We'd like to be turning to Amos
chapter eight. You'll find our text. Amos chapter eight. Now in the
first hour, I gave a little bit of background of Amos and I'll
reiterate that right now by telling you he was a farmer. He was a
herder of cattle, of sheep. And you can imagine, I meant
to mention this the first hour, so I guess obviously it's purpose
that I didn't, but this man's just going about his daily life.
He's farming, he's herding, tending to his work. And then the word
of the Lord comes to him and says, you're now my prophet. You're going to speak on my behalf.
The word of the Lord came into Amos. That's how the book starts.
Amos' responsibilities completely changed. I was a handyman down
in Florida and didn't have any knowledge of you guys at all.
And yet the Lord came and said, you're going to go to Pennsylvania
and be a pastor. So I don't understand exactly what Amos heard, but
I know what I heard. And here we are, here we are. Just as Amos and all the men
that preach the gospel, that declare the truth, the Lord's
truth, his gospel, they're hated. They're hated because of the
true stake. And the Lord told us why he said, the world doesn't
hate you. It's me. They hate it. And he said in
the world, you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I've overcome
the world. The world hates that which is not theirs. The world
loves darkness, not light. And the truth is light. Now chapter
eight gives us the sentence of judgment upon the unbelief of
the nation Israel. And to the believers, I believe
this is one of the most frightening things that I've read, that I've
saw in the Lord's word, the possibility of this coming to pass. It's
the most frightening thing that could come to pass. Look with
me in verse 11 of chapter eight. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord God. that I will send a famine in
the land, not a famine of bread nor thirst for water, but of
hearing the word of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea
to sea and from the north even to the east. They shall run to
and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins
and young men faint for thirst, They that swear by the sin of
Samaria and say thy God, O Dan, liveth in the manner of Beersheba
liveth, even they shall fall and never rise up again. And
when God says something, you can mark it down. It's going
to happen. You can believe it because God does not speak unless
it's truth. He cannot lie. When the Lord
speaks, We are to believe it because we know it's going to
come to pass. God says, I'm going to send a famine, not of water,
not of food, but of hearing of the word of God. That's the most
dreadful, scary, sobering thought to the believer is, Lord, do
not leave me to myself. You're going to have to give
me the ears to hear, but speak, Lord, speak to me. Do not stop
speaking to me. Give me your word. The Lord was to, there's two
sides to this. I kind of got ahead of myself
there, but there's two sides to this. One is he stops your
ears from being able to hear. And the second one is, is he
stopped speaking altogether. Either way, we're left to ourself
in that regard. Either way, we have no hope. If the Lord stops
speaking, we're hopeless. We must hear his word. We must
hear his voice. He said, my sheep hear my voice
and I know them and they follow me. If he doesn't speak, we have
no hope. We can gather together. I can
come up before you and I can declare what's written in this
word as best as the Lord enables me to do. But if he doesn't give
you the ears to hear, if he doesn't give me the grace to speak and
send his spirit and blesses it, it's all in vain. He must do
it all so that he gets all the glory. This is what he's saying
here. I will. leave them to themselves. I will leave them to themselves.
Is that frightening to you, the thought of that? Does that scare
you? It certainly does me. It is the
one thing I fear the most is being left to myself, being left
to my own devices, being left to my own way. being left thinking
that I have something to trust in other than the Lord's righteousness,
because we will. We'll fabricate something in
our mind that we believe God is pleased with, and it's not
true. If left to ourself, we will seek to please God in our
own way. And we have, it's the gospel
that comes and declares that it is finished. It's the gospel
is what, the Lord's what makes us believe Him and His word.
It's contrary to the flesh in every way. Lord, speak, don't
stop speaking. Don't allow there to be a famine
of your word unto our heart. Gospel churches are there. There's
not very many. There's a few candlesticks here
and there, and there's the exact amount that the Lord has purposed.
We rest in that, don't we? But there's some states in the
United States, we don't know if there's any believers in that
state, or at least churches that we associate with. Now, I'm not
limiting the Lord in what I'm trying to say and thinking that
I have to know every church in order for there to be one. That's
not what I'm saying. But I'm saying the ones that we associate
with, they're few and far between the ones that we know about.
