The Importance of Integrity and Honesty in God’s Eyes | Lessons From Amos 8:1-14

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Hey, everybody, my name's Chris. This is Jeff, and we

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That's good the voice the Bubble Guys. Yeah, let me

go so. And by the way, you could get that

rasp there, I heard it.

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Well, hey, listen, today we are excited because Desiree has

given us the opportunity, the ability to read a news article.

And we love giving the most reliable news.

Yeah, from only the most reliable sources. That's right, which

for us is the Babylon Beat.

Yes, she don't know.

It's a satire website, very funny stuff. And today, says

Instagram algorithm, since his wife tired in bed, ready to

buy whatever.

And by the way, you can't.

See it, but there's a picture of this woman lying

in bed on the phone. The glow is on her

screen and he's got a smile on her face.

That's right, because she's ready to buy whatever.

Oh right.

Salt Lake City, Utah. The algorithm that dictates ads on Instagram.

Sprang into action. As Rachel Myers settled into bed, the app,

sensing she was tired and ready to buy literally anything

put in front of her.

So funny.

Instagram has worked for years attempting to discover precisely when

a wife is at both her most exhausted and most comfortable,

and then to strike.

Do you believe that's true? I do believe that's true,

because that is incredibly smart.

I think so.

Oh those pants are cute and they're on sale, and

if I give them my email addressed, they'll take ten

percent off my order. Meyers said, her eyes barely open. Wow,

look at those gardening gloves. I definitely need those. And

this lady has an ergonomic mouse. Oh how about this

matching apron bonnet? Combo bonnets are making a comeback, Oh, added,

though ostensibly checking Instagram to see what a couple friends

had posted. Only minutes later, Myers had loaded seventy three

new items into her online cart. My goodness quote, the

algorithm is truly amazing. If if at times it right,

wives will buy literally anything, said Instagram software engineered David Khan.

They'll buy dog food even though they don't own the dog.

The defenses to the bank account are Zilch during that

little window before she falls asleep. At publicly publishing time,

Maya's husband had quietly pulled his wife's phone out of

her hand as she fell asleep, quickly canceling her order

for a jumbo ant farm.

That is so funny, so funny. Yeah, that's really good.

I told my wife one time, I said, she told

me she got some stuff. We've had a run since

we moved into our new house where the Amazon guy

comes like every day.

Yeah, every day.

That's that's me, every day, no matter what. Yeah, and

so I'm not kidding. Yeah, no, I'm not kidding. Yeah,

it's it's sometimes five six packages this day.

Part of your family.

What's that?

Is the Amazon guy part of your family?

Oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah. We just them, we know them.

Backyard barbecue. Yeah yeah. So uh.

I told my wife, I said, why do we keep

it on these packages? Getting some really good after Christmas sales,

really good. We're saving a lot of money, I said,

I can't afford to save this much money, right right right.

So, by the way, let me let me be clear.

My wife doesn't order extravagant things. She orders like deodorant

or you know what, I mean, or just.

Just saves a trip to the store, that's right.

Like paper towels come in Amazon packages, right, So like

you know, I don't want people to misinterpret like she's

not a shopper, like like like hey, I bought this

diamond ring and like this thing that this woman has

in the ad of bonds and things that is not her.

She just swipes to do her grocery shopping.

A lot of time, I saw a light sweat start

breaking out on your brow after you mentioned that five

packages a day come to your house, and you thought,

I need to make sure everybody knows my wife's not

wasting money.

Oh no, no, no, no, she doesn't. She doesn't do that.

And by the way, she'll even tell me, because I'll

come home and I will literally complain and I'll go,

there's five packages, and then she'll open them up and

she's like, paper towels, really, And I said, why do

you buy paper towels that? Why don't just grab my

Kroger And she says, believe it or not, it's cheaper.

And by the way, that is incredibly hard to believe

it's cheaper. So how is that even possible that it's cheaper?

And it's because Amazon is a conglomerate, right, So it's

like it's like, that's how big Amazon is where somehow

you can buy a regular item through Amazon and have it.

By the way, delivered to your house the next day

or that day or that day, and somehow you save

forty cents.

Yeah.

Figure, how was AIDM possible?

I don't know.

Yeah, so it's pretty it's pretty crazy.

I saw that packaging.

We're cutting down a million trees so we can save

forty cents.

But that's okay, right right, It's not good for the world.

But you know, I had a guy who worked at

our church.

His name was Carl and he was the communications director

and he's in charge of all printing, and people all

used to, you know, approach him about like all the

paper that he's wasting, you know, all the trees that

he's cutting down. And he used to say, you know

that trees are replaceable product.

