Published: September 1, 2024 | Speaker: Tim Freitag | Series: Amos - Daily Rising Early and Sending the Prophets - Part 17 | Scripture: Amos 8
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Amos um my plan is to do Amos 8 today and Amos 9 next week and be finished but um I recognize that it has not always moved at that quick of a
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pace um and as has been common to us we have not been able to get all the meat off the boat every time at at one go in each chapter there's a lot here and a lot to
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learn and I just wanted to wrap up our conversation out of um the end of seven we talked for two weeks about chapter 7 um particularly this uh address of amiah
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the priest of bethl against Amos and then amos's response again amos's response very very short just two sentences as we have it here as he reproves amiah and then we have this um
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this repost that he gives him from the Lord he says um you know he gives these sort of two sentences of defense and then he says now hear the word of Yahweh you are saying you shall not prophesy
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against Israel nor shall you prophesy against the house of Isaac therefore thus says Yahweh your wife will become a prostitute in the city your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword your land will be parcel up by the
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measuring line and you yourself will die upon unclean soil moreover Israel will certainly go from its land into Exile so he's sort of very uh summarily recapping
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some things here that have been common to the prophecy over all and additionally adding these uh particular penalties these personal uh punishments against amiah for having dared to tell
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the prophet of the Lord not to prophesy um and then he goes on he picks up in chapter 8 and it's fairly obvious most uh commentators have have noted um the
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first verse of what we're calling chapter 8 is thus said Lord Yahweh or thus Lord Yahweh showed me um and we had
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that refrain three times in chapter 7 as we looked at those three visions there really it should be four Visions we have a chapter division you have to break them up somewhere but this Vision in chapter 8 is really the fourth of those
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Visions he was simply interrupted by amiah partway through here um so he says I'm going to read out of The New American standard I'm going to read chapter 8 in your hearing as we begin this morning um and we'll talk about a
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few of The Oddities of the Hebrew as we go forward but I'm going to read just the The New American Standard translation with very minor substitutions as we
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begin thus Lord Yahweh showed me and behold a basket of summer fruit he said what do you see Amos and I said a a basket of summer fruit then Yahweh said to me the end Has Come For My People
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Israel I will spare them no longer the songs of the palace will turn to wailing in that day declares Lord Yahweh many will be the corpses in every place they
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will cast them forth in silence hear this you who trample the needy to do away with the humble of the land saying when will the new moon be over so
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that we may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may open the market to make the bushel smaller and the shekele bigger to cheat with dishonest scale so as to buy the helpless for money and the needy for
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a pair of sandals and that we may sell the refu or the chaff of the wheat Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob indeed I will never forget any of
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their deeds because of this will not the land quake and everyone who dwells in it mourn indeed all of it will rise up like the Nile and it will be tossed about and
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subside like the Nile of Egypt it will come about in that day declares Lord Yahweh that I will make the sun go down at noon and the Earth dark in broad daylight then I will turn your festivals
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into morning and your songs into lamentation and I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins and baldness on every head and I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son and the
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end of it will be like a bitter day behold days are coming declares Lord Yahweh when I will send famine on the land not a famine for bread bread or a thirst for water but rather for hearing
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the words of Yahweh people will stagger from sea to Sea from the north even to the East and they will go to and fro and seek the word of Yahweh but they will not find in that day the beautiful
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virgins and the young men will faint from thirst those who swear by the guilt of Samaria who say as your God Lives o Dan and as the way of berseba lives they
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will fall and they will not rise again um so he says again a fourth Vision thus Lord Yahweh showed me Behold
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a basket of summer
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fruit now be honest with me have you ever read this chapter and gone what he doesn't even explain really in here what is the basket of summer fruit I mean the heading in my Bible
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says a basket of fruit and Israel's captivity let's just move on to the second part of the chapter what are we talking about talking about here frankly it's one of these places where the Hebrew is a lot clearer in
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short it's a pun or it's a word play because the um summer here is and I'm not going to write the Hebrew for you
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but I might do it as a y and the end that the Lord
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is said almost the same out loud they are almost homonyms in the Hebrew they sound incredibly similar but it's a couple of pieces so one of them is it's a word play he says a bask a basket of summer fruit the summer
