Amos chapter 8. We're going to read the entire chapter, it's not very lengthy. Our primary focus will be verses 11 through 14. Amos 8, verse 1. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God. There shall be many dead bodies in every place. They shall cast them forth with silence. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up holy as a flood, and it shall be cast out and drowned as by the flood of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day." And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation. And I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head. And I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy God, O Dan, liveth, and the manner of Beersheba liveth, even they shall fall, and never rise up again. This is the Word of the Lord, and he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Let's pray. Help us, O God, now. Come by Your Spirit. Take this truth to each heart. We pray, Lord, for that lost one, perhaps several in our midst, that one outside of Christ in the Gospel, that one with blind eyes and hardened heart, that one with deaf ears, that one with unclean lips, that one dead in transgressions and sin, as we were. Lord, would you quicken? Would you grant repentance and faith? Would you work mightily in that lost one? God, as your people, help us to realize how easily your judgment can fall in such a way that we find ourselves as Amos' contemporaries did. running to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord and not finding it. Oh God, have mercy on us. Help us today. Speak to us, Lord. And call us to gaze upon Jesus Christ, our only hope. And we pray in His name. Amen. What would be your reaction? What would be mine if you no longer had your Bible? Now, if you're in, and probably most of you are not, but if you're in a situation like mine, if I lost five, I would still have twenty, probably. And I'll say that boastingly. In fact, a while back at the Bible conference back in the fall, I began to look at all the Bibles I'd accumulated and I filled up a plastic bin and carried it to the conference and said, everybody have at it. If you want any of these Bibles, take them. And they did. And I was glad. I've still got probably, I don't know, over 30 Bibles. But what if all those were gone? What if all the Bibles were gone? Well, we would say in our culture and time, well, no problem if somebody took my Bible, I'll just go buy another one. Or I wouldn't go buy it, I would get online and have it sent right to my door. What if you couldn't do that? God is pronouncing a judgment upon His people of old in this text that says, there will be a famine of the Word of God, of hearing from me. Now, we need to consider that there's more involved in that than just simply taking away copies of the Bible, as we would understand it. What he really means is, I'm sending a famine of the truth, doctrinal, received, revealed truth from being preached. You see, we can find ourselves in a situation where there's plenty of Bibles, but we have to run to and fro trying to find someone who actually declares it as it is, and doesn't change it, and doesn't re-explain it, and doesn't ignore large sections of it, and doesn't rephrase it to fit the culture. I submit to you that that would actually be worse in the long run than not having a copy at all. And that's really where we are. So how much would that impact us? We get a sense from our text here that in verse 13, especially the young people will be extremely bothered by this. God predicts through His prophet that they will faint for thirst and that people will run to and fro. in verse 12, to find faithful proclamation of God's truth, and they won't find it. One of the signal judgments that God brings upon a people is to remove the preached oracle of His truth. It is, I started to say, one of the worst judgments. It really is the worst judgment. How would we respond? I brought a book, and I don't normally do this, but I thought maybe it would be helpful to us. A book about Puritan preachers. And I want to just share with you, bear with me, I want to share with you about a particular preacher at a particular time and a sermon he preached, not from this text we're in, but on the same subject matter. The man's name was John Rogers. He was preaching one day, and a young man named Thomas Goodwin, who later became one of the outstanding Puritan preachers, was a young man then, and unconverted, and was in the congregation. And he records what happened. He said, Mr. Rogers was on the subject of the Scriptures. And in that sermon, he falls into expounding with the people about their neglect of the Bible. He impersonates God to the people, and he tells them, well, I've trusted you so long with my Bible, and yet you've slighted it. It lies in such and such a house, all covered with dust and cobwebs. You care not to look at it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer. And he took up the Bible from his cushion and seemed as if he were walking away with it and carrying it from the congregation. But immediately he turns again and now impersonates the people of God responding. He falls down on his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, Lord, whatsoever Thou dost to us, take not Thy Bible from us. Kill our children, burn our houses, destroy all our goods. Only spare us Thy Bible. Only take not away Thy Word. and then he impersonates