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Good morning and welcome back
as we spend another Sunday morning here in the book of Amos. This
morning we're going to jump right in and dive into Amos chapter
6. So far we've looked at a lot
through Amos. We've seen a lot of judgments and again as we
get into it I'm going to ask you, like I've asked every week,
if you would just imagine Amos talking to America. Just picture
that Amos is speaking not just to Israel but to America. And let's not just read it and
say, oh, these are bad things. Let's read it and say, oh, these
are bad things. Is my life part of these things? Am I taking place in these activities? Am I participating in activities
that I shouldn't? Whatever this is that we read
about, that Amos is saying to Israel, you should not do. Am
I doing these things? Or sometimes they're being judged
for what they haven't done. Am I guilty of not doing these
things myself? You know, we can't just look
at it and pass it off as a book and pass it off and say, whoa,
I'm glad I wasn't living in those days. No, we've got to say, look,
if my life is guilty of the things that Israel was guilty of, the
things that Amos is talking to Israel about, if I am guilty
of these things, I have got to change or I will face the same
fate that Israel faced. So this morning, we're going
to start in chapter 6. So you've got your Bible. Open
with me to Amos chapter 6, verse 1. And for those of you, I had
somebody ask me today, what translation are we using? I am using the
ESV. So if you've got your Bibles, turn with me to Amos 6.1. Woe
to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure
on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the
nations, to whom the house of Israel comes. I want you to look
at this. Woe to those who are at ease
in Zion and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria.
What is the first thing we notice here? What is the state that
Israel is in? Woe to those who are in ease
at Zion. They were in a state that was
well, all is well. Nothing can go wrong. We're living
the life of luxury. Everything's good. Everybody's
got two cars. Think about it today. Everybody's
got two cars. Maybe back then, everybody had
two donkeys, maybe a spare camel. But you get the gist of things. Here in America today, we could
say, you know, look, everybody's got two cars. We got a TV in
every room. We got open the fridge. It's full of food. The cupboards,
we got food in there, snacks, drinks. You name it. Every child
has their own bedroom. We throw it over here. Life is
good. Everything is good. But nothing can go wrong. Look
at us. We live in a way that we think
nothing can affect us. Nothing's going to happen to
us. Again, all is well. We think, you know what? Now
there's people who feel fear, Terrence. Yeah, we fear that
somebody may try to physically attack us, physically harm us. But God's judgment? No, we don't
fear God's judgment in America. Why? Because churches are open
every Sunday morning. We go to church Wednesday nights,
Sunday nights. We do visitations. We pray before
the meal. And we demand that prayer be
in school. God's not going to judge a nation like that. You
see, Israel thought the same thing. They were so at ease in
themselves. They thought they were God's
chosen children. God is not going to judge them. Folks, for some
reason, and I don't know why, but we think in this country
we are God's chosen country and that God will not judge us. And
we're living at ease. Because we think we're doing
what God really wants. We think by going and showing
up at church on Sunday morning that we are doing what God really
wants. We're at ease. Look around us.
We're sitting in our pews at ease. We go home and the things
we're involved in that are some are abomination to the Lord.
You know, how many of us would gladly stand up and raise our
hand and tell everything we do during the week? Or how many
of us have stuff in our life that happens in our homes, in
our offices, in our personal life that we would not broadcast
in front of the church? Why? Because we're embarrassed. Why? Because we don't want people
to know that that's the way we live. Yet we come in here and
we act like everything is okay. But I'm not coming to tell you
that you need to tell everything you're doing. what I am saying
is we gotta realize that if our home life, if we've got problems
there we got moral issues with our life we can't just come to
church and expect all to be well church too long we have sat on on our rear ends and we have
been lazy at sharing the gospel I don't mean a light gospel,
gospel light If you want to be saved, Jesus loves you. I need
the true gospel that God created man, man sent. I am a descendant
of the first Adam and therefore I am in sin and I need a savior
because I am a sinful man who has done sinful deeds. And I need Jesus Christ to be
my Savior. Because Jesus Christ died on
the cross for me. He came down and was born of
a virgin. Died a cruel humiliating death
on the cross between two thieves. And He rose again and defeated
death. And He did it all for me. But we can't stop there and
say, now you want this Jesus. But if you want this Jesus, you've
got to believe that He is who He says He is and did what He
said He did and that He is your Lord and Savior. And you've got
to what? Turn from your wicked ways. You've
got to take your way and turn your life around. You are not,
we don't turn and you leap over. Okay? You don't turn over and
you leap and you get saved. You are a new creature in Christ.
