Are You God Fearing?

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Well, I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Amos.
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And if you're here tonight and you were here two weeks ago, you'll know we've already started tonight's lesson.
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And we only got through half of it.
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And I said, well, I could try to rush to the end.
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And everybody sort of unilaterally said, no, stop.
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We'll do it next time.
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Because there was so much left to get to.
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So I reprinted the handouts because I knew not everyone would bring them.
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But this is the same handout that you had two weeks ago.
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And if you didn't bring it, you'll have a new one.
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This is Lesson 5, No Fear of God is the title of the lesson.
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And what I had said last time was my biggest frustration in the lesson was last time I taught.
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I taught for almost an hour and never got to the part about the fear of God.
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I never really touched on that part.
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So what we're going to do, because I know it has been two weeks, we're going to sort of go back over what we have learned and just get back into gear.
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And then just continue on.
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We stopped right around verse 4.
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So we'll just get back into gear and go.
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But as of starting tonight, what I would like for us to do is I'd like for us to simply read through the passage.
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It's only 14 verses.
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So it should only take me a few minutes to read through from beginning to end.
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And in reading it, we'll hopefully get an understanding, a broader context of what we're going to be learning about.
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The prophet Amos, in speaking to the northern kingdom Israel, is providing to them a woe.
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This is the second and third pronouncement of woe.
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The first one happened in chapter 5, verse 18.
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And this is in chapter 6, verse 1, the second woe.
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Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations to whom the house of Israel comes.
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Pass over to Chalna and see.
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And from there go to Hamath the Great.
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Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
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Are you better than these kingdoms, or is their territory greater than your territory? O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seed of violence, woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
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Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.
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The Lord God has sworn by Himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts, I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.
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And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die.
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And when one's relative, the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the bones out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost parts of the house, Is there still anyone with you? He shall say, No, and he shall say, Silence, we must not mention the name of the Lord.
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For behold, the Lord commands, and the great house shall be struck down into fragments, and the little house into bits.
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Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.
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You who rejoice in Lodabar, who say, Have we not by our own strength captured Carnam for ourselves? For behold, I will raise up against you a nation.
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O house of Israel, declares the Lord, the God of hosts, and they shall oppress you from Lebahemoth to the brook of the Erebah.
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So again, a rather short section, but a lot is said in this short section.
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It can be broken down into three parts, three subsections.
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The first that we've already looked at is complacency condemned.
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That's verses 1-3.
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The second is indulgence condemned.
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That's verses 4-7.
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And then finally, pride abhorred.
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We could also say pride condemned if we wanted to maintain a little more consistency.
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Pride is condemned in verses 8-14.
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So very quickly, we'll just address again verses 1-3.
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He says, Woe to those who are at ease in Zion.
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That's the key theme of this section, is the issue of the people of God being at ease in their sin, or being complacent in their sin.
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One of the commentators on this particular passage said that the word ease here could be translated, those who are smug.
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Those who are self-satisfied or prideful.
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Woe to you who have become satisfied.
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Woe to you who are smug.
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You haven't understood your place, and you've just relaxed before God, and you've begun to allow yourself to do all kinds of things that are not pleasing to Him, and it doesn't concern you.
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And so that's why I put in letter A there, a condemnation for the unconcerned.
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This is a person who's without care.
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This is the Laodicean.
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If you remember two weeks ago, we looked at the Laodicean church in Revelation chapter 3, where it says very specifically that that church wasn't hot or cold.
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They were lukewarm.
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They had everything they needed, and they weren't on fire for anything.
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They were just completely satisfied and at ease.
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One writer in commenting on this particular passage talked about the Titanic.
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He said if you think about the people on the Titanic, even after the Titanic ran across the side of the iceberg, many people didn't think anything would happen because the ship was just too powerful to sink.
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It was only after the ship began to take on water and take on water and began to shift to one side that people began to realize, okay, this is happening.
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But it was at that point that for many of them it was too late.
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And that's the situation.
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The people of Israel are as the Titanic, having hit the iceberg, they're taking on water, and they don't realize it.
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They're still eating on the lubber deck.
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They're still sitting there in the casino of the cruise ship just enjoying pulling the handles without any concern.
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Exactly.
