Let us turn to Amos 3. I will start reading in verse 1. We read in Amos 3:1-8:
Hear this word that JEHOVAH hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and JEHOVAH hath not done it? Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord JEHOVAH hath spoken, who can but prophesy?
I will stop reading there.
I think that we are very familiar with Amos 3:7, which says:
Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants…
If God had stopped there, people would have a more difficult time arguing against this as not referring to God’s people; but God goes on to include:
…he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
So there are some who say, “Yes, God spoke to prophets; but you are not a prophet and I am not a prophet. Therefore, He is not going to reveal His secret unto us.” But, actually, this is misunderstanding the way in which God is using this word here.
What does a prophet do? He declares the Word of God. In times past, it is true that God spoke directly to Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah. They, in turn, declared what He had told them. But the Lord does declare that there will be prophets in the latter days.
We read in Acts 2:17:
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
This is speaking of sons and daughters prophesying in the last days. We know that the Bible has long been closed. No one can ever add to it because God is not bringing revelation, and so He is not speaking to individuals and giving them the role of prophet. We are not to perform this role in the sense that Isaiah and Daniel did. But in the sense that we take the Bible’s message and we go into the world and we share what we learn from the Bible with them, we are prophesying. In this way, we are prophets.
Amos 3:7 is giving a Biblical principle. It is the Bible’s principle that God will do nothing without first revealing the secret. It is a secret because He knows it and men do not. We do not know anything really of ourselves; but when God reveals things to us, we can know them. Of ourselves, we cannot know them.
This is what many people fail to understand when they say, “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man.” They are really saying that no man can possibly ever know the day or hour, and they are adding a great deal to this verse that it does not say. It does not say that we could never possibly know; it just says “knoweth no man.”
If we go to 1 Corinthians 2, we will see some very similar language. We read in 1 Corinthians 2:10-11:
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
This says that “the things of God knoweth no man.” This is very similar, is it not, to “of that day and that hour knoweth no man”? Yet here it is pointing out “the things of God”; it is pointing to all spiritual things.
God has told us that He created the world. Even so, man has created other ideas. Imagine if God had not even told us this. How could we even know? God has also told us how He saves, that it is all His work in saving a sinner and that it is never man’s work. We would not know unless He told us this. He explains in His Word many spiritual things. These are the things of God.
What if we did not have the next verse in 1 Corinthians 2, 1 Corinthians 2:12, and if God had left off at 1 Corinthians 2:11, if He had left it hanging with this verse, where it says in 1 Corinthians 2:11:
…the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
What if He had ended with this verse and then just moved on to the next chapter? We would then conclude that we could not know anything. This is what God did with the statement: “of that day and that hour knoweth no man.” He did not explain more concerning this, and this is how He has written the Bible in many places.
Yet here in 1 Corinthians 2, He took a little extra time to explain this. We read in 1 Corinthians 2:12:
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
He told us that of ourselves, we do not know a thing. Then He goes on to explain that when His Spirit gives us understanding, then we can know. This is exactly how it is with knowing the very Day of Judgment.
Of ourselves, as we read in Acts 1:7, it is not of us. If we look at the Greek, this verse says:
And he said unto them, It is not [of] you to know the times or the seasons…
This is not within us. We do not have this capability. Who even knows what is going to happen tomorrow? Does anyone know what is going to happen tomorrow? We might have a fairly good idea. We can have plans, but they can be changed quickly and we would not have seen it coming. We might be thinking of tomorrow, and yet there is the possibility that on the way home these plans might change if we get into a car accident.
God is the One who knows the future. Man never knows the future. It is only when He reveals the future that we can know, and this is what He is saying in Amos 3:7. He is indicating here:
…he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
But it is interesting that He says in the first part of this verse:
Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret…
I try to emphasize how He has revealed His judgments in the Bible, which He has prior to His judgment taking place, but this seems to encompass more than this. This says that He will do nothing without first revealing what He is about to do. Of course, we cannot just go crazy speculating all of the possible things that could be involved in this. He is just indicating that this is a wider circle than just His judgments.
