“How can I give you up, O Ephraim?”

Posted on October 29, 2022 by PastorDave

HOSEA | Lesson 3 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

Read Hosea, chapters 8.1 – 11.11

INTRODUCTION

  1. Our first lesson, ‘faithless wife-FAITHFUL HUSBAND’ from chapters 1-3 serves to give us a summary of the whole Book of Hosea – it is the ‘short’ story of what will be explained in more detail in the remainder of the Book.
  2. The second lesson, ‘When I would heal Israel…’ from chapters 4-7 begins as Yahweh convenes His court of justice against faithless Israel – He will produce witness after witness and pronounce and publish evidence after evidence of their betrayals of His covenant love toward them. Hosea himself will interject himself into the narrative in chapter 6.1-3 to implore and plead with Israel to “Come, let us return to Yahweh; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.” This is a not so oblique promise and pointer to the Gospel of Christ that will come ‘in the latter days’ that have already been announced in ch 2.16-23 & 3.4-5. [For New Testament references to these words see Luke 24.46 & 1 Corinthians 15.4]
  3. Now we come to this rather lengthy section in ch 8.1 – 11.11. I have titled this section ‘How can I give you up, O Ephraim?’ because that is the heart-broken cry Yahweh Himself screams out in ch 11.8-9. Yahweh can’t give them up for good, forever, because He has made a covenant of faithfulness to Israel … and He must keep His word. But, He will give them up for that moment in time … He must – He will send them off into exile into Assyria in just a very few short years from the time Hosea is delivering His warnings. But again remember the promises He has made in ch 2.16-23 and 3.4-5. Israel will once again be ‘betrothed’ and married to Yahweh in faithfulness. This lesson section will end in ch 11.11 with Yahweh promising “and I will return them to their homes, declares Yahweh.”
  4. Once again, we shall see that the ONLY way these promises can be fulfilled and delivered is through Jesus Christ and His Gospel. We’ll see how ch 11.1 points to Christ and His fulfillment of this historic picture. Matthew quotes this verse in Matthew 2.15. Where national Israel failed and proved to be a faithless ‘son’ from the get-go, Jesus Christ came as a faithful Son of God and the True Israel. “For all the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our ‘Amen’ to God for His glory.” / 2 Corinthians 1.20  

I / ch 8.1-14 / YAHWEH CONTINUES TO SOUND THE ALARM FOR THEIR COMING DESTRUCTION & ENUMERATE THEIR TRANSGRESSIONS – ESPECIALLY THEIR IDOLATRIES

  1. vv 1-3 / Once again the trumpet alarm is blown [see also 5.18] to announce Yahweh’s coming destructions upon them – Yahweh even compares Himself to a devouring vulture. The reason is ‘because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law.’ They pretend and feign their worship of Yahweh: “To me they cry, ‘My God, we-Israel-know you.’” But in their hearts and in their conduct, they have spurned and rejected Yahweh – the only Good they have. Their enemies shall pursue and destroy them
  2. vv 4-6 / The whole political and religious structure and culture in Israel was established in rebellion against Yahweh [see 1 Kings 12.25-33] – their kings and especially the golden calves Jeroboam I set up in Bethel and Dan to be their ‘gods.’ Just as they have ‘spurned’ Yahweh [v 3], He will ‘spurn’ them [v 5]. Yahweh will destroy everything they have made in rebellion against Him.
  3. vv 7-10 / “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Here’s where that saying comes from. You commit what you may think is a small, benign misdemeanor act – and it grows and explodes like an atomic blast mushroom. Not only are their spiritual adulteries against Yahweh committed internally in their idolatrous religious practices, but also internationally – in their political alliances with other nations to protect them from yet other nations and kingdoms who are threatening them. They are even going to Assyria for protection … and Assyria will destroy them and carry them off into exile in only 25-30 years from this time! Yahweh Himself had covenanted and promised to be their Invincible Protector – but they have spurned Him to ally themselves with His and their enemies!
  4. vv 11-14 / Yahweh now returns again to His grievances against their idolatrous, adulterous golden calf ‘gods’ [as in vv 4-6] … the very proliferation of their outward religious altars and services have multiplied also their transgressions against Yahweh and their guilt.

II / ch 9.1-17 / YAHWEH CONTINUES TO DESCRIBE THEIR FAITHLESS REJECTIONS OF HIM & HIS PROPHETS – AND THE DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES OF HIS REJECTING THEM FROM BEING HIS PEOPLE

  1. vv 1-6 / Much of their worship activities and services offered to their golden calves and to the Baals were in the form of grain, wine, and food offerings. These were not only given to the ‘gods’ and to the priests who served their ‘gods,’ but also consumed in sexual acts and ceremonies as part of their ‘worship’ [v 1]. See how this played in ch 2.5-9.  For the second time in six verses [ch 8.13; 9.4], Yahweh declares that their adulterous worship services do not please Him and He will not accept them. He is going to turn them over to the Assyrians, and they shall mourn there. [NOTE: Egypt is often named when Assyria is meant – this is because their former bondage, captivity, slavery, and exile in Egypt {from which Yahweh had already redeemed them} serves as an illustration or motif of their coming exile in Assyria. [see vv 3, 6]]
  2. vv 7-14 / Yahweh pronounces very specific accusations and charges against Israel to show what disdain they have expressed toward Him and His prophets – whom He has sent to warn them and save them from the coming judgments! Compare ch 9.7 here with ch 8.12. Take care how you respect God’s Word and those who faithfully preach and teach it to you!
  3. NOTE: there are also two specific historical allusions Yahweh brings up here to show them how deeply, egregiously, and heinously into sin they have gone. ch 9.9, ‘as in the days of Gibeah’ [see Judges 19]; and ch 9.10, ‘Baal-peor’ [see Numbers 25.1-5]. Similar punishments will come upon them: “Woe to them when I depart from them!” / v 12.
  4. vv 15-17 / Yahweh pinpoints their centers of adulterous, idolatrous worship and all that went on there [e.g., Gilgal], and reiterates His verdict and sentence of His Holiness and justice: ‘there I began to hate them,’ ‘I will love them no more,’ ‘My God will reject them because they have not listened to Him; they shall be as wanderers among the nations’ / vv 15, 17.

III / ch 10.1-15 / YAHWEH PRONOUNCES HIS JUDGMENTS ON ISRAEL & UPON THEIR CENTERS AND OBJECTS OF THEIR ADULTEROUS WORSHIP – LIKENING THEM TO PAST HISTORIES OF THEIR DEBAUCHERIES

  1. vv 1-8 / This sounds very much like what Yahweh complains about in chapter 8: they have set up their kings, their idolatrous ‘calves’ and altars, with all their ceremonies and services … ALL as acts of rejection of Him as their covenant God and their intentional, insistent rebellion against Him. Vv 5-6, Yahweh will have all their ‘gods’ carried off into exile with them … and the calamities that will befall them in that day will be so dreadful, “…they shall say to the mountains, ‘Cover us,’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us.’” You will recognize this plea for suicidal deliverance from their tribulations as it is repeated again in Revelation 6.16 – to be uttered again by those who are alive and remaining when the ‘wrath of the Lamb’ is unleashed upon the unbelieving world at Christ’s Second Coming.
  2. vv 9-15 / Again, Yahweh reprises His mention of Gibeah [see ch 9.9] … to remind and emphasize to Israel that their corruption, adulterous conduct and behavior, and even their perverse moral debaucheries are all just part of their national and cultural DNA. What occurred in Gibeah [see Judges 19] happened hundreds of years before during the days of the Judges. Israel’s ‘national pastime’ was this same sort of abhorrent debauchery. It had been ingrained and institutionalized into their national culture and identity. Yahweh must discipline them! [v 10].
  3. BUT, Yahweh calls upon them to ‘break up your fallow ground’ [v 12] of their hard hearts and their history of rebellion and faithlessness against Him. “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that He may come and rain righteousness upon you” / v 12.  

IV / ch 11.1-11 / YAHWEH SPEAKS TO ISRAEL FROM THE WRENCHED HEART OF A GRIEVED FATHER WHOSE LOVE & TENDER MERCIES HAVE BEEN BETRAYED

  1. This whole chapter is Yahweh’s impassioned pleadings with Israel to love Him in return as He has loved them and return to Him … and spare Him from having to discipline them as He must if they do not return to Him. I can do no better than quote George M. Schwab, Sr. from Expository Commentary [who himself also quotes others…] “This material ‘is as tender as any in the Bible’ – its intimacy is almost maternal. ‘Hosea 11.1-11 gives as clear and personal [a] picture into the heart of God as any illustration in all of Scripture.’ God loved Ephraim, adopted him, taught him to walk, held him in His arms, healed him, bound Himself to him with ‘cords of kindness,’ bent down to feed him (vv 1-4). One could not ask for a more attentive parent. He really loved His boy.”
  2. vv 1-4 / When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” What Yahweh is describing here is His own ‘covenant reminiscing’ of the days when He went down to Egypt to deliver them from their bondage there. Yahweh calls Israel ‘my son’ because that’s what He called them in Exodus 4.22: “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says Yahweh, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, Let my son go that he may serve me.’” You really need to go back and read Yahweh’s personal testimony to Moses in Exodus 3.7-10. “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” Yahweh did all that!
  3. Now, it’s almost like Yahweh is flipping through a photo/memory album containing pictures of how He loved and took care of Israel during their ‘toddler/preschool’ years: teaching them to walk, instructing them and training them, discovering Himself to them, nurturing, cuddling, and caring for them.
  4. And then this jarring response from Israel to all of Yahweh’s tender and compassionate covenant love…Verse 2: The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. And this was not just a ‘one-off’ event or season: their consistent, repeated, recurring response to Yahweh was to spurn His love and turn instead to love and follow after Baals and other false gods. “God is describing the past fully; He is not romanticizing it. From the beginning, Israel was not content with Him. Their original sin was that in their hearts they never left Egypt. They did not realize who had ‘healed’ them. All of Yahweh’s gifts (including redemption), all of His provisions, all of His providential care and pledged love had never moved them to want Him.” [George M. Schwab, Sr.]  
  5. vv 5-7 / So v 1 declares [referring to the Exodus event] “…out of Egypt I called My son.” Now in v 5, they will not return to Egypt, but they will go to Assyria which will be like it was in Egypt … only much worse. NOTE: the repeated play on the word ‘return/turn/turning.’ It’s used often throughout Hosea. They shall not ‘return’ to Egypt, but they shall ‘return’ to Egypt-like Assyria. Because they refused to ‘return’ to Yahweh. Israel was bent [addicted] on ‘turning’ away from Yahweh.
  6. vv 8-11 / In these verses Yahweh begins to almost wail in pain – from the contortions into which His heart has been wrenched. He must do what His Holiness, justice, and righteousness compels Him to do. His covenant contains both blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. He must keep His words on both counts. But “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim?” Admah and Zeboiim were companion cities with Sodom and Gomorrah and suffered the same destruction that Yahweh overthrew them with [Genesis 14.2]. In fact, this word Yahweh uses to describe the angst of His own heart ‘recoils within me’ is the same word for ‘overthrown’ in Genesis 19.25 which Yahweh executed against Sodom and Gomorrah.
  7. He must do what He must do in this moment – but this will not the last word or the last act by any means! He will not utterly destroy Ephraim ‘for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath’ / vv 8-9. In other words, His wrath will be measured out – only as much as is required to serve the immediate disciplinary purpose. Yahweh is both a God of strong emotions and a God who will not be ruled by them.
  8. vv 10-11 / At the end of His dealings with Israel, “His children will come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares Yahweh.” And isn’t this the same promise Yahweh makes back in ch 3.4-5: “For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek YAHWEH their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to YAHWEH and to His goodness in the latter days.”
  9. So all of this begs the question: How will Yahweh ‘bring them back to their homes’ as He promises here? Hosea points to a yet future ‘in that day’ all throughout his messages here. We now know that ‘in that day’ is the Day of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. It is this ‘day’ – it is ‘today’! Hosea had no way of knowing the fullness of his prophetic promise when he quoted Yahweh in Hosea 11.1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My Son.” When Yahweh called Israel His ‘son’ in the Exodus … and when He called His son, Israel, out of Egypt in the Exodus –that was a pre-enactment for when He would call His Son, Jesus Christ, out of Egypt to come back to Nazareth and assume the earthly role of Yahweh’s Israel and as our Savior. Jesus Christ Himself is the new Israel – the only Israel who can be fully faithful to fulfill all the conditions, provisions, promises, and blessings of the covenant. And when we are in Christ by faith, we, too, are made to be citizens of the new Israel and people of God in Him.
  10. “Many years later, Jesus would be taken as a young child down to Egypt in order to escape the murderous intentions of King Herod. After relating how Herod died and the Lord told the parents of Jesus to come home, it is this very verse that Matthew quotes and applies to Jesus: ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son’ (Matthew 2.15). This is not because Matthew is unaware that the verse is speaking of the nation of Israel; it is because he wants his readers to see that Jesus is the new Israel, the One who will finally fulfill Israel’s task, the One in whom the promises made to Israel – that through them the Lord would bless the nations – will fully come to pass.” George M. Schwab, Sr.  

“…for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise … And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” / Galatians 3.26-29 & 6.16

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When I would heal Israel…

Posted on October 22, 2022 by PastorDave

Hosea | Lesson 2 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

Read Hosea, chapters 4-7

INTRODUCTION

  1. Our first lesson, ‘faithless wife-FAITHFUL HUSBAND’ from chapters 1-3 serves to give us a summary of the whole Book of Hosea – it is the ‘short’ story of what will be explained in more detail in the remainder of the Book. In that three-chapter narrative, we will find both [1] the human experience of Hosea as Yahweh calls and commissions him to marry Gomer, a wife who would prove to be unfaithful to him and promiscuous with other illicit ‘lovers,’ … and also [2] the Divine parallel experience in that Israel has done and is doing exactly the same thing toward Yahweh. You might say that chapters 4-14 are Yahweh’s commentary on chapters 1-3.
  2. However, there are also the dual themes of retribution/restoration, punishment/promise, ‘tough love’ discipline/covenant mercy wooing that are woven together throughout Yahweh’s messages delivered through Hosea. After He has executed His just separation from Israel because of their blatant, promiscuous unfaithfulness, He will return to them ‘in the latter days’ [ch 3.5]. His covenant promise is: “And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know Yahweh” [ch 2.19-20]. Just as Hosea did Gomer [ch 3].
  3. This is the promise of Christ! The only way God can demonstrate both His justice against our sin and His mercy toward us sinners is by executing His wrath against Christ who will bear our sins and the punishments they deserve upon Himself … so He can then give to us the promise of His mercy through our Substitute! The Book of Hosea is Yahweh’s promise of the Gospel of Christ who will come – and has come – ‘in that day’ when He says “And I will make for them a covenant…” [ch 2.16 & 18]. Only Christ can satisfy these conditions and fulfill the faithfulness this covenant demands!
  4. Now, this next section we will deal with in this lesson [chs 4-7] is a lengthy section for us to even attempt to cover in one lesson. So I will be able to only outline it for us, point out the transitions and show the connections in His flow of thought, give the ‘logic’ of each sub-section in Yahweh’s progressive messages, and give as much detail during the lesson as we need to understand the meaning of the words.

ch 4.1-19 / Yahweh convenes His court of sovereign Justice and begins to present His case against faithless, adulterous Israel

