We were talking about Amos 5. If you have your Bibles, please turn back again to Amos 5. We tried to get through a couple of verses, and now we will try to move on. Let me read them again starting in verse 17. We read in Amos 5:17-20:
And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith JEHOVAH. Woe unto you that desire the day of JEHOVAH! to what end is it for you? the day of JEHOVAH is darkness, and not light. 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 JEHOVAH be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
These are the verses that we were looking at. We left off at verse 18. We found out in verse 17 that the vineyards are the churches of our day, and God is saying that He is going to pass through these vineyards. As a matter of fact, He is not talking about just some of the vineyards. If you noticed, it says in Amos 5:17:
And in all vineyards…
We may have some people who say, “I know that the churches are not teaching this or that, but my church,” and we do not have to go any further because we know that they will say something good about what their church teaches. They will say, “We follow the Bible,” and this, that, and the other thing. They usually get up to a certain point before they start going off in another direction. But when God says “all,” this is what He means. He means all of them.
So there is no church now that God is using. He is not using them any longer. He cannot make this any plainer. When He says that He is going to pass through, we saw how this related to the Passover, which was the time when the destroyer came through Egypt and destroyed all who did not have the blood over the doorposts and the lintel.
Then He says in Amos 5:18:
Woe unto you that desire the day of JEHOVAH! …
First of all, we had established—actually, the Bible establishes this; we are just trying to understand it. But first of all, the day of Jehovah is the rapture on the one hand. On the other hand, it is the first day of Judgment Day. So it is a two-sided coin, but it is the same day. I will just use this analogy. On one side of the coin is the believer. On the other side of the coin is the unbeliever.
The way God worded this is very interesting because He starts out with:
Woe unto you…
Personally, I desire the day of Jehovah on the rapture side of the coin because I want Him to come and get me. I believe that I am saved, and every believer may be saying this. But you do not have to be so relaxed in your salvation.
Awhile ago, I had talked about people being at ease as we looked at Amos 5. The Lord is giving us this flavor also of someone just taking it easy in their salvation, “Oh, I am saved. I have done everything that I needed to do and now I can relax.”
As a matter of fact, we read about this in the first verse of Amos 6. It says in Amos 6:1:
Woe to them that are at ease in Zion…
Zion is representative of where God’s Word should be. This is where He is supposed to be worshipped, and yet He starts out this verse by saying, “Woe.”
Then Amos 6:1 goes on to say:
…and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!
I do not want to get too far off of the subject, but we do not want to be at ease as if to say, “I have Heaven made.” I am just being sarcastic, but sometimes you have to say things like this because you cannot play around with salvation. You are either saved or you are not saved.
What happens is that if your salvation is based on you, then this is when pride comes out and this is what causes you to be at ease. You are just resting or relaxing in your salvation or the work that you did to get you saved, so to speak. This is a phrase that is used in the churches, “I got saved on a certain day and at a certain time.” They say this because they believe that they had something to do with it. When someone tells you this, you know right away that their salvation is based on something that they did and not on what the Lord did.
The Lord tells us this in John 3. In John 3, the Lord Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. We read in John 3:1-7:
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
Now here it is in verse 8, John 3:8:
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
If you are saved, if you have the Spirit of Christ in you, we read again in this last phrase here:
…so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
No one can tell exactly when the Spirit of God came into their life. If you are saved, you have to have the Spirit of Christ. The Bible says, “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” You are “none of his.”
So if you are a child of God, you have the Spirit of Christ living within you. Do not ask me to explain how this happens, because I cannot explain this. But I know what the Bible says and the Bible says that He takes up residence within us. I do not know how this happens, but we have to have the Spirit of Christ. This is what makes us be born again; however, we do not know when this happens. We do not know.
So when someone says to you, “I was born again on June 1, 1999, or whatever, at 6:00 P.M.,” chances are that I am just going to say that it was probably just his own concoction based on a precept of man.
This is what happens. You have a precept of man. The preacher tells you, “Okay, you come up to the front here.” He might put his hand on your shoulder or on your forehead, or whatever. Then he says, “Repeat after me.” You repeat it and he proclaims, “Oh! You are a child of the King now! You are saved and you are on your way to Heaven!” Everybody is clapping, but you do not know what to do because you do not know what happened. Somebody says, “You are going to remember this day,” and this and that and the other thing.
These are the things that happen. I know. I have been there. Most of you who are in this room have been there. Maybe a few of you have not, but these are the things that happen. Then people start telling you that you are going to Heaven, that you do not have to worry about that.
