Talk of JESUS .com

Category: Prophets – Warnings for 21st century ‘christians’

Jeremiah by Michelangelo

Old Testament Prophets WARNED Israel, Judah, and neighboring nations about what GOD has planned IF they did NOT REPENT (and they usually didn’t).

How does this speak to 21 c. ‘christians’ in these last days? Are you bold enough to WARN your SOCIAL ‘Friends’ of what Jesus Christ warns? Does the message of a Prophet apply even more to them and US, now? SHARE your scriptural warnings from the Prophets and WITNESS for our LORD, WHO IS and returning… soon.

SHAKEN 2 “Think carefully about your ways
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SHAKEN 2 of our 4-post series is an update of commentary on the January 6th crisis of 2021 following the insurrection and assault on Capitol Hill - a lingering malignancy which not-so-amazingly continues to shake the very foundations of freedom of WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES of America who must agaub think carefully about our ways.
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GOD & Government
Prophecy of Aggeus (Haggai)
What is the PEOPLE’s response?
God responds to righteous fear
Haggai 2 – Encouragement & Promise
The LORD Who Leads
Think back carefully: Do YOU remember this recent history correctly?

inciting disrespect for Government

“So help me God.”

GOD & Government

Although this series points to current events of the United States and the world, SHAKEN! is not a partisan political post, but a fleeting glace at government and the role of God in the leadership of nations.

Our next post will point back to God and government at various times including this Prophet’s writings. So here’s the setting and time, NOT the US in A.D. 2021, but Persia in about 521 B.C., some 2500 years ago.

Darius the Great was the third Persian King of the Achaemenid Empire

About 50,000 Jews returned. In 536 B.C., they began to rebuild the temple (cf. Ezra 3:1–4:5) but opposition from neighbors and indifference by the Jews caused the work to be abandoned (cf. Ezra 4:1–24) – source: Commentary of John MacArthur
- Where is the great City of David or the expansive Empire of Solomon of five centuries before?
- Where is the rebuilt Temple of the Lord from the Book of the Law uncovered during the reign of a previous administration (of Cyrus and the Governor Nehemiah)?
Prophecy of Aggeus (Haggai)

In the second year of King Darius..

בִּשְׁנַ֤ת שְׁתַּ֨יִם֙ לְדָרְיָ֣וֶשׁ הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ בַּחֹ֨דֶשׁ֙ הַשִּׁשִּׁ֔י בְּיֹ֥ום אֶחָ֖ד לַחֹ֑דֶשׁ הָיָ֨ה דְבַר־יְהוָ֜ה בְּיַד־חַגַּ֣י הַנָּבִ֗יא אֶל־זְרֻבָּבֶ֤ל בֶּן־שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל֙ פַּחַ֣ת יְהוּדָ֔ה וְאֶל־יְהֹושֻׁ֧עַ בֶּן־יְהֹוצָדָ֛ק הַכֹּהֵ֥ן הַגָּדֹ֖ול לֵאמֹֽר׃

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, saying: This people saith: The time is not yet come for building the house of the Lord.
Aggeus (Haggai) 1:2 DRB

Darius the Great

King of Kings
Great King
King of Persia
King of Babylon
Pharaoh of Egypt
King of Countries

Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider your ways!
Haggai 1:5 NASB

6 You have planted much
but harvested little.
You eat
but never have enough to be satisfied.
You drink
but never have enough to be happy.
You put on clothes
but never have enough to get warm.
The wage earner puts his wages
into a bag with a hole in it.”

7 The Lord of Armies says this: “Think carefully about your ways.

WHY has this happened?

Are theirs not the same questions as our political and religious leaders ask in these days of desperation?

WHY has God allowed this?

9 “You expected much, but then it amounted to little. When you brought the harvest to your house, I ruined it. Why?”

This is the declaration of the Lord of Armies.

“Because my house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.

So on your account,
the skies have withheld the dew
and the land its crops.
Haggai 1:9b-10 CSB

11 I have summoned a drought
on the fields and the hills,
on the grain, new wine, fresh oil,
and whatever the ground yields,
on people and animals,
and on all that your hands produce.”

What is the PEOPLE’s response?

12 Then..
- Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,
  - governor of the Achaemenid Empire’s province Yehud Medinata led the first group of 42,360 Jews who returned from the Babylonian captivity in the first year of Cyrus the Great, the king of the Achaemenid Empire. – source: Wikipedia
- the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak,
- and the entire remnant of the people
.. obeyed the Lord their God and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him.

So the people feared the Lord.

That was their response to the Lord God.

Yet what answer now from ‘the entire remnant .. of the people’ from US?

God responds to righteous fear

Haggai 2 – Encouragement & Promise

3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Doesn’t it seem to you like nothing by comparison?

