Alright, so last time we ended with a discussion where we went through what Amos, so far in our reading, had said what was the problem in Israel. What were they actually doing that was wrong? And we came up with these, and so these were the bad things. And then we came up with, OK, what's the opposite of the perversion of justice? Well, that would be true, valid justice. Or they hated correction. They chafed whenever someone corrected them. It's better to love correction, not hate it. They took bribes. The opposite of that would be to do what is right regardless of any benefit you might get from it. There was the oppression of the poor slash the weak and uphold the rights of the poor. hate the good versus loving the good. And so what we were doing is we were talking about, as we were going through this list, talking about what we could do on a micro level to basically do something like this as opposed to something like this, and then macro level What are examples of this and what could we potentially do about it? It's a lot harder to do it on a macro level than a micro level. And the basic idea of that is God in Amos very clearly showed he doesn't like these things. From the nation as a whole. Obviously it always comes down to individuals. But from individuals and groups, God hates these things. God loves these things. And so what can we as people do to love these things? And it's not just about hating the evil. It's also about loving the good and doing good as opposed to just saying, well, that's bad and not doing anything. No, there's an activity that's involved in this kind of thing. I want to read another, which we haven't really discussed yet, but I'm hoping to get to today. Another out of Amos, and you can tell me how it fits in with these, and if it doesn't, we'll add it. And that's in Amos 8. I'm hoping we'll get there. And this is yet another oracle of judgment against the Northern Kingdom. and ate too, and he said, Amos, what do you see? And he said, a basket of summer fruit. Then the Lord said to me, the end has come upon my people, Israel. I will never again pass by them. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, declares the Lord God. So many bodies, they are thrown everywhere, silence. Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, when will the new moon be over that we may sell grain and the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat. So there's at least one offense, possibly two within this section. And specifically, it's four and five and six, four, five and six. Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, when will the new moon be over, that we may sell the grain, and the sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the chaff of the wheat." So first of all, what does it mean in verse 5 where it says, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great? What are we talking about? false balances. You get X amount of shekels per pound, so we're just going to fake it and make the pounds actually lighter when we sell it. And so we're not going to use real pound weights. We're going to use 80% pound weights. And so you're actually selling, for the same amount of money, smaller amounts of produce. And this is from the producers to those who would hope to buy it, the needy and the poor. And so false balances. Does that fit very well in here? Yes, oppression of the poor. This is taking advantage of them. It's lying to them. It's just another form of oppression because false balances is just simply lying. This would be like, it doesn't mean that you can't sell that it's wrong to sell wheat or some sort of produce for a particular cost. What is wrong is if you owned a grocery store and you changed the weights on what people would use to weigh the produce that they're buying and had it perhaps different from what is at the front and then would charge them more. That would be a good modern application. So that would be oppression of people by lying to them and deceiving them to think that they are getting what they thought they were getting their money's worth when they're actually not. Of course a used car salesman can, you know, close my mind on that as well. And that perhaps someone who is not upright might hide something within the context of a used car. I know this was previously in a wreck. You're supposed to disclose that thing before you ever sell a car to someone. But I'm just going to hide that from the records so they'll never know this kind of thing. Or that the frame is bent or whatnot. So this one, and they were doing this specifically to oppress the poor, okay? So that's what that means. And this seems to be at least the meaning of this is how they are trampling on the poor and bringing the poor of the land to an end in verse 4. And in 6, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat. One thing that happens when you do this and people get poorer and poorer because this is what would happen. If you get less for what you buy, you'll get poorer and poorer over time because you have to spend more money to survive. That makes people more desperate and this would then put them in the position where they could essentially buy people. Because you don't get enough food, and at some point you're like, I don't have money for