  1. vv 1-3 / INDICTMENT: The indictment against ‘the land’ as a whole – the nation. “The opening verses of Hosea are like a court summons … Hosea started in the maternity ward with the naming of his children in chapter 1. The we moved to the wilderness and the lovers’ tryst [ch 2]. Then to the slave market as Hosea buys back Gomer [ch 3]. Now we come to the law court” [Tim Chester]. ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, O children of Israel’ is not only prophetic language, but legal also. Like our familiar ‘Hear ye, hear ye…’ Also the word ‘controversy’ means complaint, accusation, or indictment. That is what this is. It is also related to the word for ‘plead’ in ch 2.2. The indictments are summarized in three charges: [1] no faithfulness [remember the marriage motif]; [2] no steadfast love; [3] no knowledge of God in the land, that is no acknowledgement of Yahweh as their God, no intimate ‘knowing’ Yahweh in their affections, loyalties, faithfulness, or conduct. NOTE: these three themes will come up again and again throughout the Book. Make a mental note of them and watch as they are woven into all the messages to follow.  v 2 / Evidences are presented to support the indictment: nothing but the violation and breaking of all of the Ten Commandments. Look for them and identify them. Examples of these transgressions will be repeated in detail and presented as numerous examples of Yahweh’s evidences against them throughout this Book.
  2. vv 4-9 / The indictments against the priests especially and also the prophets included: their spiritual leaders had failed to teach and lead the people to ‘know’ Yahweh their God and Husband.  Verse 9 will transition Yahweh’s indictments now against ‘My people’ / v 12 who had all too willingly embraced and become like their unfaithful spiritual ‘leaders.’
  3. vv 10-19 / The numerous indictments against the promiscuous populace: My people / v 12. The sins they had willingly participated in following the ‘leadership’ and examples of their ‘leaders’: And it shall be like people, like priest / v 9. NOTE: v 16: here is the first of a numerous series of similes and metaphors Yahweh will employ to illustrate Israel’s faithlessness against Him. These illustrations will show Israel who they are by comparing them to likenesses they will readily recognize: ch 4.16; 6.4; 7.4, 7, 8, 11, 16. These indictments are all wrapped up in v 17: Ephraim is joined [wedded, married to; in illicit, promiscuous, adulterous, idolatrous union with] idols; leave him alone.

ch 5.1-7 / VERDICT: Following His indictments against their adulterous acts of faithlessness toward Him, Yahweh now proceeds to pronounce His verdict of judgment against them

  1. v 1 / Again, we are summoned to ‘Hear this, O priests! Pay attention, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you…’ This ‘judgment’ is Yahweh’s verdict that He is handing down against them. The priests and king [along with his ‘house’ or dynasty] are specifically addressed because they have been the ‘leaders’ in all of Israel’s faithless apostacy against Yahweh / v 7
  2. vv 2-7 / Obviously, the people have followed their ‘leadership’ so they will suffer the consequences of Yahweh’s verdict against Ephraim/Israel. [Ephraim is another synonymous name for Israel since Ephraim was one of the largest tribes in the northern kingdom.] And what is Yahweh’s verdict? “He has withdrawn from them” / v 6. He will withdraw His protections and defenses of the nation. He will turn them over to their enemies, particularly the Assyrians.

ch 5.8-15 / SENTENCE: Yahweh Himself will execute His sentence against them through the agency of their enemies according to the just punishments of His verdict against them

  1. vv 8-9 / “Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth-aven [Bethel]…” These are like air-raid sirens going off. Now the scene shifts from the court room to the battle field. Yahweh will turn them over to their enemies to be destroyed, become a desolation, crushed in judgment / vv 9, 11.
  2. vv 10-14 / What follows in these verses is a series of destructive judgments that Yahweh says He Himself will execute. He will come against them like: a flood of water, v 10; a devouring moth, v 12; a corrosive dry rot, v 12; festering wound, v 13; vicious lion, v 14.
  3. v 15 / Again, He reiterates His threat to withdraw His protection and defenses from them … but only for the purpose of bringing them to the end of themselves and cause them to see their need of Him, confess and repent of their sins, acknowledge their guilt, and seek Him earnestly, sincerely, and faithfulness. see Romans 2.4  

ch 6.1-3 / YAHWEH THE HEALER: Hosea interrupts his proclamations of judgments from Yahweh … to make an impassioned plea of his own: “Come, let us return to Yahweh…”

  1. This has to be a pivotal point in the Book. This is the message that Yahweh is delivering to Israel throughout all this Book. If they will only return to Him, be faithful to Him, and fulfill the covenant ‘marriage’ vows they have made to Yahweh, He will mercifully and graciously forgive them and save them. He will gladly have them back. But they have not listened to Yahweh, and they are not listening now. So Hosea takes it upon himself to make his own plea for Yahweh.
  2. v 1 / Connect ch 5.14, “I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one will rescue” with this promise: “for He has torn us, that He may heal us” / see ch 5.15. Israel has been appealing to even their neighboring enemy kingdoms to protect them from whichever other one of them may have been threatening them at the moment / see ch 5.13. But Yahweh still appeals to them, and stands ready and willing, to heal them and bind up all their wounds. But Israel still will not acknowledge Yahweh as their God.
  3. There has to be a prophetic reference here to the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Hosea is speaking and writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, ‘the Spirit of Christ’ who is in him / see 1 Peter 1.10-12. He is writing in his present moment and context expressing what he knows about the heart, desire, purposes, and character of Yahweh. But Hosea does not know the gracious fulfillment of all these prophecies and promises that will come to fruition in Jesus Christ and His Gospel. He just knows Yahweh will … because He has promised. All of this prospective salvation will be revealed, delivered, and fulfilled by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who will come 750 years later!  

ch 6.4-11 / ‘PLEASE HEAR MY HEART’: Yahweh takes up again with the pleas of His own heart for His covenant people

  1. vv 4-6 / ‘What am I supposed to do with you? How else can I respond to your gross, blatant, heartless, and incessant faithlessness toward Me? I will do what I have to do … though it tears at My heart to have to do it!’ NOTE: here [v 4] is another one of those numerous similes Yahweh employs to try to get them to look at themselves and how they have betrayed Him and been unfaithful to love Him in return for all His love for them. “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
  2. But we can’t move on from this plea without recognizing that we, too, are included among those who must examine our own hearts and be sure we are responding to Yahweh as He desires. Jesus also quoted this Scripture to expose, convict, and warn the hypocritical and heartless Pharisees that their empty religious rituals would not satisfy the heart of God / see Matthew 9.10-13 & 12.7.
  3. v 7 / In truth, Israel’s history of faithlessness against God and their transgressions of His covenant is the history of the whole human race. This is not just Israel’s national and provincial story – it is the story of us all!   

ch 7.1-16 / UNREQUITED LOVE: Yahweh continues with the pleas of His own heart … ‘I would have healed you, but you would not be healed’

  1. v 1 / “When I would heal Israel…” I have chosen this statement as the title of this lesson because THIS is what Yahweh desired to do. THIS is the sole purpose of all His stern warning, harsh indictments, and threatening verdicts that He has handed down. THIS is my continuing overture of love and mercy to you: “When I would heal Israel…” So how did Israel respond even to His very Face as He is pleading with them? When He comes to heal them, THIS is what He finds them doing…
  2. vv 2-7 / NOTE: another one of the several similes, the overheated oven: vv 4, 6, 7. But the heat with which they are overheated and burn is not the heat of passion to see Yahweh and return to Him … it is not the heat of repentance and remorse over their sins … it is not the heat of shame and disgrace they should have burned with over their sins. NO! The heat with which they burn is the heat of lustful adulteries, passion for unbridled debauchery of all kinds, and the heat of violence and bloodshed. Violent crime was rife in Israel. In fact, here in the northern kingdom Israel, at least three of their latter kings were assassinated by political rivals. This kind of unrestrained violence was the norm of their day.
  3. vv 8-13 / NOTE: two more similes to describe Israel’s faithlessness: ‘unturned cake’ and ‘silly dove.’ This time, it is their alliances with foreign nations, running to them, trusting them and depending on them to defend them from the other enemies who may be threatening them / vv 8, 11. “Yet they do not return to Yahweh their God, nor seek Him, for all this” / v 10. “I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me” / v 13.
  4. vv 14-17 / NOTE: another simile to describe their faithlessness: ‘treacherous bow.’ Their prayers are likened to the shooting of arrows from a bow. They were praying / see v 14. But their prayers were not from their hearts. All they wanted Yahweh to do was to give them relief and deliverance from their troubles. Yahweh Himself had been their strength and protection in all their past / Psalm 144.1-2; 18.34. But what did they do with the bow and the arrows Yahweh had provided for them and trained them to use against their enemies? They turned it back on Him! / vv 15-16.
  5. Sadly, there is more of the sad same to come. Our next lesson will open with another trumpet call to battle – Yahweh’s war against them. But He will ultimately triumph even over all their adulterous faithlessness – and ours – by the promise of salvation which He will send to us in His Son, Jesus Christ! Stay tuned…   

I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for My anger has turned from them [Hosea 14.4] … after it will be exhausted upon Christ on His Cross!

Hosea 6.1-4: “Come, let us return to the LORD; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

“But how can God be both the tearer and the healer? How can God tear up and at the same time heal those who turn to Him? How can He strike us down and at the same time bind up His people?

            The answer is the cross of Jesus. There at the cross God tore us apart. Yet not us, but the One who stood in our place – Jesus, the representative of God’s people. Jesus was torn that we might be healed. Jesus was struck down that we might be raised up. Jesus died the death we deserve so that we might live in God’s presence.

            …Hosea believed that somehow God would restore His people. A day would come when God’s people would be judged by God. They would be torn apart, destroyed, carried off with no one to rescue them. But God is true to His gracious promises and God is true to His gracious character. And so Hosea believed that somehow God would destroy His people – and then revive them. They would be wiped off the map and wiped out of history. But God would revive them and restore them.

            Seven hundred and fifty years or so later, Jesus was arrested and His disciples scattered (Matthew 26.31, 56). There was only one faithful member of the people of God – Jesus. Jesus is not only the Son of God. He is also the people of God. He is our representative. He is the real Israel, the faithful remnant, the true vine.

            In the end, there is only one faithful member of the people of God. And on that dark day He was arrested and condemned and crucified. He died and there was no one left. God’s people were destroyed. God’s people were struck down. There were no people of God. It was the end of the line. The story was over. God’s purpose was finished. As you look across the whole sweep of human history, there was only one faithful person. The faithful remnant came down to just one person – one true Israelite, one true man of God… And now even He is dead. And there was no one left. No one.

            But three days later Jesus walked from the tomb. The people who were dead are given new life. The people who were carried away are restored. The story that was over begins a new chapter.

            Jesus is our representative. God’s people are raised to live in His presence when Jesus walked out of the tomb. What Jesus achieved, He achieved on our behalf. If you are a Christian, then when Jesus walked out of the tomb you walked out of the tomb. Or rather we walked out of the tomb. It is not just that individuals are promised a future resurrection. The people of God as a collective entity were revived, were brought to new life. When Jesus defeated death, we defeated death. We are in Christ. So His story is our story. His death and resurrection are our death and resurrection. His victory over sin is our victory over sin.”   ~Tim Chester | HOSEA, The Passion of God | pages 107-109

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faithless wife … FAITHFUL HUSBAND

Posted on October 15, 2022 by PastorDave

HOSEA | Lesson 1 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

Read Hosea, chapters 1-3

INTRODUCTION

  1. What I want to do in these next four lessons is for us to at least read through Hosea together. I will divide the 14 chapters into lesson sections, trying to keep the subject matter and trains of thought relatively intact. There will inevitably be some ‘to be continued’ from one lesson to the other. Then, we’ll further sub-divide the lesson blocks into the messages, transitions, connections, and flow of thought within the selected lesson block.
  2. Our lessons will deal with roughly these divisions of the 14 chapters: Lesson 1, chs 1.1-3.5; Lesson 2, chs 4.1-7.16; Lesson 3, chs 8.1-12.1; Lesson 4, chs 12.2-14.9. I’m trying to keep the length of the four divisions as equal as I can. It will still be a challenge to even try to cover that much material in one lesson session.
  3. The over-arching theme and title of these lessons will be: “O Love that will not let me go” from Yahweh’s pleading heart in ch 11.8-9 [dare we say ‘achy-breaky heart’?]. Obviously, there will be a lot of summary of content and thought. But I do want to at least keep the trains of thought connected and flowing. This is Yahweh who is speaking from His heart. We want to listen, hear, and catch it all, and especially respond as we should. “In the message of Hosea we see the passion of God. We see the jealousy of God, the commitment of God, the heartbreak of God, the enthusiasm of God, the love of God. People often talk about what they feel about God. Hosea tells us what God feels about us.” [Tim Chester]

I / ch 1.1 / MEET HOSEA

  1. If you look at the kings of Judah who were reigning when Hosea prophesied, you notice that he ministered during the same times that Isaiah, Micah, Amos, and Jonah prophesied. Isaiah 1.1; Micah 1.1; Amos 1.1; 2 Kings 14.25.
  2. “Hosea’s ministry began during a period of expansion and prosperity. The reigns of Uzziah in Judah and of Jeroboam II in Israel during the first half of the eighty century BC was the second golden age in the history of God’s people (after the first golden age during the reigns of King David and King Solomon).” [Tim Chester] It was “a period of opulence, prosperity, opportunism, and scheming during which the rich and powerful availed themselves of all opportunities to live luxuriously. Hosea was God’s messenger to a complacent, self-indulgent, and apostate people.” [Willem A. VanGemeren]
  3. However, the prevailing theme and complaint of Yahweh’s heart against them was their spiritual faithlessness, adulteries [both physical and spiritual], and betrayal of their covenant marriage vows and relationship He had established with them.
  4. “Hosea’s experience with the promiscuous Gomer has legitimated his call to be Yahweh’s prophet … What many would consider a disqualification for the office – a prophet whose own wife was morally out of control – serves in this case as credentials. This is because Yahweh and Hosea have shared the same experience – that of marriage to an unfaithful spouse. Thus the book tells the stories of Hosea’s and Yahweh’s marriages in both first and third-person texts – each ‘husband’ speaks for himself and has the other speak on his behalf.” [Duane A. Garrett]

II / ch 1.2 – 2.1 / YAHWEH COMMISSIONS HOSEA TO MARRY A WIFE WHO WOULD PROVE TO BE UNFAITHFUL TO HIM … AS ISRAEL HAD BEEN TO HIM

  1. vv 2-3a / Yahweh called Hosea to experience the same kind of heartbreak and betrayal that He Himself [Yahweh] was suffering from the unfaithfulness of His people, Israel. Whether Gomer was promiscuous when Hosea married her, we don’t know. But she sure will turn out to be excessively promiscuous – just as Israel had done against Yahweh.
  2. vv 3a-5 / Gomer conceived with their first child, a son. It appears that Hosea was this son’s father. Whether the next two children are Hosea’s, again we don’t know. But, of course, Hosea became a father to them. This first son’s name was Jezreel by the naming of Yahweh. Jezreel means “Yahweh will sow or plant” / see ch 2.22-23. Jezreel was known in that day for its excessive bloodshed. That is not the meaning of the word/name, but that was its association and connotation / see 1 Kings 21.1, 23 & 2 Kings 10.1-8. Kinda like ‘Watergate’ has become synonymous with political scandal – so much so that every scandal since then has had ‘gate’ tacked on to the end of the scandal. Yahweh could have been associating this history of bloodshed with the child’s name, or He could have been drawing a sharp contrast between ‘sowing/planting’ and ‘put an end to.’ However, as will see later in chs 1.11 & 2.21-23, He will fulfill the literal meaning of Jezreel in the latter days.
  3. vv 6-7 / She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy,” for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. If your translation has ‘Lo-Ruhamah,’ it’s because that’s the name in Hebrew. But, it means ‘Unloved,’ or ‘No Mercy’ as in pity, compassion, or caring for. Yahweh’s commitment to Israel was to always have this mercy toward them; but they had so violated their ‘marriage vows’ to Yahweh as to nullify the marriage. Therefore Yahweh vows to withdraw His vows of mercy to them. He does, however, promise to continue showing mercy to the southern kingdom Judah – at least for that time.
  4. vv 8-9 / When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. 9 And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People,” for you are not my people, and I am not your God. This was the base promise and summary of the ‘marriage covenant’ Yahweh had made with Israel at Sinai / Exodus 6.7 & Leviticus 26.12, and numerous other Scriptures – culminating in Revelation 21.3-4.
  5. vv 10-2.1 / Yet, as we shall see all through Hosea, Yahweh’s purpose is to afflict them with His ‘tough love’ and discipline to bring them back to Himself. He makes that promise here and gives us His word! There is a six-fold promise here: [1] Restoration of the people; [2] Renewal of the covenant; [3] Reconciliation of the divisions; [4] Reinstatement of the King; [5] Return to the land; [6] Recognition of God. All of these promises are ‘Yes and Amen’ to them and to us through Christ who will come in the fullness of time! Notice this ‘one head’ who will be over them; this is none other than ‘David their king’ [ch 3.5], and that is none other than Christ! All of these promises will be fulfilled in the New Covenant He will make with them. And we will be included also!
  6. Paul quotes this passage at length in Romans 9.22-26 to show how Yahweh turned away from unbelieving Israel to show mercy to the Gentiles … and all so that He could turn back and include the believing Israelites again also! In effect, unbelieving Israel became ‘Gentile’ so they could be called back in again to join the believing Gentiles in the new Israel!