Remember Zerubbabel their governor, the high priest Joshua and all of the people obeyed the Lord their God and therefore ‘So the people feared the Lord.‘

The Lord’s declaration:
- 4 Even so, be strong, Zerubbabel
- Be strong, Joshua
- Be strong, all you people of the land..
Be strong, all you people of the land—this is the Lord’s declaration. Work! For I am with you—the declaration of the Lord of Armies.

5 This is the promise I made to you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit is present among you; don’t be afraid.’”

The LORD Who Leads

Can you imagine WHY the LORD God would restore a broken nation whose LEADERS OF GOVERNMENT AND WORSHIP had not led ALL of the PEOPLE to repentance?

In fact, Zerubbabel, Joshua and all the remnant of Israel once again bowed down in awe to the LORD, the God who had led them from Egypt and once again from Babylon.

Yet hear the word of the Lord to US — for WE THE PEOPLE are a stiff-necked and rebellious people led by winds of wantonness and words of wrath which stand upon our own strong wills.

For the Lord of Armies says this:
“Once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.
I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of Armies.
Haggai 2:6-7 CSB
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To be continued... Shaken 3 - surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses 
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January 25, 2021
Amos the Seer: “I told you so (5x) – GOD showed me
I told you so!

Don’t we hate to hear it? While occupied in our own daily trespasses we stop up our ears to any who would warn of our sins: “Thus the Lord GOD showed me, and behold…”

And to make things worse, in the day of our demise the seer such as Amos could well lament, “I told you so, but you refused to listen.”

Amos 5:

Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel…

We’ve heard Amos previously warn:

Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.

Now the seer shows signs he tells Israel’s leaders ‘the Lord GOD showed me.’

Would a leader – a king, premier or president – dare ignore something that a seer [Amos] says the Lord God showed me?

How could a priest serving a people pledged to God not hear Amos when he demonstrates ‘what the Lord God showed me?’

Wailing in the streets

16 Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the Lord,

“There is wailing in all the plazas,
And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’

… For I will pass through you,”
Says the Lord.

It is not as if the LORD leads them out of their troubles as before from Egypt through the wilderness and before Israel subduing her enemies in the promised land.

Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord!
What will the day of the Lord be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
Amos 5:18 CSB

The seer shows the fear of the LORD that will consume a man fleeing an enemy arrived safely at home, but there bitten by a snake.

Are we not all prey of the serpent of eden without the Lord God?

Rather than consuming Israel’s offerings for sin on the altar the Lord would consume Israel!

The Day of the Lord

20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light,
Even gloom with no brightness in it?

21 “I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
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We will have more about festivals to consider
when returning to the Gospel of John shortly.
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22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them…

The Lord will no longer accept Israel’s worship!

23 Take away from me the noise of your songs!

25 “House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness?

Amos reminds that they had nothing to offer there before the pillar of fire of the LORD!

Idolatry

NO OTHER GODS!

The Law of the Living LORD our God is quite clear: He IS GOD and idols (even of good “Saints” or a Jesus of stone) are not. Yet Israel became a whore on the mountaintops of the stone images of idolatry.

26 וּנְשָׂאתֶ֗ם אֵ֚ת סִכּ֣וּת מַלְכְּכֶ֔ם וְאֵ֖ת כִּיּ֣וּן צַלְמֵיכֶ֑ם כּוֹכַב֙ אֱלֹ֣הֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר עֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם לָכֶֽם׃
Amos 5:27 WLC

27 Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,”
Says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

Woe to those at ease

We have heard this before from the Prophet Isaiah who also preached against rituals and idolatry after Amos. The true prophet so often warns, “This is what the LORD God showed me.”

Warning & Advice to Scoffers Who Rule
Isaiah speaks to scoffers of God. Yet are your ears this day so filled with twisted speech that you do not even understand the significance of his warning?

Amos now warns the rich who govern and direct worship in Israel.

3 Woe to you who put far off the day of doom,
Who cause the seat of violence to come near;
4 Who lie on beds of ivory,
Stretch out on your couches,
Eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall;
5 Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments,
And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David;
6 Who drink wine from bowls,
And anoint yourselves with the best ointments,
But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

… now go into exile … And the sprawlers’ banqueting will pass away…

Judgment on Jacob

8 The Lord God has sworn by Himself,
The Lord God of hosts says:
“I abhor the pride of Jacob,
And hate his palaces;
Therefore I will deliver up the city
And all that is in it.”

God showed me five signs
I will leave it to you to read the five signs Amos tells us, ‘the Lord God showed me.’

Let the Holy Spirit convict the church!

The Lord Jesus, Redeemer of Israel, later showed signs no other Prophet could ever do. Yet even the Messiah Jesus was not believed.