God again to the people. Do you say so? Well, I will test you a little while longer and here is my Bible for you. I will see how you will use it, whether you will love it more, whether you will value it more, whether you will observe it more, whether you will practice it more and live more according to it in holiness. Goodwin continues to recall the effect of all this. By these actions, he put all the congregation into so strange a posture that he had never seen any congregation in his life. The place was a place of weeping. The people generally, as it were, deluged with their own tears. And Goodwin said that when he got out of there and was to take on his horse again to be gone, for a quarter of an hour he hung upon the neck of his horse weeping before he had any power to mount and ride away. So strange an impression was there upon him and generally upon all the people upon having thus been expounded with them for neglect of the Bible. Now, certainly it is Holy Spirit power that was at work that day. But don't miss the message. Rogers is saying, in essence, what God is saying through His prophet. Will you deal lightly with my Bible? Will you ignore it? Will you have so many copies that you don't care to read any of them? Then perhaps I will take it from you. Perhaps I will remove the preached oracle. from your own life, your home, your church, your communities, your nation. God can still do that, folks. There is nothing hindering the almighty power of God to totally remove the preached oracle. And where would we be then? Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that if we don't have any faithful preachers that faithful Christians would be totally at a loss. That's not what I mean. But we know that God has ordained the preaching of His Word to save them that believe. As my pastor friend out in Texas likes to read that text and point out, remember that God never saves an unbeliever. He only saves believers. Save them that believe. So that's the necessity of the declared truth of God. Rightly divided. Doctrinally sound. consistent with other Scripture, and so forth. What would we do if we had no Bible and no preached oracle? Well, it might help us to back up a little bit and see what has led to this judgment. Now, it's the whole book of Amos, of course, leading up to it, but in particular, here in this chapter, where God pronounces that a famine of His Word is His next judgment, what's going on? First of all, we see that God is declaring a judgment on the people for their covetousness. Verses 4 and 6. Hear this, O you that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail. Verse 6, this is what they say. That we might buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat. Earlier in the book, he is dealt with that same problem, the prophet has. Covetousness. So much so that the people so hunger for what they can gather to themselves that they take advantage of their own brothers and sisters, their own people. And don't care what happens to those of whom they take advantage. Sell them for a pair of shoes. Covetousness. Beware even the first risings of covetousness. It is not without good reason that that is one of the ten words in Exodus 20. Thou shalt not covet. But not only is it a judgment on covetousness, it is a judgment on their carnal pursuits. Verse 5, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat? And then God says, you have your feasts, verse 10, your happy days, your celebrations, that are, to your mind, connected with the worship of God. And He says, I will turn those into mourning and lamentation. It's a judgment upon carnal pursuits that take the place of real, religious, biblical worship of God. Notice what they say. When will the Sabbath be over so we can get back to business? Now, we have come to such an advanced and enlightened state today that we don't have to wait till the Sabbath's over to do our business, right? Everybody does their business. And let me be clear, I'm not in the position of a strict Sabbatarian. Never have been. But there is something special. and different about the Lord's Day. And it should be seen as such and honored as such. It should be. It's no problem for any of us, if we have a mind to, to conduct any kind of business, pursue any kind of entertainment and recreation or anything on Sunday as well as any other day. See, I'm old enough to remember blue laws. I wish they'd bring them back. when everything was closed on Sunday and if you didn't get your gasoline on Saturday and you were empty, you'd stay empty till Monday. But again, as we were reminded this morning, external laws are not the answer. It doesn't make people honor God, but it at least lessens their pursuit of their own pleasures on His day, right? So, it is a judgment on carnal pursuits that crowd out or make a acceptable substitute for the day that should be about seeking God and honoring Him. Not that all the other six shouldn't be that either. But again, God has set apart Sunday, the first day of the week, the day that the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, to be that correlation between the Old Testament Sabbath and the New Testament Lord's Day. They're dishonoring it. They can't wait for it to be over because, see, still in that day, they had more than blue laws. They had stringent laws about what they couldn't do on the Sabbath. Remember the fellow who gathered sticks on the Sabbath