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yeah I forgot to add that to our our list here Bob's away next week so you can add that to your uh Travel section there at the bottom uh just a week n days nine days so um but headed out for
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a Normandy tour I guess he tells me it's very realistic they're not actually going to dot when they you get to wait in from the beach the nice
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all right we are of course working through Amos through Amos still um we are going to talk a little bit um and I'm not trying to move at a glacial Pace but here at the front we've got a little bit of preliminary that
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we're getting out of the way pick up from where we left off last week talking about um you know we've had an introductory
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class and we spent some time last week talking about the nature of Prophecy um and the the way that prophecy is given uh revisiting this aspect of um the
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words being given from God um is again a lot a lot written in the commentaries Amos begins Amos begins his opening here with the words of Amos
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which many people take as license to say Amos uh you know was the author of these things I think he's the one who wrote them down again I would I would iterate and will continue to that God is the one
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who gave him the words to say gave him the words to speak the words to write down um we do deal with it a little bit as we'll we'll work through these things and move and move forward there are intricacies in the
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text there are things that are um you know it is set largely in poetry U apart from the sort of narrative aside that we have in chapter 7 uh the ma vast
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majority of the book is in poetry there is uh conversation to be had about the fact that prophecy was often given in poetry um part of the rationale for
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this or the understanding is more than likely prophecy is a strange form of communication God is communicating to his people through a man giving a man
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words to speak and the fact that it is set in poetry is uh likely intended to intensify the strangeness of of it the otherness of it the fact that it is God
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who is speaking to you through this man however I found it interesting um even in relatively conservative authors and we will talk probably not this morning
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but at some point about means of inspiration and and transmission of God's word but um you know even a a very recent and very um
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conservative uh commentary can't help but fall into the well Amos says the following Amos wrote this did this it's God's words that Amos is
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delivering um one of the the commentaries that I was reading in preparation for this says um you know there must have been more that Amos said um because this only takes 15 minutes to
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read through the Book of Amos really if you were going to read it all out loud it doesn't take very long um some of the commentators have ained with fairly thin evidence that his ministry may have
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lasted up to 20 years years 15 minutes of text over 20 years is is pretty big span I don't think he spoke quite that slow despite being a
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southerner um so he must have had other you know his this this fellow's particular rationale is the the arguments are so closely argued here the the the ideas
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and the concepts are so dense that he must have taken time to expound this to the people and preach and and unpack all of this information and the answer is it's possible but that's not that's not
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what's in the text um similar to the fact that the the New Testament writers tell us there are many other things that Jesus said and did what the prophet did that's not written down is frankly none
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of my concern because God didn't preserve that for us these are the words that Amos was inspired to speak to the people and that he was inspired to write down for us so we're going to stick to
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the words that Amos has committed to to scripture uh for us here um the one piece of piece of his introduction that we did not discuss
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last week um verse one he says the words of Amos uh who was among the Shepherds of tooa which he saw concerning saw in
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Visions concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of jeroboam son of joash king of Israel two years before the earthquake it is simply described as the
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earthquake um we talked a little bit in our introduction about where in the timelines we
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jeroboam 2 and Uzziah I'm not going to remember exactly and I should have written it down but there's something like
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793 is down 7 50ish and I want to say it was 791 or something they're very close
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together in their overlaps close enough for our conversation this morning they both had an approximately 40-year rain that
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almost lined up somewhat uniquely um but the earthquake as far as we can tell
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the Bible only has one other mention of this particular earthquake as far as I know the archaeological record has in fact found evidence of a significant earthquake in the rubble of a number of
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cities almost running up the spine of this area and they date it to
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approximately based on the things it's found among
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falling right in this time frame um you know most of this kind of thing you you'll have a plus or minus 30-year accuracy um but it seems to be that it's happening somewhere in the middle if it's 770 that's kind of right in the
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middle of their reign um Josephus the uh later writer who is maybe drawing on original sources or possibly fabricating things wholesale claims that the