So how do you think Amos was received by the leaders of the land and their appointed teachers and priests?

The five signs build in intensity and importance.

A brief glance

7:2 When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! … So the Lord relented…

4 The Lord God showed me this: The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. 5 Then I said, “Lord God, please stop! …

“This too shall not be,” said the Lord God.

7 Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the Lord said to me,

“Amos, what do you see?”

And I said, “A plumb line.”

Opposition

10 Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying,

“Amos has conspired against you right here in the house of Israel. The land cannot endure all his words…

12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer!

Amos responds to the priest with the anointing of the Lord in his calling.

“I was no prophet…, But I was a sheepbreeder.

I will spare them no longer

What do you think?

The Lord has relented from punishment for sin. Will you repent?

And once again, the Lord holds back and does not punish. Will you now repent?

So the Lord measures the place of your worship, the people of His pasture. It is a time for harvest, a festival of blessing in times before.

3 In that day the temple songs will become wailing”—this is the Lord God’s declaration.

“Many dead bodies, thrown everywhere!

Silence!”
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Do you now FEAR THE LORD?
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4 Hear this,

you who swallow up the needy,
And make the poor of the land fail…

10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth
and every head to be shaved.
I will make that grief
like mourning for an only son
and its outcome like a bitter day.

11 Look, the days are coming—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
when I will send a famine through the land:
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and roam from north to east
seeking the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
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SILENCE! of the LORD. Do you hear it?
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God’s Judgment Unavoidable

Did you repent when you heard the word of the Lord?

And did you bow down when the Lord showed you mercy?

Now, therefore, the Lord stands beside the holy altar of worship and Amos speaks the unspeakable judgment of the Lord upon the people of His Own covenant.

I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said,

“Strike the doorposts, that the thresholds may shake,
And break them on the heads of them all.
I will slay the last of them with the sword.
He who flees from them shall not get away,
And he who escapes from them shall not be delivered.

“Though they dig into hell,
From there My hand shall take them;
Though they climb up to heaven,
From there I will bring them down;
The word of the LORD – Amos 9:2 NKJV

The further words of the Lord paint a fearful judgment and death of the people of His promise, a covenant Israel has broken.

The Prophet Amos confronts you and says, God showed me all this that you might repent. Do you?

All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
Amos 9:10 KJV

The ending that is not yet the end

Amos offers only a distant glimmer of hope.

“On that day I will raise up
The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down,
And repair its damages;
I will raise up its ruins,
And rebuild it as in the days of old…

The Lord God will once again accept worship by the sons of David. Yet how?

We will learn more of this next in returning to the Good News of John.

וְשָׁפַכְתִּי֩ עַל־בֵּ֨ית דָּוִ֜יד וְעַ֣ל יֹושֵׁ֣ב יְרוּשָׁלִַ֗ם ר֤וּחַ חֵן֙ וְתַ֣חֲנוּנִ֔ים וְהִבִּ֥יטוּ אֵלַ֖י אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁר־דָּקָ֑רוּ וְסָפְד֣וּ עָלָ֗יו כְּמִסְפֵּד֙ עַל־הַיָּחִ֔יד וְהָמֵ֥ר עָלָ֖יו כְּהָמֵ֥ר עַֽל־הַבְּכֹֽור׃
http://blb.sc/009Nio

“I will pour out on the house of David
and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the Spirit of grace and of supplication,
so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced;
and they will mourn for Him,
as one mourns for an only son,
and they will weep bitterly over Him
like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
Zechariah 12:10 NASB
March 21, 2020
Amos – For those who turn justice into wormwood
Whatever is wormwood?

Sometimes when we read the Bible, especially the Old Testament and specifically the true Prophets of Scripture, we fail in the imagery of the language of centuries and millennia long past. Amos uses a word “לַעֲנָה” we translate into English as wormwood and most of us naturally ask, “whatever is wormwood?”

Truly, we also don’t really understand idioms such as ‘justice in the gate’ much better from Amos’ opening indictments listed previously in Not immune from judgment. If you missed summary of these first four chapters of Amos you might want to take a look through the secure link above.

As for wormwood, we’ll get to a definition after introducing his lament for Israel. We may also point ahead to more obvious application of his warning to the church of these last days.
- China Walmart
- Empty Hong Kong street
- continuous media updates by media
- Churches ordered closed
- family masked coronavirus
- Vatican Square 2020
- NYSE March 2020 crash & close due to fear from coronavirus
Worldwide pandemic – Chinese Coronavirus – winter 2019-20
“Seek Me that You May Live”

Setting aside current 21st century events, let’s look back to the prophecies of Amos concerning Israel and its middle east neighbors in the 8th century Before Christ, introduced previously in Amos – Not immune from judgment.

