Turn with me in the Old Testament
to the book of Amos. If you find the book of Daniel,
the next book, Hosea, then Joel, then Amos. Amos chapter eight. Give you
a moment to find it. I'm gonna look at one verse here,
verse 11. Amos 8, verse 11. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine
of bread, not a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the
Lord. The Lord God says, behold, the
days come. Do you want to know something?
They're here. They're here. The day that the Lord speaks
of has come. The days that God will send a
famine in the land. Not a famine of bread. Not a
famine of food. Not a famine of thirst for water. But a famine of hearing the words
of the Lord. This is a famine that the Lord
has sent. The Lord sent it. God says, I will send a famine
in the land. This is a famine of judgment. It's a judgment from God against
idolatry. Isn't that what the Lord told
the Samaritan woman, he said, you worship you know not what.
Folks today have no idea who God is, and they worship a God
of their imagination. Men and women are worshiping
a lot of things, but it's not the God of the Bible nor His
Christ. Men and women in religion have
made themselves a God. Little g. Little g. Made them
out of many things. And when I speak of idolatry
and idols, I'm not talking about little Buddha statues. No, I'm
not talking about the sculptures and the inscriptions like the
folks on Mars Hill who had a God for everything. And just in case
they missed one, they set up one for the unknown God and Paul
said, that's the one that I serve, the one that you don't know.
I'm not talking about the golden calves that Aaron in the wilderness
formed out of their gold are the ones that Jeroboam made for
men to worship. I'm talking about the gods that
men and women of modern religion have conjured up and made from
their own imaginations. Man's free will, men have made
it a god. Man's self-ability, they've made
it an idol. Man's choice, man's decision,
man's works of righteousness. They're nothing but idolatry.
Man has made them his God. Man is trusting in himself in
his own work of righteousness. And if you don't believe me,
you just ask folks. They'll tell you real quick what
they're doing for God. God's judgment has fallen in
the form of famine. because of man's idolatry. And
that's what the prophet Amos is telling us here in our text.
This is a famine of judgment. Judgment for what? Judgment for
idolatry. You know, the very first commandment
that God gave Moses up on Mount Sinai was, thou shalt have no
other gods before me. That's the very first commandment
that God gave. And the second commandment was,
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that's in heaven above, or that's in the earth
beneath, or that's in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord, thy
God, am a jealous God. Did you know God was a jealous
God? I'm a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that
hate me. You see, to bow down to an idol
is to hate God. That's exactly what Israel had
done. Now look at verse 14 here. Verse 14. It says, 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. And Amos here is talking about
the sins of Jeroboam. Jeroboam was a ruler of the northern
kingdom of Israel, and he practiced what the Apostle Paul would call
will worship. He corrupted the worship of Jehovah
by instituting golden calves as the objects of divine adoration
and worship. He changed the place of worship
from Jerusalem to the cities of Bethel and Dan. And the calf
that he made at Bethel was near Samaria and the other calf was
set up at Dan. That's what Amos is talking about
there in verse 14. And Jeroboam told the people
that this was done for convenience sake. He told the people of Israel,
he said, it's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem to worship. It's putting too much hardship
on you. Jeroboam pointed to those golden
calves and he said, behold your gods, O Israel, which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt. But they were just inanimate
objects. And the scriptures say that this
thing became a sin for the people worshipped the calves that Jeroboam
made. And no less than 21 times that
I can find in the Old Testament, Jeroboam is charged with having
caused Israel to sin. Jeroboam also appointed priests
from other tribes other than the tribe of Levi, which God
had strongly forbidden. He set the tribe of Levi aside
as his priest. Jeroboam altered the time of
the feast in the tabernacles from the seventh month, 15th
day to the eighth month, 15th day. The scriptures say that
all these things Jeroboam devised in his own heart. He took the necessity out of
hearing the gospel preached. He took the necessity out of
worshiping Christ in the sacrifices. He made the worship of God one
of personal convenience. And that's exactly what men and
women in religion has done today. Mankind has turned the worship
of God into wheel worship. Modern religion has taken out
the necessity of hearing the gospel of substitution preached. harlings have omitted the message
of Christ in him crucified and substituted in its place a wheel
worship of what man does for God. The gospel's never been
about what man does for God. Man can't do anything for God.