Yeah, you see, to plant more trees.

He's like you know that, people, He goes, We're not

going to run out of trees. He's like, there's no

way that we can run out of trees. He says,

if you think about how many sheets of paper come.

From a tree. He's like, there's no danger in running

out of trees.

We just have to Where it gets bad is where

we're burning them, and then we're not replanting, right, right,

right right, So anyways, talking about planting, Oh, today Amos

has a vision of ripe.

Fruit which is planted on a tree.

Well, trees get planted and then rose trees.

Yeah, yeah, well you should have said speaking of trees.

Speaking of trees, that's what you should speaking of trees. Yes,

you almost had it, almost, but.

You should plant it.

Yeah, yeah, speaking of planting and trees. And try it again,

speaking of planting trees.

There it is there you go. Yes, that's terrible. So

we are in the book of Amos.

Yes, everybody's famous Amos, Yes, his favorite book.

And this is a vision another vision, say God has

given only this is a vision of ripe fruit.

And uh. And apparently we're walking through every bit.

Of Amos, every bit, every bit, every bit.

But that's okay.

Yeah, Hey, I'm going to guess most of our listeners

have never read every bit of Amos.

Well, I would say that's true. Think about it.

I think most Christians don't spend a ton of time

in Amos.

That's correct.

And by the way, I'm a Christian and I'm a

pastor for decades, and it's I have to confess, it's

been a while since I've read through the book of Amos.

Well, here we are.

Every verse good. But I have done it before. Yes,

but you but you implied that I have not.

I did not. I did not you joke. I just said,

you joke. I have a few favorite verses in the books.

Well, I read it, Chrish.

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing how much of the Bible you

know when you read it, right, Okay, Amos Chapter eight,

Verse one says, then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision.

In it, I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit.

What do you see, Amos, he asked, I replied, a

basket full of ripe fruit. Then the Lord said, like

this fruit Israel is ripe for punishment. I will not

delay their punishment again. And that day the singing and

the temple will turn to whaling. Dead bodies will be

scattered everywhere. They will be carried off of the city

in silence, out of the city in silence. I the

Sovereign Lord, have spoken. Listen to this, you who rob

the poor and trample down the needy. You can't wait

for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious

festivals to end so you can get back to cheating

the helpless. You measure out grain with dishonest measures and

cheat the buyer with discount or dishonest scales. You mix

the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor.

Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver

or a pair of sandals. Now the Lord has sworn

his oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel.

I will never forget the wicked things you've done. The

earth will tremble for your deeds, and everyone will mourn.

The ground will rise like the Nile river at flood time.

It'll heave up and then sink again. And that day,

says the Sovereign Lord, I will make the sun go

down at noon and darken the earth while it is

stilled day. And I'll turn your celebrations into times of morning,

and you're singing into weeping. You will wear funeral clothes

and shave your head to show your sorrow, as if

your only son had died. How very bitter that day

will be. The time is surely coming says the sovereign Lord.

When I will send a famine on the land, not

a famine of bread or water, but of hearing the

words of the Lord, people will stagger from sea to sea,

and wander from.

Border to border, searching for the word of the Lord.

But they will not find it. Beautiful girls and strong

men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the

Lord's word. Those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria,

who take odes in the name of the God of

Dan and make bows in the name of the God

of Beersheba, they will all fall down, never to rise again.

Is that it?

Yeah, that's it for sure. Wow, So there you go.

Well, there it is another vision and a very strong warning,

and some of the same some of the same references, right,

like enslaved people for one piece of silver or a

pair of sandals. Right, that's been mentioned before, Cheating the

buyer with dishonest scales, that's been mentioned before, religious festivals,

cheating the helpless, dishonest measures.

So again just a reiteration. Right.

There's a note in our Life Application Study Bible on

these verses, and it says these merchants were keeping the

religious festivals, but not with the right spirit. They couldn't

wait for the holy days and Sabbaths to be over

so they can go back to making money. Their real

interest was enriching themselves, even if that mean cheating. And

then parenthesis says short changing the quantity while boosting the

price or even selling chaff as wheat.

Wow.

And by the way, chaff is the bad part of wheat,

right yeah, uh, the unusable part. Do you take a

day to rest and worship God at least one day

a week or is it making Is making money more

important to you? There's a sermon? Is making money more

important to you than anything else? When you give your

time to God?

Is your heart and worship or is your only religion

only affront for an to go practices? So that's small

writing right there. I'm starting to need my glasses.

You know.

The uh that sermon right there is? Is that? Uh uh?

You know? The Sabbath day is included in that little sermon?

