No Fear of God

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Well, I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to the book of Amos and tonight we're going to be in chapter 6 of Amos.
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The handouts will be coming around.
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The title of tonight's lesson, which is at the top of your handout, is No Fear of God.
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No Fear of God.
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And you'll see why that title is relevant in the passage as we study.
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But I know not everyone has been here for the entirety of this lesson series and some of you have missed maybe one week or two weeks.
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And so I wanted to begin tonight with a little bit of a recap of where we've come from and what we have learned so far.
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Just by way of reminder, hopefully you're reading some at home, hopefully this study has been helpful for you.
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But I know how easy it is to forget from week to week.
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I don't remember what I did yesterday, much less what we've been studying this whole time week to week.
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So, just by way of reminder about who Amos is.
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Amos is a prophet who has come from the southern kingdom of Judah into the northern kingdom of Israel to deliver a message of judgment regarding Israel's apostasy.
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Now, just by way of reminder, Israel was divided.
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That is a very, very poor rendition of what Israel might look like on a map, but that just gives you an idea.
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The southern kingdom is made up of Judah and the smaller tribe of Benjamin.
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At least that is what we understand.
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It was Judah and Benjamin.
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But the ten tribes to the north had divided.
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And do you guys remember when they divided? They divided after the death of Solomon the king.
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Israel was originally a theocracy.
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A theocracy means a God-ruled economy or God-ruled government.
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And a theocracy is what you had with Moses.
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You say, well Moses was like a king.
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No, Moses was a minister.
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He was a steward of God who gave the law.
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Of God who established the rules.
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Of God who laid down what was to be and what was not to be.
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Moses was a minister of God to the people.
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And then you had the priests.
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But ultimately everything functioned as a theocracy.
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But later, Israel looked around and they saw that other nations had kings.
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And they coveted the king.
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You guys remember this story.
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We want a king like the other nations.
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And so who did they choose? King Saul.
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Saul was, as the Bible describes him, a head taller than all the rest.
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Not that he was really physically a head taller.
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But that he was handsome.
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And he was a good-looking person.
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He fit the bill of what a king ought to be.
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And so he was risen up by the people as the king of Israel.
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And Saul was the first king.
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But there was a king that God had waiting in the wings.
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And what was his name? David.
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David was the youngest of his brothers.
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And he was not one.
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We wouldn't say he wasn't handsome.
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But he wasn't the character that Saul was.
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He wasn't that sort of person that man would choose.
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David was the one chosen by God.
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Called a man after God's own heart.
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Well, David was not a perfect man.
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David sinned.
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We know about David's sins with Bathsheba and other things that he did in his life.
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And they gave birth to a son named Solomon.
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Solomon became the king after David died.
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And Solomon, when he died, there was a division in the kingdom.
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Rehoboam was his son.
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And he took the southern tribes and became the king.
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But the northern tribes was a servant of Solomon who led a revolt.
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And his name was Jeroboam.
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So you have Jeroboam in the north.
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And Rehoboam in the south.
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And from the time of Solomon, after, there was never unity in the kingdom again.
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There was that division.
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The northern kingdom of Israel had evil king after evil king after evil king.
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Up until 722 B.C.
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When the Assyrian army came in and destroyed the northern kingdom.
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The southern kingdom lived on for another 150 or some odd years.
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To 586 B.C.
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Where they were taken over by the Babylonians.
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So you have the Assyrians who overtook the northern kingdom in 722.
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You have the Babylonians who overtook the southern kingdom in 586.
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That's the historical picture that we're in.
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Where is Amos in all this? Amos is prophesying to the northern kingdom.
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He's from the southern kingdom.
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But right on the border.
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He lived in a town right on the border.
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He makes the trip across the border as it were.
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And he preaches to them prior to this.
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He is preaching to them prior to their fall to Assyria.
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Which was in the history of Israel a time of great prosperity.
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A time of great wealth.
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And a time of great ease.
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Isn't that often what we see in many nations.
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As we look back at the history of nations.
