Bible – Page 11 – Steps to Life

Lessons From the Book of Amos, Part IV

November 22, 2019 by Mike Baugher

What Might Have Been

Ellen White records for us a vision that was given to her of the work that was taking place in Battle Creek, Michigan. The vision that she relates is about a meeting that occurred in the Tabernacle Church:

“We were assembled in the auditorium of the Tabernacle. Prayer was offered, a hymn was sung, and prayer was again offered. Most earnest supplication was made to God. The meeting was marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The work went deep, and some present were weeping aloud.” Testimonies, vol. 8, 104.

She goes on to say that the issue at hand involved the reception of the message to the Laodicean church, the need for repentance on the part of God’s people, and their reconciliation one with another. Those attending the meeting were often heard repeating the words of Jesus: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” Revelation 3:19.

She continues: “No one seemed to be too proud to make heartfelt confession, and those who led in this work were the ones who had influence, but had not before had courage to confess their sins.

“There was rejoicing such as never before had been heard in the Tabernacle.” Ibid., 105.

Would not that have been a tremendous occasion to witness?

“Then I aroused from my unconsciousness, and for a while could not think where I was. My pen was still in my hand. The words were spoken to me: ‘This might have been. All this the Lord was waiting to do for His people. All heaven was waiting to be gracious.’ I thought of where we might have been had thorough work been done at the last General Conference, and an agony of disappointment came over me as I realized that what I had witnessed was not a reality.” Ibid., 105, 106.

What a disappointment! You know, it is not good to dwell on things that might have been. It means sweet dreams dispelled, fair hopes blighted, and human lives ruined. Yet, dear friend, this was the prophet’s task.

Sorrow of a Prophet

This is the setting for the fifth chapter of Amos. Amos has a very heavy heart as he writes these words concerning the Northern kingdom of Israel: “Hear ye this word which I take up against you, [even] a lamentation, O house of Israel. The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; [there is] none to raise her up. For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out [by] a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth [by] an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.” Verses 1–3.

Amos was chosen by God because he was spiritually in tune with God. He understood what was transpiring, and no doubt, the lament had at its core “what might have been.” And now, instead of “what might have been,” there comes the need to face the reality of “what is.”

I wonder how many prophets have been shown “what might have been” down though the centuries of time. Many prophets wrote, “I have seen things that I cannot describe. I have seen things that I cannot put into words.” How many times have prophets seen what might have been and, because they were in one accord with God and desired His will, were overcome with sorrow upon returning to a state of consciousness?

Think of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God of heaven, Who came down to this earth and walked among men, taking upon Himself human flesh, knowing the realities of heaven and knowing what it was like to be in tune with the Father. Yet, as He walked and as He saw what was taking place in the temple porticos, the Bible tells us that He was “a man of sorrows.” Isaiah 53:3. I can understand that. The Scriptures tell the sad story.

God has always extended a very glorious picture to His people. So often, however, they respond in like manner as we find recorded in Ezekiel 33:31–33: “And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee [as] my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, [but] their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou [art] unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.”

The Virgin is Fallen

Amos describes the people of God as wanting to come, sit, and listen to very melodious and beautiful music, but when the prophet comes to them with a message in hope of changing the direction of their lives, they do not want to hear it. They want to hear a lovely song sung. When the reality finally sets in of the consequences for rejecting God, it will be for them too late. This is the story that Amos here records. He says, “The virgin of Israel is fallen.”

Amos presents this matter to the Northern kingdom, using the illustration of a girl in her beautiful youth who is cut down, never to rise again. In every culture, in every land, there seems to be an awesome regard for youth. Youth is portrayed as that time in life when everything is a bowl of cherries. When a young person tragically loses his or her life, old and young feel it very deeply. That is the picture presented here—a girl in the blossoming of her youth was cut down.

Every time I hear of a young person who has lost his or her life, the thought always comes to me, What might it have been for that person, had he or she lived? What would have been the direction of his or her life?

The Reality

Amos is entertaining the same thought, and then he brings us the reality of the picture. Those who compose the cities, Amos says, will suffer until they are left with only ten percent of what they formerly had.

When a city suffers a fate like this, its glory is gone. It is not a very bright picture that is painted here by Amos. But what we need to focus on is the fact that this ten percent constitutes a remnant. The 90 percent that were sufficient to produce a glory of the city are going to be stripped away. We are told in Psalm 37:11 that “the meek shall inherit the earth.” And so a remnant is left. It is not intended to be a bright picture. It is a picture that is painted with dark colors, a picture of darkness and gloom.

“For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live.” Amos 5:4. God is hoping that the ten percent will increase. There will be a remnant that will be left, but He is wanting more than that. Most are going to be lost; the virgin is going to be cut down.

“But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour [it], and [there be] none to quench [it] in Bethel.” Verses 5, 6. The places that Amos refers to here—Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba—were places of sacred memory to Israel.

One of my responsibilities as a pastor is that of marriage counseling. I always ask the couple in distress what it was that brought them together in the first place. How did they meet? What are the memories of their early affections?

These verses reveal that God is basically doing the same thing. These three locations were places of sacred memory. Bethel was where Jacob dreamed of the ladder that led to heaven and where he made his vow to be the Lord’s. Gilgal was the place where the people reconsecrated themselves before they entered into Canaan. Beersheba was where Abraham called on the Lord, where Isaac built his altar, and where Jacob offered sacrifice before going into Egypt to be re-united with his son, Joseph.

But the tragedy is that all of these places of sacred memory for Israel and the resulting heritage had now been transformed into places of idolatrous practices. It is sad but true that places of sacred memory can be, through a transforming process, turned into places of haunt.

Plea to Return

So God appealed to His people to seek Him and to turn back. Even though the divine sentence had been pronounced, God was still pleading with any that may have been in the valley of decision.

Hosea was a contemporary with Amos. They wrote at the same time, and the story and the appeal were the same. Hosea unfolded to his readers that, even though Israel was unfaithful, God could take them back. The cry was, “How can I give thee up, O Ephraim? Turn and come back to Me, and I will heal all your backslidings. I will forgive your sins, if you will only come back.” (See Hosea 14:1–4.) Amos gave the same appeal.

This has always been the appeal that God has given. Regardless of what you have done, He says, “I will take you back. Just come to Me. Learn of Me. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.”

In the time of the antediluvians, Noah built an ark, which held the portent of their destruction. For 120 years, with every wooden peg that was driven, Noah proclaimed to the people that destruction was on its way. “Turn from your wicked ways,” was the cry, but when the time came and the door of the ark was closed, only eight were saved.

Then there was Jerusalem. Jerusalem was thrust into a position of desolation. When Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives and cried out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under [her] wings, and ye would not!” Matthew 23:37. You would not what? You would not come to Me. You would not come and have your sins forgiven. You would not put away your unrighteous ways. You would not allow the Spirit to change your heart. Therefore, “your house is left unto you desolate.” Verse 38. Interestingly, even though these words of Jesus held the portent of their destruction, those in Jerusalem still received the exposure and witness of Pentecostal power, as He hoped that more would come to Him.

God’s threatenings are based upon the condition of man’s conduct. The threatenings of God are given concerning a certain set of circumstances created by men. If and when those circumstances change, through their repentance, the threatenings cease to apply. You see, those threatenings are designed to turn men back to God, not to plunge them into despair.

Protection of the Poor

“Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, [Seek him] that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord [is] his name: That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.” Amos 5:7–9.

God does not leave them wondering what they are going to do when the judgement comes. They have turned “judgment to wormwood.” Wormwood is mentioned in the Book of Revelation. It is a plant that has a very bitter, pungent taste, and here, Amos denounces those who have made the procedure of going to tribunals for protection a hateful, bitter experience. They have gone for a resolve, only to find bitterness.

The Lord had set in place the process of resolve for the purpose of protecting the poor from those who would try to take advantage of their unfortunate circumstances. There are always people who would fall into this category, and God takes a special interest in protecting His people from hurt and harm.

The interesting part about this is that the Jews have always had the reputation of striking a sharp deal, and they have handed this trait down to their posterity—literally as well as spiritually. Ellen White writes about striking sharp deals: “There should be in our business deal no shadow of selfishness or overreaching. Let no one take advantage of any man’s ignorance or necessity.” Testimonies, vol. 7, 163. We, as Seventh-day Adventists, have some things to learn in these areas. God especially hates this. In the days of Amos, it had become so difficult to obtain justice that God termed it “wormwood.” As a result, righteousness was left off in the earth. This should speak to us, as a church, today.

Turn Away

I could not begin to count the number of times I have heard stories in which individuals have made appeals to the church to do the right thing, only to be brushed aside. I do not know how many letters I have written about such situations. Maybe you have written letters, too, only to be flicked off like a bug. God said that is not the way it is to be. He pleaded for His people to turn away from sin and not do it anymore, because there are consequences that will come from such actions.

When we have it set in our minds that we are the only ones who have the right answer, and we fail to take into account the understandings of others, an attitude develops that we are right, that we will always be right, and that no one can tell us what we need to do. God says to turn away from this.

God says, “I am the One Who is to be your wisdom. I am the One Who, if you look to Me, will give you guidance and direction in every situation that you face, that indeed you will do the right thing, because I am the holy measurement. And every thing that you take off of Me will be measured right and correctly.”

This whole passage is an appeal to the people’s better sight. Turn away from sin, because there is infinite power in God, Who will help you through to salvation.

Prudent Silence

But the words take a turn in Amos 5:10, 11: “They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. Forasmuch therefore as your treading [is] upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.” This is God’s view of the whole thing.

Isaiah gives a different view: “They [God’s people] shall build houses, and inhabit [them]; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.” Isaiah 65:21. That will happen only when we have put ourselves into God’s care and keeping.

But the people depicted in the Book of Amos had become so self-exalted that they said, “We will be able to plant our vineyards, and we will have good wine next year, and we will build our houses, and we will be able to rejoice.” But God said, “No. You are not going to enjoy any of it,” for Amos 5 continues, “For I know your manifold transgressions, and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate [from their right]. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it [is] an evil time.” Verses 12, 13.

An interesting fact of reality comes alive here. Verse 10 says, “They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.” The one that was set up in the gate was appointed by God and was a mouthpiece or a spokesman for God. The gate was that special place of appointment where justice was to be rendered. If there was any place that was to hold a place of right doing, it was the gate of the city. Many times, throughout Scripture, God talks about the injustice that takes place at the gate. There will be an accounting for that.

What is the attitude revealed here? Well, it is an attitude of selfishness and arrogance—don’t tell me what to do; I want my own way. When this type of an attitude prevails, the Bible says that the prudent man keeps silence.

Have you ever heard someone say, Don’t keep harping on that; it makes me mad? Perhaps we have even said that ourselves. The better part of wisdom is, when something has been said, leave it alone. If there is no change, prudence dictates that silence is golden.

To know when to be silent and when to speak takes much wisdom. Why does it take wisdom? Because self gets in the way. Self wants to assert self. We always want the last word, do we not? Why? Because we know we are right, and the other person is wrong. If we can just speak a little bit longer, we feel that our last word will have the power of convincing. But I can tell you, if we would follow the counsel of the prophet about being prudent in knowing when to remain silent, it could save a lot of domestic dispute and violence. Be quiet!

Patiently Wait Upon the Lord

There is a tendency for us to run ahead of God. There is a tendency for us to become impatient. Do you remember the story of King Saul? When the Israelites were getting ready to go into battle against the Philistines, Samuel was to come and offer sacrifice. King Saul was to wait for Samuel to come, but he grew impatient and offered the sacrifice himself. (See 1 Samuel 13:8–10.) He had no business offering sacrifice. “Samuel had appointed to meet the king at Gilgal, there to ‘offer burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and to show him what he should do.’ The prophet did not arrive within the allotted time, and as Saul saw their dangers increasing, and the hearts of the people failing for fear, he became impatient. Instead of resorting to prayer, and humbling his soul before God, he determined to do something himself to relieve the difficulties of the situation.” The Signs of the Times, August 3, 1882. Ellen White wrote that “equipped as he was with armor and weapons of war, he approached the altar and offered sacrifice before God.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 618.

As soon as the sacrifice was offered, Samuel approached the encampment. Saul went out to greet him, proud of himself, of what he had done, and yet it was at that moment that judgment fell upon Saul’s house. “Saul endeavored to excuse his own course, by depicting the terror of the people and the danger of an immediate attack from the Philistines. But the prophet returned the stern and solemn answer,—

“ ‘Thou hast done foolishly. Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee; for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue; the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him [to be] captain over his people, because thou hast not kept [that] which the Lord commanded thee.’ [1 Samuel 13:13, 14.]” The Signs of the Times, August 3, 1882.

Saul failed the test God had given him. “The Lord had detained his servant [Samuel], in order to test the faith and obedience of the king. Saul did not stand the test. God had promised to be with him, if he would be obedient. He should have trusted this promise, and waited patiently for divine instruction and guidance.” Ibid. Since he disobeyed, Saul had to suffer the consequence of his disobedience. “This act [the sacrifice] was a flagrant violation of the divine command that only those should offer sacrifice who had been sacredly consecrated to the work. Moreover, the public nature of the act, as well as the high position of the offender, added greatly to the pernicious influence of his example, and rendered prompt punishment indispensably necessary.” Ibid.

Accept the Remedy

“Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.” Amos 5:15. God is talking here to religious people. He is saying, “Let there be a change. Let things come about where it will be a seeking of Me and My way.” How do people get into such conditions? It seems that there is always a pattern followed from which the end can be quite accurately forecast.

One of the interesting things about the ministry is that in many ways the work of a pastor parallels that of a physician. People have trouble recognizing that fact.

A physician goes to school and studies medical practices and techniques for years. Then he or she serves an internship where hands-on-instruction is experienced. The intern sees patients with a skilled physician. After examining a patient, the intern will make a diagnosis, based on the information gleaned from other patients with the same symptoms. Perhaps 98 percent of the time, people accept the diagnosis of the physician. The physician generally will write a prescription for medicine. The patient willingly takes it to a pharmacy, receives and takes the medication, and usually gets over the problem.

A pastor’s work is a little different in that it deals with fruit. A pastor goes to school to learn how to inspect fruit, along with the study of the Word, because the Word tells the pastor what kind of fruit to look for. (“By their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:20.) When a pastor spots bad fruit, he says, “My, my, what I see here is bad fruit; let me give you a prescription.”

Do you know what the responses of the people are? “Who are you to tell us?”

The pastor may respond, “I have been sent to this church as the pastor to try to help you see where you are going. I have seen your condition before. I have seen this and this and this happen in this and this and this individual, so I can tell you where you are going, because your fruit is the exact same fruit.”

And the people say, “Who do you think you are?” They do not want to accept the diagnosis or the offered remedy.

Prophets have the same calling, to a great degree. There is always a pattern that is followed, and it can be pretty well forecast. What is taking place in Amos 5? Why did all these things transpire in the way that they did?

Too Pure

Amos was trying to say that, first of all, God had given the children of Israel a true system of worship. It was the same system that had been delivered in the Garden of Eden. When man was put out of the Garden, the system of religious worship was changed to give man hope of redemption.

Another element was at work then, as it is today. When God gives man something good, the devil is not content to leave well enough alone. Man, in and of himself, cannot create religion, but he can adapt it. He adapts it because the devil, who knows all about God and religion, gives him ideas. The sad revelation is that what God gives us in the way of religious principles—now consider this carefully—are too pure for us. Think about that for a minute.

What God gives us in the way of religious principles are too pure for us. If we would accept the principles He gives for what they are, they have the potential of lifting us up to the state of purity, to the perfection He requires. We, in our human nature, want to bring those principles down to a comfortable level for us. We accomplish this by compromising what we know is right and good, that which is delivered to us by the hand of God. We change the good that God has given to us to fit the ideals that the devil gives to us.

Idolatrous worship seems less of an apostasy if it retains some forms of true worship. That is usually the compromise. We do not want to go too fast or too far away from God’s principles, but we do want to feel comfortable, so the devil lets us down into idolatry, as into other sin, by easy stages. First, we get rid of the spirit of true worship but retain the form. Then we get rid of the object of worship, which then corrupts the form. And then we adopt a new object, and we adopt that into the worship, which is really corrupted. This is the way that all sin goes. Easy does it, until we do not recognize the path down which the small steps have led us.

This is exactly the process of how the papacy was formed. It did not happen overnight. It took nearly five centuries for the papacy to form into the institution that persecuted the saints.

Creeping Compromise

The worship that was set up at Bethel and Gilgal was not pure and simple idol worship. It was worship of God by means of idols and in forms that mimicked the worship at Jerusalem. You see, heresy at the outset always masquerades in the guise of truth. Sometimes, when you see this process taking place, it is very difficult to put your finger right on the issue. This is why it is called creeping compromise. It moves imperceptibly, but it moves. If it moves far enough for someone who is in tune with God to raise an alarm, usually that person is chastised that he or she is just being legalistic or is trying to ruin what others are attempting to accomplish. So the prudent man remains silent, and things begin to change. Heresy masquerades. By adopting a sheep’s clothing, the wolf gets easy access into the fold, and it is only after he has entered into the fold and the immediate danger is over that his true character is revealed. But then it is very hard to catch him and to throw him out of the fold.

We must know what truth is, be able to recognize it, and prevent error from corrupting that which is pure. That is the mission to which historic Adventism has been called. It has been called to stop these false issues, to give a warning, and to hold the truth in purity very high.

Day of Darkness

The people in Amos 5 were not only to stop seeking evil, but they were to hate evil and to love good. Unfortunately, they did not go in that direction.

“Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing [shall be] in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing. And in all vineyards [shall be] wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord. 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.” Amos 5:16–18.

The word therefore, in verse 16, has a reference that carries us back to the cause of this judgment. That which has been outlined earlier is now the cause of that which is to come. These people thought they were just about right on as far as religion was concerned, but they were a long way off. They were even looking forward to the day of the Lord to come. They were Seventh-day Adventists; they kept the Sabbath. They looked forward to the coming of Christ, but they did not have a clue as to what the real state of things was all about, because they hated everyone who tried to share the real issues with them. They abhorred those who were speaking the truth, and the prudent kept silent. They thought they were ready for the day of the Lord. They knew that when this event happened they would be set in a place of security and power. They felt that this was the time when God would conquer their foes and set them up as His people forever. They looked forward to that day. They would be the beneficiaries of it all. But the truth of the matter was that when the day of the Lord came, it would be a time when God would judge all sin—even theirs.

So Amos said that that day would be a day of darkness. He described it for them: “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. [Shall] not the day of the Lord [be] darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?” Verses 19, 20.

Then God continued to describe His feelings of nausea when it came to worship time. “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.” Verse 21. This has to do with the incense of prayer that is being offered. “Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name [is] The God of hosts.” Verses 23–27.

God said, “I do not want anything to do with you. I hate everything with which you come to Me. You come and you offer worship; I hate it. I hate your feast days. You come and you sing your beautiful songs before Me; I do not want to listen. I do not even want anything to do with your instruments of music.”

Comparison Contrast

It is interesting that Amos played a comparison contrast here. God said, “I want to send you the purity of religion. I want to send you a purity that will elevate you. In order for you to rise to that purity, you need to have some guidance, some counsel, and I will send you prophets to accomplish that task.”