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here plays on the end and really in the structure of the Hebrew he says uh what do you see and he says I see a basket of summer fruit and then he says it is the end but also if you think about it just in terms of an agrarian culture and when
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you pick the fruits that's the end of the harvest season it is the end when the fruits are finished there's really a sense here in the in the original of um and and we've seen it in earlier uh
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sections haven't we in in five and in six my people are ripe for Destruction it's the idea of the Harvest being gathered into this basket it's the end of it they are ripened it's done they
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are gathered into the basket because they have they have finished ripening and now they will be gathered into the basket so it feels a little strange to us because he doesn't really give you any explication other than the Lord
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going on and saying I'm not going to spare them but the the actual detail of a basket of summer fruit I think is not particularly mysterious if we think about it for a moment it's just it's merely the idea that the people were
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ripe to destruction as we have already heard earlier in the prophecy and the Lord has now gathered them to the basket it's the end for them they're gathered in we're done we're wrapping it up um
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one little odity if you care um some of you have probably heard of the and I'm not even sure how we say it Giza or gizza
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earliest um written 10th Century BC I should say earliest written Hebrew objects that we have as far as we know that we
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actually hold a document of it and it has a phrase in there that is literally the month of summer fruit um let's see if I write it
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that so a basket of summer fruit simply is signifying the end the end for the people of Israel which the Lord says doesn't he the end Has Come For My People Israel and I will spare them no longer um as he moves on here he talks
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uh and says the songs of the palace will turn to wailing in that day declares Yahweh and um then the the phrasing gets a little odd here in the English this really Echoes of of chapter 6: 10 um
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which was the other one that was odd in the Hebrew that we talked about where it says one man's uncle or Undertaker will lift him up and carry him carry his bones out of the house and will say to call to the innermost part of the house
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is anyone there and that one will say no one and he will answer keep silence or keep quiet for the name of Yahweh is not to be mentioned there's sort of a long version here in this verse in the Hebrew
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it's actually one of the commentators described it as Ambiguously tur because what it actually says is um you know the New American Standard Smooths it out many will be the corpses
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in every place they will cast them forth in silence really it's many corpses strewn about strewn about silence it's really really abrupt and it
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seems to be a vision that he is observing or seeing of the the Dead cast everywhere just as he saw earlier in 610 um the the gist of what we talked about
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in chapter 6 The idea there was there will be just enough Ln Remnant left to bury the dead and here he's looking around there's not even enough people to bury them they're just strewn everywhere
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and they call for silence that yahweh's name might not be profaned in connection with the dead um so very very short and sharp um many the corpses strewn about
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he goes on you who say and this is where
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the the Judgment hits them again again we're we're reading some things in one of the questions as we read through the prophets as we've discussed earlier is the individual meanings are not particularly mysterious usually but one of the question is why is it here in
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this place why is one thing following on another we're building towards chapter 9 where he finishes his vision and his um
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rebuke of them and finally the very end of the book as we've already alluded to has those just those couple of verses that leave a little piece of Hope at the end of chapter 9 but he's coming here into the
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hammerfall and bringing together all of the pieces that we've already seen throughout the book in some respects and ask our literature teacher if there's a particular word for it but it's it's really the idea that he's gathered all
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of the them that we've seen earlier and this is the sort of day ma of it all he's brought them all together and highlighting them now succinctly side by side where he he spent several chapters
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before developing them in depth now he's circling swinging them back around to catch the people so he says uh you who say uh when will the new moon be over
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that we may may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may open the wheat Market it's an indictment of the them again both for their greed as you
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see obviously in the later part of the chapter their greed in um using disa scales it says specifically the the Dison scales uh rather just earlier than
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that the smaller bushel and the larger shekele so the bushel basket isn't quite big enough to be a bushel basket so they're shorting you there and when they go to weigh out the money well their shekel is heavier so you're actually
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paying them more than a shekele in silver for less than a bushel of wheat they've got you coming in is effectively the the version of what's happening there so he's calling out their greed but significant to this is
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they're not openly defying the Sabbath we've already looked at this people as a religious people people who thought themselves devoted to Yahweh they're not openly defying the Sabbath they're not selling on the Sabbath they're they're