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The proverbial frog in the water, as the water begins to boil, the frog just sits until it dies.
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And so this is where they are.
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They're at ease in Zion.
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They have no concern because they feel like they are unable to fall.
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They're too powerful to fall.
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And that's, again, here, he says those who feel secure on the Mount of Samaria.
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We've talked about this several times in this series.
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We've talked about the fact that where Samaria was and where the capital was, there was a mountainous area.
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And so for people to attack, it was very difficult because they had the high ground.
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And normally in war, the ones with the high ground have the established dominant position, and thus it's harder to come against those people.
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So they had this confidence in their position.
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They had this confidence in their power.
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One of the most dangerous things, and I don't want to take a hard right, but one of the most dangerous things I think about our country is I do think that there are people who think America is absolutely unable to fall.
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There are people, and I've heard the argument.
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Well, we have friends to the north and friends to the south, and we have oceans on either side.
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We can't be beat.
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We can't.
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In fact, how complacent were we on that September morning in 2001? Because we didn't think that that kind of thing could happen, that such an attack could come.
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Yeah, oh boy.
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Yeah.
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Very good example.
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So here Israel has this position where they think we can't fall.
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We don't have to worry about God.
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We've got this.
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He's there.
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We're happy about it.
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We'll do what we want, and we're at ease in Zion.
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And thus, he says in verses 2 and 3, he says, well, look at all these other nations.
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Look at these nations that fell.
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Look over here.
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Look at Kelma.
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Look at Gath.
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Look at Hamath.
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Are you better than them? Is your territory greater than theirs? And all of them fell.
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Do you think that they didn't think they were powerful too? Do you think they didn't think they could fall also? You know, again, not pointing too much back at America, but think about, you know, like we look at the Roman Empire.
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They didn't think it could fall.
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You look back at the Assyrian Empire.
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They didn't think they could fall.
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The Babylonians, they didn't think they could fall.
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But everyone has fallen to another empire.
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And he says in verse 3, Oh, you who put far away the day of disaster.
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You who don't think it's going to happen.
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You're not concerned.
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You just don't fear.
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You're at ease.
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So then we get to verse 4, and he begins a second woe.
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The first woe is against complacency.
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It's relatively short, three verses, but it's powerful.
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And that's what we spent most of the time on last time.
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But now he switches to the indulgence of the people.
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Because it's not just their lack of concern for God.
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It's not just their lack of concern for what would happen if God removed his grace.
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That's the big thing.
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The only thing that keeps a nation intact is God's hand of grace.
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If God's hand of grace removes, no matter how strong that nation is, it will fall.
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And so God's hand is protecting them.
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And so they're not concerned about that, but they're also living in the lap of luxury.
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Verse 4, woe to those who lie on beds of ivory.
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We don't have to have that explained to us.
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We know that's a pretty indulgent thing, even today.
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If you walked into somebody's house, and their house was ivory bed frames and feather pillows, and everything was just gold laden and silver and all, you'd think, yeah, that was a little extravagant.
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Yeah, somebody with a big feather.
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And they eat lambs from the flock.
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That's referencing the fact I mentioned before, they eat meat, which was not only meat, but the finest of the meat, the lambs of the flock.
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They're subtuously dining.
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They're living the life of luxury.
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Verse 5 says, They sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David, invent for themselves instruments of music.
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And I didn't mention this last time, I don't think, but there's two Old Testament men who are mentioned in verses 5 and 6.
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David and Joseph.
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Neither one of them are mentioned in such a way that it's really referencing something from the life of David or something from the life of Joseph that's meant to key in on any specific virtue of that.
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It's looking at them as simply a point of reference.
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When you think of musical instruments in the Old Testament, you think about David, because David was God's instrument.
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Rather, he was God's musician.
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He wrote many of the psalms.
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He played music for the worship of God's people.
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And he was himself a lead musician.
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He was a man of music.
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And so it says, but these people are not singing songs like David did.
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They're not worshiping God.
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They're singing idle songs.
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Idle not like idolatry, but idle like as in meaningless.
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Just vain.
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Just useless songs.
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And it says like David, they're inventing music.
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They're inventing instruments of music, but they're not like David.
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And that the reason why David invented instruments of music was he invented instruments of music to worship God.