What did the people do? They hated those that God sent to them to help them. With the feeling of hatred in their hearts, they went to the temple and there began to play on the viols. They began to sing songs of music, and they bowed down in worship. God said, “You hate what I did for you. I hate what you are doing. I do not want to have anything to do with it. You do not want to have anything to do with those that I have sent to you; I do not want to have anything to do with you either.” There is a comparison contrast. Amos was trying to convey to them the feelings of God and how He felt about what they were doing with what He had sent to them as His good gifts.

“You will not listen; I will not listen. You hate; I hate.” But God said, “Mark it down. You will be the ones who will suffer far more than I. Judgments will come running down like a river upon you. You have neglected Me in times past. You have neglected Me in times present. You will not escape.”

Amos was not an easy prophet to have around—none of the prophets were. This is why the people killed them. This is why attempts were made to destroy their influence. The surprising thing about all of this is God’s forbearance.

God will forbear, but finally, there is a moment reached. None of us knows when our moment is reached, so the questions that we really need to ask ourselves are, How am I relating to the counsel that God gives? Are there things that, when I have heard them or when I have read them in the words of inspiration, I have ignored? I do not want to hear them, and if anyone says I ought to do them, I do not like them.

I have heard people, and I am sure you have heard people, who, when invited to a worship service, will ask, Who is preaching? If the speaker is perceived as one who preaches smooth things, you can be sure they will be there. If the speaker is known as one who speaks hard things, if he uses the Spirit of Prophecy, you will not see these people in attendance.

I saw this happen repeatedly when I pastored in Riverside, California,—right out the back door of Loma Linda. Many churches are clustered within close proximity of that area, and people are church floaters, going where they can get their ears tickled. (See 11 Timothy 4:3, 4.) That is not the way God would have it.

To be continued . . .

Pastor Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker for Steps to Life Ministry. He may be contacted by e-mail at: mikebaugher@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

Lessons From the Book of Amos, Part V

November 21, 2019 by Mike Baugher

Perhaps you have never before studied the Book of Amos. I have chosen the Book of Amos in developing a series of articles to give us an understanding of the New Testament. You may wonder how Amos of the Old Testament is going to help us with the New Testament. You cannot understand the New Testament unless you understand the Old Testament.

In 1 Corinthians 10:11, we are told that the things that happened in the Old Testament were written for our admonition, for our instruction, and for examples to us upon whom the ends of the world are come. I find that statement very interesting, because it refers to Old Testament instances and says that those things are going to pertain to us for last day event understanding. I understand that to mean that those things found in the Old Testament, as far as principles are concerned, are last day concepts. History has an uncanny way of repeating itself.

As we read the Old Testament, we learn how God dealt with His people—how He tried to woo them, how He tried to lead them, and how He tried to help them. We learn what their reactions were to the way God was relating to them. It is all there. We also find that there were many times that God had to deal with distasteful situations and conditions. Many times God would extend His mercy and His love, only to meet with a stiff-necked people. They yearned after their own way, and they would have nothing whatsoever to do with God. That is basically the setting of the Book of Amos.

What was God going to do? There comes a time of finality when no remedy of any kind will rectify a problem. That is what Amos was called to reveal to God’s people. God said, “I have tried this, and I have tried that, and it did not work. So now I am going to call My prophet. He is going to be My spokesman. He is going to be My mouthpiece. I am going to send him with a message, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.”

Woe Unto You

As we come to Amos 6, we find what is going to take place. ”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!” Verse 1.

This chapter starts out pronouncing a woe. When you are reading Scripture, and you come to the word woe, you want to pay special attention, because God is using this word to draw attention to what is going to follow. The meaning of the word woe has not changed over the years. We still use it today. When we talk about a bad situation, we may refer to it as a woe. It still carries with it the connotation of doom and disfavor, of calamity and misfortune. The prophet Amos is here attempting to let Israel know just where they stood in relation to their favor with God. To hear a woe coming from one of God’s prophets is no light matter. It needs to be taken to heart.

The Bible says, ”Believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.” 11 Chronicles 20:20. When God speaks, He means exactly what He says. This principle is taught in the Old Testament. This is certainly the case here with the Northern kingdom of Israel and with Judah as well.

At Ease in Zion

“Woe to them [that are] at ease in Zion.” The word ease depicts a very meaningful picture of what was taking place. God had to pronounce a woe, because they were at ease in Zion. The Hebrew word sha’anan used here for ease means to be tranquil—but in a bad sense—that is, to be settled back when everything around you is wrong. When things were in a life-threatening condition, there was a settling back, with an attitude of, Why should I care? It is not affecting me. Things are going great, as far as life is concerned. I am quite secure from any danger.

That was the attitude of the people when Amos came on the scene, and he said, ”Woe to you that are at ease in Zion.” This was a direct statement to those who were at ease in Zion. It was one thing for the world to kick back and to take it easy, believing that there was no accounting for their indifference or ease. But for those who were in Zion—those who knew the Scriptures and God’s requirements—to kick back, it was altogether a different matter.

Parallel to Laodicea

There is a parallel here to the church of Laodicea, and this is why I believe that Old Testament prophetic utterances have last day applications. What is the message to the church of Laodicea? It is, “Woe unto you. You think that you are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, but I am here to tell you a different story. You need to look at where you are, because in actuality, you are poor, wretched, blind, miserable and naked.” (See Revelation 3:17.)

I do not know of any one of us who would like to hear those words spoken to us, do you? There is a sense of stiffening up, when we hear words like that. We think that certainly they cannot apply to us—we are not miserable; we are happy most of the time! Wretched? No, no, Lord, you have it all wrong. Poor and blind and naked—what do you mean? We are rich and increased with goods, and we have need of nothing. This is specifically what God was speaking to His people in the days of Amos. ”Woe unto you who are taking your ease.”

Hiding From God

Being at ease is caused by only one thing. Those to whom Amos is speaking believe that they have been entirely successful in hiding their true condition from God. They consider themselves to be right. There is nothing wrong, as far as they are concerned. They think that God is off on a vacation somewhere and does not know what is happening. This indeed is a masterful deception that the devil will pull off in every generation.

Sacred history tells us that this is a very easy deception on God’s people. This is precisely the reason why it is so difficult for the Gospel to be accepted when it is preached. There are people who are at ease, either in the world or in Zion, who think that everything is all right when indeed everything is all wrong. Those who could benefit from the Gospel are so deceived that they think God—nor anyone else—knows their situation. It is easy to fall into such a trap, when everything around you seems to be going right.

At this particular point of time in history, Israel was at its height of prosperity. The stock market was at 12,000, and they were buying and selling and having a good time. They were kicked back, at ease. Yet, all of this was leading to a deplorable condition. They were oppressing the poor; they were grinding down everyone they could so their stock prices would stay high. They were riding high!

Temperance

As I studied about this, I mused to myself about what was really happening—what contributed to this deception, this kicking back at ease. I came across a very interesting quotation from pages 52 and 53 of the book Temperance: “The use of wine among the Israelites was one of the causes that finally resulted in their captivity.” We need to remember that the Book of Amos applies to last day conditions.

Ellen White continues, on page 53 of Temperance, to quote from Amos 6. Israel had problems with intemperance. Wine was blurring their thinking processes. We know that wine affects the mind in this manner, and I am convinced that this is one of the reasons we are in the condition that we are as a people today. “But,” someone protests, “Pastor, what are you saying? We are Seventh-day Adventists; we don’t use wine. What are you talking about?”

When I became a Seventh-day Adventist, I was taught that one of the foundational principles of Adventism was abstaining from alcoholic beverages. Let me ask you a question: When was the last time you heard a temperance crusade being promoted within the Adventist church? It used to be that temperance crusades came around as often as Ingathering. It was something that was promoted and upheld before the people. This is one of the things about preaching; we need to continually hold before the people the high ideals of God, or those principles seem to lose contact with our minds and are forgotten.

I have read how some Adventists today are now imbibing in alcoholic beverages, and they have no compunctions about doing so. If we want to be successful Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we will follow the counsels God has given for us. We will review them constantly, holding them up in our minds so we do not lose sight of what it is that God has for us. This will prepare us for the last days on this earth.

Like the World

Temperance crusades, unfortunately, have been relegated to the heap of old rubbish along with some of the other teachings that have made us distinct as a people. But God has not changed—we have changed. We, too, have been at ease in Zion for so long that we think we need to update things and do away with some of the old things we think hold us back as a people. But remember, God does not change, and neither should we.

We have the problem of doing the same things that the world does. We go to the same places that the world goes; we listen to the same music that the world listens to. So why should we not drink the same drink that the world drinks and have a “good time”? This was what was happening in the days of Amos. We need to learn the lessons that are there for us. The sad part is, in many Adventist churches, if we begin to touch on these areas of intemperance and how people ought to live, we will immediately be branded as mean-spirited, narrow-minded, bigoted, and meddlers into people’s lives.

When I was in conference work, I mentioned from the pulpit, one Sabbath during the 11 o’clock service, some of the concepts of temperance and stated that we should not imbibe certain beverages. That very week the conference president drove 175 miles to see me. After confirming things I had expressed in my sermon, he counseled, “Mike, you need to leave those things alone on Sabbath morning. Keep them for prayer meeting.” You know as well as I do what prayer meeting attendance is in comparison with the attendance at 11 o’clock on Sabbath morning!

False Security

Why not just sit back and relax? Maybe the world is not doing so badly. After all, the coming of Jesus is a long way away. These are the thoughts in many people’s minds. There is a danger in that kind of thinking; it causes us to lose the urgency of God’s message.

This is the very same kind of thinking that was in the minds of the children of Israel during the days of Amos when woe was brought upon them. “Woe to them [that are] at ease in Zion and trust in the mountain of Samaria.” Israel thought that they were going to be safe. They were perched upon a mountain where they could see the approach of any enemy. God told them that it did not make any difference where they were located. They may have believed they were safe, but they were not.

”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?” Amos 6:2.

The cities mentioned here were all very familiar to the Israelites. These cities had been overthrown and destroyed. If we were to bring this into a modern scenario and terminology, we would say, “Take a look at the Twin Towers [the former World Trade Center, New York City, New York] today. How much hope would there be for your security to look to the Twin Towers today? Thousands were killed on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers came down.” That was the lesson that God was trying to bring to these people’s minds: “Look at these towns out here. You think you are doing just fine. Look at them; they are destroyed. You need to learn the lessons from those things.”

They were all aware of what had happened to these communities. They had thought these cities were safe, but they had fallen into the hands of their attackers, and Amos used the destroyed ruins as an illustration of what was going to happen to them. “You are no better than they are, and you are going to be just as vulnerable as they were,” he told them.

An Evil Day

“Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near. . . .” Verse 3. One of the greatest, fatal deceptions to come upon God’s people is to believe that the day of the Second Coming of Jesus is a long way off. When you begin to believe that all is well—you have money in the bank, your health is good, you think life will go on as it has for many more years, you are at ease while others are suffering around you, you think that the day the Lord can reach you is a long way away—the devil is speaking in your ear.

All the while you put off the evil day. All the while, you think that the Second Coming of Jesus is a far way off. Believe me, people who know about the Second Coming, and who know that their lives are not right with Jesus, see His Second Coming as an evil day. They do not welcome the Second Coming, because they know that ultimately it will destroy their lives.

The children of Israel viewed it in the same way. They knew that the day of the Lord was the Day of Judgment, and they looked at it as an evil day. So the seat of violence came near, involving the oppression of the poor for their own personal gain.

It is not unusual that, when people come into a lot of money, such as winning the lottery, for example, they suddenly consider themselves to be someone of great importance. Have you ever noticed that? Many, many of the people who have become big dollar winners end up living under a bridge, because they cannot handle the prosperity that comes to them. But they had thought themselves very important!

One of the first things people do, when they come into big money, is to bedeck their mortal bodies with all kinds of junk to make them appear attractive to other people. And they buy big, big houses and big, big cars, thinking that these will impress people around them.

Picture of Luxury

“Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; 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.” Verses 3, 4.

What a tremendous picture is given in these verses! Prophets of old were able to put together word pictures that conveyed things you could not say by typing out a flat sentence. What a picture! While most people were out working from sunrise to sunset, these people were lounging on beds of ivory.

Ivory, even today, is a very precious commodity, but these were bedsteads that were inlaid with ivory! A very luxurious picture. Most people were lucky to have a mat to sleep on, let alone a bed—and certainly not a bed that was inlaid with ivory. They would stretch out and take their rest in luxury. This is a picture of the society today.

Perverted Appetite

And then, when they finally climbed out of their beds of luxury, they ate lambs out of the flock and calves out of the midst of the stall. It does not say that they were eating sheep and cows. It says they were eating the delicate meat of lambs and calves. They were eating lambs and calves, not sheep and cows, because one of the greatest treats for meat eaters is the tenderest cut. Nobody wants tough meat.

Have you ever heard of veal cutlets? Do you know from where veal cutlets come? Veal cutlets come from calves that have been penned up in small crates, hardly able to move. They are raised there until they are a certain age, and then they are slaughtered. Their meat is harvested at its most tender stage, so it can go upon the plates and into the palates of those who desire tender cuts of meat.

It would make you sick to see how these animals are raised and how they are treated, yet we see this very thing taking place in the days of Amos. They were crating up these little animals so they would have tender cuts of meat that only the rich could afford. If you are poor, you may be able to buy hamburger, but you certainly cannot afford veal cutlets. They are expensive. But here the people were satisfying the cravings of perverted appetites. They wanted the choice cuts; they would not settle for second best. They wanted tender meat. They wanted the lambs and the calves.

From what I have been able to determine, as I have researched this series on Amos, most Israelites—not all but most—ate meat only three or four times a year. That was the norm! The three or four times they ate meat centered around the times of their festivals. The poor ate meat even less times than that.

So the picture given in Amos 6 is that the leading citizens were eating quite a bit of the choice cuts—they had the money to buy it. Their actions were causing some very baleful effects to come into the nation. History has recorded that for us, and if we fail to learn the lessons that God has for us, then we are destined to repeat the same mistakes and to face the same future that Israel faced.

Symptoms Developing

Remember the visions recorded in Ezekiel 8 and 9, where God took Ezekiel to the temple and showed him the priests there that were worshipping the sun, playing the harlot? The record shows that God took him even deeper into vision and showed him greater abominations that were taking place. We ask, how in the world could these things of old have taken place? How could they have gotten so far out of hand that those who were commissioned of God to perform a sacred service so prostituted it that it became immoral and was an abomination before God? How could they depart from God in that way?

We see a definite pattern that brought these things to pass. Is it not true that if we see symptoms developing regarding a certain situation, we know what the results are going to be? This is one of the requirements of a physician. A physician always looks for symptoms. A pastor is somewhat like a physician. He watches for spiritual symptoms, and when he sees these symptoms, it behooves him, under the direction of God, to point out the potential results, so the actions can be corrected and God’s glory can be manifested.

Ezekiel saw things that were very uncomfortable for him, and as we have been studying, in Amos, we see things coming out in the forefront that are disturbing for us. We see certain kinds of trends and symptoms developing within the body of Adventism and within the body of Christians at large. I state this from a standpoint that the majority of God’s people are in other churches. (See John 10:16; The Great Controversy, 1888, 383.)

Sound of Music

“That chant to the sound of the viol, [and] invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David.” Amos 6:5. This verse is very difficult to translate. The phrase, “chant to the sound of the viol,” is translated in other versions to read, “sing idle songs to the sound of the harp.” But even this translation does not really do justice to what is being said here. The words, “sing idle songs,” are used only once in the entirety of the Old Testament, so it is difficult to find a translation that will make sense to us. There is an Arabic equivalent, however, which has the meaning, “to talk immoderately or to babble or prattle to the sound of the harp.”

It seems that this would be the best translation to apply to the context of what was taking place in this text and to us in the times in which we live.

The same is true of the phrase, “inventing to themselves instruments of musick.” The alternate translation of this would be, “shouting, they imagine themselves to be singing.” If you watch the videotape Are You Ready for Church? you see an exact parallel of this taking place today. In reality, there is nothing new under the sun! People are shouting and prattling and talking and considering this music. I am sorry, but I still like melodious strains of music and not all the babbling and shouting that passes for music today.

But let me point out to you that this was taking place in the days of Amos, and this music was part of their downfall. It was part of what led them to do things they probably never would have done otherwise. Ellen White tells us that music was part of the problem for the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai when they built the golden calf and just before they crossed over into Canaan, at Kadesh-Barnea, when they began to associate with the Midianitish women. They would never have succumbed to the temptations had it not been for the music. (See Patriarchs and Prophets, 319, 320, 454.)

Music pervades our entire society today. I am not bringing these things out to condemn anyone, but we need to elevate the standards once again. “If we do not receive the religion of Christ by feeding upon the word of God, we shall not be entitled to an entrance into the city of God. Having lived on earthly food, having educated our tastes to love worldly things, we would not be fitted for the heavenly courts; we could not appreciate the pure, heavenly current that circulates in heaven. The voices of the angels and the music of their harps would not satisfy us.” Review and Herald, May 4, 1897.

“That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.” Amos 6:6. The “affliction of Joseph” here means that the conditions in Israel were deplorable for most of the people, because most of the people were quite average people. They were getting by, but they were not happy, and they were not growing spiritually. They were not developing a character like God intended them to do. Those who were eating and drinking and laying and stretching themselves out on couches and beds thought life would never end. They had food, wine, and perfume. For what more could they ask?

Wrath of God

Verse 7 changes gears somewhat: “Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed. The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces; therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein. And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. And a man’s uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that [is] by the sides of the house, [Is there] yet [any] with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord. For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.” Amos 6:7–11.

Those who thought they were so blessed, living in luxury and letting the world go by, were to be the first to go into captivity. Do we dare make a comparison here? In the circumstances Amos described, he was speaking specifically of the leadership of that day. He asked, “Do you want the best places at the banquets? Do you want the most acknowledgement in the Synagogues? Then you are going to be the first to go into captivity.” And the reason was that they had departed from the plan that God had for His people.

All men are created equal. There is a value of the soul, and God looks upon all people the same, but there are certain areas of responsibility to which God has called people. He has equipped them for those responsibilities, but at the same time, they will have greater accountability when they are called before God in the Day of Judgment. That is the way that God works.

As He was trying to deal with the nation of Israel, God left no doubt regarding how He felt about the Northern kingdom. They would pay the price for their attitudes and their actions. God said, “I hate everything about you, and you are not going to escape; you are going to die.”

These verses give a very realistic account of the horrors of pestilence that would come after the seize of Jerusalem took place. So complete was the destruction to be that even where a large number gathered in a house to escape these dangers, not one of them would escape. There would be no place to hide.

Those who would give the burial message of them that had died did not even want to carry the bodies out, for fear that they would be attacked or sieged upon, so they would burn the bodies. When giving the burial message, they dared not even mention the name of the Lord. Why? Because they were fearful that a greater manifestation of wrath would come upon them by even mentioning the name of God.

This is one of the things that contributed to the loss of the name Yahweh. Many people have tried to re-capture the use of that name, and they have not succeeded. If someone comes to you saying that you need to call upon the name of the Lord in a certain way, do not listen. This is one of the things that contributed to the loss of the pronunciation of the name. The children of Israel did not dare call upon the name of the Lord because they were fearful that their sins would be raw and ripe before God and His wrath would come down upon them—even in a burial message. That is how far away from God that they had gone.