III / ch 2.2-13 / YAHWEH COMMITS TO CONTINUE TO WOO AND ALLURE ISRAEL THROUGH HIS ‘TOUGH LOVE’ – PLEADING WITH HER TO RETURN TO HIM FROM HER ADULTEROUS IDOLATRIES AND WORSHIP OF THE BAALS

  1. Chapter 2 describes the ‘interventions’ Yahweh will take as He pleads with Israel to love Him back, return to Him, and be as faithful to Him as He has been to them. He will act toward them in keeping with the names He told Hosea to give to his children: Jezreel, No Mercy, Not My People. Israel was acting out every one of these names in their relationship with Him. He will now respond to them in like manner in hopes of showing them their love-debt to Him and need of Him.
  2. v 2 / This is an interesting plea Yahweh makes here. Actually, He is calling on the faithful individuals in Israel to make the pleas for Him to ‘your mother’ Israel. He is not pleading with adulterous Israel Himself – He’s calling on His believers in Israel to plead with their faithless mother on His behalf. Kinda like a betrayed and violated husband would enlist his children to plead with his estranged wife, their mother, on his behalf…because she will not give him the time of day: ‘that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts.’
  3. vv 3-4 / If she does not return to Him, He will take these drastic measures of punishment against her for her faithlessness. Yahweh calls up images of the very ‘honeymoon’ beginnings of their ‘marriage’ – when He ‘married’ her in the wilderness after redeeming her from bondage in Egypt. see Yahweh’s similar pleas to Jerusalem and Judah in Ezekiel 16.1-14 ff. He reminds them how HE had rescued, ‘married,’ and gave them water and all the life provisions they ever needed in the wilderness. But now, if they will not return to Him, He will abandon them as He did NOT do in the beginning.
  4. v 5 / This is what Israel has done to Yahweh: she has abandoned Him and prostituted herself to the worship of the Baals. The Baals were preeminently gods of fertility. Baal’s worshipers prostituted themselves even physically in their acts of worship to them … in the hopes of getting from them in return abundant harvests and generous provisions for their needs of life. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,’ adulteries both spiritual and physical with the temple cult prostitutes in their acts of worship / see ch 4.10-14.
  5. vv 6-13 / Yahweh commits Himself to a course of ‘interventions’ He will perform against them: find, note, and list all the ‘tough love interventions’ Yahweh says ‘I will…’ do in vv 6, 9-13. Note also the ‘Therefore’ Yahweh offers at the beginning of v 6. His response to them will be a direct and consequential ‘cause and effect’ response to them and how they have treated Him. v 5: ‘For their mother…For she said…’ / ‘Therefore I will…’
  6. vv 7-8 / This is another summary of Israel’s ‘hot’ pursuit after her ‘lovers’ false Baal gods – and their giving themselves in to all their spiritual and physical lusts, desires, and hormones. They were making offerings to the Baals with the very gifts Yahweh had given them in His faithful compassions toward them. But they prostituted themselves and Yahweh’s gifts to the Baals. When Israel finds themselves in hard times because of Yahweh’s interventions, they will return to Him … but only in pretense. All they’re interested in is whichever ‘god’ can give them the ‘stuff’ they want and crave.

IV / ch 2.14-15 / YAHWEH ‘ALLURES’ ISRAEL INTO THE WILDERNESS OF AFFLICTION TO GIVE HER A ‘DOOR OF HOPE’

  1. All of these afflictions Yahweh will bring upon them will serve the purpose of getting Israel off to Himself so He can speak tenderly to her – words and messages of love, faith, hope, and salvation.
  2. When Israel is finally carried off into exile in Assyria, they will be separated from the Baals and all the corrupting influences they pursued and succumbed to in their homeland. This Valley of Achor is found in Joshua 7.25-26 where Achan was executed for lusting after the plunder of Jericho. ‘Achor’ means ‘trouble.’ Yahweh will rewind and ‘circle back around’ to that event in their Assyrian exile. But what they will learn in the Valley of Trouble is that, if they will abandon their idolatries and return to their Husband Yahweh, He will open up for them a door of hope. Jesus Christ and His Gospel is that Hope – our Hope – our sure Hope – our only Hope! / John 12.27 & Hebrews 6.19

V / ch 2.16-23 / YAHWEH PROMISES HIS GOSPEL…TO BE FULFILLED IN CHRIST!

  1. vv 16, 18, 21 / There is coming a day! “In that day…on that day…” This Day has begun in Christ, His New Covenant, and His Gospel! It will be fully and finally consummated in the New Heaven and New Earth.
  2. vv 16-17 / The true Israel [the people of God] will confess Yahweh as her Husband. The name ‘Baal’ just means ‘lord, master, owner.’ It is not just the name of the false gods of Baal. Baal is actually a generic word which was most specifically applied to those gods. On the other hand, ‘Yahweh’ is our God’s proper Name which He Himself gave to Moses at the burning bush and by which He is known and called. There were many ‘Baals,’ but there is only one ‘Yahweh.’ “In that Day, declares Yahweh, you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’” In other words, the true Israel will confess Yahweh as our covenant Husband and not just as our owner, master, or lord – though He is all that, too. The covenant marriage relationship will be restored in keeping with Yahweh’s promise in ch 1.10-11.
  3. v 18 / This covenant is reminiscent of the Noahic covenant after the destruction of the flood / Genesis 9.1-17. It is also reminiscent of the blessedness of the creation in the first days before the fall into sin and the ensuing corruption that resulted from sin / Romans 8.18-25. It is also a covenant of the New Creation. That New Creation has already begun in Christ / 2 Corinthians 5.17, et al. It will be fully and finally consummated in the New Heaven and New Earth / 2 Peter 3.13; Revelation 21.1-5.
  4. vv 19-20 / Yahweh makes a three-fold promise of “I will betroth you to Me…”: [1] forever; [2] in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy; [3] in faithfulness. And you shall know Yahweh. This is not just awareness, or even acquaintance. It is not just ‘know about Me,’ but this is the language of intimacy, marital union and faithfulness. This is the same ‘know’ that is used all throughout the Scriptures for conjugal, sexual, marital relationships / as in Genesis 4.1, et al.
  5. vv 21-23 / This is Yahweh’s promises reiterated and set in a hymn. To ‘answer’ is to respond to the request and need that is presented. ALL of it will come from Yahweh to fully satisfy all their desires and needs. Yahweh controls, commands, and coordinates all the elements of His creation to administer providences for the salvation of His people and keeping of His covenant. And the final answer will be: “Jezreel!” REMEMBER: Jezreel means ‘Yahweh will sow/plant.’ Yahweh will save His people and dwell with us forever in the New Heaven and New Earth. And I will sow her for Myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are My people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God!’

VI / ch 3.1-5 / YAHWEH COMMISSIONS HOSEA AGAIN TO EXPRESS HIS OWN ‘LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET US GO’ TO HIS STILL UNFAITHFUL WIFE, GOMER

  1. v 1 / It appears that Gomer has not only promiscuously prostituted herself out to numerous adulterous lovers, but has even fallen into some kind of ‘sex slave’ bondage. She is living with some ‘another man’ who owns her … maybe even pimping her out. Which is exactly what Israel has done to Yahweh.  BTW, these cakes of raisins were evidently offerings that were made to the Baals, and maybe even eaten during their sexual encounters.
  2. vv 2 / It isn’t just a matter of asking Gomer ‘who do you want to be with’ … Hosea has to ‘redeem’ and buy back his own wife from her sex slave owner. He does. He pays whatever has to be paid to redeem her and take her back to himself. Think and see 1 Peter 1.18-19 here.
  3. vv 3-4 / Just as Hosea instructs Gomer that she will have to dwell with him for many days as his wife and abstain from her promiscuous and lustful liaisons with other ‘lovers’: You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you … so also Yahweh uses that painful, heart-wrenching experience to illustrate His own purposes for the Assyrian captivity and exile He will bring upon Israel. He will separate them from all their illicit paramours and have them to Himself. And all for the purpose of breaking them from their idolatries.
  4. v 5 / In the end – through the Gospel of Jesus Christ – He will call them again to seek Him and love Him with all their hearts as He covenanted with them in the beginning of their marriage relationship.

This will come to pass in the latter days. Those days are NOW! The Gospel of Jesus Christ has begun in Judea [Judah], then on to Samaria [Israel], and even to the ends of the earth! / Acts 1.8

AND HERE WE ARE!

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“Should not I pity…?”

Posted on October 8, 2022 by PastorDave

Jonah | Lesson 2 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

Read Jonah, chapters 3-4

INTRODUCTION

  1. This is Lesson 2, but the Lesson Notes were very scantily written for Lesson 1 since my time and attention was so preoccupied the week leading up to Lesson 1. I invested what time I had in study and lesson preparation and very little to the writing of Lesson Notes.
  2. Lesson 1 was titled ‘Salvation Belongs to Yahweh!’ from Jonah’s concluding confession of faith and thanksgiving in ch 2.9 following his ‘salvation’ from the belly of the great fish.
  3. This lesson is titled ‘Should not I pity…?’ from Yahweh’s concluding rebuke and explanation that He delivered to Jonah at the end of ch 4.11. We’ll elaborate further on that question at the end of this lesson as Yahweh expresses the overall theme of this Book: Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy [from the title of Bryan D. Estelle’s excellent commentary on this Book…].
  4. The Book of Jonah neatly divides itself into these two divisions which we are now concluding…

I / ch 3.1-4 / YAHWEH’S SECOND CALL TO JONAH & JONAH’S RESPONSE

  1. vv 1-2 / Take Two! Compare these two verses with ch 1.1-2. In this call, Yahweh also commissions Jonah to call out against it the message that I tell you. Whereas in ch 1, He simply said call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me. It very well may have been that He included the message that I tell you in the first call also. Whether He told Jonah what the content of that message would be, we don’t know … or whether He would tell Jonah what the message was when he got there. We do know from v 4 here, that when Jonah got to Nineveh, his message was primarily a message of their accountability to Yahweh and His judgment against their sin.
  2. v 3a / This time, Jonah obeyed Yahweh instead of running away from Yahweh and his responsibility in the opposite direction.
  3. v 3b / The description of Nineveh being an exceedingly great city means specifically ‘a great city to God.’ God cared about them [as He will express at the end of the Book in ch 4.11]. His first and priority desire was not to destroy them, but to save them. Hold on to that…
  4. What do we make of this description of Nineveh: three days’ journey in breadth? It was not that expansive in circumference or physical size; rather, being an important diplomatic city of Assyria, most likely it means that there were strategic centers of activity in the city where Jonah would deliver his message from Yahweh – it would take him at least three days to stop long enough and preach in these strategic points to convey his messages to the whole city.
  5. v 4 / Which is what Jonah did the first day which is described here. He began to publicly and boldly preach his message of Yahweh’s judgments against their sin: Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! And we can be sure that he based his messages firmly on Yahweh’s authority and His sending him to them to deliver it!

II / ch 3.5-9 / THE PEOPLE AND KING OF NINEVEH RESPOND WITH HUMILITY, CONFESSION OF THEIR SINS & REPENTANCE

  1. v 5 / There was a popular response among the populace of Nineveh. The record here says And the people of Nineveh believed God. Notice that the word God is used here instead of Yahweh. However, they were acknowledging that Yahweh was the Supreme God. There is something else we must not miss. In Luke 11.32, Jesus says for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, meaning they accepted his message being from God. But Jesus also says back up in v 30, For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh [comparing this to the ‘sign’ that He Himself was to His own generation]. So what we can and should learn from this statement is that Jonah himself was a ‘sign’ of Yahweh’s judgment against sin and disobedience, but also His willingness to have mercy and save those who repent of their sin [which Jonah himself had done…and was saved from the belly of the great fish]. Maybe something about his physical appearance? Or from his personal accounts of how Yahweh had saved him from the belly of the great fish?
  2. vv 6-7 / There was also a royal response from the king of Nineveh – his own humility and repentance as well as a royal decree to every citizen of Nineveh, including even the livestock!
  3. v 8 / His decree included not only public humility and mourning over their sin accompanied by fasting, but also a decree to cry mightily to God. This was the same kind of crying prayer that the sailors offered to God in 1.14 and Jonah himself prayed in 2.2. It is the praying, crying, calling out to God in abject desperation, casting oneself upon His sovereign mercy to save them from the impending judgment against their sin. He also commanded Let everyone turn [repentance is another meaning of this word ‘turn’] from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. This ‘violence’ means all their acts of oppression, cruelty, and injustices against others. It means ‘infringement of human rights’ that are perpetrated against others.
  4. v 9 / Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish. This is his clear summary of their dependance on the sovereign mercy of God. See another expression like this in Joel 2.12-14.

III / ch 3.10 / YAHWEH DOES RESPOND WITH COMPASSION, MERCY, & SALVATION

  1. This is precisely what He wanted to do … and why He sent Jonah with His messages of judgment. Again, Yahweh will reiterate His desire to save – yes, even His worst enemies and among the Gentiles – in ch 4.11.
  2. This is the Gospel Yahweh is pre-enacting in the story of Jonah…which will be fulfilled in the mission of Christ? see Romans 5.6-11.

IV / ch 4.1-3 / JONAH’S FURIOUS OBJECTION TO YAHWEH’S MERCY: “I OBJECT!”

