The Promise of Restoration | God's Unfailing Word | Amos 9:1-15

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to Friday. Everybody's favorite day.

Everybody's favorite day.

Well, people love it in general because usually people are

for the weekends.

Well, and our listeners know there's a good chance it's

going to be what made Chris mad this week?

Oh well, if they care about that.

Yes, So we were talking beforehand because we knew it.

Says here what made Chris mad this week? Yes, we're

doing it, but both you and I have spent an

extended amount of time telling our stories today, yes, about

our life, and so instead of having it be what

made Chris mad this week, let's just say what irritated

Chris this week? Because our listeners, if you're in Michigan,

you know, but our other listeners would not. We're in

studio today and last night we got like eight inches

of snow, yes, right, So we got an of snow, yes,

and so just the headache and the irritation of that,

So both of us had many catastrophes today.

Yeah, And by the time they listened to this, it

have been weeks ago, right, but but yeah, so what

made It's not necessarily what made me mad this week,

because I did that last week.

But yeah, what made Chris irritated this week?

Which there is a different we're going to differentiate. We

know it seems like splitting hairs, but it's a big difference.

Yeah, so I got five This is not on.

Behalf of everybody else in the world. This is literally

it irritated you.

Yes, yes, so so, So I got five cars in

my driveway because my son just bought because he's rich.

He's rich. He's got his Lambeau, he's got some Mercedes.

Yeah, how about a two thousand and eight Ford Focus.

That's right, and one of those, and then and then

twenty twelve Ford Focus.

These all things, these things all have like two hundred

thousand miles on it.

It's not rich, it's just you got a bunch of

kids still living yeh, yeah, I.

Got kids living home. So there's five cars in the driveway.

My son just bought his truck yesterday, literally yesterday. So

he wakes this morning, it's all snowy, and he has

to transfer the tools that he was using from my

truck that he was borrowing because he was using the

Ford Focus that broke. So I literally just got it

from from mechanic yesterday. So big long thing. But basically,

you can't have the cars on the road because they're

gonna plow, so they all gotta be stacking the driveway.

So they got to be in order, in the order

in which people leave. Okay, So my son has to

get up this morning and he transfers all his tools

and he leaves his my truck key in his pocket,

goes to work at like four five in the morning

and text me and says, hey, Dad, I've I'm so sorry,

but my truck, which by the way, has four wheel drive, right,

and now you have to drive this nasty Ford Focus.

They can't even move in the snow, right, and so

I'm literally on the way here. But it's just terrible.

So but but here's what's worse on the on the

bad roads. But what's worse by far is that that

was the car that we had shifted last night and

it was in the front, so my truck was behind it.

So literally I don't.

Have the keys to move my truck because he has

them in his pocket. But it's the only thing I

can use because everybody else is going somewhere today.

So I literally have to get up this morning.

I have to clean clear off the snow of three

out of the four cars, and then I have to

move them all into the street, which by the way,

is horrible in itself because it's like it's like you

ever try to move a forward focus in a foot

of snow.

It doesn't move.

Very well, and so I'm literally fighting that. Then I

get in my car, my forward focus, and I literally

have to go eat and I have to literally move

up two inches, move back two inches, move up two inches.

I have to slowly turn it in the snow, which

is like a foot of snow, which means like it

doesn't work very well. And so it took me forever.

I bet you literally it took me forty five minutes.

Wow.

And then I had to back up.

And then after I move that into the street, I

had to get then and get in all the other

cars and move them back into the driveway just before

I can come here. So that very much irritated.

Irritated you today.

And oh and here's my son. Here's my son didn't

even realize any of this. He's at work right now

and he's like, oh, hey, sorry dad.

Oops.

Oops, the car oops and and and unfortunately I didn't

have a spirit set of keys.

So there you.

Go, There you go.

That's what irritated me, that irritated you today. Yeah, yeah,

there was a lot of snow. There was a lot

of It was a lot of snow. And yeah, you're right,

Ford focuses are light little cars.

So your story my story.

Yes, okay, So I'm We're in a new house and

so out on myself.

Sorry, hang on, let me introduce it properly. What irritated

Jeff this week?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we are in the process of moving,

so we we didn't sell our old house. We're going

to rent that to our son, and so we're just

slowly moving out. And I didn't have my snowblower over

at the house. Yeah, so finally I got it over,

but it was all gummed up last year. We forgot

to run the gas out of it, and I didn't

put any stay bill.

In it, and so it wound up gumbing up the carburetor.