He's unwilling and he's incapable, but the gospel's about what God
does for his elect in and by and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And there's a famine in the land of that kind of preaching. You
don't have to listen long to hear it. You don't have to watch
long to see it. The church today has music, but
no message. The church has games, but no
gospel. The church has entertainment,
but no edification. Why? Because God, in judgment,
has sent a famine. Religion substituting the thoughts
and feelings of men for the Word of God. That's just a fact. Half
of what I hear men and women say today, I can't even find
in Scripture. We've built services around an
altar call. Nowhere in the Scripture can
you find an altar call. Men and women come to Christ
right where they sit, in their hearts. You don't have to move
a muscle to come to the Lord Jesus. And walking up front most
of the time is just a way to say, look at me, look what I'm
doing. There are inventions of man's own imagination. We live
in a day of famine. Men and women, sinners, are starving
for the words of the Lord. You know, famine is where we
get that word famished. This kind of famine, though,
is far, far worse than a famine of food and water. Because in
this famine that I'm talking about, this spiritual famine,
it not only destroys the body, but it destroys the soul. It
seems anymore that everything in the Bible is under attack.
Have you noticed that? Creation is under attack. Men
believe in the big boom theory. I like what one old preacher
said, he said, who lit the fuse? The worldly educated think that
man has evolved from monkeys. Why are there still monkeys then?
Instead of believing that God created man in his own image,
men go to great lengths to believe impossible things. Why? Because there's a spiritual famine
going on in the land. The inspiration of the scriptures
under attack. I've had more than one. I hate to really think about
how many has said to me over the years, do you really believe
the Bible? Well, the Bible was written by
men. No, sir. Men didn't write it. Men recorded
it. It was recorded by men who were
under the inspiration of God. That's what the Scriptures teach.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And it's profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That's what Paul told Timothy.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The inspiration of God is under attack. It's being attacked on
every side. What about the sovereignty of
God? It's under attack. Men make a God to be a nancy-pamsy,
helpless, pathetic old man upstairs who's trying to save, wanting
to save, but can't without the sinner's cooperation. You better
read your Bible. That's not the God of this Bible.
That's not the God that this book declares. That's not the
God that the apostles preached. And I'm telling you, unequivocally,
that's not the God that saved me. No, sir. My God effectually
saved me and He saved me on purpose. He didn't try to save me and
couldn't. He didn't want to save me and I resisted. No, sir, in
the day of His power, He made me willing. And I came willingly. God's never wanted or tried to
do anything. I wish folks would just take
those two words, trying and wanting, out of any sentence with the
name God in it. They don't go. They don't go. That kind of preaching you hear
is because of a spiritual famine. I heard Brother Mahan say this
and it's so true. We live in a day of spectator
religion. That's a good term, spectator
religion. Most church members don't study
the Bible. Most do very little praying and
practically no worshiping. They're spectators. They sit
while professional singers and professional preachers and professional
promoters entertain them. That's what folks want. They
want to be entertained. They want to be made to feel
good about themselves. They sit in their pews and they
pay somebody to preach for them, to study for them, to pray for
them, and to somehow, some way, get them into heaven when they
die. And they've convinced themselves that they've been successful
because I'm telling you, you can't go to a funeral and you
know this is so. You can't go to a funeral where
the preacher doesn't declare them saved when they die, whether
they loved or served God or not. I remember when my grandmother
died. I loved my grandmother. I'm telling you, I did. She was
just a sweet, sweet lady. She was a good mamaw. She was
a good cook. She was a good homemaker. She
was a good babysitter. Kids loved her. She kept kids
all the time. She was humorous. She was loving. She was caring. She was generous.
But one thing she wasn't, and that was religious. And I never
knew her to go to church. I never heard her to say anything
about God. I never heard her comment on
the Bible. I never heard her pray a word. But when she died,
that preacher stood up and he said that she was in heaven.
And I have to admit, I was surprised. I was surprised because when
she was nine or ten years old, she walked down an aisle, she
made a decision, she got baptized, and she let go and let God have
his way. This kind of thinking is the
result of famine. There's a famine in the land.