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Nations will rise to power.
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They will have a time where they're in power.
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And then they will become complacent.
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And another nation will come in and wipe them out.
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And they will rise to power.
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Isn't that frightening when you think about our nation? I mean, yeah, you think about the reality of where we are.
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The generation that's coming up now.
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Very complacent about many things.
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Doesn't care a lot about hardly anything.
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When it comes to, you know.
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So anyway, you kind of get my point.
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There's complacency.
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So anyhow, this is the picture of where we are.
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In Amos, we have seen three oracles of the prophet.
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Again, for those of you who have not been here.
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In chapter 3 verse 1.
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In chapter 4 verse 1.
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And in chapter 5 verse 1.
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They all start with the same phrase.
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Hear this word.
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And that was the starting of the oracle.
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Which is the prophetic utterance.
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God speaking to the people through the prophet.
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Hear this word.
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And he said it in chapter 3 verse 1.
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Chapter 4 verse 1.
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And chapter 5 verse 1.
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Then in chapter 5 verse 18.
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I want you to go there with me.
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In chapter 5 verse 18.
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We see the first of three woes.
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Look at verse 18.
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Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord.
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Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light.
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We'll stop right there.
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Because last week we went over what that means.
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But again, I know some of you weren't here.
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This is the first of three woes.
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Now, I know that many of you already know this.
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But just for the sake of the fact that some of you may not.
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When you see in the Bible the word woe.
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Particularly in the Old Testament.
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Particularly when the word is coming out of the mouth of a prophet.
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The word woe is a word of condemnation.
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Isaiah said it about himself.
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When he saw the Lord seated upon his throne in Isaiah chapter 6.
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He put his hand over his mouth.
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And what did he say? Woe is me.
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I am a man of unclean lips.
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I live among a people of unclean lips.
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And I have seen the King.
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Woe is a statement of judgment.
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It's a statement of condemnation.
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Jesus said it.
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Remember when he was speaking to Corazon and Bethsaida? What did he say? Woe unto you Corazon.
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Woe unto you Bethsaida.
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For if the miracles that have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon.
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They would have repented.
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And it will be better in the day of judgment for Sodom.
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Than for you.
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That's a powerful statement of judgment.
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Think about how terrible life was in Sodom.
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But they didn't have Jesus Christ doing miracles in their midst.
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And Jesus said you have.
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You have seen God's Son do miracles.
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And you have denied that.
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You have rejected that.
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Woe unto you.
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So we get here to verse 18.
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And the prophet says woe to you who desire the day of the Lord.
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What is the day of the Lord? The day of the Lord is the day of judgment.
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That is a synonym in scripture.
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Anytime you hear the phrase the day of the Lord.
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It was the day that the Lord brought judgment.
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Another term might be judgment day.
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So his essential statement is woe unto you who look forward to judgment day.
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Now why does anybody look forward to judgment day? Because they think they are going to do pretty well.
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Nobody looks forward to judgment day if they don't think they are going to be judged well.
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If you thought you were going to be condemned on judgment day.
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You wouldn't look forward to it.
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You would be afraid of it.
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You wouldn't want it to come.
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But he says woe unto you who desire judgment day.
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Because you think you are going to be okay.
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You think that you are alright with God.
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But you are not.
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And that is the whole problem with the northern kingdom.
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You see the northern kingdom were worshiping people.
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They were religious people.
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But they were idolatrous people.
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Jeroboam the first, the king that came out from Solomon.
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The one who usurped that authority.
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He had set up golden calves.
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And Bethel and Gilgal.
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He had set up places for people to go to worship.
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So they wouldn't go to Jerusalem because Jerusalem was in the southern kingdom.
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And because he didn't want them to cross that border and go into the southern kingdom.
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He set up places for them to worship in the northern kingdom.
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And he said go worship there.
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And worship with these golden statues.
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Which of course was idolatry.
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These people were very very religious.
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But they were also very very idolatrous.
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And they were satisfied in their religion.
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You ever met a person who was satisfied in their false religion? I meet them all the time.