Right?

So? Do you remember there was a song a long

time ago by Rascal Flats where where it talked about

Sunday used to be a day of rest?

Do you remember.

You don't remember the song?

I see maybe baby sitting on the poet drinking and

ie cold cher Kaluk where everything is.

Black and white, da dada.

Anyway, uh so he so he's talking about the good

old days, that's what he's saying. And in that song

he says, Sunday used to be a day of rest

and now it's now it's a day.

Of making more money.

And it's like, and.

I thought that was so interesting that Rascal Flats is

talking about the good old days and he had What

he's really doing is is just sort of including right

here this this passage that Sunday. People used to respect Sunday.

They used to say, nope, we're not going to make

Sunday a day of working. Sunday's a day of rest.

And even in the olden days in our lifetime, right,

we've seen it. Are in our fathers probably grew up

with the mentality that nobody's going.

To work on Sunday, and yet now they do. Yeah,

it's interesting.

Yeah, well, if you look at it, I think that

there's you knows as you go through all these judgments,

obviously he's already been frustrated with the fact that you know,

they they're selling slaves and there they're abusing the poor

and all these things. So, like you said, he's covered

these things. But I think God drives home. When God

repeats a thing, it's because he's trying to drive home

what a big deal it is. Right, So if he

repeats himself, he's not just stuttering. Right, It's not like, oh,

did I did say this or not? Well, let me

say it again?

Right?

Did I say that last service?

Yeah?

Yeah, exactly. So he's saying it on purpose. And when

you look at all of these things, how how bad

this judgment is? Right, there's going to be dead bodies

scattered everywhere. You're going to be carried out of the

city in silence. You're going to be hauled away. The

punishment's coming.

I'm not going to delay.

So really, the singing is gonna stop and it's just

going to be dead bodies. That that's pretty horrific description, right, Sure,

then you read and find out why because you said

you were selling twelve ounces and you only sold eleven.

You said you said you were going to loan at

a good interest rate, and you loaned an abusive interest rate.

You said you were selling one thing, but you you know,

you watered down the product right. That's and you're skipping

the Sabbath day. So we think God brings judgment for

big stuff, murder, adultery.

Right.

God's saying, if you claim you're selling twelve ounces, sell

twelve ounces, right, or you're ripping off the poor, right,

And I hate that, hate it, yeah, he loads it.

Right. If if you're if you're saying that you're going.

To uh sell a specific product, sell that product. God

hates dishonesty, and he's saying, there's going to be dead

bodies everywhere over your bad business practices. Yeah right, So

earlier he goes, I'm so sick of you're fake worship.

So don't you.

Understand Sunday and Monday are the same to God? Right, God,

God expects the guy you're pretending to be on Sunday

to be the real guy you are on Monday. That's

that's what he's expecting. And he's not talking to religious

leaders here. He's talking to businessmen and business women, that's

what he's talking to. And he's using a shepherd and

a farmer to come and talk to him about it.

These are everyday normal people. This isn't Saint Amos, This

isn't Saint Chris Sarba.

Right, Sat, Jeff Forest.

That's right.

This is this is a normal guy talking to business

people about how God views everyday life.

Yeah, that's good.

And when he says cheat the buyer with just on

a scales, you're talking about the scales of justice where

one thing's supposed to weigh exactly the other.

You know, you you weigh out.

Uh, not the scales justice. These are business skills.

Oh well, something like the skills.

Yeah, we're going to use the yeah, yeah.

Something something similar, right, They weren't exactly the scales of justice,

but yeah, a similar mechanism where they would have it would.

Be balanced on the top and then you'd have a

specific weight on one side worth of value, that's right,

and then you put the grain or the the metal

or whatever you're buying on the other side and way, yeah.

Yeah whatever. Yeah.

And then and then they would do that, they would

they would cheat it by removing right, and they would

say it's.

A certain round, but it's really not.

So what they would do is they would so let's

say you have we're going to buy it by the ounce,

and we would have weights on the one side that

would be one ounce, you know, five ounces ten ounces.

So if it was something I'm weighing to where I'm

going to have to pay you and I'm going controlling,

sometimes I would would drill out the inside, hollow out

and make it lighter by a few ounces, right, so

that way i'd pay less.

But if it was.

From my advantage where I'm charging you, then i would

have a different set of fake weights, where I'd drill

it out and put lead inside and make it just

a little heavier. So then that way I'm able to

charge you more all you bought. You know, you bought night.

So you ever go to the butcher shop. Have you

ever noticed you go to the butcher shop, say hey,

I need three pounds of salmon, and they give you

three point five pounds of salmon?