and they came to the Lord and said, what should we do with this guy? And God said, kill him. Now, we don't do that nowadays, but what was that all about? What are all those kind of things all about in the Old Testament? They're designed to illuminate and elevated our own minds and hearts to the person and character of God. That's what they're about. God says, anything I give you to hallow me through, that's serious business. And they take it for granted here, as it's even done more so in our day. But it's a judgment on covetousness and carnal pursuits, and ultimately it's a judgment on their contrary worship. Now, I said that already, but it really finds its fulfillment down in verse 14. Notice that again. Those who swear by the sin of Samaria and say, Thy God, O Dan, liveth. Now, remember we talked about recently how Jeroboam I, this is in the days of Jeroboam II, and that's why I brought him up last week in chapter 7. But Jeroboam I was the one who notoriously, although he was promised great blessings from God if he just obeyed God, he'd have the kingdom. Well, he had the kingdom, but he didn't obey God, and he put a golden calf in Bethel, and he put one in Dan. And so he said, you don't have to go to Jerusalem to worship. These are closer to you, and it's the same golden calf like Aaron made at the foot of the mount, and so we'll have church here. It'll be more convenient. It's pragmatic. It's easy for him. And so that's what he's referring to. Contrary worship. See, it's not that they didn't have some kind of worship at all. It's that they had their own worship. Paul talks about in the Colossian letter warning them about those who would come in and teach them will-worship. It's kind of a hyphenated word. Will-worship. What it meant was worshiping according to their own will, not according to what God has said. One commentator said, we must indeed will to worship God, but we must never worship God according to our own will. And that's what's going on here. So what is the situation then as God brings this judgment? Notice He says again in verse 11 that it's not going to be a famine of food and drink. Now those are very serious. Famines of food and drink are Awful expressions of God's judgment on people. People die physically, don't they, from that? People are willing, and we see that through the Old Testament, to even boil their own children and eat them to keep from starving to death. It's horrible circumstances and consequences that we see from a physical famine. But God says, I'm not going to do that to you. You're still going to have bread. You're still going to have water. You're going to have the necessities for your physical body. The flesh is going to be filled, but your soul is going to be famished. Jeremiah the prophet cries out, My leanness! My leanness, O God! And he's in direct communion with God. And he's got food to eat. Even when he's in prison, they give him bread and water. What's he talking about? His soul being lame. His soul being famished. And that's what verse 11 is all about. You will be starving for truth. Starving for righteous principles. Starving for ultimately a revelation of the God who is. You won't get that. You're not going to get that. while your flesh is still full. So, a comparison for our day, as I've already mentioned, would be this. Bibles remain prevalent, but right doctrines pass by. Bibles remain prevalent. I thought someone had put up a picture of the Joel Osteen Bible and all it had was two covers and the maps. Nothing else in there. Dr. John MacArthur is famous for a lot of things, or infamous, depending on your perspective. Many years ago, they came out with a Reader's Digest version of the Old Testament. And the first book they put out was Leviticus. And it only had three chapters in it when Reader's Digest got through with it. Because they took out all the sacrifices, all the blood, all about leprosy, all those things. And a reporter asked Dr. MacArthur what his thoughts were on it. And he said, as he asked him, he said, now, we're going to have several ministers in this column, so I'd like you to limit it to a paragraph. He said, I can give you one word on my view on it. He said, that'd be great. What is it? He said, how does abomination grab you? I don't think they printed that. But see, here's the point. The judgment upon false worship. The judgment upon carnal pursuits. The judgment upon covetousness and idolatry. Many times, the worst, most sweeping judgment on that is for God to say, you like to just play around with the Bible and only pick out the parts you like? That's what you're going to have. So Bibles are prevalent. They're plentiful. But right doctrine has passed by when God sends this judgment. The truth of the Word. the whole counsel of God, as Paul with a clear conscience could say to the Ephesian elders as he left them. I'm not going to see you again, but know this, before God, my testimony is I didn't shun to declare to you the whole counsel of God. I didn't spare anything. I didn't back up on anything. I didn't edit anything. I didn't rephrase anything to make it sound better to you. That's what you want. That's what our souls need. But it's not very popular. And it's not a comforting ministry of ease that you can sit under when someone deals with everything in the Bible. One good thing that happens as God shows mercy upon some, and that's again in verse 13, the