food anymore. Then the rich can say, OK, well, I can now hire you for a lower wage than you actually deserve. And you're not forced to do it, but you are, because you need money to survive. Or, same thing with military. You could say, okay, you can go into military service and you'll get paid so much and they feel like they have to do it because, well, there's some way of doing it. There's some way of getting money to survive, at least go into some sort of military service or whatnot. So oppression of the poor was their sin. So other examples on the microcosm, because we've mentioned several. Use car salesman. That's a microcosm. That's a micro example. Or bad scales in a supermarket. That's false pretenses. That's lying. That's oppression of the poor. Any other examples how we could do that? It's quiet. How we can do it? Yeah. Well, we don't want to do it, but how? I think it's the good general principle. Anytime you sell yourself as more than what you are, that's the resume battle, right? How many do interviews? I do interviews. As a general rule, when you see a resume come in, do you assume everything on this is likely truthful, and this is an accurate representation of what that person actually is? Well, at least in my industry, that is not the case. It's been more often than not that the resume is a form of a lie, where it is people presenting themselves as more capable than they are. I'm an expert in this. I'm an expert in that. And the reality is they just read a book on this or that, and they're not really an expert. That's a form of deceit. And it goes the other way of a business saying, we're really good at this. And the reality is, they're not really good at that. And so they don't really know what they're doing. And so they sell themselves, and they end up gypping someone. So yeah, that's a good microcosm. Now, what about on the macro? Larger scale, societally, think America, think our state, somewhere on those levels, what are the kinds of things that we currently do? or could do that we're not doing to uphold the rights of the poor and the weak. In the state of Texas, any time you pump gas, you'll see a little sticker on the gas pump there that'll say, within such and such an amount of time, somebody from the states come out and said that a gallon is a gallon. So by regulation, they're fixing that problem of the false scales. Everybody hates it, but they do it too. Because they feel like if we don't do it, then we're not keeping up because everybody else is doing it. And they justify it that way. Another example we mentioned last time that fit within this would be the idea of a court-appointed attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, you can get one. They may not be the best, and they may not be the army of attorneys that somebody else can get, because they have a lot of money. But you can at least get some sort of legal representation in court. That's a valuable thing, because if you don't have a job and then you have to go to court, well, how are you going to hire a lawyer? So you're going to have to depend on either a charity supplying some sort of a lawyer, or you're going to have to depend on the state to do such. However you solve that, charity or state, doesn't matter. The problem is it needs to be solved, because that's something that's valuable within the context of the US. So that's another good example of that. What else? What could we do as a church to uphold the rights and protect the poor? in the week from those more powerful than them who might take advantage. That's a little harder. Vote. You could vote. That's important. Absolutely. And that's where, on a local level, could be potentially very important because a lot of local resources and state resources can potentially solve some of those problems. So it's not just nationwide elections that can be affected by that, but even local elections, city, county, and state. Local elections are the least participated in elections and the elections that you can have the most impact. That's a good point. And will affect you the most. because it's local policy that's going to be changed or not changed. I want to say it's like 17% vote in local elections. OK. It's a good plan. So that way, the church could, of course, we're in different cities around here, so we can't vote for the same one. But we could talk about it and say, all right, state, county elections are coming up. what makes sense from a Christian perspective, what is valuable, what is not. Of course, politics, dangerous territory, but still worth discussing. All right, what else? I think you have to identify ways that people are being oppressed, and then you can start to see, are there things that are helping them? And if not, maybe we could do that. So the hard thing is then finding out ways that people are being oppressed. So how do you do that? Probably talk to people. I would say that I think that that's very important because I'm not going to tell you I've done both, but I'm very suspicious of government and it's a very blunt instrument. And I think generally when we're talking about government solving problems, we're talking about government by force. taking resources from one and giving them to another. I don't want any part of that. One place