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But they're inventing instruments of music not for the worship of God, but to simply entertain their idle minds.
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So in this sense, David is sort of being used almost like a juxtaposition.
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David had a purpose in creating music.
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David's purpose in creating music was the worship of the Almighty.
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These people's purpose in creating music is the satisfaction of the bored mind.
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Boy, doesn't that kind of bring us to today.
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Think about how much is done.
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Not just music.
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I mean, you put that aside.
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Think about how much is done just to satisfy the idle mind.
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How much is invented just to satisfy...
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You know what I realized the other day? My children don't know how to be bored because life doesn't let them get bored anymore.
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When I was a kid, you got up, you went to school, you come home from school and you did your homework or if you didn't have homework, you went outside to play and you had to invent things to do.
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And I'm not that old.
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I'm getting older.
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My birthday is in a couple of weeks and it's coming quick.
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But you remember what I used to do? I used to beg you for trips to the knife shop so that I could buy knives because I like to take knives outside and carve wood and make sticks out of wood that poked into the ground.
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And I like to play army man and I like to go outside and there's a whole story that goes with that.
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I'm not going to let Pat's just laughing because she knows there's a whole side.
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But there was a desire to do...
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My kids don't have the boredom because they've created every minute something to do, whether it's an app or a video.
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Go ahead.
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Or experience silence.
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Yes.
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To experience silence.
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And we don't see that much anymore.
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We don't see...
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Every day now we got to go somewhere.
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We got to go to this practice or that class or this group meeting or this, that and the other.
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And I'm only saying that in reference to this because part of what they were doing in Israel was they were filling those idle times.
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You know what boredom causes? Boredom causes us to have to think.
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And oftentimes in thinking we think deeply about things.
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And because we don't often like to think deeply about things, we find ways to shut off our mind.
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And that's what idle music and that's what idle playing and idle things do.
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They sort of make us shut our minds off.
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And this is what we're seeing here in Israel.
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We're seeing this development of almost a pop music just for the purpose of nothing else but to satisfy the idle mind.
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Yeah, idle hands is the devil's workshop.
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Absolutely.
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And so, like I said, the difference between David...
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David's used here not necessarily as an example but almost as sort of the counterexample.
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David had made music for God.
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These people are making music just to satisfy their boredom.
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And one might go to the point to say they're also making music to worship false gods.
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It's not really referenced in the passage here but they sing idle songs to the sound of the harp.
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The fact that they do mention David could be the fact that some of their music is pointed towards these false deities.
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My wife and I have a little disagreement as to what to listen to in the car.
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I normally listen to preaching or to someone talking whether it's Al Mohler on the briefing or something.
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I listen to somebody talking.
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My wife likes music.
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But honestly, a lot of what is called Christian music anymore is either so vacuous that it's not really biblical or it's so just sappy that Jesus is sort of treated as like your boyfriend.
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I call it Jesus is my boyfriend songs.
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If you took Jesus out and put Johnny in there, it could be love for Johnny instead of love for Jesus.
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And so we do have this sort of replacing good sound, solid theological music with these songs that are just meant to sort of tickle the ear and satisfy the idle mind.
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So again, it's not directly referenced here but whatever the purpose in them doing this, David is brought out as the opposite.
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What they're doing is like David, but not like David.
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It's like David in what they did, but not the reason.
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And then in verse 6, who drink wine in bowls.
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That's referencing the fact that they're drinking wine in excess.
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Because usually you drink wine from a cup.
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But a bowl is an excessive amount.
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They drink wine from bowls.
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They anoint themselves with finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
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I love this passage.
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Honestly, of the whole book of Amos, this one passage I think captures the heart of the book because it says while they're drinking their bowls of wine and while they're anointing themselves with the finest oils, they're not grieving over the ruin of Joseph.
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What is the ruin of Joseph? Well, think back.
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Think back in your minds and if you remember the story of Joseph, you'll remember one thing.
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His brothers beat him.
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They cast him into a pit.
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And what were they going to do? They were going to kill him.
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But then they said, no, no, we'll sell him into slavery.
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But you remember while he was in the pit, they sat down to eat.
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They're able to enjoy the normal expression of the appetite while their brother is yearning in a pit.