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earthquake happened um if you remember your history of the kings of Judah when Uzziah attempted to seize control of the priesthood and was struck with Leprosy Josephus says according to the
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the traditions and texts that's when the earthquake happened as an additional um Mark of God's displeasure with Uzziah at that time Bible doesn't tell us anything about that the only other place that we
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have't mentioned and it seems very much to have passed into the um consciousness of the people of Israel
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in Zechariah in the midst of his prophesying Calamity upon the people right at the end of the book in Zechariah 14 uh he starts off in in verse one
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Behold a day is coming from the Lord and goes to to speak of all of the things that are going to come upon them all of these calamities and Dooms that are arriving to them and he says then in
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Zechariah 14:5 you will flee by the valley of my Mountains for the Valley of the mountains will reach to AEL yes you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of
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Judah then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him so Zechariah brings this up as a as terrifying as that earthquake was this is going to be
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at least as bad for you um so those are the mentions that we have of the Earth Qui it doesn't seem to factor all that
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much in but I'll leave that to you as we move forward um keep your eyes and ears out to see what mentions you think and I'll let you know where the commentators
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have apped how the earthquake fits into amos's overall themes and prophecy
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here but again just to bring out one point concerning point concerning Amos and his um his mission here he saw these Visions concerning Israel we are told concerning Israel and he was in
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fact a judahite so we have a judahite in Israel sent as a messenger from the southern Kingdom to the northern kingdom to give God's prophecy to
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them um Calvin had an interesting I I had mentioned last week the fact that um as far as we can tell from all of the biblical record there's nothing particularly special about Amos um
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Calvin had a fun uh aside in that regard he said there is a special reason for Amos uh the special reason is that Amos was a Shepherd um that he was not a polite man that he was not full of
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niceties that God was sending a Shepherd to deal with the stubborn obstinate strong willed sheep of the north and that they needed a Shepherd who was not
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afraid to speak to them sharply and to call them back to their God that's why God picked a shepherd and sent him because he said something to the effect
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of um the the Israelites were all stubbornness and obstinacy and they needed a teacher who would not deal with them courteously but exercise over them his rustic
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naive so moving on from there talking about the structure of Amos as we get into the book um I had mentioned in our introductory class that some of the commentators including one who wrote a
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whole book on Amos decried Amos as having absolutely no structure no interest and no um use in studying at all and then he apparently wrote a whole book about it so um I do think that Amos
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has a reasonably discernable structure I don't think it's even as mysterious as the one that we saw in um Deuteronomy having to sort of dig out some from the geography it's frankly I would say as
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again we spoke a little bit about Amos being paradigmatic um setting a paradigm of the writing prophets and I think you're going to see why here I had put these up near the end of the class last week as the sort of four
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major versions of oracles that you get from the prophets the prophets in speaking to the people are usually in their individual prophecies talking about either an indictment um describing
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the charge the crime that God is laying at the feet of Israel or instruction saying here's what you've done wrong and here's what you should be doing or it's
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the sentence saying having said all of that here's what's coming upon you and finally some of the oracles are an affirmation of Love or a future hope of
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um salvation or or of preservation um very often the the descriptions from the prophets are you're going to live through really dark days if you live through it at all but Israel will be
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preserved because God will preserve his people you will find this sort of thing in many of the prophets they're not always in this order however as we go
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through Amos I'm going to say chapter one through chapter 2 verse3
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neighbors chapter 2 verse 4 down down through uh the end of chapter 2
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he expands on this in three oracles all of which begin with um hear the word of the Lord calling them I think to instruction hear the word of the Lord as
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he speaks to you so we're going to do it this way that one goes here this one
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here uh chapter S and most of chapter nine are vision of coming
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blessing and a division IC return or Rejuvenation discuss that when we get
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so again I think this is one of the reasons why Amos gets called paradigmatic is as far as I can see he's doing this and he's pulling all four of
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these um types of Oracle out in order you can of course look at it in terms of proportion um you have the majority of
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the book and your affirmation of Hope and future blessing is all of four verses um at the end so you know the proportion of what God has to say to the people is obviously concentrated