For Ensamples

Again I say, “All these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11. The books of the Old Testament, dear friend, point to last day happenings.

“Shall horses run upon the rock? will [one] plow [there] with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock: Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength? But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the Lord the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath unto the river of the wilderness.” Amos 6:12–14.

The general order of things at this time of judgment, this time of retribution, would be so far out of the order that it would be like horses running on rocks—something you do not do. If you have ever ridden a horse, you know you do not run a horse on rocks. People knew that back then too. And you do not take oxen and plow a rock field. God was trying to convey to them that these things were not things that would normally be done, but they would be done to deal with such a corrupt and poisonous situation.

Some things become so poisonous in God’s mind that they have to be dealt with in a very severe way—a way that normally would not be used.

Again, we have to learn the lessons of these things. God is longsuffering. God is merciful. Israel’s history was long. That is the principle that God has for us in dealing with situations. We, as human beings, do not have long periods of time to deal with situations like God does. God did not deal with individuals per se; He dealt with entire nations who had long, long lives. Sometimes He allowed them to go on for hundreds of years, and then finally, when the cup was full, God dealt with them.

Translate that down to us today and to how we are to relate to people and individuals in circumstances within the church. We do not have long periods of time, but we can apply the principles. We can extend the hand of mercy, but when a limit is reached and situations become poisonous, we have to deal with them in the same way that God dealt with them. That is the lesson we can gain from Amos 6. If we are going on the same path as the children of Israel, we will have to pay the same price. The price was a permanent one for Israel. The whole Northern kingdom was lost.

A Remnant Spared

In spite of that, God held out a light. He held out the fact that there was a remnant that would be spared, and that remnant was Judah. And even out of Judah there was another remnant that was to be saved. A smaller group even yet—a remnant of a remnant. The Spirit of Prophecy tells us that the majority will leave us. (See Patriarchs and Prophets, 102, 103.) We need to try to examine the reasons why the majority depart, and stay far away from the circumstances that would draw us, if we possibly can.

The children of Israel loved their wine so much that it blurred their thinking. They loved their fine cuts of meat so much that they had perverted appetites. They loved their celebration music and dance so much that it caused them to enter into temptation. They loved their money that provided for all of this, and the love of money is the root of all evil.

Friend, we dare not repeat the same history. Are we going to survive? We can survive by understanding. We can survive by drawing near to God. We can survive by not stiffening our necks against rebuke, when it comes from the Word. We can survive. It is possible. Amos 6 is a dark picture, but God has placed it there so we can survive. He has made all the provisions for us to survive, if we will just learn the lessons.

To be continued . . .

Pastor Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker for Steps to Life Ministry. He may be contacted by e-mail at: mikebaugher@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

The Depth of the Cross

November 21, 2019 by Jerry Timmons

You have, in all probability, noticed in your life, as I have in mine, that sometimes, after we have learned and known great truths for a while, we begin to take them for granted. We need to refresh our minds from time to time regarding these great truths that the Lord has been so gracious in giving to us.

Ephesians 3:14–19 says, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what [is] the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

In this passage, Paul was contemplating the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus. As he was doing this, he was humbled to his knees in prayer, where he was praying for every believer. As he realized the tremendous sacrifice of Deity for the redemption of fallen man—for you and for me—he asked heaven if we could have a little comprehension of Christ’s sacrifice, so we could understand more of this immeasurable love. In our finite minds, we have no concept of the love that Jesus has for us. He wanted us to realize this love, not just for the sake of knowledge, but that we might be filled with the fullness of God.

Where do we find this immeasurable love of which Paul speaks? The following three statements may help us understand where to find it.

“There is one great central truth to be kept ever before the mind in the searching of the Scriptures—Christ and Him crucified. Every other truth is invested with influence and power corresponding to its relation to this theme.” The Faith I Live By, 50.

“The cross of Calvary challenges, and will finally vanquish, every earthly and hellish power. In the cross all influence centers, and from it all influence goes forth. It is the great center of attraction, for on it Christ gave up His life for the human race.” Sons and Daughters of God, 242.

“The sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is the great truth around which all other truths cluster. In order to be rightly understood and appreciated, every truth in the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, must be studied in the light which streams from the cross of Calvary, and in connection with the wondrous, central truth of the Saviour’s atonement. Those who study the Redeemer’s wonderful sacrifice grow in grace and knowledge.

“I present before you the great, grand monument of mercy and regeneration, salvation and redemption—the Son of God uplifted on the cross of Calvary. This is to be the theme of every discourse. Christ declares, ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.’ ” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, 1137.

None of us can deny the force and the power of these statements. But in many churches this theme is preached far too little. It is merely mentioned at times. The cross of Christ is our inexhaustible source of power for the Christian walk. Do you need power in your Christian life? I do. In this article, we are going to look at four revelations that the cross will show us, if we look deeply enough.

Just a Story

I read an article some time back about a 9- or 10-year-old boy by the name of Braun who lived over 100 years ago. Braun’s parents were not Christians; they were agnostics. They thought, however, that at least once in his life their little boy needed to attend church, so they could say they had exposed their son to religion. They sent him to church with his nanny in a horse-drawn buggy.

The pastor was speaking about the cross, and for the first time in his life, Braun heard about a man by the name of Jesus Who was nailed to a cruel, old cross. He heard for the first time about the blood that dripped down this Man’s face and about the thorns that were stuck in His brow. He heard about the Roman soldiers who hammered the rough nails into this Man’s hands.

It was not long before Braun began to cry. He had never previously heard this story. Between sobs he loudly whispered, “Nanny, why don’t these men do something about this poor Man on the cross? Why don’t the people in the church take Him down? He’s innocent!”

The nanny was getting a little nervous about Braun acting up in church. He looked around at the congregation, and he was astonished. He saw the head deacon in the back of the church, sleeping. He saw some teenagers whispering, telling stories, laughing, and giggling. He saw another man with a newspaper under his Bible, pretending to read the Bible, but reading the daily news instead.

“Nanny, why don’t they do something? Take this poor Man down off the cross,” pleaded the sobbing boy.

Attempting to comfort him, the nanny said, “Herr Braun, it is just a story. Don’t worry about it. You’ll forget about it when we get home.”

Is the cross just a story for us? Is it something that we sing about once in awhile? Is it something that we hear about in sermons once in awhile, something the pastor may refer to in passing, or maybe we mention in prayer?

What is the cross to you? Has the cross reached down into your life and changed it from the core? That is what it is meant to do. What difference does the cross make in your marriage? What about the relationships between you and your children, your spouse, or the people you meet each day? Does the cross make any difference in the way you treat others? When you encounter despair and discouragement, what does the cross do for you then, if anything?

We do not need to know so much about the cross theologically as we need to know and understand how it affects our lives.

Magnitude of God’s Forgiveness

The first revelation we will consider reveals the magnitude of God’s forgiveness. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Romans 5:8–10.

We were His enemies, but He is our friend. God is not the enemy of His enemies, as we sometimes are. It is hard to be a friend to our enemy, but that is what God is. We deserve death, but He gives us life. We deserve condemnation, but He acquits us. We deserve a crown of thorns; He gives us a crown of glory. You and I, my friends, deserve the cross, but He gives us a throne. What a God we serve, what a Friend!

Father, Forgive Them

As we consider the cross and the magnitude of its forgiveness, we must contemplate what Jesus went through at Pilate’s judgment hall. We can picture a Man, stripped to His waist, His hands tied above His head. When those strong, Roman soldiers came in to whip His back, they did not use just a leather strap. The Roman whips had pieces of bone and jagged metal embedded in the straps, so with every whip to the back, pieces of flesh were torn out. He took our whipping—something that we deserve—but our Friend, while we were His enemies, took it for us.

As we reflect on Calvary, we can understand why He fell three times under the great burden of carrying His cross. He was weak from loss of blood. You and I could have done no better whatsoever.

As He was stretched out on the cross and those nails were driven through His flesh, He said nothing. As the cross was taken up and thrust into its hole, His flesh was ripped again when it hit the bottom. What were the only words that we hear from Jesus at this time? “Father, forgive them.” We see forgiveness at the cross, the great magnitude of forgiveness.

Judas betrayed Him; Peter denied Him; and the Jews forsook Him. The cross is very cruel, unjust, and unfair. You do not just nail a Man to a cross who touched blind eyes and they opened. You do not nail a Man to a cross who touched people’s ears and they became unstopped; they could hear the beautiful birds singing. You do not nail a Man to a cross who touched withered arms and legs and they immediately became vibrant with new life. A Man who can give back life to the dead—you just do not nail a Man like this to a cross. But they did that to Jesus! Yet, all we hear from Him is, “Father, forgive them.”

Do Unto Others

When we come to the cross, we receive forgiveness, so we can be forgiving to people in our lives. We know that Jesus has forgiven us from all of our past sins, so when people treat us cruelly or unjustly, we can forgive them, because we have been forgiven.

When we come to the cross, we find mercy, so we can be merciful to others. We have no excuse to not forgive people when they treat us unjustly. We can hear the echo of Paul’s words as we read, “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32.

Has somebody wronged you? Has somebody hurt your feelings? Someone thoughtlessly and wrongly saying something can easily hurt your feelings. They may not even realize what they said, and they do not mean to hurt your feelings. But your feelings get hurt.

Instead of going to that brother or sister to straighten things out, some people will refrain from ever coming to church again, or they will find another group with which to worship. That is not the way to do it. We must come to one another and forgive our brothers and sisters, if they have done something wrong to us. Our souls will be flooded with the peace of Jesus when we do this.

Forgiveness a Conscious Choice

All of us have things in our past lives that we remember, perhaps with anger or regret. Maybe your mother left your dad for another man. Maybe your father was an alcoholic. It may be that your parents did not raise you the way they should have (at least in your eyes)—so you have built up resentment and bitterness, and hold grudges. We must let these things go. We must come to the cross, receive forgiveness and the freedom from guilt, and then we can forgive others. It has to be done that way.

Perhaps you have read the story of Corrie ten Boom. In 1938 or 1939, she and her sister were captured by the Germans and sent to Ravens-bruck, a prison camp. It was noth-ing but a place of death. People by the thousands were brought there in train cars. They were told that they were going to be safe from the dangers of war in this retreat. They fully expected to be going back to their beautiful homes when the war was over.

When they arrived at the prison camps, they heard joyful, happy music; people were singing to them. But all too soon they learned that they had arrived at a place of death. Some would be gassed immediately upon arriving; some would be killed a month later, but as a rule, no one would live more than six months at any one of these camps. In fact, the fires of the furnaces burned for six years straight—from 1939 to 1945, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Millions and millions of innocent people were gassed to death.

But Corrie ten Boom was mistakenly released from this death sentence. She was accidentally let go—one of the very few people who got out of the camp alive. Corrie ten Boom set up a home in her native Holland for people as they were released from the prison camps. After the war, she spoke to many people in Germany and other countries about God’s forgiveness.

Do you know what she saw in the survivors of the ravages of war and the horrible things that were done to them? She saw that the people who were able to forgive were those who could go on living and functioning normally. Those who could not forgive were mentally unbalanced, and many suffered nervous breakdowns, which affected the rest of their lives. Forgiveness made the difference!

One night, in Munich, as she was speaking on God’s forgiveness, she noticed a man in the crowd; a man she would never forget. He was about 5 feet 10 inches tall, with deep-set eyes, a stocky build, and a square face. After her eloquent speech on forgiveness, this man came up to her, extended his hand, and asked, “Can you forgive me?” This man had been one of the cruelest guards in the Ravensbruck prison camp. She remembered how, when she and her sister walked in front of this guard, he had reached out and pulled her sister’s blouse off just to embarrass her. She remembered how this guard hit her sister in the face with his fist, knocking her to the ground and crushing her ribs with his leather boot heel. She remembered how her sister withered away to 90 pounds and died in this camp—this was one of the men responsible. Here he was, standing in front of her asking, “Can you forgive me?”

Corrie ten Boom wanted to spit in his face. She wanted to reach out and slap him across his face. Every emotion in her cried out for revenge, but she knew that unless she forgave him, every ounce of love in her would dry up. She knew that the bitterness, the resentment, and the unwillingness to forgive would eat out her spiritual heart. Contrary to her feelings, she reached out her hand and said, “Brother, I forgive you.” She wrote that immediately a new peace flooded through her.

Forgiveness is a conscious choice on your part and on mine—a choice to release someone from your condemnation because Christ has released you from His condemnation. We have to make that choice.

Is there someone to whom you need to express your forgiveness? There may be. Do you need to make a phone call to someone and say, “Brother (or sister), I forgive you; there may be a wall of separation between us, but I forgive you”?

When we come to the cross and see how Jesus forgives us of all the things that we have done, He will pour that forgiveness into our lives, so we can forgive others. Do you see now how the cross reveals the magnitude of God’s forgiveness?

Depth of God’s Love

The cross also reveals the enormity of the depth of God’s love. It leads us to a deeper message of His love than we have ever known before. This is the way Paul expresses it: “For He [God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin [to be] sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 11 Corinthians 5:21. What a statement! Did Jesus ever sin? The Bible tells us that He never sinned. (See Hebrews 4:15.) He was tempted, just like you and I are tempted, but He never sinned. Did He ever think an evil thought? No! We are told He never sinned even by a thought. (See Review and Herald, November 8, 1887.) He never committed an unselfish act, but He who knew no sin became sin for us.

What are these deeper lessons we need to learn that, once we understand, our whole being, our whole way of thinking will be transformed? The cross must do this for us, or we are not taking full advantage of the power of Christianity. What is the power behind the cross that breaks the habits of sin in our lives? What is it that makes a dishonest man honest, that makes an impure woman pure, that makes an angry man patient? The cross breaks the grip of sin in our lives. We do not need a fancy theological definition here. What we need to understand are the practical realities of the cross. We need not only to know and to understand but also to experience the transforming power of the cross. It has to be experienced in our lives or it is of no avail.

Paul reveals the depth for which we are looking: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).” Galatians 3:13. What is the curse of the law from which He has redeemed us? Death! Death is the major curse of the law.

Atonement

Jesus voluntarily accepted and bore the corporate guilt of all humanity. As He hung on the cross, the Father turned away from Him, because of the sins for humanity that He bore. It was too much for Jesus to have this happen, because He had always been with the Father. This broke His heart. (See John 8:19; 10:30; The Great Controversy, 539.)

Jesus did not know whether He would ever be resurrected. He did not see through the portals of the tomb during those hours He was on the cross. He did not see Himself coming forth a victor. But He was willing to go to the grave and never, ever come up—if that meant that you and I could have hope of eternal life. Praise the Lord!

If He had fought against that—if He would have said, “No, there are not enough people who are going to accept this sacrifice; I want down; I want to go back to heaven; let these folks do what they want”—we would have no hope of heaven nor any hope of eternal life. I am so thankful that we serve a God who was willing to endure going through with the plan of redemption for you and me.

What He Experienced

I would like to share the following quotations:

“Bodily pain was but a small part of the agony of God’s dear Son. The sins of the world were upon Him, also the sense of His Father’s wrath as He suffered the penalty of the law transgressed. It was these that crushed His divine soul. It was the hiding of His Father’s face—a sense that His own dear Father had forsaken Him—which brought despair. The separation that sin makes between God and man was fully realized and keenly felt by the innocent, suffering Man of Calvary. He was oppressed by the powers of darkness. He had not one ray of light to brighten the future.” Testimonies, vol. 2, 214. Jesus experienced a lot of bodily pain, but we are told that His mental anguish of being separated from His Father was so much greater that He hardly felt the physical torture. It hurt Him more to have His Father turn away from Him.

“He could not see through the portals of the tomb. Bright hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the tomb a conqueror and His Father’s acceptance of His sacrifice. The sin of the world, with all its terribleness, was felt to the utmost by the Son of God. The displeasure of the Father for sin, and its penalty, which is death, were all that He could realize through this amazing darkness.” Ibid., 209, 210.

But, do you know what is beautiful? The Desire of Ages, 693, says, “His decision is made. He will save man at any cost to Himself.” Praise the Lord for His decision.

We need to make the decision to follow Him at any cost. We must! Can you imagine Jesus, the Creator of the universe, dying on that cross and saying that it was all worth it if you and I will be in heaven with His—with our—Father, even if it meant He might never be there again? He wants you and me to be there so much that He was willing to give up everything for us. This is the Man who created the worlds with His mouth; He spoke a word and this earth came into existence. He carpeted the earth with beautiful green. He is the one who caused the streams to flow and the brooks to babble. He caused the fruit trees to blossom. He gave the birds their songs so that we may enjoy their beautiful tunes. When His name is spoken in heaven, angels sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” They long to fulfill His every command. This is the Man who died on the cross for you and me. He was willing to go to the tomb so that you and I could sit upon a throne in heaven. For Jesus, the knowledge that some day we could be in heaven, made His death worth it all.

Your Worth

We have seen that the cross revealed the magnitude of God’s forgiveness and the enormity and depth of His love. We will now see that the cross reveals our worth.

We are definitely worth something; we are not just merely cosmic dust in this vast universe God created. We are not just skin coverings over bones and muscles. We are worth something in the sight of God. Sometimes that is hard to understand. With approximately six billion people in this world, we wonder how we could make a difference. How can God actually know about us individually when there are so many people? But it is true. He has a place in His heart just for you and just for me. I am so thankful that our God is able to love more than just a few people. He is able to love and to have a place in His heart for each one of us. His heart is so big—He is omnipotent and omniscient; He is omnipresent—He has a big, big heart.

Paul put it so personally when he said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20. We can understand this a little better by using a very crude illustration. Parents may have eight, nine, or ten children. Let us say that one of the children dies from a disease or an accident. That would be a terrible tragedy. You would not say to that couple: “Well, don’t worry about it, because you have all those other children. Won’t they take the place of the one who died?” No, there would still be a place in the parents’ hearts for the one child who died.

We have an infinite God—can He not love more than just eight children? He has billions and billions of children, and He loves every one of them just as though he or she were the only one upon this earth. He would have died for only one. That is how much He loves us!

“The value of a soul, who can estimate? Would you know its worth, go to Gethsemane, and there watch with Christ through those hours of anguish, when He sweat as it were great drops of blood. Look upon the Saviour uplifted on the cross. Hear that despairing cry, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ Mark 15:34. Look upon the wounded head, the pierced side, the marred feet. Remember that Christ risked all. For our redemption, heaven itself was imperiled. At the foot of the cross, remembering that for one sinner Christ would have laid down His life, you may estimate the value of a soul.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 196.

We cannot comprehend it, can we? When we look up at Him, when we gaze upon those outstretched arms, He says, “I care for you. You are personal to Me, and I want you to be in heaven with Me forever.”

Hope in Despair

The cross also reveals hope in despair. What are some of the things that took place on that dark, crucifixion Friday? Jesus was nailed to a cross. A crown of thorns was placed on His head. A spear was stuck in His side. The sun quit shining. The birds stopped singing. Judas betrayed Him; Peter denied Him; the disciples fled.

A lot of terrible things happened on that Friday, and worst of all, the Son of God died on that dark Friday. But what was about to happen on resurrection morning? Joy was to be found on that Sunday morning resurrection! The sun rose; the birds sang; and most of all, the voice of God spoke, “Son, I call Thee.” That big, heavy stone that sealed up the tomb of God could no longer hold Him; it rolled away like a little pebble. Praise the Lord! And He came out, a victor! Conqueror! There is hope in despair.