You are a brand new creation. And you don't want to live the
old way. The old is left behind. Folks,
we've got to get to the gospel and preach the gospel. Instead
of sitting around saying, all is easy. Church, we've got to
be the church. We've got to look at culture.
When culture and the Bible collide, we've got to throw culture out
the window. I'm not saying culture is bad and we can't have any
part of it. But when the culture and the Bible collide, we can't
take the Bible and melt it around culture and say, I'm going to
take the Bible and squeeze it in and out, in and out, and weave
it in and out of culture so that you can't tell the difference.
No, the Bible, you take the Bible and you run headstrong into culture
and you challenge it. You don't mingle with it. You
challenge it. Challenging culture is not running
from it. But it's also not taking part in it. It's not taking part
in the bad stuff. Folks, you can go out into work
without taking part in culture. Do you understand that? You can
do things and you can be in the world and talk to people of the
world and have relationships with people of the world. But you don't have to do the
things of the world. And we've fallen down that church. And
we decided a long time ago that we were going to be like the
world so the world would want to be like us. But that was bad
thinking, wasn't it? Because if we're like the world,
why do they want to be like us? Because they're already like
us. Moving down in this verse, it
says, They're also secure on their mountains of Samaria. You
see, Samaria was on a mountain, kind of. And it was up here,
and it was secure, and they thought, well, nobody can take this fortress. Israel is going to soon find
out that that fortress, it could be taken. Folks, we do the same
in America. Do we not do the same thing?
We think that we are so secure that nothing can happen to us. Folks, We had a brief awakening
of what could happen several years ago on 9-11. Look around
at the disasters that have taken place over the last few years.
The tsunamis. Earthquakes in different regions
of the country. Katrina, right here in our own backyard in America. Just because we have the great
infrastructure and the mighty walls does not mean that we can't
be brought down to our knees, be it by weather, be it by God
sending a storm, or a disease, or a plague, or God taking his
hand off and allowing something like 9-11 to take place. Folks, we're only as pure as
as close to God as we are, okay? The further away from God we
get as a nation, the less secure we get. I don't care how many
newts we got pointed at who, how many Star Wars programs we
have, we're only as safe as we are as close as we are
to God. I don't know that sounds right. The closer we are to God,
the safer we are, the farther away we get, the less safe we
get. Why? Because our security is
not in weaponry. It's not in our knowledge. Our
security is in our love for the Lord and his word. When we start
going away from that and veering away from God and God's word,
we veer away from our security. Moving to verse 2, it says, Pass
over the Calvary and see from there. Go to Hamath the Great,
then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms?
Or is their territory greater than your territory? Look at
these countries, is what he's telling Israel. Look at these
great countries that were mighty countries at one time, had mighty
warriors. Yet when they came out against
God, they were destroyed. He says the Philistines. When
we talk about the Philistines, who is the first Philistine that
comes to mind of a mighty warrior? Look at the mighty Goliath. Israel
was shaking in their boots. The army, the warriors of Israel.
No one wanted to face this giant. And this giant stood and defiled
God. And he blasphemed God and he
cursed Him. And what happened? A young shepherd
boy got up. And he said, basically, I don't
care what you're saying about us. But you're defiling my God. And I'm not going to stand for
it. I don't care how big you are. You're not bigger than my
God. Folks, we've cowered down, haven't
we, a little bit here. We need to be more like David,
don't you? That's a whole other message.
