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Well, a happy Thanksgiving Day to you. I am so thankful that you would take a few moments to tune in to the broadcast this morning, and I hope it'll be a blessing to you and encouragement to you.
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I hope that you get your Thanksgiving Day off to a good start. I should be focusing on Psalm 103, where we thank the
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Lord for all of his benefits to us, and so on and so forth, but I just want to stay consistent here and focus on our scripture reading passage for today.
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Today, we're reading in the book of Amos again, but there is a couple of verses in Amos 8 that kind of tie in with our
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Thanksgiving Day, the way at least most of us celebrate Thanksgiving. Surely, we'll take some time to go around the table,
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I trust, and express a word of thanks to God for who he is or what he's done and how he's provided for us and so forth, but look at the table.
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Look at the table. Look at the bounty on that table. Certainly, in different homes, the degree of that bounty may vary.
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It may vary because of the number of people that are there celebrating. Some will just be two people sitting together enjoying a dinner together, but the point is that most likely, there will be plenty on that table to eat.
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One thing we're not experiencing in our land right now is famine. We don't have a famine.
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We're not experiencing that. You could have gone to the grocery store any day this week, probably, and picked up a turkey, found some stuffing, some sweet potatoes, made some gravy, fixed yourself an apple pie or a pumpkin pie, some cranberry, green bean casserole, corn, whatever.
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You probably had your list, and you probably went to the grocery store and probably got just about everything that you wanted on the list.
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One thing we're not lacking is a famine. One thing we're not experiencing is a famine. We don't have a lack at this point of basic food.
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It's not the only kind of famine that people can experience. The Lord brings this out in Amos chapter 8.
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He says in verse 11, The days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine on the land,
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Ah, but not a famine of bread, nor a famine of water, but instead of hearing the words of the
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Lord. One of the most severe famines that could come upon a land is the famine of the word of the where there is no hearing of his word at all.
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This is a severe problem in our nation. It's not as bad as it is in other nations.
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Recently, we looked at some of the nations in the world that are persecuting Christians horribly.
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There are a few million people, but just a handful of Christians.
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There are no churches that proclaim the word of the Lord. Those who are followers of Christ, they have to meet in secret, or else they'll be executed, certainly arrested.
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We don't have that kind of experience. However, that being said, there are plenty of buildings in this nation that used to be churches and are now antique stores, or coffee shops, or even breweries.
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The word of the Lord doesn't exist there anymore. There are plenty of buildings in this nation that have on their sign,
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XYZ church, some kind of a church. But the word of the Lord isn't there.
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It's been replaced by the word of man, the opinions of man that supplant the word of the
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Lord. The word of the Lord is considered to be passé. There is a famine in many places of the word of the
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Lord. Here's what I want to encourage us to do. Those of us who know the word of God, let's be sure we're diligent to be faithful in our churches that preach the word of God and teach the word of God faithfully, that it might be promulgated all the more.
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One thing we don't want is a famine in our communities, a famine of hearing the word of the
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Lord. When you sit at your table on this Thanksgiving day, and you're giving thanks to the
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Lord for the bounty of the food that he's put on the table, the sufficient income that you enjoy, the warm home you're in, the roof over your head, the clothes that you have to wear that are comfortable and warming to your body, the reliable automobile that you have to drive, the job that you have to go to, when you give thanks to the
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Lord for all those things, let me encourage you also to thank the Lord for the feeding of his word that you can receive yet today in this land, that there is not yet a famine even of hearing the word of the
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Lord. Maybe in many places, but you're able to hear it if you seek it.
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Let's give thanks to the Lord for that today. Our Father and our God, we're so grateful for your grace, your mercy to us, that even in this land, with all of its challenges and its departure from your word, there is not a whole scale famine in the land.
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Thank you that we can still find places where the word of the Lord is faithfully taught and preached and proclaimed.
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We are grateful to you for that provision for our souls, for feeding us in the soul.
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Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a great Thanksgiving Day, and I trust the