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And this is where Israel was.
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Again, the Titanic's going down and everybody's, you know, arranging deck chairs as it were.
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They're here and they're not grieved over what's happening.
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They're not grieved at the sin, the fact that they're worshipping golden idols.
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They're not grieved over the fact that they're indulging and the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer and there's no seeking for any type of social rectification for all of this injustice.
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And so while Joseph moans, they revel.
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And I think that sort of captures the heart of Amos' problem.
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You are in revelry, but the fires are kindling below you.
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And that's why it says in verse 7, Therefore, remember what therefore means, as a result of that, this, therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.
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The people that are at the top who are trampling upon the weak, who are stomping upon the poor and who are standing upon the shoulders of the broken are going to be the first ones led to the slaughter.
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And the revelry will pass away.
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This is the promise of Amos.
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Now in verse 8, he's not really shifting gears, but he begins to expound on one of the issues of Israel and the issue is that of pride.
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Pride is why they are complacent and pride is why they are indulgent.
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And I want to give you something to think about before we read on.
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I want to write out a formula on the board.
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This is a syllogism.
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Well, not really a syllogism, it's just a simple formula.
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It's just this equals that.
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Pride is the equivalent of having no fear of God.
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Because if we have the right fear of God, we will not express confidence in ourselves.
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So this and this go together in the sense of equality.
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If I meet a person who is prideful, who is arrogant, who is self-sufficient in his confidence in himself, I have it all, can do it all, and I need nothing.
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He does not only not understand and appreciate what God has given to him, but he doesn't fear God because God is the one who can at an instant take it away.
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Remember what Jesus said? He said don't fear the one who can kill the body, but fear the one who what? Can cast both body and soul into hell.
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We have people who don't fear the power of God.
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They don't fear the majesty of God.
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Years ago, it's not common much anymore, at least not in this area of the world.
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It might be common in maybe more rural areas.
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But there used to be a common phrase that a person would use to describe themselves as a Christian.
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They would say, Are you a God-fearing person? Or a God-fearing man? Or if they were describing someone, they would say, Yes, that person is Saul to the earth.
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They're a Christian.
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They're a God-fearing person.
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And it wasn't derogatory.
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It was a positive thing.
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This person understands who they are.
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They're created by a God who has authority.
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And their life is lived in submission to this God who has authority over them.
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Some people take great offense to that.
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Some people say you should never fear God.
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And they say that the word fear should only mean reverence.
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And that's what fear is.
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You shouldn't fear God.
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You should only revere God.
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And it should not be fear.
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And I look at it differently.
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And I look at a lot of things differently.
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So don't make it right.
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But I want to tell you what I think.
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I think that a lot of people who say, I revere but don't fear, don't really revere.
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Because in reverence, there is a positional submission to the power of the one to whom you are revering.
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Who are you fooling with? Exactly.
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And he left the room, but my dad is here tonight.
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He's out.
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He had to walk out for a minute.
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But when I was growing up, I wasn't afraid of my father like some children were that they were afraid that their father was unfair because I did have friends whose parents were abusive or that they were mean-spirited.
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I never had that fear.
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And my father never expressed himself in a mean-spirited way or a hateful way or an abusive way.
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And I'm blessed because I know so many people did have fathers who were abusive and mean-spirited and hateful.
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And I do say this.
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There is a difference between the fear that I experienced in my dad and the fear they experienced in their dad because their fear was based on abusive, unloving, and unrelenting type of authority figure.
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That's not how we're supposed to fear God.
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But I will say this.
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I feared certain aspects of my father and it was genuine fear.
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One, he was the alpha male.
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And if you're a man, ladies might not understand that, but in the house, he was the man of the house.
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And so there was a certain fear of the fact that just the fact that he was the strongest and he was the oldest and he was the leader.
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And you don't stand up against the leader.
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You don't stand in the face of the leader.
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You don't tug on Superman's cape.
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You don't spit in Superman's face because he will let you know that you ain't Superman.
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He will knock you down if he has to.
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Don't give him a reason to.
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That's not fear because he walked around knocking me down, but it was fear because I knew he could.
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He was a man and I was a boy.
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And so there was a sense of fear positionally.
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And when you start becoming a teenager, you do wonder when that line is going to be that you can be the man.