So I don't want to chase that rabbit, but we need to be more
like David. And don't cow down. Say, I don't care. A-C-L-U. Whatever
group it is. It's coming out against the church.
It's wrong. Do what you want. But you're
not bigger than my God. But God says, look at these great
countries. They were destroyed. Israel I'll destroy them if they
can be destroyed with all their might Egypt, you know, look at
all the grace and they fall So can you So can you and again we can take
that from Israel right to America America if we're not careful We can fall too Again, it doesn't
matter how mighty we think we are with our infrastructures
and everything. I If we're not careful, and I think we're walking
on a tight, very thin sheet of ice right now, this country could fall right
through. Just like the rest of the countries. People, if God
doesn't come back in a couple hundred years, people are going
to be looking at history books saying, what happened to that country?
God blessed them and they turned around just like Israel did and
America walked away from God. They walked out from under His
blessings and were devoured by the lion
that sits there waiting, ready to devour. Verse 3 it says, O you who put
far away the day of disaster, and bring near the seed of violence."
You see, they knew the judgment would come for time within. Eventually, Israel realized that
sooner or later, God's going to come back. Sooner or later,
there was going to be a judgment. But they just figured it wouldn't
happen now, that it would happen later. That God's not judging
us now. We do whatever we want to. Yeah,
he's going to judge one day, but that's that's way down the
line. I ain't worried about that. God's
saying, look, you're putting it off. It's a lot closer than
you think it is. Again, it's just so uncanny how you can take this book and that
thing they say is Israel. He can be saying to America,
Look at us today. We know that sooner or later
something's going to come. Especially the church. Look at
the church in America. We believe that there is coming
a day when God will come back and judge His children. I don't
care whether you believe it's post-rib, pre-rib, mid-rib. We believe
that most, for the most part, and well, any true Christian
church believes that God is going to come back for His children. Right? And that one day there's
going to be a judgment. He said, oh well, we don't really
believe that there's going to be a judgment. Oh, so and so's church doesn't
believe that. If the church is teaching that there's not going
to be a judgment in the end of days, then that church is a heretic. It's preaching heresy and it's
not a true church of God, okay? Because the Bible clearly teaches
that Jesus Christ is coming back and He will judge. But we look at it and say, that's
going to be so far off. Friends, look around us. I don't
think that's so far off, OK? And again, I'm not saying this
morning, standing here saying that I know when he's going to
come back. He may be 10,000 years from now before he comes back.
But I say, looking at the Bible, I think it's very near. Look
at the Bible and you compare the Bible to modern day events, and I think
it's very near. But who knows? It could be longer. But we can't
look and say, well, it's going to be way out here. Why don't
we do that? Why don't we look and say, well,
it's not coming. The reason I think is because
we've done so much stuff. So much immorality is involuntary
right now. We're so caught up in it. And
God hasn't came down and judged us yet. So we kind of get in
the back of our mind thinking that, oh, if he hasn't done it
yet, he's not going to do it. Well, what is it? I think it
was Frederick Nietzsche. If I'm wrong on that, it was
Nietzsche or it may have been Rousseau, I think it was Nietzsche
that said that God is dead. And folks, that's the way we
kind of think in the church today when it comes to God's judgment,
isn't it? That he judged once long ago, but God is dead now
and he doesn't judge anymore. Folks, God is alive and well.
And he still sits on the throne and he still judges those who
turn their backs and walk away from him. So we can't get caught up in
thinking that God is some distant God that's not going to come
down and come back and judge us. And we look at verse four, it
says, Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves
out on their couches and eat lambs from the flocks and calves
from the mists of the stall, who sing idle songs on the sound
of the harp, and like David, invent themselves instruments
of music, who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the
finest oils, but are not grieved over the rumen of Joseph. Look
at those three verses right here. I read them all because they
all kind of go together. But in verse four, we see, what's
he doing? Finest foods and furnishings, what he's talking about. All
the luxuries, basically. You got all the luxuries here,
all the, the dressings of your house,
your furnishings. The nice furniture in the house, you lie on the
nice beds, you got all the luxuries in the world. You don't care about anything
else. Your focus is on gaining more of these luxuries. Because
that's what you think your self-worth is in. How many of us think that?