So let me seriously ask a question to anyone who says that we cannot know that Judgment Day is May 21, 2011 because no man knows the day or hour. In the Bible, can you show me or any child of God one instance of a judgment of God where He did not first forewarn them? Is there an example of this anywhere at all in the Bible?
How about the flood? God told Noah 120 years in advance of this. Then when it got into the very year, God told Noah directly, “For yet seven days.” Noah knew the very year, month, and day.
How about Sodom and Gomorrah? What did God say to Abraham in Genesis 18? He said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” Did this not indicate that He was going to reveal this to Abraham? Yes, and He did reveal it. He revealed that He was headed toward Sodom. This is why Abraham interceded and pleaded with God that He not destroy the city if so many righteous were in it, because Abraham had advance information that God was going to destroy the city. God then went to Sodom and forewarned Lot and his family. Lot then had the opportunity to go to his sons-in-law who mocked him. They did not believe it.
So try to think of one instance in the Bible where God’s people were not warned before a judgment. What about Jericho? The spies spoke with Rahab the harlot. She knew that the city was going to be destroyed. This is why she gathered her family into her home and why she marked her house with a scarlet thread. It was all due to advance information that she was able to save her family as God worked through her.
I am telling you that I cannot find any situation where God did not forewarn. The destruction of Israel was foretold by the prophets.
What about the destruction of Judah? Jeremiah kept going to them and telling them that God was giving them up to the hands of the Babylonians and that they would be destroyed, but they did not listen and they did not believe him.
What about Ahab? King Ahab was told before he died that if he went to the battle, he would die in the battle. He was told this beforehand.
What about Pharaoh? Repeatedly, Moses and Aaron would say that it was a plague that the Lord was bringing. They repeatedly told Pharaoh to repent and to “let the people go,” but Pharaoh would harden his heart even though he knew in advance. God warned Pharaoh repeatedly “to morrow about this time” that He would bring another plague. Pharaoh knew and he knew through God’s servants the prophets. God’s servants were told by God. They then gave Pharaoh this information.
Let us turn to some of these verses now. We read in Exodus 9:18:
Behold, to morrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof even until now.
Then we read in Exodus 9:20-21:
He that feared the word of JEHOVAH among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses: And he that regarded not the word of JEHOVAH left his servants and his cattle in the field.
In order to have regarded this or to not have regarded this, they had to have heard it. They had to have known in advance what was going to go on. They knew that it had been prophesied that the hail would fall and that it would be a grievous hail. Some listened, which also teaches us something because there was no indicator that they were saved. Some listened, but some did not listen.
This is like so many today. There are so many people today who are not afraid of God. They are not afraid of Judgment Day. They say, “How ridiculous! You are speaking of some invisible thing that was an invention by mankind centuries ago. We are modern man. We are an advanced civilization. We do not fear this kind of stuff.”
It is their privilege to think this way. If they do not want to regard the Word of the Lord, they can continue doing what they are doing, just like some of these Egyptians who kept their servants and their animals working in the field; but look at what we read in Exodus 9:25:
And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast…
God said it. The people heard it. There was a response. In this one case, at least, there was a positive outcome for some of the people, as some regarded the Word of the Lord; but there was also a response of rebelliousness as there were those who were not hearing what God was saying. They were the ones who suffered, and this is how things were repeatedly at this time.
Look at Exodus 10:4. It says:
Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast:
They were given advance warning. They were warned repeatedly and they did not listen, so God would tell them again what He was about to do.
We know the story. We know that God practically had to destroy Egypt, which was the greatest country on earth at that time. They were the mightiest power that was in the world of that day. He brought them to their knees, and yet they were so proud and arrogant towards God and His Word that they repeatedly disregarded the Word of the Lord as God told them exactly what He was going to do and then He did it. He performed the doing of it.
Let us go back to Amos 3. I want to back up to Amos 3:6, where it says:
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?…
This is a good description of what happened in Egypt. There was a warning. Remember that the trumpet blast is a warning.
What does the trumpet spiritually point to? It points to the Word of God. It is pointing to when the Bible is declared or prophesied. It is when God’s people speak forth the Word of God.
