are now in the church we are grafted into this
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history this background they are there for our instruction and so there is an instruction out of the prophet of the the way you're treating people inside because as we move forward you're going to see a considerable amount of what
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Amos is leveling against them is what's happening inside your borders um he's starting from the outside in the way you're treating people in inside is also going to matter to the people who are
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looking from the outside in those who are standing on your doorstep those who are standing in your neighborhoods those who are in contact with you at work those who are around your church will
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recognize the way your church treats its own so there is that aspect but there is also the larger aspect of the idea of salt of light of witness um there's
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frankly the idea of of your neighbor nice or otherwise uh Chuck mentioned to me at one point this is this is some version of the am I am I My Brother's Keeper and what is the Lord's response
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to that question am I My Brother's Keeper this is not a trick question yes you yes yes you are and you know you you can ask in this sense you
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know if we're saying am I My Neighbor's Keeper well who is my neighbor I'm not going to go down the whole Parable this morning but you know when asked who is my neighbor what is Jesus's response in that Parable what is what is he drawing
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out for out for them he he illustrates that the Samaritan which they consider to be complete outside is is inde Center of that definition right it's not the
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people who are strictly your Borders or look like you or stand the same way you do or go to the same assembly you do it's the people that you don't like it's the people who don't look like you it's
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those that are that are rough sometimes the people that you would probably cross the street and avoid these are the people that are your neighbors and so when we look at this and we look at
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the the Oracle again we can we can come to this question of why is this message and this Prophet sent with these communications about
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these other nations to Israel well it's because Israel has a responsibility to these neighbors Israel in its call before God has that responsibility and I
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want to make this point as we move forward in forward in Amos this is about the community it is very rare that you'll see in the prophets an oracle against a specific
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person now there are and it's almost always a king or sometimes a priest because they are leaders of a community but by and large the aspect here is as a community so what I don't mean is each
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of you take this to heart and you personally have to go out and wh it's not where I'm going what I'm talking about is we move forward when we look at amos's address to Israel as a community
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there is a message there for the church and I mean both local bodies but also regionally and frankly nationally the idea of the Church of Christ that there
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is a responsibility to the neighbors there is a responsibility to deal with behavior inside the church because it means something to those who are
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outside I I'll try to make the connection for you because it keeps rattling around in my brain for several weeks but there there's an aspect of the um and and we'll get there as we as we move through the oracles but the phrase that keeps coming
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in to my head is the one out of Hebrews of the how shall we escape if we ignore so great a Salvation which is to say they had the law they had the grace they had the means given to them by God they
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had a special relationship and as he's moving from the outside in he's tightening in on them frankly look at the the oracles as we go down the list you know we're going through them and
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we've talked about this a little bit it's genocide and slavery and Exiles and all of these things and when he gets to Judah what does he say to them he says uh I won't turn it back for they're
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despising the law of Yahweh and his statutes they did not keep their false things LED them astray after which their fathers had gone and I'll set a fire in Judah and he he goes on is judah's
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condemnation centers in on this you had the means you had the special relationship with God you had what you needed to behave the way you were supposed to before the Nations and you're not doing it you know this sin is
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right up there with these other sins that we're calling these effectively crimes against humanity so this commonality of of these things
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this idea that they had this this salvation they had this this mean this Grace among them and yet they are they are accounted as uh equally
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criminal to those who were carrying off whole populations for forsaking the law of God and turning aside to to strange gods that their their fathers had walked
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after um I don't know if this is the right place to do this or not but you know it's one of those um the crimes that are leveled against them and and I I had read last week and
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I don't know if we'll read it this week or not um the sort of whole first block of of of judgments of oracles against the Nations by and large they're dealing
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with this idea of genocide of of carrying people off or trying to wipe out communities by making sure that they have no generation after them and it's odd the way
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we it obviously is upsetting to God because the prophet is sent among them to tell them this is Criminal this is this is awful this is something that God
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is upset with one of the messages I
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think one of myet for several weeks it's a bad world it's a bad world out there governments are after people yeah things are happen I think the message one of the messages to me is that God is telling
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Israel telling the church people that he's in control of the world he will punish
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yeah all people right so we think of other countries and other things are happening we need to rest yeah that he is Jud against and he
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will make will make it people that's an excellent point and that and that's the sort of thing that you can see both halves of that uh experience out of the Psalms right you
