'Seat of violence to come near'

(new article tomorrow)

Amos 6 talks about the fact that the leaders of the nation Israel are going to be the first ones to take it in the neck.

Verse 1: [1] Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

The first woe was in chapter 5 and now here's the second judgment that Amos is pronouncing on them, explains Richard Jordan.

Verse 2: [2] Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

He's saying, "You see all those nations out there that have been wiped out for doing what you're doing? You think you're going to get away with it? Forget it."

They were professing that they were going to get away with it. You go back in Jeremiah with the northern kingdom where Jeremiah would come along and warn, "Judgment's coming," and they'd say, "Put that guy in jail; he's talking nonsense. Everything's wonderful, everything's going great. The economy is up, jobs are booming and luxury and prosperity is everywhere."

Of course, it was a two-tiered thing. You had the "haves" and then the "have nots" where things weren't great, but the leaders were saying they were and just ignoring the spiritual reality.

Verse 3: [3] Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

He's going to mock and ridicule the leaders. The "evil day" is the day of the Lord when they're going to start howling in the highways and streets.

Amos 5: [18] Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.

[19] As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
[20] Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

There's going to be a judgment from God. Historically, it was the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. Prophetically, ultimately, the day of the Lord extends from there all the way to the Second Advent and you see that allusion in verse 3.

The evil day is when the satanic policy of evil has its day; the day when the satanic plan gets its opportunity to do its thing, and when that happens it will cause the "seat of violence to come near."

That seat of violence is called the throne of iniquity back in Psalm 94: [20] Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

[21] They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

It's called the seat of Satan in Revelation and it's the seat from which the Antichrist ultimately will reign.

When he calls it the "seat of violence," it's what we saw in Amos 4 with the taking away from the people the assets that they had, bringing them into court and using the legal system to take advantage of people and oppress people.

They had developed a corrupt system where the judicial system was totally crooked and favored rich people. You read in the next verses in Amos 6:

[4] That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;
[5] That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;
[6] That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

I mean, they're eating lamb chops and Porterhouse steaks and they are stretched out on beds made of ivory.

In I Kings, when Solomon built his own house and then went up north and built some more property, in that place he built an ivory throne. Ivory is white and what he was doing was building a judgment throne.

There's a judgment throne in Revelation 20 called the "white throne" and what Solomon was doing was building a satanic, evil counterfeit of the real thing. He was going to be God.

If you take the tabernacle, it's a picture of the universe and the way God's structured the universe. The tabernacle is also a picture of your body.

In that territory where Solomon put that white throne, he was so wealthy and gold was so plentiful it's said that silver was treated like dirt on the ground, like rocks, and was of no value at all.

In that context he built the ivory palaces and so forth. You ever hear anybody sing that song, "Out of the ivory palaces"? Well, that's a description of heaven and where the Lord came from and Solomon was trying to duplicate that.

What's happened in Israel, and what motivated Solomon to do those kinds of things, is part of the religion that had captivated and captured the nation Israel; that religious apostasy.

*****

God says in Isaiah 10: [9] Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

[10] As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
[11] Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?

You see those same cities that are in Amos are the ones that the Antichrist is already going to have conquered.

God's telling Israel: "Look, the man of sin is going to get you and you think because of all this leisure and fine things you have over here that that's my blessings but listen, those things, that's not my blessing. That's the evil fruit of an evil deed. You don't have my protection and the Antichrist is going to come get you just like he got all those other places and you think you're better than they are? You can forget it. I'm going to treat you just like you're not mine and I'm going to bring the Antichrist down on you and when he comes, he's going to clean your clock just like he cleaned everybody else's and he's going to take all that wealth away from you and leave you sitting out there on the ash heap, crying like a bear bereaved of her whelps."

Here's Israel's religion in Amos 5: [23] Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

These songs God's referring to were not harmonious, wonderful sounding things; they were rattle, rattle, thunder, boom, boom. The noise.

If you go to Exodus 32, Moses is on the mountain with Joshua and they come down with the commandments and when they hear they say, "There's the noise in the camp; it's the noise of war." Turned out it was music.

Now, where had those people just come from? Egypt. Where do you think they learned their music? In Egypt. What they learned was music that sounded like noise. Now they've incorporated that into their religious services.

He says, "And I will not hear the melody of their viols." You see, there is some music God doesn't like. Every kind of music has the potential to be used to glorify God, but your flesh and the religious system will take ANY kind of music and twist it into something God doesn't want--make noise out of it.

Here's how they're doing it in Amos 6: [5] That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;

A chant is a repetition; you repeat it over and over. They chant to the sound of the viols. They've got the great orchestration, but it's just repetition. You ever go to a church with a liturgy where they're just repeating stuff over and over and over and they're singing? That's what they were doing.

And watch this: "and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David."

Now, let's take David off the hook, because when they say they're doing it like David, that's their hypocritical--Isaiah has that verse about them being a hypocritical nation; they're a bunch of hypocrites. They're not doing it like David.

I Chronicles 23: [5] Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.

When David made instruments, he made them to praise God with. He didn't make the instruments to please people. You see that's what Amos 5:6 says. They didn't invent instruments that praised God; they invented something to please themselves with.

I guess that's probably one of the great identifying markers of music. Music is one of the most dangerous things in the life of anybody.

Music is the one thing that quicker than anything will take the place of God the Holy Spirit in your life. It will take the place of sound doctrine in your life quicker than anything.