You may be going through a crucifixion, but friend, there is a resurrection in the morning. Just stay with it; hold to your Christian walk; contemplate the cross and all of these things that it reveals. It can change your life! And it will, if you will let it.

We may each be going through some terrible heartaches right now. Heartache is worse than physical pain, much worse. We know that to be true because of what we are told regarding Jesus—His heart was aching more than the physical torture done to His body.

Maybe you are going through the agony of divorce. That can be worse than death itself. Maybe you are having economic problems. Something in your life can be hurting you to the extent that you must have the cross experience, and you must see and understand that there is a resurrection morning coming; there is joy! There is joy in the morning! We do have hope.

Christ is the Gospel

“Hanging upon the cross Christ was the gospel. . . . This is our message, our argument, our doctrine, our warning to the impenitent, our encouragement for the sorrowing, the hope for every believer.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1113.

This is our hope, friend. At the cross, you find forgiveness, and you find deliverance from guilt. At the cross, you find mercy, so you can be merciful to other people. At the cross, the love of God will break the habits of sin in your life, and believe me, sin is a hard habit to break. The only thing that will break it is the love of God, when you fall at the foot of the cross. That is where you can give yourself away to Jesus. Give yourself away! What can you do on your own? Nothing! You can do nothing without Him. (See John 15:5.) At the cross, Jesus says, “I care for you. You are more than a speck of dust in this vast universe.” At the cross, you will draw nearer and nearer to God. Is that not what you want? There is hope in despair.

The Master Artist

There is a beautiful, Muslim mosque in Teheran, Iran. While building the mosque, the workers had waited for an order of expensive mirrors to be shipped from Italy. These mirrors had cost tens of thousands of dollars. The mirrors finally arrived at the airport in Teheran, and the workers then shipped them to the work site, but when the crates were opened, they found that all of the mirrors were broken. Many of the workers were so discouraged that they just wanted to throw the broken pieces away and forget about it. But a master artist, seeing the dilemma, took a hammer and began breaking the pieces even more. He broke them all. The other workers thought he had lost his mind. What was he thinking, breaking these expensive mirrors? But then he took the jagged pieces of mirrors and set them in wet cement in the walls of the mosque. Today, the sun, shining down through the translucent roof, is reflected from the broken pieces. It looks as though the room is filled with millions of diamonds. The broken mirrors became more beautiful than they were before they were broken.

Bring your brokenness to the cross. You will become more beautiful than you have ever been before. The Master Artist of the cross can touch you—and your brokenness will become beautiful.

“In every true disciple this love, like sacred fire, burns on the altar of the heart. It was on the earth that the love of God was revealed through Christ. It is on the earth that His children are to reflect this love through blameless lives. Thus sinners will be led to the cross to behold the Lamb of God.” The Acts of the Apostles, 334.

I pray that this love will be manifested to everyone we meet.

Jerry Timmons was a Steps to Life staff member when he was fatally injured in an automobile accident, January 11, 2003.

The Meaning of the Cross

November 21, 2019 by John J. Grosboll

Ellen White tells us that we are going to spend all of eternity studying the meaning of the cross; it is the focal point of everything else. (See The Sanctified Life, 93, 94.) My college freshman, composition teacher taught that, when writing a paper, you need to limit your subject so that you can cover it adequately. But the cross is a subject that we can never fully cover. We still need, however, to understand all that our minds can grasp.

There was a theory going around in the days of Jesus that the soul, or the spirit, hovered over the dead body for three days after death. Jesus, when summoned to the sick bed of his friend Lazarus, waited and did not arrive at Lazarus’ home until he had been dead four days. Thus, even according to the false theories of the Jews, he was really dead. Because Lazarus was raised in the presence of a large group of people, there was no way to deny what had taken place. Some of those present related to the Pharisees what had taken place. A meeting of the Pharisees and chief priests was quickly called. The record of that meeting begins in John 11:45 and continues to the end of the chapter.

Bonded Together as One

“If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.” John 11:48. They were afraid of the Romans. Are people afraid of the Romans, today? Yes, they are. God’s true church is afraid of the Roman power today just as the people in Jesus’ day were afraid of the Romans. Interestingly, the very thing that they believed would bring the Roman power to destroy them was the thing that would have delivered them from its power. This is amazing!

On this occasion, the church leaders decided they were going to have to kill Jesus to prevent the Romans from destroying them. Ironically, by that very act, they brought destruction on themselves by the Romans. As we continue our study, keep in mind that something similar could happen again.

“And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.’ Now this he did not say on his own [authority]; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad.” John 11:49–52. What is the reason that the apostle John gives for the cross? The children of God were scattered all over the world, but John said that Jesus was going to die so that all of the people of God who were scattered abroad could be brought together into one. What a wonderful thought!

God’s people are still scattered all over the world and are going to continue to be so for a little while, because Ellen White said, concerning the 144,000 during the time of trouble, that they will be scattered all over the world. But when Jesus comes again, they are going to be gathered together into one church. I love to think about it. (See Early Writings, 282–287.)

Of One Spirit

Have you noticed that people sometimes do not like it at one church, so they go to another? It is not usually because they did not like the building, but because they did not get along with some of the people. Have you ever seen that happen? I have never seen anybody decide to go to another church because something was wrong with themselves, but I have seen a lot of people want to go to another church because they said that something was wrong with someone else. Well, now, here is my question: What if this were to take place in heaven? This has to do, friends, with the meaning of the cross. You see, as a result of sin, people are alienated from one another. According to the apostle John, God’s children will be gathered into one.

The Bible is a spiritual book, and when it says that God’s children will be gathered into one, it is not speaking of them being gathered into one building. “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit [with Him].” 1 Corinthians 6:17. “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation.” Ephesians 2:14.

I have always had a fascination in the American Civil War. It was the most disastrous war the United States has ever fought. As I was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the whole matter became crystal clear in my mind. At the time of the war, our whole country was separated into two armed camps that were totally alienated from one another. All wars are the result of alienation. By the way, there is a great deal of alienation in the world today. There is even alienation among the professed people of God.

Is the cross just a story, or are we experiencing its spiritual meaning? Let me tell you something—something very serious—if there is one other person in this world from whom you are alienated, at least one of you is not going to heaven unless that problem is solved. It is just that simple. Now it could be both of you, but it might only be one. You might have someone who is alienated from you and you might not be at fault at all, but if there are two people who are alienated, there is something wrong with at least one of them, and that person cannot go to heaven unless that situation is taken care of. The purpose of the cross is to destroy this alienation and bring reconciliation.

You Put Jesus on the Cross

Today, with many Christians, the cross is just like the law was for the Jewish nation. The Jewish nation taught the law, talked the law, and yet Jesus said to them, “Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keep the law?” John 7:19. Today, wherever I travel, I see crosses on churches; I see crosses around people’s necks; but people fail to understand what the cross means. If the cross has not destroyed the enmity in your heart, it has not done the work in your heart that must be done if you are to be saved.

“For it pleased [the Father that] in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled.” Colossians 1:19–21.

Why did Jesus have to go to the cross? “Christ died for our sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:3. Now, when you understand that, if you choose to sin, what have you chosen to do? You have chosen to do the very thing that sent Jesus to the cross. By wicked works you are alienated, expressing hatred for the Son of God. You cannot love sin and love Jesus. “You, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.” Colossians 1:21, 22.

Reconciliation

When we come to the cross and we see the spiritual meaning of it, the sin that we used to love we learn to hate. Everyone who has that experience, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is going to be reconciled into one.

“Now all things [are] of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore [you] on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For, He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 11 Corinthians 5:18–21.

Oh, friend, is the story of the cross just a story to you, or have you had this experience? Have you been reconciled to God so that you are no longer at enmity with Him? Can you be taken to heaven and feel perfectly at home there because you are in harmony with the whole system?

We are living in a time when we need to get down on our knees and say, “Lord, I am choosing to surrender. I am choosing to submit to the cross of Jesus Christ.”

Need to Control

When you are no longer alienated from God, you are in a position to be reconciled, not only to God but also to your fellow man. You will no longer live for self but for Him who died for you.

“Satan is the originator of sin. In heaven he resolved to live to himself. He resolved to be leader. He determined to make himself a center of influence. . . . Head he would be, to control, not to be controlled.” Review and Herald, April 16, 1901. It is this character trait, or desire, in people that splits up churches. When I was a young man, there was a popular song in circulation that denoted the thought, there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians around this place. This is the root cause of all manner of troubles.

It is said that Julius Caesar was once walking along a mountain road when, in the distance, he saw a small village. He is said to have remarked, “I would rather be number one in that village than to be number two in Rome.” This is why Julius Caesar was willing to kill millions of people—he wanted to be number one.

If space permitted, we could go through the gospels and see that this was the same problem that the disciples had. They never got over it until Jesus was crucified. After that, you never again find them contending as to who would be the greatest. Though they had been alienated, the blood of His cross reconciled them.

If you have a desire in your heart to control other people, you have the same problem. It is possible for you to be the most respected person in town and still have this problem. If you have this desire to control other people, you have not yet been reconciled. The person who lives for himself is not a Christian, because he has never experienced the cross. “No one can live for himself and at the same time be united with Christ. Conformity to the world, attachment to the world, manifests a decided denial of Christ.” The Signs of the Times, June 13, 1892.

When His disciples were struggling and quarreling over who would be next to Him in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said, “The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister.” Matthew 20:25, 26.

Great Among You

In the English-speaking countries, we are not used to having servants, so we have only one or two words to express the concept. We talk about servants and slaves, and that is about all. But in the Roman Empire, they had many servants of various categories and used a number of different words to denote a servant. There were some servants who were what we would call managers. It was one of these, by the way, who struck Jesus when He was being tried before Caiaphas. This was a high-class servant; someone who had some authority. There was, however, a lower level of servant. The Greek word for these servants is diakonos. This is where we get the word deacon. Jesus said, “He that will be great among you, let him be a diakonos.”

In the Roman Empire, there was one category that was the lowest of all servants. They would be what we would call slaves. In the King James Version of the Bible, this word is usually translated as servant, and in modern translations, it is translated as bondservant or slave. It is the lowest category of servitude. The Greek word is doulos. Jesus said, “He that will be great among you, let him be a diakonos [that is, a middle level of servant], but the one that will be first among you, let him be a doulos [that is, the lowest level of servant], even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister”—a more literal translation would be “not to be served, but to serve”—“and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26–28.

Philippians tells us how Jesus followed this principle. He started out as the highest, “but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, [and] coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to [the point of] death, even the death of the cross.” Philippians 2:7, 8. I say this reverently, friend, He went lower for you and for me than we could ever go for Him. You will never be able to go as low for Jesus as He has already gone for you. And I want to tell you, once the Holy Spirit drives that thought home into our consciousness, we will never be the same again. We cannot go on in this alienated form of life, fighting and bickering, and with all that is going on among professed Christians today. We cannot do it!

No Longer Alienated

The apostles did not all think the same on every matter after the cross. The cross did not take away their ability to think, but they were no longer alienated from one another.

Friends, there is going to be a people when Jesus comes who are no longer alienated. They are no longer going to be fighting. The 144,000 will be perfectly unified, in harmony. It is going to happen, all right. The question is, Who is going to undergo the experience of the cross so that they can be part of it?

Christ died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and rose again. Oh, friend, is this your experience? The cross must be an experience, no longer just a story. It must change the inner wellspring of the life so that we no longer live for ourselves. This is such a big problem in human nature that our daily prayer to God needs to be that He will divest us of selfishness. (See Our High Calling, 242.)

The servant of the Lord would not instruct us to pray this prayer every day if we did not need to do so. We are talking about a big problem. This is why we need to go to the cross over and over and over again, until the message soaks in.

I invite you, just now, to kneel down and pray that through the power of the Holy Spirit, this will be your experience.

Reprinted from the September 1994 LandMarks.

Pastor Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life Ministry and pastor of the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: historic@stepstolife.org or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

Lessons From the Book of Amos – Part VI

November 21, 2019November 8, 2019 by Mike Baugher

Reading the Book of Amos is a disturbing experience, because as we read, we are faced with the awesome demands a righteous God makes on the lives of His people. We are also presented with the consequences, if we do not follow the commands that God makes upon our lives.

In Part v of this series [April 2004], we noted the parallels between the church of Laodicea and the children of Israel with whom Amos dealt. In the message to the church of Laodicea, we know that, if it does not come into line with God’s position, He is going to spew it out. (Revelation 3:16.) In Amos, we are told the process that the church will go through. It is all revealed to us there. It is not a welcome message; it is not a comforting message, and if we have not been perturbed and disturbed by it, we probably have not yet grasped the message of Amos.

Selective Hearing

In reality, I think all of us have that little mechanism built into us where we tune things out. If you have ever had dogs, you know how they can exercise tuning you out when they want to. They will filter out all the whistles, all the shouts, and all the screams that are supposed to make them come to you or to mind. But it is uncanny how they can hear the rattling of their dish when food is being poured into it. They may be at the other end of the house or out in the field, but they can hear that food being poured into the dish, and they know that it is time to eat. Human beings are a lot like that as well!

We all have our sophisticated ways of tuning out what we do not want to hear. We find this technique, often called selective hearing, operational in the lives of husbands and wives. We tune out what we do not want to hear.

If we human beings can find ways of avoiding messages from each other, we certainly can do that with God. But God tells us over and over again, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22. He speaks to us out of heaven with all the authority of our Creator and as the One Who has the right to rule and to control our lives. But we bristle when God wants to control our lives for us. If what He wants us to do does not meet our selective hearing, there is a tendency for us to tune Him out.

This is what was happening in Israel of old. They also had selective hearing. They did not want to hear that God had the right to rule over them or that He had the right to expect them to respond. For the most part, sinful human beings do not want to be ruled over; they want to rule. If you do not think this is true, then I do not think you have heard the message that has been presented in the Book of Amos.

Filtered Messages

As we study the prophets of old, there is a tendency to filter out the messages that they delivered, because we do not want to face the truth that their messages have applications to us today. We especially hold this view pertaining to the Old Testament. And even though we, as Seventh-day Adventists, like to console ourselves that we are Bible Christians, when we come to a commanding passage in the Old Testament, we like to say that it applied to the people in that day. If there is something in the New Testament with which we do not want to come into harmony, we say that that instruction was given 2,000 years ago.

And then we look at the messages and instructions given in the Spirit of Prophecy, written just over 100 years ago. There are those today who allege that Ellen White was a creature of her day and time—that her writings do not really apply to us. There are even some people who want to rewrite her writings and update the English. I have never had any problem reading what she has to say. It is very clear to me. But there is always the desire to tinker with something that we do not want to hear. Amos 7 gives an account of this.

Vision of Disaster

“Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, [it was] the latter growth after the king’s mowings. And it came to pass, [that] when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he [is] small. The Lord repented for this: It shall not be, saith the Lord.” Verses 1–3.

Here is described a vision of judgment given to Amos. It was a vision of a natural disaster about to occur. The latter crop is referred to in verse 1. The first crop, or the first mowing, was given to the king as a tax, and the people had to depend upon the second mowing to not only feed themselves but also their animals and to have enough left over for the next year.

There is always more in the first mowing than there is in the second mowing, so you can imagine what was left—only enough for the people to just get by. But in this vision, Amos saw grasshoppers come in and begin to eat things down so that nothing was left. When Amos saw this, he, like Moses, began to intercede on behalf of Israel to God, so this would not take place. And the Bible says that God changed this disaster. He let it pass. He said, “It shall not be.”

Then Amos is given another vision.

“Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part. Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he [is] small. The Lord repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord God.” Verses 4–6.

Now, if the grasshoppers were a picture of a natural disaster, fire would seem to be something supernatural. If you have ever been through an area where a forest fire has burned, you know how devastating it is. All the vegetation has been destroyed, and it takes many years for restoration to take place.

That was the vision God gave to Amos—a warning of the devastation that was to come upon Israel as a judgment. And Amos said, “Lord, please, spare them; they are so small.” And the Lord said, “Alright, this is not going to happen.”

Intercessory Prayer

I wonder how many times intercessory prayer, prayer that we may never even know about, has spared us. Here was Israel, doing things that they thought God had no idea of, and the only reason they were spared judgment was because of God’s prophet. They did not even like Amos, but he was interceding on their behalf.

I am sure that we all have stories we could tell, either about parents or grandparents, who have interceded on our behalf. We will never really know or understand how many times intercessory prayer has preserved us until we enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The Plumbline

But then a third vision is given.

“Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall [made] by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumb-line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” Verses 7–9.

A plumbline is a very basic tool of masonry or carpentry. It is used to build a wall so that the wall is plumb, that is, exactly vertical or true. The wall referred to in verse 7 had been established using a plumbline. It was set vertically straight by a plumbline.

Amos, in vision, saw the Lord standing like a construction foreman or a surveyor with a plumbline in His hand. He was checking the wall to see if it was still straight, if it was still bearing the load all right, and if it was still correctly aligned. He was looking to see that there was no hint of bulges or overhanging tilts or cracks or something that would cause the wall to go over.

What is the meaning of this vision? It is saying that the Lord brought Israel into being. He promised to save them; His laws were there to guide them. They were supposed to be in a covenant relationship with God and with His Law, and because of that, it was now necessary for God to take a plumb-line in His hand and to measure that wall to see if it was still straight.

God periodically comes by every one who has entered into a covenant relationship with Him and uses the plumbline to see if we are still straight and upright. It is not an arbitrary assessment; it is a highly precise and discriminating act, and we need to learn from Amos that this is how God works with His people. When we have agreed to be obedient to God’s Law and when we have been baptized to wash away our past sins, God uses the plumbline to continue measuring us.

Right to Measure

The two visions that Amos saw about disaster—the grasshoppers and the fire—have given way to a vision of something far more familiar in small scale, something almost domestic—the building of a wall with a plumbline. No disaster was involved in that. Grasshoppers coming through the field are disastrous. A fire sweeping through and consuming everything is disastrous. But using a plumbline to measure a wall is not disastrous. Everybody knows that a leaning wall cannot stand. A leaning wall has to be demolished and rebuilt.

The first two of these three visions equaled the equivalent of hell. This is the destruction; this is the wasting that is going to take place when judgment comes. The third vision of the plumbline is asking how are you going to measure up? Amos does not make any comment against this vision of judgment. He does not fall down on his knees and begin to pray, “Lord, spare Jacob.” The disasters of grasshoppers and fire had been canceled out in answer to the prayers of Amos. But Amos does not make any appeal against the use of the plumbline, because there is nothing harsh or capricious or arbitrary about God measuring His people. He has the right to do that.

Amos knew that. He knew what was going on, and if he should pray that God would overlook this fact—“Lord, do not measure Your people”—he would be a false prophet, because the words of the prophet deal with measuring.

Like Moses and others, he knew that this was God’s right and that it was helpful for His people. But Amos also knew that judgment would come, because he knew what was taking place in Israel.