We read in Revelation 1:10-11:
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last…
This is referring to Christ. The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation. We know this because John has no problem saying, “I John…was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” He is the one whom God used and moved to write down the book of Revelation. He says that he “heard…a great voice, as of a trumpet.” This is referring to Christ. Christ is the Word of God.
Look at Isaiah 58:1, which says:
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet…
We are not going to hear the voice of God from Heaven. He will not break the barrier of the supernatural. The voice of God is what we hear from the Bible. It is the Word of God. When we read the Bible, this is the voice of God. When God opens the Scriptures to show us the very Day of Judgment and when we take this information and we share this with people, we are blowing the trumpet.
This is what is meant in Ezekiel 33, which I do not think we could ever read enough at this point in time. We read in Ezekiel 33:2-3:
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
The watchman sees the sword and he has a trumpet with him. Historically, he is in the watchtower. He blows the trumpet and he warns the inhabitants of the city when an enemy is coming, which is what is meant by the one who has the sword.
Of course, the One coming, the enemy of mankind, due to their rebellion against His Kingdom, is God. God is the enemy. God is the One who is bearing the sword. He is the One who will destroy the inhabitants of the earth starting on May 21st. Five months after this, everything will be destroyed.
God is the enemy of man because man is a friend of the world. Whoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of God, and so Christ is coming and God’s people see this. We see this just as Balaam’s donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way against him with a sword drawn. Balaam did not see the Angel of the Lord. The donkey saw the Angel of the Lord. It is not too flattering to us that, in that case, God is likening us to a donkey. That is okay; we can take this.
This is like the Syrophenician woman. She did not mind being likened to a dog that goes after a few crumbs that fall from the table, as long as she could have the crumbs. We recognize that God is merciful to us in this way.
So, too, God at times likens His people to a donkey, to an ass. Remember that Jesus rode into Jerusalem “sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.” Why? No man had ever ridden that particular animal before. The reason is that to sit means to rule. This was pointing to God’s people and that He would be seated upon the throne of their life. He would be Lord and God, as He rode into Jerusalem to demonstrate what He had done in paying for His people’s sins from the foundation of the world.
So the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, and the donkey had a very difficult time explaining to Balaam exactly what he saw. He had a very hard time. Balaam, in his pride and arrogance, thought that he himself was a great prophet and that he knew it all. He was riding this mule, this stubborn animal, and the animal kept pulling him out of the way, which caused his foot to be crushed against the wall. Balaam smote him and it got to the point where he wanted to kill the donkey. At that point, God opened up the donkey’s mouth and the donkey said, “What have I done unto thee?” Could Balaam not see what was in the path? Could he not see what lay ahead? No, he could not see; then God opened his eyes. Even though Balaam never became saved, God opened his eyes to see the Angel of the Lord with the sword standing in the way.
This is exactly what is happening today. God’s people, the donkeys, are the lowly ones. We admit this. Thankfully, God has humbled us and we can see the sword coming. This is not because we are great or because we are super-intelligent. How intelligent is a mule? A mule is not very intelligent. We are not wise within our own selves. We are messengers. We are doorkeepers. We are ambassadors who bring a Word from God. This is all that we are. God has just simply opened up our eyes, like He can do for anyone, and we see it.
How do we now communicate this to the rest of mankind? How can we tell them? What must we do? When people are wrapping their vans, when they are putting bumper stickers on their cars, when they are wearing shirts and hats and jackets with May 21 information on them, when they are handing out flyers, when they are doing everything that they can possibly do to get your attention, is this because they are crazy or is this because you are not listening or seeing this? The more we do, it seems the less you listen and the less you see. This is all being done to capture your attention and to try to get you to see what is standing in front of you, which is the Angel of the Lord with his sword drawn to kill.