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considerably more on judgment and instruction but as we move forward you can um observe with me hopefully the the balance of these things
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and I will just mention again this uh morning since that not everybody was here last week the things to look out for we talked at length last week about the um the use of the prophets why bother
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studying the prophets um what are the things that we're pulling out of them and we looked at a number of passages where both Jesus and the disciples make mention of all of the prophets in one case um I think it's in in Luke 24 where
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it says from Samuel on all of the prophets spoke concerning um Jesus and Jesus expands that to the people there um on the road to Emmas um in other
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places we're told uh Peter says in in his second sermon or maybe it was in cornelius's house um speaking on the prophets saying you know all of the prophets were looking forward to and
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speaking of the days these days the days of the Lord um and so keep your eyes out your ears out for those things as we look at both the
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immediate concern this was preached to Israel in the 8th Century BC in that time and place but as is the
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nature of the prophecies there is the now and the not yet it was concerning Christ it was concerning those days of the beginnings of the New Covenant and it is of use to us not just in its
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history yes in its history these are our adopted history of Israel is relevant to us and for us but also it has a place it has a something to say to
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the church now and here so keep your ears open for those as we go forward I'm going to um see how far we get this morning I'm going to read a translation uh that I've put together
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of verse two uh of Amos as he begins his uh delivering his message here
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Yahweh from Zion Roars and from Jerusalem he gives voice then mourn the shepherd's Meadows and the peak of Carmel Withers um I'm not going to do this all
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the time I'm not going to do this in every place but one of the things that I want to dig into as we go forward in Prophecy is the fact that it is said in poetry and there is
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a a structure and an intention to it um that is often difficult to pull out in
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English I want to say this I was reflecting on this having already written the study and going back
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forth I've mentioned before the one of the goals here is to to lay out some principles of hermeneutics how can we read the prophets how can we look at them and understand them better um um one thing I do want to say
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is we are intended to study corporately as the body together not all of you or even most of you are going to open you know four
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different uh versions of a Hebrew translation and dig through them to pull out the Poetry of these things nor should you or should you have to um and I don't put this up here by any means to discredit your English
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translations the meaning and intention of God's word is carried through here perfectly ay um you will lose Nothing by reading your English translations the
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intention here is more um in the context of the body in the context of the church those who are able to teach are called to dig deeper to reach further
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and to to mine out the things that are of benefit to the body to Aid them and to instruct them so um I don't say this in the sense of you all need to go learn
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how to read Hebrew poetry um what I'm trying to do here is as we're going through this particular book say here are some of the poetic aspects that we can observe as I'm aing you what I'd
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like to do as we go through the prophets more in terms of hermeneutical principles is those sort of three aspects that we've talked about the immediate contextual
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immediate contextual historical message the christological message and the immediate Church message you know our day and age these three things right so okay I I'll
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put it up on the board I think these the these three things are present in all of the prophets in some capacity because we read what we read last week in various
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New Testament passages I don't know what to head this as but I think there are three elements here which
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historical context which is to say they preached at a time to a group of people about events that had happened or were about to
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happen um that is true of all of the prophets many times they're preaching about things or delivering a message about things that will happen an
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important caveat and we're going to talk about this in a future lesson one of the the commentators had a phrase that I thought was excellent which is to say prophecy is not pre-written
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history the prophets are not writing the history in the exact time saying on 12:00 p.m. uh 7:50 you will experience an earthquake
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it's not written the way the historical narratives looking back saying this is what happened prophecy is not writing history it is accurately describing things that will come but often with
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that ad mixture of the now and the not yet the things that are immediate and the things that are longer term um so they came they they preached they
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delivered these messages to a particular group and people in a particular time that is true secondly as we read last week at some length there is a
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in the prophets or Jesus would not have opened the prophets to the men on the road to Emmas and told them these things were concerning me um nor could Peter have said all of these things were concerning our Lord so there is a