There's one church that we know of in Australia. We've been streaming
for some time now, and I'm seeing you can pull up a map of where
people's viewed from. And we got people looking in
Singapore and in Africa and places like that. I've been contacted
by a man from Africa. and he's asking questions, he's
asking about election and different things, and he's seeming to rejoice
in what we're declaring. And so the Lord's not limited
in all of this, but there is a famine in the land, isn't there?
There's a famine of the hearing, the hearing of the word. There's
the right amount of preachers right now, the Lord's purpose
before the foundation of the world, but there is a famine
of hearing. Lord, don't let that come to
Holy Grace Church. Don't let that come to my house.
Lord, speak to me. Speak truth. Don't tell me what
I want to hear. Don't allow Satan to make me
think I'm hearing you when I'm really hearing my own thoughts
and my own ways. Cause me to hear Christ. I must hear Christ or I have
no hope. We know that if we're left to
ourself, we will be lost. And hearing this, we cry out,
have mercy. Lord, have mercy, speak. For thy servant heareth,
thy wretched, vile, dead dog sinner that I am. I'm listening
with everything that you've equipped us with to listen, the faith
that you've given us. I want to hear with the faith
that you've given, not anything that I'm producing. I don't want
to hear within myself or my own ears. I need your ears to be
given to me, a new man. Born after your seed, a perfect
man that would hear your voice and cause him to hear, Lord,
speak and cause me to hear. Give us Christ. We must have him. And what is
it we hope he speaks to us? It is finished. That's what we
want to hear, isn't it? That's what needs to be heard
in the believer's heart in order to be satisfied, in order to
have peace. That's the only thing that brings peace is it is finished. His salvation is accomplished.
We need to hear Him say that our sin, our sin was knelt to
the cross. My sin was knelt. I need to hear
Him say that. I need to hear Him declare that
it is finished and it is all right because of His work. If
we don't hear that, everything else is in vain. Everything's
in vain. All is lost. All is for naught. And in these few verses, we see
the man's end left to himself. And I want to bring to your attention
that Israel had every single physical need, every single physical
thing that they needed or that they wanted, but they didn't
have the word of God. We are in a society right now
where many people, we're not really doing without very many
things. We have pleasurable things. We have good things, just items
and the Lord's, uh, allowed us to have those things. And there's
nothing wrong with that. We're not instructed in the scripture
to live in cardboard shacks. No, that's not what the message
is. But it is true that we see in the church of Laodicea, they
said, I am rich, I am creased with goods, and we have need
of nothing. But the Lord said, you don't realize that you're
miserable, that you're wretched. that you're poor, that you're
blind, and that you're naked. That's what the Lord says unto
the church of Laodicea. He says, the reason I'm gonna spew you
out of my mouth is not because you're hot or cold. It's because
you're lukewarm. See, most men live their life
as double-minded men. I preached a message on that
one time and I came back and corrected myself on it because
it is true that the Lord's people have two minds. We have the old
man and the new man, but that's not what he's talking about there.
The new man looks to Christ always. So the Lord's people, that's
all their focal point is according to the spirit is looking to Christ.
The new man doesn't waver in that regard. Now he's talking
about men that look to themselves to try to please God, looking
to the law and looking to the world, looking back and forth
and thinking that they've got it all figured out, but never
looking to Christ. Only the Lord's people look to
Christ as all. And he says, I'm going to spew
you out because you're not looking to Christ, you're looking to
yourself. You don't realize that you're wretched, you're miserable,
you're vile, you're blind, you're poor, and you're naked. And only
the word of God, only his gospel can expose this sin. And at the
same time, it heals the same wound that it just made. Think
about that. It's a two-edged sword, isn't it? What does that
mean? Well, it cuts as it comes and as it goes, and it accomplishes
what it's supposed to do. And as it cuts and it exposes
our sin, It also heals it immediately at the same time. Repentance
and faith happen simultaneously, don't they? And we're born a
new man, looking unto Christ. This is what the Lord does by
his gospel. This is why we have to have his word. See, the church
at Laodicea, they believed that they were just fine because of
the possessions they had. They looked at their possessions
as favor with God. We don't look to anything, whether
it's what we have or what we're doing. We look to Christ, don't
we? And the only way we can do that
is if he says, seek ye my face, look, come unto me. The only
way we can do that is if his word goes forth in power and
he reveals by his spirit the truth. This is what we need.
