When God Knows a People

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Well, if you would, open up your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Amos.
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Here you go, guys.
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Some more sheets for you.
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Yep.
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I want to begin tonight, we're going to be in Amos chapter 3, but I want to begin tonight with a quote.
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This is a paraphrase of a commentary by a pastor named Jim Savisto.
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He and I actually spoke this week, and I liked what he had to say here, and I want to quote his paraphrase.
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The nation in which we live has known the unparalleled blessings of Almighty God.
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We have known great prosperity, and in days gone by have been the recipients of great light from heaven.
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We have dwelt prosperously and securely, but in recent days we have known the chastening hand of God.
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Our fear is that this is just the beginning.
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We live in times that are characterized by greed for material prosperity, lewdness, and not least false religion.
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Indeed, it can well be argued that it is in regard to worship we are most offensive to God.
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All our other sins flow from this polluted stream.
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And that is the end of the quote.
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Now, many of us would probably say that that statement is in regards to America.
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However, that is a paraphrase of a commentary on Amos in regards to Israel.
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All of what I just said certainly does parallel our nation, and if I were to say it about America, no one would say I was wrong.
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In fact, everyone would probably say a hearty amen.
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But the reality is that statement is just as true of the Israel of Amos' day.
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And I am one who, I want to be clear, I am very cautious not to make too many parallels between the nation of Israel and the nation of America, United States of America.
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Because they are not the same.
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America is not Israel, and Israel is not America.
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And those who try to make an absolute comparison between the two often lead themselves into some very bad eschatological waters.
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Because they start to see everything promised to Israel for America, and it becomes a lot of big problems.
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And that is not the way we ought to think.
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However, it is impossible not to see some similarities regarding the sins that both America and Israel were harboring in the 8th century B.C.
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As I said, Israel and America are not the same, but the desire of sinful men to rebel against an almighty God has not changed in 2800 years.
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It hasn't changed since Adam and Eve first ate the wicked fruit.
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And how that desire manifests itself among men is also not unique in Israel or in America or anywhere else.
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So we come tonight to chapter 3 of the book of Amos.
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Chapter 3 is the first of three chapters which begin with the phrase, Hear this word.
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If you look at chapter 3 verse 1, it says, Hear this word.
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If you just look with your eyes, turn over a page to chapter 4 verse 1, you'll notice it says, What? Hear this word.
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And then you go over again to chapter 5 and verse 1, and it says again, Hear this word.
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This is three times that the author, Amos, is pronouncing an oracle from God.
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And all of these oracles are warnings from God Almighty to His people.
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I didn't mention in our lesson last week in introduction, I went back and thought about it, I couldn't believe I forgot, but Amos, his name has a meaning.
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And the meaning of names in Scripture is often very important.
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Think about like Peter, his name is Rock and it means stone.
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And you think of men like Moses to draw out.
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And of course he was drawn out of the water and he drew the people of Egypt, or Israel out of Egypt.
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So names often have a connotation of what God has in store for a person.
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Well, the word Amos means burden.
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And one could say that he had a burden for the sins of God's people.
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And others might say that he was burdened with the task of telling God's people about their sins.
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So not only did he have a burden, but he also, well, he was burdened himself.
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And as I said, it's a fitting name.
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I want us to read this oracle tonight, this message from Amos.
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It's only 15 verses, and then we're going to go back in our outline, learn what it's saying.
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It's somewhat cryptic in certain portions.
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It's prophetic literature, and prophetic literature, much like poetic literature, has to be read with a certain interpretive methodology.
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Not everything is as clear as it might be in a narrative or in a didactic piece of literature.
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He's going to talk in here about a shepherd stealing the sheep back from a lion and things like that.
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And we're going to go later and talk about what that means.
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But to start with, we're just going to read the text in its entirety.
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It's only one chapter in my plan tonight, and in many of the plans of man's heart.
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But my plan tonight is to get all the way through this chapter.
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But we'll see how the Lord directs our steps.