  1. Now we’re coming to the real core and pith of Yahweh’s heart for the nations and His desire and purpose to save them. But Jonah quickly gets cross-ways with Yahweh and begins to protest angrily with what Yahweh has done in His mercy to the Ninevites…
  2. Jonah’s response here makes us question and speculate what was in his heart when he did obey Yahweh to deliver His message to the Ninevites. We know he obeyed the second commission and went. But did he go reluctantly? Did he go ‘under protest’? We know he had reservations about what Yahweh would do if he obeyed and went because he will tell Yahweh he did. He knew he had no choice but to obey, but did he obey Yahweh under the coercion of his own knowing he had tried the alternative and it had failed? Of course, we don’t know what all was going on in his mind and thoughts, but he’s going to show us at least part of it here…
  3. v 1 / Jonah was not only ticked – ‘But it was evil to Jonah a great evil.’ Meaning, Jonah considered Yahweh’s salvation of the Ninevites a great travesty of justice. And he told Yahweh so. He begins to give Yahweh ‘a piece of his mind.’
  4. v 2 / But at least Jonah began to pray. He’s trying to ‘wrap his head around’ what he knows about Yahweh’s character. O Yahweh, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish…” Now he reveals some of what was going through his mind when he fled from the Presence of Yahweh [ch 1.3 & 10]. …for I knew that You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. This was the primary standing summary of Yahweh’s heart and character ever since He revealed Himself to Moses with these words in Exodus 34.6. [Again, the ‘relenting from disaster’ is in Joel 2.13] Like Jonah is telling Yahweh “I knew You would do this. That’s why I didn’t want to be party to it!”
  5. So what Jonah reveals from his own heart here is not so much a xenophobic hatred against the Assyrians and Ninevites – a prejudice and bigotry against them – but more so, his problem is with Yahweh Himself. Jonah could understand how Yahweh could and would show this kind of mercy to Israel, even in their own rebellions, faithlessness, and disobedience against Him [as He had shown on numerous, repeated occasions] … but how could and why would He show this mercy on Ninevites? Didn’t His mercy belong exclusively to the covenant nation and people? Weren’t they exclusively entitled to His covenant mercies? “Your saving mercy belongs to us! Why are You giving it to these Ninevites?”
  6. v 3 / Jonah would rather die that have to witness Yahweh’s mercy and salvation being shared with and extended to the Ninevites.

V / ch 4.4 / YAHWEH BEGINS TO PATIENTLY COUNSEL AND REASON WITH JONAH

  1. And Yahweh said, ‘Do you do well to be angry?’ “Jonah, I’m going to give you an opportunity to look into your own heart and see what’s there. What’s your problem with Me? What have I done that I shouldn’t have done? Where have I done wrong?”
  2. There is so much compassion for Jonah here. Yahweh could have zapped Jonah into ether for questioning or objecting to His mercy to His and Israel’s enemies … but instead, Yahweh begins to try to bring Jonah around to being in sync with His own heart and salvific purposes. But it’s going to be a hard sell!

VI / ch 4.5-9 / YAHWEH WORKS JONAH THROUGH AN OBJECT LESSON TO EXPOSE HIS MISPLACED PRIORITIES AND ‘PITY’

  1. v 5 / Jonah doesn’t even answer Yahweh’s question. He knows he’s cross-ways with Yahweh and in the wrong. But we know how stubborn, hard-headed, and insistent on having his own way he can be. Instead of responding to Yahweh, he stomps out of the saved city, and goes out of the city a ‘safe’ distance [just in case Yahweh changes His mind and reverses course to destroy the city after all], builds himself a lean-to with as much shade as he could construct, and sits and sulks and stews in his continuing anger at Yahweh: “How could You?” He’s obviously throwing a hissy fit and temper tantrum … thinking he might persuade Yahweh to pity his attitude and concede to him?
  2. v 6 / Now Yahweh begins His object lesson by ‘preparing’ or ‘appointing’ a number of physical phenomena. [Remember: the first object lesson Yahweh ‘prepared’ or ‘appointed’ was the great fish in ch 1.17. There are three more to come in this object lesson: vv 6,7,8.] Now the LORD God [Sovereign Yahweh] appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. Just another expression and demonstration of Yahweh’s ‘saving’ mercy to Jonah personally … as the great fish had already been.
  3. v 7 / Yahweh again demonstrates His absolute sovereignty over all the elements and creatures of His universe: But when the dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away. But this time, Jonah will take it personally… “Hey, that’s MY mercy! I’m entitled to it! You can’t take that away from me!”
  4. v 8 / When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” Now we have to see here that Yahweh is revealing to Jonah – from his own heart, experiences, and words – that Jonah is self-centered on his own comfort, convenience, preferences … and on his own mercies that he receives from Yahweh. But he has no heart at all, no pity at all whether the Ninevites would have been destroyed under Yahweh’s judgment. In fact, he would have preferred that! He was glad for the plant because it shaded and ‘saved’ him from his own discomforts. But he was furious at Yahweh because He had ‘shaded’ and saved the whole city of Nineveh from the heat and wrath of His fury had He chosen to destroy them!
  5. For the second time, Jonah prays to die: for it is better for me to die than to live. He would rather die that live to see the Ninevites saved [v 3]. Here, he would rather die than suffer his own physical discomfort from the shade of the plant Yahweh had provided for him. He didn’t want to suffer from the heat of the noonday sun … but he would have been happier if Yahweh had poured out the heat of His wrath upon the whole city of Nineveh.
  6. v 9 / Yahweh again confronts Jonah with His searching question: But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” We call this ‘doubling down.’ “Jonah, do you see yourself? Do you hear yourself? Are you willing to stand by what you have just done and said to Me?” Jonah’s stubborn, insistent response: “Yes, I am!”
  7. The object lesson has been demonstrated, and the lessons clearly drawn out … but Jonah refuses to see the point in what Yahweh has done or learn the lesson Yahweh wants to teach him. Or, if he does see the contrast between his own self-centered heart and that of Yahweh’s, he’s not willing to admit and concede to this exposure of his heart.

VII / ch 4.10-11 / YAHWEH APPLIES THE OBJECT LESSON – WHY HE HAS SAVED NINEVEH & HE CALLS JONAH TO GET IN SYNC WITH HIS OWN HEART FOR THE NATIONS

  1. v 10 / So here Yahweh just points out to Jonah what He just demonstrated in the object lesson: And Yahweh said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.” Of course, that was irrefutable. To ‘pity’ means more than just having sympathetic feelings toward or feeling sorry for. It means to have enough concern for the plight of the objects of your pity that you are willing to act and intervene to save them through every means available to you. Which Jonah would have done for the plant if he could have. The plant was ‘saving’ his life … or at least the comfort of his life. Since he couldn’t save the plant, then he might as well die. He hadn’t created the plant; he hadn’t made it grow; he couldn’t sustain it or save it – Yahweh did all of that by His own sovereign power and mercy toward Jonah. Why couldn’t Jonah feel any of this ‘pity’ toward a whole city of Ninevites – and even furiously object and protest against Yahweh when He did?
  2. v 11 / And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle? The 120,000 demographic apparently applies to the whole population of Nineveh. Ancient cities were not large enough for that number to apply only to children who are ‘innocent’ of moral culpability. When Yahweh says ‘who do not know their right hand from their left,’ He is not saying they were innocent of sin because they certainly were not. “For their evil has come up before Me [1.2]. But, they were ‘ignorant’ of sin as Yahweh defines sin. They were ‘ignorant’ of their accountability to Yahweh until Jonah went at Yahweh’s commission to tell them they were and to call them to repentance. But, when Jonah did, the Ninevites believed God, and they repented for what Yahweh had told them. And He saved them.     

Jonah’s story is Yahweh’s intentional picture, pointer, prophecy, and pre-enactment of His desires and purpose to save the nations – yes, even those outside of His Old Testament covenant – by His future sending and the coming of Jesus Christ into our world: “And behold, something greater than Jonah is here!” [Matthew 12.41]. And Jesus will save us by suffering upon Himself the full weight and fury of God’s wrath against our sins. Our sins will suffer the just punishment and judgment against them by Jesus’ death on the Cross. And God will have mercy on us when we put our trust and faith in Jesus. This is Yahweh’s “Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy”!

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Yahweh restores! Hope in Him!

Posted on September 24, 2022 by PastorDave

Amos | Lesson 4 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

Read Amos 8.1-9.15

INTRODUCTION

  1. This is the fourth and concluding lesson in this current summary/survey of the Book of Amos. Our first lesson was Yahweh roars! Listen to Him! The second lesson was Yahweh calls! Return to Him! The third lesson was Yahweh shows! Appeal to Him! As you study each of these first three lessons, you will find that we have titled each one after key words and expressions that are found in each section of Amos’s prophetic messages from Yahweh.
  2. This fourth and concluding lesson is ‘Yahweh restores! Hope in Him!’ because after all the indictments and condemnations of their egregious faithlessness toward Him and transgressions against His covenant He had made with them, Yahweh will conclude His messages with a promise of restoration “In that day…” We now know this to be the ‘Day’ of Christ’s coming and His Gospel of Grace. We know this because this very concluding promise in ch 9.11-12 is quoted in Acts 15.12-17 by James, the half-brother of Jesus. He was quoting Amos here as Peter along with Paul and Barnabas were relating their accounts how the Gospel was being preached to the Gentiles, and they were responding by believing it and putting their faith in Christ!
  3. But we’re getting ahead of the start of this lesson. This lesson will actually pick up where our last lesson left off. Remember: our last lesson was ‘Yahweh shows! Appeal to Him!’ because Amos was relating a series of five visions Yahweh ‘showed’ him: ‘This is what the Lord GOD showed me…” In our last lesson, we introduced the first three of the five ‘shows.’ The first two ‘shows’ were ‘event shows,’ and the events were [1] swarms of locusts / ch 7.1-3, and [2] judgment by fire / ch 7.4-6. Both of these events will be thoroughly consuming and destructive, ‘eating up the land.’
  4. The third ‘show’ was a ‘word-play show’ in which Yahweh uses a metaphor, or a word-picture, to describe His coming judgment. This word-play show was a plumbline. Yahweh’s message was that He was measuring Israel for straightness [or righteousness] and they were sorely out of plumb. And so their kingdom would fall, be destroyed, made desolate, laid waste.

I / ch 8.1-14 / THE FOURTH VISION ‘SHOW’: A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT

  1. v 1 / Like the plumbline vision or ‘show,’ this too is a word-play, or metaphor, show. Yahweh is showing Amos, and Amos will preach to Israel, that they, as a nation, were to Him a basket of summer fruit. Whatever this ‘basket of summer fruit’ means … it means “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.” In other words, time’s up, the final curtain is about to fall. There will be no more reprieves or stays of judgment. Yahweh’s guilty verdict against their transgressions has been read, the sentence has been pronounced, and the execution has been scheduled. It will be carried out.
  2. v 2 / We need to take whatever time it takes to understand the significance of ‘a basket of summer fruit’ meant to them in their context. [1] It certainly meant that their ‘fruit’ of sin had grown fully ‘ripe’ and the time of reaping the consequences had come / Galatians 5.7-8. [2] But, it means much more than just generic ripe fruit – this basket is full of ‘summer fruit.’ Summer fruit was the very last harvest and produce of their year-long agricultural year. “The summer fruit was the last to come in Israel’s agricultural calendar. It came at the end of the season. Therefore, just as Israel’s agricultural cycle had an end, so will Israel as a nation.” [T. J. Betts, Amos] [3] Also, the word-play continues in that the Hebrew word for ‘summer fruit’ [qayits] sounds very much like their word for ‘end’ [qeets]. In fact, the way they pronounced it there in the dialect and inflection of the northern kingdom Israel, they may have even shortened the longer word so that it sounded exactly like the shorter word. So, when Amos pronounced ‘basket of summer fruit,’ he may have even sounded it out like ‘basket of the end.’ This was the message Yahweh is delivering to Israel by this ‘show.’
  3. v 3 / Instead of the joyful songs of harvest they were accustomed to singing to celebrate their harvests, they would be mourning and wailing funeral dirges … and their baskets of ‘harvest’ would be full of bloody, gory, dead bodies…
  4. vv 4-6 / Yahweh tells them what their ‘basket of summer fruit / the end’ was full of: it was all of their repeated, insistent, rebellious, egregious transgressions against Him and against one another. [1] They had no compassion toward the needy and poor / v 4; [2] Their idolatrous religious services were without any worship or heart for Yahweh – their minds were on making more money and profit / v 5a; [3] Their business practices were corrupt with cheating, under-weighing, and over-pricing / v 5b; [4] Their dealings with their weaker and poorer neighbors were oppressive, abusive, and full of injustices / v 6.
  5. vv 7-8 / Yahweh swears by Himself again as He already has twice before [chs 4.2 & 6.8]. Here He ‘has sworn by the pride of Jacob’ meaning that He Himself should have been their pride; but instead of boasting of their pride in Him, they had exchanged Him for pride in themselves, in their own accomplishments of prosperity and military strength, and even pride in the false gods they had chosen to worship [see ch 6.8]. So because of all this faithlessness toward Him, He will bring upon them floods of death and judgments … their land will be ‘flooded,’ and they will swept away with His judgments like the Nile floods and then recedes every year.
  6. vv 9-10 / When that time comes, their ‘darkness’ of death, destruction, desolation will be like a total eclipse of the sun at noonday. REMEMBER: at the time Amos is delivering these messages, Israel was flush with prosperity and military strength. They were as rich and powerful as they had been since the zenith era of David and Solomon. They couldn’t imagine that such ‘dark’ times would come at any future time. But, the ‘end’ has come … and Yahweh delivers four dark pronouncements of “I will” that He will bring upon them. NOTE: the repetition of ‘mourn,’ ‘mourning,’ ‘lamentation,’ ‘sackcloth,’ ‘baldness’ [another expression of mourning],  ‘mourning,’ ‘bitter day.’
  7. vv 11-12 / The Sovereign Yahweh continues to press upon them how bitter this day will be. There will be not only famine of physical food, but they will desperately seek some word of comfort, some message of salvation and deliverance, some glimmer of hope for rescue from Yahweh’s judgments … but they will not find any. WHY? Because Yahweh has been pleading with them for centuries and generations – repeatedly and persistently sending His prophets to them with His ‘words of Yahweh’ to turn them from their wicked ways. But they have rejected and spurned every word of His pleadings and warnings. When the day of judgment comes, Yahweh will have no further word for them – except for these He is delivering to them in this very message. But all you have to do to assess how they are rebelling against this very word is go back to chapter 7.10-17. They will continue on with this same rebellious rejection of Yahweh’s appeals to them until the ‘end.’
  8. vv 13-14 / The youngest and strongest among them will faint and die along with the older, weaker, and more infirm among them. They all will die alike. They will continue to swear their allegiance to their false gods, idols, traditions, and religion that got them to where they are now. Yahweh calls it ‘the Guilt of Samaria.’ He is referring here to the golden calf idols that Jeroboam I had set up when they first seceded from Judah [see 1 Kings 12.25-33]. One calf idol was set up in the south at Bethel and the other one in north in Dan [v 29]. These false gods and the whole system of religious observances that was established around it became their ‘guilt,’ their ‘sin,’ their ‘end’ [see also Hosea 8.6 & 10.8].