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christological component in the prophets third is and I think this is one of the places that we're going to have the most
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to to us in this Century this is one of those things that is of course thorny because on the one hand me writing today's Church oh I'm ready to get my televangelist you know mode on here and
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tell you all about what what what this means for your life today um that's not what I what I mean what I'm trying to get at is frankly the the issue that we've seen um
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and I and I tried to bring this out relatively last relatively last week a number of them not not least of which the the Presbyterians in my library have a
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tendency to say um you you can't bring this up today this this does this doesn't have application to us today because this was this was for the people of Israel and
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you're going to get yourself into all kinds of trouble trying to draw parallels and make this apply to the people of today and you're going to violate all of the hermeneutical principles that we got taught in seminary and boy you're just going to
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get yourself into a world of hurt and you should really go preach from something else instead they don't say it in those words but that's very much the sense of fear that you get out of it and I do think
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frankly a significant portion of what I would call the Reformed Church has taken the Clause out of the prophets they are not willing to let this bite the church
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today the hypocrisy the hypocrisy the grinding the various things that you're going to find the prophets um bringing the message of the Lord saying youall
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better quit you need to stop this misbehavior is frankly very applicable to the church in which we live not this specific body of course but
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again I want you to hear and listen this as close as we can get to the way it would have been told to the people at the time which is to say this
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message is from God for you here and if it applies turn repent um does that make sense to everybody the reason I've got
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that also church so as yes we're going to we're going to jump into that right here because I I think frankly one of the things that we're going to find right here at the the the top in verse two of Amos is um again this was a
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little bit touched on last week but God is being faithful to what he has already said and in the prophets what he's highlighting for them is you exist
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in a in a covenant blessing and cursing your behavior it's not quite an if then but your behavior relates to the blessing
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and to the cursing we'll look again in in Deuteronomy in Deuteronomy 37 right the the blessings and the cursings anyhow 27 sorry where the where
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Moses says through from the Lord um if you do these things then you will have the blessings if you turn aside you
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will be cursed to the point of Exile um you can actually see in Daniel whereas he's praying effectively an inter intercessor prayer for his people in Exile he says these days are on us
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because we contravene the Covenant and the Lord is being faithful to pour out the curse upon us I find it fascinating that those who are of a deeply covenantal
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bent are so concerned with saying there is no covenantal uh punishment upon the people of this day and age because that gets us into some some problems and and
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it may relate us back here before too long to to Aaron's um study in the law because we do live under grace we do live uh in the the light of Jesus Christ
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we are saved and yet I'm going to hopefully bring this out as we go forward what the prophets are usually concerned about what the prophets are often preaching about here through the
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message given to them from God is not about individual sin it's about what the community is doing and
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the appearance and actuality of that Community before the world around them so in this case Israel is intended to be
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a witness to the Nations around them Israel is meant to live uprightly under Yahweh and here they are doing these things to each other is the world around
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them are going to look on that and say boy what a big difference from us pagans similarly to cut to the chase here I think there's very much to be said in
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the same same state about the church if the church looks no different from the world or if the church is grinding each other in hypocrisy into the dust is the world going to look at that and say sure
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yeah I can see why there's hope in Jesus Christ when you do that kind of thing to each other so again as we go forward we'll we'll we'll pull these things out I'm going to um start in with uh verse
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two here though Yahweh from Zion Roars and from Jerusalem he gives voice then Mourns the shepherd's Meadows and the peak of caramel withs um your translations probably look a little bit
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different and it's not strictly possible for me to do it in English I probably spent too long trying to do this but I'm going to put up a diagram here because it comes sort of this way
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oops I'm getting well out of square but oh well
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they line up somewhat in a initially an inversion and then sort of a bracket bracket and um they're set this way you know I'm sure you've heard before in the New Testament it's often
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brought up the sort of verily verily uh or truly truly that doubling in Hebrew the the repetition is not just for the sake of learning it's not just for the sake of making sure you caught
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what I said it's an intensifier and so the the sound and sound and then the Desolation and desolation is is intensifying it's doubling up on it's saying you know this
