Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20100718.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Amos: Heeding The Word Of The God Of The Whole World
Part XIV: Our Need To Repent Of Greed Before The Impoverishment Of Divine Discipline
(Amos 8:1-14)
  1. Introduction
    1. When a man is guilty of greed, a form of idolatry (Colossians 3:5), he actually replaces trust in God for trust in things he believes support his life when actually it is God Who is His true Source of life.
    2. Greed then is a dangerous idol, for in discipline of this sin, the Lord often removes what He provides for our lives, creating suffocating poverty on a series of fronts, the great lesson in Amos 8:1-14 (as follows):
  2. Our Need To Repent Of Greed Before The Impoverishment Of Divine Discipline, Amos 8:1-14.
    1. God showed Amos a vision of a basket of summer fruie and asked what he saw, Amos 8:1 KJV. When Amos answered, "A basket of summer fruit," God predicted the end was come upon Israel, Amos 8:2.
    2. The Hebrew text adds great force to this conversation, and sets the context when understood (as follows):
      1. The word for "summer fruit" is qayis, the last fruit of the season that had a short edible life, and the word for "end time" is qes, Bible Knowledge Commentary, Old Testament , p. 1447.
      2. So, when Amos said he saw a basket of qayis, God replied that the qes for Israel had come!
      3. Yet, more that hust a play on words, this vision of the last crop of fruit that would soon rot provided a picture of impending cessation of food production, a warning of impoverishment in divine judgment!
    3. This impoverishment in judgment would be strong and varied in response to Israel's greed, Amos 8:3-14:
      1. The impoverishment of judgment would apply to Israel's worship experience, Amos 8:3, 9-10:
        1. When judgment fell, Israel's songs in the temple would turn to wailing cries of "Many, many bodies -- flung everywhere" in their temple site, and "Silence!" in place of musical melody, Amos 8:3.
        2. Amos 8:9-10 NIV reports God would use the imagry of a total solar eclipse that occurred in June 763 B. C. (Ryrie St. Bib., KJV, ftn. To Am. 8:9) to depict how He would turn Israel's religious feast into mourning, her singing into weeping, and the people would be dressed in sackcloth with shaved heads as mourners grieving for the loss of an only son, "and the end of it like a bitter day", meaning after the mourners had grieved over the loss of others, they themselves would die, the day of one's death being said in Scripture to be a bitter day, cf. 1 Samuel 15:32; Job 21:25; Ibid., p. 1448.
      2. The impoverishment of judgment would come due to Israel's insatiable material greed, Amos 8:4-8:
        1. The people of Israel would be judged specifically for having oppressed the poor, Amos 8:4 NIV.
        2. Specific practices of such sins of greed are described in Amos 8:5-6 as follows: (1) the merchants could hardly wait for the New Moon feasts to be finished so they could sell grain, Amos 8:5a, and they could hardly wait for the Sabbath to end so they might market wheat opposite truly focusing on worshiping the Lord on that day, Amos 8:5b. (2) Then, when they returned to market, they skimped on the measure, boosted the price and cheated with dishonest scales to widen their profit at the expense of the buyer, Amos 8:5c,d,e. (3) They thus forced the needy into slavery in exchange for paltry sums they owed even for a pair of sandals, Amos 8:6a with 2:6 (Ibid.), and that by selling the inferior sweepings of soiled and trampled grain mixed with whole wheat berries, Amos 8:6b; Ibid.
        3. Accordingly, God promised He would never forget all of these sins Israel had done in pride, 8:7.
        4. Thus, God would judge Israel, making the land figuratively tremble, Israel mourn, and the whole land experience a flood of judgment like the massive annual flooding of Egypt by the Nile, Am. 8:8.
      3. The impoverishment of judgment would apply to Israel's facing a dearth of God's Word, Am. 8:11-14:
        1. Since Israel rejected God's Word, He also promised there would be a famine of His words, 8:11.
        2. People would stagger in spiritual hunger from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean in Israel's south and up to her northern border, from north to east, searching vainly for God's word, Amos 8:12; Ibid.
        3. Even Israel's lovely young women and strong young men would faint of thirst for the Word, 8:13.
        4. However, for swearing by the shameful god of Samaria, by Jeroboam I's golden calf of Dan and by the idol of Beersheba, the people of Israel would fall in death, never to rise again, Amos 8:14.
Lesson: For unchecked greed, Israel faced the judgment of famine in material and spiritual resources.

Application: May we repent of all forms of greed lest we face the impoverishment of divine discipline!