Lord, speak, don't leave me to myself thinking that I've got
everything under control, that I'm all right. Lord, show me,
show me that if I, that I'm wretched, that I'm miserable, that I'm
violent, I'm the sinner, the chief of sinner and save me by
your grace. This is the cry of the believer. If he stops speaking, we're in
trouble. We're in trouble. If he stops speaking, aren't
you glad that him speaking is not determined by what you do? Whether he speaks or not, it's
not determined by what you do. Now there is There is many men
that say, if you don't live this way and you don't do this and
you don't do that, God will not speak to you. Well, that's limiting
God, isn't it? That's limiting God. No, the
Lord's word will not return void unto him. The Lord's word will
not return void. It will accomplish that which
he has set forth. We know how to live. The Lord
don't have me up here telling any of us how to live. We know
how to live our life, don't we? The Lord reveals that to us.
We're not lawmongering, telling men how to walk and dress and
talk and eat. No, the Lord does that for his
people. But what do we declare? The one thing needful, it's the
word. It's the truth of his gospel.
That's what we declare because that's the only thing that's
going to bring salvation. It's the one thing needful. We
declare his gospel simply and plainly, as that song just said.
Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men.
Even me with all my sin. The lie is that you have to clean
yourself up a little bit before the Lord will accept you. No,
you have to come as a dead dog chief of sinners. That's the
only ones that he came to save. That's the only ones that he
will accept is the chief of sinners. And that's how we come, isn't
it? Begging, Lord, Lord, I see myself, my pollution, my vileness,
my corruption. I see that, Lord, if you leave
us to ourself, if you don't speak, then hell will be our eternal
home. This is what we pray. Lord, speak. Lord, don't allow
there to be, don't allow there to be this, These pestilences
that come in and this drought that comes in that chokes out
your word, let your word fall on good ground. Don't send a
famine to us, Lord, allow your word to speak freely. Now the remedy for famine is
rain, isn't it? And it's the absence of pestilence.
It's all by his increase, isn't it? I'm thankful that he washes
his people with pure water. That's the rain that I'm speaking
of. It's the blessing from heaven, his spirit that comes down and
washes his people. That's how he grows his people
is by his word, by his spirit, according to his will. And these
pestilences, most of the time, pestilences are things that our
unbelief just continually causing us to look away from Christ.
And yet he continually brings us back. He continues, says,
seek you my face over and over again. He doesn't allow the pestilences
to choke out his word. No, he causes the pestilences
to free and we see him and his finished work alone. See, no
matter the question, the gospel is the answer. His work is finished. His work is finished. This is
the only thing that we hope in, that we trust in, is that the
Lord would send his word and that we would trust and believe
and look to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And when we hear all of
this, that there's a famine, that possibility of the Lord
not giving his word anymore, what does that make you do? Does
it make you want to live, tie your shoes a little neater iron
your shirt a little bit better so that you look better? No,
it causes us to cry out, Lord, have mercy. Lord, I know I deserve
not to hear your word, but if you shut up the windows of heaven
and you do not allow me to hear, I'm gonna die in my sin and I'm
going to go to hell. Lord, give me Christ. Give me
the word of God. Speak, Lord, unto your people. That's what it makes us cry,
isn't it? Begging him not to be silent. It is the declaration here is
that he's going to be silenced. And he gives us the reason. He
gives us three, three things are mentioned in this chapter.
Look with me in verse 14. This is the reason for the silence.