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So it says in verse 1, Hear this word, that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt.
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You only have I known of all the families of the earth.
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Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
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Do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet? Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den if he has taken nothing? Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground when it has taken nothing? Is a trumpet blown in the city and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? For the Lord God does nothing without revealing His secrets to His servants, the prophets.
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The lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy? Proclaim to the strongholds of Ashdod and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt and say, assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria and see the great tumults within her and the oppressed in her midst.
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They do not know how to do right, declares the Lord, those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.
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Therefore, thus says the Lord God, an adversary shall surround the land and bring down your defenses from you and your strongholds shall be plundered.
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Thus says the Lord, as the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued with the corner of a couch and a part of a bed.
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Hear and testify against the house of Jacob, declares the Lord God and the God of hosts, that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.
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I will strike the winter house along with the summer house and the houses of ivory shall perish and the great houses shall come to an end, declares the Lord.
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And so ends the reading of God's inspired word.
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As I said, there's a lot there.
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There's a lot to consider, there's a lot to think about.
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And in chapter 3, what Amos is doing, I believe he's building on something he said in the beginning.
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If you just for a minute would look back at chapter 1 verse 2, I want to remind you of something we saw last week.
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In chapter 1 verse 2, it says, The Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem.
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The pastors of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers.
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That's sort of the thesis of the book.
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Because that's where the prophet is announcing that the Lord Himself, like the Lion of Judah that He is, is roaring His pronouncement of judgment from heaven against His own people who have sinned against Him.
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And then you come back to chapter 3, and as we're going through chapter 3, you notice what it says.
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It talks about that roaring Lion yet again.
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It says in verse 8, The Lion has roared, who will not fear? So He pronounced in chapter 1, the Lion is roaring.
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And now He says, the Lion has roared.
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The Lord has made His pronouncement of judgment.
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And tonight I've outlined this particular text into five headings.
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The Lord's love for Israel.
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The Lord's reminder to Israel.
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The Lord's willingness to warn Israel.
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The Lord's indictment against Israel.
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And the Lord's punishment of Israel.
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And remember, this is the first of several oracles.
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What happens is, tonight's oracle is very general.
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But it's going to narrow in its focus in the weeks to come.
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God's making a general pronouncement of judgment, and in the weeks to come, we're going to see He's going to get more specific as to the sins.
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But tonight it's more of an overview, more of an outline, more of a broad look at why He is pronouncing this judgment.
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So let's look first at the first subject heading, The Lord's love for Israel, which comes to us in verses 1 and 2.
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Reading again, it says, Hear the word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt.
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Verse 1, we see there, God's love is demonstrated in His deliverance.
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Throughout the Bible, God's deliverance from Egypt is seen as the watershed moment of His love for His people.
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And you can see this all throughout the Bible.
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You go to Deuteronomy, you can see it.
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It talks about coming out of Egypt.
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You go over to Leviticus, it talks about coming out of Egypt.
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You go into the Kings and the Chronicles, and every time God's love and His care for Israel is wanting to be reminded, they talk about Egypt.
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Of course God loves us.
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He took us out of Egypt.
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Recently I watched a film, and I don't know who put it together.
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For the life of me, I can't remember who did it.
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But it's one of these Bible movies where they sort of take the Bible and set it to film.
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And a lot of times those aren't really well done, but sometimes people do a pretty good job.
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And this one, whoever it was, did a pretty good job.
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And they pictured the Exodus.
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And it started with the people in Israel, and Moses having killed the man and had to run away and spent 40 years in the wilderness, and then saw God in the burning bush, and that was really neat, as they did a pretty good job with the graphics on that.
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And then here comes Moses back into Egypt calling for Pharaoh to let the people go.
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But it's kind of neat just watching it on television.
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You read it, and you sort of can't visualize everything, but it was the toads and the water becoming blood and all these different things.
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It's so visual.
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But the thing that struck me was the picture of the last plague, which was the death of the firstborn, the Passover.
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And it just showed children just collapsing.