This is what Amos 6:1 is saying about being “at ease in Zion.” Turn back to Amos 6:1. I just want to look at this phrase again before I finish this up:
Woe to them that are at ease in Zion…
We have the tendency to just take it easy, “I have my salvation sewed up. I did what I was supposed to do. It is behind me now.” Then some people have the mentality, “I can do whatever I want to do now. I have my salvation locked up in the closet. I did everything—one, two, three—and now it is locked up.”
But this is awful! It is awful to have this mentality, but this is the mentality that is in the congregations right now. Their salvation is self-made. It is manmade, and this is exactly what these verses are talking about here in the book of Amos. All the way back into the Old Testament, we can see this attitude. All this is is an attitude!
So going back to Amos 5:18 where He is saying:
Woe unto you that desire the day of JEHOVAH! to what end is it for you?...
It is either going to be darkness or it is going to be light. You are either going to go to Heaven or you are going to start experiencing the day of judgment. This is the darkness part of this two-sided coin. There are only two. There is no middle ground. You are going to experience one or the other.
But the way that He worded Amos 5:18, it is as if an individual is ready to go meet the Lord, “Lord Jesus, come quickly! Come back for me!” Then what happens is what God is saying here, which is basically that someone thinks that they are going to be raptured, when, in actuality, they are going to go through the judgment.
This is what He is saying in this verse, and so this right here has to cause us to examine ourselves. It has to. You do not want to wind up like this person here in Amos 6:1. You cannot wind up there. If you wind up there, you are going to be the one that He is talking about here in Amos 5:18. He ends this with a question. He is asking you a question:
…to what end is it for you?...
What is it going to be for you? Are you going to be raptured or are you going to experience the first day of judgment? This is what this is talking about. It cannot be but one or the other. It is either going to be darkness or it is going to be light.
Earlier in the first part of this study, we established the kind of person whom He is speaking to. It is someone who has a man-made or a precept-of-man salvation, which is not the salvation of the Bible.
The whole Bible is serious, but this is why some parts of the Bible really make your hair stand up on your head. This is one of them right here, because this is serious. This is very serious. He says that this day is either going to be darkness or light.
We took a look at the rapture, so let us take a look at 1 Thessalonians 5. In 1 Thessalonians 5, we will be able to see these two different kinds of people, which are the same people that He is talking about in Amos 5. We read in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
This is one type of person that we read about in Amos 5, the one who will experience darkness. The day of the Lord is going to be darkness for this person that we are reading about right here because he is saying, “Peace and safety; I have my salvation made in the shade,” so to speak. “I am on my way to Heaven! The sooner He comes back, the better, because I did everything the preacher told me to do. I paid my dues,” and so their salvation is based on the things that they did.
I am telling you that it is so easy to get caught up in this. It is just so easy. It is so easy that God has to take you out of it. It is like a whirlpool. Once you get in it, the current is so tough that you cannot get out. You want to get out, but you cannot get out. God has to take you out. He snatches you out of the kingdom of darkness and places you into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is so subtle that this is the only way that you can get out. It is subtle and deadly.
So God is speaking about one of these people here in 1 Thessalonians 5, as the last part of 1 Thessalonians 5:3 says:
…and they shall not escape.
Then we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:4-8:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
God is telling us here that this is the other side of the coin. There is one coin. It is one day. I am just using the coin as an illustration of it being the same day. One side of the coin or the day is darkness, and the other side of it is light. So one is for the believer and one is for the unbeliever, but it is the same day.
So let us look again at 1 Thessalonians 5 with this question. If the day is darkness for you, then you are in these first three verses that He is specifically talking about. Look at what they believe in 1 Thessalonians 5:2:
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
How long have we been taught this? I cannot remember when we have not. This is all that I knew. This is why God is opening up the understanding of His Word today. How many times have you read this? Did it ever register? It never registered to me. I am going to be honest with you. It never registered. All I knew was that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to come as a thief in the night, a thief in the night, a thief in the night. That was it, but it is right here in black and white if you keep reading in 1 Thessalonians 5:3:
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
Then He draws a line right here and then says in 1 Thessalonians 5:4:
But ye, brethren…
Now He is turning the coin over, so to speak, and giving us the contrast between those in the darkness and those in the light. You see, they are not doing the same thing. The same things are not happening to them.
So He starts off and says:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness…
This separates the believer from the unbeliever right here. This separates them, and then He says:
…that that day…
This is the day of the Lord that we have been looking at in Amos 5. It continues:
…should overtake you as a thief.
The thief is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is Him, but we are not going to be overtaken because we know that He is coming. He is not surprising us. We are not surprised. The rapture will come and people are going to go up.