This is the reason for the famine, the drought. Verse 14, they that
swear by the sin of Samaria and say thy God, O Dan liveth in
the manner of Beersheba liveth, even they shall fall and shall
never rise up again. We have the sin of Samaria. We
have the God of Dan liveth. and the way, the manner of Beersheba
liveth. These are the three things men
do by nature when it comes to approaching God, when it comes
to salvation. This is the natural way that
men do in order to approach God. Now, the first one he mentions
is the sin of Samaria. Do we remember the Samaritans
and what they were, who they were? They were half-breed Jews. You can trace them all the way
back to around Balaam's time. The Lord told the children of
Israel, do not marry the people of this land that you've come
into. Don't do it. They're going to turn your heart
away from me. They're going to turn you to strange gods. Do not intermingle
with them. Don't do it. And just as the
children Israel and us have in common, they did exactly what
the Lord said not to do, didn't they? That's what we would do
too. It's the Lord that keeps us, he gets all the glory. But
we have the Lord speaking to a Samaritan, a Samaritan, and
it was the woman at the well. The Lord says in John chapter
four, he looks at his disciples and he says, I must needs go
through Samaria. Now it doesn't say that the disciples
questioned that, But you know, being the Samaritans, understand
the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other. You're talking about
the most racial people that's ever existed. The Jews thought
they were God's gift to the world. The Jews were high and mighty
and thought we're the best. And these half-breeds, they're
nothing. They're nothing. So when Christ says, I must need
to go through Samaria, you know that, especially Peter was thinking,
Lord, why in the world would you want to go to Samaria? But
he had a need to, didn't he? He had a need to for a woman,
a woman that was an adulteress, a woman that was a sinner. And
he goes to this well, and he goes at the time whenever the
women would come forth that were single women, the women that
were looking to become wed. And he walks right up to her
and he says, woman, give me to drink. And she says, you don't
have any vessel to get water with, the well's deep. And you're
a Jew, what's a Jew doing talking to a Samaritan? And the Lord
answered by saying, if you knew who it was that asked you, you
would have said unto him, give me water, give me to drink. And
he would have given to you a fountain of living water, rivers of water
would spring up into you to everlasting life. And she said, well, sir,
give me this water. I want that water. I want eternal
life. I want this." And it was obvious a desire there. He said
into her in response, call your husband. So see, before the Lord
ever gives living water to his people, he brings their sin to
the very front. And he says, here is your sin.
This is the problem. This is why you can't come to
me on your own, that I'm going to have to do it all. This sin.
He said, sin for your husband. Go get your husband. Call him.
She said, sir, I don't I don't have a husband. He said, that's
well-spoken. You had five and the one that you're with now,
he's not your husband. She said, sir, I perceive that you're a
prophet. We worship in this mountain. As soon as she found out he was
a prophet, as soon as she found out that he was of God, she presented
her righteousness immediately. And that is what all men will
do. They will present their righteousness. Now I've preached a message on
this. So you remember the story probably, but this mountain that
you were speaking of, there were two mountains back in Deuteronomy,
and the Lord told Moses and the children of Israel to bless this
particular mountain and curse this particular mountain. It
was all for the Lord's glory according to his purpose, but
the Samaritans latched onto that mountain that was blessed. So
she pointed to it and said, we're worshiping in the blessed mountain.
We're worshiping where we're supposed to be. But then she
looks at Christ and says, Jerusalem is where you say we should worship,
but we worship in this mountain. That was her righteousness, that
they were worshiping in the blessed place. They thought that they
had the blessing of God because of what they were doing. Now,
when the children of Israel intermarried with these Samaritans, and they
weren't Samaritans at the time, they were people of the land,
but that's what they later on became to be known as, they brought in
Jehovah, the Samaritans did. They said, well, we can worship
Jehovah also. Teach us the manner of Jehovah. And so they taught
them sacrifice. They taught them how to, the
keeping of the law, the practices, everything. Well, the Samaritans,
naturally took what they wanted and cut out the rest of the stuff
and kept whatever was pleasing unto them. And so they set up,
they said, well, we're already worshiping Jehovah, but we're
worshiping him in the form of the sun and the moon and the
cat and the dog and the donkey. We're already worshiping Jehovah.
And that's exactly how they continued worshiping who they thought was
Jehovah all the way up until this woman says, we're worshiping
in this mountain. And he said, go ahead and turn
with me to John chapter four. He told her, you worship, you
know not what. He told her the truth. And her
response to you worship, you know not what was, well, when
Messiah comes, he'll tell us, won't he? He'll set things straight.
And by grace, the Lord Jesus Christ looks at her and says,
I am. And she believed and was made
alive. The Lord saved her, called her right there. John chapter
four, verse 21. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe
me, the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship, ye know
not what. We know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now
is, that the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The woman
said unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ.
And she's talking to him. Think about that. That's who
she's talking to. She says, I know that Christ
is coming. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus
said unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. Now you'll notice
that word he's in italics. The Lord said, I am. That's what
he told her. I am. And upon this came his disciples
and marveled that he talked with the woman, the Samaritan. Yet
no man said, What seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her?