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I mean, you often think about...
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I mean, that was a terror-filled night.
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And it showed the people of Israel huddled in their houses behind those blood-soaked doorways just sort of listening to people scream.
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And you think, go back to Noah.
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Noah and his family in the ark are hearing people drowning.
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They're hearing the earth open up and water burst all around them.
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And so this is a serious moment of deliverance.
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There's real judgment going on right outside your door.
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There is real punishment from God, and it's happening right outside.
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So that stuck in the minds of the people.
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This is God's protection of us.
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And God protects us because He cares for us.
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He has selected us of all the nations of the world.
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He's chosen us as His people.
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And you say, is that fair? Absolutely, God didn't have to choose anybody.
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Talk about fair.
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God could have said everybody gets to go to hell.
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It was His gracious choice to choose anyone.
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And He chose Israel.
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And there's always this hearkening back.
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There's always this hearkening back to Egypt.
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If you want to know if God loves us, go back to Egypt.
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He took us out of there.
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He protected us from the plagues.
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He protected us on the night that those firstborn died.
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And He led us through that sea, and He led us to the promised land.
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That's how the people of Israel saw God's love.
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Because He did it.
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That deliverance was the picture.
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Verse 2 shows us that God also demonstrates His love and discipline.
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Because He says, not only did I bring you up out of the land of Egypt, He says, you only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
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What's He saying there? Well, He's saying, you're mine.
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I have redeemed you.
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I have purchased you.
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I have bought you.
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I've been a father to you.
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And as a result, when you stray, I will punish you.
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I think about that like with my children.
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I had a conversation just recently with my son.
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There were some other people, and they did a little something they shouldn't have done, and so he got a little punishment.
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And later on, his friends got off their punishment, but he's still on his.
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And I said, well, they ain't mine.
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I said, if they were mine, they'd still be being punished.
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Because what you did deserves the restriction that you're receiving.
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And I've set a time for that restriction, and I've set a date.
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And even if your friends' parents didn't set no date, I've set it because you're mine.
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And because I love you, and the Bible says if a parent doesn't discipline his child, he doesn't love his child.
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But because I love you, I'm going to discipline you.
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And it's going to be according to my standard, not anybody else's.
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And that's sort of what God's saying to Israel here.
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You're mine.
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And I love this.
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And I'm going to take a quick excursus, meaning I'm going to chase a rabbit.
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That's a fancy way of saying I'm going to chase a rabbit.
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But I can't go too far.
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I'm sitting down.
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There is part of this that's very important.
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It says in verse 2, You only have I known of all the families of the earth.
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When the Bible says that God knows a people, or that God knows an individual, it does not simply mean that He takes in passive knowledge of them.
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God is not saying that He simply knows Israel.
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He is saying that He loves Israel.
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When I say I know you, I can mean several things.
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If I say I know you Miss Jackie, I met you a few years ago, you're a nice lady.
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And I know you as much as I can know you as far as friendship goes.
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But when I say I know you, if I say I know my wife, is that different than how I know you? Not just in intimacy, but just in how I know my wife.
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I know my wife in a very personal, very intimate, very close.
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I know my wife's favorite color.
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I know more about her than I know about you.
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And I love her more than I love you.
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I hope you understand that.
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I hope so, yeah, exactly.
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And that's okay.
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That's how it's supposed to be.
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But when the Bible says God knows someone, or that God knows Israel, it's talking about a relationship.
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Because God knows everybody.
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God knows the hair on every head of every person.
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God knows every skin cell, and every blood cell, and every cell everywhere in a person's body.
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Everyone.
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God has all knowledge of all things.
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We call that omniscient.
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He knows everything about everyone.
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But Israel, it says you only have I known.
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And I will tell you this, what that is saying is you only have I loved.
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I've been in a relationship with you differently than all the world.
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In fact, you don't have to go there, but when Jesus was talking in Matthew 7, 23, He talked about on the day of judgment.