II / ch 9.1-10 / THE FIFTH VISION ‘SHOW’: THE LORD STANDING BESIDE THE ALTAR

  1. This is the fifth and final vision ‘show’ that Yahweh gives Amos to deliver to Israel. And again … this vision is one of final destruction that will come upon them because of their sins.
  2. v 1a / Let’s identify this ‘the altar’ where Amos sees the Lord standing to deliver His judgments against Israel. What altar? Where is it? This altar has a long history: [1] Likely, this is the same altar that Jeroboam I erected for the worship of the golden calf he had set up in Bethel [see 1 Kings 12.25-33, especially vv 32-33]. Not only that, but at that very time, when Jeroboam I began worshiping at this altar and making sacrifices on it, Yahweh had sent an unnamed prophet to the first King Jeroboam to denounce the idolatrous altar and condemn it to destruction [see 1 Kings 13.1-5]. Yahweh further prophesied: “Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you” [v 2]. The altar, even at that earlier time, had been supernaturally ‘rent’ [KJV], split, ‘torn down’ [ESV] and the ashes spilled out on the ground [vv 3-5] as a sign that its future final desecration and destruction would be carried out. THIS first encounter was at the beginning of the altar when it was first built under Jeroboam I. The future Judah King Josiah would be 300 hundred years later … but he did in time to come just as Yahweh had prophesied he would do [see 2 Kings 25.15-20]. [2] ALSO, this ‘the altar’ was likely the place where Amos had the hostile encounter with the priest of Bethel in ch 7.10-17, when Amos pronounced their coming ‘exile away from its land.’ [3] NOW, in Amos 9, this same altar in Bethel comes under judgment again. Amos sees the Lord Himself standing beside the altar as He decries it, denounces it in His displeasure, and decrees its coming destruction and the destruction of Samaria. [4] ‘The altar’ also had become the focal point and the very symbol and definition of their rebellion and transgressions against Yahweh / see again Amos 8.14; Hosea 8.1-6 & 10.8. [5] This ‘the altar’ had also become their ‘good luck charm’ and talisman in which they had come to trust – they had deceived and deluded themselves into believing that if they came to this altar, conducted services there, made offerings and sacrifices there, that Yahweh would be obligated to deliver them … even in spite of their continued violations of all His covenant commands and their responsibility to be faithful to Him / see 8.14 again.
  3. v 1b / Their destruction will be violent and complete. But Yahweh declares that He will completely destroy Samaria along with all their temples, idols, and places of false worship. ‘Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on heads of all the people.’ The ‘capitals’ were the ornately carved heads and tops of the columns that supported their buildings. Yahweh will send an earthquake [which were common in that region and that day – see ch 1.1]. The earthquake will ‘bring the house down’ killing those who were in the temple. If any escaped from the earthquake, they will be killed by the swords of the invaders.
  4. vv 2-4 / Their destruction will be inescapable. There will be no place to go to escape the invaders whom Yahweh will send upon them to execute His just and deserved punishments: ‘If they dig into Sheol [the grave, unseen regions of the departed dead]…,’ ‘if they climb up to heaven…,’ ‘If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel [mountainous, heavily-forested regions] …,’ ‘and if they hide from My sight at the bottom of the sea…,’ – yes, even if they survive all the desolations that come upon Samaria ‘and if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them….’         
  5. vv 5-6 / Their destruction will be sovereignly executed by the hand of Yahweh. Yahweh declares again His unquestioned Lordship, power, and control over all the elements of His created universe. ALL of them are at His disposal, and He executes His sovereign purposes in the ways He administers them. He ‘shows’ His Holiness and justice in them: ‘Yahweh is His Name.’
  6. vv 7-10 / Their destruction will be no different than the destructions He brought upon their pagan neighboring kingdoms. Yahweh is sovereign over ALL the nations. His justice requires that He judge without showing partiality.  The Cushites were from Ethiopia to the south in Africa. And yet Yahweh had established them also. Even the Philistines and Syrians had established their national identities under Yahweh’s dominion. They had experienced their own similar ‘exodus’ beginnings under Yahweh’s oversight: “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?” But though Israel had enjoyed immensely special privileges from Yahweh, they had proven to be unfaithful to Him and all of His mercies – and now He will utter destroy them ‘from the surface of the ground…’ / v 8a. All of their self-constructed deceptions and delusions will betray them and fail them in the ‘end’ – “All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake us or meet us’” / v 10.   

BUT! there is a dramatic turning point in verse 8b: “‘…except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,’ declares Yahweh.” Yahweh’s messages through Amos now conclude with a promise of restoration. “In that day…Behold, the days are coming…”

III / vv 11-15 / YAHWEH RESTORES! HOPE IN HIM!

  1. Build back better! So here’s where we get the title of this lesson.  Note the ‘restore’ verbs and promises that Yahweh reveals here as His last vision ‘show’ that takes us all the way to Christ, His Cross, His Gospel, and even to the end of this age in the New Heaven and New Earth! ‘I will raise up… repair … raise up … rebuild … I will restore … they shall rebuild … I will plant…’ In all these promises, Yahweh will prove Himself to be faithful to all the promises He has made to Israel.
  2. Before we even look at these last ‘restore’ promises, we’re going to fast forward to the New Testament in the Book of Acts 15.12-17. James, the half-brother of our Lord, quotes this passage from Amos to ‘show’ us that what Yahweh promises here was being fulfilled right before their eyes at that time. So, what was God doing in the Book of Acts? He was visiting and saving the Gentiles, “to take from them a people for His Name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,…” and then he goes on to quote this passage from Amos. So, what does God promise to restore?
  3. vv 11-12 / Yahweh promises to restore the throne of David. This promise goes back to 2 Samuel, chapter 7, when Yahweh promises David that his ‘house,’ or dynasty, ruling family will last forever. That David will never lack one of his sons sitting on the throne of Israel. By this time, the ‘house’ of David had been weakened, and they, too, will be sent off into their own captivity in Babylon. So, their dynasty is called a ‘booth / tent / tabernacle’ rather than a ‘house.’ However, Yahweh is going to send another King, even Jesus, and He will sit on David’s Throne and rebuild the Kingdom. AND He will do so by saving people from “all the nations who are called by My Name, declares Yahweh who does this.” He was doing just this when James quotes this passage in Acts 15. It had just begun in earnest in that NT narrative and is still on-going – and God will continue this re-building of His Kingdom through the Gospel until it has been completed!
  4. vv 13-14 / Yahweh promises to restore the blessings of His covenant. “Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh…” and then He proceeds to describe the physical blessings of fruitfulness and prosperity that will be experienced in the New Heaven and New Earth. These are truly utopian blessings that we will enjoy when the curses of sin have been lifted from the very New Earth we will live in forever. / see 2 Peter 3.13; Romans 8.18-24
  5. v 15 / Yahweh promises to restore the fullness of our inheritance. “I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them, says Yahweh your God.” In that Day, in that New Age, we will be Home with Him. / see Revelation 21-22.

ALL OF THIS IS COMING AND WILL COME ACCORDING TO YAHWEH’S PROMISE! AND IT WILL ALL BE GIFTED TO US THROUGH THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST! YES, THE FULL MEASURE OF GOD’S PUNISHMENTS MUST BE EXECUTED IN KEEPING WITH HIS HOLY JUSTICE AND WARNINGS. BUT HIS JUSTICE AGAINST OUR SINS WAS FULLY SATISFIED BY JESUS CHRIST ON HIS CROSS – AND WE RECEIVE AND ENJOY THE FULLNESS OF HIS SALVATION AND OUR INHERITANCE BY GRACE!

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A famine for hearing the words of the LORD

Posted on September 22, 2022 by PastorDave

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I will send a famine on the land – not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.” / Amos 8.11-12.

“How many people in the church today either forget or take too lightly the magnitude of God’s Word upon their lives? There is no substitute for God’s Word.

As the Creator, the Lord reveals that He exists and puts on display His divine attributes, but it is the written Word of God that tells us the way to a restored relationship with the Creator is by faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the written Word of God that establishes Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Word of Life. It is the written Word of God that reveals God’s ways to His children and His will for them.

That being said, why do so many in the church diminish the centrality of the Word of God?

  • It happens when leaders fail to study God’s Word.
  • It happens when so much time is given to other things, sometimes worthwhile things, in corporate worship that inadequate time is given to the reading of and proclamation of God’s Word.
  • It happens when churches fail to properly disciple their people in God’s Word.
  • It happens when believers neglect reading and meditating on God’s Word throughout the week.

However, what truly is appalling is when leaders do provide the people with ample opportunities and encouragement to learn and apply God’s Word only for people to spend years in the church and believe that since they are reading it and hearing it they must then have it in their hearts and minds.

It is like a student in a calculus class who has a knowledgeable teacher on the subject. The student may follow every step the teacher shows the class. Walking out of the class the student may feel confident about the material. However, if the student cannot do the homework later on, then the student has learned only one thing – the teacher knows calculus. It is only when the student can do the problems (and I might add communicate the information to someone else) that the student has learned the material.

Like this student, there are many who have listened to sermons and sat in Bible studies for years thinking that since they have attended these studies they have learned everything they have heard, but it is only with prayer, meditation, and concentrated effort that one will really learn God’s Word so as to apply it. My professor used to say, ‘Calculus is not a spectator sport.’

Neither is learning and applying God’s Word.”

~T. J. Betts, Amos: An Ordinary Man with an Extraordinary Message

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Yahweh shows! Appeal to Him!

Posted on September 17, 2022 by PastorDave

Amos | Lesson 3 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

Read Amos 5.18-7.17

INTRODUCTION

  1. This is the third lesson in this current summary/survey of the Book of Amos. Our first lesson was Yahweh roars! Listen to Him! The second lesson was Yahweh calls! Return to Him! As you study each of these first two lessons, you will find that we have titled each one after key words and expressions that are found in each section of Amos’s prophetic messages from Yahweh.
  2. Now this third lesson is titled Yahweh shows! Appeal to Him! That is because in this next section, Amos is going to write about five separate visions that Yahweh showed him as prophetic forewarnings of judgments He is about to bring upon Israel because of their transgressions and iniquities. So each of these messages will begin with the preface “This is what the Lord GOD showed me…” / see 7.1, 7.4, 7.7, 8.1, and then “I saw the Lord…” in ch 9.1.
  3. And then I have titled Amos’s responses as “Appeal to Him!” because that is what Amos did when Yahweh showed him these ominous visions. / see ch 7.2 & 5. He appealed to Yahweh to ‘relent’ by showing mercy and forgiveness for Israel’s sins and ‘please cease’  and avert His destructive judgments Yahweh had determined to bring upon Israel.
  4. But before we get to the first four of those five visions, this larger section we have chosen for this study will be prefaced with three messages of ‘woe’ which will serve as attention-getters to let Israel know that these judgments are about to be announced. / see ch 5.18, 6.1, 6.4.
  5. So, in this lesson we will at least point out: three ‘woe’ messages and then the first three “This is what the Lord GOD showed me…” messages…

I / ch 5.18-27 / THE FIRST ‘WOE’ TO THEIR SELF-DECEPTION & DELUSION

They were living and worshiping in what would become a fatal self-deception and self-delusion… / see 1 Thessalonians 5.1-3

  1. This three-fold pronouncement of ‘woe’ or grief or mourning is echoed again in Revelation 8.13 and is indicative that these three judgments that are coming upon them will be, not just disastrous, cataclysmic, and catastrophic, but they will be utterly, thoroughly, and finally destructive – so destructive there will be nothing left. It will be the end of the northern kingdom Israel.
  2. v 18 / “Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh! Why would you desire the day of Yahweh?”
  3. Let’s remind ourselves that this expression ‘the day of the LORD’ is used throughout the Scriptures, both OT and NT, to describe an event or a season in which Yahweh interrupts and intervenes in man’s human affairs in such a way that He leaves no doubt that HE has done it. It is undoubtedly HIS Day. It is also used to describe the final events of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
  4. So the people of Israel in those final few years of their very existence say they are desiring ‘the day of the LORD’ – that they are looking forward to it – can’t wait until it comes. Isn’t that a good thing?
  5. Their only problem was that they were assuming that just because they were Israel, that if days of danger did, in fact, come [which they doubted they would] that Yahweh would swoop down to save them. That ‘the day of the LORD’ would be a day of salvation for them … and a day of destruction upon their enemies. After all, they were Israel, weren’t they? The covenant nation … Yahweh’s chosen, special, favored people.
  6. vv 19-20 / Yahweh has bad news for Israel – it won’t be a day of salvation for them, but rather a time of darkness and gloom. In fact, it will be like someone who narrowly escapes from one jeopardy [lion] only to be met by another [bear] … or maybe does escape them both and runs home, out of breath, and as soon as he gets into his house, huffing and puffing to get his breath again, he slams and secures the door behind him, thinking he’s safe, and then leans up against the wall … only to be fatally bitten by a poisonous snake! In other words, “Judgment is out to get you – and you will not escape alive!”
  7. vv 21-23 / What does Yahweh have against them? What have they done wrong? In fact, they were being very ‘religious’ with all their outward ceremonial services – they were observing feasts, they were ‘going to church,’ they were making and giving offerings, they were singing their songs and playing their instruments. But they were doing all these outward shows of their ‘religion’ to ‘buy’ the favor of Yahweh and make themselves feel good about themselves. Their hearts were not in any of it, and even the forms of their worship were corrupted with their own traditions and substitutions in the place of what Yahweh had commanded them in His covenant [see 1 Kings 12.25-33]. Listen to what Yahweh says about their ‘religious services’: “I hate, I despise …I take no delight in …I will not accept them …I will not look upon them … Take away from Me … I will not listen ….”
  8. v 24 / Then Yahweh gets to the root of their faithlessness: they were offering to Him vain, empty, lip-service-only kinds of outward religious services – but in their otherwise daily lifestyles, practices, and conduct, they were cheating, oppressing, and abusing their neighbors every way they could in order to exercise their privilege, their power, and their injustices against those who were poorer and weaker than they were. Yahweh commands them / see Matthew 23.23-24.
  9. vv 25-27 / Yahweh concludes this woe by reminding them that all the forty years they wandered in the wilderness, He didn’t require and they didn’t offer Him sacrifices – only the love, loyalty, and faithfulness of their hearts and worship of Him. But when ‘the day of Yahweh’ does come, it will be their adopted gods of the Babylonians and Assyrians they will be holding up as He leads them into exile beyond Damascus, that is, into Assyria.

II / ch 6.1-3 / THE SECOND ‘WOE’ TO THEIR SELF-CONFIDENCE

They were assuring themselves of their perpetual safety and security by their self-confidence in their military prowess and superiority…

  1. v 1 / “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountains of Samaria…” Kinda reminds you of Mad magazine’s iconic mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, whose slugline was “What, me worry?” But his smug self-confidence was just an expression of his doltish ignorance and denial of any serious reality.
  2. v 2 / These kingdoms Yahweh names were among some of Israel’s conquests and victories. However, Yahweh warns them that in ‘the day of Yahweh’ which will come upon them to destroy them at the hands of their enemies they will fare no better than did the kingdoms they themselves had defeated.
  3. v 3 / Yahweh calls them to wake up to their own danger, their faithlessness toward Him, their injustices toward their neighbors … their smug and proud self-confidence was only hastening the violent destruction they were bringing on themselves.

III / ch 6.4-14 / THE THIRD ‘WOE’ TO THEIR SELF-PRIDE & PLEASURE

They were entertaining themselves in their pride, wealth, and luxurious living [at the expense of those they were oppressing] only to suffer utter destruction at the hands of the nation Yahweh will raise up against them.

  1. vv 4-6 / “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, 5 who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, 6 who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!” Just look at their self-absorbed lifestyles … and then remember that they were enriching themselves from their abuses of others / see ch 4.1; 5.10-13; 5.24; 6.12
  2. v 7 / However, these very ‘rich and famous’ among them will be the first ones who will be stripped and ripped away from their luxurious parties and revelries and taken off into exile.
  3. v 8 / Yahweh reiterates and denounces again His abhorrence and hatred of all their self-absorbed pride and riotous pleasures – He will give them over to their enemies who will treat them much worse than they have treated those whom they abused and oppressed.
  4. vv 9-14 / Yahweh repeats again in gloomy detail just how utterly deadly all their coming judgments will be upon them … and why? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood [bitterness] / v 12.