The woman then left her waterpot and went her way into the city,
and saith to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things
that ever I did. Is this not the Christ? Then they went out
of the city and came unto him." The woman says, I know when Christ
comes, he'll tell us all things. The Lord says, I am. And she
believed and she left her water pot. What was that a picture
of? That was a picture of her righteousness. That was a picture
of everything that she believed about that mountain and about
those strange gods. She believed Christ. She looked
to Christ at that moment. Why? Because he spoke. Now, do we see the importance
of the famine coming and him not speaking? There is no life
unless he says live. This is how he does it. So the
thought of the famine should cause us to tremble. Lord, you
ought to speak. You got to show me who you are. You have to show
me that you're Christ, because you could be right in front of
me talking just like this woman, and I would never see you. I
would never know it's you talking. This is our hope is that the
Lord would reveal Himself in mercy. He would reveal Himself
by His grace, that we would see Him, we would hear Him say, live.
We would hear Him say, come unto me. This is our hope. So the
sin of the Samaritans was worshiping God in the wrong form, thinking
they had done enough to please God. And you're going to see
that that's the pattern all throughout this. This is the one the Lord
says, no, No, I'm not gonna, in this day, you're gonna have
darkness. You're not gonna have light. I'm not gonna give you
any light from heaven. I'm not gonna shed my word upon you anymore.
There's gonna be a famine. We see that it's all by him that
we're kept, all by him that we're called, all by him that we're
saved. Otherwise, we would be worshiping
God in the wrong form. We have a figment of our imagination.
We would think we were worshiping God. This Samaritan really believed
she was worshiping God. And she knew it enough to know
that a Messiah was coming. She believed that she was truly
worshiping God, not whenever the Lord showed her the truth.
See, when the Lord speaks, it just abases us, doesn't it? It abases us to nothing. And
then it causes us to stand up in his righteousness, alone,
that's it. That's our only place to stand is in his righteousness. This is what he does for his
people. The sin of the Samaritan was
bringing God off of his throne, setting up strange gods, the
gods of our heart, the gods of our imagination upon his throne,
not acknowledging him as being the true one, the one true God. It was taking him off of his
throne, abasing him rather than her being abased. But thanks
be to God when the truth comes, when he speaks in truth, it abases
us. The truth declares he is seated.
He is seated in the heavens as the successful savior of his
people. This is what the gospel declares, that he put away the
sin of his people because he was made sin for them. He was
made the propitiation. This is who we worship. We worship
the true and living God. Now, the second thing that he
mentioned in Hosea, if you want to turn back to, I'm sorry, Amos. Amos chapter 8 and verse 14. They that swear by the sin of
Samaria and say thy God O Dan liveth. Second thing they mentioned
is thy God O Dan liveth. Now I want you to notice that
that word God is lowercase god, lowercase g-o-d. Back in 1 Kings
12, and I believe I mentioned this to us before, but Jeroboam
was king at that time because Rehoboam was the king of Israel
right before him. And what had happened was, is
the elders came and the men came unto Rehoboam whenever he had
became king. And he said, your father has
given us hard bondage. We're asking you to lighten the
load. He said, no. He said, I'm going to increase
it a hundredfold. I'm going to increase it. I don't
think it says a hundredfold, but he says, I'm going to multiply
it. And I can't remember the number that he said there. I'm
going to multiply it. Heavy, heavy task. He said the, the thickness
of my father's He compared the finger to the thigh. He said,
as hard as he was on you, that would be a finger compared to
me. I'm going to be as hard as my thigh, that thickness. And
so they resented him. They said, well, no, we're not
going to have this. And so they rebelled. And so that's whenever
the nation Israel split into the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. Now we see that Jeroboam became
king at that time in Israel. And rather than going down to
Judah, to Jerusalem to worship, he set up two temples. One at
the northern part, which is Dan, and one at the southern part.
When he set up these two temples, he put in two golden calves as
the mercy seats. Dan and Bethel was the two. He
put in two golden calves that replaced the mercy seat. This is what Jeroboam did in
Dan. Now, the sin of this God of Dan, he
says, the way thy God, O Dan, liveth. And saying that that
God lives is taking the mercy seat and turning it into a golden
caft, it's devaluing Christ as the mercy seat. That's who the
mercy seat really is. It's robbing Christ of glory,
robbing Christ of who He is and what He accomplished, robbing
Christ of His position before the Father as being the intercessor,
the one necessary to stand between God and men, the one that redeemed
His people. It's devaluing Him. And this is exactly what men
are doing today. They say certain things like
let Jesus. That term should never be uttered.