So I had to go get it fixed and the

guy got it back to me right away. But then

it was leaking gas somehow from the carpetor so I

was trying to figure out how to fix that and

tinkering around with it. Long story short, it seemed like

everything was going to be fine. It started it up yesterday.

It was going fine. So then we get this big

snowstorm last night. I go out there this morning, I

run one pass with my snowblower and it's out of gas.

Yeah.

Right, So all that gas had leaked out the gas tank.

So now I don't have a gas can because my

gas cans are at the other house. So I run

down the gas station trying to find a gas can.

They don't have much. I have to go to another

gas station, all in the deep snow, you know, and

it's like, you know, six thirty in the morning, the morning. Yeah,

So I go to the next gas station. I finally

find one. I pay an insane amount of money for

a gas can in the gas station and then get

a gallon and half a gas I come racing back,

I pour the gas in.

I'm out there and I'm snowblowing.

I did it the wrong way, which means I basically

had to snowblow my my driveway twice. And while I

was out there. We live on a cull de sack

that's not part of the homeowners association. And the snowplow

had come through, and one of the guys had left

his truck on the street, and so we have this

massive drift of snow in the middle of our street

now because of how the snowplow guy had plowed on

our street. So then while I'm snowplowing or while I'm snowblowing,

this lady across the street starts to back out. Her

brother had blocked her in, so she gets in his car,

she backs out, and she backs right into that snow drift.

So now she's stuck with that car and can't get

her car out either. So then she pushes past, and

she gets her car stuck in the snow drift. So

I'm out there pushing her car, pushing her brother's car,

digging them out, all that kind of stuff. And yeah,

so that irritated me. It's just the what should have

been twenty five minutes turned into an hour and a

half and.

A sore back, yeah, for sure.

And then I decided, you know what, I'm just gonna

go ahead and use my snowblower and snowblow the street

because this guy left this giant truck you know, well

he left this giant drift in the road. So yeah,

and I got done just in time to make.

It to the studio today.

Yeah, and so that so it's just the irritating What

should have been twenty minutes is an hour and a half.

There are some listeners keep this in mind. There are

some listeners who live in other countries.

Right, I don't know what a snowblower is.

They don't even know the.

Experience of what it means, right, and so so just

imagine they're thinking themselves, why would anybody choose to live.

In Michigan, because this is where God made us go.

It's got sick joke. It's the tundra of Detroit. Yeah, actually,

you know what this happens like once a year, a

big snowstorm once or twice a year is really all

we get where we're at. We're kind of blessed we

don't get a ton of snow. It happens once or twice.

You go further north, and it's feet of snow a year, right, right,

or meters of snow if you're listening overseas, right.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

So anyways, that was it was just what should have

been twenty minutes turned into an hour and a half

and a sore back.

Yeah, so not necessarily relatable to all mankind, but it irritated.

Definitely irritating to talk it out.

Yes, yes, yeah, And so my son's gonna come home

and be like, oh, here's keys. I'm gonna be like thanks, thanks,

thanks a lot.

Well, I don't know, I don't have a transition for

this one.

Oh you know what, speaking of being deep in it,

yeah right, people of Israel, people of Israel were in

it deep.

That's right, And Amos is having visions about how deep

they are.

Yes, okay, there it is.

Yes, we're actually gonna dig down deep, says in this passage.

Oh there it is, okay, Amos. Chapter nine, This is it.

We're on the home stretch, is nine, the last one, yep.

And we're going to finish up and eventually get to

some good news. Hang on, because we've had some couple

of days of bad news.

Yeah, well a lot of days.

Yes, But it's gonna start off with bad news, okay,

and it's going to transition. Have to have bad news

before you have good news, otherwise it's just news, correct, right,

So here we go, Amos chapter nine, It says, then

I saw a vision of the Lord standing beside the altar.

This is in the temple, right, he said, Strike the

tops of the temple column, so that the foundation will shake,

bring down the roof on the heads of the people below.

I will kill with the sword those who survive. No

one will escape.

Even if they dig down to the place of the dead.

I will reach down and pull them up. Even if

they climb up into the heavens, I will bring them down.

Even if they hide at the very top of Mount Carmel,

I will search them out and capture them. Even if

they hide at the bottom of the ocean, I will

send the sea serpent after them to bite them. Even

if their enemies drive them into exile, I will command

the sword to kill them there. I am determined to

bring disaster upon them, and not.

To help them. Who.

Well, let's get to the good news. We got a

few more minutes here. The Lord, the Lord of Heaven's armies,

touches the land, and it melts, and all its people mourn.

The ground rises like the Nile River at flood time,

and then it sinks again. The Lord's home reaches up

to the heavens while its foundation is on the earth.