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But you know what? I thank God that I never felt the need to push that through and try to stand up to my father because even in his older age and even me as an adult, I reverence who he is and I still have a sense of fear.
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Not that I fear like he could overwhelm me physically anymore, but I now fear disappointing him.
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And I fear dishonoring him.
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And I fear doing anything that would take our family's name and hurt the family name.
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You understand? So the fear did change as I aged and it went from almost a fright of he's bigger and stronger and older and tougher to now it's more of a respect and reverence, but yet there's still a fear if nothing more than just a fear of not wanting to disappoint.
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Right? And so when we talk about the fear of God, we should never think of it as something any less than genuine fear of God that includes reverence, but also includes the remembrance that this is the God who created us and at any moment were he to choose us to not be, we would not be.
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Now he won't do that because we're not dealing with a capricious, whimsical, abusive, or hurtful deity, but we're dealing with a loving, gracious, kind, almighty Father.
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Right? So we do have that.
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But we still stand in awe and fear of who he is.
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He made us.
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He has authority over us.
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And when a man stands up to God and spits in his face, that's pride.
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That's no fear of God.
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And that's where we see, starting in verse 8, the people of Israel are spitting in the face of God.
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The Lord has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts, I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.
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What are the strongholds? It's talking about again their military might.
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They think that they are unconquerable.
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And because they think they're unconquerable, they don't see their need of God.
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And because of that pride, God says they're going to lose.
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And He gives an illustration.
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In verses 9-14, He gives an illustration of the complete and utter destruction that's in their future.
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They're confident in their strength.
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That's verse 8.
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But verses 9-14, He's going to give an outline of what's going to happen.
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One, He talks about the amount of death that they're going to see.
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Verse 9, He says, And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die.
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And when one's relative, the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to the horse and the bones out of the house and shall say to him who is in the innermost part of the house, Is there still anyone with you? He shall say, No.
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Complete death.
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And the death, the amount of death will bring silence.
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He'll say, Silence.
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We must not mention the name of the Lord.
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This has brought absolute shame.
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Look at the devastation.
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Must not mention anything.
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Just shut our mouths.
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Have you ever seen someone who is in a situation where the utter, I want to say destruction, but it's more than that.
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It's just the devastation that they're seeing, there are no words.
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There's just no words.
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And that's what these people are going to get ready to see.
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There's going to be death and destruction like they've never seen.
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And people are going to say, Where was God? And somebody's going to say, We did this.
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Don't even mention the name of the Lord.
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We know why this happened.
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Amos told us this was going to happen.
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As did other prophets.
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This is on us.
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And then he goes on.
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Because he says in verse 11, For behold, the Lord commands, And the great house shall be struck down into fragments, and the little house into bits.
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It's going to go from the top to the bottom.
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The big mansions are going to fall.
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The little huts are going to fall.
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It's going to be destructive.
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And the destruction is going to be far-reaching and enormous.
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And then, verses 12-14, The delusion is going to be obvious.
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He says, Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.
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That sounds really weird.
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Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow with oxen? The idea behind this is there are things that make sense and there are things that don't make sense.
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And horses don't run around on unlevel ground because they'll break their ankles.
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And you don't plow on a stone because you can't get the blade into the ground.
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You plow on soft ground.
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Horses run on flat land.
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We know how it works.
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And yet, you knew how it works.
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You knew what righteousness was.
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And you knew what goodness was.
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And you knew what nobleness was.
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And you did the opposite.
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You turned righteousness into poison.
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And the fruit of righteousness into bitter fruit or wormwood.
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You knew what was right.
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See, that's the thing about Israel.
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They could not claim ignorance.
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Not only did they have the oracles of God, not only did they have the law of Moses, but they had the prophets calling them to repentance.
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You knew it was wrong.
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And you knew what was going to happen.
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Next week, I've already written a lot of what I'm going to talk about.
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Next week, in chapter 7, there's a man by the name of Amaziah.
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Amaziah is the priest of Israel.
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And he comes to Amos.
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You know what he says? Don't prophesy anymore.
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We don't want to hear it.
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That's next chapter.
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That's next week.
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He says, I've talked to the king.
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And we don't want to hear it anymore.