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can see the why are you forbearing with these evil Nations why are you letting them get to the fourth transgression and also I recognize your sovereignty and that you're punishing these other nations
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these other but you're right God is communicating to Israel his sovereignty over all of these that his his extent and his his desire for justice isn't
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only inside this border his intention for justice goes outside of that dashed line um Aaron in that vein it struck me
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now that these were Nations to whom Israel was to offer terms of Peace according to the law the Amorite was to be wiped out with prejudice but any
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Nation outside the boundaries of what had been those Seven Nations was to be offered terms of Peace before right if they ever came to blow with and and we'll we'll get there in in a few minutes because I do want to talk about
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the sort of conquest of Canaan as such um but to your point this some of this came up in in your uh study in in Deuteronomy because you can look at you know Moab and amone are in there
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among the don't turn off your road and don't go bother those people they are meant to be left they you are not supposed to go chase after them and war with them they are meant to be there
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peaceably but one of the things that occurs to me in this is the the way we view history because we're we're looking at in some sense is God's commentary on the specific history that's happening in
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this moment in 8th Century Judea but there are a bunch of other moments that we look back on history and like boy that was cool right we look at Alexander or or Rome or genas Khan who
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scooped up whole populations um there's an excellent uh piece by the the historian Dan Carlin about you know if you actually get into the details um if
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you moved Alexander and his actions closer to the modern day he would be considered worse than Hitler because of what he does to the people that he conquers the places he moves through and
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yet we're like oh that guy is awesome I love Alexander the Great that's not how God looks at these things God has an intention and one of the things I want to get to is this you know there was a
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little bit of discussion that happened after our class last week and and there were several good points I think Ariel mentioned in particular this this thing that we see in our more
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recent history which is many of the Nations that we got Protestants reformers from reformers from even sometimes at the moment we had those great movements of of
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protestantism in them and great preachers and writers they were out committing genocides in other parts of the world um you think of the Dutch in particular having such a strong um
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tradition of of protestant Christianity and being those sort of hardworking Protestants and yet they were out pillaging and enslaving and carrying off whole populations in the Indies and
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other places similarly I mean we could go down the list of the British the Americans the Spanish you know think how far Spanish rule went under the opes of
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the Catholic church and I'm not here to write a whole series of of Amos style oracles against more modern Nations my point being these things have happened throughout history so what's going on
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why is this being sent to Israel talking about what these nations around them are doing but also just to think about it in your own terms as there's something of a
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reaction where we live um the moment in which we live that is very anti-colonial and there's sometimes a response or a push back from inside the church of
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of pro colonialist sort of reactionary of the ah it wasn't all that bad I think we need to be honest about what actually happened in history and we need to not
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excuse these things there's an ecclesiastical question for the church where we are today additionally in this idea of the are we complicit or at least guilty by silence in the face of
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injustices currently carried out in the name of name of God I mean not to go all political on you but there's been a number of things this week about uh well they also falsely condemned
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falsely condemned Christ yeah don't go there and if we don't speak up to our our neighbors our relatives the people at work who go down that road I think there's a condemnation
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that you can draw a line through Amos and Israel down to us saying you you have to do something when these things are happening in your Borders or
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on your neighbor's doorstep you can't just sit there and say well that's out there Justice is still supposed to be out there and if it's inside the
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church I don't see how we're excused all we can do is speak sure I mean yes
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no I'm not I'm not proposing a a sort of uh missions colonialist style will go and and fix the world's Problems by by being missionaries out there but I do mean in our context I'm not suggesting
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that anybody needs to go drive out and find people to argue with what I'm saying is we live in a body this body we also interact most of us with other Christians in other
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assemblies and other bodies uh or people at work who are also professing Christian chrans I am a very non-confrontational person and I have a tendency to to at
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worst sort of Grimace and let somebody get on with their being wrong and then go away so it's not my problem anymore I frankly think there is a level at which we're not excused By ignoring
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the truth of of scripture to say this kind of thing in particular taking the lord's name in vain using the name of God or the name
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of Christ for ends that are not the gospel is inexcusable and we have a responsibility to combat that Ariel you had your hand up I was just GNA remind
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you of what you said that this was not a a prophecy to an individual and we don't want to individualize it too much this was a prophecy to Israel for their
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failure as as pointed out to maintain those ties of peace no I I appreciate that so
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not do to correct to correct however you know there there is a balance there and I appreciate that because it is this is addressed to the community and I do think the more