Coming Judgment

The Bible never lets us escape from the fact that there is a judgment coming, and we are held morally accountable. As we see this fact being brought about in the Book of Amos, it should sober us in our thinking. This is why the apostle tells us that we are to be sober. (1 Peter 1:13; 4:7.) It should sober our thinking, because we live in a universe where good and evil matter. A lot of people do not think that evil matters. A lot of people do not think that good matters. But in God’s universe, good and evil matter, and where and on what side we place ourselves does matter.

“Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: But prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it [is] the king’s chapel, and it [is] the king’s court.” Verses 10–13.

Apparently, Amos had been telling what was going on around the countryside. That is not always the best or the most enviable posi-tion in which to be found. There was an encounter with the High Priest of the county, and this man went to the king and told him that Amos was conspiring against him.

Church and State Integration

Let us ask some questions here:

First of all, who was this man Amaziah? He was the priest of Bethel; he held a religious position. One of the things we need to understand is that for Israel the church and the state were very integrated. The priest and the king were to work together. The church controlled the state; religious ideas were to overrule any civil ideas of the government.

If we were to translate this into a setting of spiritual understanding today, we would see that the priest of Bethel would be like the Secretary of the Northern Conference of Israel, and the king would represent the conference president.

The priest dealt with the sanctuary; the king dealt with the business administration of God’s people. The king ruled God’s people; the priest dealt with the sacrifices of the temple. They worked very closely together.

Here was Amaziah, a priest, trying to pull rank on Amos, who was God’s prophet. Amos, if you please, was a self-supporting minister in God’s cause, and Amaziah was attempting to control how his ministry was run. This offers the opportunity for many parallels, but I will suggest only one. The priest of the order and organization was trying to dictate how independent ministries were to work and to operate! Indeed there is nothing new under the sun!

Attempt to Prejudice the Hearer

Amaziah was passing on information designed to prejudice the king from even entertaining the message that Amos had for him. He was building a case against Amos and his message so the king would not even consider whether or not the words that Amos spoke were true.

How many times have we heard about those kinds of things happening today? They happen so often on a religious level. If someone has a position to defend, many times they will go to any length to defend that position, even to the extent of misrepresenting the facts. They resort to bribery or falsehood or whatever meets the need at the moment.

Amaziah misrepresented Amos and then turned on him, and in so many words, he told Amos, “You are out of your league up here. This is religious headquarters. It is not the right place for a small-town preacher like you. Anyway, you belong in the south. They will enjoy your prophecy down there. Go back there, if you want to make a living.”

The expression in verse 12, “go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there,” implies that Amos was only doing the work of God for money. “You are only up here causing all this trouble, operating this independent ministry for the money that you get out of it.” Of course, that is always the issue with religious headquarters who think that they have a corner on the market of the self-supporting minister.

As mentioned before, religion and politics were mixed together in this setting, and for a prophet to predict the imminent fall of the nation and the death of the monarch, as Amos did in verse 9, would have been seen as terribly demoralizing and politically treacherous. So Amaziah took it upon himself to deal with this prophet by using misrepresentation and belittlement. Amos was not welcome. No wonder the land could not bear Amos’ words. No wonder the established religious leader tried to silence him. It was the natural response of the human heart. Amaziah felt he was just doing his duty. We need to understand that those conditions have not really changed at all today.

Chosen of God

Notice Amos’ response: “Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I [was] no prophet, neither [was] I a prophet’s son; but I [was] an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.” Verses 14, 15.

If we examine Amos’ reference to his occupation as a shepherd and a tender of sycomore trees, it appears that he was answering Amaziah’s criticism of prophesying for money by saying that he had no need of the prophet’s stipend, and he was not doing the work for the money. Amos made it clear that his background was entirely secular, that he was dedicated to the Lord and that the Lord had chosen him and had sent him.

God had chosen him because He could not find anyone else—not even from the ranks of the religious orders or from the king’s court or from the sanctuary—who could be used to carry His message. He sought one who was tending sheep and said, “I want you.”

Amos then became a type of the Great Shepherd, the One who comes to us bringing the message of gospel and truth. God chose a holy man. The Bible says, “Holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.” 11 Peter 1:21. You do not have to be a priest; you do not have to be a king to carry God’s message of salvation. All you have to be is one who is dedicated wholly and completely to God, and He can use you in His cause.

“Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I [was] no prophet.” A lot of people asked Ellen White if she was a prophet. She always responded that she did not claim to be a prophet but a messenger of the Lord. The same feeling probably welled up in Amos when he was asked this. He said, “I am no prophet, neither am I a prophet’s son.” This is where the phrase comes from that we use so many times—“I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I can tell you, from what I see, that . . . .”

Work of Lay People

It is interesting to note that God called an Israelite to preach to Israelites. That is the method God uses to get His message across. If the professional rank and file are not going to do His will in completing the work He has called them to do, then He is going to raise up lay people to accomplish His purpose. When that happens, a scorning of the work that the lay people accomplish is going to take place. We need to be ready for that. If the message cannot be refuted from the writings of Inspiration, then you better watch out, because God has declared that His word will not return to Him void. You need to be aware, however, that there is always going to be opposition to the preaching of the truth.

Amaziah had said, in effect, that there was no salary for Amos, no career future. But Amos replied, “I am not a career man. I am a called man. The Lord took me from tending the flock, and He told me to go prophesy to His people, Israel.”

This is where spiritual gifts come into play. If God calls you to do a work for Him, He will equip you to accomplish the work. God calls individuals to ministry.

I believe that one of the failures that took place in Israel regarding the sanctuary was that those who were working in the sanctuary did not have a calling. They had a birthright. How many preachers’ kids do you know who have gone into ministry that did not have the same dedication as the father? The reason probably is that they did not have the calling to ministry. The father may have had the calling to ministry. The father may have encouraged the son to follow in his footsteps in ministry, but if that child did not have the call of God to go into ministry, it would be better that he work the plow than to try to fulfill a calling for which he has not been equipped. If God calls you to ministry, He will equip you for that ministry. He will give you the gift that is necessary for you to accomplish His ministry.

Service or Career Choice

There was a vast difference between Amos and Amaziah. This difference still divides those in full-time, Christian service today. The decision to serve God in full-time service can never be simply a career choice. I have colleagues who have selected ministry as a career choice, rather than being called of God. This was not the case with Amos. Amos did not decide one day that he was tired of following sheep from hillside to hillside and then choose to change professions and begin preaching. He did not think to himself that with such a change he would not have to get up so early in the morning to tend the sheep or worry about those who were out on the hillside in the bad weather. He did not consider that all he would need to do is preach on Sabbath morning and be done for the rest of the week. A lot of people believe that of a preacher. I do not think that very many of them have followed a preacher throughout the weekly routine to see just what he does.

Amos was not trying to focus attention on any sacrifice that
he was making to do God’s will. Rather, he was admitting his own lack of qualifications for the job. In effect, he was agreeing with Ama-ziah that he was out of his league as a country boy in the king’s sanctuary at Bethel. In other words, this messenger was utterly insignificant. What mattered is the fact that the Lord had sent him. He had a message from God, and Amos was driven by the message that he had received.

It was not his qualification for the job that put him where he was; it was God. All we need is a heart to obey God. That is all Amos had. We each need to pray for a heart to obey God, and if we are listening to the Word of God and trying to obey it, God can and will use us. When the occasion arose to defend the cause of God, all Amos needed was the word from God, and he was ready to go; he packed his suitcases and was ready.

“The Lord took me,” he said, “as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.”

Judgment Proclaimed

“Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not [thy word] against the house of Isaac. Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.” Amos 7:16, 17.

That was Amos’ response to Amaziah. He was told not to prophesy again at Bethel. So what does Amos do in response? He immediately goes and prophesies against Israel at Bethel.

The location was important. Amaziah had not forbidden Amos to preach. He had not said, “Do not preach those things at all anywhere.” He just said, “Do not point out the wrongs that are being done at Bethel.” Why? Because that was the king’s chapel.

The offense of preaching often is found in where God’s message is delivered. Nobody minds the preaching of the Three Angels’ Messages, as long as the judgment is not part of the matter. “You can preach that all you want, but do not include us; do not point out what we are doing that is wrong! Tell all the people you want that they are going to hell, but do not tell us at headquarters that we are going to hell or that we are in danger of judgment.” This is basically what Amos was being told—“Go into someone else’s district; do not come into my district.”

Not My Backyard

A good friend of mine, a retired minister—independent minister now—was on an airplane in the Northwest. Little did he know, as he boarded the plane, that already seated in the plane was the local conference president. The conference president did not reveal himself to this man until after the plane landed at its destination. My friend got off first. The conference president followed him down the concourse and, coming up behind him, ran into him to the extent that it almost knocked him off his feet. When he recovered his composure, the conference president said to him, “What are you doing in my district?” My friend gave an excellent response: “I did not know it was your district. I thought it was God’s district.”

For Amos to speak in Jerusalem, where he was from, the things that God had told him to speak in Bethel would not have accomplished the purpose that God intended. God called him to preach in Bethel. His words, in verse 17, concerning Amaziah, his wife, his children, his land, and where he himself would end up would cause little or no problem if preached in Jerusalem. But speaking those things in the back yard where the priest lived was going to cause some problems. It would not be appreciated.

God had not just given Amos a message; He had given him a destination for that message. God said, “Go and prophesy to my people Israel.”

Rebuke; Exhort

Sometimes it is very difficult to deal with religious issues in the way that we should. It is not easy to speak out, pointing out areas where evil is taking place, but when God gives the message and calls us to go with that message, do you realize that we would be lost eternally if we did not carry out that message?

Ellen White would lament many times; she would weep before the Lord that she did not want to deliver the messages that God gave to her. She did not want to hurt people’s feelings with the messages that she had to carry. But she carried them anyway. She spoke them anyway. (See Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, 60, 61.) We will never understand the anguish that she went through in having to do it.

In the instruction Paul gave to Timothy, the young man who would follow in his footsteps, he said, “Rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering.” 11 Timothy 4:2. That was where Amos’ personal experience was found. He told Amaziah that he must be obedient to what God had called him to do and that there was a vast difference between the word of man and the Word of the Lord.

Difference in the Word

Perhaps in Amos’ day it was at times difficult to distinguish the difference, particularly when some prophets spoke falsely in the name of the Lord, but that is not the case today. Why is that not the case today? Because, as 11 Peter 1:19 says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.” We now have the written Word of God, and that becomes the basis and the foundation of everything that we are to be and everything that we are to do. There is no doubt today about what God has said. We do not have to say, “Well, I heard this prophet, and I heard that prophet, and I heard another prophet, and I cannot figure it out.” No, we go to the Word, and there we find what is the truth. We can be sure that word, that message from God, always remains the same.

How are we to deal with situations like this? We see in this much more than just ourselves. We have before us the setting of prophet and priest, a setting where there is the confronting of the unwelcome, unsettling, unchanging Word of God. How are we to relate to that? How are we to cope with the voice of God when it applies to our situation?

Remember, we do not want to fall into the trap of filtering. When the Word comes, do not tune it out—examine it. Even though it may be cutting across our grain, do not filter it out. Do not become angry with the one who gives the message. Study it out; see if it is the truth. If you want to be angry with someone because it is the truth, be angry with the Lord, but do not be angry with the one who spoke the Word of the Lord. Does that sound reasonable? God can deal with anger. The message is the word of truth, so do not filter out what God is trying to get across. We will be in the same danger as Israel of old, if we do.

Do not try to fudge things or sort out things and put them into categories that we can get around. Take them as they come. If we will take God at His Word and apply God’s Word into our lives, it will not be long before Jesus can come. I am looking forward to that. I am longing for that day. I am getting tired of the things that I see going on in the world. I want it brought to an end. I want the Lord to come soon, and I know that you do, too. But we need to make sure that we are following as closely as we can what God has revealed to us in His Word.

To be continued . . .

Clean Hands and Pure Hearts, Part I

November 8, 2019 by John J. Grosboll

We, in historic Adventism, have been involved in a spiritual war. The most painful thing about this war is that it involves our own brethren. It involves people who we have loved so dearly, those who we just cannot bear to fight, and yet we must because of the apostasy. We have been fighting, not because we enjoy it, but because a war is going on, and we must fight in order to have a clear conscience. We must proclaim the truth to have a clear conscience.

Ministers have been teaching in Seventh-day Adventist churches that all one must do to be saved is just believe in Jesus—one can go on sinning and be saved anyway. There are ministers who are telling people that they will sin until Jesus comes, and then they will go to heaven.

That is not what the Bible says, and that is not what the Spirit of Prophecy says.

Because people will go to hell as a result of what they have been taught and believed, historic Seventh-day Adventist preachers have said, “We have to tell people the truth, and we have to engage in a war with this false doctrine.” That is what we have been doing.

When you attend historic Seventh-day Adventist meetings, you will hear about the New Testament doctrine of perfection. You will hear about the necessity of overcoming sin. I have been studying Psalm 24 for quite some time and investigating the Spirit of Prophecy on the subject of clean hands and pure hearts. There are many Spirit of Prophecy quotations on this subject. There are also many Bible verses that apply to this study. Jesus is coming to take a people, and these people are going to have clean hands and pure hearts, without one spot or blemish. While all of this is true, I want to give you a word of encouragement.

All Things Are Possible

Sometimes people become discouraged. They are presented the standard, and they begin to weep. They become depressed, and they feel discouraged. They think they will never make it and believe they are stuck. If that is how you feel, consider what happened the morning after the transfiguration of Jesus.

The record of the transfiguration of Jesus is recorded in Mark 9:2–13. Jesus and the three disciples—Peter, James, and John—are coming down from the mountain, and it says, in verses 14–23, “Coming to the disciples [that is the rest of the disciples] they saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. And immediately the crowd, seeing him, was greatly amazed, and running towards him they greeted him. And he said to them, ‘What are you arguing with them about?’ And a certain one answered him, out of the crowd, ‘Teacher, I brought my son to you having a dumb spirit [that is, he could not speak]; And wherever he seizes him it dashes him and he foams at the mouth and he gnashes his teeth and he wastes away. And I brought him to your disciples that they might cast it out, but they were not able.’ And answering, he says to them, ‘Oh faithless generation, how long am I going to be with you? how long am I going to endure you? bring him to me.’ And they brought him to him; and seeing him, the spirit immediately convulsed him and falling upon the earth he wallowed, foaming, and Jesus questioned the father saying, ‘How long a time is this that he has been like this?’ And he said, ‘Since childhood. And often times he has cast him into the fire and into the water that he might destroy him. And if you are able to do anything, please help us and have compassion on us.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘If you are able, all things are possible to the one who believes.’ ”

This is a man whose son has had a problem since childhood that he cannot overcome. Have you ever met somebody who has a besetting sin in his or her life that they cannot overcome, and that person declares, “I am going to quit”? Mark Twain said, “It is not hard to quit smoking; I have quit a thousand times.” So the individual quits the sin for a week; then the habit overcomes them again. Or maybe they are more successful than that. Maybe they quit for a month; then it overcomes them again. Maybe they quit for three months, and then it overpowers them again. They quit; they start again—repeatedly. Friend, this is the real world. I am not talking about something imaginary. I talk with such people. I visit with them in their homes and in the hospitals. After this pattern has been repeated over and over again, people sometimes become discouraged.

Envy and Jealousy

That is what happened to the father in Mark 9. He had already brought this boy to the leaders of the Christian church. I do not know if you have ever been in a situation where you have dealt with someone who has been possessed of an evil spirit. I have. Surely there is no situation where a human being feels more helpless. The elders of the church gather around, and when the evil spirit takes control of the person, the church leaders begin to pray, because they know that they cannot cast that evil spirit out; there is no human power that can take an evil spirit out of somebody.

If you are a minister, an elder, or a teacher, study what Ellen White says in The Desire of Ages concerning those nine disciples who were at the base of the mountain and why they could not cast out the devil.

These nine disciples had a real problem with feelings of envy and jealousy, because three of the disciples were given certain privileges that these nine did not have. Can you see how easy that would be? Let’s say you are a disciple; Jesus calls Peter, James, and John and takes them off separately for a special trip, and you are not asked to go. That happened quite a few times, did it not? It certainly did.

Because the nine disciples had feelings of envy and jealousy in their hearts, when they tried to cast out the evil spirit, the spirit just mocked them.

My dear friend, there is a reason. When people possessed of evil spirits call upon Seventh-day Adventist ministers, elders, and deacons to pray for them to cast out the demons, there is a reason why they are not successful. It is a reason for which every one of us who is a minister or an elder or a deacon in the church needs to go to the Lord. We need to pray, “Lord, are there any feelings or thoughts in my heart, in my mind, or in my life—are there any sinful thoughts, any sinful feelings, any sinful words, or any sinful actions in my life—that prevent You from working through me?”

Incurable

You see, if we go to meet these situations in our own natural temperaments, we are in this situation. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” The next Hebrew word in this text is a very interesting one. It is the word ‘anash, which means incurable. What does the Bible say about the heart of man? It says that it is deceitful above all things and is incurable. That is the way the Bible describes your heart and my heart.

What hope is there, if it is incurable? The text continues, “Who can know it?” Well, who can know it? Ellen White states that one of our problems is that “the vileness of the human heart is not understood.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 18, 295. So when humans, with hearts like this, come into contact with an evil spirit, it is just going to mock them, even if it is more evil than they are.

Our only hope is that there is a Divine Physician that specializes in incurable diseases. The Bible says, in both the Old and New Testaments, that the natural man has to be crucified and has to die. It is so bad that you cannot improve it. You just have to get rid of it and get a new heart, because it says, “the heart of man is deceitful above all things;” it is incurable.

David’s Prayer

That is what David was praying about in Psalm 51. David’s experience has been a stumbling block to Christians ever since that time. It has been difficult for a lot of people to understand. You see, there will be people on the outside of the Holy City who are lost and who will burn up in hellfire that never killed a man and took his wife. Yet, what David did has been used as an excuse. The Lord told him that from then on the wicked would blaspheme his name because of what he had done. He also told him that the sword would never leave his house. It is true to this present day. But if the Holy Spirit ever reveals to you how incurable and deceitful your own heart is, then the story of David will take on a new meaning, because you will discover that as sinful as you are, you can be saved.

One of the reasons people become discouraged is because the Holy Spirit has been speaking to their hearts. The first thing the Holy Spirit does, if there is sin in your heart, is to point out the sin. John 16 teaches that. And people, when they begin to get just a little inkling of how vile they are, say, “There is no hope for somebody this bad.” That would be true for all of us, if there was not Someone that specializes in people who have hearts that are incurable and desperately wicked.

A Pure Heart

Psalm 51 is the Psalm that David prayed after Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had been with Bathsheba. (See 11 Samuel 11:2, 3.) In verse 10, he says, “Create in me, Oh God, a pure heart.” He knew he did not have one. It is a very interesting word he used here, bara’. It is the very same word that is used in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created [bara’] the heavens and the earth.” How did He create it? He spoke it. Psalm 33:9 says: “He spoke and it was.” (See also verse 6.) There was nothing there before, but He spoke and then it was. David used the same word. He knew that his heart was so bad it could not be improved, so he said, “I need You to create a pure heart for me, because I need a new one.”

Friend, you and I need new hearts too. We need pure hearts. Maybe God has allowed you to become discouraged so you would realize what you needed. You need what David needed. You need a new heart, a pure heart, and the only way that you are going to get one is if God creates one, because the natural one you were given in your first birth is not pure. It is “deceitful above all things,” and it is incurable.

