Famine of the Word, God's Bible

Not to mention Famine of the News reflected in the genres to the right >>>>>>                             

God wants us to read the Bible, doesn't He? Famine involves food and water, doesn't it? He sends blessings doesn't He? Sun and rain upon the evil and upon the good? But here God foretells through the prophet Amos the coming of a time when He will send a famine--a most shocking famine: a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

When this famine comes, people will be wandering, seeking, looking; but it won't be bread or pizza or water or juice. It will something far, far more precious, far, far more alive. It will be God's word.

And what is God's word? It is His command, His insight, His creative word. It divides asunder between marrow and bone, searching down to the depths of man and woman, son and daughter. And yet, He will send a famine. His life-giving word will go silent. It's absence will be noted. They will look for it high and low. But it will no longer be available. It will be off-line.

Is there ever a time when you or I can afford to have God's word unavailable to us? Read in Amos. The ten northern tribes had persisted in departure from God. He then decreed judgment, pled for them still to turn. But they refused to turn. Among them there remained some still claiming to seek God. But He told them that the day of His coming wasn't going to be a bright and wonderful day for them. Instead it would be judgment. It would be dark and searing. He would not pass by them any more (Amos 7:8; Amos 8:2).

In due order the northern kingdom was carried away. It never existed again.

The Silence of the Prophets

In the south, the kingdom of Judah continued on. But warning after warning, call after call came to repent. God sent His prophets walking through the land. But they didn't turn. In the fourth century before Christ, heaven went silent. The book of Malachi was finished. The voice of a prophet would not be heard again for four centuries.

Prophecy reappeared just before the births of John the Baptist and Christ. But until then, there was famine in the land. A famine of hearing the word of the Lord. Now for a century and a half or so (at least), the voice of the prophet again was heard. John the Baptist, Christ, Agabus, Paul, John, the daughters of Philip, and others, gave the word of the Lord. Yet by early in the second century the voice of the prophet had again ceased; the mainstream of the church had departed off into compromise and deadly apostasy; the mouth of the prophet again was closed; God's word lapsed away into the howling of the wind. What He before had spoken still remained, but His people were parted from Him; many nevermore would hear that word. The long age of apostasy was bearing down on humankind. Over a millennia and half would now pass before the whisper of the wind would wilt away and the voice of the prophet again heard. The Advent movement was coming.

Ellen G. White was born in 1827 and was laid to rest in 1915. Shortly after the disappointment of 1844 (based upon Bible prophecy, the followers of Christ had expected His return in the fall of that year), she began to have visions and dreams, and although shy and retiring, she shared with others what she was experiencing. For over half a century she spoke and wrote and preached, and those who heard her were stirred in great conviction that God again was speaking to His people through the lips of a prophet. But she didn't turn people away from the Bible; she turned them to it. This book [holds up the Great Controversy], one of scores that she wrote, contains in its mere 686 pages, references to over 6000 Bible verses. Over and over again she pointed us and still points us to the Bible, the acid test of truth, the test of every miracle, every experience, every claim. Like Elijah she sought to turn God's people back to His word. Like John the Baptist who heralded the first coming of Jesus, she spoke of the imminent second return of Christ. Like Malachi she reminded us of a message that would uphold God's law and turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children.

Yes, in fact, she reminded us over and over that God's people are always first a movement, first they are the livers of a message. Only then can it be said that they are a church or an institution; only secondarily. She urged men and women to obey the Lord. The movement went well in those early years. But in the end, she was laid to rest, not 86 years ago. Since then the voice of the living prophet has not been heard. And as in that fateful gap between Malachi and New Testament days, the sound of the wind has risen again. But we know that a prophet has been among us.

"What are you getting at?" you are wondering. Well, it is outlined for us pretty plainly in Amos chapter eight. Let's walk through it.

The Vision of Amos Eight

Read now with me these first three verses:

Thus hath the Lord GOD showed 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. 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. Amos 8:1-3.