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we can think of things in communal terms the more accurate we are to the way scripture is portrayed um most of the addresses that we find you think of any of the New Testament
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pastoral letters most of them are addressed to an individual written to an individual person but they're addressing the church they're addressing a body they're addressing a community and the way the community is interacting inside
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of its own borders and what that looks like to the people outside its borders so on the one hand yes it is absolutely for the for the community for the church for the body and I do stand by that
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there is a level at which every Community is made up of individuals so not to go too far a field on that but I do mean this in in this sense of the we
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have a responsibility to to stick to the scripture to to use God's name rightly and to defend
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the rightness of curtailing that does that make sense that we don't allow God's name or or people to to take Jesus and stick him all over this that and the other thing for political purposes um you know there there are
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absolutely other examples we could talk about in the church and I don't want to I don't want to stay here because I do want to move on to the actual oracles but as we think about why why do we read the prophets and what does it say to us
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today I think we have some things to wrestle with here some things to to consider in our own uh estate and I we'll get into them as we move forward but you can also think of things in in
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the sort of history of the church most of you I think are familiar with the the sort of of blot on Luther's record with his letter regarding the people's Crusade basically advocating for the king to wipe them all out um similarly
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much more close to home particularly if you've ever gone to anything Presbyterian you know RL Dabney um the Confederate chaplain who is widely upheld in reformed circles as being a
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wonderful Theologian despite the fact that he was a confederate apologist uh Stonewall Jackson apologist and frankly an out andout white supremacist if you read any of his address
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regarding uh the fact that black preachers should not be allowed into Presbyterian churches at all um he was fullon and yet he's often upheld as a great Theologian that we should be
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reading I don't think that's acceptable frankly and I think it comes all the way back to the message that we're reading in Amos which is the way we treat people matters Justice matters the people that
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are inside and outside they matter to God God cares about the populations in Moab and Edom and alone not just the populations in Israel and in
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Judah so in that vein though as we talk about this idea of the these sort of genocides these removals of population what about the conquest of Canaan because this is this is a conversation I've had with people before
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which is to say you know people want to say that that that God is peaceful and that that he is just and yet he sends Israel in to wipe out a bunch of people in what we now call The Promised Lane
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literally remove them from the earth so how is that different from what the objections are here in these oracles that they're removing these populations from the earth I want to turn your attention just briefly back to to Deuteronomy 7 and then we're going to go
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on to to Deuteronomy 9 for for sort of two um instructions I think that that God gives to the generation who will be going in and and doing the Conquering um
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taking that land back now remember as we talk about the larger context of these things this is the land that was promised to Abraham this is the land that his descendants sojourned in this
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comes back to one of the other points that we've talked about which is they are moved to Egypt and placed there for a time because God effectively says in his scripture
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their cup was not full their allotment of evil was not completed they had not reached that fourth transgression that
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was the trip wire if you like that that was the time of ending and it goes back to the sovereignty of God of when and who and why things are happening so I'm
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going to read uh the first several verses of Deuteronomy chapter 7 I'm reading from The New American Standard when Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you are entering in to possess it and clears away many
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nations before you the Hittites and the geosites and the amorites and the Canaanites and the perizzites and the hivites and jebusites Seven Nations greater and stronger than you and when
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Yahweh your God delivers them before you and you defeat them then you shall utterly destroy them you shall make no Covenant with them and show no favor or I think it's literally Mercy to them
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furthermore you shall not inter marry with them you shall not give your daughters to their sons nor shall you take their daughters for your sons for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods then
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the anger of the Lord of Yahweh will be kindled against you and he will quickly destroy you but thus you shall do to them you shall tear down their altars smash their sacred pillars and Hue down
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their asherim burn their graven images with fire for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God and Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who
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are on the face of the Earth Yahweh did not set his love on you or choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples for you were the fewest of all peoples but because Yahweh loved
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you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers Yahweh brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of pharaoh king of Egypt know therefore
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that Yahweh your God he is God the faithful God who keeps his Covenant and his loving kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love him and keep his Commandments but repays those
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who hate him to their faces to destroy them he will not delay with him who hates him he will repay him to his face therefore for you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the
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judgments which I am commanding you today to do them and what is the crime that Judah is charged with forsaking those Commandments forgetting them not
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keeping them but he's making a point here that I think he's going to bring up again here in in