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celebrating the Festival of the new moon but it irritates them they're not openly defying the Sabbath or the festivals but at no point during these festivities at no point during the Sabbath at no point
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during the time that they're meant to take out from their daily lives to contemplate God to worship Him has the office left their mind they can't wait to get back they're not even really
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taking a break during the festival are they man when is this thing going to be over I've got so much to do I've got so much to sell I've got all this chaff to
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unload when can we get back to making money it goes to the root of why the Sabbath and why the vaal years were instituted overall aren't they I mean what is the Sabbath the Sabbath of
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course is the reflection of God's Own rest but it's also an indication of trust in Yahweh isn't it it's an indication that if I pause for this sabbath if I stop my selling I'm going
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to be okay I don't have to make money seven days a week because Yahweh has given provision just as he gave provision in the wilderness just as he
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gave them opportunity to gather double on the Friday and be ready for their Sabbath on the Saturday didn't he he will preserve you he will preserve you through your whole sabatical year he
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tells them you you can take the whole year off and Grant the land rest and it will still provide enough food for you and yet here they are going I can't even
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take this sabbath this stupid New Moon Festival I got to get back to my dishonest scales and make my money it's a it's a it's uh not just a disrespect
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or a lack of trust it's it's openly uh irritated in the face of God calling them to to stand apart or to
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take this rest and we talked about this uh a number of times Chuck has correctly pointed out for these people a lot of what Amos would say to them would come as a surprise wouldn't
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it because they are prosperous so Yahweh must be favoring them they are at the height of their military power they have re resolved themselves back to the
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borders that Solomon had established they are doing really well monetarily after apparently a really bad time things are going great under jeroboam II and yet you're telling us that we're
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under judgment so here they are in the midst of their prosperity but he's getting again to the heart of their prosperity their prosperity is not coming from a trust in Yahweh it's not coming from a
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Reliance on what he has established it's coming from coming from dishonesty greed and frankly pillaging their their countrymen those people who were meant to be the people of God
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they're raking them over the coals in order to earn their money in order to get this wealth that then we see them showering as we we looked at in chapter 5 that they love to bring to bethl and
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to Dan and to uh now gath the three big shrines right where they take all of this ill-gotten wealth and lavish it while proclaiming that they're
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worshiping God and he sums that part up here at the end of the chapter as this comes down he says at the very end those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say as your God Lives o Dan and as the
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way to BBA lives they're talking about those pilgrimages those shrines that we looked at earlier those places where the Patriarchs had had real encounters with God but God has by this time long sense
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given them the command to Worship in Jerusalem to worship at Mount Zion and so so he's tying together his pieces here as he moves into chapter
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9 so they cheat with theana scales to buy the helpless for money and a needy for a pair of sandals and they sell the the refuse of the Wheat really it's the idea of the sort of not
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really uh separating the chaff properly they they've sort of mixed it back in in order to uh cut down on how much wheat they have to sell they are adulterating
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their product effectively so Yahweh swears by the pride of Jacob um we talked a little bit about the use
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of the names in place here but in this case I think it's it's really the idea of he's he's effectively swearing by himself Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob I won't forget any of these Deeds
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I won't strike this off the Record because of this will not the land quake and everyone who dwells in it mourn indeed all of it will rise rise up like the Nile and be tossed about and
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subside like the Nile of Egypt and it will come about in that day declares Lord Yahweh that I will make the sun go down at noon and the Earth dark in broad daylight and I will turn your festivals
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into morning and your songs into lamentation and bring sackcloth on every head or on everyone's loins and baldness on every head and make it a time of mourning as for an only son and the end
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of it will be like a bitter day so he's he calls this judgment against them this is another moment I think that we can see a combination of what we would call
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the now and the not yet in the prophet if you remember at the very beginning of the book he gives us an indication of the time frame here
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he the words of Amos which he envisioned en Visions concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah the days of jeroboam son of joash king of Israel 2 years before the earthquake
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I think he's describing the earthquake in part in this moment here the land quaking rising and falling rising up and subsiding back down almost liquidlike like the Nile that the ground itself is