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is this is not a a minor thing it is a well and true thing that's coming upon you um Yahweh roaring is used in a number of
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the prophets and I'm not going to go through all of them this morning but um a couple a couple of places we have um
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20 no what am I doing Jeremiah 2 verse3 goodness what I'm doing here and Hosea um and we probably will go look at Hosea as we move through here
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because as far as we know they were contemporary um though they never met as far as we know but these prophets also use the
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idea of Yahweh roaring The Roaring of God as has a an indication that Divine visitation is about to take place upon Israel um
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very much the idea of the um the Roaring of a lion before it attacks um we of course have the symbolism of the Lion of Judah but it's
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it's very much the indication of um God is Not uh capriciously going to strike you without sending a message he is going to give you warning he is going to
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Sunday sound he is going to uh utter to you before the action in um lands basically before he he strikes there
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will be a sound there will be a warning um it's used here in Amos as the sort of opening of the Judgment that we're beginning with the sound of God the the
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the words coming from God he is roaring he is he is um giving voice from his stronghold you'll see it again in Amos chapter 3 as
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we oops I've erased all that but when we come back to the expanding on the instruction from um from God the the openings in chapter 3 are going to start again with with Yahweh
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roaring um The Lion of Judah effectively prepared to tear into the Sheep of Israel it sounds like that war
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as you know and then subsequent to that sometime pass sounds like yes I I do agree there is an immediate aspect to it um you're not wrong there there is an immediate aspect to it that almost
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brings up the visual in my mind of sort of the shock wave you know they wouldn't have had quite the same experience with that but if you've seen you know video of a shock wave going and just blowing everything down it's almost the volume
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of the sound is that level but it's not you're going to see as we go through the Desolation is going to intensify the the the withering of the pastures the drying
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up what this is symbolizing frankly the drying up of the pastures the top of Mount Carmel was sort of the the lushest pasture land um that that's more getting
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at the sense of all of this wealth you know we've talked about the context they're existing in effectively the Renaissance period of the two kingdoms things are going well they're reasonably
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wealthy they've retaken some land that hadn't been theirs until since the days of Solomon we got wealth we got all this and God is saying that's all drying up
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to begin with I'm going to start stripping off your wealth but get ready you had your hand I I think that what the saying points to back to your list of four the prophets start with
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indictment instruction is is really not so much destruction as the statement of the case because they all stand upon Moses and and they do frequently mention
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him yes so they presuppose instruction yes it's not an indictment coming out of the blue which is why sometimes like here the judgement
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follows immediately upon the sentence it's not there's no there's no Gap in which the prophet then reinstruct Israel what they did wrong no that was already
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done by Moses that's true um that's a good point
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there there is a sense in which me you know saying okay you have these four points is a little bit of an artificial construction but I will say as we go through here listen as we move through the the verses and we may not get to all of this next week
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but there is very much the element in which by the it's effectively by the time a prophet has come to you it's too late by and large um you're going to get
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this as we move through one and two you're going to hear for three transgressions and for four you went over the line buddy so when the prophet has shown up you're probably not in good
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shape the instruction is really more for when you get down to number four those people that have survived the Desolation that has come upon you the remnant that God preserves to preserve his name are
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going to read this that we've recorded for you and take instruction from it it's pretty much too late for the people that the message is being delivered to however I do I do want to say I think
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there is there is a there's a distinction between how and when these are landing because we're going to see as we go forward here one
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of the things that that I I think is happening because these first several verses of chapter 1 are Amos describing to the Kingdom of Israel the Judgment of God landing on this neighbor the
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Judgment of God landing on that neighbor he's almost circling around them pointing out all of these it's almost like you can see the missiles striking out on the horizon as God is sending a
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judgment on this and this and this and he's going to close that net in around Israel and say they're coming closer and closer and closer to you know the artillery is homing in on on you as he's
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describing these things that God is doing so there is that sort of immediate blow you down aspect of the Roaring but the judgments that are coming are going
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to be Beyond just this relatively wi uh minor withering I don't want to diminish this but but it's effectively this is this is the Prelude to the actual