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Sometimes they are so satisfied in their false religion.
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That they are out promoting their false religion.
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Think about those boys who come with the short sleeved white dress shirts.
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And the ten speeds.
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They are so satisfied in their false religion.
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That they are willing to go out on a pilgrimage.
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And a mission to come to your house.
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But they are worshipping an idol.
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A false Jesus and a false God.
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They are worshipping a God who was once a man.
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That's not the God of the Bible.
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So anyhow this is where we are in the text.
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We have gotten one woe and that was last week.
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5.18 is the first of three woes.
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We come to chapter 6 verse 1.
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We see the second of three woes.
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And we are going to see both of them in chapter 6.
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Because in chapter 7 he begins to speak of his visions that he had.
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But in chapter 6 he is pronouncing judgment.
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This is the second woe.
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And you will see in your outline I have given you three major headings.
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One complacency condemned.
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Two indulgence condemned.
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And three pride abhorred.
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And you will see how those work out as we walk through the text.
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So let's walk through the text together.
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Verses 1-3.
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He says, Woe to those who are at ease in Zion.
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And to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria.
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The notable men of the first of the nations to whom the house of Israel comes.
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Pass over to Calna and see.
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And from there 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? Or you who put far away the day of disaster.
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And bring near the seat of violence.
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Let's stop there for a second.
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Because the second woe begins at verse 4.
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But let's go back and just examine this first woe.
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He says, Woe to those who are at ease in Zion.
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This is a condemnation for the unconcerned.
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And this is the heart of chapter 6.
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This really is, in a sense, a thematic passage for the whole book.
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Because part of the problem that Amos is addressing, part of the prophecy that he's giving, is he's coming to a people who ultimately have no concern for the situation that they are in.
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They are, in every sense of the word, at ease.
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And I've been thinking about this.
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And actually, I listened to a few different pastors dealing with this text.
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And they made some really good points.
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And as I was listening to them, I got to thinking.
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Just imagine, if you will, just how at ease people are in the modern church.
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There is very little preaching that is meant to confront the heart.
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Very little preaching that is meant to confront sin.
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But a lot of preaching that is meant to build the ego.
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A lot of preaching that is meant to build self-esteem.
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In fact, preachers have abandoned being prophets.
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And they have decided instead that they would prefer to be the Norman Vincent Peale.
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The modern expression of the motivational life coach.
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They've adapted the false theology of word faith.
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Where all you have to do is speak positive into your life.
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And positive will happen.
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You know that that is not biblical.
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The idea that I can speak over myself in the morning blessings.
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And that causes blessings.
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And that's how it works.
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That comes from not the Bible.
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But from this idea of positive thinking.
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Did you know there is an optimist's club? I didn't know that until recently.
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I did a funeral for a guy.
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I do a lot of funerals for people I've never met.
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And will never meet, obviously.
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I wasn't supposed to be funny, but I guess it is.
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I do a lot of funerals for people that I've never met before.
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But one of the things that I remember specifically about this guy.
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Was that he was a member of the optimist's club.
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And so everybody who came to the funeral were very acquainted.
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I never heard of such a thing.
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But you know, it's all about telling and speaking.
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And announcing how good and positive.
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What was that one phrase that you are supposed to say to yourself in the morning? I'm good enough.
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I forget exactly how it goes.
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But it's like this day is going to be a good day.
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This day is going to be great.
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And I'm wonderful.
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I'm going to have success.
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And blah, blah, blah.
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But you say, why are you mentioning this pastor? Because that's made its way into the church.
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Think about that guy in Texas.
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Before he preaches, he holds up his Bible.
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This is my Bible.
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I am everything it says I am.
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I can do everything I say.
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And you're going to be taught the word of God.
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No, you're not.
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Not if you go there.
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But he makes you repeat a mantra.
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Because it's the way they think that this all is supposed to work.
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And it's profitable.
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Oh, it's very profitable.
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But when this text says, woe to you who are at ease.