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nine Deuteronomy 9 the first seven vers verses here o Israel you are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess Nations greater and mightier than you great cities fortified to Heaven A people great and Tall the sons
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of the anakim who you know and of whom you have heard it said who can stand before the sons of anoch know therefore today that it is Yahweh your God who is
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crossing over before you a consuming fire he will destroy them and he will subdue them before you so that you may drive them out and Destroy them quickly just as Yahweh has spoken to you do not say in your heart
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then when Yahweh your God has driven them out before you because of my righteousness Yahweh has brought me into to possess this land but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that
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the Lord is dispossessing them before you it is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that he is driving them out
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before you in order to confirm the oath which Yahweh swore to your fathers to Abraham to Isaac and Jacob know then that it is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to possess for
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you are a stubborn people remember do not forget how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness from the day you left Egypt until you arrived at this place you have been rebellious
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against Yahweh so he's making this point and we're going to read it again you know it comes up in the in the actual Conquest if you go into um Joshua you know the
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the sin of Ain who who takes the things under the band The Things devoted to destruction out of Jericho and keeps them in his tent and ends up having his whole family stoned and then burned
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because he kept things that were devoted to destruction is the term God made a point when I send you in the Nations that are in there have got to go Yahweh
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has declared they are devoted to destruction because of how Wicked they are it's always interesting to see the way people want to react with these
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things because there's never really um Jenny showed me a a meme at one point that was the well why doesn't God just deal with all the wickedness that's on
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the earth and then the next one is the surprised reaction face underwater you know the flood God did that once and he said he's not going to do it again and yet there are moments in which God says
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that's the limit they've got to go I'm removing them from the earth and so he does have Justice he does deal with wickedness he does uproot them it's
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it's the indictments against these nations the oracles that are coming down to them is you are destroying what has not been devoted to destruction you are
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carrying off things that God has not laid down to be removed um I do want to say at some point here and this is probably as good a point as
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any God is Not reactionary none of these things are happening outside of his will um we have to deal with the text as it is written and there are moments in which we read
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phrases like God relented of or you know you look at all of these oracles and hopefully I'll put it on the board today I will not turn it back you know there's a sense in which he's he's essentially
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saying I'm going to permit destruction but God is Not reactionary he intends these things these things are not happening outside his his plan and his purpose Pur and yet I think the
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indictment here is that you are committing genocides you are removing populations that God has not circumscribed to be
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removed partially Israel has a a role to play here um Israel has a responsibility and I'll say it this way because he's very clear here I think he said it at least
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three it might have been four I didn't actually count in Deuteronomy 9 here is not because you're righteous that I'm sending you in to dispossess these people it's because of how Wicked Canaan and all of these other Seven Nations
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were here that I'm taking them out but and I'll say it this way in the conquest of Canaan in sending Israel into the promised land I frankly think what God is doing
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in that moment and this is before the 8th Century okay talking about time of Joshua when when Israel moved into the promised land god is scooping out the
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worst of the worst out of the middle of this he is saying the people that are in here can't even stay on the earth they're that bad this the sacrifice of
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children to Molech the all of the things they're doing that we find that Israel failed to stamp out which just goes to Moses's Point not because you're righteous not because you're obedient
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but because they're Wicked God says I'm sending you in to dispossess them he's clear in Deuteronomy 7 and Deuteronomy 99 the conquest of Canaan is for two reasons it's to remove that horribly
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Wicked block of countries in the middle and to maintain the promise to Abraham that his descendants will live there and in this at this time in history that they are in control of these regions
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correct Damascus was it's there's an interesting little blurb in Second Kings where the king of Israel delivers what I take to be the income of Damascus his
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Tribute back to Judah that they had had it's he's they are so in control of the region that they're exchanging the royalties for these various uh City
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States among one another they absolutely did have a a lot of ability to control what these Kingdom did and it goes back judgment is against them for their inqu
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yes I don't understand so it says here the transgressions your transgression because of ISR get their own they are but remember
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who is Amos talking to Amos isn't over here he's not in Damascus he's in Israel talking to the Israelites so why this is the question
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I'm trying to answer is why is why is Amos sent with a message about the wickedness of these nations to Israel and I think there are a number of reasons one of which you've already touched on which is to to tell Israel
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God is Not mocked he will deal with the wickedness of these nations okay secondly he's gonna when when we get to the judgment on Israel and we made this point before Israel