We think our self-worth is on what kind of furniture we have
in our house, how many TVs, what kind of TV we have. We've even
gotten to a point now where if it's not an HD TV, It's unacceptable
to us. We can't live without these things.
Everybody's got to have them. Friends, I'm going to go ahead
and tell you. First of all, you can live without a TV. I've lived for
years without a TV in my house. And my kids have lived for years.
Some of them have lived their entire life never knowing what
it's like to have a TV in their house. You can live without a
TV in your home. But we think that we can't. We've
got to have all these fine things. And then he says, we sing idle
songs to the sound of the heart and other instruments. And I
don't want this verse, we can look at it and say, well, we're
singing songs that have nothing to glorify God. But this verse
goes a little bit deeper than just songs that glorify God. It's not saying we shouldn't
listen to secular music and only go to Christian music. That's
not what this is saying. This is saying that people are
just so caught up in their entertainment. You see, in the days of Amos,
one of the key forms of entertainment was music. And he is saying that you're
so caught up in your entertainment and not just, you know, that
doesn't really glorify God at all. It's just idle entertainment. That you just You can't do anything. You live
for that entertainment. And folks, if that is not America,
I don't know what is. Look at what we're doing. We
feel ourselves. How many people go out on a Monday morning or
whenever it comes on, American Idol, and the next morning everyone
is talking about it. There's so many shows out there
that first of all are ungodly. And we as Christians have no
business watching them. It is absolute filth. Yet we
do watch them. And that's all we can talk about
the next day. Yet we never fill our minds with
God's Word. Looking at church, how many shows
do we watch during the week? We don't pick up the Bible and
read it, do we? No. We don't pick up other things
and read it. that have to do with God? No.
It's stuff that just fills our mind with idleness. Even stuff
that's not necessarily filthy. We fill our minds with it and
it takes our time away and we can't be used by God because
our time is so much over here. Video games are a key prime example
of that. There are many, many video games.
I love them. I grew up loving video games. Friends, if we can get so caught
up in video games. Not necessarily a bad video game,
but we get so caught up in it. Especially, it used to be when
I was growing up, if you spent two or three hours on a video
game, you could beat it and win. Now it takes days and sometimes
weeks and months to beat a game. I know grown men who come home
at night and spend three and more hours on the video game
system trying to win this game. And they wonder what's happening
to their family. They say, well I'm not really
doing anything wrong, we're playing a good game here. Yeah, but you're taking
the time that you could be instilling God's word into your family,
into your children, loving your wife, but you can't because you're
so engrossed in this video game. Even fiction books, reading.
Look how many books I love to read. I read all the time. But
we need to be reading things that are edifying us. That are lifting up God. That
is strengthening and growing our relationship with God. It's
okay every once in a while just to read something for fun. It's
okay every once in a while to watch a movie. To play a video
game. I'm not saying it's not. But when we get so caught up
in these things that it's all we live for. Even though they're
not bad, they take all of our time away. whether it's fluff
fiction, and every time I say that, somebody says, what do
you mean by fluff fiction? That's fiction that really doesn't,
it's not bad, but it doesn't lift up God. So again, I'm not
even gonna go into the thing we shouldn't be watching, but
just the fact that we gotta guard our time. And then he says, who drink wine
in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are
not grieved over the ruin of Joseph. Folks, these are gluttonous. We wear the finest clothes, have
the nicest perfumes, and the adornments. All these. How many of us? We
look at our tables every night. Folks, in America, in so many
households, we probably throw away more scraps than most people
get to eat in a day. We can't go out of the house
without our makeup and our perfumes and our colognes, our hair gels. And again, I'm not knocking and
saying all these things are wrong. But we've adorned ourselves so
much. And from our finest foods, our
furnishings, our luxuries, all of our entertainment, all these
things. Coming to this last part of verse
6, it says we do all this Yet, you're not grieved over the ruin
of Joseph. He's telling Israel, all these