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Can we honestly look at Israel and say that that's just referring to them and there's no one in the modern context that this would point right in the face? No.
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In fact, I mentioned this a few weeks ago.
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Churches have become service centers.
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And not in the good way.
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Because we should be a service center in the sense that we should be serving one another.
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And we should be serving in our community.
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We should be serving as the body of Christ is supposed to be service.
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But what I mean by service centers, people come into churches looking for a place that is going to satisfy their felt needs and serve them.
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They come in and say, okay, what are they going to do for my kids? What are they going to do for my entertainment? What are they going to do to make me feel good? What are they going to do to fill the gaps in my schedule? What are they going to do? They go in, and like I said, churches don't have greeters anymore.
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They have concierges who is intended to bring you in and treat you as if you've walked into a hotel.
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Or into a place where you're meant to be at ease.
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In fact, if you go to the modern church growth movement gurus, they will tell you that the one thing you must do if you want to see your church grow, is make sure that all of your guests are as comfortable and at ease as much as possible.
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You don't want them to feel any discomfort because they won't come back.
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You want them to come in and you want them to feel right at home.
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Yes.
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Well, I have some ripped and faded jeans, but not because I bought them that way, but just because I can't afford no more jeans.
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So my ripped and faded jeans are all natural.
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But yeah, you're right.
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We make everything appealing so that people be at ease.
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But the prophet says, Woe to those who are at ease.
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Woe to those, and honestly the meaning of the word means without care, unconcerned.
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Woe to those who basically are just floating along without a care.
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And that's what we see.
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And that is not how it should be.
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I want to point you to another text.
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Like I said, this is the theme of the chapter.
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So we're not going to spend this much time on all the verses.
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But this is the theme.
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So I just want to point you to another text really quickly by way of comparison.
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Turn to Revelation chapter 3.
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Go to Revelation chapter 3.
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And look at verse 14.
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Now most of us know that the church of Laodicea was the lukewarm church that Jesus was going to spit out of his mouth, right? But listen to what it says when you read all of it.
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Not just that spitting out of the mouth thing.
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He says, And to the angel of the church of Laodicea write, The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.
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I know your works, you're neither cold nor hot.
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Would that you were either cold or hot, so because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
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That's where most people stop.
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And that's, you know, in a sense you could stop and understand what the problem is.
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They're lukewarm.
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But he goes on to say this.
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For you say I am rich.
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I have prospered and I need nothing.
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Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
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I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich.
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And white garments so that you may clothe yourself.
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And the shame of your nakedness may not be seen.
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And salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.
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Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
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Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
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If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me.
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The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne.
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As I also conquered and sat down with my Father on His throne, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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What is the context here? The context is the seven churches that were in Asia Minor.
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This is toward the end of the Apostolic Age.
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And toward the end of the Apostolic Age, those churches that had been planted in Asia Minor, which was the area between Israel and Macedonia, that area that Paul had gone through and had brought the Gospel through, there were churches that had been planted there.
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One of those churches was called the Church of Laodicea.
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And the Laodicean Church was very rich and very economically superior to much of the other areas.
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They had all that they needed.
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But in their having of all that they needed, there was great complacency.
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You who have everything have grown cold.
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But not totally.
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I wish you were just totally cold.
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But you're lukewarm.
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You say, I've prospered.
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I need nothing.
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I'm telling you, the Laodicean Church is where Israel was in the day of Amos.
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And it is very much where many churches today in America are.
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You know where Christianity is currently thriving? In the areas of the world where it is being persecuted the most.
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China, huge revival going on in the underground church in China.
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People are literally having to smuggle Bibles in, have hidden church services, and the churches are growing.
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You know where the church is not growing by leaps and bounds? Where it is free and there is no persecution, and everything is handed to them as it were on a silver platter.
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And that's where we are.
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And that's where the people of Amos' day were.
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And that is part of the issue.
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And you say, well, Pastor, are you saying that we should just pray for persecution? No, but I'm saying this.
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I'm saying that in the history of the church, the growth and revivals that have been seen have come out of persecution, not out of abundance.