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unstable that way um he's referring to that but again we've talked a little bit and welcome to ask questions here if you want the day of the Lord now we talked a
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little bit about the day of the Lord and the fact that we saw that phrase a couple of times and it's somewhat disputed and people like to dispute because you can write a lot of books if you get into disputes how far do we extend the idea
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of the day of the Lord does it have to say the day of the Lord does it have to be Yom Yahweh or if he says the day is coming or if he says as he says here um
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it will come about in that day well what is that day I mean the description that he gives here you're welcome to push back on on
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me if you want but the description he gives here the sun will go down at noon and make the Earth dark in broad daylight I'll turn your festivals to morning your songs to Lamentations bring sackcloth on every loin and baldness on
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every head a time of mourning for an son sounds like the crucifix sounds like the crucifixion this is Crystal I think
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this is frankly cical whether Amos is fully aware of it being cical or not I think this is a vision in part of the crucifixion and I
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frankly think you can extend not just the Exile that he's talking about here but also the strewn about corpses that will come about in ad70 John that
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chology um so I think his description here from Yahweh in verses 9 through through the end of 10 9 and 10
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really I would personally highlight those as being christological in their extent that he is seeing that um whatever comes about in the actual Exile
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whatever is happening in those intermediate days it is a combination of the now and the not yet that he is seeing both their immediate judgment that is coming upon them within a generation but he is also seeing a long
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way in the future similarly I think you have here a a combination of two things um Abigail I think very correctly pointed out for us in in seven in
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chapter 7 when he sees a Plum line and the Lord says I am lowering a plum line into the midst of my people he's talking about the fact Amos is effectively at the beginning of the writing prophets
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those prophets who will continually bring messages to the people that is the line that is measuring the people but at the end of that line there's a 400-year
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period of as far as we know no Revelation from Yahweh certainly nothing that was written and preserved for us um I haven't studied the intertestamental
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period super in depth but I understand there was not even a lot of rumor of prophets in that time um so when he says here days are coming starting in 11
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declares Lord Yahweh I will send a famine on the land not a famine of bread or a thirst for water but for hearing the words of Yahweh he is anticipating what we call the intertestamental period
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a time in which you will not have a chance to hear this word from from the Lord he's already upgraded them in chapter 3 and in chapter 4 for having among them the prophets for having among them the nazarites for having examples
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of what it is to hear the word of Yahweh and Obey for having those in their midst who were upright and he's saying I'm going to take even that away from you one of the the commentaries I think very
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helpfully pointed out what we've already observed but it comes up again here doesn't it God never gives his judgment without some form of Grace and in this case
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there is a Grace in the sense that he's letting them know ahead of time this has not come to them without warning now for most of them it is of course too late but we know that he
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always has a Remnant and there will be those who go south to the kingdom of Judah and who survive so Yahweh and we looked at it when Amos himself says it
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the Lord communicates through his Prophets The Lord never acts without telling his people and so we have here again a warning for them this time is
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coming when you will no longer have a word from Yahweh you will live in a desert of Revelation there will be silence instead of communication to you
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um the days are coming declares the Lord The Staggering from sea to Sea and the um North even to the east I think is
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really and I've long since erased our map but they're effectively I think going between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea across their territory and then sort of across that angle that we drew
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between um you know the upper end of Ty where Ty and sidon were called out early on and then down to the lower corner of their uh Kingdom where uh gath was so
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across and across sort of drawing this line through their their territory that you can Traverse the whole thing and find no word of Yahweh in it it will be
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Barren and it will be Barren in part because of what he has just said in seven hasn't he Israel will surely go into Exile you will be parceled out
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divided up and go into Exile and this land will be left deserted um and then finally as he comes here and please ask me questions if you have
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questions um he comes here to the end of this section and says says um you know the the young men and the and the Beautiful virgins um both of which are reasonable
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translations of that it's effectively the young people in their Prime are fainting away from it how much worse is it than for the old and for the very young he's he's just using them as an uh
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solipsism where he sort of sums all of the people up with this the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint from thirst and then he condemns these again he condemns these shrines and