Amos 5:

2 She has fallen, she will not rise again—
The virgin Israel.

“The city which goes forth a thousand strong
Will have a hundred left,
And the one which goes forth a hundred strong
Will have ten left to the house of Israel.”

This prediction laments a judgment to come, a warning of consequences more devastating than slight tremors of these past weeks.

A Call to Repentance

4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:

“Seek Me and live…

Through Amos, the LORD God warns those called as his faithful people to repent! Give up worship of your idols on the mountaintops and look to the Lord your God.

6 “Seek the Lord that you may live,
Or He will break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph,
And it will consume with none to quench it for Bethel…

The LORD led the house of Joseph by Moses from slavery in Egypt

… it will consume everything
with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
Amos 5:6b CSB

You cannot hide from the LORD, Creator of the universe!

Don’t say you worship at Bethel – “the house of God.” And do not come to Gilgal, the gathering place of the Prophets. Nor cross over to Beersheba, well of your sevenfold oath (which Israel has transgressed).

Later Amos will preach [8:14]:

They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.
Amos 5:7 CSB

These unjust leaders literally have set righteousness aside in the dirt.

Wormwood – לַעֲנָה

It is a metaphor for bitterness, a noxious aroma of a poisonous herb such as hemlock. Something about the judgment of Israel’s leaders stinks before the LORD who they claim to worship.

We have heard this from other Prophets of the LORD who likewise warn of sin and call to repentance. Amos warns Israel prior to its fall, but two centuries later (~ 586 BC) Jeremiah uses it in asking how this could happen to Judah and Jerusalem.

1:1 אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָדָד הָעִיר רַבָּתִי עָם הָיְתָה כְּאַלְמָנָה רַבָּתִי בַגֹּויִם שָׂרָתִי בַּמְּדִינֹות הָיְתָה לָמַֽס׃ ס

Lamentations 3:15-19 KJV
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He hath filled me with bitterness, 
he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, 
he hath covered me with ashes.
And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: 
I forgat prosperity.
And I said, My strength and my hope 
is perished from the LORD:
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, 
the wormwood and the gall.
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The LORD who judges

Amos 5:8
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He who made the Pleiades and Orion
 And changes deep darkness into morning,
Who also darkens day into night,
 Who calls for the waters of the sea
 And pours them out on the surface of the earth,
 The Lord is His name.
 
 It is He who flashes forth with destruction upon the strong,
 So that destruction comes upon the fortress.
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They have led their country astray, a people pledged to the LORD to a path of their own destruction. And how do these erring leaders receive the warning of the Prophet Amos?

Indeed how do the sinful always receive truth from the Lord unvarnished?

It will remind us of how their Savior was later received in a rebuilt Jerusalem under Rome. We have just foreshadowed it from the Gospel of John. The Gatekeeper & the Shepherds

The accused react – יָכַח

= to prove, decide, judge, rebuke, reprove, correct, be right

They hate him who reproves in the gate,
And they abhor him who speaks with integrity.

They hate the one who convicts the guilty
at the city gate,
and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.
Amos 5:10 CSB

Sentence of the JUDGE

The LORD makes a few points to the leaders who have misled His people. Amos, who was not a Prophet but called as a shepherd of Tekoa, serves these convicted their just cup of wormwood.
- Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor
- And exact a tribute of grain from them,
- Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone,
  - Yet you will not live in them;
- You have planted pleasant vineyards,
  - yet you will not drink their wine.
12 For I know your crimes are many
and your sins innumerable.
- You who distress the righteous
- and accept bribes
- And turn aside the poor in the gate.
  - (the place of justice *and your poor judgment)
Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time,
For it is an evil time.
Amos 5:13 NKJV
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Does this scene seem strangely familiar?
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14 Seek good and not evil, that you may live;
And thus may the Lord God of hosts be with you,
Just as you have said!
- Hate evil,
- love good;
- Establish justice in the gate.
Perhaps the Lord God of hosts
May be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Hoping for mercy

We still have NOT heard the sentence of the Judge. But here it comes. after Amos urges Israel’s leaders to bow down before the Lord in repentance.

5:16 לָכֵן כֹּֽה־אָמַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאֹות אֲדֹנָי בְּכָל־רְחֹבֹות מִסְפֵּד וּבְכָל־חוּצֹות יֹאמְרוּ הֹו־הֹו וְקָרְאוּ אִכָּר אֶל־אֵבֶל וּמִסְפֵּד אֶל־יֹודְעֵי נֶֽהִי׃

Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, the Lord,
“There is wailing in all the plazas,
And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’
They also call the farmer to mourning
And professional mourners to lamentation.
Amos 5:16 NASB

Wormwood for the church in this time?

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As for the judgment of the LORD imminent for Israel warned by Amos…
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God-willing, To be continued...
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March 20, 2020