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He said there will be people that come to Him and say, Lord, Lord, did we not do miracles in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name, and I will declare unto them, I never knew you.
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It doesn't mean He didn't know who they were.
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It doesn't mean He didn't know their name, or how many hair was on their head, or how many times they ever sinned.
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In fact, He knew all that.
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All those things were written in the book of life.
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He knows the person.
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Well, I say those things were written in the book of life.
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Those were written in the books that were opened, the sin book.
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Book of Revelation talks about the books that are opened.
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We know that we have a ledger.
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God knows everything about us.
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He knows every time we've ever sinned.
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But the knowledge of God in a saving way is very important to understand.
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This was one of the things that led me to become Reformed.
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You say, what do you mean? Well, if you go to Romans 8, you don't have to go there, just in your mind you know this passage.
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It says that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
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For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
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And whom He predestined, He called.
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Whom He called, He justified.
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Whom He justified, He glorified.
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What does it mean when it says God foreknew someone? It doesn't simply mean He knows something about them, because God knows everything.
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God didn't have to learn anything about me.
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God knows everything about me before I ever was created.
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I've heard people say, well, God looked down the corridors of time and saw what you were going to do.
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And I said, did He not know? Did He have to look? What do you mean? When the Bible says God foreknew, it means He chose to enter into a relationship with me before I was ever created.
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It is not wrong to say that foreknow can be interpreted as foreloved.
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For whom God chose, for whom God foreloved, He predestined.
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People don't like it, but if you study the word know in the Bible, from God to man, it's always referencing the salvific relationship, not just passive knowledge.
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And I think part of the proof is right here, because He tells Israel, you only have I known.
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And we know that doesn't mean you only do I have information about.
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No, you only have I loved of all the nations of the world.
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So like I said, I thought that was an important little side rabbit to chase.
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We'll get back into it now.
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But let me add one thought about verse 2 before we finish.
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If you are numbered among the elect, meaning that you're a saved individual, you've come to salvation by grace through faith in Christ, you are not immune from the disciplining hand of God.
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In fact, you are right underneath the disciplining hand of God.
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Because the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12, God disciplines those who are His.
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He disciplines Israel right here because they are His.
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And people sometimes ask me, what's one of the ways you can know that you're saved? I say, well, I can tell you if you know if you ain't saved, if you can sin willy-nilly and you don't have any conviction, if you can sin willy-nilly and God isn't disciplining you.
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Because the Bible says if you are without discipline, of which we have all been made partakers, you are illegitimate and not a son.
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The King James uses that word bastard.
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It says you're a bastard and not a son, meaning you don't have a father.
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That's what King James just says.
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If you are sinning without discipline, if God is not disciplining you as a father, you're not His.
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So Israel is His.
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And what does He say? Therefore I will punish you.
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You're mine.
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You ain't little Jimmy down the street.
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You with me.
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And so anyhow, that's verse 2.
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Verse 2 is important.
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They're all important, but verse 2 had my mind this week.
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But moving on now, we see the Lord's love for Israel, verses 1 and 2.
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Now let's look at the Lord's reminder to Israel.
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The Lord's reminder to Israel in verse 3.
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Actually verses 3 through 6.
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What we see here is a series of seven questions, all of these questions describing cause and effect in the world.
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If you read them through, you'll see what I'm talking about.
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The first one, it says, Do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet? And again, I've heard a lot of people use that for weddings.
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I don't know if you've ever heard that in a wedding.
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That's one of the verses that's often preached at weddings.
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It says, Do two walk together unless they be agreed? You know, you've got to be agreed to come down the aisle.
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You've got to be in agreement.
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I ain't never preached in a wedding.
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They'll be looking at me like I'm weird.
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That's okay.
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I'm saying I've heard it.
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I ain't saying I did it.
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But people use that because it's true.
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If I'm walking somewhere and somebody else is walking somewhere, that don't mean that we're walking together.
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But if we say, Hey, we're going to meet over there, that's we've made an appointment, and we're both going to go to the same place.