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pilgrimages that they have that they are substituting for the actual religion that they ought to be engaging in those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say as your God Lives o Dan and the way
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to beerseba lives or the way of berseba lives they will fall and will not rise again so he's stamping this out as he has already told them that he will he
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will Stamp Out the iniquity from their midst and in this case it will sum up and engage the whole people under it are there any questions there I know I kind
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of shot through that a little bit quickly but any thoughts or questions out of chapter
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to okay yes in the post period there was a of prophets i' read that there were
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yeah um I would think I I don't have a problem personally extending it beyond the the coming of Christ this this uh Famine of hearing the word of the Lord um we've talked a little bit in some of
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the other classes I think Chuck's highlighted particularly the incredible frankly insurmountable difficulty that modern Judaism has in the fact that the Revelation straight up
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stopped several thousand years ago and if you don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah you're not even really able to look for him out of the Revelation that you have anymore you you're just stuck
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if you're trying to hold some sort of intermediate position here so I don't have a problem with that per se I don't know that that Amos would have had an awareness of going that far ahead I
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think there's also an element to it though of again as we read the prophets and I and I and I hope this study in Amos has been helpful to you in how you you approach the
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prophets in and of yourselves what I'm doing up here is not uh you know is not Beyond most of you other than the fact that not everybody you know stands up to teach but can
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learn you can find out information about these things and you can you can make your way through them with great uh profit if you'll pardon the HM um great
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personal and and and um edifying profit out of reading the prophets if you're willing to spend the time to look at them closely and and if
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I ask for one thing in return from doing this study I would beg of you and if I forget to say it next week just read straight through Amos at some point after after we're done front to back
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just read through the book and see the forest now that we've walked through the trees um because it's incredibly helpful and it's not really something that I
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have a lot of opportunity to do standing up here and read the whole book through but I think it would really help if you could read it through as a whole when we're finished we're finished Chuck the Jews did make a distinction I
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think scripture does as well between we might call National prophets
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rightn husb yes but he's not a not a national prophet and even during the inter testamental period the the Jews in their writings acknowledged that God was no longer speaking to the nation
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John the Baptist becomes the first national Prophet at the end of the inter testamental per and was recognized was recognized as such
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whereas Han whereas Han Simeon recognized as as having a prophetic gift as it were but it's it's
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not it doesn't present itself to the nation as we see in so there were there was prophets of which we hear very little there were other prophets that we
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do heara that these were prophets that they were they were of a different tier it seems yeah to even Amos who was not
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among their number so God does distinguish at least in that regard and in that regard there was no word from the Lord during that period or certainly
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since ad7 no I I appreciate that thank you because that is it goes to what we talked about last week uh because we talked about prophets versus prophets versus prophets didn't we and to
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Abigail's point you did have those who seem to have fallen into what we might call the sort of minor class not the Minor Prophets but the class of prophets who seem to have some communication or
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understanding uh you know we looked at when the the scroll is discovered um in Second Kings and they go and they find uh holda the the propheus and say what
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does this mean because we just found this there were prophets that they they knew they could find they could consult but they did not apparently have authority of Revelation which again is
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what we were pulling out of Amos last week in his protestation when he says I'm not a prophet I'm not even the son of a prophet and yet he clearly recognized behold the word of the Lord I
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have been given Revelation so there's a difference in how they viewed those things and and yes I appreciate that because even the Jews themselves recognized they they lacked
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any revelatory profit for that 400-year period and it is why you see the the sort of commotion about John the Baptist in uh the early chapters of the gospels
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don't you because they recognized there is a difference there is a resting of the spirit of the Lord on this man in a way that is not common to our people or even to our Prophet
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class um so yes I appreciate that thank you because again to to sort of tie together these things that we were talking about last week and and the the
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role that we have here I was going to say in relation to Abigail's um Point uh of of can you extend the famine for the word of the