We cannot let Jesus do anything. He's God. He's sovereign. He's holy. And when we say let
Jesus, we're devaluing his authority. We're devaluing his sovereignty.
We're devaluing his position. That's exactly what men do today.
They're setting up a golden calf as the mercy seat. Men say, you
must do your part. God's done his part, you have
to do your part. No, Christ did it all. If we don't say Christ
did it all, that's devaluing Christ as our mercy seat. If
we say that you must do your part that is devaluing the Lord
Jesus Christ, it's setting up a golden calf as the mercy seat. Well, some men get trinkets,
don't they? They'll carry around, I saw a
young man the other day that had, I don't know how many cross
necklaces he had on. I couldn't count them all. He
had about 15 or 20 different ones. I don't know what he was
thinking it was doing for him, but what men do is they'll get trinkets
and they'll gather objects unto themselves and they'll say, well,
this is a representation of my faith in Christ. No, that's a
devaluing of Christ's finished work, drawing glory to yourself.
That's what that is. We don't carry around these things.
We look to Christ. We look to him. We don't look
at an object. We look to the man, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what we do. This is what we're told to do.
We don't rob Christ of his glory. We don't bring glory into ourself
by drawing attention to ourself. We look to Christ, he gets all
the glory. Now most people do not need the
one true mercy seat, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one true
mercy seat. They are perfectly content with
offering blood upon this bullock, this golden calf in his stead. They say that it's His blood
plus something. They say that it's not sufficient.
It's not sufficient to put away sin. You have to do something.
This is what the God of Dan represents. It's all false religion. It's
all the false Christianity in the world. That's what this represents.
The good news declares that He was sufficient, that He did put
away the sin of His people. It declares it is finished. The
elect have a true high priest, don't they? We have a high priest
that stood before the Father, offering up himself being the
sacrifice. He's our prophet, our priest,
and our king. He is the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation
of the world. And because of him and his finished
work, because he's caused us to see his face, we have been
purged from our sin, made perfect by his own blood, his work alone.
This is what the opposite of the God of Dan was. God of Dan
said, no, he's not sufficient. He's not my mercy seat. There's
something I have to do. And it was called will worship.
It was false worship before the Lord. Now, the last thing we
see is the manner of Beersheba Libeth. Now, I'd already mentioned
to us a little bit ago about Dan being the northernmost kingdom
in the nation Israel. Beersheba would have been the
southernmost edged city of Israel. So you have the picture of the
highest place north would be Dan, the lowest place south would
be Beersheba, the city. Now, Dan to Beersheba was about
150 miles as the crow flies. I put that in my notes to say,
because there's a lot of winding roads you got to go through.
So how many miles it is exactly, I'm not sure. But 150 miles as
the crow flies was information that I gathered from several
sources. So I'm confident to tell you that. Beersheba was
in the desert. It was a desert place that would
be the beginning place of a journey that would take place or the
ending place of a journey. Now, every year, annually, They
would journey from Dan to Beersheba. It was a journey of sacrifice.
It was a journey of devotion. It was a journey of spiritual
enlightenment, spiritual enlightenment. And there is religions today
that still do that. The Muslim religion gathers every
year over where their temple is. They make the trip, they
make the journey. Some people can't make it obviously,
but I think because of COVID, their numbers were down, but
they have millions that come every year to that place, that
journey, and it's supposed to be a spiritual enlightenment. At
this time, the Jews were doing this. Now in chapter five of
Amos, he tells us not to pass or not to journey. He tells them
not to pass or to journey to Beersheba. See what this represents
was, is they were doing their part in order to obligate God
to do something for them. They had pleased God and done
something in this journey that would make God do something for
them to obligate God. Does that sound familiar? It
should because men and women all over this world believe that
they're doing something to obligate God. He can't be obligated. He's God. The only one that ever
obligated the father was the son because the son upheld his
covenant promise to redeem his people. And the father said,
if you will redeem, I will resurrect you. And that is exactly what
happened. Christ Jesus obligated the father
to resurrect him. Nobody else can obligate God
to do anything. Good news is the covenant was
fulfilled. It's not a journey that we take
now in order to please God. I used to think that life was
a sprint in a lot of ways, but I've determined it is definitely
a journey and it's long and it's treacherous and it's dangerous
and we have to be kept by God. We're in a desert, aren't we?