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And sometimes the reason why the church is not growing is because they are complacent.
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There was a founding father of America, and I don't remember who it was by name, but he made the statement.
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He said, I want to be a warrior so that my son can be a shopkeeper and his son can be a poet.
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And basically what he meant was, I have a battle to fight, and my son who comes after me will have to sustain what I've built.
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But on the third generation, there will be peace and beauty.
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Because of the battles I've fought, you understand? I've fought the battle, my son sustains what I've fought for, and his son will reap the benefit of what we have stood for.
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Now John MacArthur said something similar about the church.
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He said, oftentimes what you see in the church is the third and fourth generation of a church is when it starts to collapse.
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Because the people who built the church in the beginning, the people who came with a desire and a heart for the Lord, planted the church, and they fought to see the church grow, and they fought to see the church get built, and they fought to see the gospel come to an area where it wasn't.
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And the generation that comes after them are sustaining that.
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They still have a heart for what happened and what got them there, and so they're sustaining that.
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And possibly that will move into the third generation as well.
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But eventually there will come a generation where everything has been served over to them, and they have had to fight for nothing.
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And that generation will grow cold and complacent, and often that is when that church will fall.
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Complacency yields destruction.
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And that's where Israel is.
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It's a complacent people.
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Woe to you who are at ease, who no longer have a battle to fight, who no longer have an enemy to stand against, who are satisfied in your false and idolatrous worship.
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So let's go back to Amos now.
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By the way, if you haven't noticed, and those of you who have been here I'm certain are, there's a lot of repetition in the prophet.
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It's like that with all of them.
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You go to any of the prophets and you're going to see repetition.
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And the reason why there's repetition, and some people say, well, boy, those prophets are one-string banjos, just playing the same note every chapter, bing, bing, bing, same note.
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Well, the reason is because the people ain't listening.
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You don't preach something new when they didn't listen to the first thing you taught.
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It's like the pastor who came in and he was a new preacher and he preached the first sermon.
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And the next week he came in and he preached the same sermon again and everybody was a little confused.
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And the third week he came in and he preached the same sermon again and everybody was starting to get upset.
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And by the fourth week, he came up and he opened the Bible and he started to preach and the deacon raised his hand and he said, man, you've been here for four weeks and you've preached the same sermon four times.
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Why? When are you going to move on? And he says, as soon as you guys apply this one, I'll move on to the next one.
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As soon as you do what we've learned out of this passage, we'll move to the next one.
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But you ain't even doing this yet.
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Well, that's sort of what we've got here with Amos.
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Yeah, is he a one-trick pony? Well, maybe that's a little derogatory.
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Is he a one-note banjo? Yeah.
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He's saying the same thing in different ways.
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The people of Israel, because of their wealth and prosperity, had grown cold and callous to God and complacent to worship and were idolatrous and because of that, judgment was coming.
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Can they repent? He has called them to repentance.
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Remember back a few weeks ago and last week, we saw that the Lord says, turn and live.
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But they are not.
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So we go on.
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In verses 2 and 3, he references cities that were stronger than Israel.
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Just to point to the fact, and he asks in verse 2, he says, Passover to Chalana and See and to Hamath the Great, then go down to Gath and the Philistines.
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Are you better than these kingdoms? Some commentators say, well, yeah, they're better than those kingdoms because Israel was better.
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But I think what the prophet is saying here, he's asking a question.
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Are you more powerful than them? No, and they fell.
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Do you think that your might is going to save you? Go back real quick, just very quickly back to verse 1 when he says, Woe to you who are at ease in Zion and those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria.
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The whole idea of the northern kingdom was they felt very secure in their military prowess.
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Samaria was on a high hill.
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They had a good position militarily to defend themselves.
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They felt like they were really unbeatable.
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You ever seen a nation that thought they were unbeatable? Happens all the time, right? Nations rise up.
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We can't be beat.
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Another nation comes along and rolls right over them.
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And by the way, I did miss something.
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I want to go back to verse 1.
