A Famine of the Word of God Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Famine of the Word of God Part 2. He will be reading out of Amos 8:1-14.

Where do we find salvation when the condemnation of God hovers over our life? We run to the cross of Jesus Christ, and there we find that He has experienced and He has taken upon all of our judgments.

We have a safety in Christ. Today is Hope Worth Having, and I hope that you’re excited about learning God’s Word. We’re excited to have you, and we welcome you. My name is Mike Sanders. I serve as the senior pastor of the Open Door Church, as well as the host of Hope Worth Having radio program.

And today we’re going to continue our study, A Famine of the Word of God. Amos chapter 8 is where we’re at, and we’re going to continue our study as we break this chapter down, verse by verse, and we learn more about a famine of the Word of God.

And they had failed to live by His covenant. Now how was that manifested? I think in two ways. First of all, they put profit before the people. They put profit before the people. When you put profit before people, it’s always going to be the people, the poor, especially, who suffer because they have no money, they have no power to fight back.

And as a result in your heart, and my heart compassion will go out the window, honesty and integrity will come to an end in our life. Now this indictment has been repeated over and over in the book of Amos.

Just back up with me, if you will, in the chapter two. Go ahead. You need to see the themes that are woven throughout this book, and you need to understand why the harvest has passed and the summer has ended.

You need to understand why the judgment of God is coming. coming upon. When we look into the scriptures, remember that the Bible teaches us in the book of Romans that all these things have happened in the past, that we may learn, that we might learn, and we can learn from the failures of others, and we can learn from the warnings of others, and we can learn the path that we need to take.

Many times as my children were growing up, they might complain about certain leaders, and they might say, well, what about that person? Dad, you told us that this is what leaders do, and this is the example where to be, but look at them, Dad.

And I’ll say, well, sometimes we learn what not to do. Sometimes we learn what not to do. We don’t get bitter. We don’t get angry. We don’t get upset about it. We just say lesson learned. When we come to the book of Amos, we’re trying to learn what not to do.

Now look at the people of God in the book of Amos, chapter 2, verse 6. Notice how that they have treated the poor, thus says the Lord. For three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because they sell the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals.

Chapter four, jump over to chapter four again, this indictment comes upon the people of God. Verse one, hear this word, you cows of Bashan. Now ladies, don’t get upset, but he does call the women cows because they were self -indulgent, it was all about them.

They had become satisfied with their own prosperity and they had indulged in material things. And so he says they are cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, bring wine, let us drink.

Now I want you to go to chapter five and verse 11. Chapter five and verse 11. The Bible says, therefore, because you tread down the poor and take grain taxes from him, though you have built houses of hewn stone, yet you shall not dwell in them, you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink wine from them, for I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins afflicting the just and taking bribes,

diverting the poor from justice at the gate. What was the indictment that is brought against the people of God is that they had put profit before the people. So in the days of Amos, the rich land owner swallowed up the land holdings of all the poor people.

Now the land was supposed to be safeguarded. It was posted. to stay in the family according to the law of Moses. And the rich took advantage. And they not only took the land of the poor, but they sold the poor people into slavery, forcing them to eat wheat that was mixed with the sweepings of the floor.

That’s what the scripture is teaching us here this morning. As we look at this, I want you to again go down to verse 5. I’m in chapter 8 of Amos. When will the new moon be passed, that we may sell grain and the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat, making the Ipah small, and the shekel large, falsifying the scales by to see that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and even sell the bad wheat.

And so the point is that they were using the religious festivals to make money. They were turning what God wanted to be a memorial to his great work and miracles in the life of the people of Israel. And they were turning it into a money -making machine rather than pointing people to worship an almighty God who is holy and righteous and just and worthy of all praise.

They had put profit before the people. But they had also put profit before God. A great tragedy in Israel was not the social injustice that was being manifested, although there was much. That was something pretty common in the ancient world.

But the tragedy in Israel was that they should have known better. They should have done better. They knew who the one true God was. They knew his expectations. They knew his truth and that truth would set them free.

But instead of setting an example to the rest of the nations and being the light that Isaiah had called them to be, they chose to follow the example of the rest of the nations. They chose to embrace the patterns and the habits of pagan nations that were all around them.