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can't say oh God's picking on me he's singling me out for my wickedness Amos has already gone through the wickedness of the surrounding Nations God's dealing with all of them and he's dealing with you too okay so you don't you're not
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excused and you're not singled out he's circumscribing the whole block around here saying when Amos is coming to Israel he's making it clear to them God is Sovereign Over All all of this and you too okay but I think it's
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additionally Israel does have a responsibility here Israel has a responsibility to these nations that sit on its borders what was Israel called to do what was the whole
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point you're saying that the false of this world is a Church's fault I'm saying that the church has a responsibility to be Salt and Light and
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a witness to the world around it and this is where I'm going with this again Moses is clear the Israelites are rebellious and not righteous but th that people were still supposed to follow
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after one God and not the idols they were supposed to be devoted to Yahweh and his word indifference to the Nations around them and one of the things that we're going to see in these oracles as
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we move forward is one of the condemnations here is you're not any different from them you're not behaving any better but I do want to say I think it is clear in the conquest of Canaan
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God scooped out the worst of it intending to intending to put his chosen people in that place to witness to these specific Nations that touch them that surround them so frankly
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yes I think the church has a responsibility for the things that are happening in the world around it not that we can prevent everything not that anything happens that is outside of God's will but if we have why are we here why are we still
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here if we have no responsibility to the world around us Jenny
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as come froming we have to fix everything right again to to Chuck's point I mean he was the one who initially pointed out to me there is an ecclesiastical Point here
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ecclesiastical meaning to the church in the fact that all the nations described are on the borders of Israel and Judah all of the nations are the ones right here interacting with them and I I I
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will say again I think the purpose of of God in here again as a as a school Master as a witness as a as an instruction to the church where we live
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now is to say Israel was intended to take out the worst of what was there and be monotheistic upright following the statutes of Yahweh as a witness to these
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six and then seven now that we're divided Nations around them that these were supposed to see something different in Israel and this is another point and we'll we're probably not going to get
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there in the last 10 minutes today but among the crimes so we have Gaza over here Gaza was this Mass massive fortified city of the Philistines who were a pain in the necks from ages past
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this was the major trade route for the various slave trades in the near East okay this was effectively the Gateway from Egypt and Africa and other places
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and also dealing with Ty and siden and their long ranging um ocean-based slave trades and wealth that they brought in it was moving up and down through Israel
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and through Gaza this was a key this was Gateway these these people who came out of this
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slavery in Egypt 400 years of being under the thumb were doing absolutely nothing about the slavery that was passing through and happening all around on the borders around them they were the
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top dog we talked about this in I think the first or second lesson Israel and Judah are Judah are effectively king of the world in this area at the moment these are the Nations on their borders and they're they are
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more powerful than them by far we talk about how the weirdness of the of
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thetion TR delivering up an entire people Ed they had to go straight through the territory yeah straight through the territory so there is this this moment in which you see you know okay Damascus is attacking Gilead fine
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GE geographically they're right next to each other but you're right as tire is delivering things up and the various nations are are are effectively slave trading with Edom it's moving through
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their territories so even if you want to make an argument that they're not responsible for what's happening on their doorstep on their borders outside they're still letting things move through them
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facilitating great facilitating great evil that was my point earlier is that it's not just like the more I've thought about this it's not just bordering Nations they're under their
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control they are they are effectively vassel state vassel state in in a large sense they are they are not allies but Israel could mount an
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assault and take them over um so yes Israel ought to have had a vitalizing effect on those around them
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Israel's condemnation and and judah's condemnation is you had the law you had the relationship you ought to have had a witness you were supposed to be
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different and you are not behaving differently okay so the special relationship you had the law you were given is not making this better it's making your condemnation worse because
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you ought to have known better you ought to have been better than that you you became like the Nations instead of witnessing to them um that's where I I'm
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I'm trying to get to here with this is to say yes frankly I think Israel I think it's very clear that Israel and Judah had a responsibility to the Nations on
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their on their borders their neighbors and I think the church Community again however large or small you want to circumscribe that but I think the church has a responsibility for the world in
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which it stands I mean um he's not here this morning but you know Chuck's dissertation that he wrote in uh getting his Doctorate was on
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the basically economic and moral after effects of Calvinism that basically if you tread trace the spread of Cal Calvinism around the globe those nations were the best off in
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basically every metric the the most upright people generally speaking although we've already talked about some of their genocides that they were willing to commit other places but