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judgment that's judgment that's Landing as a Prelude would I I have like three disconnected thoughts but but one
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would you not look for it to summarize thematically much of the language that's going to be used throughout the Oracle it is the the introductory here it is guys the the
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specific choice of two pasture lens to be the the imagery of the withering of the people of Israel seems appropriate secondly I say that because in Isaiah he
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seems to flesh out a similar Concept in saying that all men are like grass and then goes on to say the grass withers and the flower Fades but the word of Yahweh stands forever yeah and third I
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found a parallel in Joel in which he uses basically the exact same phrases and his conclusion is then yes and the heavens and the earth quake but Yahweh a
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refuge for his people a stronghold for the people of Israel so he seems to be going in a in a slightly slightly but not completely different direction yeah
39:58
it's it's interesting uh you bring that up because obviously the way our our bibles are laid out Joel is immediately proceeding amus in our scriptures and uh and Calvin in his commentary on Amos was
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working through them uh more or less as they're laid down and keeps saying flip the page back to what I was saying just just over there in Joel um because I was talking about it over there I'm not going to write it all again now that I'm
40:20
talking about Amos but as far as we know in the chronology Joel was possibly the last of the writing prophets um he was quite late in the total sum of the
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writings of the prophets I I can't say definitively he was the very last but he was much further in time down the list of the writing prophets um or what we call the Minor Prophets I should say um
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so yes you you do have that aspect of it there is what I want to say about it is as we're we're getting started here one
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of the things that Amos is doing for them in SE bringing this message from God forgot where I go with this there was some discussion depending on which
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commentator you read about this idea of these specific pasture lands and the fact that God that God's message through Amos starts with the Nations around them
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um some of them have described it almost as a bait and switch you know Amos gets up there that brilliant rhetorician and he tells them what they want to hear about all the nations around them getting struck I can't wait to see Moab
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gets struck and they're all excited and then he brings in and now it's coming to you I don't think that's what he's doing I think what he's doing actually
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is describing the sovereignty of God first over the world around them he is describing that God is in control of all of these things he is in control it is
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God who gives wealth he's about to take yours this is I think a a summation or a a theme that he's laying out the Roaring
42:00
from Zion from Jerusalem one of the things that's happening right at the beginning in verse two is he's saying you feel safe you feel secure in Jerusalem Zion is your stronghold these
42:12
pastur you've got you're safe in The Promised Land You're Not Safe not if you're contravening the the Covenant you're not safe here the Roaring is
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coming from inside the house there's also a sense of prophets that the iniquity of the Nations around Israel can be laid at the feet of Israel
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itself yes the name of the Lord is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you yes so even though they will suffer the consequences of their iniquity Israel is not Scot free Israel is in
42:48
some sense responsible for that they responsible yes are neighbor Nations that direct correct they are they the borders that is an ecclesias message yes
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yes absolutely um so so to that point I think that's where he's being told by God to start is with the we're going to we're going to highlight the borders the iniquity that surrounds you and now
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we're going to come closer and closer and closer and Home in on the center of these things but he is the message from Yahweh that is beginning this is to say
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you think you're safe you feel safe here in your promised land with with your Covenant God and that God is roaring at you from inside your
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borders to borders to me of people not his people so he
43:54
yes to me that he's watching even though they're not his people he still gracious to these other nations he doesn't have any reason to be gracious to them
44:15
think so one of the the that's an excellent point and one of the things that we're going to look at as we we move forward through the prophets is one of the things you see in the prophets is the nature of God and even though these are not his chosen people whom on whom
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he has his love yet his nature is such to be loving kind to be forbearing to be patient that's his nature that is who he
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is even these nations that he has not chosen for his own that's an excellent point so yes that that listing of the the three three transgressions and then four he is absolutely looking at the
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Nations around so there are all of these aspects to it as as we look at it um you know Jerusalem and Zion are the origin of of the sound these are where
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this is coming from they are not your Refuge you are not safe there Amos of course being a Shepherd recognizes the the power the threat of a roaring lion amongst the sheep or in the pasture
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lands um so there there is absolutely that aspect to it um this this address opens with the roar intended to shock
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the Israelites to to perk up their ears to say you who are wellfed and feel feeling secure um confidence confident that you have peace with God I've got
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news for you um significant in the the writings frankly is the use of of yahweh's name that he is calling them