And as a result, they were putting profit before God. They wanted to use their religion to somehow make sure that they increased their money. And so God says, I’m bringing the hammer. I’m bringing the judgment.

Now, the third thing that I want you to note is how the end is coming. How is the end? gonna come. So when we come to verse 7, the prophet who has already said the season of harvest is over, it’s coming to an end, you’re ripe for judgment, and he’s making an object lesson to the people of God, and he’s saying it’s all coming to an end, and then he makes the case why?

Now remember that Amos is standing before them in their religious shrines, in their religious temples, and he is hammering down on them. He is bringing the thunder of God to them, but now in verse 7 he is teaching them how specifically this end will come upon them in verse 7 through 14.

So the Bible says, the Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob, surely I will never forget any of their works, shall the land not tremble for this and everyone more who dwells in it. I want you to jump down to verse 9 and it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord, that I will make the sun go down at noon.

I will darken the earth in broad daylight. I want you to note that he says in verse 11, behold the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

So there are three ways in which the end is going to come upon the people of God. First is going to be an earthquake in verse 8, verses 9 and 10 is an eclipse, and in verse 11 through 14 is a famine, not a physical famine, but a spiritual famine, not a famine of bread, but a famine of the word of God.

What we note first of all is that as we understand this end coming is that we must be reminded as the people of God and we must communicate this out to our friends and to our families and to every stranger and every person that comes into our path as they consider all that is happening in this unique world and these crazy times that we are living, that God uses natural disasters to warn of a greater disaster.

It’s too many people, even God’s people who have their head in the sand and who are just trying to write off these things to coincidences and things that might be happening, but I’m telling you that God is at work and that not only is God at work, but he is working in the heart of each of his people and he is sending out a warning and a message to us that it is in time that we come to the Lord and be fully surrendered to him and sold out for his cause and committed to his purposes and obedient to his ways,

but not only is this message that the end is coming and he uses natural disasters to get our antennas up and to help us to see the red flags and to begin to connect dots is that it’s important that we warn this community and our family and friends that the time is coming when Jesus Christ is going to return and take his people home.

And we need to be ready. We need to make sure that we are spiritually prepared that we are alert and attentive to the workings of God and how he is speaking to us through natural disaster. I don’t want you to be discouraged this morning.

I don’t want you to be defeated. You say, man, I came to church and the pastor’s hammering down on us even at eight o ‘clock in the morning. He brings it. But here’s the point, friends. I’m only bringing the message of God, first of all.

But I want you to be encouraged because as you think about those three distinct things that God is bringing, an earthquake, an eclipse, and a famine, that each one of those judgments has been experienced by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

That each curse that has been pronounced upon the nation of Israel for their rebellion, each earthquake, each eclipse, each famine that is pronounced upon them, Jesus Christ has endured these curses on the cross and He is the answer, He is the remedy, He is the antidote to each and every person who senses and realizes that these judgments are upon a nation like America and that these natural disasters are taking place that God may awaken our hearts to Him.

On the cross when Jesus Christ was suspended between heaven and earth, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that there was an earthquake that shook the land so much that the Old Testament saints came out of the graves.

There was a resurrection of the Old Testament saints. This is found in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 27. We also note that you remember that as Jesus Christ was suspended between heaven and earth, that you remember that Jesus cried out in the darkness, that the sun hid its face upon the land, and that there was a darkness that swept across as the sins of mankind were placed upon the lovely sinless Savior,

Jesus Christ Himself. And why did He do it, my friends, so that you could be saved, so that you could know Jesus Christ as your eternal Savior, so that you could experience the freedom of your sin. and your sins forgiven and you could live with God forever and ever.

The Bible tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting, what church, life. Jesus Christ experienced the natural disasters of an earthquake and the darkening of the sun of an eclipse that took place upon the world at the time of His crucifixion.

But there was a famine for in the midst of that earthquake and in the midst of that eclipse Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? He was so much bearing the curse of sin upon Him that He was thirsty.