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Lord I think you can see it here in the prophets and it's a it's a thing you can draw out as a sort of Axiom if you like like that when the people of God ignore
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his commands he often is pleased to cast them away from his word into the darkness isn't he I mean what was the re Reformation if not a dramatic return to
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the word of the Lord that they returned to studying the Bible to to draw in some of what Chuck is talking about on Thursday night with the biblical theology class the difference of the
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biblical theology bringing it out of the books as opposed to scholasticism wrestling through what men have said about it return to the Revelation that God has given and draw
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out of that well I think a case can be made that the Practical manifestation of the famine for the word of the Lord is is the removal of a lamp stamp and I
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think you can see that I mean obviously you see it Revelation so it's it's something that pertains to Christianity but you see it in
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churches and and you can go to that church you know every Sunday for years and not taste of the word of the Lord yeah there's a famine in that place for
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the word of the Lord and those children of God who who desire to eat have to go elsewhere so the removal
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of the lampstand and the famine for the word is I think a parallel parallel metaphors yes that's that's true um and I I thank
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you for that because yeah you you do see and and I think that's why I I don't mind extending it in that sense because you do see the idea that that so often when they have left the commands I mean
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we think back in Chapter 2 and 3 of Amos he indicts them he says you left the commands of Yahweh you departed from them and now here he is saying the word
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of the Lord will depart from you um also just to tie together those pieces though because I think the the discussion on Thursday has been very helpful out of the biblical theology
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class and we didn't touch on it so much with amziah when we were in chapter 7 but there is a recognition of the canonicity isn't there there is a recognition of the
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spirit of the Lord on those men who are delivering the word in part amah's anxiety when he uh calls up to the king about Amos he's upset because the people are
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evidently responding in some respects there is power in the word of the Lord and it was recognized similarly in that inter testamental period even the Jews who do not accept Jesus as their Messiah
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recognized the loss the the absence of authoritative Revelation from Yahweh so it is clear and it is clear in the words
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and and Amos again is very careful to delineate for them this isn't my word this is not my invention I am bringing to you the
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word of the Lord I I I I love it I think it's great when he responds to amiah we have as far as I can tell two sentences in amos's own words the rest of Amos is either
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relating what amiah had to say to him or the word of the Lord now not every Prophet not every book of the prophets is that way we've talked a little bit about Jonah who was probably in a
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similar time frame although it's hard to to pin that down a lot of Jonah is actually narrative and yet there is prophecy in it and it relates to the prophets so um you have
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those those elements but again the recognition of the people of God the the Canon of scripture stands on its own because it is obviously and evidently authoritative Revelation from God as
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we've talked about on Thursdays is that was a three minute recap of a two classes worth of Thursday night so um are there any other question questions
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about this section here in Amos or other things that you wondered about as we've talked about these things we move through these
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sections I did want to make one comment that came earlier and that is and and this has been a struggle for the church especially in our country the evidence of prosperity often covers the reality of
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Oppression yes Oppression yes and that is not something that has changed and it is with us today yeah that typically makes conservative Christians nervous because they think
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you're going communist yeah but but the prophets are are very uniform in that the Major Prophets The Minor Prophets You cannot point to the Lord's
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blessing in prosperity if there is oppression there is cheating and and the staling down the poor and that really
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presents a presents a challenge to the people of God how we say that the Lord is Blessing there is
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impression yeah we I appreciate that we did we did talk about this a couple of times again I think chapter eight here in in Amos is tying together a lot of the threads that we've seen earlier but we've already talked about in some ways
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if you want to summarize and I I do still object to a book titled the message of the prophets as oversimplifying but there is a core thread here which is how you treat one
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another matters to Yahweh and the commands largely that he is indicting them for throughout the book now we talked about Amos and Hosea as being sort of book Matched and probably very
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similar time frames within a few years of each other if at all different um Hosea does focus more on the religious side Amos focuses more on the interpersonal side but you have both of
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those elements and as he indicts them yes I it is that sort of concern about Prosperity one of the commentators said of their their um you know using the