where at least you could hopefully find more of a middle ground would be on the election of local judges, perhaps. Right. I think that's incredibly important. And one of the problems of having government do something is One, it is a blunt instrument, but also, who gets the praise if the government solves a problem? Government gets the praise, or the people, mostly just the government. Better to solve a problem with the church, and so then you could say, well, we're doing this because God upholds the rights of the poor, and cares for the weak, and loves the good, and tells us to do what is right, regardless. So this one's generic enough to be really easy. Are you going to hate the good and love evil? Or are you going to love the good and hate evil? Macro-wise, this is really hard to do. Micro-wise, this is really, well, it's not easy to do, but it's conceivably easy to do. Just love all of these things. This is a generic category. Love all of these things. Love righteousness generally. And then, conversely, when you see things which are unrighteous, hate them. hate that unrighteous thing and love the good enough to do something about the unrighteousness. So this was the sin of Israel in a nutshell. This is what they did. They were all of these things and God destroyed them as a nation for that. Killed a lot of them, took many of them into captivity into a foreign land because specifically they didn't do these things and did these things. God can do this and probably does this to nations as a regular basis. You do this, you sin, I judge you for your sin. Even though we don't have it in scripture. We know God is a righteous judge. And if he doesn't judge it on earth, he will judge it at the judgment. But regardless, he judges. And he judges these things harshly. And he loves these things. So we should do these things as best we can. Now in chapter 7, we get a few visions and we get a really good example of what it's like or what you're not supposed to do when you hear the message of the Lord. This is what the Lord God showed me. Behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout. Behold, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, please forgive. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. The Lord relented concerning this. It shall not be, said the Lord. So this is the first vision. And so you have a huge group of locusts coming. And locusts are going to devour everything that's living. And this is really bad, because you eat plants. And so therefore, that's going to particularly hurt your food supply. And this was the latter growth was just beginning to sprout. And it was after the king's mowings. In other words, the first crops were given to the state, were given to the king. And then if the locusts were to come in then and eat everything else, What would all the normal people eat? That's essentially the problem here. And Amos sees these visions. And then Amos intercedes on behalf of the people of God. Oh Lord, please forgive. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. The Lord relented concerning this. It shall not be, said the Lord. And so Amos saw the vision and said, Please God, don't do this to your people. And God said, Okay, I will not. I will relent. And this is what the Lord God showed to me. Behold, the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and was eating up the land. Then I said, O Lord God, please cease. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. The Lord relented concerning this. This also shall not be, said the Lord God." So Amos then sees a fire to burn the land, which of course would have a very similar effect. You burn the land, you burned all the crops, well what is everybody going to eat? And notice that Amos sees the truth of things in terms of how Israel is actually doing. We discussed in the previous chapters that Israel thought they were really strong. They thought they had really good strongholds. They had good armies. They were capable. They were very strong. And that was one of the things that Amos previously had corrected for them and said, it doesn't matter how strong you think you are. God is going to come in and he's going to tear down your walls and your strongholds and take you into captivity. So Amos here sees the truth of it and sees, I see how weak Israel is. And then he prays to God to say, don't send the locust, don't send the fire. This is going to destroy Israel. They are too weak to live through this. And so then God relents. And then there's the third. Notice what Amos doesn't do here. He does not ask God to relent. Now what's the difference between the first two and this one? The first two, in terms of destructive power, would have very much affected the normal person, everybody. This one, if you look specifically at the judgment, it wouldn't. So he's brought the plumb line, whatever that means, and the high places of Isaac should be made desolate. So the spiritual centers that were corrupted, destroyed. Yes? I do, I do actually. That's not what I meant by whatever it is. The sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste." Once again, spiritual destruction. And then, "...I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the swords of the king." So in other words, in this judgment, in