There was a… and upon him, he had been beaten, he had been bruised, he was hardly recognizable, and I know there’s statues, and I know there’s pictures, and you have this beautiful picture of Jesus, none of them are real, my friends, not to break your hearts and not to, in any way, make you feel somehow less spiritual, but my friends, these are only images of man, but the true image of a suffering savior is that he was naked on that cross,

and you could not tell who he was, and that he was bleeding from head to toe, and his very body was ripped apart, and he said on that cross, I thirst. There was not only a physical famine, but there was a spiritual famine, as he bore your sin in mine.

There was the spiritual famine, because the sins of mankind were upon him. My message to you this morning, how do we avoid the judgment of God? We run to the cross of Jesus Christ, because on that cross, he bore my judgment and your judgment.

On that cross, he took our sins, he paid our penalty for us, and the Bible teaches us that all have sinned to come short of the glory of God, that includes you, that includes me, every person on the planet that has ever been born into this world comes into this world, sinful and selfish, and you say my life has been a mess, and I have been living for self, and I have been doing what I want to do,

but now God is calling you to eternal life, and he is calling you to salvation, and where do we find that salvation when the curse of God and the condemnation of God hovers over our life? We run to the cross of Jesus Christ, and there we find that he has experienced and he has taken upon all of our judgments, and therefore we have a refuge.

We have a salvation, we have a stronghold. We have a safety in Christ. And so my friends, the Bible tells us that whoever believes in Christ, that there is no condemnation. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

How can that be true? How can that promise be true because Christ took our judgment? But listen, if you refuse to run to Christ and you refuse to run to Jesus for your salvation and for your safety, then you find yourself not under the umbrella of the safety of the Lord Jesus Christ, but you are now fully exposed to the judgment of God.

The nation of Israel stands as a warning to all of us. that even in our religion, we can get off track and we can start living for self and we can think it’s all about us and we can all of a sudden be focused on what we want rather than what God wants and we can put other things before God and we can become so materialistic that we forget why we are here and what God has called us to do and what Christ did for us on the cross.

And now, my friends, we are reaping the whirlwind because we have rejected God. My encouragement to you this morning is to come to Christ even if you are a believer that has strayed, even if you are a believer that has gotten off track, remember that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to do what, church?

Forgive us and to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. When you come to the throne of God in prayer, you don’t find a God of judgment, you find a God, a throne of grace because of what Christ did on the cross for those who believe in Him.

But for the world that rejects Him, there is imminent judgment. And that’s why it’s important for us to stay close to the Lord, to warn, to witness, to share Christ with others. Now, I want to, in these final few minutes that we have, just give you three things that’ll help you to sustain you as you are trying to live faithfully for the Lord Jesus Christ in these times.

Now, I want you to jump down to verse 11 of Amen. This is chapter eight. He said, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water.

but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east. They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it. In that day the fair virgins and the strong young men shall faint from thirst, those who swear by the sin of Samaria who say, as your God lives, O Dan, and as the way of Bathsheba lives, they shall fall and never rise again.

I want you to remember these three things that are important. The greatest famine upon us is the famine of the Lord, word. When God’s word is neglected in our life, we will become anemic Christians who are vulnerable to all the temptations of this world.

We will be vulnerable to the diseases of sin. We will be vulnerable to the traps of the devil. And we will be very much like these young men and young women. And we will find ourselves running to and fro, seeking the word of God, but not able to find it.

That is a judgment of God upon the land. We are living in times, my friends. And do not misunderstand the pastor here. In any way, but we are living in times where churches and Christians no longer want to hear the word of God.

They want to be entertained week after week. They want the pastor to do something that gives them a thrill, or some kind of razzle dazzle that excites them. When really what we need most of all in our life is a constant diet of the word of God in our hearts and in our lives.

There are many times that I have had breakfast or lunch with a pastor in our community. Somehow we get on the topic of sermons and sermon preparation. They say, well, how long do you preach? And I say sometimes 40, 50.

And if I’m really feeling good and had a code red Mountain Dew, 60 minutes easy. And they say, man, Mike, they about fall out of their chair. They said, my church won’t let me preach more than 15 minutes.

There’s a famine in the land church. There’s a famine among Christians because there is no word of God being taught. Part of God’s judgment is that he’s bringing a famine of his word. He is bringing a famine from his word.