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That requires an action and a reaction.
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I've got to act and say, Hey, let's go.
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And you've got to react and say, Okay, let's go.
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And this is what's called cause and effect.
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And we see this later because it goes on to talk about the next one.
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Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Why does a lion roar? Because he has prey.
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If you hear a lion roaring, you know he's after something.
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He doesn't just go roaring for no reason.
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There's a cause and there's an effect.
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Does a young lion cry out from his den if he's taken nothing? There's a cause and there's an effect.
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Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth when there's no trap for it? Birds don't just fall out of the sky unless there's a trap.
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And the trap is the cause and the effect is the fall.
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And again, the trap doesn't spring up unless there's somebody that trips the trap.
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The trap itself isn't going to go off unless something trips the trap.
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And then it says about the trumpet, verse 6, it says, A trumpet is blown in the city, and are the people not afraid? Of course they are because the trumpet that it's referring to is the trumpet of warning.
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Back then, if there was something going to happen, the town crier or the bugler or whatever would play the trumpet and everybody would know there's something coming.
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And so people would get afraid.
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But it's all leading up to the end of verse 6.
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Well, we'd say verse 6, part B.
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Part A is where it says, A trumpet is blown in the city, and are the people not afraid? Part B says, Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? That's really the key to all those questions.
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Because that's the last one, and that's the one it's building to.
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Because all these questions are talking about cause and effect.
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You've got the cause of the two coming together because they've got a place to go.
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You've got the cause of the animals roaring because they've got an animal to chase.
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You've got the cause of the trap flipping because the trap's been set.
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But now you get this last one, and it says this.
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It says, Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? As sure as the lion roars after its prey, or the trap is sprung when the bait is taken, so too will the Lord bring judgment on the iniquity of His people, and it will be Him who did it.
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Ultimately, what the prophet is trying to point to is that when the people see the disaster come, they do not have to wonder from whom it came.
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The cause is the sin, and the effect is God's judgment, and don't wonder for a second that it's not God.
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Isaiah 45.7, and you want to maybe make a note of that.
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Isaiah 45.7 is one of the most important texts on this subject.
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Because it says this, I form light and create darkness.
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This is God speaking through Isaiah.
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He says, I form light and create darkness.
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I make well-being and create calamity.
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I, the Lord, do all these things.
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I've heard people say when bad things happen, well, God didn't have anything to do with that.
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Well, I want to know what they mean.
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Because the reality is God has something to do with everything.
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God is in everything.
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I don't want to start an argument, but I've never had a bad thing in my life happen that I don't think God was in control over.
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And I've never seen a bad thing happen in this world that I don't think God could have stopped if He'd have so chosen.
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And if God is sovereign and powerful enough to have stopped it and chose not to, He had a reason not to.
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Ain't that simple enough? You know? I had a guy say one time, he's an atheist, he said, well, he said, if you saw a baby going to get hit by a car, you'd run out there and pick up the baby and stop it, right? Yeah.
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And he says, well, God sees babies get hit by cars every day and He doesn't do anything.
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He must not be a very good God.
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That's one of the atheist arguments.
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God must not be a good God if He could stop it and He doesn't.
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And what would you say to that? I've come up with a creative answer.
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People don't like my answer, but I've come up with a creative answer.
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I say, if you knew that was baby Hitler, would you pick him up? I say, you don't know everything.
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And I'm not saying every baby gets hit is baby Hitler.
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Please know that.
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What I am saying, though, is God has a purpose in all things.
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And I don't always like what happens.
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There was a guy killed not two blocks from this church just a few days ago, shot in his house by a random act of violence, a man just wanting to steal from him.
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And I pray that God will bring justice.
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I pray that God will help that man's family.
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And I pray that young man gets saved.
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I pray that God saves his heart because he lost.
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So, I mean, there's a lot that I pray for in that.
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But I don't question, is God in control? And that's the prophet's heart here.