Not a famine of bread, not a famine of thirst of water, but a famine
of hearing the Word of God. We don't live in a day where
men and women study to show themselves approved unto God, workmen that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Folks
aren't rightly dividing the word of truth. They'll take a verse
here, and a verse there, and then a verse here, and they'll
prove anything that they want it to say. Nolson. It's not the
way it's done. This is a day of spectator religion. Men trust the preacher to read
the Bible, study the Bible, and they gulp up just whatever he
tells them. Well, that's what my preacher
said. What does God say? We better be like those folks
in Berea and search the scriptures out for ourselves. When Brother
Mahan had the television ministry, I remember he told me one time
that he used to get letters and calls all the time from folks
all over the place. And their question to him was,
where can I go and hear the Word of the Lord preached? Do you
know any place in my area where I live where I can go and hear
the Gospel of the sovereign grace of God like you preach? The sovereign
grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, well, you
know, I can think of a lot of places you can go and be entertained.
But where can you go and hear the gospel of the glory of God?
Not many places. You know why? Because there's
a famine in the land. I'm afraid that we live in a
day of divine desertion. Thank God that He's been pleased
to raise up some men in some places to preach the unsearchable
riches of Christ. And if you find such a place,
you need to thank God for it. And you need to just hang on
and trust in Christ. The Apostle Paul said this, necessity
is laid upon me. When I asked your prayers earlier,
that's what I'm trying to tell you. Necessity is laid upon me. Like Paul, woe is unto me if
I preach not the gospel. Isn't that what Paul told young
Timothy, the preacher? He said, preach the Word. Be
instant in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort
with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come. That
time has come. The time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. But after their own lust, they
will heap unto themselves teachers having itching ears. That's what
we've got today. We've got a lot of itching ears.
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall
be turned to fables." You know what a fable is? It's a fairy
tale with a moral to the story. Isn't that appropriate? That
Paul would use that word fable. Most so-called preaching today
is nothing more than fairy tales with a moral to the story. And
that morality is non-existent. Men preach a goodness and a righteousness
that really doesn't exist with mankind. It just don't. Religion
encourages people to do the best they can, as though God regards
and rewards fallen men and women's efforts and morality. You know,
we say things. I catch myself saying things
like, you know, so-and-so's a good man. Compared to me, he is. But
compared to God, he's not. And that's the issue. How do
we stand before a thrice holy God being the sinners that we
are? Men don't live right in order for God to save them. Men
and women strive to please God because He has saved them. The
Bible teaches that God requires perfection. I cannot provide
what God requires. Can you? Can you provide perfection
to God? That's what He requires. And
that's the issue. So how can I be reconciled to
God? Just one way through a substitute.
Somebody's got to take my place. And isn't it so simple and easy
to understand, but yet men will go to great lengths to find some
other way to be saved, instead of simply trusting in the one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. I won't
have Him to rule over me. Where's the preaching of Christ
and Him crucified? It comes through the preaching
of the Word of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Word of the Lord. Isn't that what He said in John
1.1? In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus Christ
is the Word of God. Jesus Christ is the Gospel message. We preach Him and Him crucify. But there's a famine in the land.
We need the Bread of Life. But there's a famine. Where's
the preaching of Christ and Him crucified? Where are the men
who are telling the truth about God and about man and about how
the two can be reconciled together? Where are they? You've heard
the story of King Josiah. It's found in 2 Kings 22. Let's
take the time to turn there. 2 Kings 22. When this young king, Josiah,
came into power, the nation Israel had departed from the Lord. Their worship of God had ceased. The temple was grown over with
weeds. Some of the temple's structure
had dilapidated. It was just falling down. You
ever seen these abandoned houses? The board's over the windows
and the roof has fallen in. That's what had happened to the
temple of God. So Josiah sent word to the carpenters
and to the builders and to the masons to clean out and repair
the temple of the Lord. He wanted worship restored in
the house of the Lord. So they began to work on the
temple and King Josiah brought in the carpenters and the builders
and the stonemasons and they began to work. And they worked
on the house of the Lord and they began to clean it out and
carry out the rubble and all the filth and sweep the dust
and the dirt and put the place back like it once was. And while
they were doing this, they found a book. And Hilkiah, the priest, he found
a book that he had never read. And he was a priest! And he had never read God's Word.