So here are the three things that I want you to remember as you are striving to be faithful to the Lord. Remember, number one, that true life comes from God. Word. True life comes from God’s Word. The Bible says the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

Life is in the Word. The Bible teaches us that His Word is powerful, it is sharper than any two -edged sword, it is alive, it is active, the Word of God infuses spiritual life into our hearts. And though there may be a famine in the land, you and I are blessed that we are part of a community of faith, and I know that there are others in our community, but we are part of a fellowship of believers who are committed to teaching the Bible word for word,

chapter by chapter, book by book, and we want a constant diet of this Word because out of the Word comes spiritual life, church. The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word. My friends, listen, all the tricks and all the schemes and all the strategies and all the different plans of man to try to bring somebody to church and try to get them safe can only be found in one answer that they need the Word of God because the Word of God ignites faith in the heart and when the Word of God comes into the heart it convicts and it convinces and it helps people to understand the truth of God and my friends I didn’t know I was a sinner until the Bible was opened up to me and I didn’t know I needed to be saved until the Bible was opened up to me and at that moment the Spirit of God and the Word of God changed my heart and transformed my life true life comes from the Word you need a steady diet of it you say well pastor sometimes I can’t remember what in the world you taught a week ago well you know I can’t remember what I had for dinner a week ago but I know when I had it it was good and I know that it continues to nurture me and sustain me and you and I may not have as good of memories as we used to we may not be able to recall every detail of what the pastor’s outline was but I’m telling you as the Word of God is poured into our hearts and poured into our minds it does an effective spiritual work in our life that sustains us and strengthens us and empowers us that we might be faithful to Jesus Christ can God’s people say amen the second thing I want you to remember that a person’s opportunity to rightly respond to God’s Word will not last forever it will not last forever the season had ended the people of God who had stayed habitually in their sins taking advantage of the poor rejecting God putting idols before God the time had come for God’s judgment our message to our friends and family our message to those who come into our circle of influence is,

now is the day of salvation. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know what is before us. We live in uncertain times and we live in a lot of upheaval and the main thing that we need to recognize that the only constant is Jesus Christ.

He is the rock of our life and he is the one who is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. He is the one who will never change and so let’s remember that first of all, if we have not responded to God, do it now.

Don’t wait till tomorrow, give your life fully and freely to him, rededicate your heart to him and surrender to the will and the way of Jesus Christ and say, Lord, here is my life, whatever you want, I give it to you.

At the age of 16, a loud, bombastic preacher was up there screaming at me. to surrender all. And my friends on that morning, I went forward at 16 years old and said, Lord, whatever you got, I’m all in.

That’s where we all need to be today. Whatever you have got for me, Lord, I’m all in. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, now is the time because God’s Word will not last forever. Third, final truth that substitutes for God’s Word always leave God’s people wanting more.

You can fill the people of God with sugar only to find it will never nurture them, and they will always want something more. It is only God’s Word that satisfies our hearts. It is only God’s Word that comforts our life and strengthens us.

So as the leader of your homes, teach your children the Bible. Teach your grandchildren the Bible. As you are serving in this church, bring God’s Word to the table. As you come, eat up all that is being dispensed and is being made available to you in the Word of God because, my friends, Jesus Christ is the bread of life.

And Jesus said, you shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. His Word is sustaining. It is life -giving. Now, thankfully, the book of Amos does not end here in chapter 8.

And we’ll learn more about his promises and his restoration. But the questions we should consider as we go into our time of prayer this morning is, how do I need to restore to God today? Have I been placing material things, money, before people and God?

Am I living for stuff or am I living for a Savior? Am I experiencing a spiritual famine because of my negligence of His Word? May God restore His people and may we find in Him all that is necessary for our spiritual life.

Amos was not a trained preacher but he was a simple shepherd that God plucked out to preach to the people of God about their abandonment of their faith. a nation that had turned from God, much like America.

And this message should really hit home to our hearts. And you wonder, what should you do? Well, I would say first begin with your own heart and then reach out to your family and then continue to reach out through your local church into your community.

But the main thing is stay focused in the word of God. We want to encourage you to check us out on social media because our goal is to teach God’s word, our goal is to reach people for Christ. So check us out on Facebook and Twitter and I know you’ll be encouraged and you’re being shaped for the cause of Christ through His word.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.