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Don't you understand when the city falls, this is the Lord that's doing this? Don't you understand that the Lord has control of this? And that's the cause and effect relationship that's happening here.
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He's reminding them of something.
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Moving on, I'd like to, if we can, go to the next section.
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The Lord's willingness to warn Israel.
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Verses 7 and 8.
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It says, The Lord God does nothing without revealing His secret to His servants, the prophets.
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The lion has roared.
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Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken.
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Who can but prophesy? Now, very quickly, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this.
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Basically, what he's saying is God's judgment is not secret.
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God sends prophets to tell the people, Hey, this is coming.
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And look what happened when Nineveh was going to fall.
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God sent Jonah to Nineveh, and all of those crazy Assyrians, Nineveh is the capital of Assyria, all those crazy Assyrians who were rebels, repented.
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Now, I imagine if I saw a man that spent three days in the belly of a whale, bleached up and seaweed wrapped around his head, I'd probably repent too.
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But, I digress.
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Israel gets prophet after prophet after prophet.
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And they're not repenting.
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Nineveh gets one prophet.
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And from the top to the bottom, they repented.
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That's an act of God, of course, but it just shows the obstinate heart of the Israelites.
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And the fact that God is here saying, You've been warned.
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I have not done anything to you that I didn't tell you was coming.
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You've never done that to your child? I told you this was coming.
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I told you if you did this, you're going to get a whooping.
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Or you're going to get restriction.
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I don't have a child.
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Oh, you don't have a child.
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Well, okay.
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One day.
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That's right.
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Well, the people of Israel, they had these prophets.
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They had these warnings.
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And they couldn't refuse to give those warnings.
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I love the second verse.
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It says, The Lord God has spoken.
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Who can but prophesy? That's a question the prophet is asking.
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Who can but prophesy? I think about Jeremiah when he said, He said, If I say I will not mention his name, or I will not speak anymore in his name.
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He says, It will be as if a fire were burning in my bones.
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I can't not preach.
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The Lord has put it in my heart and I can't not do it.
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And that's where we are here.
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Again, Jonah, he didn't want to go.
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Jonah hated the Ninevites.
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He straight up hated them.
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They were his enemies.
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He did not want to see them repent.
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And when they repented, he got mad.
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He was like the anti-Billy Graham.
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He went and preached and everybody got saved and he got mad.
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But, be that as it may, when God lays into a prophet to preach, he's going to preach.
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Because God is in control.
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Even if He's got to send him through the first submarine ride to get him there, He's going to preach.
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And so we have this situation where Amos, again, who's burdened with this responsibility to go in and preach, and he's saying, You've been warned! And so verse 9, we get the indictment.
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It says, Proclaim to the strongholds of Ashdod and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria and see the great tumults within her and the oppressed in her midst.
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Ashdod and Egypt.
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This is actually the enemies of Israel.
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And the enemies of Israel are called to witness her sin.
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God is calling the wicked to witness over the wicked.
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Isn't that amazing? Because think about what he said.
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Proclaim to the strongholds of Ashdod.
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That's Philistia.
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That's the Philistines.
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And to the strongholds of the land of Egypt.
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Again, the Egyptians.
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And he says, And say, Come together and look at the mountain of Samaria.
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Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom.
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Remember the southern kingdom of Judah? The capital there was Jerusalem.
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The northern kingdom is Samaria.
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It's the capital.
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He's saying, Look at Samaria and look at her sin.
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Verse 10 says, They do not know how to do right.
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Now let me say this.
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That does not mean they are ignorant of how to do right.
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It means they refuse to do right.
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I'll give you a good counter-verse or rather cross-reference on that.
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In Jeremiah 8.12 it says this.
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Jeremiah is talking about Israel's sin.
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He says, Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No.
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They were not ashamed.
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They did not know how to blush.
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You ever met somebody who didn't know how to blush? I've talked to several people in counseling who were sinning and they were embarrassed and shamed and their heads were face down and their hands in their head and tears running down their face because they're ashamed.
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And I say, Praise the Lord.