So we are doing whatever we can to warn you because this is what God has given us to do. The responsibility for the watchman is what we read in Ezekiel 33:3-5:
If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning…
People have heard and they are continuing to hear, and yet they are not taking warning. I know that this is our position and our task. We are just to blow the trumpet. We cannot force anyone. It is impossible to make anyone see this. God can but we cannot. We cannot make anyone hearken to the sound of the trumpet. Only God can do this, and yet here is what God says in Amos 3:6:
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?…
This is what is going on today. People are hearing the trumpet, and yet they are not responding in fear.
I want to thank Oliver for the study that he did last Sunday on the fear of the Lord, on fearing God, because the Bible has a lot to say about fearing Him. It is here in Amos 3:8:
The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord JEHOVAH hath spoken, who can but prophesy?
If you were in a forest at night and you heard the roar of a lion, what would you do? What would your reaction be if you had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide? It would be a very legitimate thing to be afraid, because the lion is roaring and hunting for his prey. He would be coming for you, and so it would be natural to fear. It is natural to fear this kind of warning, and yet people do not fear God.
If we go to Romans 3:18, this says of mankind:
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
There is no fear, naturally, of God. Why not? For one thing, people cannot see Him. Also, He is a good God. He is longsuffering and He is patient. He permits man to sin against Him and to shake his fist against Him. For centuries and centuries, God has put up with the rebelliousness of man as people shake their fist at Him; but now we are living at a different time, as He says in Acts 17:30-31:
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Here God is indicating that He has “appointed a day.” This day is May 21st, Judgment Day; therefore, basically, He has activated this command. Repent; turn from your sin. Even knowing that you cannot repent unto salvation, it does not change this command. Repent.
The trumpet is being blown and the Bible says that the people “will not fear.” So let us look at some verses that speak of the fear of God. For instance, Proverbs 3:7 says:
Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear JEHOVAH, and depart from evil.
“Fear Jehovah”; fear the Lord. Are you hearing the trumpet? If you are hearing it and it is making you fearful, you should then be departing from evil.
Proverbs 8:13 says:
The fear of JEHOVAH is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
Proverbs 14:16 says:
A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.
Proverbs 16:6 says:
By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of JEHOVAH men depart from evil.
This is a very good verse to really explain about understanding. Do you know how God indicates that the wise will understand at this time? He says that “none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” and that “a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.” He also says, “I will give you a mouth and wisdom.” All of these statements relate to our day. We read of the five wise virgins that “the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” They were ready when the bridegroom came. They were able to enter in.
All of these statements have to be looked at and compared to Job 28:28, where He says:
And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
“To depart from evil is understanding.” We should not be deceived by our own hearts into thinking that because we understand that May 21st in 2011 is Judgment Day, this is sufficient or what God has in mind when He speaks of understanding. When He says that the “wise shall understand,” He is not talking about knowing something in our minds. He is speaking of an understanding that is related to the fear of God, which means that we “depart from evil.” This is what “understanding” means.
If we understand in our minds, intellectually, and we agree—maybe we read some of the literature and it checks out—and we think that, yes, May 21 will be Judgment Day, but we are continuing on in our sin, we do not understand and we do not fear God. We do not fear God. The trumpet is being blown in the city and we are not afraid. Understanding does not mean that we are in full agreement with it; it has to do with how we are living our lives and the things that we are doing in our lives. If we are continuing on in doing them, then the trumpet is being blown and we are not behaving as we should. We are not fleeing to God and we are not fearing God, because a right fear of God indicates that we will “depart from evil.”
Who would be a good example of someone who departed from evil, someone who had a proper understanding? We think of the historical story of Joseph. When he was tempted to lie with Potiphar’s wife, he fled. He got himself out. He would not even consider it. This would be a good example of someone who feared the Lord.
A greater example would be the Ninevites in Jonah when the Lord brought the message of “time and judgment” to Nineveh through His prophet Jonah. Again, this fits in with the Biblical principle that we find in Amos 3:7:
Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
So in Jonah 3:1-9, we read:
And the word of JEHOVAH came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of JEHOVAH. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
This is a good example of fearing God. They heard the Word and they took action. They took action. They did not just agree with this in their minds as Jonah entered into the city and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
Did they just respond, “You know, we are a wicked city. I think that man is right. Okay, but I will just go back to my business now. I will just go back to taking care of all of the other things that I have going on in my life. Let me just go about my daily business. Yes, this man is a good prophet and he speaks the truth; however, I will just go back to living my life as normal”?