I would have to say that I have not found this written in the Bible; however, I believe that it is there. There are going to be people who are going to see people go up and they are going to be wondering, “What is going on?” They have not really been reading the Bible and so they do not know very much about the Bible, plus they are not saved. So they are not going to know as much as the people who do read the Bible. The ones who are in the vineyards are going to know. They are going to know what is happening, “Hey! This is the rapture! This is it, but I am not going up! Oh, this cannot be happening to me. This cannot be happening! What happened? I am seeing this person and that person going up and I am still here. I am not supposed to be here!”
Can you imagine? It is no wonder that He says that “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” What in the world do you think that someone would be saying? It has to be something awful. They are going to be mad.
This is going to affect the people who are referred to in Amos 5 more than it is going to affect someone who does not know anything about the Lord. You see, this is going to affect them much more. The ones who are in the churches now are the ones who are just not obeying what the Bible has to say and who are not taking it seriously enough to even check this out. Some might even say, “I do not care what the Bible says.”
So what they are saying when they say things like this is, “I trust my church more than I do the living God,” but this is His salvation; this is His Word. This is awful, but this is the bottom line because this is what is going on. This is exactly what is going on.
Going back to Amos 5, we are going to go on to verse 19. First of all, He asked this question and then He answers it. In the last part of Amos 5:18, He is saying that it is going to be darkness:
…the day of JEHOVAH is darkness, and not light.
What He is saying is that for those who think it is going to be light, it is going to be darkness for them. This is the scenario. Then in Amos 5:19, He says:
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.
This is a parable. Whatever this parable is, God is relating this parable to Amos 5:18. So let us look at this parable. He says again in Amos 5:19:
As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him…
This is the first part of this parable. The man that He is talking about in Amos 5:19 is the man that is in Amos 5:18. The word “man” is not there, but this is referring to the situation that the person is in from Amos 5:18. The situation is that he thinks that he is going to be raptured, but he is not. Now we know why, because his salvation was based on something other than the Bible. However, he thinks that his salvation is secure and, therefore, he is at ease. This is also the same person who is in Amos 6:1.
So this man is fleeing from a lion. Just imagine that you are running from a lion. He would be running pretty fast, I would have to think. Lions are pretty big and they can run pretty fast, and so he is fleeing this lion. This lion is not going to just lick him. No, this lion is going to eat whomever he is after, because that is just the nature of a lion.
Let us take a look now at some verses that deal with a lion, because we need to know who this lion is. Who is this lion? Let us take a look at Revelation 5:5. It says:
And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
The Lion from the tribe of Judah is the Lamb of God, which is what we read in the next verse, verse 6. Revelation 5:6 says:
And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
I will just say it like this. This lion appears to be the Lord Jesus Christ, because He is the Lion from the tribe of Judah.
So the parable in Amos 5:19 said:
As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him…
So the scenario here is that he is running away from the lion, but he runs into a bear. He thinks that he is getting away; however, as he is running away from the lion, the bear meets him.
Let us take a look at this bear. Turn to 2 Kings 2:23-25. We read there:
And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of JEHOVAH. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.
This is talking about Elisha. We know that Elijah was taken up to Heaven. Before he was taken up, Elisha said to Elijah, “Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” So Elijah said to him, “If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.”
I just want to make a point of who this is. Elijah was the one who went up in “a chariot of fire.” Elisha took up “the mantle of Elijah that fell from him,” and he had a double portion of his spirit. God is using Elisha now, and what we are reading about here is what happened to him at Bethel. Apparently, he had a bald head because they were calling him “bald head.” They were making fun of him. They were mocking Elisha.
If you are a servant of God, if you are a child of God, you are an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. If people mock you, they are not really mocking you; they are mocking God. So this is what happens to people who mock God. What happened was that when they finished mocking Elisha, he cursed them.
We are not going to do anything like this, but God is showing us here that we are not to mock God’s servants. We are not to do this. We are not to make fun of them or to laugh at them, because God’s Word is serious. It is serious. It is so serious that He sent two she bears to kill 42 children because they were mocking Elisha.
So we are looking at the word “bear” and we can see that a bear is a type of God’s judgment. These children were judged. Right then and there, they were judged.
Let us go back to Amos again. In Amos 5:19, we read:
As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him…
The lion is the Lord Jesus Christ, but the bear is also the Lord Jesus Christ because He is bringing judgment. So what He is saying here is that you cannot get away from His judgment. You are not going to get away. You cannot get away. No matter what you do, you cannot get away. If you are in this situation, if you wind up being this individual who is represented in verse 18, the one whom He asks this question to in Amos 5:18, you are in big trouble. If you are this person, you are not going to get away, no matter how fast you can run. Even if you think you have gotten away, you have not gotten away.