He draws up water from the oceans and pours it

down his rain on the land. The Lord is his name.

Are you Israelites more important to me than the Ethiopians?

Ask the Lord.

I brought Israel out of Egypt, but I also brought

the Philistines from Crete, and I led the Aramaeans out

of care. I, the Sovereign Lord, am watching this sinful

nation of Israel. I will destroy it from the face

of the earth. But I will never completely destroy the

family of Israel, says the Lord. For I will give

the command and will shake Israel along with the other

nations as grain is shaken in the sieve. Yet not

one true colonel will be lost, but all the sinners

will die by the sword, all those who say nothing

bad will happen.

To us in that day. Finally we're going to get

to the good news.

Here it is in that day I will restore the

fallen House of David. I will repair its damaged walls

from the ruins. I will rebuild it and restore its

former glory. And Israel will possess what is left of

Edom and all the nations I have called to be mine.

The Lord has spoken, and he will do these things.

The time will come, says the Lord, when the grain

and grapes will grow faster than they can be harvested.

Then the terraced vineyards on the hills of Israel will

drip with sweet wine. I will bring my exiled people

of Israel back from distant lands, and they will rebuild

their ruined cities and live in them again. They will

plant vineyards and gardens. They will eat their crops and

drink their wine. I will firmly plant them there in

their own land, and they will never again be uprooted

from the land I have given them, says the Lord,

your God.

Wow, well there you go.

Yeah, well there you go. And I love the promise

of restoration. It's great. I was trying to read ahead

and the notes from the Life Application Study Bible.

There's always like these really great study notes on the bottom,

which we very much encourage people, by the way.

To get one. Why you're waiting, Why are you waiting

the twenty bucks? Go get one online?

And this is not the only study Bible that you

can get that's great, but we like this one.

I think it's super functional for a person who says

I'm not a Bible scholar for sure.

Right, that's why it works so well.

Yeah, and so there's a note here that says the

Jews of Amos's day had lost sight of God's love

for them and his purpose for calling them the rich.

Were care free and comfortable refusing to help others in need.

They observe the religious rituals and hopes of appeasing God,

and they did not truly love him. Amos announced that

God's warnings against destruction and evil ways we must not assume.

That is not what I was trying to read. I

was trying to read the restoration piece. Sorry, that's just

more of the same, right there. There's not a note

on the restoration piece eleven through fifteen. Yeah, okay, sorry, but.

I like it. That was a good note.

Sure, it's a good note. Yeah, but it's about the warnings.

But in that funny hot it's a listed under thirteen

to fifteen, and yet it's talking really more about the

bad stuff anyway. The restoration is a promise that God

will definitely show his mercy. So even after that, you know,

there's a there's a judgment, there's a punishment for sin,

there's a there's definitely a very clear vision about how

God hates sin, he says, but yet I will never

destroy the House of Israel completely, he says, I will

restore them. And I love how he says the grapes

will grow faster than they could be harvested.

How's it impossible? How's it impossible? You know how long it.

Takes to grow grapes before you harvest them. It takes

a very long time.

And the grain, both the grain and the grapes.

Yeah. Yeah, So God's going to supernaturally just bless them.

Beyond me, to give them more than they can handle.

More than they can handle the blessings. Right, So there's

going to be a time where God restores and so

once again it's just a it's more of a statement,

not necessarily about hows it related to you. Well, you know,

maybe you don't go grapes. I'm not saying that that's

the lesson here. The lesson is is that God wants

what's best for you. That God, even though that God

hates sin, and that God's going to correct his children,

God wants to bless you. He wants to bring you

to a place where he wants to give you all

the great things that he has in store for you.

So what he's doing is he's predicting.

A time that the nation of Israel is going to repent.

They're going to have to go through hardship, unfortunately, and

they do by the way.

They go through.

Hardship and things, you know, get destroyed, and then the

people of Israel look to God. Unfortunately, it takes all

of that for them to look to God. But then

they do, and then what does God do?

God?

God says, well, now that you've looked to me, now

I'm gonna bless you. And so the lesson there is,

don't wait until you have to get punished to look

to God. Don't wait until your life goes bad to

look to God, because you know, there's definitely times in

our lives where, you know, when things are bad, it's like, Okay, God,

now I'm going to run to you help. You know,

things have gotten out of my control. The things that

I'm looking to you are the things that I cannot

control anymore.

But when we're still in control, and.