God shows Amos a visual. It is a picture of a basket of summer fruit, probably figs or pomegranites. These fruits become quite ripe during the summer, and here they are, in a basket. In the Hebrew, the word for ripe fruit sounds very much like the word end, which is in fact, the point of this vision: the end, the final end of the northern kingdom was imminent. God's judgment was coming. The end for Israel. In their Bethel temple, their false place of worship as a substitute for Jerusalem, there were singers. In this vision what does Amos see? He sees that all the worshipful songs of the singers were just wind; that when judgment came, they would be turned into howlings--into mourning.

And that is the way it is today for the cheap worship innovations among us. The celebration-style worship will all be turned into mourning in the day when Jesus really comes, or when His judgment is poured out upon a people who have been lulled into complacency in their sins by their favorite peace-and-safety preachers and teachers. God is holy. He cannot be worshipped in the style and irreverence and sensuality of the world. And He will require and accounting at the hands of every one who is pressing forward this worship apostasy today.

Hear now Amos 8:4-7:

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.

See, here are a people who are anxious for the Sabbath to be over. They are anxious that it will end quickly so that they may continue in sin, buying and selling and cheating and deceiving. God plainly says of their attitude and their acts: "Surely I will never forget any of their works."

Then comes Amos 8:8-10:

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.

God asks, will not the people in the land be afraid for the behavior demonstrated by His people? He will cast it out, all this sin. Judgment will come in certainty and in potency. God will darken the earth. Again the songs come up, songs that heaven reports will be turned into lamentations. The people have sinned, they have refused to repent, and now judgment will come. All their worship is empty if there is no obedience in it, for obedience is the test of relationship. Are we worshipping God? By our fruits He knows. And the world knows.

Amos 8:11-12:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: 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.

The Worst Punishment

The Famine is Here - Now!

What am I saying? What is the point of this sermon? I am saying that God will send judgment upon us as a people if we will not follow Jesus. I'm saying that today there is a famine in the land; a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. I am saying that it is not yet to come. It is here. It is upon us. It is among us. Instead of the word of the Lord we hear the wind of "prophets" whom God has not sent; the lips and pens of writers, some even in our own denomination, who pass their time in bringing us mild messages of peace and safety. Words finely crafted and slickly bent to close our ears. As Jeremiah 5:13 prophesied, the prophets have become wind and "the word is not in them." His counsel? Find it in Jeremiah 23:16:

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.

You see beloved, when we are lacking in the word of the Lord, and these shifty, beady-eyed words of peace and safety come to us, what are we inclined to do? We are busy. Few of us are studying as we ought. It is we who are grown dull of hearing, we who are sleepy and waxed fat. And we take these words and we eat them. And they change us--each one has its weight. And these misguided peace-and-safety messages make us vain--they make us empty. We consume that which cannot satisfy and we squander what little energy that we devote to spiritual things on every passing comforting word and assurance that the battle is on and we as a church are well on our way to winning it.

The Facts: We are Still Here

But. But then there are the facts. We are still here. The voice of the prophet has ceased. In its place stands the "celebration" concept. From the temple comes the sound of many songs, all copywritten, all licensed and their corporate owners--all the major ones secular record companies we might add--receiving the royalty checks from church organizations, money with which they turn around and make cop-killer CDs and recordings portraying every kind of sexual immorality and deviation. Can you imagine that? One person pays some company for the right to sing their song in worship to God. I mean, stop and think about it; this is abstractly weird. It takes a theologian to get us this screwed up.

Friends, I speak not thus to you to discourage you, but because I walk into this church from day to day, and I see the rows of pews, and I consider that we are living in the time of the judgment. And I cannot help but to wonder who this week will hear their last message from heaven at this pulpit; who might go out through those doors never to return; who's name among all of us here gathered together in worship will come up short in the judgment because the word that was spoken was just wind, and a soul was finally lost.

Pray to God that the words spoken at this pulpit will be "prophetic" words--words that in the fullest measure are indited by heaven and sent to us as a message of real salvation. May they be words such that we each of us are stirred as deeply as we can be stirred in our spiritual faculties to repentance and change and turning to God. Oh friends--today people are seeking from coast to coast for the word of the Lord, and they are not finding it. If it is spoken here, then God has been so merciful to us all.