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Woe to those who are at ease in Zion.
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Zion is in the southern kingdom.
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Zion is Jerusalem.
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That's synonymous.
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So this is interesting that in verse 1 he is referencing Israel as a unit here, referencing both the southern because the southern kingdom is not without sin either.
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Remember back in chapter 1, he's already condemned Judah once.
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And he's doing it again here.
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Woe to you in Zion and in Samaria.
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Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom.
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Zion is the capital of the southern kingdom.
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So he is in this sense referencing all of Israel as a whole.
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So I just want to point that out.
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So going back down to verse 4 now.
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Because he's condemned complacency, now he's going to condemn indulgence.
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Like I said, we're not going to spend as much time on this one, but you'll see in verse 4, he says, 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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So it really doesn't require a lot of explanation.
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Beds of ivory, drinking wine out of bowls.
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I mean, it really is as simple as it sounds.
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These people are indulging themselves in great ways.
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Even the eating.
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He references here the eating of meat.
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Eating lambs of the flock and calves in the midst of the stall.
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That's a reference to their diet.
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The diet was an indulgent diet, especially for the time.
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The eating of meat was a delicacy.
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It was something that wasn't...
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You know, most of us in this room probably have meat as a staple of our everyday.
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I know for me, meat is a staple of just about every meal.
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You know, we have bacon and eggs or we have a ham sandwich for lunch or we go to dinner and we have maybe a chicken and some kind of vegetable to go with it.
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But we have meat all the time.
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Some of you don't.
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I see some of you smiling at me.
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Some of you are sort of semi-vegetarians, but not this little boy.
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I eat meat a lot.
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But at this particular time in history, that was sort of unheard of.
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To have meat on the regular was just not as common as it is today.
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But for the indulgent northern kingdom and particularly for the rich, there was this lavish diet and a lavish lifestyle.
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Remember a few weeks ago we talked about the fact that they would buy property and they would force people out.
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Where they were the only ones living in an area where they would have an entire area all to themselves.
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So there was so much and they were doing this while oppressing the poor.
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So not only are they indulging in a lavish lifestyle, but they're doing it at the expense of others.
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And so he references here.
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I think verse 5 is interesting and I could spend a little time on this, but I won't spend too much time.
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He says, "...who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music." This is one of two Old Testament men who are mentioned in this section.
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You have David mentioned in verse 5 and you have Joseph mentioned in verse 6.
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David's mention in verse 5 is interesting because David, as we know, was the musician of ancient Israel.
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David himself wrote many of the Psalms, which was the songbook of ancient Israel and his songs are the only inspired songs that we have.
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The only inspired worship songs that we have.
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You know, we have a lot of worship songs.
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Some great.
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Some okay.
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I mean, as far as in the world today, I'm not talking about us particularly, but in the world today, you have some great worship songs.
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You know, you have John Newton's Amazing Grace.
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That's a wonderful worship song.
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You have How Great Thou Art.
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You have other songs like that.
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You have wonderful worship songs.
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And then you have songs that are sort of, you know, they're all right.
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They're good.
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Then you have some really bad songs.
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But there's only one set of inspired worship songs.
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It's the Psalms.
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That's why some churches only sing the Psalms.
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Did you know that? There are churches out there that are called exclusive psalmody.
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Exclusive psalmody are churches that have taken the Psalms, they have set them to music, and they only sing the Psalms.
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I don't think that that's necessary for worship, but I don't obviously think it's wrong either.
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I think that's fine if that's what they're convicted to do.
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Paul talks about...
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Oh yeah, well, that's what I'm saying.
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I think it's wonderful.
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It's good.
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Paul talks about Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
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So I think there is a place for not just the Psalms in worship, but at the same time, the point I'm making here in verse 5 is he's referencing David as a musician.
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Well, what do we know about David? Well, David was a musician whose focus was on God.
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But these people here are writing idol songs.
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And they're making instruments as David did who was himself an instrument player.
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He played the harp.
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And yet, his music was focused on God and godliness.