things you do, Israel, all these parties and galas you have, and
you're not grieved over the ruin of the house of Joseph. America, all these things we
do, and we are not grieved over the ruin of our church. I've said it already a couple
times as we went through this study. We've got to get out of
our mind that the church is just America. Folks, we are, again,
I'm telling you, church, if you are a Christian, a true Christian,
you've been saved by the grace of God, you are, I don't care
what country you are on earth you are a citizen of, you are
first a citizen of the kingdom of God. Before you are a citizen of this
United States of America, you are a citizen of the Kingdom
of God. And every other person who is
saved by the grace of God, they are a member and a citizen of
the Kingdom of God. And before we are citizens of
our countries, we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, and we
are all in this together. So folks, we've got to look at
our lives, myself included, and say, what are my brothers and
sisters going through over here while I am living the life of
luxury? What can I give up over here
maybe so that I can help them out over here? Maybe I can give
up a meal eating out every week to help them. What if I don't
have to have the nicest clothes, the nicest this and that? You
know what? Why don't you go home and tell
your family, look, we're going to give up this, this and this
so that we can start giving out and helping the missionary that's
over here. We're going to go over here.
We're going to give this and this so that we can open a church
up. We can donate and help open a church in this country so that
some pastor can go and preach the word of God. You want to
see the church start moving again? It's not going to come from a
book. or a program, it's going to come when we realize that
we are one body all around the globe. Again, I'm not up here about
class envy. If you're wealthy and you're
spending your money the way God wants you to, then God bless
you. But folks, We are living this life of luxury
while our brothers and sisters are suffering. We can't even pray for them. Much less lift up and cut something
out of our life to help them out. Verse 7 says, Therefore they
shall now be the first of those who go into exile. of those who
stretch themselves out shall pass away. See, those who refuse
to heed the warnings, basically what it's saying is the leaders,
those who are living this life, they're going to be the first
of all to fall. America, we are having a grand
old party, aren't we? We are living it up. But God says there's a day coming
when the party's going to end. We don't want to hear these warnings. We're going to be like the prodigal
son. Living in the plush life of his father. Living with all
the blessings. One day the blessings ran out.
And he found himself doing what? went from having everything he'd
ever want, all the friends, all the fun, went from all that way
up here, folks, to way down here, begging and pleading for some
pig scraps. Folks, is that where America
is gonna have to go to? Are we going to have to go to
begging and pleading God to send us some pig scraps? If that's what it takes to turn
this country around, I pray that's what happens. I don't want judgment
to befall us any more than anybody else does. But if that's what
it takes to bring this country back to God, then God take our
prosperity. Our prosperity is not worth walking
apart from you the Lord God is sworn by himself
declares the Lord the God of hosts I adore the pride of Jacob
and hate his strongholds and I will deliver up the city and
all that is in it first of all he could swear by none greater
could he the Lord God is sworn by who himself there is nothing
greater that God could swear by than God's name alright There
is nothing. So when he's swearing by his
name, God is saying, look, this is important. Because there is
nothing greater that I can swear by than what I'm going to tell
you. You see, Israel prided itself
with its glorious things. Again, we've already talked about
it. And they were just so prideful of that. Look at all that God has blessed
us with. He's given us all this land.
And they were just so proud of that. You know, we're not proud
of America. We don't say, look at us, look
at our tall buildings, look at our mighty road systems. Look
at our lush landscapings and our immaculate neighborhoods.
Look out here in our parking garages at all the nice fancy
cars we drive, all the nice restaurants. Look at this, we even paid $4
for a cup of coffee. Friends, that's not just wrong,
that is just plain out stupid to pay $4 for a cup of coffee. But, look at us. I know every time I say that
somebody's going to come up in a minute and tell me that I just don't
know how good their coffee is. Save it, okay? That's my opinion.