IV / ch 7.1-3 / THE FIRST VISION ‘SHOW’: LOCUSTS

  1. This is the first of the visions of the coming judgments on Israel – this and the next ‘showed me’ are ‘event’ visions … utterly destructive events that Yahweh will bring upon them.
  2. These locusts will swarm upon their land and crops after their first harvest called ‘the king’s mowings.’ These were the first harvests that they were required to turn over to the king as taxes or required revenues. After they gave the king his share, then they would plant and harvest what came later for themselves to live on…
  3. Except that, there wouldn’t be any crops to follow – Yahweh would send swarms of locusts to totally devour and strip everything that grew after that … absolute and total devastation.
  4. v 2 / This is why we have titled this lesson: Yahweh shows! Appeal to Him! because that is what Amos does: he appeals to Yahweh: “O Lord GOD, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” What makes this appeal to Yahweh so significant is that: [1] Amos is a prophet after Yahweh’s own heart. He appeals to Yahweh because Amos knows He is a God of forgiveness and mercy! Also [2] Amos appeals to Yahweh to forgive and have pity on Israel even though they are persecuting him for delivering this message even as he delivers it / see ch 7.10-17 … just a few verses later on in this chapter. / see also how Jesus prays the same way for rebellious Israel and Jerusalem in His own day [Matthew 23.37-39; Luke 19.41-44].
  5. And, true to His character and promises to have compassion on His people, Yahweh does ‘relent.’ “The LORD relented concerning this: ‘It shall not be,’ said the LORD.”
  6. There are numerous examples of Yahweh’s ‘relenting’ to execute His immediate judgments on those He is warning / see Exodus 32.14; Jonah 3.10.
  7. Does God change His mind when He ‘relents’ [this same word is translated ‘repent’ in KJV]. How does God ‘relent’ or ‘repent’? It is not a change of His mind or character – but rather a change in His immediate course of action. It is always an expression of His willingness to forgive if we repent of our sins, confess and admit to our transgressions against Him, and return to Him in love and faith. God’s ‘relenting’ is always an extension of His mercy toward us, giving us an opportunity to repent ourselves.

V / ch 7.4-6 / THE SECOND VISION ‘SHOW’: JUDGMENT BY FIRE

  1. Here is another vision of a judgment ‘event’ that Yahweh threatens to bring upon Israel. This one, too, will totally devour, devastate, and eat up the land in destruction.
  2. Yet once again, Amos intercedes for Israel and appeals to Yahweh: “O Lord GOD, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”
  3. And yet once again, Yahweh relents in compassion and mercy: “The LORD relented concerning this: ‘This also shall not be,’ said the Lord GOD.”

VI / ch 7.7-9 / THE THIRD VISION ‘SHOW’: THE PLUMB LINE

  1. vv 7-8a / Anybody who has ever built anything that needs to stand straight up and not fall over has used a plumb line. A plumb line is a string that has a weighted stone or metal plumb-bob on the end of it to make the string hand straight down. You attach the string to the top of your wall or post and let the string hang down. Your vertical construction needs to be as straight up and down as the plumb line. Otherwise it’s going to lean with the weight of the wall or building … and fall.
  2. vv 8b-9 / Yahweh pronounces to Israel that He is measuring [and has measured] them against the ‘plumbline’ of His own Holiness, righteousness, and justice. They don’t measure ‘straight’ and haven’t for generations. They have repeatedly and egregiously bent, distorted, transgressed, and violated His holy and just requirements for their faithful obedience to Him and His gracious covenant…
  3. And so, because of their not measuring up to His standards of measurement – that is, loving Him, trusting Him, fearing Him, and worshiping Him only – and because they have egregiously, presumptuously, and insistently disobeyed Him in their treatments of others … therefore, His Holiness gives Him no other recourse but to destroy them in keeping with His patient forewarnings. He will bring desolation upon their ‘high places’ of idolatrous worship, upon their ‘religious’ sanctuaries, and against the house of their king Jeroboam II.

VII / ch 7.10-17 / SHOWDOWN AT BETHEL: “GO HOME!”

  1. v 10-11 / This passage is pivotal to understanding much of the context of this book and these messages. Bethel was their primary center of worship in the northern kingdom Israel / see 1 Kings 12.25-33.
  2. But to make the immediate connection between this hostile encounter Amos had with the chief priest of Bethel, just note that the last thing out of Amos’s mouth was “Then the Lord said,…and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword” / v 9. This was Yahweh’s specific pronouncement of judgment against King Jeroboam II and his monarchial family.
  3. So this Amaziah the priest of Bethel sends an urgent message to King Jeroboam II to the effect that “this upstart prophet from rural Tekoa in the southern kingdom Judah is not just saying bad things about you and calling you out by name, but ‘Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel.’”
  4. Of course, this immediately got King Jeroboam II’s attention: [1] conspiracies, coups, and assassination plots against kings of both kingdoms were common occurrences and a constant threat; and [2] Jeroboam II’s own house/family/dynasty was in power as a result of an assassination. His great-grandfather, Jehu, had assassinated the then-king Joram to put their family in power / see 2 Kings, chs 9-14. [NOTE: that Amaziah the priest of Bethel conveniently lied about Amos’s personal intentions of leading an insurrection against Jeroboam II and left out the part that Amos was only preaching the messages that Yahweh had sent him there to deliver to Israel.]
  5. vv 12-13 / So Amaziah serves this ultimatum to Amos: “O seer, go home back to Judah where you came from, stay there, and prophesy there if you want to … but don’t ever come back here. This is our turf, I’m the priest here, Jeroboam II is king here … and besides, we already have our own religion here!”
  6. vv 14-17 / That’s when Amos replied with Yahweh’s authority … let’s just let him speak for himself: Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. 15 But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now therefore hear the word of the LORD. “You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ 17 Therefore thus says the LORD: “‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land’” … and Yahweh has more to say: “Amos, keep on preaching!”
  7. Everything Amos had just preached was from the mouth of Yahweh, at His commission, and by His authority. So Yahweh just doubles down and reiterates what He had just pronounced. Amaziah’s objections were overruled – Yahweh’s word will stand … it shall be done as He had said.

“Therefore this I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD, O Israel!” / ch 4.12

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Oh, Could I Speak the Matchless Worth

Posted on September 10, 2022 by PastorDave

Hymn by Samuel Medley (1738-1799) | Tune arranged by Lowell Mason

  1. Oh, could I speak the matchless worth,
    Oh, could I sound the glories forth
    Which in my Savior shine,
    I’d soar, and touch the heav’nly strings,
    And vie with Gabriel while he sings
    In notes almost divine,
    In notes almost divine.
  1. I’d sing the precious blood He spilt,
    My ransom from the dreadful guilt
    Of sin, and wrath divine;
    I’d sing His glorious righteousness,
    In which all-perfect, heav’nly dress
    My soul shall ever shine,
    My soul shall ever shine.
  1. I’d sing the characters He bears,
    And all the forms of love He wears,
    Exalted on His throne;
    In loftiest songs of sweetest praise,
    I would to everlasting days
    Make all His glories known,
    Make all His glories known.
  1. Soon, the delightful day will come
    When my dear Lord will bring me home,
    And I shall see His face;
    Then with my Savior, Brother, Friend,
    A blest eternity I’ll spend,
    Triumphant in His grace,
    Triumphant in His grace.

This keyboard rendition is by Brian Winger:

Another piano rendition with lyrics to three verses:

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Yahweh calls! Return to Him!

Posted on September 10, 2022 by PastorDave

Amos | Lesson 2 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

Read Amos 3.1 – 5.17

INTRODUCTION

1. We opened up this four-lesson survey of The Book of Amos in Lesson 1. We gave you some background on Amos, the prophet, and summarized the eight indictments he delivered from Yahweh detailing and condemning the sins that the neighboring nations – including Judah and Israel themselves – had committed against Him, other peoples, and against each other.

2. We will now pick up Amos’s prophetic messages where we last left off and continue through the next section: chapters 3.1 – 5.17. This section will contain three messages Amos delivered in Bethel [one of Israel’s primary centers of worship / see ch 7.10-17].

3. Each of these messages is introduced by the same announcement:

[1] Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt… / ch 3.1

[2] Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria… / ch 4.1

[3] Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel… / ch 5.1

4. We will take them in order and describe their themes along with Yahweh’s assessments of their sins and the impending judgments He was bringing on them because of their transgressions of His covenant, righteousness, and Holy justice.

I / CHAPTER 3.1-15 / FIRST MESSAGE:

“HEAR THIS WORD THAT THE LORD HAS SPOKEN AGAINST THE WHOLE FAMILY THAT I BROUGHT UP OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT.”

1 / vv 1-2 / Yahweh addresses Israel as “family” – His ‘family.’ He reminds Israel that He is the One who had created them as a family [through Abraham] and nation by choosing them to be His people, redeeming them from bondage and slavery in Egypt, and delivering them to belong to Him only and exclusively.

[1] Israel had been blessed with immeasurable privileges by the Grace of Yahweh: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth…” This verb ‘known’ is so much more than mere acquaintance or familiarity; it is intimacy. It is the same verb that is used to describe marital intimacy and union [as in Genesis 4.1, et. al.]

[2] Yahweh had singled out the people of Israel to be His covenant people. He had not only claimed them to belong to Him and fear Him only, but He had also committed to bless them, protect them, and provide for them in every way. / Deuteronomy 7.6-11 & 10.12-22

[3] But with that immeasurable privilege had also come a corresponding responsibility and accountability to be faithful in their response to and use of those privileges – but they had historically and repeatedly failed to live up to those privileges. The weight of their guilt had been compounded by the riches of their privileges they had violated. So Yahweh does what His Holy justice requires: He must and will punish them proportionately to their iniquities.

2 / vv 3-6 / Yahweh gives them seven examples of His just ‘cause and effect’ punishments He will bring upon them. [Yahweh’s justification for v 2]

[1] Yahweh’s Holy justice is an example of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ See Proverbs 26.2 KJV, “…the curse causeless shall not come…”

[2] Yahweh will ask them seven simple questions, all answered ‘No!’ They knew the answers from their own common experience. Every question and answer will serve as a self-pronouncement of their own guilt and a vindication of Yahweh’s coming judgments. They had brought everything upon themselves … they had been the ‘cause’ of all of Yahweh’s punishment ‘effect’ they would suffer. “Is the ‘effect’ of Yahweh’s judgments without the ‘cause’ of your iniquities? ‘NO!’”  

3 / vv 7-8 / Yahweh is giving them a loud, clear, unmistakable, unambiguous, advance forewarnings of His judgments against them. Yahweh’s judgments are never ambushes or sneak attacks. In truth, He had been repeatedly and persistently forewarning them for centuries what the disastrous consequences would be for their faithless breaking of His covenant (see 2 Kings 17.7-21). He is now ‘roaring’ again through Amos’s prophetic warnings. / see ch 1.2: Yahweh roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem…

4 / vv 9-10 / Yahweh even calls their equally-guilty neighbors, Ashdod [Philistia] and Egypt, to come to the mountains of Samaria and witness what He will do in punishment to His own ‘family’ for their covenant unfaithfulness.

[1] They will see the ‘tumults within her.’ These are both the internal conflicts they are waging against each other and also the disastrous destructions Yahweh will wreak upon them. They will also witness ‘the oppressed in her midst,’ that is, all the injustices they are committing against one another [which Yahweh will detail as He goes on here…]

[2] Why would He call on these equally-guilty ‘foreign’ kingdoms to witness and witness against Samaria? [see ch 1.6-9]. Because it would show the foreign nations that Yahweh is also equally just to punish the same injustices and atrocities in EVERY nation and peoples. Yahweh is Sovereign Judge over ALL nations and will hold them all accountable for their conduct – even though He will judge Samaria more severely because of their greater privilege and responsibility. / see Luke 12.35-48    

[3] v 10 is very important: it is one of Yahweh’s summary sentences against Israel: ‘They do not know how to do right,’ declares Yahweh, ‘those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.’ He commands them ‘to do right,’ but they have no interest or intention to do so.

[4] Contrast this statement with v 2: “You only have I known [same verb] of all the families of the earth…” And again, Yahweh will indict them in ch 5.12: For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins – you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.  Again, this ‘knowing’ is intimate, first-hand, personal knowledge … except that Israel has betrayed and violated the intimate knowledge with which Yahweh had known them. Yahweh commands the ‘knowing’ and loving of your heart for Him and His Word.

5 / vv 11-15 / This is the ‘word’ that Yahweh is declaring to them – this is what He is going to do…

[1] v 11 / Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD…: He will bring an adversary [Assyria] to surround their land … the defenses they had built and fortified will fall to the enemy … their strongholds will be plundered.

[2] v 12 / Thus says the LORD: “As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed.” Amos gives this interesting simile to serve as a parable … Amos is taking this illustration from his own personal experience as a shepherd … and it also comes from the Law of the LORD. Exodus 22.10-13 / If a man gives to his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a sheep or any beast to keep safe, and it dies or is injured or is driven away, without anyone seeing it, 11 an oath by the Lord shall be between them both to see whether or not he has put his hand to his neighbor’s property. The owner shall accept the oath, and he shall not make restitution. 12 But if it is stolen from him, he shall make restitution to its owner. 13 If it is torn by beasts, let him bring it as evidence. He shall not make restitution for what has been torn. There was a code of honor among shepherds: they would never lose a sheep due to their negligence. They would defend the lives of their flocks with their own life if necessary. But if an animal they were responsible for was killed or torn by a lion or another predatory beast, they could bring back a piece of the animal that was left behind as evidence of the loss that was beyond their control, thus absolving them of personal responsibility. The meaning of which is: Yahweh will not totally annihilate Israel – He will still keep His own word to His covenant by rescuing a faithful remnant [‘the corner of a couch and part of a bed’] from the devouring punishment that is coming.

[3] vv 13-15 / Yahweh will destroy the very parts of their lifestyle and works that were the evidences of their most egregious transgressions: their centers of idolatrous worship – the altars of Bethel … and their opulently furnished winter and summer houses they had built with the proceeds of their injustices against the weak and poor – whom they had oppressed and taken advantage of.

II / CHAPTER 4.1-12 / THE SECOND MESSAGE:

“HEAR THIS WORD, YOU COWS OF BASHAN, WHO ARE ON THE MOUNTAIN OF SAMARIA…”

1 / vv 1-3 / SELF-ABSORPTION: Yahweh condemns them for their self-absorption – living opulent lifestyles from the proceeds of their injustices toward others.

[1] So, is Yahweh delivering this message to their livestock? No, actually – these ‘cows’ are the women of Samaria. Yahweh calls them ‘cows of Bashan’ because Bashan was a rich, fertile region known for the livestock that grazed there. [Psalm 22.12; Ezekiel 39.18]. It was the ‘bread-basket’ for the region.

[2] So, these self-centered, self-absorbed, narcissistic, demanding wives could have been called ‘The Real Housewives of Samaria’ or ‘Keeping Up With The Bashan-ians.’ They were real Jezebels after the example of one of their former queens. They made constant demands on their husbands to ‘feed’ their excessive tastes and appetites of the ‘high life.’ They didn’t care who their husbands had to rob, extort, or oppress to supply their luxuries: ‘who oppress the poor, who crush the needy.’ There was also a real sense of selfish entitlement to their demands. This was their ‘right’ … they ‘deserved’ it: “…who say to their husbands, ‘bring, that we may drink!’”

[3] Yahweh pronounces judgments on them: they will be led away with ‘hooks/fishhooks’ which may have been literal hooks which the Assyrians were known for using to pierce the flesh of their captives to keep them in line as they led them away into captivity. They would be led out through the breaches in their walls of defenses that will be broken through by the invaders.

2 / vv 4-5 / SELF-DECEPTION: Yahweh condemns them for their self-deception – their hypocritical, lifeless, and self-serving exercises of worship.

[1] Amos kinda mocks them as he issues this ‘call to worship’: ‘Come to Bethel…to Gilgal…’ In fact, they were doing just that. They were being very ‘religious’ in their exercises. But they were doing all this religious activity for their own aggrandizement … to assuage their guilt … and to ‘secure’ their place in Yahweh’s favor. But Yahweh not only rejects their self-serving religious activities – He actually says it has the effect of ‘multiply transgressions.’ Yahweh saw through and rejected their hypocrisies.