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In fact, I asked a person recently, I said, Are you ashamed of what you've done? And they said, Absolutely.
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I said, Good.
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I said, Let's pray for repentance.
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Let's pray that God will restore you.
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Because if you'd have came in here proud of what you've done, then we'd have had a problem.
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And that's what he's saying.
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He said, These people don't know how to blush.
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That's what Jeremiah said.
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And you go back over to Amos.
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And what does Amos say? Amos says very simply, They do not know how to do right.
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Not because they don't know, but they refuse to do right.
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They know what right is, but they refuse to do it.
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It's a prophetic statement against their willingness to do right.
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They're ignoring righteousness.
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So in verse 11, we get the punishment.
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It says in verse 11, the sins of Israel would make our strongholds useless.
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Look at what it says.
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It says, Therefore thus says the Lord God, an adversary shall surround the land and bring down your defenses from you and your strongholds shall be plundered.
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They thought they were pretty strong.
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And they were.
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Financially, they were well off.
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Militarily, they were strong.
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They were in a capital city, which was on a hill, which they called a mountain.
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And it was in a fortified high location, which would be easy to defend.
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And they felt very confident in their military and financial stability.
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Boy, doesn't that sound familiar? I mean, really.
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People talk about it all the time.
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Nobody can come after America.
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We've got oceans on both sides, and we've got allies on the north and the south.
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Nobody can come against America.
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We've got all the money in the world and all the nuclear bombs in the world.
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And then eight guys in airplanes flew them right into our towers, right under our noses.
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I mean, it can happen.
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You know what I'm saying? We pronounce our superiority, and the Lord says, your strongholds are useless.
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Your strongholds are useless.
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And that's what we see here.
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He's telling them, this mountain, this stronghold you have.
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Verse 12, it says, Thus says the Lord, and this is an interesting passage.
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I kind of was really trying to visualize this.
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It says, As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued with a corner of a couch and part of a bed.
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That's an interesting statement.
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Because what He's saying, imagine this.
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Imagine a lion gets a hold of a sheep.
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And the shepherd goes out to try to get that sheep back.
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And he's fighting the lion over it.
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Well, that sheep is going to be dead.
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But he might get back a leg or an ear.
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He might grab a hold of something that he can hold on to.
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And the picture of this is the devastation that's coming.
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There's going to be a remnant, but that remnant will be rent.
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That remnant will be damaged and left in ruin.
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Verses 13 and 14 tell us why.
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It says, Hear, and prophesy against the house of Jacob.
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Declare as the Lord God, the God of hosts, that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel.
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And the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.
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Now let me quickly kind of explain that.
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Because Bethel was just on the border of the northern and southern kingdom.
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And if you remember Bethel, this is where Israel wrestled with God.
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And he said, I'll call this the house of God.
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Bethel.
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El is the term for God.
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And Beth means house.
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With Bethlehem, it means house of bread.
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So Beth is house and El is God.
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So house of God.
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And when Jeroboam I separated the northern kingdom from the southern kingdom, the northern kingdom people still felt the need to go to Jerusalem on their pilgrimages.
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So he established Bethel as the place of worship so the people didn't have to go into the southern kingdom for their pilgrimages.
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And he put there a golden calf for worship.
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And there were worship and false idols bowing down to false idols there in Bethel.
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This is why later, if you look at Hosea 10.5, he doesn't call it Bethel.
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He calls it Beth-Avon.
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He calls Bethel Beth-Avon.
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Now there is a place Beth-Avon, but he calls Bethel Beth-Avon.
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Beth-Avon means house of idols rather than house of God.
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And the horns of the altar were actually a picture of God's protection because the altar was this square place where they would burn the animals.
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And on the corners of the altar there were these protrusions that stuck up and looked like horns.
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And if a person was in need of refuge, they could grab the horns of the altar and that would be part of them calling out for safety.
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It's found in 1 Kings.
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We see a picture of this, a man holding to the altar horns.
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And what it says is those horns totally destroyed.