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It was their version of the modern health and wealth preacher.
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He tells them, we don't want to hear it.
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Shut up.
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See, they know.
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They've heard it.
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They know what's right.
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And they're ignoring it.
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They've perverted justice.
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And he says, verse 13, you who rejoice in Lodibar, who say, have we not by our own strength captured Carnam for ourselves? Again, they're just bragging.
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They've had these military conquests.
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That's what that's referencing.
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It's referencing the fact that they had had...
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You rejoice in Lodibar.
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You say, have we not by our own strength captured Carnam? We've done these things.
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Don't you think we can handle anything else that gets thrown at us? We've won already.
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But it says in verse 14, for behold, I, this is the Lord speaking, will raise up against you a nation.
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And this one ain't going to lose.
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I mean, that's the key standard version.
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He goes on to say, He declares the Lord, and they shall oppress you from Lahomoth to the brook of Ereba.
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And that basically is saying from the top to the bottom.
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If you look at the map, it's referencing the fact that they're going to be overrun from one end to the other.
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From the north to the south, they're going to come in and just capture everything.
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So again, this is a prophecy of woe on the people of Israel.
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And he's telling them exactly why.
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And he's saying, you know why this is coming.
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And you have no excuse when it comes.
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So I want to give you the application now.
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This is the part we didn't get to.
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And as we draw to a close, I'll give you a few things to think about.
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The first one there with the little flag next to it.
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A person can participate in corporate worship and still be complacent about his relationship with God.
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Now you say, why is that an application from this chapter? Well, here's why.
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Almost everybody in Israel was a worshiper.
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They would go to the temple, they would burn incense, they would offer sacrifices, and they would worship.
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But they were worshiping a false god and an idol.
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They were not worshiping the God of Israel.
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Now you would say, how can Israel not worship the God of Israel? Well, how can a church not worship the God of the Bible? I mean, really, have you ever been to a church that didn't worship the God of the Bible? I can point you to a few.
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They will call themselves a church.
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They may even call themselves a Christian church.
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But you walk in and you say, well, from where does your information about God come from? Our feelings? Or our traditions? Or from popular psychology? But what about what the Bible says? Well, we think every man has the right to interpret it as he wills, and everybody gets to come up with their own opinion about what God is like, and everybody gets to worship God in whatever way they feel is appropriate.
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And no one can tell any man any different about what he believes about God because no one really knows for sure.
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Let me tell you, that's the popular, very popular teaching in many churches.
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We can't tell you anything.
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You have to come to a conclusion on your own, and even if it's 100% opposite of the biblical teaching, it can still be right because right is in the eye of the beholder.
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Right is in the eye of the individual.
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No one has the right.
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One of the most funny things I love to look at is the eye of a person who's never been told they're wrong to be told that they're wrong.
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Not that I just love telling people that they're wrong.
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I don't necessarily just like going around being a, I don't like pointing, but I've had people say things.
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Recently I was sitting in a room with a lady.
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I was doing counseling.
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It was not somebody from our church.
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It was a man and woman from another church, and I was talking to them, and the lady said something about the Bible, and I said, yes, but that is incorrect.
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And she looked like I shot her in the face.
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I said, what you just said is an error.
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And she said, what do you mean an error? I said, well, the word error means wrong, and you're in it.
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You just said something that's not according to Scripture.
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Do you understand? Well, that's my opinion.
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Do you understand you're wrong? How can you say I'm wrong? It's a word, and I said it, and it ain't that hard.
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I don't think I'm right about everything.
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I know that there's areas that I need to grow in.
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There's areas I need to understand better.
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I know that I'm wrong in some things, and that's a beautiful place to be because if you do, then you're teachable, and if you don't think that you can be wrong, you're not teachable.
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We should all at least agree that we can all be wrong on some things, sometimes very important things, but the unwillingness to say, the willingness to say everyone is right, there is no wrong, that's the attitude that's really dangerously permeated the church, and that's how a person can be in worship and complacent about God because they're not really there worshiping God.
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They're worshiping an image of God they've created.
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The golden idols of Israel were no more idolatrous than the idol that people make in their mind.
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People carve idols in their mind, and they say, God is like this because that's the way I want Him to be, and they make an idol in their mind.