A Famine of Hearing

Even in a famine, there is some food...   Meaning there are God's prophets giving real messages and real warnings and real biblical messages of hope!

But more important than the speaker are the hearers. How are you hearing these days? Remember, God said He would send a famine in the land, a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Hearing. The famine is in the people you see just as much as it is in the speakers. Who will hear God's word today? Because you see, to hear it means to obey it, to follow it. And we are so comfortable here. If you sensed that God was speaking to you today about some secret point between you and He, and pleading and yes, perhaps even demanding of you a major change, would you be a part of the famine? Would you obey, or refuse to obey?

Consider our Lord's words in Matthew 24. There we find the disciples coming to Him, and bragging on the spectacle of the tall walls of the temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus says to them, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be throne down" (Matthew 24:2). And our Lord, this same Jesus also said that heaven was uprooting every plant that His father had not planted (Matthew 15:13). And while He spoke literally of the temple, He also was spoke figuratively. See, the New Testament also calls us, His people, the stones of a temple as well (see 1 Peter 2:5).

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

We are stones in the Father's new temple. Living stones, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. And Jesus is the chief Cornerstone--a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Just as He offended by living and teaching righteousness, we are to offend by living and teaching righteousness. God has called us to do it.

Conclusion

A famine is here. Will you be a part of it, or will you have wheat in your household, the juice of the grape in your wineskin, the sharp glitter of righteousness gleaming in your polishings as heaven does it mighty work on you? Will you be a stone in God's temple? Check your edges then. Because "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be throne down." All our lives will not just "be" searched into, they are now "being" searched into. Our reactions to the merciful pleas of our Father in heaven are all an open book to heaven. Our lives are being transmitted "live" to the heavenly realm. Smile, you're on heavenly camera. But some of us are living lives that we couldn't smile about to pure beings looking on. So now we must stop sinning, and make a fuller commitment to God.

I come to you today not with peace and safety, but warning and entreaty. Get into the Word this year. As this Word seeps into you, you are changed. You will minister more like Jesus. You will discern the signs of the times. You will hear and read not with the brow of the cynic but with the discernment of the Holy Spirit. Each of us can be like the children of Issachar, men and women with an understanding of the times, to know what Israel should do (1 Chronicles 12:32).

To know what we should do.

God grant us this day a renewed vision; new in its sobriety, new in its focus on God's words and not man's, and new with a realization of the blessing heaven would pour out into the world through us. Jesus has sent us this Word. Now we must make it ours. The hour of His judgment is come. The end is come upon His people Israel. God will no more pass by us. Let us be at work in our Father's house and in all the world, that Jesus soon may come. There is a famine in the land. May God help us all.

Had Adventists, after the great disappointment in 1844, held fast their faith, and followed on unitedly in the opening providence of God, receiving the message of the third angel and in the power of the Holy Spirit proclaiming it to the world, they would have seen the salvation of God, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts, the work would have been completed, and Christ would have come ere this to receive His people to their reward.

But in the period of doubt and uncertainty that followed the disappointment, many of the advent believers yielded their faith. Dissensions and divisions came in. The majority opposed with voice and pen the few who, following in the providence of God, received the Sabbath reform and began to proclaim the third angel's message. Many who should have devoted their time and talents to the one purpose of sounding warning to the world, were absorbed in opposing the Sabbath truth, and in turn, the labor of its advocates was necessarily spent in answering these opponents and defending the truth. Thus the work was hindered, and the world was left in darkness. Had the whole Adventist body united upon the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, how widely different would have been our history!

It was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be thus delayed. God did not design that His people, Israel, should wander forty years in the wilderness. He promised to lead them directly to the land of Canaan, and establish them there a holy, healthy, happy people. But those to whom it was first preached, went not in "because of unbelief" (Heb. 3:19). Their hearts were filled with murmuring, rebellion, and hatred, and He could not fulfill His covenant with them.

For forty years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan. The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. In neither case were the promises of God at fault. It is the unbelief, the worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord's professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years. Selected Messages, vol. 1, pp. 68-69.