When we when we're you know, trying to manage your

own lives and things are going great, we have a

tendency to forget God. And by the way, that's not

a surprise. God predicted that back in Deuteronomy, right back

when he delivered the children out of Israel and he

sent them into the Promised Land. He said, okay, I've

finally I've finally given you the Promised Land.

And he said, let me just give you a warning.

When things go great, you will have a tendency to

forget the Lord that got Yeah and so and so.

God knows when things go well, don't forget them. When

things when God is blessing you, then we should be

motivated to serve God even more because of our blessings.

This is why David was such almost a superhero in

the Bible. Why God always celebrates David is David is

one of those few people that when things got great,

he kept making God the center. Yeah right, it's so rare.

This is what God wanted. So if you ever want

to see what God really is hoping for you and

your family, it's not that once the prosperity comes you

forget him, but rather, as you know that your generosity increases,

your commitment to God's ways, increases, your commitment to holiness,

increases your celebration of everything that God is doing good

in your life, your testimony, you sharing with other people

what God is doing.

Pointing all the glory in your life to God.

Like David, and God says, man, I'm going to establish

David's kingdom forever, right forever.

This is what he want to do.

He gave him peace, he gave him prosperity, you know

there towards the end of his end of his reign.

Of course, you know, there was a struggle with his

family when he started sinning. Right, So even then David

allowed his own flesh to get in the way, but

he never let God get out of place. God was

always God in his life. He's always leading the people

to do these things. In God pours out this incredible

blessing on him. And so that's what God wants, and

that's why he celebrates. Even here it talks about I'll

restore the fallen house of David. He's still This is

hundreds of years later and he's still talking about Dave.

It right, the promise I made to David hundreds of

years ago. Why because David was a man chasing after

God right, literally says, a man after God's own heart.

He's chasing after God's heart. He's pursuing God and God goes.

That's what I love.

I'm gonna bless him where he's still even with all

these curses on Israel.

He said, I'm still gonna bless David.

I'm going to restore this fallen house and I'm going

to repair his damaged walls. The other thing I love

about it is, you know, I've had people tell me

that I know God judged me, right, I know that

this situation is in my life because God is getting

my attention, right, Yeah, I know people that have sinned

significantly and lost so much. Yeah, and say, I know

that this is a consequence, you know, God's consequence for

my sins, and I will usually then, you know, and

there's a a sometimes a depression that comes with that,

or just kind of a less than kind of position

that person starts to take. And so then it's passages

like this I love because even in God's let's be honest,

these last eight chapter has been pretty rough. There's gonna

be dead bodies everywhere. I'm so angry at you. The

fire from heaven is coming. I'm gonna send your enemies

to wipe you out right. I'm so mad at you.

You're cheating on me. You used to be a virgin.

Now you're cheating on me with other gods. He's so

mad at them, but then he goes, but my anger

is not gonna last forever. Right, So if you would

turn and run back to me, you'll live. That's what

he said in chapter five, right, six, whatever it was,

Just turn back to me and run back to me,

and you'll live. But I love it that even then judgment,

if God's judgment comes in your life, it doesn't last forever.

Right.

And God's mercy is what endures forever. God's loving kindness,

David says, is what endures forever. And so even in

God's judgment on all the evil, because God's going to

be just. Hey, you people are ripping off poor people.

You guys are selling other humans. You guys are horrible

to the people around you. You're pretending like all these

blessings are yours because you earned them. He says, I'm

going to bring judgment. Justice is coming. That's what it is.

Anytime God brings judgment, it's a justice issue. So he said,

I'm gonna bring judgment. I'm going to bring justice. But

then listen, when that part's done, you turn back to me.

Your grain is going to grow faster and you harvest it.

Your grapes are going to grow faster than you're going

to harvest them. Your terraced vineyards on the hills are

gonna drip with sweet wine. I'm gonna bring all my

people back, and I'm going to restore your ruined cities,

and you're gonna replant your vineyards and your gardens. You're

gonna eat your crops, you're gonna drink your wine, and

I'm gonna firmly replant you there in your own land.

So even then, God's giving hope at the end of

a really bad declaration, He's still giving them hope that, hey,

I'm not done with you.

I still love you.

Right by the way, I wanted to you know, you know,

I wanted to point out in verse number twelve, it's

so simple. These words are so simple. It says the

Lord has spoken, and he will do these things. And

you know what, it's a great statement to just take

one verse like that and to sort of sit in

its meeting and realize that, you know, God is the

same what yesterday, today, and forever, isn't he So so

when it says, the Lord is spoken and he.

Will do these things.