this vision, God says, I'm going to come and I'm going to wipe out this corrupt spiritual center and also the corrupt power house, the king and his minions would be the implication. I'm going to wipe them out. And Amos does not ask God to relent from that. They would have been considered places of pagan worship because they did have a problem with idolatry. And high places, I mean, as a general rule, You see much in the prophets of condemnation of going and doing things on the high places. They would pick hills and small mountains and build altars and do pagan sacrifice on high places. But yes, that's the basic idea, the spiritual centers. Well, as Isaac, it's the funny part of that. High places are always pagan associated, but to say high places of Isaac, you think of Isaac as a righteous man. You do. And one thing that's odd about this, and normally the Northern Kingdom is not called the people of Isaac. Often they're called the people of Jacob. Like it's frequent to call the nation, Jacob, I will punish you. Or Israel, I will punish you. Isaac is not. And so I don't think they mean spiritually like Isaac. I think they mean descendant, the high places of the Northern Kingdom. But you're right, it is odd language. So plumb line. Now, let's assume for the sake of argument that is a good interpretation. We'll talk about that in a second, or a good translation. What's a plumb line? Well, what is something plumb? Bill, why don't you go and explain. If something is plumb in the context of building, the thing which is plumb is said to be level. It's built correctly. It's straight. You don't have things kind of loppy jawed. Everything's built well. And so the idea here, if it is a plumb line, Could be that, okay, well God comes in and He measures the house of Israel. They're not straight, they're crooked. And so therefore, God says, their buildings, their edifice, there's the foundation and everything above it, all this stuff is crooked, cut it out. Wipe it off. Which makes for really great imagery. And so... Yes? You were saying too that things would be measured only in the crooked things. Yes. Whereas the first two, it seemed to be it was going to be everyone. But if that's wrong and inaccurate, you can see how the measuring tool to know which one is perfect and which one is perfect. So it's a great metaphor, and I agree, it totally makes sense. The only problem is that this interpretation came up in the Middle Ages, and from my reading, it doesn't seem like it ever came up before that. In early interpretation, if you're trying to figure out what might a word mean, because this is the problem. They can tell what the passage means. The overall meaning of the passage is very clear. It's only a portion of Israel is really meant to be harshly punished and destroyed in this. So the passage is very clear. It's the one particular word or two that is translated the plumb line. How do you figure out the meaning of a word in a language that you don't know particularly well? Because we don't have a lot of texts and a large dictionary of words from ancient Hebrew. We have it for Greek, so you have a much better chance. But for ancient Hebrew, not so much. Well, one thing you look at is you look at early translations. Like when somebody would translate this text into Aramaic. They say, okay, what did it mean in Aramaic? Maybe we can backtrace it. Or if they were to translate this text into early Latin, or when they translate it into Greek for the Septuagint, what words did they use? And the problem is, most of those that they brought up are kind of problematic. And so just interpretationally, you can look at this and say, OK, plumb line makes sense in context, but has no support until you get to the Middle Ages, which is not a particularly good place to be, just in terms of trying to figure out what something might mean. And at least one commentator I read just went with the plumb line. The other one's like, we just don't know what it means, which is very unfortunate. Even though plumb line makes sense, it's just not particularly defensible in terms of ancient understanding of what this word, which doesn't occur anywhere else, might actually mean. So that's unfortunate. Regardless, the meaning is at least very clear in that exactly what you said, this is different than the previous two visions. It's not the people as a whole that will be decimated by this. It's the spiritual places, and it is the king and his cronies. They will be wiped out. Yes. We can back up just a little bit. Going back to verse 2 through 6 when you're talking about the judgment of the locusts. had Amos not prayed, then assuming, presuming God would have gone ahead and sent the locusts as judges. Do we believe that happens today, where God judges nations in a very direct way, and can the church true church of Jesus Christ today identify a particular event as a judgment of God? For example, the fact when Katrina happened, you had Pat Robertson and Falwell coming out saying that they thought that Katrina was a judgment on New Orleans. Is that a plausible thing for the church to be able to do nowadays? Or how do we think about that? I don't. And the reason why I don't is you have knowledge here of the locust plague as sourced in God's judgment