He was going about the duties of religion, but he hadn't read
this particular book. And this book was the writing
of Moses, the first five chapters found in the Bible. And so he
took it to a scribe by the name of Shaphan. And Shaphan read
it, and he took it to the king. And as he's carrying it, the
king said, what have you got there? What is that you have
in your hand? And the scribe said, while we
were cleaning out the temple, we found this book. Now look
at what the king said here in verse 11. He said, read it to
me. And then verse 11 tells us that it came to pass that when
the king heard the words of the book, the word of God, that he
rent his clothes. Now that's an expression of humiliation
and sorrow, tearing and ripping of the heart. That's what renting
the clothes represents. This was the first time that
the priest, as far as I know, the scribe and the king had ever
heard the Word of the Lord. And when he did, he displayed
great repentance and great anguish and great anxiety and concern. that he rent his clothes. And
you know what? So did I the first time I heard the gospel with
hearing ears. I thought, oh my, I'm in trouble. God requires what I can't provide. What am I going to do? No wonder
folks used to always say when they heard the gospel, what must
I do to be saved? Then we find out we can't do
anything. Look at verse 13. Look at what
King Josiah said there. He said, Go ye and inquire of
the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all of Judah
concerning the words of this book. For great is the wrath
of the Lord against us. For our fathers have not hearkened
to the words of this book. And I'm asking you, can that
not be said in this day of doubt in which we live? I'm telling
you there's a famine in this land. There's a famine in this
land. Spiritual famine. That's the
case among the spectators of religion. They don't know God's
Word. Men and women have not hearkened
to the words of this book. The wrath of the Lord is kindled
against them. They've departed from the Word
of God. And believer, let me ask you,
do you remember when you discovered this blessed book? Man, for me,
it's about 32 years ago, and I read the Word of God, and when
I read the Word of God for the first time in my life, God enabled
me to be honest with myself. I had never hearkened to the
words of this book. There's none that understandeth,
is there? There's none that seeketh after God. In Adam, our federal
head, we all departed from God and His Word. All of us have
gone astray. Because of our sin, the wrath
of the Lord is kindled against us. God is angry with the wicked
every single day. And this is the God with whom
we have to do. He's the Lord of judgment. He's
the Lord of justice. He's the Lord of truth. But thank
God, He's a Lord of mercy. He said, I'll be merciful. The
Lord delights to show mercy. That's what this book says. The
Lord is plenteous in mercy. Today, it seems nobody needs
mercy. Why? Because there's a spiritual
famine in the land. Folks aren't sick. They're not
sinners. Charles Wesley, knowing that
he was a sinner, he wrote that hymn, Depth of Mercy. He said,
depth of mercy, can there be? Mercy still reserved for me?
You better believe there is. Why? Because the Lord is plenteous
in mercy. His mercy endures forever. There's
mercy to go around with our great God. The Lord in mercy and grace
has taught us some things. And you know, that's who teaches
us the things of Christ. God does. I'll show you that in a moment.
Did you know that the word mercy appears exactly 100 times in
the Book of Psalms? 44 of those times, it's the psalmist
saying, have mercy on me. Almost half the times the word
mercy is used, it's the psalmist saying, Lord, have mercy on me.
That should give us strong indication that we need mercy, especially
in this time of famine. We're taught of God. It's written
in the prophets that they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh
unto me. If God shows you this, you'll
come to Christ. You won't have to be begged to
come. We won't have to sing 22 verses of Just As I Am and get
you down the aisle. You'll come without coming. You'll
come running in your heart. You see, the Lord teaches His
people who He is. The heathen had all their idols
and their statues and they dusted them off and they polished them.
They shined them up. Oh, they loved their little idols.
And then they said, David, this is our God. Where's yours? We don't see Him. Where's your
God at? He said, oh, my God's in the
heavens. He's done whatsoever He's pleased. That's who my God
is. He's the God of heaven. He's
a sovereign God. He does whatsoever He pleases. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did He in heaven and in earth and in the seas and all
deep places. My God does as He wills, when
He will, with whom He will. He worketh all things after the
counsel of His what? Will. His only. Nebuchadnezzar
said, he ruleth in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And he found
out the hard way. Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning. My God's sovereign. How many
folks are hearing about this God? Not many, because there's
a famine in the land. As I said earlier, men talk a
lot about what they do for God. About how much they love God,
serve God, carry out His plan, do His bidding. But they don't
know much about Him. And their talking proves it.