disappointment with idols and with all this mishandling of the Word of God will lead some who haven't previously to desire God. Disappointment with idols, when we really come to the place, when a person sees that all they've been living for and all they've put all their affections upon and their joy in is nothing, it's vapor, it's vanity, then some of them, by God's mercy, will seek Him. I mean, let's face it, whatever we really can kind of remember and think about if we're Christians today, any of us and all of us, about how we thought and felt before God saved us, whatever we can remember or not remember, we've got to acknowledge that however we saw it, however we thought through it, there was a growing dissatisfaction with our life as God was bringing us to Himself. We began to realize that we had nothing to show for an eternity that we were sooner or later going to face, right? And so, in verse 13, the Lord promises, in that day the fair virgins and the young men will faint for thirst, and they're part of the ones, at least, who in verse 12, run to and fro seeking the Word of the Lord. Again, sometimes to truly appreciate something, you have to have it removed for a while, right? The human wisdom cliche or saying is absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Well, that's not always true in human relations. But the absence of the preached Word for some will make the heart desire it more. The absence for right doctrine for some, not all, will make some desire it more and do whatever they can do to find it, to pursue it. God removing His truth. is a sure way to motivate some to have a passion to find it. Right? Remember as Elijah pops on the scene out of nowhere in 1st Kings 17 and walks right up to Ahab and says, as the Lord God lives, for whom I stand and by whom I serve, there shall be no dew nor rain these years except at My Word." And he turns on his heel and walks away. And what is God's Word to him? Does God say, good Elijah, you've given Him the Word. Now set yourself up in a very prominent place where all the people, including Ahab, can hear and preach the truth to them. Preach repentance. Preach my forgiveness. That's not what He says. What does He say? Okay, you've given Him the message. Now go hide yourself by the brook Cherith and ravens will take care of you there. Get away from all people now. I mean, you would think the groundwork had been laid, the foundation, it was in place now by that declaration of the judgment of the drought for Elijah to just preach up a storm to everybody and people just repent by the droves and get right with God. It's not what God does. He, in essence, is saying to Ahab and all the wicked people of that day, The greatest judgment I'm going to send upon you is not the fact that you're going to wander everywhere looking for water and food, but you're not going to have the prophet proclaiming my truth to you. I'm going to hide him. There will be a famine of the words of the Lord. A fourth thing that we see here, after the flesh is filled, but the soul is famished. Bibles are prevalent, but right doctrine is passed by. Disappointment with idols will lead some to desire God. And fourthly, the unrepentant, as always, will die unconverted. That's verse 14. Even they shall fall and never rise up again. It is the finish, the completion of what God threatens in verse 2 at the end. The end has come upon my people Israel. I will not again pass by them anymore. And the symbolism he uses for Amos to see and get it in his mind and heart before he preaches it is a basket of summer fruit. Now what it really means in the Hebrew is, this is fruit that is fully ripe. And if you don't eat it in the next day or two, it's going to be rotten. worthless. I mean, it's come to the absolute extreme of it still being edible. Very soon it's going to be rotten and you'll throw it out. In other words, the people have pushed God to the limit. And He says, I will remove My Word. Now, a few more passages where we see similar actions that God did and threatened. Psalm 74 verse 9, the people say, we see not our signs, there is no prophet among us anymore, neither is there any among us that knoweth how long, that is in context, how long this judgment will continue. Isaiah 29 verse 10, For the Lord hath poured upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the prophets and your rulers, the seers, he hath covered. It means hidden with some very heavy garment or a curtain that you couldn't see what's behind it. He's taken His men who proclaim the truth for the good of souls and He's hidden them so that the people can't see or hear them. Micah 3.7, "...then shall the seers..." Remember, that's what Amos has been called already. "...the seers shall be ashamed, and the diviners confounded. Yet they shall cover their lips, for there is no word from God." Now, it's common among Bible scholarship to talk about the end of the Old Testament until the beginning of the New Testament, between Malachi and Matthew, in our understanding, as the 400 silent years. that there was no revealed oracle from God during that time. Now, it's not that God wasn't still speaking and working among His people. He was. But we have no recorded Scripture during that 400-year period. And in that way, it is certainly similar to what God promises here, His judgment that's coming. Silent years. Silent years. In this day, most all of us, because of the