You can pray the same prayer as David prayed. God will hear the prayer, because you are praying it right out of His Word. It says, “Create,” and that means speak. Create something out of nothing. Ask God to create a new heart for you. Tell Him that the one you have is deceitful and incurable, and you need a new one. David said, “Create in me a pure heart.” That is the kind of heart you must have to go to heaven. Nobody with a deceitful heart can go to heaven. Nobody with a wicked heart can go to heaven. But you cannot change your heart. Only Someone else can create in you a pure heart.

Humble Spirit

David had been in the true church for a long time when he had become involved with Bathsheba. He was so scared when he realized how bad he really was. He was afraid that he had committed the unpardonable sin. He was afraid that the Lord would take the Holy Spirit from him, and he would be lost. He said, “Lord, Lord, please help me. If You want me to give You sacrifices, I will, but I know that will not help. That is not what You want.” You see, David was a rich man. It would not have been any problem for him to give a great number of sacrifices. He was the king. But he knew the Lord desired someone with a humble and broken spirit. My friend, if you are willing to study this prayer and if you are willing to humble your spirit and if your spirit is broken because the Holy Spirit has revealed to you how bad you are, ask God to create in you a pure heart.

Steadfast Spirit

David prayed, “And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10. That word steadfast means to stand firm, to be established, to be faithful, to be fixed—a spirit that cannot be moved. He had not had a steadfast spirit. He knew he needed a new spirit; he needed a pure heart, and he asked the Lord to give it to him.

Speech Changed

Friend, if you and I have received new hearts, pure hearts, our speech is going to change. We do not know our hearts. We do not know, many of us, whether we have the old, deceitful, incurable heart or whether we have the new heart, so the Lord, in His inspired writings, gives us some clues. We cannot read other people’s hearts; we cannot even read our own hearts. They are so desperately wicked; they deceive us with self-deceit, and we do not even know what is the condition of our hearts. The Lord gives us some pointers so we can begin to understand our hearts by what is on the outside.

Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34. If you start praying about this and begin evaluating your speech, it will reveal whether or not your heart has been changed. If David’s heart had been changed, he would rather have died than to take another man’s wife. The way you can know if your heart has been changed is to monitor how you talk about your neighbor.

If you do anything to diminish your neighbor’s reputation, you do not have a new heart—yet. You still have the old, deceitful heart that is incurable. If you see that I have a problem and you do not come talk to me about it but go tell somebody else, that is proof you do not yet have a new heart. Not yet. When you have the new heart, you will love your neighbor as yourself, and you will never do anything to hurt them, even if they sin. Oh, you may say that it will hurt them if you go and talk to them about the problem. Yes. That is the same as getting a thorn in your finger when you were a child and going to your mother and asking her to remove the thorn, even though you knew that it would hurt to get it out. Why? It was going to hurt less to get it out at the time than to leave it in there. For sure, it is going to hurt if you go talk to somebody because they have a sin problem in their life, but it is going to hurt less than if you do not go to them.

What is going to have to happen? Oh friend, I long to see the day when, among God’s people, we have pure hearts and clean hands. We will be filled with the Holy Spirit as a result! We will have unity and harmony like we have never before seen. And when we come into contact with people who are possessed with evil spirits, we will be just like the apostles. When the apostle Paul came into contact with that girl who was possessed with an evil spirit, Scripture says that he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he turned around and commanded the spirit to leave, and it left. (Acts 16:16–18.)

We are not like that today. There is a reason for it. We are just like those nine disciples. We gather around and pray, and may the Lord be praised, and may we be gracious and thankful for His mercy, but I can tell you, friend, we do not have the power the apostles had. We do not have it. We might as well recognize that we do not have it. We need to pray that we will come into a condition that we can have it, like they had it. There will be a time before probation closes when there will be a primitive godliness amongst God’s people that has not been since apostolic times. And friend, I am willing to be the doorkeeper, to perform any lowly office, as long as I can be part of it.

A Way Out

The nine disciples could not cast out the demon, because they had the wrong spirit. They were jealous and envious of the privileged three. That was the same problem the devil had in heaven. He was jealous of Christ.

The devil goes around trying to get all of us. No matter who you are, the devil can find somebody of whom you can be jealous. That was their problem, and they could not cast out the evil spirit.

The father was discouraged. His son had a problem that they could not overcome. No matter what they did, it came back. This is like the person who has a besetting sin that he cannot overcome. He may quit it for a month, but then it comes back. Maybe he quits it for three months, but it comes back, until finally he is so discouraged that, like this father, he says to Jesus, “Lord, if you can do anything, please have compassion on me, and help me.” Jesus promised, “If you are able to believe, all things are possible to the one who believes.” Mark 9:23. All things are possible.

Does that include the drug addict? Yes. I work with drug addicts. Does it include the alcoholic? Yes. Does it include the prostitute? Yes. Actually, as bad as that is, I am not as concerned for their eternal salvation. A lot of prostitutes have been saved in Jesus’ time and our time. I am not as concerned about the prostitutes as the people who go to the prostitutes.

Oh friend, where are you? Somebody needs a word of encouragement, because the devil has you in a situation where you think there is no way out. That is where this father was. He was in a situation where he thought there was no way out. But if you come to Jesus, there is a way out, because He is the way out. And He said, “If you are able, all things are possible to the one who believes.”

To be continued . . .

Lessons From the Book of Amos – Part VII

November 7, 2019 by Mike Baugher

As we study the Book of Amos, we need to pray for God’s eyesalve to look not only at what was transpiring in the past but to also see what is happening in the time in which we live.

Too often we find ourselves reading God’s Word for an immediate answer to some problem or difficulty that we might have at the time—a solution that will answer the questions for the here and now. But this is not really the way to study God’s Word. Ellen White tells us that the prophets wrote more for our day than for the day in which they themselves lived, so our study of Amos is timely. (See Selected Messages, Book 3, 338, 339.)

Sad Judgment

Reading the contents of Amos 8 is like reading the obituary at the funeral of a friend, because we realize the finality of the deceased one’s life. Amos 8 is a sad chapter. What makes it even sadder is that the same dire consequences and circumstances will fall upon God’s people at the end of time as fell upon God’s people, Israel, in the Northern kingdom. Those who have had the benefit and the privileges of knowing the Three Angels’ Messages will, we are told, leave by the millions. We boast today, in Seventh-day Adventism, a membership of over 12 million, but one day, millions of these members will leave. Many, we are told by the Pen of Inspiration, will leave this truth and join the ranks of the opposition. (See The Great Controversy, 608; Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 195, 196.)

The story does not end there. “Standard after standard was left to trail in the dust as company after company from the Lord’s army joined the foe and tribe after tribe from the ranks of the enemy united with the commandment-keeping people of God.” Testimonies, vol. 8, 41. We are told that “the broken ranks will be filled up by those represented by Christ as coming in at the eleventh hour.” Last Day Events, 182.

The circumstances in the Northern kingdom were bleak, and it was into this situation that Amos came. He was not a citizen of Israel. He had come from the Southern kingdom of Judah. When he arrived, Amos began to deliver to the nations around Israel the message he had been given, declaring that it would not be long until the wrath of God would fall upon them.

The people of Israel, upon hearing Amos’ message, said, “Amen, brother, preach on. Preach it like it is.” He was naming the sins of the other countries and declaring that they and even the Southern kingdom, where he was from, would receive punishment. None of this got Amos in trouble. I suspect this part of his preaching brought a lot of applause and praise.

Amos saved Israel, the Northern kingdom, for his last message. When he began to preach, “You people of Israel, your sins are as bad as or worse than the rest; God is going to destroy you,” he was no longer the popular preacher that he had been. The people then told him to mind his own business and to go back to where he had come from!

Themes Used

In our previous studies, we have learned that God uses theme devices as He inspires His prophets to bring His word to us. As we endeavor to study the Word of God, we must understand God’s theme devices, or we are going to get off track in our interpretation of God’s Word. God uses theme devices for learning, so we will remember the lessons that are taught and will stay on track.

When Amos began his book, with the pronouncements of judgments on Israel and Judah as well as the surrounding nations, the theme device was, for three transgressions and for four. (See Amos 1.) Amos used this theme device to get their attention. The reasons were given as to why the judgments were coming. Then again, in chapters 7 and 8, this theme device surfaces in all of its full-blown glory.

No Escape

God repented of the first two of four visions of judgment. God was willing to overlook, for the greater benefit of the nation, their first two follies. That tells us something about God: He is willing, through His mercy, to overlook many of our faults, but we should never presume that because He does not punish us immediately, we can take advantage of that mercy by continuing to sin. If we do, we will find that God will ultimately bring judgment instead of mercy upon us.

God was willing to overlook things—for three transgressions and for four,—but the third and the fourth visions of judgment are very soon to kick in.

God has laws of operation that govern everything He does, including how He presents His messages to His people. If we are going to stay on track, we must understand how these laws operate. Let us study this further.

The fourth vision of Amos tells of the final judgment of Israel. As we read the words of this Old Testament prophet, we cannot escape the depicted concept of judgment. Judgment is not a comfortable topic. It is the very opposite of being comfortable. We are so disturbed by the topic that we often deny that God is bringing judgment upon a land or upon His people. We miss the point that God has for us, because we do not want to discuss judgment. Judgment denotes the idea that something really dreadful is going to take place, and the human psyche cannot cope with it.

We all remember 9/11—the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. This generation will probably never forget 9/11. We may forget a lot of things, but that date is going to stay with us. When we saw the pictures on television showing the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center burning and then collapsing, we could not believe that such a horrendous thing was taking place. We were in a state of disbelief that something like this could happen on American soil. Of all the words that have been spoken regarding 9/11, I do not remember hearing anything said that this was a judgment of God. Thousands of lives were lost; hundreds of millions of dollars in damage was done. Could it have been a judgment from God? I believe so, because Ellen White tells us that such terrible disasters are indeed judgments of God upon the land. (See Manuscript Releases, vol. 11, 1.)

Most people’s minds will not allow them to process that kind of thought. Many people are in a state of shock, because some things are so awful they cannot cope with them. It is no surprise that many minds find it difficult to grasp the reality of the judgment of God, but it is important that we do think about it. The Bible makes sure that we do, because without judgment, all systems of human morality collapse. People want to do away with punishment. They manipulate laws so that punishment becomes less and less because of this concept of judgment in their minds. They do not want to deal with judgment. They do not want to deal with harshness, because they know that at some point in time—if indeed there is a God—they are going to have to face the judgment themselves. They somehow think that if they are merciful, then God will be merciful to them in their sin.

Amaziah’s Actions

In a way, this was the case with the High Priest, Amaziah. (See Amos 7:10–13.) He did not want to face the fact that judgment would come. As a result, he tried to silence Amos. This story is particularly intriguing, because it tells of an attempt by a religious official to stifle the preaching of a prophet whose message was unpleasant, embarrassing, and even threatening to the religious and governmental establishment.

From a purely human point of view, Amaziah’s actions were reasonable. He wanted to silence Amos. He viewed him as a prophet who was not authorized to be in the Northern kingdom. He did not appreciate being told that they were not following God. The reality of it is, however, that when you try to silence a prophet of God, you are, in fact, trying to silence God.

We know that this is not something new. There is nothing new under the sun! In the New Testament, we see this phenomenon was raised up again and again. Those whose fathers had killed the prophets also thought that they could silence John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, and the other prophets. Sadly, they had failed to learn this lesson outlined in Amos. They thought that it applied to someone else, not to them. In reality, is not that the tendency of human beings today?

History tells us that religion always tries to have peace and harmony prevail above the truth that God demands justice and faithfulness. I have heard people say, “When we hear the governments in the Middle East crying peace and safety, that is then the sign of the end.” No, that is not the sign of the end.

The sign of the end is when religious pressure becomes so great that it forces all religious groups into a uniformity—not a unity, but into a uniformity—where there are no longer the variances that now exist. That is the peace and safety that needs to be carefully watched, because it has always been the plan and purpose of religion to bring peace and harmony into the lives of those who are following their religion.

This God is going to judge, and ignorance is not bliss. Refusal to consider the reality of God’s wrath against evil amounts to willingness to condone evil. The truth, today, is that people do not consider what is right or wrong. They do, however, consider how they feel about something.

How we feel, most of the time, is wrong, because we base our feelings, for the most part, upon our sinful natures. The sad story is that Amaziah, who wanted to protect his king and countrymen from hearing the predictions of their doom, would inevitably be unable to escape the effects of that doom himself. Amos’ message did not come from some manifestation of his own will but was a direct message from God. Amaziah, along with his fellow Israelites, was destined to experience the penalty of ignoring and opposing the message.

Summer Fruit

Consider now this vision of the summer fruit in Amos 8: “Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.” Verses 1, 2.

God asked Amos, “What do you see?”

Amos replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” The vision of summer fruit brings the message that it is over for Israel.

One of the things that my wife, Judy, and I like is tree-ripened, summer fruit. There is nothing quite like it. When we go to the grocery store, the fruit we buy there has been picked green and shipped across the country. It looks good, but it has little taste, and we often wish we had never bought it. There is nothing like tree-ripened, sweet, summer fruit.

What God is presenting to Amos in this vision of summer fruit is the idea that summer fruit does not last long. It is ripe. When we obtain tree-ripened, summer fruit, we had better eat it or preserve it immediately, or it will turn to mush. God is communicating the fact that the time is ripe. Their cup is full. They have presumed upon the mercy of God long enough.

“What did you see, Amos?”

“I saw some summer fruit. It was ripe, and it was ready to have some-thing done with it.”

God said, “You are right. It has to have something done with it. It has to be dealt with.”

After the plumbline of Amos 7, and then the rejection of God’s Word by the priest, Amaziah, the end of the line has come for God’s people—the summer fruit. God is not going to spare them any longer.

Picture of Disaster

Amos 8:3 depicts the awful picture of disaster: “And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: [there shall be] many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast [them] forth with silence.”

They were singing these songs at the temple in Bethel—a temple that was in a state of high apostasy, and had been from its very beginning. They would find that even though they received pleasure in the past from their songs, they now would be turned to howlings, to songs of lamentation. Dead bodies were going to be everywhere.

This is why I say that Amos 8 is such a sad chapter. It is like attending a funeral, because there is death and carnage and disaster in every place. God says, “I want you to pay close attention, because this is a type of the disaster that is going to take place at the end of the world.”

Often we have the idea that the disaster at the end of the world will be terrible because of so much bloodshed, but that is not the disaster with which we need to be concerned. The disaster at the end of the world is the fact that God’s people—those who have professed God—are going to be the ones slaughtered.

The world will get what it has coming, but God’s people have made a profession. They have said, “All that the Lord has said, we will do.” (Exodus 19:8; 24:3, 7.) They have the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish this, if they will. The tragedy, the disaster, is not that the world is going to be destroyed; the tragedy is that those who have taken the name of the Lord upon their lips are going to be destroyed.

Amos 8:3 is not talking about the dead bodies of the surrounding nations. It is referring to those who are at the temple singing the songs and worshiping. There will be many dead bodies.

New Moon

“Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; [yea,] and sell the refuse of the wheat? The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only [son], and the end thereof as a bitter day.” Verses 4–10.

The new moon heralded the coming of the new month, and it was a time to come before the Lord. The people of Israel had watchmen set to watch for the new moon. When the new moon came, they blew the trumpet, announcing that a new month was on its way.

We read in Isaiah 66 that the Lord is going to come, and He is going to create new heavens and a new earth. “And it shall come to pass, [that] from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” Verse 23. Somehow most of us have a tendency to zero in on this Sabbath promise to the neglect of the new moon promise. I would like to suggest to you that the new moon spoken of in this text is going to be just as much a reality in the new earth as will the Sabbath issue, because it is qualified by saying that the Lord is going to create new heavens and a new earth.

How do we as Seventh-day Adventists relate to the new moon concept? In Amos, the people were saying, “Get this new moon thing out of the way so that we can sell our corn. Get the Sabbath over with so we can sell our wheat.”

What about the new moon? Does it have significance for us? It most certainly does. Do you remember what is going to take place in the new earth concerning the tree of life? We are going to eat the fruit of that tree, how often? Every month. (See Revelation 22:2.) Isaiah’s prophetic vision reveals that he saw God’s people coming once a month to worship before the Lord and to partake of the fruit that will continue to sustain immortality. They will come Sabbath by Sabbath as well.

The Burden of Sabbath

The people of the Northern kingdom could not wait for the new moon to be gone. They could not wait for the Sabbath to be over. They would say, “Jeremiah, go out and look at the sundial in the garden. See how long the shadow is. Is the sun down yet?” What did they have on their minds? They wanted to get going with the worldly things of their lives. They had forgotten about God. The Sabbath was a burden.

There are Seventh-day Adventists today in the same situation. If they are keeping the Sabbath, it is a burden. They want it to be gone, so they can do their own things. They do not consider the Sabbath to be a time of spiritual blessing and refreshing. They cannot wait for the sun to go down.

There are others who make no pretense about the Sabbath at all. They just do their own things anyway. Maybe they are refrained a little bit. I remember hearing a teacher in one of the church’s academies stating that their family would go window-shopping on Sabbath. This teacher thought that as long as they did not buy anything, they were not breaking the Sabbath. Then, when the sun went down, they were ready to go into the stores to buy the items they had seen on Sabbath. They were “cultural Adventists.” Although they had grown up in the system, they had never really understood what a blessing the Sabbath day is.

God Sees It All

In Amos 8:7, the Lord says, “I will never forget anything that they have done.” God sees it all. God sees not only what takes place on the surface, but He is also able to look into the heart when you are keeping your eye on your watch, thinking that that action is not breaking the Sabbath. God knows that down in your heart you are hoping that you can make it to the store just before the sun goes down, so you will be ready to purchase when the clock strikes. Is that Sabbath keeping? Not at all. God says, “I see it all.”

Not only does God see our Sabbath-keeping, but also He sees every financial deal with which we are involved. He sees every greedy acquisition, every religious act, and every critical thought. Nothing is forgotten. God writes it all down, and our only hope is to come to a point in our lives where nothing matters but our God and the vindication of His character by our own. That is our only hope.

Coming Famine

As we come to the close of this chapter, I would suggest to you that there is a hint in the final verses of how judgment might have been averted.

In verse 11, we read: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread . . . .” No, there was not going to be a famine of bread, because Israel was at the height of its prosperity, but they were at the bottom spiritually.

You know, there will come a time, when the Spirit is being poured out on God’s people, that there will be some sitting in the pews who will not even realize what is happening. Some will receive the Spirit and others will not, but from all appearances, the difference will not be discerned.

But there is coming a famine in the land, “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”

That is a sad thing to think about, is it not? We pride ourselves in regard to all of the Bibles we have in the United States, but the day is going to come when there is going to be a famine in the land. That famine will not focus on whether or not you have a Bible. It is going to be more profound than that.

Many people think that if they have the Bible and if they have memorized verses, they are going to be okay. I am sorry to say that they are not going to be okay. When this famine strikes, it is going to be more profound than that. It is going to be so profound that they will not know how to apply the verses they have memorized, unless their hearts have been changed.

Spirit Withdrawn

“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: and, The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.” Verses 12–14.