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back to back to Moses's instruction because it is to Moses that the name Yahweh was given and we will see this as we move forward Israel was a mess and they were
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a mess in a couple of ways one of which was they absolutely were idolators they absolutely were setting up things that were um altars to other gods and and and
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offering sacrifices but they were also not unlike certain aspects of the church today uh claiming a greater Purity by having reverted to an ancient and better
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form of their religion that is to say we worship Abraham's God they had gone around the country setting up the ancient altars again when you see in the
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The Genesis and and the narratives where it says you know he built an altar to the Lord under this oak tree or that place they had gone around to all of those that they could find sort of Indiana Jones style and rebuilt them and
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said here we are worshiping Abraham's God and Amos is calling them back saying you live under the Covenant delivered by
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that's the god Yahweh is the god going back is not an option so he is careful to employ not his own voice but yahweh's voice at the
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beginning of his address so yes uh significant in that sense um he lays out the punishment which which
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um which God is employing in this um preceded by the roar this warning this indictment in that sense of a lion roaring or warning before its attack um again another point I want to bring
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out before we close this morning though is this idea that God is being faithful to what he has described and Amos is going to describe this or or inscribe this for us
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in in the word as he goes forward recording this for us those things that are happening to the Nations those things that are coming upon Israel are the things that God has spoken through his word that he has
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spoken through His prophets um Calvin I think had a good turn of phrase on this saying it's not about what is destroyed or what what has vanished it's not about
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the things that are being removed from Israel by the destruction of God it's about what God is accomplishing in that destruction he is
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being faithful to what is promised and sometimes we look at this we look at the geography or we look at the cities and you go oh that city is destroyed oh this is destroyed but the the focus in the prophets is to say God is accomplishing
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his will and being faithful to his word that's what's happening when these things are being destroyed or broken or or toppled over the the mourning the
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perishing the withering uh of this good grazing is is a consequence of God's utterances you have this word you have this instruction you should have known better
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is the message you're going to get from the prophets over and over again you should have known better you felt secure but God is prepared to flatten you and he stripping
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away this idea that they're safe where um he's going to close this net starting in the The Neighbors around them and
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moving in towards Jerusalem that no no place is safe from God's Wrath when you are existing in Disobedience it doesn't matter if you have the temple it doesn't matter if you're in the promised land it doesn't matter what matters is whether
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you have obeyed God or if you have disobeyed God is where he's coming to and so we're going to get into that uh as we move forward but I think it is significant the opening the theme as he
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begins here is the Roaring the sound of yahweh's voice coming to you from Jerusalem from Jerusalem from and moving into these these aspects are
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there any questions before I close this morning yeah Bas
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yeah yeah yeah and again thank you for that because that that just goes back to what we're talking about to say Paul can bring this out Peter can bring this out they can see the prophets were not only in the historical context
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there is a historical context to them but the truth God is not changed or changeable his nature his dealings the
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way the the prophets are expounding on this we used the term last week I think the idea of commentary this is the idea that the the prophets are effectively God's commentary on what's happening in
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Israel at this particular time but it gives Insight it gives indication into his nature and into his purposes so I hope to bring that out we got through uh one more verse today I don't think we're
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going to move quite that slowly as we go forward but um otherwise I might have been really optimistic with Amos and we should have gone for obadia instead but um no I think I this has been good and
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hopefully helpful but we'll we'll try to take off a little bit larger section as we move forward let's close in
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prayer Our Father we do thank you for your instruction we thank you for your patient nature that you were willing to bear with the iniquities for so long but
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we thank you most of all that we do live in this light of Revelation that we live in the light of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has fulfilled these things has illuminated them for us has
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shown that it is now possible [Music] to for God to dwell with his people in fact to dwell in us so we ask that you
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would stir up that Spirit Among Us this morning as we go to worship you in song and in prayer and in the preaching of the word that you would Pour Your Blessing out upon these things by the
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action of that spirit that you have placed upon us and in us we ask these things in Jesus name amen