abundance of media and every way we can get any kind of information, could hear five sermons while we're shaving in the morning or getting dressed, right? Three more on the way to work, if you're going to work. Four or five more when you get in the evening before you go to bed. So there's no absence of sermons. There's no absence of copies of the Bible. But dear ones, there's a growing absence of preached truth. A growing absence. Even in places where the history of a church has been that truth was proclaimed there in years past under the desire for church growth, numerical, and pleasing those who come, and getting as much tithe money as you can in so that another building can be built and so forth. In the interest of those things, then churches that once have been faithful to the gospel, many of them have now turned to the pragmatic, people-pleasing approach to church, to keep the crowds, to keep the coffers full. That is the motivation. What is it for the child of God who has the Word and who wants to continue to hear the Word proclaimed? Well, there's some wonderful promises that God gives. And I want to just go to one that we find in Luke's Gospel. If you'll turn with me to chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel. Now, while you're finding that place, the context is that Jesus, at the beginning of the chapter, has sent out the 70 disciples. So along with the 12, He has sent out 70 more to do many of the same works that the 12 have been empowered to do. And they've been healing the sick, casting out demons and so forth. They rejoice over that. And they say, even the devils are subject to us, verse 17, through your name. And Jesus said, yes, I saw Satan fall like lightning out of heaven. But then he says in verse 20, Notwithstanding in this, rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Now watch, here it comes. In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight. Isn't that an amazing statement? Here we have Jesus offering a prayer of thanksgiving that God has hidden His truth from some people. In any way you look at it, that's what He's saying. Again, you'd have to have help misunderstand that, wouldn't you? I thank You, Father, that You've hidden these things from many people, those who consider themselves wise and prudent. You've revealed them to little babes. Why? It just seemed good to God to do it that way. That's all we need to know. And then he says, verse 22, "...all things are delivered to me of my Father, and no man knows who the Son is, but the Father, and who the Father is, but the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him." And he turned Him unto His disciples and said privately, "...blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see. For I tell you, many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them." and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." Jesus is affirming God's work in pulling His Word away from those who trifle with it, oppose it, change it, or just simply ignore it. And giving it unto those who are just little babes in their understanding. And He begins to make them mighty, testimonies, trees and oaks of righteousness as He works in their lives. And the wise and prudent are left by the wayside. Dear ones, we are most blessed who have the Word, who have had Christ revealed to us, Hopefully, look at our Bibles not as simply the good book that we ought to read as much as we can, but our very bread. May we not be as John Rogers' congregation was in 1631 when he said, you don't care for my Bible? God says, I may take it from you. God help us not to be there. because it has been taken from many already. And I would predict it will continue in greater numbers to be taken away from the crowds and the masses, although they'll still go to church and they'll still have their own copy, and some of them will be like me, they'll have a bunch of copies, but they won't hear the Word of the Lord. My dad used to say, because he grew up being taken to church and then going to church, he grew up reading the Bible, but was unsaved. And I trust that the Lord did do a work in his heart about a year before he died. This is what he said to me. I've read the Bible as long as I can remember, but all before until now I was just calling words. That's what he called it. Calling words. He said it wasn't any different than reading the newspaper, although it had better stuff to consider than the newspaper. Now, he said, it's different. Blessed are your eyes, for you can see. Blessed are your ears, for you can hear. Because many cannot. Let us not trifle with the Word. Let us not neglect the Word in all times, if any. May we be really and truly people of the Book. Not just that carry it under our arm on Sunday, not just that try to look at it two or three times during the week, but feed on it. Because one thing we've been hearing over and over again in these first hour studies is, all these things about beholding God have to find their anchor and foundation in the Word of God. That's what God has determined. This is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ to us. May we never be in a situation as our church, as our people, where God has to say, you neglect my word, perhaps I will take it from you. We need it, folks. And we need to declare it to others. Let's bow our heads. Let's take a few moments to consider what the Spirit has said to the church today.