I'm preaching on a famine right now, but in a desert, there's
not water unless there's an oasis. And that's exactly why we come
here. I mentioned that a few Sundays ago. This is what we
need. This is the hearing, that oasis,
that's where it's going to be found, is in that oasis. And
when we find it, what does the gospel say to all of these? All
of these three things that men do. What does the gospel say?
We can't obligate God to do anything. Christ did and fulfilled the
covenant of grace by his own blood, redeeming his people and
resurrected now seated in the heavens. He was raised for our
justification, the scripture tells us. Now, this prophecy
came true. It came to pass in the Lord's
time, there were 400 years of silence between the last prophet
Malachi speaking and Christ coming. God did not say a word to man
for 400 years. That's a sobering thought, isn't
it? That's more than our lifetime, isn't it? Lord, please speak
to us, not based on the merits that we deserve you to speak
to us, speak to us in mercy and in grace. It's all by your grace.
It's all by your mercy. And this is what the gospel declares.
I will speak to my sheep. I will call them by my name. I have saved them by my grace
and I will call them in time. Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter
four. I have two more places I wanna turn to, 2 Timothy chapter
four. So what is our responsibility
when we hear that there could be a famine? The possibility
of a famine. What do we do with that information?
Some people would say you have to live this way or you have
to do this or you have to do that, but I have the solution
here in 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy, I'm sorry. I just determined I can't talk
and turn at the same time. Forgive me. Second Timothy chapter four. In verse one, this is our responsibility. I charge thee therefore before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and
the dead at his appearing in his kingdom. Preach the word,
be instant in season out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with
all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall
they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. They shall
turn away their ears from the truth and they shall be turned. into fables, when we hear of
the possibility that there could be a famine, what do we do? Preach
the word. Lord, you're gonna have to do
it. You're gonna have to do the preaching. You're gonna have
to give the message. I don't wanna get up here and just preach
a sermon to you. I want the Lord to have given
me a message upon my heart that I may open it up unto you and
declare his finished work and that he would use it, that he
would send his spirit and use it. He's gonna have to bless
it. Despite me, I can't bless his word. He can. He can. He can use dead dog sinners to
declare the most glorious news to dead dog sinners and save
dead dog sinners by it. That's exactly what he does.
That's exactly what he does. Preach the word. This is our
task. The good news, brethren, is he is still calling his sheep.
He's not stopped calling them. He is still calling his sheep. There's churches, sister churches
that I know of that are having a baptism today. They're confessing
Christ. The Lord is still calling his
sheep. He's not silent. He is not silent. Thanks be to God by his grace
and mercy, his gospel is still going forth and the Lord is still
blessing his word. He's still allowing a few a few
beggars, some crumbs. That's what he's doing. He's
still allowing us to hear. He's still putting ointment on
the sores that was showing us that it's all finished, that
his work is finished. He's still saying, seek you my
face. And that's exactly what we do, isn't it? We seek his
face. Isaiah said, seek you the Lord while he may be found. Call
upon him while he is near. Today is the day of salvation.
Today is the day we seek him. We need his word today. We need
his word right now. And our hope is that he would
be pleased to continue to speak and declare that his work is
finished for his people. That's our hope, isn't it? Now
the last place is 2 Chronicles 7. I want to turn to in closing. 2 Chronicles 7. Look at verse 11. Thus Solomon
finished the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all
that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the Lord,
and in his own house he prospered, prosperously effected. The Lord
appeared unto Solomon by night and said unto him, I have heard
thy prayer, Now the prayer of Solomon was,
Lord, we need your presence. Lord, we're dedicating everything
that we are, everything that this building represents to you,
but you're going to have to send your spirit and cause us to worship.