He's the Lord of glory. He's in His holy temple. Let
all the earth keep silence before Him. He's omnipotent. He's immutable. He's infinite. He's eternal. He's holy. Oh, there's a subject you don't
hear much about today. The holiness of God. That's a
subject you don't hear. You know why? Because there's
a famine. God is so holy that He can by
no means clear the guilty. God must punish sin and God will
punish sin. And that's why the message of
Christ and Him crucified must be told. That's why we have to
be told of our heavenly substitute, a perfect man who's become our
mediator, our advocate with God the Father. We must hear something about
what sin has done to us. We understand sin by its origin. It's in Adam that all die. By
one man's disobedience, we were made sinners. That's where our
problem started, in Adam. Sin has to do with the will.
Sin has to do with the heart. Sin has to do with our attitude
toward God and His law. Sin in its original place And
its origin, I should say, took place in the attitude of Adam
toward God. Sin's understood by its nature. Sin's a heart disease. God looked
down and saw that every imagination of man's heart was on evil and
only evil continually. We've got a heart problem. Sin's
not what we do. Sin's what we are. And I'm telling
you, you can cut my hands off and sin will still dwell in here. And you can sew my mouth shut
so that I cannot talk, but that won't even begin to conquer sin.
You can put my eyes out so that I can't see, but lust is in the
heart and it shall still prevail. It's out of the heart that evil
thoughts proceed. Sin is in the heart. It's a nature. What we do is because of what
we are. I'm telling you, I need a new
heart. I need a new heart. David said,
I was conceived in sin. I was shaped in iniquity. I was
born in sin. I came forth from the womb speaking
lies. The Pharisees, they'd cleansed
out the outside of the cup and everybody thought they were so
holy. I tell you, folks have become masters at doing that.
Folks have become very good at cleaning up the outside, but
like the Pharisees, They look like beautiful sepulchres, but
on the inside, it's full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Christ said, first, you hypocrite,
clean out that which is within, and then the outside will be
taken care of. Preachers today are nothing more
than just religious cheerleaders. I'm telling you, that's all they
are. Cheering sinners on their way to hell. But they're leaving
men and women's hearts alone, and they're rotting on the inside.
Oh, they appear to be outwardly beautiful, like those sepulchres,
clean, wholesome, and moral, but they're cold, dead, and loathsome
within. But God doesn't look on the outward
appearance. God looks on the heart, and that's why He said,
you must be born again. I'm going to have to give you
a new heart. I have to give you a new one. If God does something
in the heart, I'm telling you, it'll change the outward. It
sure will. Well, my time's up, so let me
close with this. Salvation is not giving mental
assent to some Bible facts. It's much, much more than that.
Salvation is not just a moral reformation. Boy, I hear a lot
today about reformed religion. An attempt to be more holy and
more righteous. You can't do it. Hear me? You can't do it. No, sir. Salvation is not joining the
church. Salvation is not going through the motions of religious
activities. Salvation is a miracle of God's
grace. Salvation is a regeneration. It's an awakening. It's being
brought out of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son.
Salvation is to be born of God. Salvation is to become a new
creature in Christ by His grace. Salvation is to be chosen by
the Father, regenerated, restored and revived by the Holy Spirit,
and it's to be redeemed and purchased by His Son. Salvation is to see in Christ
the glory of God Almighty. Only God can reveal this to a
sinner. Did you hear me? Only God can reveal it to you.
We live in a day of famine. People wonder and ask, why doesn't
my wife have an interest in these things? Why doesn't my husband
see his need of Christ? Why don't my children see the
urgency of this matter? Why don't thousands flock to
hear this glorious message of substitution? There's a famine! God's been pleased in spiritual
famine to hide these things from the wise and the prudent, but
He's revealed them unto babes. Oh, I gladly take that place
of a babe, don't you? Why? We're only given one reason. God don't have to give a reason,
but this is the reason He gives. Even so, Father, it seemed good
in Thy sight. Lord, may it seem good in your
sight this day to reveal yourself to someone here. Oh, Lord, please
do so. Make it so, Lord, make it so. I appreciate your attention.