(here is continuation of the Amos entry from May 18. I have had an emotionally challenging week already. The worst of all my unexpected upsets was in coming home from work and learning my mom had two sudden dizzy spells that left her on the ground. The first one happened when she came out of a hair appointment and reached into her purse for her car FOB and went down on the pavement, scraping her elbows and knees and giving her an abrasion on her head that steadily dripped blood down her face, neck, shirt and slacks. She was able to drive home but it took hours for the bleeding to stop, ruining her newly coifed hair and making her wonder if she shouldn't go to one of those emergency clinics. Then she told me that only hours later, when she was pouring seeds into the bird feeder in our backyard, it happened again. She said there was spinning in her head and she went down on the grass like a sack of potatoes. After each incident (lasting no more than 30 seconds) she was fine and has been fine since. She has severe osteoporosis so it is all very concerning and all we know so far is she will be tested for, among other things, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.)
Amos 4:1: [1] Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.
"With these 'sermon notes' of Amos, this one is sort of like scalding acid blasted out like a blow torch on people. Down South a farmer I knew who killed hogs would say, 'I'm going to skin your hide, tack you up on a wall and pack you down with salt.' That's exactly what Amos is going to do here; this chapter takes no prisoners," explains Richard Jordan.
Verse 13: [13] For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.
"The One who created everything is coming and you're not right with Him and He's going to fix you good.
"With that word 'kine' he uses a refined, kind of hoity-toity, sophisticated term to talk about a female cow instead of heifer. You guys remember Darryl Mefford from down in Tennessee. Years ago, back in the '90s, we're at a Bible conference and they gave him a passage from Proverbs to preach on--something about women. And he kept talking about heifers. He'd say things like, 'The old heifer went here,' and about the time he was through, I bet 30 women were ready to just put him on a rail and do the tar-and-feathers thing. Darryl never thought anything of it because where he came from that's just the way they talked.
Isaiah and Amos were contemporaries. Isaiah writes in Isaiah 3:
[14] The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
[15] What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the LORD GOD of hosts.
[16] Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:
"I get a kick out of that 'stretched forth necks.' They're trying to look dignified. Years ago, I saw Oprah Winfrey on her talk show where she was going on about people taking pictures of her all the time and how she learned that 'if you just crane your neck,' you get rid of the double chin. You're trying to look slim and young and that kind of thing, and when Oprah said that I thought of that verse.
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"The idea of mechanical dictation, dismissing the character and the style of the author, never made any sense to me. God reaches into your vocabulary and pulls out the words. That's what He did with Amos. He literally takes a herdsman and farmer and says, 'He's got the vocabulary I want to use,' and He pulls out Amos' vocabulary words that are plain in speech and sends them to Israel. It's an illustration of the way inspiration works.
The Book of Amos begins: [1] The words of Amos, who was among the herdman of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
Notice verse 1, how he doesn't say, 'I said.' He doesn't say, 'The Lord said.' Whoever wrote the Book of Amos--the idea is Amos didn't actually write the book. Someone else is writing down the words that came out of Amos' mouth.
"If you go to Joel, it's obvious Joel wrote the book. 'The words of the Lord came to Joel. Most of the writers are that way, but that's exactly what inspiration is really all about.
"If you look at the word inspiration, the word spirit is right in the middle of it. God took His Spirit and put it in some w-o-r-d-s and then causes them to be written down.
Romans 16: [22] I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.
"Now, I thought Paul wrote Romans? Who's this dude Tertius who said he wrote it? You see how that verse can be a problem for you if you don't understand? Paul spoke the words and Tertius preserved the words by writing them down. In the very act of creating the Scripture, inspiration and preservation were both involved. I've had people tell me, 'That idea about preservation is something you just made up.' I didn't make that verse up.
"Paul is the author of Romans and these are the words of God to you and me through the Apostle Paul. Paul spoke the words and then Tertius wrote them down. What did he do? He preserved what was written.
"The 30th book in the Bible is Amos, so come to Isaiah 30. It's fascinating, the first chapter of Amos goes back to Isaiah 30 at least 4-5 times.
Isaiah 30: [8] Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
[9] That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:"Why do you write it down? That it may be for the time to come forever and ever. Paul spoke it, Tertius wrote it down. Why? Because God wanted what Paul said preserved.
Amos 5:26: [26] But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
"You see the names of those gods Israel was worshipping in the wilderness? They're not back in Exodus. You don't read these names until you come to Amos. These names of the gods are fascinating."
(new article tomorrow)
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