This is what the prayer of Solomon represents. The Lord says, I've
heard thy prayer, and I've chosen this place to myself for an house
of sacrifice. If I shut up heaven, that there
be no rain, Or if I command the locusts to devour the land, and
if I send pestilences among my people, if my people, which are
called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek
my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear
from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will hear their
land. Now mine eyes shall be open and my ears a tent unto
the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen
and sanctified this house, that my name be there forever and
mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. And as
for thee, thou will walk with me before me as David thy father
walked and do according to all that I have commanded thee and
shall observe my statutes and my judgment. Then will I establish
the throne of thy kingdom according as I have covenanted with David,
thy father, saying, there shall not fail thee a man to be ruler
in Israel." It's your hope that the Lord would meet with us just
as he promised he would meet with Solomon. He says, I've chosen
this place. Boy, I hope he's chosen to meet at Oldy Grace
Church, don't you? Every time that we meet, not
a single, I don't want, Lord, don't let there be a single time
that we meet together and you not send your spirit. Don't let
there be a single time that we gather together and you not bless
your word. Don't let there be a single time
we gather together and I don't have the message. Lord, give
your message unto our heart. The Lord said, I've heard your
prayer. I've heard your cry, Solomon. And I've chosen, I've
chosen to bless this place. That's what the Lord said. Now,
the last thing I wanna notice is in verse 14. He just got done
saying, if I shut up heaven, there'll be no rain. If I send
pestilences, and that's what we're talking about is a famine. That's
what we're talking about. He says, if my people, which
are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, seek
my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven
and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now in
religion, in religion, this verse is used on, we need to do, we
need to try a little bit harder and the Lord promised to heal
our land. But I want us to understand something. The first thing he
says, if my people, which are called by my name, he's the one
that had to do the calling to start with. It's gotta be established
that it starts right there. If he did the calling, we're
his people. We're the sheep of his pasture. The second thing
he says, shall humble themselves. Can you humble yourself enough
to please God? No. Christ did. Christ humbled
himself to the death of the cross. So what is he saying we should
do there? Look to Christ's finished work. Look to his humility and
cry out, Lord, humble me, abase any wicked thought within me.
Get rid of it. Lord, all the unbelief, help
my unbelief. Lord, give me faith that looks
to Christ. This is what he's saying. Cry out to the Lord.
Do cry out. Really call upon Him with the
heart that He's given you and the faith that believes Him.
Truly pray unto Him. He said, if you'll humble yourself
and pray. Beg for Him and seek His face. Now here's the one
that I know we can't do. Turn from our wicked ways. There is no way that we can turn
from our wicked ways because as soon as I touch something,
it's a wicked way. I've corrupted it. I've defiled
it because of what I am. So what do I need? I need a substitute.
Lord, if you're going to heal the land that's inside of us,
if you're going to heal this desolate, barren wasteland and
give us an oasis, you're going to have to do all the work and
you get all the glory. Lord, cause us to seek your face. Call us by your word. Call us
to cry out for mercy. And then Lord, please hear us
when we pray by the blood of Christ alone. He said, I'll hear
from heaven. If you cry out for Christ, you
cry out in mercy. If you cry out, he said, I will
send my word unto you, my son, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that
there be not a famine in this place. Cry out for Christ. That's the solution. That is
the solution. His finished work, by his choice,
his determinate counsel, he redeemed his people and he puts a cry
in our heart. that begs for the Lord Jesus
Christ, and he is the solution for the drought, for the famine
that I was talking about. He's pleased to meet with his
people by his gospel. Now, I wrote an article in your
bulletin talks about worship and how we are to make worship
our highest priority. And that came from me studying
in our text. It came from me reading about
the possibility of the Lord not speaking. And I thought, well,
there's only one place where the Lord speaks, and that's where
his gospel's declared. That's why it should be the highest
priority for the believer, shouldn't it? It should be the most precious
thing in our life. Because this is where he calls
his people. This is where he sends manna, the life-giving
sustenance that's necessary for spiritual life. This is where
he gives it from. And how does he give it? By the
preaching of his gospel, by his son alone. Christ meets with
his people here. This is where he meets. This
is where he calls. We cry out with David when we see that he's
speaking today. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. David knew that the house of
the Lord is the place goodness and mercy would be found. And
every time he came to worship, the Lord heard him on behalf
of Christ. Isn't that glorious? The Lord's
not, his ear is not deaf. He can hear his people when they
pray. He's not limited by us. The Lord's not slack concerning
his promise. The Lord hears us. and thanks be to God, he answers
us by his word so that there is not a famine of hearing.