The other part of this is the second part of verse 19. It says in Amos 5:19:
…or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
What is this “house” that he went into? It is the house of God. We need to understand that this person thinks that he is saved. He is not really saved. He thinks that he is saved because of what he did. They told him to do this and they told him to do that, and he did those things. Therefore, he thinks that he is saved; he is secure in this salvation.
So now he runs into the house of God where he believes that he is going to be safe because of his salvation, “The church told me this, that, and the other thing to do. I am going to run into the church. If I get there, I am going to be safe.” He is trying to get to safety, and so he goes in and leans his hand on the wall to relax. He feels safe now. He thinks that he got away. Yet when he does this, a serpent bites him.
Let us see who this serpent is, and then we will look at the wall. Let us first go to Isaiah 6. We will start in verse 1. This is referring to the throne of God. The Bible says in Isaiah 6:1-2:
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it…
This is referring to His throne. It continues:
Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
This word “seraphims” is also translated as “fiery serpent.” The fact that the seraphims are not only at the throne but that they are above the throne means that they have to be a type of God as the Judge. They have to be because we are talking about God and His throne. He is not going to have anything over Him.
Let us see if this follows. Let us go all the way back in the Old Testament to the book of Numbers. Turn to Numbers 21. I will start reading at verse 7. It says in Numbers 21:7-9:
Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against JEHOVAH, and against thee; pray unto JEHOVAH, that he take away the serpents from us…
This is the same word that we find in Amos 5:19 where the serpent bit him on his hand.
It continues:
…And Moses prayed for the people. And JEHOVAH said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
This is the same serpent that we read about in Amos 5, and so this serpent is a type of God’s judgment. He was judging the people. In this judgment, He sent fiery serpents that would bite individuals and they would die. Moses went to God and asked Him, maybe even begged Him, to stop these serpents. God told Moses to make a serpent out of brass and to put it on a pole. When someone got bit, they were to look to the serpent; then they would be okay.
God picks this up in the New Testament. He only gives one brief verse; however, this ties together who this is. He says in John 3:14-15:
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
So here is the tie-in. The serpent is the Lord Jesus Christ as the Judge.
Returning to Amos 5, this man ran into the church, the house of God, and he leaned his hand on the wall. The hand speaks of the will of this individual. He is trusting in what they told him. This is why he ran there and then put his hand on the wall.
So let us take a quick look at this word “wall.” We are going to turn to Ezekiel 8. We read in Ezekiel 8:1-3:
And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord JEHOVAH fell there upon me. Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.
When we worship anything other than God, He is jealous. What happens is that this provokes Him to jealousy. This is actually what they did, and yet this is a picture of what we do. What we do is that we will take a doctrine and turn it into something that it is not. The churches make it seem like Christ is the One who is lost. However, we are the ones who are lost, not God.
So they take Scripture and they turn it around. They take what the Bible says and then they put a twist on it. They then put you in the driver’s seat, so to speak, but this is very dangerous. This is very dangerous and this is very subtle. This is very subtle because you do not really pick this up; you just go along for the ride. Then before you know it, you are “at ease in Zion.” Before you know it, you are there and this is where you will basically stay unless the Lord takes you out of it, because this is the only way that you are going to get out of this.
So Ezekiel is at “the door of the inner gate,” and then we read in verse 4, Ezekiel 8:4-6:
And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.
Is this not what we do? Is this not what the churches are doing now? These things are an abomination to the Lord. He said that this is what is in His sanctuary, “my sanctuary.” How can they do these things in God’s house? How can they tell someone that they are saved in God’s house? This is an abomination. This is the way in which God sees this. It is an abomination to do this.
As we move on, He says in verse 7, Ezekiel 8:7-11:
And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.
This is awful. These are the priests. The priests with their incense are supposedly worshipping God, and yet they have all of these idols on the wall. These are the abominations that they are worshipping.
Let me read on. We read in verse 12, Ezekiel 8:12:
Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, JEHOVAH seeth us not; JEHOVAH hath forsaken the earth.
You see, God sees everything. He sees everything. This wall that this man leaned his hand on is a picture of someone taking false doctrine that he thinks is going to save him and putting his trust in this, which is just like the people in Jericho and the walls in Jericho. They trusted in the walls, but God knocked those walls down and then Jericho was taken.
What is your wall? Is your wall the Word of God? Are you going to trust in God’s Word or are you going to trust in some doctrine that you were taught that they say comes from the Bible, a doctrine that will not follow through or hold water, a doctrine that will not save?
God’s Word and His salvation is the only salvation. It is the only salvation. So we want to make sure that we examine ourselves. For those who really believe that they are saved, you cannot examine yourself deeply enough. You cannot. You should always be examining yourself. In the light of God’s Word, examine yourself. See if you are in the faith.