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These people have busied their mind with music that is meaningless.
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To me, it's interesting because music has a powerful ability.
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Music has an ability to carry people away.
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Music has an ability to almost hypnotize the spirit, hypnotize the mind.
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There is a church.
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I say church in air quotes.
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A place that calls itself a church that intentionally uses the music.
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And I've shown a video before here.
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Intentionally uses the music to create hypnosis and hypnotic rhythm to get people to sort of step out of their mental norm and just sort of lose themselves in the music.
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It's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
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And it's just this sort of hypnotic rhythm that's used.
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And why would they do that? What's the purpose of that? Well, we could have a conversation about all kinds of different reasons, but primarily, they're not worshiping God.
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They're creating a sensation and it's a feeling.
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They're creating a sense of euphoria.
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Eastern religion does that a lot.
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Yes, sir, Mr.
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Jeff? It makes you forget about anything that's bothering you.
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Yep.
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And so when we go here to verse 5, this is mentioned as one of the things of indulgence.
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Not only do they sleep on ivory, not only is their diet filled with extravagance for the day, but also their lives are filled with meaningless entertainment.
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I laugh because I could be talking about right now.
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Isn't it weird how relevant this is? Yes, sir? There was a book really years ago amusing ourselves to death.
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Oh, absolutely.
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It's not something new.
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It was maybe 34 years ago.
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And we see that here.
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And I love that word.
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I'm going to take a minute to reference that.
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For those, you know this word.
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Amuse.
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Always remember this word because we have become masters of amusement as modern Americans, we've become masters of amusement.
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But what amuse is, to muse means to do what? Muse means to think deeply.
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Think about that.
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My musings are my thoughts, my written thoughts.
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I actually used to have a blog called Medford's Musings.
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That was my title of it because my first name is Medford for those who don't know.
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My middle name is Keith.
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But it was called Medford's Musings.
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It was just my thoughts.
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But muse means to think deeply.
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But when you put the alpha negative at the beginning, the alpha negative does what? Makes it the opposite.
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Think about a theist and an atheist.
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A theist believes in God.
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An atheist does not.
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To muse means to think deeply.
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And to amuse means to not think deeply.
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It means to turn off the mind.
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That's why we call Disney World an amusement park.
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Because you don't go there to read encyclopedias and to learn about history.
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Now you might learn a little bit at Disney World if you go to Epcot or something like that.
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But in general, it's meant to be a place where you shut off the mind and just enjoy not having to think too hard.
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And we've become masters of that.
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The television allows us to not have to think.
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The radio allows us to not have to think.
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The words, even to our songs, have become so trite and meaningless that now they just pump sound and we're just hearing the beat.
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And again, this all right here.
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I'm just saying that it's so easy.
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And then all of a sudden it hits me and I'll say, gosh, I haven't prayed yet.
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We'll forget to pray, but we won't forget to check our email.
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Not you maybe, but for me.
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I don't know if you...
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It's so easy.
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Even then it's for something that you know you need even more.
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It's selfish.
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But again, you're going to be selfish in a way that is much more beneficial.
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Well, let me...
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Time, as always, has come and gone and I haven't gotten to the end, but...
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What's that? Well, we can stop there if you want.
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We would be stopping.
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I want to reference the reference to Joseph here.
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So I'm going to put a mark here and we'll stop at verse 6 because I want to talk about Joseph and then I want to talk about the pride and then we'll go to the application of the text.
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Everybody good with that? Then I won't even have to print one next time.
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We'll go right in with already printed.
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All right, we'll stop right there at verse 6.
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We'll pick up.
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And if we get done quickly, we'll move right into chapter 7.
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Which, that's a pipe dream, but we'll see what happens.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for tonight.
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I pray that it's been helpful.
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I pray that it's been useful to your people and that they would use it to help us to understand, each one of us, where we are complacent and where we need to repent and where we need to focus more on the things that are eternal and focus away from the things that are dragging us down into more and more lethargy spiritually.
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We pray this in Christ's name.
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Amen.