[2] Both Bethel and Gilgal were historic places where Yahweh had revealed Himself to them and where His covenant with them had been memorialized and renewed over the previous generations. But they had deceived themselves into believing that there was some kind of ‘lucky charm’ inherent in just frequenting these places and going through the motions of their self-made preferred traditions. Both Bethel and Gilgal will come up again in ch 5.4-5.

3 / vv 6-13 / SELF-DELUSION: Yahweh condemns them for their self-delusions – they had deluded themselves into believing that none of these calamities that had previously come upon them were at all associated with any fault or guilt of their own faithlessness … nor did they hear the ‘roaring’ of Yahweh when he had sent all these catastrophes on them.

[1] NOTE: how Yahweh repeats five times: “…yet you did not return to Me, declares the LORD.” / vv 6, 8, 9, 10, 11. This is why I have titled this section of Amos’s messages “Yahweh calls! Return to Him!” These are just more of the often-repeated forewarnings and disciplinary measures Yahweh had administered over the previous generations to try to get their attention so they would repent, turn away from their transgressions, iniquities, and injustices, and return to Him. But, “yet you did not return to Me, declares Yahweh.”

[2] There are eight specific calamities Yahweh had brought upon them to call them to return to Him:

  • v 6 / Famine: ‘cleanness of teeth’ … because they had nothing to eat…
  • vv 7-8 / Drought: rains were critical to their growing seasons – but Yahweh withheld their rains…
  • v 9a / Blight and mildew: spoiling what little would and did grow … ruined crops…
  • v 9b / Locusts: they would devour and strip bare their essential and staple crops…
  • v 10a / Plagues and Diseases: maybe Bubonic Plague…
  • v 10b / War and Corpses: multitudes of bodies of young men and horses left to rot…
  • v 11 / Fires and Wastelands: landscapes burned, maybe salted, and left uninhabitable…
  • v 12 / Coming Final Desolations: “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

[3] NOTE: that in all these previous desolations – and especially in those yet to come – they were not just ‘random flukes of nature.’ NO! Yahweh says of each one: “I…I…I…I…I…I…I…” until He declares that the day is coming when “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” He had sent all the calamities of the previous generations upon them to urgently, insistently, pleadingly call them to ‘Return to Me!’ But, they would not. “Therefore,” Yahweh says, “if you will not return / come to Me, I will come to you … in my judgments! Get ready! Prepare to meet Me!” And it will not be pretty … it will not go well.

[4] Further, to conclude this ‘word’ from Yahweh, He makes it clear to Israel who He is … who this God is … who is calling them … and whom they will meet:

  • He is Israel’s God – the Giver of all their incalculable privileges
  • He is the Creator of Israel and of all the elements of the physical world
  • He is the One who has known them intimately – their most private thoughts and hearts
  • He is the One Sovereign True Judge of Israel … and all the nations of the earth
  • He is Yahweh, the God of armies
  • That is His Name! And they will know it when He comes!

III / CHAPTER 5.1-17 / THE THIRD MESSAGE:

“HEAR THIS WORD THAT I TAKE UP OVER YOU IN LAMENTATION, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL…”

This third message [“Hear this word…”] has several distinctive characteristics:

  • It is a lamentation – that’s what Amos himself calls it. That’s what he wrote it to be. A lamentation is dirge – funeral dirge – that is written and delivered to mourn the death of someone. Like David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel 1.17-27; or more famously, Jeremiah’s lamentations over the fall and death of Judah and Jerusalem in The Lamentations of Jeremiah. When Amos delivered it in Bethel [maybe even at one of the public services he refers to in ch 4.4-5], he may have even composed a minor key tone or tune and delivered it by singing or chanting it.
  • It is also a literary masterpiece. It is what is called a chiasm [from the Greek alphabet character ‘X/chi’ to mark with a chi]. That means that the verses [or stanzas] are laid out in a symmetrical pattern of statements and reiterations. The first line [or stanza] corresponds with the last line [or stanza]. The second line corresponds to the next-to-last line. And so on – until the climax of the chiasm is written in the middle stanza.

So in the case of this lamentation:

A-vv 1-3 are repeated in other words in vv 16-17.

B-vv 4-6 are repeated in other words in vv 14-15

C-v7 is repeated in other words in vv 10-13

D-HYMN TO YAHWEH is smack in the middle as the climax/theme of the lamentation

So when we outline this chiasm, it will flow like this:

A-Lament of the death of the nation / vv 1-3

B-Call to seek Yahweh and live / vv 4-6

C-Charges of no justice [injustice] / v 7

D-HYMN TO YAHWEH / v 9

C’-Charges of no justice / vv 10-13 [see how we’re working our way backward toward the beginning]

B’-Call to seek Yahweh and live / vv 14-15

A’-Lament of the death of the nation / vv 16-17

Now let’s summarize the messages in each of these stanzas following this chiastic scheme…

A / vv 1-3 / Lament of the death of the nation, 1st part [couple with vv 16-17]

[1] Amos sees forward and projects his message into the inevitable and soon-to-come future when Israel and Samaria will fall in defeat and death to the Assyrians.

[2] Samaria has fallen, no more to rise; she has been forsaken…with none to come to her aid and raise her up again. Those cities and villages that sent out their thousand troops to fight in Samaria’s defense will have maybe a hundred left … and those who sent a hundred will have maybe ten left. Utter decimation.

B / vv 4-6 / Call to seek Yahweh and live, 1st part [couple with vv 14-15]

[1] Two times in this stanza, Yahweh calls to Israel: “Seek Me and live / Seek Yahweh and live.” He calls on those who were frequenting and running to their historical cities of worship: Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba. Everyone one of these cities had a long and illustrious legacy of places where Yahweh had promised He would be with them, or where Yahweh had given them promises of His blessing.

[2] But now, for centuries, they had prostituted those same sites with their idolatries. Now they think they can run back there and somehow these places will have magical, mystical, talisman powers – like a ‘good luck charm.’ Or maybe they thought that Yahweh would be obligated to deliver them and save them just because He had given them covenant promises and blessings – even though they had egregiously violated every one of His commandments, conditions, and privileges over and over again…

[3] Their cries for help and their expectations of entitled deliverance shall come to nothing. / see Proverbs 1.20-33

C / v 7 / Charges of no justice [injustice], 1st part [couple with vv 10-13]

O you who turn justice to wormwood [a bitter fruit] and cast down righteousness to the earth!

[1] This is another summary indictment/judgment as in ch 3.10, “They do not know how to do right, declares Yahweh.” / see also ch 2.6-8; 4.1.

[2] Their transgressions, iniquities, and sins were not only spiritual faithlessness, idolatry, and covenant-breaking against Yahweh … but also all their injustices against their neighbors and one another. And they not only committed injustices themselves, but they also colluded with and profited from others who did so also. There was a power structure that abused all those who were weaker than they were.

[3] Yahweh keeps accounts of it all, and He will call them into account for it all.

D / vv 8-9 / HYMN TO YAHWEH [this is the crux, climax, core theme of the chiasm]

[1] The constellations Pleiades and Orion were associated with the new year and the change of the winter and summer growing seasons. And of course, their agricultural cycles were dependent on the consistency of those seasons. If the waters of the Mediterranean Sea did not form into clouds and pour their rains on the earth at the proper times, nothing is going to grow.

[2] Yahweh was in control of it all! He created it all, He commands it all, He provides it all. But He declares in His justice that He will punish them by sending upon them instead destruction and destroy their fortresses in which they were trusting.

C’ / vv 10-13 / Charges of no justice [injustice], 2nd part [see how we’re working our way backward toward the beginning … couple with v 7]

[1] Here are more charges of their social injustices against their neighbors – those who were weaker, poorer, who had no advocates to plead their cases on their behalf against these who were oppressing them.

[2] Not only what they were doing against those weaker than they were, but also “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth.”

[3] Amos himself would certainly have been included in these who were the targets of these rich and powerful people’s attacks against anyone who would dare confront or challenge them.

B’ / vv 14-15 / Call to seek Yahweh and live, 2nd part [couple with vv 4-6]

[1] NOTE how Yahweh turns these commands, promises, and warnings every way they can be turned – how He expresses them every way they can be expressed: “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live… / Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate [where their town councils, trials, hearings, community affairs took place]…”

[2] If they will return to Him, if they will repent, if they will learn to ‘do good’ as He commands, then He will give them what they want: “that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of hosts, will be with you as you have said … it may be that Yahweh, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

[3] What is the ‘good’ Yahweh seeks in our social and public conduct? One of Amos’s contemporary prophets, Micah, tells us: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does Yahweh require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” / Micah 6.8

[4] But, in these cases also, they will continue to do what they have been doing for generations: “yet you did not return to Me, declares Yahweh.”

A’ / vv 16-17 / Lament of the death of the nation, 2nd part [couple with vv 1-3]

[1] So there is no other recourse but to suffer Yahweh’s just and pronounced punishment. Once again, Amos returns to mourn and lament the coming destruction and death of Samaria and Israel at the murderous hands of the Assyrians…

[2] There will be wailing and lamenting in every community, every activity, every sector of their society: in all the squares, in all the streets, the farmers, the poets, artists, singers, in all vineyards – everybody will be mourning the destruction and death that will overtake them.

[3] Remember how Yahweh reminded them in verse 1 that they are the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt. You also remember what the last plague was that Yahweh stuck Egypt with: it was the death of all their firstborn. “But I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I AM the LORD.” [Exodus 12.12]. The people of Israel were spared because they obeyed Yahweh and sprinkled the blood of the Passover lamb [Christ] on their houses.

[4] But now, because they have defied Yahweh and have stubbornly rejected His Word through His prophets, and have stubbornly refused to repent of their sins and return to Him, NOW He says, “for I will pass through YOUR midst, says Yahweh.”

[5] Now, THEY will be the ones who are destroyed by His justice and consumed by His wrath.

But … this is not the end of the story by any means! Amos laments in ch. 5.1, “Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up.”

But Yahweh promises in ch. 9.11 “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old….”

That is the promise of Christ who will come! (see Acts 15.12-17).

He will satisfy the justice of Yahweh by His perfect obedience to the Covenant! And He will justify His people by suffering the just punishments of our sins upon Himself! (see Isaiah 53.10-12).

IN CHRIST…WE HAVE BEEN RAISED & RESTORED!

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Yahweh roars! Listen to Him!

Posted on September 3, 2022 by PastorDave

Amos | Lesson 1 | Lesson Notes/Talking Points

NOTE: The Lesson Notes document is in PDF form at the end of this post. I also copied the text from those Lesson Notes into this WordPress post, but WordPress doesn’t always respect my original formatting, so there will be some distracting re-formatting going on here…

Read Amos, chapters 1 & 2

I / INTRODUCTION

We are going to conduct a brief survey through the Old Testament Book of Amos. Amos is one of what we call ‘minor prophets.’ There are twelve of them altogether. You will find them at the end of the Old Testament beginning with Hosea and concluding with Malachi. We call them ‘minor’ prophets, not because they are less important than the ‘major’ prophets, but rather because they are shorter, briefer. But each of these twelve ‘minor’ prophets was a very ‘major’ voice and influence during the times they prophesied – or declared Yahweh’s ‘major’ messages to His intended recipients.

II / CHAPTER 1.1  / WHO IS AMOS?

  1. Amos was not called by Yahweh to be a prophet as the primary vocation of his life. He tells us that himself in chapter 7.14-15. By occupation, he was a sheep-breeder/rancher/wool merchant. The word used here in verse 1 for ‘shepherd’ is not the common word for tending one’s personal flock. It is used only one other time in the OT in 2 Kings 3.4 and refers to a sheep-breeder/rancher who owns and runs a substantial business. Most likely the ‘dresser of sycamore figs’ [ch 7.14-15] was an auxiliary business he had to raise food for his flocks. He was faithfully working his business and livelihood when Yahweh called him to deliver His messages to the northern kingdom Israel. We might even say he was an ‘unlikely prophet’ and a surprising choice for Yahweh’s messages … even a ’one-hit wonder’ of a prophet. Just be faithful doing what God gives you to do – and when He wants you to do something else, He’ll let you know and lead you into it.
  2. He came from Tekoa, which is in the northern part of the southern kingdom Judah. Tekoa was about 10-11 miles south of Jerusalem and 5 miles south of Bethlehem. But Yahweh was going to send him north across the border between the two divided kingdoms to deliver His messages ‘concerning Israel.’ There had been intense rivalries between these two divided kingdoms ever since they split from one another. A lot of bad feelings for one another and even wars had been fought across that border. But Amos faithfully obeyed and went … disregarding the consequences.
  3. He delivered his messages to Israel in Bethel / ch 7.10-12. Bethel was only about five miles north of the dividing boundary between Judah and Israel … and it was a center of their idolatrous worship. Jeroboam I had erected one of his two ‘golden calves’ in Bethel / 1 Kings 12.25-33.
  4. Amos conducted his brief prophetic ministry ‘in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam [II] the son of Joash, king of Israel.’ If you want to find out what was going on in each of these two kingdoms at that time, you can find Uzziah’s [also called Azariah] record in 2 Kings 15.1-7 & 2 Chronicles 26. Jeroboam II’s reign is described in 2 Kings 14.23-29.
  5. His brief prophetic ministry makes him a contemporary of: Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah, and Micah / Isaiah 1.1; Hosea 1.1; 2 Kings 14.25; Micah 1.1.
  6. If you look at the dates of the reigns of these two kings, it will become apparent that this period of time is only 30 or so years immediately before the northern kingdom Israel was invaded by the Assyrians and carried off in exile to Assyria [722 BC]. Amos prophesied probably 760-750 BC.
  7. However, it will help you to understand the significances of his messages if you’ll keep in mind that in both of these kingdoms, they were experiencing one of the most prosperous periods they had enjoyed since the days of King Solomon. This was a ‘golden age’ for both kingdoms. Let’s just summarize that period of time as:
  • – a time of national disunity and rivalry [if you want to get a feel for the bad blood between these two kingdoms, read 2 Chronicles 25.14-28 … this event went down between the fathers of these two current kings … about 20 years before the ‘southerner’ Amos delivered his messages to the ‘northerners’ in Israel…]
  • – a time of military strength and superiority [leading to their pride & downfall / ch 2.14-16]
  • – a time of economic prosperity [though much of it was ill-gotten through greed, abuses of power, injustices toward the weak and the poor, and oppression of their neighbors and kinspeople – this is one of the MAJOR themes of Yahweh’s messages through Amos]
  • – a time of religious activity [though it was a mixed-gods kind of worship and practiced in hypocrisy and superficiality…as we shall see]

8. Amos also makes it a point to date his ministry and messages ‘two years before the earthquake.’ While the event of this earthquake is not described elsewhere, it is mentioned again in Zechariah 14.5. Both of these mentions are made to make it clear that Yahweh sent that earthquake as another strong sign to try to get their attention that His judgment was about to fall on them. But, they didn’t pay any mind to either His messages through Amos or the earthquake.