because you specifically have a prophet speaking about it. The same thing you would get in the New Testament where you could say, okay, this thing happened because God was angry. God killed Ananias and Sapphira. Because they lied. That kind of thing. Because the prophets, the apostles, they know the truth of things. They can see behind the events and say, I know this is this because I had a vision and God told me. So that's why I would be very wary and I would not be comfortable at all. I was upset whenever Pat Robertson did that because you don't know that. Because I don't consider Pat Robertson a prophet of God. So no, I wouldn't do that. I do believe God does this. I totally believe that. And I also believe that the church can pray for God to relent on judgment, even for a nation in certain ways, and God would do it. I thoroughly believe that. There's no reason to think that anything in terms of how God deals with nations has changed in this at all. I believe this is still an important part of the church. Now the problem is, we don't know that hurricane is the judgment of God. Because of sin. Because the rain falls on the just and the unjust. There is something about it where sometimes you see something bad happen and you can't say, something bad happened to you, therefore you sinned. That's the fallacy of health and wealth gospel. It's if you're not healthy and wealthy, it's because there's a problem with you. We can't say that because, well, there's quite plenty of examples of the righteous being poor and needy and being hurt and killed. So no, I don't think it's ever appropriate to say that. Is it appropriate to think that it's possible? Absolutely. I totally think it's possible. And Katrina might have been. 9-11 could have been, because they said the same things about 9-11 being a judgment against the US and their capitalism and destroying the World Trade Center as a symbol of America's capitalistic centrality and rejection of God. Could that be true? Sure, it could be true. But I won't ever say that it is. Because God has not revealed to me in a vision to say that it is. And you can't, it's hard to read into events to say this is, this is, this is because of this. Unless you have a sure word of God to say that that is the case. Hurricanes though and things like that, they're the normal pattern of wetting down water. Do you realize how much rain comes to the United States every year as a result of hurricanes? During this drought in Texas down in Houston, when my parents and his people were saying, we need a hurricane. My dad was too, totally. My dad was totally that way, yeah. But it affects the place it hits is really bad. But the places all around it normally are benefited greatly by it. The same in the Asian countries with the monsoon season that they have. It depends on it. If it doesn't come, there's going to be a big problem. Now, even though the earth is not operating perfectly, sin has corrupted the whole earth. So that monsoon can bring too much rain sometimes and destroy homes and things. But weather patterns can be used as judgment, but they happen all the time. They hit all over the Gulf Coast, every city. And then you have to say, what city is not deserving of judgment? They're all filled with sinners. That's the God's prerogative. At some point, he says, it's too much. And he judges. And those ones down there in New Orleans aren't much worse than anywhere else. And I know a lot of them. And there's some good sites out there. Well, when Avis pleads, and both of those incidents, like wildfire and locusts, is a natural disaster. Basically, we do not pray God for them. It's because God's visceral enemies That's true. But it does also point out that God can at least intend to use natural disaster. Remember the first few verses of Amos. Identify this as two years before the earthquake. many point to a lot of these judgments as this is talking about the major earthquake that would come, which is as much a natural disaster as locust and fire. But the difference is locust and fire and hurricanes are general. And God was not here looking for a general In other words, he was loving the good and he was actually protecting the poor and the weak by opposing the locust and the fire. But he wasn't protecting the powerful who were corrupt by saying, okay, I'm going to let Assyria come in and wipe out the power centers of the nation. So we would move on, but we are running out of time. So the next section is what happens when you have a prophet of God come up and tell a wicked country and a wicked leader and their spiritual leaders, you've sinned and God's going to judge you. That's the next discussion. You can probably imagine it isn't received very well by them. Any final discussion points on these issues? We've got another vision coming. in the very beginning of chapter 8, the next vision, and in many ways is a response to what Amos is going to deal with, with Amaziah, one of the spiritual leaders of the Northern Kingdom. Anything? Okay. Johnny, will you close in prayer please? Father, thank you for our blessings and thank you for this lesson. I pray that you apply it to our hearts. I pray with us as we go into the morning worship service. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.