Just know that that is always consistent with God. I mean,

obviously we've talked about God being able to change his

mind and change his wrath and things, but that's not

what this is. This is a this is a promise

of restoration. So when he says, hey, I'm gonna I'm

gonna go ahead and give you a promise. The Lord

has spoken and he will do these things, it's very

different than a warning. And then all of a sudden,

people repatting the God says, Okay, that's fine, I'll change

my mind. But this is like say, hey, this is

going to come. This is a blessing that is going

to come. This is a promise, and my promise is

I keep right. So that translates into you know that

you and I today can rely on God's promises to.

You and me every time.

So we live and.

On the other side of Jesus Christ, right, this this

is before Jesus had come, In fact, five six hundred

years before Jesus had come. And so in this case, yeah,

I think I think back in the I don't know

what it is five and thirty eight BC seven oh

seven fifty three BC. I was looking at all these

timelines on the top. Gosh, this book is so helpful,

isn't it. But I was, oh, it's got side notes

seven fifty three there it is. So it's got all

these side notes of timelines, which is really cool. I

was just looking at the wrong one. But here it

is seven hundred years before Jesus had come, and and

that we live two thousand years after Jesus had come.

But just know that when God makes a promise, he's

always always going to be true to it. So you

and I could look back at every promise, whether it's

a generic principle about how our lives will be blessed,

how God wants what's best for us, or you know,

if we do this thing, then then God will promise

to bless us if we honor God in our marriage,

if we honor God and our business practices or income,

when we honor God with our lives and our morality,

that there's going to be promises attached to it.

And then just general and obedience.

You know, God says, hey, if you seek out me,

then I'm going to continue to be with you and

empower you and strengthen you and bless you, and I

mean all those things that we build our lives upon

as followers of Christ. We can trust because if God

says it, he will do these things.

Let me show you a really cool thing along those lines.

Yep, he says in verse eleven, I will restore the

fallen House of David. Now re parents damaged walls from

the ruins. I will rebuild it and restore its former glory.

And then he says, and Israel will possess what is

left of Edom and all the nations I've called to

be mine. In Acts chapter fifteen, Paul and Barnabas come

back to the council in Jerusalem, and James is the

big dog among all the leaders in Jerusalem, and all

the Christians are saying, well, we're not sure that gentiles

are allowed to be Christians.

Is this James the brother of Christ or James the

disciple son of Alpheus?

This is James the brother of Christ? Right, isn't he

the Yeah, he's the leader, so he's they come to

him and they go and they have this council. Are

gentiles allowed to be Christians? Do they have to get circumcised?

They have to convert to be Jews? All this kind

of stuff, and James quotes, amos, Oh, that's so cool

that passage.

That's so cool, and he says, So.

They go, everyone listening quietly as Barnabas and Paul told

about the Miraca's science and won who's got had done

through them among the Gentiles. And when they had finished,

James stood and said, brothers, listen to me. Peter has

told you all of about the time God first visited

Gentiles to take from them a people for himself. And

this conversion of Gentiles is exactly what the prophets predicted

as it was written. And then in verse sixteen he says,

after our return and restore the fallen house of David,

and I will rebuild its ruins and restore it, so

that the rest of humanity might seek the Lord, including

the Gentiles, all those I have called to be mine.

The Lord has spoken, he who made these things known

so long ago. And so my judgment is that we

should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who were

returning to God. Instead, we should write and tell them,

you know, all these things. He was saying, that that

promise of David's house being restored, and that not only

Israel but Edom and all the other people that are

going to be my nation. James was saying that was

happening once people like you and me can become Christians and.

Not just the Jews.

Wow.

So James has recognized that Amos had two meanings to

his prophecy. One is God's going to restore Israel. The

other is God's going to restore a kingdom. So because

Jesus was from the house of David, Jesus is the

final king in David's lineage, right, and now he sits

on the throne. And because of Jesus, all of us

get to be a part of that restored kingdom. And

then when it's all done at the third meeting of

that passage is when it's all done at the end

of time, God says, I'm going to make everything new right,

and then in that point then everything is going to

be perfect, just like he was saying all the blessings,

I'm going to set you down and there'll never be

a time you and I get to be a part

of the end of Amos.

I got to tell you that that little discovery that

you just pull, that that was worth the price of admission.

Yeah, it was a note By the way, it was

a note in the Life of Vacasion study boy. It's

not that I'm a genius, it's just there I went, Oh,

I forgot about that passage.

Well, hey, the Bible, guys, is free.

So when I say it's worth the price of admission,

it's worth you tuning in, is what I meant to say. Hey, well, hey,

that is a great place to end, and that is

our time, so hopefully we will see you Monday.

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