One of the attributes of judgment is the fact that God withdraws His Spirit. When God withdraws His Spirit, that which you think you have a good handle on, you have no handle on at all. That can be part of judgment, and that is what is described in these last verses. The people are running everywhere, trying to find out what they should do, but they are not able to find it. They take their Bibles down from the shelves, open and leaf through them, but cannot find an answer that satisfies the need of their hearts. They have not paid attention to God’s Word. That is what was wrong in verse 5 when the described religious services were taking place. Instead of treasuring up those things that God had for them, they were wishing the Sabbath hours away.

The Application

How can we apply the lessons in this chapter of Amos to our lives? Part of what makes up God’s judgment is the withdrawing of His Word from His people and the withdrawing of the Holy Spirit so that the Word cannot be understood. It is only the Holy Spirit that guides into all truth. (John 16:13.) A famine of hearing the words of the Lord—what a warning to Seventh-day Adventists today!

Each Sabbath day, across the world, thousands of congregations meet. I wonder what takes place in those church services each Sabbath. I wonder what the Spirit of the Lord sees—not only from a pulpit point of view but also from a congregational point of view. Does He see His Word exalted? Does He see the moving of His Holy Spirit upon the congregations, or is the Spirit grieved away? Are the services frivolous, a time-passer to get people through the hours of the Sabbath day?

The Seventh-day Adventist Church was founded upon the Word of God, and it is the Word that needs to be preached today. It is the Word that needs to be followed, if we are ever going to get out of this world alive.

Mark it down. Amos 8:11 will be fulfilled to Adventists as well as those of other denominations. That day is going to come when there will be a famine in the land—a famine for the Word of God.

Ellen White talks about this day, and she places it near the end of time when judgment is going to fall. “Those who had not prized God’s Word were hurrying to and fro, wandering from sea to sea, and from the north to the east, to seek the Word of the Lord. Said the angel, ‘They shall not find it. There is a famine in the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord. What would they not give for one word of approval from God! but no, they must hunger and thirst on. Day after day have they slighted salvation, prizing earthly riches and earthly pleasure higher than any heavenly treasure or inducement. They have rejected Jesus and despised His saints. The filthy must remain filthy forever.’ ” Early Writings, 281, 282.

I am convinced, in my own mind, that the fulfillment of Revelation, when it says that they have no rest day and night, applies here. (Revelation 14:11.) Searching, wondering, wondering, searching—no rest day or night. What we see in these verses and in this quotation is another example of the parable of the ten virgins. (Matthew 25.)

Equal Chance

Remember, the Bible says that five of the virgins were wise and five were foolish. Do you know why it uses five and five? Why did Jesus not say there were four and six or three and seven? Why five and five? The reason five and five is used is because it is an equal number on each side, which means there is an equal chance for you to be in one group or the other. You are not in a lop-sided situation where there were two wise virgins and eight foolish. With those numbers, it would be difficult to get into the wise group, but you have an equal chance. The choice rests with you. So the five wise and the five foolish are presented before us.

The parable tells us that all ten virgins fell into the Laodicean condition. They all slumbered and slept, and when the cry was given, the five wise virgins trimmed their lamps and went in to the wedding, but the five foolish went out and began to search for oil. Oil represents the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the guide to God’s Word. It guides us into all truth.

They could not find any Holy Spirit; they could not find any Word. There was a famine in the land, as far as they were concerned. They went out, and they searched and searched.

What would they do? They would come up to someone and ask, “I know that you have an experience with the Lord. Can you please tell me what I need to know so that I can make it into the wedding feast? I am confused; I do not know. Please help me.” This is the plea they give. This is the plea for the oil to put in their lamps—a searching for truth. They knew they needed to have this oil so they could be saved.

While they hesitated, while they looked, while they searched, while they inquired, the door was closed, and it was all over—just like the story Amos relates in chapter 8. The idea is left with us that we need to make hay while the sun shines. We need to make our search now. We need to make our application now. You see, it was never God’s plan that Israel should suffer the fate that they suffered. His plan was perfect.

It is not His plan that we should suffer a similar fate, and we do not have to. Remember the five wise virgins and the five foolish. We have an equal chance to be in either group, if we learn the lessons.

A Land for Us

As this article is written, there is a war going on in Israel. They are fighting over a piece of real estate that has no blessing in it whatsoever. But God has a land for us. It is right now a land that we can see only by faith, but it is a real land nonetheless. If we are faithful, one day God is going to usher us into that land.

We need to make sure that we are learning the lessons that God has for us, because if we do, we will be classed with the five wise virgins and will be invited to go in to the wedding feast. God is going to say, “Come thou, blessed of the kingdom, enter into the joys that the Lord has prepared for thee.”

I am looking forward to hearing that pronouncement, and I know that you are, too. Let us spend time with the Lord and learn the lessons that He has for us in His Word. Do not just read it through on the surface. Dig down a little deeper, and we will be blessed as a result of our efforts.

To be continued . . .

Pastor Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker for Steps to Life Ministry. He may be contacted by e-mail at: mikebaugher@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

Clean Hands and Pure Hearts, Part II

November 7, 2019 by John J. Grosboll

The father was discouraged. His son had a problem that they could not overcome. No matter what they did, it came back. (See Mark 9:17–22.)

This is like the person who has a besetting sin that he cannot overcome. He may give it up for a month, but then it overpowers him. He may give it up for three months, but again, he is overcome, until finally he is so discouraged that, like this father, he says to Jesus, “Lord, if you can do anything, please have compassion on me, and help me.”

Jesus promised, “If you are able to believe, all things are possible to the one who believes.” Mark 9:23. All things are possible.

Necessity of Faith

All of a sudden this father had a new revelation. He realized that whether his son was going to be healed or whether he was going to die under the possession of this evil spirit depended on whether or not he had faith. He became scared. We ought to feel scared sometimes.

There is nothing wrong with a minister preaching about hell once in a while. Maybe we do not preach about hell enough. Ellen White said that few believe that we have a heaven to win and a hell to shun. (The Desire of Ages, 636.) It is true that everything is lost if we do not have faith, and this ought to make us scared. We should feel compelled to go to the Lord and ask Him to give us enough faith to be saved. We ought to start talking faith.

Ellen White said that if we talk faith, we will have faith. (Sermons and Talks, vol. 1, 307.) She said, “The simple prayer of faith is music in the ears of the Lord.” The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, vol. 4, 1696. He has the power to solve every problem we have, if we will turn things over to Him, if we will trust Him, and if we will make a full commitment to Him.

We, in English-speaking countries, do not understand very well what the meaning is of the word faith. We think it is a mental assent. That is what they taught in Jesus’ time, too. It is not just making a mental assent; the word faith in the New Testament embodies believing something so much that we make a commitment—a life and death commitment.

This father was scared, and verse 24 says, “Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe.’ ” He made a decision. He decided that he was going to believe, but he was struggling with doubt. I have seen this happen over and over again. A person chooses to believe, but he or she is struggling with doubt. The father knew he was in the presence of Someone that had the power, and I believe he ascertained that this Person knew whether or not he had faith. That made him even more scared. He said, “I believe,” but he was struggling with doubt, so he said, “You help my unbelief.”

Commit to Jesus

If you need a word of encouragement, commit your life to Jesus Christ. That is what the word faith means; you make a commitment; you commit your life to Him. He has never, ever, lost one case that has been fully committed to Him. He will not lose your case either, if you make the commitment. You may be the weakest; you may be the most sinful; you may think that your problem is worse than anyone else’s problem; but it is still true that Jesus has never, ever lost one case.

In the day of final judgment at the end of the millennium, when all the lost people are gathered around outside the Holy City, if there is one person in that group who could say, “Lord, I committed my life totally and completely to You by reading Your Word and endeavoring to follow Your instructions, but now I am lost,” it would destroy the government of God. Do you know why? Because if there were just one person who could say that, it would prove that God is a liar.

In Hebrews 7:25, the Bible says that He is able to save perfectly everyone who comes to Him. Jesus said, in John 6:37, “He that comes to Me, I will in no case cast out.” That includes each one of us.

Even if you are the most sinful—even if you are like the father of this child with a problem you have been struggling with for years—come to Jesus.

Causes of Discouragement

Why do people become discouraged? One reason is because they have a problem that seems unsolvable. It just seems to come back again and again.

Another reason people become discouraged is because of what they have lost. I will give you an example from a long time ago. In a cemetery in Petersburg, Illinois, just a few feet from where many of my family members are buried, there is a tombstone for Ann Rutledge. Ann Rutledge was a sweetheart of Abraham Lincoln. No doubt they would have been married, but she became ill and died. On her tombstone is a poem about the experience she shared with Abraham Lincoln. He never got over her death. If you have ever really loved someone and then lost him or her, you may understand.

Ancestral Lessons

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Denmark and to meet with some of my family members whom I had never seen before. They had arranged to take me to the ancient Grosboll Farm. They told me, “Your family does not live here anymore. Even though it is called by your name, all of your family left this farm in 1832.” They took me to two different churches. At the first church, they told me, “Your great, great grandfather was a leader in this church.” It was a very, very old church—hundreds of years old. The nation of Denmark was set in the Protestant Reformation so my family was Lutheran. When we went to the second church, they said, “Your great, great grandmother was christened in this church.” In the back of that church were displayed all the pastors from previous years—all the way back to 1580.

It was there that I learned how different people in my family had been named. Some of the names went back as far as hundreds of years. One of the popular names in that country for Protestant Christian boys was Christian and for female children a feminized derivative of the name Christian. We do that in North America, too. There are several feminine forms of the word Christian, such as Christiana, Christina, Kerstin, and Christine, which I discovered was a common name. All those are derivatives of the name Christian. My great, great grandmother, I learned from her tombstone, was named Kerstin, so that became a very common name in our family. My grandmother named her oldest daughter that name; her middle name was Christine.

Tragic Loss

When my Aunt Christine was 20 years of age, she and a young man were planning to be married, but she became sick and died very suddenly. I met a lady in Texas a few years ago who had been with her the day that she died, and she told me that Aunt Christine had said over and over again, “I do not want to die.” When you are 20 years old, you do not want to die.

Thirty-five years later, the man whom she would have married was the president of the college that I chose to attend. My mother and I went into his office to talk with him, and when we introduced ourselves, he immediately began to talk about Christine.

There was a loss in our family that, in this world, we will never get over. It occurred over 60 years ago. My uncle once told me, “She was the cream of our family.”

People become discouraged because of what they have lost, and some people have lost a lot. Sometimes people come to be discouraged because nobody in this world seems to understand the trials, the trouble, the loss, the grief, the cross, the suffering, the loneliness, the pain that is in their hearts. There may not be anyone in the whole world that understands the pain that is in your heart, because you have a secret grief that nobody else can understand. I want to tell you something. There is Someone that does understand. Not only does He understand, but if you will commit your life fully to Him, He wants to make a contract, a covenant, with you.

Reward of Commitment

The covenant He would like to make with you is found in Matthew 19:29. It says, “Everyone whoever has left houses or brothers or sisters, father, mother, wife [spouse], or children or lands [real estate], on account of My name . . . .” “Oh,” someone may say, “Pastor John, you do not understand my situation. My parents tell me that I must not marry a non-Adventist, and there is no Adventist within close proximity of where I live who is available. How is the Lord going to work out my problem?” I do not know how the Lord is going to work out your problem, but I do know one thing. If you commit your life to Him and if you should lose out on everything for His name’s sake, you shall receive a hundredfold. My aunt lost out on some things. She never married. She never had children. She was trained to be a missionary nurse, but she was only able to work as a missionary nurse for about one year. She missed out on many things of life, but Jesus said, “Anyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold.”

Jesus is coming soon! Sometimes when historic Seventh-day Adven-tist ministers preach, showing the people God’s standard—we must be perfect; we must have absolutely pure hearts; we must have a sinless record; we must have a garment or character without a spot—people wonder how they will ever get ready in time. If you make a complete commitment with the Lord, then that is His problem! Philippians 1:6 says that if you make the commitment, He is going to see you through to the desired goal. God does not make junk, and He does not do a job halfway and then let it be. He is going to lead you to where you need to be, but you must make the commitment.

Jesus is coming soon. I want to tell you one of the things that I look forward to seeing. When I was in Denmark, I visited different cemeteries and churches, and I looked at pictures of my ancestors, and I said to myself, “I know they were all Protestant Christians; I hope these people are saved. I want to meet them.”

A short time before she died, my Aunt Christine had a dream. In her dream, she was taken up to heaven. It was shown to her that most of her family was going to be saved, but not all. That dream made an impression on her younger brother, my father. When I was growing up, my father used to gather us in a circle, at family worship time in the morning and in the evening, and he would pray to God that our family would be saved without the loss of one. I know that I must be saved in order for my father’s prayer to be answered. I have to make the commitment to the Lord so I can be saved and my father’s prayer can be answered.

A Hundredfold

When we are taken up to that better land, I am looking forward to many things, but to one thing especially. Matthew 19:29 says, “Whatever you’ve lost . . . .” If we could fully grasp this, it would change our whole lives. We would not be nearly as concerned about what we have lost in this world. “Whatever you have lost, will be returned to you a hundredfold.” My Aunt Christine is going to be granted a reward that I am not. I did not lose what she lost. I did not have to give up my life when I was 20 years old. I got married. I have two children; I have two grandchildren. I did not lose what my aunt lost, so she is going to receive a reward I am not going to receive, and it is going to be a hundredfold. I do not know what it is, but I want to be there and see her receive it!

Oh, friend, you cannot afford to miss this. You cannot afford to allow the devil to make you so discouraged that you give up. You cannot afford that! If you give up, you are lost. You have to come to the Lord, as did the man in Mark 9. He said, “Lord, if you can do anything, save us.” Verse 22.

The Lord said, “If you can believe, all things are possible.” Verse 23. There is no one so weak, so sinful, that God cannot save, if they are willing to commit their lives to Christ.

“None but God can subdue the pride of man’s heart. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot regenerate ourselves. In the heavenly courts there will be no song sung, To me that loved myself, and washed myself, redeemed myself, unto me be glory and honor, blessing and praise. But this is the keynote of the song that is sung by many here in this world. They do not know what it means to be meek and lowly in heart; and they do not mean to know this, if they can avoid it. The whole gospel is comprised in learning of Christ, His meekness and lowliness.

“What is justification by faith? It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 456.

My friend, I do not know who may read this, but I know there is someone who needs a word of encouragement. I want to tell you that Jesus said, “If you can believe, all things are possible to the one that believes,”—to the one who makes the commitment.

The father answered, “Lord, I believe. You help my unbelief.”

The messenger to the remnant church says, “You can never perish if you will pray that prayer.” (See The Ministry of Healing, 65, 66.) Are you willing to pray that prayer right now?

[Bible texts quoted are literal translation.]

A Controversy Between Truth and Error

November 7, 2019 by Stephen N. Haskell

In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams.” It is thus that we are introduced to the monarch of the greatest of earthly kingdoms in his own home. In chapter one [of the Book of Daniel], Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as the one who besieged Jerusalem; in chapter two, he is spoken of as the ruler of every nation on earth. The kingdom which Nebuchadnezzar brought to the height of its glory can be traced in Bible history to its foundation. The history of Babylon is the story of the great controversy between Christ and Satan, begun in heaven, continued on earth, and which will end only when the stone cut out without hands from the mountain shall fill the whole earth.

Satan’s accusation against God is that the Father is unjust. “But give me a fair chance,” argued Lucifer, “and I can establish a kingdom on earth which will excel in glory the kingdom of heaven.” He was granted the privilege of making a trial. The plains of Shinar were chosen; the people whom God told to fill the whole earth were gathered into a city. Babylon grew, and its mighty walls three hundred and fifty feet in height and eighty-seven feet thick, with the massive gates of brass, were designed to imitate the strength of the city of God. At the time of the founding of Babylon, Satan was still meeting with the council of the representatives of worlds, which was held at the gates of heaven. It was his design to counterfeit the plans of God. The earthly city was patterned after the heavenly. The Euphrates flowed through it, as did the river of God through Paradise. The government was an absolute monarchy; a man occupied the throne, and as it grew, every knee of earth was caused to bow to its king. Tyranny took the place of love. This is always true when man is exalted above God. There was a close union of church and state, for no power was tolerated above that of the monarch. It was to such a kingdom that Nebuchadnezzar fell heir, and the beauty and power of the kingdom were increased by him in every possible way, until it was spoken of everywhere as “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency.”

Not only the power, but the wisdom also, of Nebuchadnezzar was exceedingly great. The king favored education, and during his reign Babylon was the educational center of the world. Every art and science was taught in the schools of Babylon. The wisdom of the ancients was made known to the students who sat at the feet of her magicians and wise men. They reveled in the study of astronomy and the higher mathematics. There were linguists who could teach the language of every nation.

The king himself was highly educated, for it was he who examined the students on the completion of their course, and granted their degrees. Babylon was proud of her educational system; she trusted to it for salvation, but it was the cause of her ruin. “Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath caused thee to turn away.”

God himself speaks, saying: “Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” In the Babylonish court this was exemplified. Nebuchadnezzar and his counselors,—the wise men, astrologers, and soothsayers,—on one side, represented the education of the world. Daniel, a youth not over twenty-one years of age, a Hebrew and a slave, was chosen by God to confound the wisdom of the mighty.

The Dream

The Scripture gives the story in language that can be readily understood. But why did God give Nebuchadnezzar a dream? How could the God of heaven reveal truth to this heathen king? Doubtless he could, not during his waking moments, but Nebuchadnezzar had contemplated the glory of his kingdom, and fell asleep with a longing desire to know its future. He knew that life was short. Soon he must die; what would the future be? It was God’s opportunity, and while those eyes were closed to earthly things; while self was lost,—dead, as it were,—the future history of the world was spread before Nebuchadnezzar. On awaking, he found no language to express his thoughts. He who was acquainted with the world’s wisdom knew not the language of heaven. This he had never been taught. He tried to think what he had seen, but as his eyes again rested on the glory about him, the vision faded away. Earthly things drew a veil over the things of God, and while he knew he had seen something, he knew not what it was.

The king demanded an interpretation, but the wisest men of the king answered: “There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king’s matter. . . . There is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” That the pretended knowledge of the wise men of Babylon might be exposed, the Lord had in his providence given Nebuchadnezzar this dream, and then allowed him to forget the details, while causing him to retain a vivid impression of the vision. The king was angered by the request of the wise men for him to tell them the dream, saying, “I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me.” That is, they would be able to agree on some interpretation if the king could tell the dream. The king then threatened that if they failed to tell the dream, they should all be destroyed. The wise men urged that the requirement was most unreasonable; but the more they argued, the more furious the king became, and in his anger he finally “commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.”

This decree was made in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. He had ruled two years conjointly with his father, Nabo-polassar, and two years alone; so Daniel and his fellows were serving their first year as wise men in the court of Babylon, having finished their three-years’ course in the schools. They were therefore sought out by Arioch, the king’s captain, to be slain. Daniel asked: “Why is the decree so hasty from the king?” Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel. Daniel alone had the courage to venture into the presence of the king, at the peril of his life, to beg that he might be granted time to show the dream and the interpretation. The request was granted.

“There are in the providence of God particular periods when we must arise in response to the call of God.” The supreme moment had come to Daniel. For this very moment had God been giving him a preparation. From his birth every detail of his life had been pointing forward to this time, although he knew it not. His early education was such that at this moment when death stared him in the face, he could look up to God and claim his promise.