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Yep, their pocket God, that's right, and they pull Him out and do with Him what they will.
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So that's the first thing that I draw again as an application.
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People can participate in corporate worship and be complacent about their relationship with God.
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Are we that? That's a question to ask ourselves.
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Are we complacent? Do we come into worship at ease? We shouldn't.
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This is why I don't like the idea that worship is supposed to be comfortable.
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It's one thing to come in and be miserable because maybe it's just a miserable experience, but to be absolutely at ease and never confronted about what I believe, never confronted about where I stand.
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I've heard a pastor one time say, no one should ever ask you about your relationship with God because you should be so satisfied nobody should ever ask you.
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And I said, no, we're supposed to.
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Paul says we should examine ourselves to see if we're in the faith.
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Peter tells us, make our calling and election sure.
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And so there should be a pastor willing to say, hey, do you know you're saved? Well, I've been in church for 40 years.
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I didn't ask you how long you've been present.
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I asked you if you're saved.
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And that's a serious question.
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So that's the first thing.
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The second thing, complacency in worship stems from a lack of the fear of the Lord.
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If you go to Romans 3, you don't have to go right now, but if you want to write down a little note, Romans 3, when Paul is giving his indictment against man, chapter 1 of Romans gives an indictment against basically Gentile humanity.
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Romans chapter 2 is an indictment against those who have the law, which would be the Jewish world.
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And then he says in chapter 3, therefore, it is that Jews and Greeks are all under sin as it is written.
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There's none good, no not one.
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There's no one who understands.
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There is no what? No fear of God before their eyes.
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The reason why people come into worship and they want comfort and they want to be coddled and they want to be served rather than to serve is because they are not there in a fear of God.
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They are there in a desire to satisfy self.
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And the fear of God, the fear of the Lord creates worship and the lack of it creates complacency or rather the other way around, complacency is a result of the lack of the fear of the Lord.
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Third and finally, true expressions of faith tend to be found among the indigent more than the affluent.
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True expressions of faith tend to be found more among the indigent than the affluent.
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Now this could be a whole other lesson that I'm not going to make a whole other lesson but I am going to ask for another minute of your time to simply consider something.
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Jesus said some things about being rich that should get our attention.
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You know it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for the rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Rich is by most people's standards somewhat of relative term.
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If you compare me to the average person in North Africa who's living on a subsistence lifestyle of very little money, I'm very rich.
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But if you compare me to maybe those in Ponte Vedra or another area of town that is a little more financially affluent, I'm not saying anything bad about that, I'm just saying comparatively I'm more middle class or lower.
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So there is a certain relativistic way of looking at whether somebody is rich or poor.
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But at the end of the day, the more that we have, generally, tends to make us rely more on what we have.
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The more we have makes us rely more on what we have.
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And so that's the danger.
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That's the danger Jesus was always talking about with the rich.
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Was it the rich trusting their riches? And the man with the member of the barns, they didn't hold enough so he tore them down and he built new barns because he wanted to be able to say tomorrow I can eat, drink, and be merry.
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I can just go through my life and not have to worry.
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I want to build for myself these silos filled with everything so that I have and have and have and not share or help or provide for anyone else.
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Yes, sir.
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That's the reason why.
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That's true.
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As the passage in one of Richard's favorite passages, and I don't remember the number, I'm sure you do, where it says, Lord, don't give me less that I might need to steal or give me more that I might not trust in you.
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What is that? Proverbs 30, 7-9.
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It's an important passage because it does talk about that.
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It talks about the fact that we ask for not poverty so that we're not destitute.
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But we also ask for not riches because in having riches, we tend to trust in that and not God.
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And that's why I made that.
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If you read through chapter 6, you see people who are trusting in their military might.
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They're trusting in their riches, their affluence.
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They're not trusting in God.
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And as a result, they are soon to fall.
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Discussion question.
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What are some of the commonalities between the people of Israel and Amos' day, the church of Laodicea and Revelation and the modern church in America? We've made some comparisons, but you may want to use that for a personal conversation in your home during family worship.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for the opportunity to study together.
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I pray that this study has been encouraging for your people, that you'll lead us in the weeks to come to an even better understanding of what your prophet Amos had to tell us.
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In Jesus' name, amen.