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All of that is coming down.
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Bethel is no more.
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And that which you thought was going to bring you safety is going to be destroyed.
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By the way, that's 1 Kings 1.50 if you want to look up that reference about the horns.
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1 Kings 1.50 Any safety that was formerly provided to them was no more.
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And finally, verse 15 tells us their fortune which they had amassed.
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If you remember last week we talked about through ill-gotten gain much of it was inappropriately gotten.
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They were oppressive to the poor.
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They were oppressive in their behavior.
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And that fortune would be lost.
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Look at verse 15.
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It says, I will strike the winter house along with the summer house.
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And the houses of ivory shall perish and the great houses shall come to an end.
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I want to give you a Scripture verse to cross reference for that.
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Isaiah 5 verse 8 Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field until there is no more room and you're made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.
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What does that mean? I'm going to read it to you in a different translation.
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Sometimes I like some of these translations.
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They make it a little clearer.
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Because I do think this is what it means.
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This is the New Living translation.
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It says this, What sorrow for you who buy up house after house and field after field until everyone is evicted and you live alone.
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That's the picture of what Isaiah is talking about.
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These people are buying and buying and buying property and they're pushing and pushing other people out until they own everything, but they're all by themselves.
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And you go back here, they've got summer houses and winter houses.
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They've got houses of ivory and great houses.
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They're tremendously wealthy, but it's all going away.
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Judgment is coming and it is going to be final and powerful and destructive.
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The ESV Study Bible has a good note here and I just want to quote this as we get to the end.
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It says, Amos does not condemn wealth in itself, but wealth accompanied by injustice towards the poor, fraudulent business practices, living in luxury without care for the needy, and without concern for sin and evil in the land, and without genuine religious faith.
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He's not just attacking people with wealth.
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He's attacking people whose wealth is their God.
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And that ends the outline.
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Let me give you the text application and we'll draw to a close.
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Just three things that I thought were applicable.
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There's a ton of things that I've mentioned, but there's just a few things to bring to your importance.
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To bring to your mind.
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The first thing.
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Past deliverance is an important reminder of God's faithfulness.
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If you go back to the beginning of the chapter, what does Amos say? This is God who brought you up out of Egypt and He's reminding them of God's faithfulness by His past deliverance.
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I'll tell you this, and I don't want to take too much time, but in my life, when I start feeling like I don't know if my closeness with God is weakened or if I feel like fellowship with God is low or I'm having difficulty praying or something like that, I start thinking about the times God has saved me.
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And I don't mean just saving my soul, but I mean He's brought me out of situations that I knew only could have been Him who did it.
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And it reminds me of His faithfulness.
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And that's what Amos is doing here in verse 1.
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He is the God who brought you out of Egypt and you only has He loved.
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The second thing, the Lord is not removed from the disasters of this world.
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We talked about that a lot earlier, so I'm not going to make a lot of comments.
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But the Lord is not removed from the disasters of this world.
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And finally and thirdly, God is long-suffering, but He will not tolerate the inequity of a people forever, and that includes His own people.
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And a question for you to take home and think about is what things do we see Israel being condemned for that we could also say are equally condemnable in our nation and in our churches? I'll tell you this, the golden calf still exists.
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Except for now he's wearing skinny jeans.
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But he still exists.
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That was a weird ending.
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But the idols are still there is what I'm saying.
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Idolatry still exists.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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And I pray, Lord, that we would understand what this text is saying and that we would apply it to our lives.
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That we would understand that when you love a people, you don't turn them over to iniquity, but you draw them in and sanctify them.
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And sometimes that sanctifying hand is one of discipline.
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And you discipline Israel because you love them.
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You discipline us because you love us.
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And I pray, Lord, that we would not be without discipline.
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For he who is without discipline is an illegitimate son and has no Father in Heaven.
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So I pray, Lord, that we would receive and willingly respect and appreciate when You bring Your hand of discipline in our lives and help us to appreciate You and love You more.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.