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hardworking upright prosperous people wherever Calvinism went it had a vitalizing effect on the communities around it even if every person in those communities those nations were
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truly Christian or not the spread of the true gospel and I'm not saying that Calvinism is the true gospel it's the closest short hand I have please understand that um that that spread had
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a visible and marked effect on the secular communities that it moved through and I will stand by this Israel was intended to do just that Israel was
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intended to have a vitalizing effect on the secular communities that it was AB budding its neighbors it has has a responsibility to its neighbors the church also has a responsibility to its
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of okay so maybe I didn't understand your question your question before the Nations do bear their own burden the the Nations do bear their own burden please don't I misunderstood your question before so please don't mishar me the nations are condemned for their
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own action When God Says for three transgressions and for four of that Nation it's that nation's problem okay but Israel was supposed to have had enough of a vitalizing effect basically
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that they wouldn't have gotten that far if Israel was doing what they were supposed to do again not that these things are happening outside of God's control and God is very clear I'm punishing them for the things they've
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done but you have no way of knowing that Israel would have had think I think at this time in history we do have every reason to think that's the
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case it seems as if Amos here is actually speaking to the extent of the Kingdom uh the the Allied kingdoms of Israel and Israel and Judah the second king reading Second
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Kings it the blurs are short about the Reigns of v and geram but that they were at peace with one another and they exerted small amount that said of them
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suggest that they were exerting a very strong control over the region the slave in Israel slaves were supposed to be vastly contrasting to how
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the nations were supped to slavery Israel was not supposed to not only were they not supposed to keep their brothers in slavery which they were not following at the time by the way there was
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no a little which they were supposed to release their brothers but sorry no no you're fine but also they were not
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probably observing the laws for even the slaves they were supposed to keep permanently from other nations there were supposed to be AB I think where we can Israel their
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own issues yeah because they says here they have left his states that was their problem say that that's the reason
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count is
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clear one of the things that I think is is related here or analagous which is is effectively the when God punishes a
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sinner is that Divine sovereignty or is that personal responsibility yes you are personally responsible for your sin and God is still Sovereign in the sense that you did according to his plan despite the
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fact that you're punished for it people don't like that but that's true you are God is both Sovereign and we are personally responsible and I think analogously these nations are nationally
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responsible for their own crime and Israel's burden is in part you weren't acting any different to show them that it could be different despite the fact that Yahweh
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the Living God pulled you out of Egypt and put you here you're not acting like it's possible to be any different and I gave you everything you needed to be different Ariel I was going to just
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remind you of your comment that we get to understand Amos in the light of what Christ taught that his people were to be saled that they were to care for those
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around them I think Israel was guilty of you know if tires moving an entire people grp down they're not Israelites we know that that is how Israel looked upon the Nations
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around and they were judged for that um so those that that light that shines back on Amos makes helps make the case
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for these nations that bordered Israel being that much more guilty of sin because they order the only life that God given at that time right so goes
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back to this you know the the analogy the the the picture that God uses that Jesus uses of being salt what is the purpose of salt specifically in that
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message is Preservation it is to to slow Decay it is to stop the things that you put the salt in from rotting from ruining that's the point of that analogy
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is salt is meant to slow the decay of the things that it's packed in with and are am is the church going to undo the original sin in Sinners around it by
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being upright and following after God's Commandments by in large no the gospel is intended to be preached it is the action of the spirit to save a sinner
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but if basically if the church doesn't look any different from the world what even is the point if Israel and Judah didn't look any different from the Nations around them why were they even
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sent into the promised land that's where I'm trying to get to is Amos is sent to Israel to tell Israel about this
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judgment coming on these nations before he tells them about their own judgment and the question again is why and I frankly think it's because they had a
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responsibility now we are out of time for this morning so we'll we'll pick up next week but let's close in a word of
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prayer father we do thank you for your word we thank you for uh giving us instruction we ask that we would be uh receptive to the things that you have here but that also we would speak truly we would speak rightly uh confining
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ourselves to what is written to what you have revealed in your word and not idle speculation father we ask that you would preserve me from error but also help us
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to to dig and to to learn and to mind we ask that you would be with us as we go before you in a time of worship that you would bless the singing the prayers the
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Praises and the preaching of the word to be effective in our edification and in the building up of this church we ask these things in Jesus name amen