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dishonest scales the the small bushel and the heavy shekele he said you know are you trying to tell me that I have to lose out to my competitors I'm just doing what
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everybody else is doing everybody else's scales are dishonest why should I have the only righteous scale and get cheated out of my Prophet the same thing that he was seeing earlier in the um you know the
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oppression that they were having on their people that they were they were lavishly living in these palaces and calling for wine and and taking their Ease on their couches while they were basically not even paying the folks who
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were working for them Jenny you had your hand up yeah I was
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there is that yeah um but also I I think it's partially this um idea which he also brings out for them early on in the book we read Amos saying uh effectively and and when we we our introductory
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studies I know it was many weeks ago but our opening study we talked a little bit about some of the other parts of the prophets you think of Daniel's prayer early on I think it's in late chapter 1
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in Daniel where he's praying for the people of Israel in Exile and he says because of the promise of Yahweh these things have come upon us he recognizes
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their their life as a people under the Covenant of God established by Moses there was a promise of blessing under certain conditions and there was a frankly a promise of curse and
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condemnation other under other conditions and the prophets are telling them you're under the second condition the bad one not the good one the Lord is faithful to what he has promised so what
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they are observing in their
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punishment it is faithfulness to what he has promised to do and so often I think both the people here and we talked about it quite a bit because it's one of the main things that the friends of job seem to struggle with is this idea of well if
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job this wouldn't have happened to you if you were a good person the Lord doesn't do bad things to good people so clearly you did something bad because something bad is happening to you and Amos is saying effectively the inverse
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here just because things are going well for you doesn't mean you're good people doesn't mean you're upright the Lord is low lowering the plum line into the midst of his people and finding you all
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crooked okay so don't confuse the action or the Providence of Yahweh as karmic there is not that one to one in every
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respect there are General blessings and promises but it's not a onetoone Abigail the danger is sometimes God gives you
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right yeah right that yeah yes and sometimes it is uh it is a terrible thing when you get what you have asked for um again just as we wrap up this chapter and leave chapter nine for for next week
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it's it partly this is the Folly of the saying um oh well this happened to you because or this hurricane came upon the city because we're not given amos's level of
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understanding about why an event came to a place but so often what we want to do is go aha I can identify your problem that's why the Lord did please don't do
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that Amos doesn't give us permission to do that neither do the other prophets but what we do have and that we can identify and you should be identifying
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in the prophets is the faithfulness of Yahweh to the things he has promised to do and I think you can extend that and we may extend that as we we look next week and close with chapter nine you can
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extend that into the understanding of the Apostles of their scripture which is he will be faithful to do what he has promised to do won't he he will work out
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those things that he has begun and in the case of the message that Amos is bringing to the people of Israel unfortunately the thing he has promised to do is to destroy them for their unfaithfulness their trespass but he
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will still do it because he has promised to do it um that's a real cheerful note to end on but uh unfortunately sometimes that's prophecy but I think again to to turn it back around to the to the
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sunnier side of the street we look for the faithfulness of God and we can be assured of it in every respect Jenny it is cheerful because we know that he is
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unwavering in what he has promised and we can rely on that that is a comfort yes thank you all right well if there's no other questions there let's close in a word of prayer as we move to our
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worship service this morning father we are grateful for your faithfulness we are grateful once again for your Revelation that you have preserved for us in these books written
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for our edification and our understanding we ask that you would use them to the service that you have appointed us to that as we read and study we will not do these things for
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for personal gain but for the blessing of the body where you have placed us for a witness and for uh a light before the
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Nations that this word would be food for us to grow and to strengthen to the things that you have tasked us with father as we go before you in this time
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of worship together as a body I ask that you would be with us that you would manifest your presence To Us by the ministrations of the holy spirit that would be obvious and evident that you
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are in the song and in the prayer and in the word preached and in our hearts as we receive that word again for our growth to the service that you have
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called us to we ask that you would strengthen us to this I ask it in Jesus name amen