III / WHERE WE’RE GOING OVER THE NEXT FOUR LESSONS…

  1. I want to at least read all of Amos together with you over the next four lessons. I want us to read it like I hope you will continue to read it at home. If I just try to pick out four texts from sections of Amos, you won’t get the feel for the connection and flow of the whole book.
  2. So I’m going to divide up the nine chapters of Amos into four lessons and title each lesson after a common theme in each section:
    1. chapters 1 & 2: Yahweh roars! Listen to Him! From ch 1.2 [also ch 3.4, 8] Yahweh will ‘roar’ with eight specific judgments against eight kingdoms/nations.
    1. chapters 3-5: Yahweh calls! Return to Him! see the themes of ‘yet you did not return to Me’ in ch 4.6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and ‘Seek Me and live’ in ch 5.4, 6, 14.
    1. chapters 6 & 7: Yahweh shows! Plead with Him! From ‘This is what the Lord GOD showed me…’ in ch 7.1, 4, 7; 8.1 and also 9.1.
    1. chapters 8 & 9: Yahweh restores! Hope in Him! From 9.11-15.
  3. Obviously, we won’t be getting into a lot of details in these Lesson Notes or even in our class time together … but I do want to outline the lessons for you to have … and we’ll try to give as many explanatory comments as we can while we read Amos together to give you the gist of understanding Yahweh’s powerful messages through His prophet Amos.
  4. His over-arching themes throughout all his messages are:
    1. [1] Yahweh is sovereign LORD over all nations and their peoples and will call them all into account to Himself;
    1. [2] Yahweh commands and deserves our whole-hearted devotion and obedience to Him;
    1. [3] Our worship of God must be sincere, pure, spiritually authentic, and justly applied;
    1. [4] We must faithfully live out and consistently act out our faith in God through Scriptural social concerns, action, and justice: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” / ch 5.24 / see also ch 5.7, 15 & 6.12
  5. “Amos condemned Israel for an inability ‘to do right’ (3.10). The prophet affirmed the ‘internal’ aspects of covenant relationship with Yahweh, including loving God with a whole heart and obeying His statutes. He also clearly understood the ethical implications of covenant relationship with Yahweh for individual and corporate behavior. His impassioned pleas for the socially disadvantaged (i.e., the poor, needy, and afflicted; cf. 2.6-7; 4.1; 5.11-12; 8.4, 6) and his denouncement of their affluent oppressors (i.e., rich women, dishonest merchants, corrupt rulers, opportunistic lawyers and judges, and false priests; cf. 4.1; 6.1, 4; 7.8-9) have earned him a reputation as God’s spokesman for social justice (cf. 5.7, 15, 24; 6.12).” Andrew Hill/ John Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament
  6. By the way, about Amos’s grasp of literature, vocabulary, and literary style … yes, Amos was a rural farmer and sheep-breeder as his rural allusions reveal [ch 3.3-8, 12], but he is no uneducated bumpkin. Here’s what some scholars have said about Amos’s writing: “Amos makes use of a wide range of literary devices in presenting his oracles: metaphors, simile, epithets, proverbs, short narratives, sarcasm, direct vituperation, vision, taunt, dialogue, irony, satire, parody – a virtual anthology of prophetic forms” / Leland Ryken … and “He is the author of the purest and most classical Hebrew in the Old Testament” / George L. Robinson.

IV / chapters 1 & 2 / LET’S OUTLINE AMOS’S MESSAGES IN THIS FIRST SECTION OF HIS PROPHETIC WARNINGS TO ISRAEL: THE JUDGE & THE JUDGED

  1. “Yahweh roars! Listen to Him!” This theme is announced in ch 1.2 / And he [Amos] said: “Yahweh roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem…” Yahweh is compared to a lion – the indisputable king of beasts [see also 3.4, 8, 12; 5.19]. There are numerous references in the OT histories of lions being in their regions and were a constant threat to their populations, flocks, herds, and livestock. Since Amos was a breeder of flocks and herds, he would have had first-hand experience with their ravenous ways – especially the terrifying, paralyzing power of a lion’s roar.
  2. Yahweh is going to ‘roar’ against the sins of eight specific kingdoms/nations … we will take them in order as they come.
  3. Eight indictments / think of these next eight sets of charges as Yahweh’s righteous indictments against these kingdoms. Yahweh will preside as both the sovereign Judge and the Prosecutor.
  4. Each specific bill of indictment or set of charges will follow the same pattern: [1] Verdict: “I will not revoke the punishment”; [2] Evidences [nowadays, we say ‘I have the receipts’]: “because…”; [3] Sentence: “So I will…”  
  5. There is a common formula that Yahweh ‘roars’ to announce each kingdom’s sins: “for three transgressions…and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because….” … and then Yahweh will proceed to enumerate the specific sins of each neighboring kingdom that He condemns – and for which He would judge them … and what He will do to judge them.
    1. the numbers of these transgressions are not specific – there were certainly more than three or even four … nor are they random – Yahweh is not just throwing out numbers
    1. but they do convey the message that Yahweh had recorded all their transgressions and would call them into account for every one
    1. also…if you add 3+4=7…and 7 is the number of completion or fullness. Yahweh is testifying that His ‘because’ of their judgments are both verifiable and more than sufficient evidences for His judgments / see, for example, “Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel? [2.11]
  6. Yahweh is also testifying to His patience and longsuffering toward every kingdom before He sends His judgments on them / compare Romans 2.5 & 11.22.
  7. All of these kingdoms were neighbors of Israel … and each kingdom had long histories of animosities, warfare, atrocities, and even oppressions against Israel … and also toward their own peoples. God cares how we treat our neighbors and each other and will call us into account for every transgression, not only against Him, but also toward others. Every kingdom, every nation is under God’s indisputable sovereignty, and He will judge every nation for their injustices and oppressive treatments of all other peoples.
  8. So what Yahweh will do with these pronouncements of judgments is throw out a web [or a noose, if you please] and begin to draw all the surrounding nations into His court of judgment and pass His sentence of ‘punishment’ on each one – until He calls in Judah in His 7th judgment – and then finally begins to pronounce judgment on Israel themselves in His 8th judgment.
  9. ALSO [and please note this very carefully], I know that often when we read the OT prophets, it is all so ‘foreign’ to us – all the names, places, events, histories, etc – we can’t make heads or tails or sense of it. It is all kinda like ‘prophetic gibberish’ to us … like some kind of cryptic, secret code or something. We don’t ‘get it.’ But, believe me, those who heard these words from Yahweh and His prophets understood them very well. They ‘got it.’
  10. If there was some way to transport Amos to our 2022 world [“Beam him in, Scotty”], and transpose and translate his messages into the events we are experiencing in our culture, society, nation, and international affairs, his messages would be just as crystal clear to us as they were to them.  

V / HERE ARE THE EIGHT JUDGMENTS: THE JUDGE & THE JUDGED…

[1] ch 1.3-5 / DAMASCUS [or Syria/Aram] / Treating people as if they have no worth…

  1. Damascus was the capitol of the bordering kingdom of Syria [or Aram]. They were situated to the NE of Israel.
  2. Their transgression was “because they have threshed Gilead with the threshing sledges of iron.” Gilead was the Israel territory east of the Jordan River just to Aram’s south where the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh settled when they entered the Promised Land.
  3. Aram [or Syria] had been Israel’s oppressors for nearly 100 years at the time of Amos’s prophecy.
  4. These ‘threshing sledges of iron’ were instruments they would use during their grain harvests. Oxen would pull the wooden sledges [or sleds] over the grain to break the husks loose from the kernels and also to chop up the straw stalks with iron spikes that would drag across the grain.
  5. But Aram is said to have threshed Gilead with these sledges of iron, either by their constant warfare or maybe even by dragging these threshing sledges over the captives and prisoners of war they had taken. Either way, it was an act of atrocity with no regard for the worth or value of a human being.
  6. “War or no war, Hazael had no liberty to treat people as if they were things. It is the first absolute principle for which Amos campaigns: people are not things … ‘Threshing’ is what a man does to a thing, a grain crop, in order to extract profit from it. This is what Hazael did in Gilead. He treated people as things. But found no sympathy, allowance, or forgiveness in Heaven.” / J. A. Motyer
  7. Yahweh sentences them to be devoured by fire [just like you would burn the left-over chaff], and they will be taken off into captivity themselves.
    1. NOTE: in every one of these first seven of eight judgments Yahweh pronounces, “I will send a fire” is included in the destructions that will come upon them. Watch for it…
    1. Burning the city down was not only one of the most common and convenient ways to wreak destruction on those who were conquered – but it is surely a precursor to the final judgment all evildoers and unbelievers will suffer in Hell … the lake of fire / Revelation 19.20; 20.10, 14-15; 21.8. ‘Fire’ is mentioned nine times in Amos / also ch 5.6 & 7.4
  8. That’s why we emphasize in our treatments of all people that they are ‘image-bearers’ of God’s image. People have worth because of God’s image they bear–and God will judge every person or people who treat human ‘image-bearers’ as merely a thing–as if they have no worth. / see James 3.9   

[2] ch 1.6-8 / GAZA [or Philistia/Philistines] / Human trafficking … using people for profit…

  1. Gaza was one of the principal cities of Philistia or Philistines, along with Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, [and Gath]. All are named in this indictment. They were situated to the SW of Israel.
  2. They were one of the longest-running and best-known oppressors of Israel.
  3. Their transgression was “because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom.”
  4. They were like the Syrians – they treated people as mere things – except that their transgression was compounded by their human trafficking of the people they took captive. They would take the captives and sell them as slaves to other nations – in this case, “to deliver them up to Edom.”
  5. Yahweh sentences them also to be burned up by fire and utter destruction, “and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish.”
  6. This same sin of human trafficking is a prevalent and pervasive perversion of human beings in our own world … whether it is for financial profit or sexual pleasure. / see Revelation 18.13

[3] ch 1.9-10 / TYRE [or Phoenicia] / Breaking one’s word to a brother to use him for a profit…

  1. Tyre was a prominent city in Phoenicia and was situated on the Mediterranean coast to the NW of Israel because they were the professional sea-going peoples and merchants of that day.
  2. Their transgression was “because they delivered up a whole people to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood.”
  3. Apparently, they had made an alliance [‘the covenant of brotherhood’] with another kingdom [which was well-known at the time], but when an opportunity arose, they betrayed that covenant for a profit. They not only broke their word, but they did so out of greed. They gained the trust of a neighboring kingdom, and then betrayed and sold them as slaves. “In addition, as appalling as that sin was [slave trading/human trafficking], their wickedness went deeper because the very people they sold were their friends. Their debauchery was compounded by their treachery.” / T. J. Betts
  4. Again, as with the Philistines, in this case also, “they delivered up a whole people to Edom…” This is now the second time Edom is said to be complicit in and benefactors of another kingdom’s transgression. “It is possible they [Phoenicia] were in collusion with Gaza and Edom’s slave trade.” [T. J. Betts]. Edom’s turn is coming…wait for it…
  5. What Yahweh is demonstrating here in all these indictments is, not just His displeasure with all these kingdoms’ transgressions … but He is also demonstrating His own character. In this case, Yahweh is a God truth and faithfulness, and He commands the same from all His ‘image-bearer’ creatures.
  6. Lying, breaking faith, reneging on your word of promise, and betrayal of trust is a transgression for which Yahweh says, “I will not revoke the punishment.” “…and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.” / Revelation 21.8

[4] ch 1.11-12 / EDOM [or Edomites] / Unrestrained hatred and spite toward a brother…

  1. Edom was situated SW of Israel around the southern tip of the Dead Sea.
  2. The Edomites were actually blood brothers with the Israelites. They were the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s older brother and Isaac’s other son. Yahweh had forbidden the Israelites to despise the Edomites because of this blood relationship: “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.” / Deuteronomy 23.7
  3. Their transgression was “because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever.”
  4. There was a constant family feud and warfare going on between the Israelites and the Edomites. But there may have been a specific, more recent event at that time when the Edomites committed some kind of unrestrained atrocity against Israel – in spite of the history and legacy of their brotherhood. They abandoned any expression of human sympathy or pity and perpetuated their hatred and spite with violence when they had the opportunity.
  5. Because of this transgression … along with all the other transgressions with Philistia and Tyre in which they were complicit … Yahweh decrees “I will not revoke the punishment” they deserve.  

[5] ch 1.13-15 / AMMONITES [or Ammon] / Ambition and uncontrolled violence against the helpless…

  1. Ammon was situated due E of Israel and S of Aram [Syria].
  2. The Ammonites also were distant relatives of the Israelites. They were descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew, by a drunken, incestuous liaison between Lot and his younger daughter / Genesis 19.30-38. [The other one, by the way, was Moab…coming up next…]
  3. Their transgression was “because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border.”
  4. This was just another inhumane and violent atrocity [war-crime] often committed against conquered peoples, but Ammon committed it specifically against the Israelites who lived in Gilead, bordering them on the west solely “that they might enlarge their border” and expand their territory.
  5. Yahweh pronounces “I will not revoke the punishment.”

[6] ch 2.1-3 / MOAB [or Moabites] / Showing contempt for others…

  1. Moab also was situated SE of Israel, sandwiched in between Edom to the S and Ammon to the N.
  2. Moab was a brother to Ammon from another incestuous liaison between Lot and his older daughter.
  3. Their transgression was “because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom,” in other words, they didn’t just conquer and subjugate the Edomites, but they intentionally desecrated his corpse by burning it, and then used his ashes to make common whitewash – utter contempt.
  4. For this transgression, Yahweh says, “I will not revoke the punishment.”

[7] ch 2.4-5 / JUDAH / Unfaithfulness to God and His Word…

  1. Now, Amos introduces Judah into Yahweh’s denunciations. Judah is Israel’s estranged brother kingdom to the S.
  2. Their transgression is “because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked.”
  3. [Since we have just concluded an extensive study of Judah’s transgressions and eventual destruction, I will refer you to our lessons from 1 & 2 Kings…especially this one: https://daveparksblog.com/2022/08/27/the-fall-of-the-southern-kingdom-judah-aka-treacherous-sister-jeremiah-3-6-11/ ]

[8] ch 2.6-16 / ISRAEL / NUMEROUS BREACHES OF COVENANT & SOCIAL INJUSTICES

  1. Now, keep in mind that Amos is delivering these denunciations and pronouncements of Yahweh’s judgments on Israel’s neighboring kingdoms in Bethel, one of the most prominent centers of Israel’s idolatrous religious activity [see ch 7.10-17]. As Amos throws out the web of Yahweh’s “I will not revoke the punishment” sentences to their neighboring kingdoms, they begin to listen with increasing interest, and they like it. Then Amos indicts even Judah, and the cheers of “Right on! Yes! Go get ‘em! Bring it on!” begin to erupt… [This is called “rhetoric of entrapment” or ‘gotcha’]
  2. They didn’t suspect that Israel would next up in the queue of Yahweh’s docket – but here it comes! “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because….”
  3. Since these charges and indictments will be the subjects of Amos’s successive messages, and we will develop them in the following lessons, we will just summarize the charges here:
    1. vv 6-8 / They abused their power and perpetrated egregious injustices – financially, sexually, legally – to exploit the weak and helpless for their personal profit and pleasure … and in so doing, they actually chose to follow in the ways of those who formerly had oppressed them
    1. vv 9-11 / They failed to recognize their debts of gratitude they owed Yahweh for all of His past covenant mercies, deliverances, prosperity, and providences … He had made them all they were and given them all they had: “yet it was I…” / v 9; “Also it was I…” / v 10; “And I…” / v 11. They deliberately abandoned Yahweh and chose to worship other gods
    1. v 12 / They persecuted those who were committed to faithfully serve Yahweh [Nazirites] and oppressed those who faithfully delivered Yahweh’s Word and warnings against their transgressions [prophets]. Rebels against God will oppose [cancel] those who live for God.
  4. So Yahweh passes His righteous and just sentence on them:
    1. v 13 / Behold, I will press you down in your place, as a cart full of sheaves presses down… Just like a wagon or cart breaks down when it is overloaded beyond its capacity, so they are filling up and overloading the ‘cart’ of their guilt with their transgressions and injustices until it breaks down under the weight of Yahweh’s punishment.
    1. vv 14-16 / Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain his strength, nor shall the mighty save his life; 15 he who handles the bow shall not stand, and he who is swift of foot shall not save himself, nor shall he who rides the horse save his life; 16 and he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day,” declares the LORD. All of their superior military strength and prowess in which they trusted – all of it will fail in the day of Yahweh’s punishment. They are going down…

“LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN LIKE WATERS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE AN EVER-FLOWING STREAM” / ch 5.24

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