This is a hard post to write, so please bear with me. I opened this morning to Amos 9. Verse 1 starts out (quoting from The Message Bible):
I saw my Master standing beside the alter at the shrine. He said:
"Hit the tops of the shrine's pillars,
make the floor shake.
The roof's about to fall on the heads of the people,
and whoever's still alive, I'll kill.
No one will get away,
no runaways will make it.
Which shrine? Where? Amos 7:10-15 gives us a clue:
Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel:
"Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he's doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He's got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying?
" ' Jeroboam will be killed. Israel is headed for exile.' "
Then Amaziah confronted Amos: "Seer, be on your way! Get out of here and go back to Judah where you came from! Hang out there. Do your preaching there. But no more preaching in Bethel! Don't show your face here again. This is the king's chapel. This is a royal shrine."
But Amos stood up to Amaziah: "I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees. Then God took me off the farm and said, 'Go preach to my people Israel.' Now then, hear the word of the Lord..."
What was the significance of this particular shrine? 1 Kings 12 tells us that King Jeroboam had two golden calves made and set one up at a shrine and alter he had built in Bethel, and the other in Dan.
He said to the people, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt..."
The king set up a brand new religious festival and ordered sacrifices made to the golden calf there at that alter. Instead of going to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship the One True God. And it was the priest of this shrine at Bethel who was telling Amos to go bother somebody else.
Amos's prophesy about the Shrine at Bethel continued on to encompass the whole nation of Israel. Amos 9:9-10 reads:
"I'm still giving the orders around here. I'm throwing Israel into a sieve among all the nations and shaking them good, shaking out all the sin, all the sinners. No real grain will be lost, but all the sinners will be sifted out and thrown away, the people who say, 'Nothing bad will ever happen in our lifetime. It won't even come close.'
The bible teaches that judgement begins at the house of God. In Ezekiel chapter 9, God gives Ezekiel a vision:
Then I heard him call out in a loud voice, "Bring the guards of the city here, each with a deadly weapon in his hand." And I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. They came and stood beside the bronze alter...
Then the LORD called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, "Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it."
As is listened, he said to the others, "Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.
Was this passage symbolically describing the coming Assyrian invasion and conquest of Israel? Was this the sieve prophesied in Amos chapter 9? Does God have a sieve in mind for America, and for the American church specifically? I wonder.
A couple of weeks ago, God gave me a significant dream. I was at a church service at a large church, and the service was about to start. You might say it was a mega church. The stage was far away, and the entire background behind the stage was covered with monitors. But what was even more interesting was that the space for the congregation was filled with TV cameras on tripods, roughly every 15-20 feet. And there were as many cameras as monitors. You could hardly find your friends because of all the cameras. I knew in the dream that each camera was slaved to a monitor, and that the cameras were to watch the people, rather than record the preacher. It reminded me of the George Orwell novel 1984. I was uncomfortable and tried to leave, but was prevented at the door by the doorman, in a light blue sport coat. "You can't leave, Sir," he said, or something like that, and turned me around and sent me back inside. I made my way through corridors and escaped out a side door into the garden, and was able to get away. Then I woke up.
While I was thinking and praying about the dream, the word "TOLERANCE" came to mind. The church in the dream had become all about tolerance. The Woke Gospel. Everything and Everyone must be accepted exactly as they choose to be. Otherwise YOU are intolerant. And no one must take offense at what you do or say. "I'm offended!" has become the battle cry, and YOU must not do or say anything that makes me offended, or YOU are Intolerant! And the cameras were to insure that everyone was going along with the program. Because if you weren't joyous, everyone else would see on the screen, that YOU are the problem.
(I am reminded of the situation in China, with every person having a social credit score which values their worth and conformity to the Chinese Communist Party program. This score-- measuring their level of conformity-- determines how good or how hard their life will be. And I am convinced those days are coming to America too, so get ready.)
1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us,
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
So speak the Word with boldness. Someone is always watching, so speak the truth with love, and speak it consistently. But be bold, no matter who is watching. No matter what sacred cow is being worshiped. So that you can say like Amos, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd and took care of Sycamore-fig trees. But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'
"Now then, hear the word of the LORD..."
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