That's not... That's not a revelation from
God about the coffee being stupid to pay that much. That's just
my opinion. But... Again, we say, look at
all this stuff we have! What's God say? I will deliver
up the city and all that is in it. Folks... I don't care what
we've got. How nice it looks. God's coming,
when he says he's going to deliver it up, he's going to deliver
it up. He can bring the buildings all the way down. This is the
God, you remember, that moved mountains. Or better yet, this
is the God that created the mountains. All the materials that these
buildings were built with? God's who created them. God. All the material the roads are
made out of? God. It was every piece of matter
God created. God can do whatever he wants
to with it. He can bend it, he can move it, he can tear it out,
he can make it as a boat and it's gone. People say the first
law of thermodynamics says that matter never ceases to either,
you can't create matter or you can't destroy matter. Well guess
what? When God decides he wants to destroy matter, God can violate
that law and he can actually destroy matter. That is the God we serve. He said, If ten men remain in
one house, they shall die. And if one of one's relatives,
the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the
bones out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost
parts of the house, Is there still anyone with you? He shall
say, No. And he shall say, Silence! We
must not mention the name of the Lord. For behold, the Lord
God commands that the house shall be struck down into fragments.
and the little house in the bits. Folks, there's going to come
a time when we're going to be like that. That we're going to be like these
people in this house. We're going to say, you know,
we don't even want to hear the glory of the Lord. Not because
we're mad at it, but because we're so terrified of it. Right
now, we'll walk out and we can shake our fists in the face of
God. At church, we're just as guilty as the world of walking
out and shaking our fists into the face of God. How many churches
in here, God says we cannot, God says that women are not to
be ordained and leaders in the church and be over men and teach
over men in the church. Guys, I don't care how unpopular
that is, that is what the Bible says. And yet we shake our fist
at them and say, God, we don't agree with that. so many things we shake our fist
at God because we don't like what he says we think it's interfering
with our life and we shake our fist at God we're not going to
be doing that for long there's going to come a day when we're
going to be so terrified because God's going to show himself and
show who he is and we're going to realize the God we serve is
the almighty God of the universe he will bring judgment it says
both on rich and the poor You're not going to be rich enough to
hide from it, nor poor enough. Be rich enough to buy yourself off,
and poor enough for God to have mercy on you just because you're
poor. Alright, God's going to bring judgment to all. All! You
know, God, we've talked about it several times, that God detests
when the poor is taken advantage of. And we can look all through
Scripture, but folks, we have fallen into this concept in America
that God, just because you're poor, God wants to reach out
and He's going to help you. the poor. When you are poor,
it doesn't matter whether you're poor or rich. When you're living in
a moral life and you walk away from God, He is not going to
bless you. Just because you are poor and
you're living in a life of sin, God is not going to reach down
and just shower you with blessings. When this judgment comes, it's
going to be on the rich and the poor. This next verse here, it
says, The horses run on rocks. There's one plow where there
is oxen. plow there with oxen. But you have turned justice into
poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood." Folks, what we
are doing in this country is as though we are plowing up a
rock. That we're running a horse race
across a rock. You see, that's what he says.
Do horses run on rocks? No. Does one plow there with
oxen? Plow where with oxen? On the
rock where the horses were supposed to be running. No. Why? Because it's pointless. You would
not go and plow a garden. I think about it, around here,
one of the biggest pieces of rock we have is Stone Mountain,
Georgia. Or Mount Rushmore, if you're
not familiar with that. Would you walk up there and just start
plowing away on there expecting to plant a garden? No. Why? Because it would be pointless.
Folks, that's what we're doing in the church, I think today,
so much. What we are doing is so pointless. It's like we're
plowing on a rock. We're not getting anywhere. We're
bringing people in left and right, but the church is not having
any effect on the culture. Why? Because we're bringing people
in just to bring them in. We're luring them in. Folks,
yes, I said it. We are luring people in with great marketing schemes.