No, they did not do this. “The fear of the Lord” calls one to “depart from evil” and “understanding” means that you will move away from sin. This is exactly what we see as God moved in the Ninevites. From the king on down, they stopped what they were doing. They just ceased activity in many other endeavors.
We, however, should never think that our lives are more important than their lives were, that we have more going on in our lives than they had going on in their lives. They were people just like us. They had their jobs and their families. Their children were being educated, very similar to what is going on today; but this news that judgment was in forty days, which means that they knew exactly when judgment would be, caused them to stop their activity. They sat in sackcloth and ashes. They fasted and they cried mightily unto God.
We need to think about this. What does it matter how your career is going when your city is about to be destroyed? What does it matter how your education is going and your future pursuits when your city is going to be destroyed?
The trumpet is blowing. The enemy is coming to destroy the city. Will you not be afraid? Will you continue on with business as usual? Will you just continue to enjoy your eating and your drinking and your planting and any other work that you are involved in? Will you continue on marrying and being given in marriage? Are you going to just live like this is any other time in history, or are you going to hear and hearken to the sound of the trumpet? Of course, only by God’s grace can anyone hear and hearken to these things and understand these things to the point of turning from evil.
Maybe you have not listened up until today. Maybe you have not hearkened to the sound of the trumpet, but there is still time. This means that there is still hope. It is still the day of salvation.
Let us go to Luke 23. This is when Christ was on the cross. We know that He was crucified along with two thieves. These were two criminals who had done evil all of their lives perhaps; but then at the end, they got caught and were brought before the Roman authorities and condemned, just like Jesus, and they were to be killed. They were to be crucified and they end up on the cross.
If ever there was a person whom we could look at and judge, if ever there was someone whom we could declare, “There is no hope for him,” it was the thief on the cross. We would have had to declare that there was just no hope for him. While Jesus was going about healing and doing great miracles, he was probably sneaking into the people’s homes who had gone down to see Christ. He robbed people and he was getting what he deserved. His whole life was a waste. If ever we could look at someone and pass judgment, which the Bible says that we are never to do, it was this man. This is one good reason why we never should stand in judgment of anyone. If ever there was someone who was just hopeless, someone who we thought did not have a chance, it was the thief on the cross.
Even while he was on the cross, he was reviling Jesus. As all of the people and the chief priests and the others around the cross were reviling Him and as the other thief was also reviling Him, it says of this thief that he “cast the same in his teeth.” He was just a no-good person. He was a desperately wicked and deceitful man, just like all of us. Every one of us is no different because this is the kind of heart that we also have.
So in this man’s life, he showed no fear of God whatsoever. He had no fear of God, even right up to the point when he was hanging on the cross alongside Jesus; but then something happened. What happened is that God changed him. It did not take long; it was only a moment. It was instantaneous.
We should never think that he just finally began to see the goodness of Christ and that Christ was wrongly sentenced to die. He did not see these things of his own or he would not have “cast the same in his teeth” a little earlier. God just simply changed him and gave him a new heart right on the spot and immediately.
So look at Luke 23:39-43. It says:
And one of the malefactors…
“Malefactors” means “evildoers.” It continues:
…which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
One thief asked the other thief the question, “How can you say this? Do you not fear God?” God awoke him and He suddenly gave him eyes to see. In asking the other thief, “Do you not fear God?” he was indicating that he now did. He now feared God. It was not too late. He only had a couple more hours to live, but God gave him the fear of the Lord. God saved him and had mercy upon him. That very day, he went into Paradise.
The question for each of us is: do you and do I fear God? Do you fear God? Do I fear God?
There is a way of knowing. Are you turning from your sin? Are you departing from evil? Is there a change in your life? Knowledge of May 21st is not all. True believers will know this; but accompanying this, there must also be a departure from evil. Without this, we do not understand and we do not fear God.
I am going to stop here.