Although Daniel had been granted a diploma from the schools of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar himself, and had been accounted ten times wiser than his fellow students, he had not as yet been classed with the astrologers and wise men of Chaldea. Probably his youth and inexperience delayed such recognition. But God chooses the weak things of earth to confound the mighty, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

Four Hebrew youth bowed in prayer, and that night “was the secret revealed unto Daniel.” How could God talk with Daniel?—Because the Spirit of the Lord is with them that fear him. Daniel’s education had acquainted him with the voice of God. He was in the habit of seeing eternal things with the eye of faith. God showed Daniel the same things which he had revealed to Nebuchadnezzar, but which were hidden from him by the glamour of worldliness.

The song of praise which rose from the lips of Daniel when the vision came, shows how self-forgetful he was, and how close his heart was knit to the heart of God.

The schools of Babylon developed pride, love of pleasure, haughtiness, and self-esteem. They fostered an aristocracy, and cultivated the spirit of oppression and slavery. Contrast with this the native simplicity, the courtesy, gentleness, and self-forgetfulness of the child of God as he enters the court and is introduced by Arioch.

Years before this, when Egypt was the educational center of the world, God taught Egyptian senators by the mouth of Joseph, a boy no older than Daniel. When Babylon had outgrown the counsels of Heaven, another Hebrew meets the men of the schools. “Can not the wise men show the secret unto the king?”

Before Daniel was the king in his glory; around him stood the very teachers with whom he had studied three years. At this time were exemplified the words of the psalmist: “I have more understanding than all my teachers; for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.”

Nebuchadnezzar was careworn from loss of sleep, and in great anxiety because the dream troubled him; but Daniel was calm, conscious of his connection with God, the King of kings. Daniel now had opportunity to exalt his own wisdom, but he chose rather to give all the glory to God. He plainly told the king that it was beyond the power of man to reveal the dream or give the interpretation; “but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.” The king’s mind was directed to God alone.

In one night God revealed the history of over twenty-five hundred years, and what the human historian requires volumes to explain is given in fifteen verses. The Scriptures explain themselves, and in divine records every word is well chosen and put in the proper setting.

In the image revealed to Nebuchadnezzar, the glory of the Babylonian kingdom is recognized by the Lord, and represented by the head of gold. But while giving due credit to the present state of things, the spirit of prophecy with equal candor points out to the self-exalted king the weakness of the institution in which he has placed his trust, and the inability of the Babylonian learning to save from impending destruction.

“Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground; there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind meal.” From being master of all, Babylon must become the most humble servant. Because these people had disregarded the God of heaven, and had said, “None seeth me,” evil would come from unknown sources, and Babylon should be cut off. She would make a desperate effort to save herself by turning to her educators and wise men. “Let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save thee from these things. . . . Behold, they shall be as stubble.” When the trial came, there was nothing in all the realms of Babylon that could save her.

“The strength of nations and of individuals is not found in the opportunities and facilities that appear to make them invincible; it is not found in their boasted greatness. That which alone can make them great or strong is the power and purpose of God. They, themselves, by their attitude toward his purpose, decide their own destiny.” [The Youth’s Instructor, September 29, 1903.]

Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom lasted only until the reign of his grandson, when the second or inferior nation represented by the breast and arms of silver came upon the stage of action.

Medo-Persia took the place of Babylon; Grecia followed the Medo-Persian kingdom, while Rome, the fourth kingdom, was to be broken into ten parts, which were to remain until the end of time. In the days of these kings the God of heaven would set up a kingdom which would never be destroyed nor conquered by any other people; it would break in pieces and consume all former kingdoms, and stand forever.

The image was a comprehensive outline of the world’s history. The “glory of kingdoms” formed the head of gold, all following kingdoms deteriorated from Babylon as shown by the grade of metals forming the image. First gold, then silver, brass, and iron. In the latter part of the world’s history, a marked change was revealed by the iron being mixed with miry clay. There were to be no more universal kingdoms ruled by men when the power of the fourth kingdom was broken; it was to remain divided until the end. In place of one kingdom there would be several.

The clay mixed with iron also denoted the union of church and state. This combination is peculiar to the latter part of the world’s history, to the feet and toes of the image.

Religion was the basis of government in the heathen nations; there could be no separation of the church and the state. When apostate Christianity united with the state, each remained in a sense distinct as the miry clay is separate from iron. This union continues until the stone smites the image upon the feet. The very fact that the “stone was cut out of the mountain without hands,” shows that the last kingdoms on earth will not be overthrown by any earthly power, but that the God of heaven will bring upon them final destruction by giving them to the burning flames.

A Changed Heart

The king listened to every sentence Daniel uttered when telling the dream, and recognized it as the vision which had troubled him. When Daniel gave the interpretation, he was certain that he could accept it as a true prophecy from the God of heaven. The vision had deeply affected the king, and when the meaning was given, he fell upon his face before Daniel in wonder and humility, and said, “Of a truth, it is that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.”

The youth of twenty-one was made ruler over all the provinces of Babylon, and chief governor over all the wise men of the kingdom. Daniel’s companions were also given high positions in the government. It should be remembered that this dream as recorded in the second chapter of Daniel was given to Nebuchadnezzar in the second year of his sole reign. It was still during the lifetime of Jehoiakim, king of Judah.

It was in the providence of God that his people should carry the light of truth to all the heathen nations. What they failed to do in the time of peace, they must do in time of trouble. Babylon was the ruling power of the world; it was the educational center. The Jews were comparatively a small people; they lost the power of God by neglecting the education of their children; they failed to let their light shine. From their midst God took a few who were trained in the fear of the Lord, placed them in the heathen court, brought them into favor with the ruler of the world, so making himself known to the heathen king. He did even more; he revealed himself to the king, and used these children of his to prove that the wisdom of God excelled the wisdom of the Chaldeans. Having exalted true education, he put Daniel and his companions at the head of that vast empire that the knowledge of the God of heaven might go to the ends of the earth.

Having acknowledged the God of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar was in a position to save Jerusalem instead of destroying it. It was because of these experiences that God could send word by his prophet a few years later that, should Zedekiah, king of Judah, deliver himself to the king of Babylon, Jerusalem would not be burned, and the world would receive the light of the gospel.

The history of the city of Baby-lon is put on record because it is God’s object lesson to the world of today. The Book of Revelation, which is the complement of the Book of Daniel, frequently uses the name, applying it to the modern churches. The relation of the Jews to the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar is the same as that sustained by the remnant church, the true Israel, to the churches which, having known the truth, have rejected it.

The sins of ancient Babylon will be repeated today. Her educational system is the one now generally accepted; her government, with its excessive taxes, its exaltation of the rich and the oppression of the poor, its pride, arrogance, love of display, its choice of the artificial in place of the natural, and the exaltation of the god of science instead of the God of heaven, is the one toward which the world of today is hastening.

As God called Abraham out from the idolatry of Chaldea, and made him the father of the Hebrew nation; as he delivered to that people a form of government that would exalt God; as he gave them commandment so to teach their children that the Jews would become a teacher of nations and might be an everlasting kingdom, so today he calls forth a people from modern Babylon. He has entrusted to them principles of healthful living, which will make them mentally and physically a wonder to the world. He has given them educational principles which, if followed, will make them the teacher of the world, and finally bring them into the kingdom of God. And to them he has delivered the principles of true government which recognize the equal rights of all men, and which in the church organization bind all together—one body in Christ Jesus.

Only a few—four out of thousands—were true to these principles in the days of Daniel. How will it be today?

Story of Daniel the Prophet (1904), 28–38. Printed with permission of the publisher, TEACH Services, Inc., Brushton, New York, 1995.

Lessons From the Book of Amos – Part VIII

November 7, 2019 by Mike Baugher

This article concludes our study of the Book of Amos. Amos was a prophet who had a burden to present and to make clear God’s cause and solution. The last chapter of any book usually consists of a conclusion, and that certainly is the case with the writings of Amos.

Amos is a difficult book to read. It was conceivably more difficult for Amos when he first gave his message to the Northern kingdom of Israel. Practically the whole book is composed of judgments—judgments that were to fall upon Israel as well as the sinful, surrounding nations and upon Judah, the Southern kingdom.

God Always Gives Hope

In the opening verses of Amos 9, we see that God is detailing the fact that no one is going to escape the judgments that are going to fall upon this people. One thing is certain, as I have read the words of Inspiration, and that is that God, even though He of necessity deals with people in a very severe way at times, never leaves them hopeless. He has to punish; He has to deal with sin, but through it all, there is hope. There is a light shining that says, “This can all change.” Where He pronounces woe, He pronounces mercy. Where He wounds, He heals. Where He pronounces judgment, He provides a way of escape.

This is what we find as we come to the close of the Book of Amos. Even though it begins with, and the majority of the book deals with, problems and trials and judgments and difficulties, God says, “There is a light at the end of the tunnel for you.”

This tells us something. It tells us, first of all, about the mercy of God. He is not only a God of judgment, but He is a God of mercy as well. He has to deal with all the issues, however, and that may take up more space than the solution does. There are nine chapters in the Book of Amos and eight and a half of those chapters deal with judgment! Just a final little portion deals with His mercy. But the book does end in hope—hope in spite of the doom that has been pronounced upon those who have departed from God.

Destruction is Coming

“I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them: And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.” Amos 9:1–4.

If the Old Testament were printed like the New Testament, with the words of Divinity written in red, these verses would be written in red. As a matter of fact, every verse in this chapter would be written in red, except for two, indicating that God was speaking. Amos states that he saw the Lord standing on the altar and then records the words that come forth from that place. It is there where those words would begin to be written in red.

The altar that is referred to is not a lone altar but the whole of the sanctuary that was located in Bethel, where Amos was conducting his ministry. The people who went to this altar to worship thought that everything was just fine, that all was well between God and themselves. They did not realize that they were on the very verge of destruction.

The Lord standing with the altar under His feet signifies that everything in this world is in subjection to Him. This is something that we must realize also—everything in this world is subject to God. It may not seem that way right now, but it is so nonetheless. God has control over it all. But then, God gives the command that destruction is to take place.

If we reflect on other Old Testament history, we find stories of destroying angels that God dispatched to do a work of destruction. Here is one of those instances. There are those who believe that God does not destroy and that, ultimately, those who have died through the centuries will, through some universal act, all be purified and end up in the kingdom of heaven—including the devil and his angels. That is heresy! If there is anything that can be observed as we read Scripture, it is that God is sovereign over all; God judges all things; He judges righteously, and when righteous judgment is finished, destruction takes place.

Shaking

This being the case, I want to take you on a little trip, back to what took place in Jerusalem in 70 a.d. The Jews of that time had not learned the lessons of history. They had been given the messages of the prophets, such as Amos. They knew what was required of them, but they changed the messages in such a way that they became smooth messages. As a result, the Jews paid a price for their disobedience. Their temple was destroyed, because they failed to learn from the past. There is a lesson in this for us as well.

Do we have a temple? Yes, we do. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which [temple] ye are.” 1 Corinthians 3:17. We see these lessons come down through all the various eras of history to us, and we must learn from them. The Lord standing on the altar says, “Let everything shake itself down and fall on the heads of those who are seeking shelter there.” When the shaking begins, there will be no one who will escape. There will not be any place to hide where the Lord will not find them.

Where does the shaking begin? It begins in the house of God. God makes statements somewhat similar to what we have heard in recent newscasts concerning terrorists: You can run, but you cannot hide. That is what the Lord pronounces in Amos: “Mark it down. I will find you, and you will forfeit your lives.”

If the Jews of Jesus’ time would have read this material and understood it as it was to be understood, they would never have suffered the fate that they did. This is not recorded as just a history lesson for us, although there is history in it. These words have been inscribed so that we can make a spiritual application into our own lives from the events that have transpired in history. Ellen White wrote that “the ancient prophets spoke less for their own time than for ours, so that their prophesying is in force for us.” Selected Messages, Book 3, 338.

Lessons of Amos

We as Seventh-day Adventists have altogether too small of a view of what God plans to do in the end of time. There are some definite lessons for us, so I want to look at the whole picture that God has presented and that is being taught in Amos.

The nation of Israel is presented. We see that of this whole nation—all twelve tribes—the largest portion of the people abandoned the Lord and left His cause, never to be recovered again. The kingdom of Judah was left after this major apostasy of Israel took place. You would think that the ten tribes of the Northern kingdom would have served as an example to the two tribes of the Southern kingdom, but Judah did not learn, and as a result, they went into captivity. God wanted to redeem and preserve them, but most of them went into captivity in Babylon. Only a few who were vinedressers were left in Palestine. (See Jeremiah 52:12.) Only a small remnant of those taken came back to the Holy Land. We learn that of those who returned, the vast majority rejected the Messiah when He came. So this leaves, of the original number, a very, very small remnant. The whole scenario is repeated again with the Christian church!

The majority of the Christian church went into apostasy, but a smaller number of faithful few continued to maintain the faith. The Reformation breaks, the truth seems to be on track again, but then there is a turning back, and they begin to follow in mother’s footsteps and become harlots, just like her.

Out of the remnant is called those who would be faithful to the preaching of the Three Angels’ Messages. Yet, just like Judah of old, the majority of those who are called turn their backs and decide that the message given by God is no longer that important. That is why the servant of the Lord tells us that in the last days the majority of those who make up the church are going to go out of it. Is there a precedent? Is there history on which to base that conclusion? Absolutely! Over and over and over again, history has repeated itself.

Why is this happening? It is happening because the people have continued following the same thinking pattern as the Jews of old. No intervention has taken place in their lives. They have not experienced a dynamic conversion.

One thing we see as we study the last chapter of Amos is that there will be a remnant that will be saved. Ellen White says that it is a very small number. (See Testimonies, vol. 2, 445.)

So, here is God on the altar. He gives the command to destroy every vestige of worship that is conducted there; it is no longer acceptable. As a matter of fact, God says that it is an absolute stench in His nose. The words are, “Destroy it all. Search out those who are involved in Israel and destroy them also. Bring the pillars and the mantles down on their heads.”

As an interlude, Amos responds with an “Amen” to that which God declares. “And the Lord God of hosts [is] he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt. [It is] he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord [is] his name.” Amos 9:5, 6. This is like saying, “Amen, amen,” to what is going to take place.

Blood Thicker than Water

The pace changes in verse 7. God asks a question: “[Are ye] not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord.” What does He mean by this? Well, what is happening is a comparison between the heathen and those who are called His family. The Lord makes the point that, as far as He is concerned, there is no difference between those who compose the heathen nations and His own children. It is not, in the least, a racial issue or a racial distinction that is being made here. It is a spiritual distinction.

The children of Israel, as you know, were called and held by God in a special position. They had a rank, which was head and shoulders above all the other nations around the world. They were a special people. They were a “called” people. They were a people with distinction. But when they forfeited that distinction, God changed in how He viewed them. They then became as nobodies, as far as God was concerned. They had no status whatsoever. God used the Ethiopians because of their proximity to Israel, but the Ethiopians had no standing as far as a people whom God recognized. They were classified as heathen people. God says that those who were called at one point in time were no better than those who were not called, because they had forfeited their calling. They forfeited their calling because of their practices as His people. They had fallen out of favor with God, and now they were nobodies.

I do not quite understand how it can be that God calls His people and, should they forfeit their calling, says, “You are no longer My family. I do not want you anymore. I do not know you anymore. You are a nobody to Me.” God says, “My ways are not your ways, neither are your ways My ways.” As I thought about what transpired here, in light of that Scripture, the thought came to me, “We do not do that as family.” Many times our family members will fall out of favor with one another, but blood is thicker than water. Right? But with God, it is viewed differently.

We are all members of His family, if we stay within His family. If we choose to go a way different from God by going out on our own, He says, “You are no longer My family.” We, as human beings, cannot quite grasp this, because we have close blood ties to family. We have a tendency to view God in a different way and think, “I am really better than God, because I would not disown my own family.” But the reality of the whole thing is that God says, “You depart from My way and it is all over.”

When we are in Christ, we are somebody. When we are not in Christ, we are nobody. This is why the Lord tells us that there are “Many that will come to Me in that day, saying, Lord, Lord, I know You. Have not I preached in Your name? Have not I done many wonderful works in Your name?” And how does the Lord respond? He says, “You are a nobody. I do not even know you. Depart from Me.” (Matthew 7:21–23.)

Amos reminds the people who God is. In Amos 9:6, it says, “The Lord [is] his name.” His name, Jehovah, Yahweh—however you want to pronounce it, He is the Almighty God. He is the all-powerful One Who is able to save you, Who has gone to every possible length to save you. But if you depart from Him, He does not know you. That is the point Amos is trying to get the people to understand.

“[Are] ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? Behold, the eyes of the Lord God [are] upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as [corn] is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.” Verses 7–10.

The Way God Is

In the first eight chapters of Amos, 131 verses are filled with woe, judgment, and destruction. It does not seem that God has any desire or compassion to bring about some kind of recovery. This is why I have stated that Amos is a difficult book to read and to study, because most of it is filled with woe and destruction. But God desires to get a message across.

Is this really the way God is? Better mark it down. This is the way God is. He will go to every possible length to bring about an understanding of our condition so there will be a change of heart for our redemption.

The last five verses of the last chapter of Amos have real lessons for us. They hold out to the sinner the hope of recovery. Even though we may have gone far from the path He would have us take, God holds out His hands and He makes an appeal. He says, “Come unto Me, please. Do not let the day come when I have to say, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you.’ ”

This is the heart of the messages of the prophets who have seen in vision the plain plan of God. It can only be for a time—the pain and the discouragement and the anguish—and then a great determination should come to God’s people to challenge for the kingdom. What we see taking place in the lives of those who have been called to be a covenant-keeping people has caused some to write them off altogether. If this is done, it is not the revealed will of God. God is saying, “The day is going to come when revival and reformation are going to take place. The day is going to come when My Holy Spirit is going to be poured out on all flesh. Some, it will soften and subdue. Others, it will harden and cause them to be blown away.”

In and through it all is a call for us to have greater and more determination, as well as diligence. It is a call to see us through to the end. And this is what God revealed to Amos. This is what God revealed through the New Testament prophets; this is what God revealed through Ellen White to us today. The vision that these prophets of God had, we need to understand and apply to our own lives. If we do not, we are going to be lost.

Amos has been asleep for a long, long time, but his words live on. Others have fallen asleep also, but they have left us with words of hope and encouragement. Ellen White and our church pioneers have gone to their rest, but we have volumes of material of instruction. It is all because of God’s great mercy and longsuffering that we have these materials today. I pray that all the writings, all the paper, all the ink, have not been expended in vain. May the messages that have been penned find the right place in our hearts and help us to see ourselves as we are. May we fall upon the Rock and plead for forgiveness. May we plead for the blood of Jesus to be sprinkled upon our records so when our names come forth in the judgment time, we will be as kernels of wheat which remain in the sieve and do not fall to the ground. May God help us to be able to see beyond the things of this world to the clear picture of eternity that is presented in the writings of the prophets. By His grace, may we be determined to have a place with the redeemed of all ages who will be able to stand beneath the tree and cast their crowns at the feet of the Saviour and say, “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb who has made salvation possible for us.”

Pastor Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker for Steps to Life Ministry. He may be contacted by e-mail at: mikebaugher@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.