Folks, God does not need a great marketing team to bring people
through the front door of your church. You hear me? You don't
have to have the right kind of carpet. You don't have to have
the right kind of music. You don't have to have the right
kind of program. The right kind of people standing in the right
kind of way outside the door to welcome people in. Folks,
what you need to bring people into your church is the Word
of God being preached from the pulpit. Not watered down. Don't stop
at certain points so you don't go the whole way. But the Word
of God boldly, with a holy boldness, being proclaimed out of the pulpit. And people will come into the
house of the Lord. Folks, church, we are not responsible
for salvation of people's souls. Let me say that again. We are
not responsible for the salvation of the souls of people. We are
responsible for preaching the gospel, preaching God's Word,
and letting God do the rest. When we are faithful to preach
God's Word, He will be faithful to transform lives. He will be
faithful to bring people in. Folks, we don't have to have
a 20,000 member church in order to be effective in a large community.
We've got to have a church that is faithful to God, and God will
take that church, and He will use it in a mighty way. We've got to take the marketing
schemes and throw them back out the door. And bring the Word
of God back into the church. For what we're doing right now
is just like we're plowing on a rock. A hundred years from
now, if God is not here, we'll be doing the same thing. Why?
We can bring people in all day long. We can create a perfect
marketing scheme that's going to bring people into the church.
But we're not transforming their lives. Just tell them, oh you
said a prayer, you're saved, come on and join our church. We're not transforming lives. He says, You who rejoice in Lodabar,
who say, Have we not by our own strength captured Canaan for
ourselves? For behold, I will raise up against
you a nation. O house of Israel, declare the Lord the God of hosts,
and they shall oppress you from Lebohamath to the brook of Areba. Israel says again, Have we not
captured on our own strength Folks, church, we've come to
a point where we think now we can do all this stuff on our
own strength. We can create this program, that program, this program.
That's why we're going through all these marketing campaigns
and marketing schemes. And you look and you go to a
church conference and it's more like you're going to a business
conference. Why? Because we're trying to do something
without God. We've kicked God out of the church.
You talk about kicking God out of the school and needing God
back in the school. We've kicked God out of the church and we need God back
in the church house. We're trying to do stuff on our
own strength. And folks, we can't. Go around
and look, I'm guilty, I've been guilty of doing I don't know
how many hundreds of times. Giving an altar call after I've preached. And almost to the point of manipulation
to get people to come down front. Folks, we can't manipulate people.
That's saving people on our own strength. And guess what? I can't
save anybody. When I manipulate you with my own ways and tell
you you were saved because of what I am telling you, I have
lied to you. And I may have very well condemned
you to hell because you think you're saved and you're not.
Folks, There have been numerous people in the last 30 years in
this country that have been condemned to hell by God-fearing preachers
with great intentions. But we've grown tired of waiting
on God, and we decided to go and see how good we could grow
our church ourselves. Friends, we can grow a congregation
very large by ourselves. But without God, we cannot grow
a church. And there's one thing we've got
to remember is we've got to turn back to the Lord. Turn back to
the Lord in His ways. We say, how do we grow a church?
How are we supposed to preach? How are we supposed to play music?
How are we supposed to do this in church? How are we supposed
to do that in church? Go to Lifeway. Go to any of the bookstores around
here and you'll find shelf after shelf that answers these questions.
Folks, we don't need one shelf and one book. That's the Bible. Sorry, I get a little passionate
up here sometimes and knock my mic off, but we can go to the
To the Bible and find every answer to those questions And folks,
that's what we've got to go back to. Oh, there's many good books
out there folks We put the good books and we build a wall around
the Bible with good books So that we can't even get to it
anymore We gotta tear down that wall.
We gotta say, how am I supposed to preach? Let me go to the Bible.
How am I supposed to hold a worship service? Let me go to the Bible.
How am I supposed to be a priest in my home? Let me go to the
Bible. Folks, we've got to take the Bible and make it the centerpiece
for God's church once again. Before music and programs and
all this stuff, the key element in a church should be the preaching
of God's Word.
Series on Amos Part 6
Series Amos speaking to America
A look at the book of Amos as if though he were talking directly to America.
| Sermon ID | 11810109402 |
| Duration | 42:49 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Language | English |
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