Right, right? That's what? Is that enough?

And I always go, yeah, that's fine. But that's kind

of the idea was what you think you're buying versus

what they actually sell you are different things, right, And

I'm not saying that's a dishonest thing because I'm letting

it happen in that moment. But what they were doing

is they were sneaking. They were always ripping everybody off.

At least the butcher's calling it for what it is.

Pounds that good.

Yeah, yeah, but that's maybe the closest thing that anybody

our listeners have had to this, right. But what they

were doing was they were skiwing. Have two sets of

weights they'd have, they'd have and they'd be.

Either heavier or live.

It's like loaded dice, we're paying what yeah? Right, So so.

You know the the old trick of you know, loaded

dice means no matter what you do, it's always going

to roll a seven or whatever it is, right, So yeah,

it's and.

By the way, loaded dice is also in the Bible,

loaded dice.

Right.

So this is this idea of being people of integrity

all the time, giving, giving the product that you say

you're giving, giving the the service that you're claiming, your

serving those of you that have the ability to build.

Maybe you're a CPA or an attorney or something. If

you charge for half an hour, you better to have

done a half hours worth of work. Right in God's

mind or judgment's coming, that's kind of his attitude about it.

Right.

If you're if you're charging or you're billing right now,

you know there's all this auditing happening in our federal government,

right with Doge and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, sure,

I'm not passing judgment one way or the other on

whether or not that's all a great idea. But the

federal government and by the way, the state to Michigan,

they don't get audited, right, So so all of a sudden,

they're being audited now and they're finding out there's billions

of dollars worth of waste, dishonest decisions, yep, bad waste

or horrifically bad management. Right, So it's dishonesty or bad management.

Either way, it's time to fix it, right, Billions and

billions of dollars of this stuff. That kind of stuff

makes God sick when there's people who go, oh, well,

it's just you know, tax money, it's just whatever.

God's like, No, you be faithful.

It's expected of a man who's a steward to be

found faithful. That's what God says, It's required of them.

And so this unfaithfulness with regard to how we do

our business, God says, the singing in my temple is

going to stop, and it's going to be dead bodies

everywhere if they don't get this turned around. So we

think wink wink is just how It's just how business

gets done. There's a little bit for you, a little

bit for me, a little bit for you, a little

bit for me, right, and that's how business is done.

God goes Nope, that's not how it does Not my people.

If that's the way the world does it, that's the

way the world does it, But not my people. Be

people of integrity. And I think that there's an opportunity

in our society today for businessmen and women to stand

out by celebrating the fact by being people of integrity,

by giving better service than what you're claiming, by by

always going above and beyond, and you will build a

great group of loyal customers. You know, my dad owned

a company. You own a refrigeration company. And there's a

lot of scamming in the refrigerator refrigeration world. The reason

is you don't know anything about it at all, right, nothing,

You don't know anything. So we can come in and

maybe it's just a timer that we need, but we

can tell you. You know, it cost you forty bucks

get the timer fixed or something. Or there's a little

heater in there to defrost stuff. But we'll go oh man,

you need a new compressor. New compressor can cost you

eleven hundred bucks, right and your thing, and grocery store

owners and restaurant owners go, it's costing me money to

have it be broken, and go ahead.

And so there's all kinds.

Of scam artists in the refrigeration world. So my dad decided,

I'm going to go the other way. So he all

of his advertisements honesty and integrity or motto, and Forster's

Refrigeration became really famous all throughout the thumb that hey,

you can trust Glenn Forster, and my dad on so

many occasions would go in, you know, it's hard, you're diagnosing.

It's like being a doctor something else. Diagnose on the thing,

fix it, you think, and then it doesn't work. The

whole industry would just come back in and go, oh,

you know what, we fix this, and that pointed out

the fact that this other thing's broken.

You need to fix this too.

But there's times when my dad had fixed the thing

and then realized, oh he made a mistake, that wasn't

the problem. And my dad would go back and fix

the problem for free, and he would bring the thing

and say, I thought it was this, so I replaced it.

Charge you two hundred bucks for this, But the reality

was it was this other thing, and I fixed it

for free and would bring the other thing that we

didn't realize was broken, bring that to the guy and

give it to him. And my dad would eat five

hundred dollars or four hundred dollars, one thousand dollars. Sometimes

he'd eat it, but he would demonstrate to that owner, hey,

I'm not going to charge you. I'm going to undercharge,

and I overcharge you, or if I realize I make

a mistake, I'm going to make it completely right. You

will always be whole. And that's the word that got out.

And next thing, you know, my dad began to dominate

all those restaurants and gas stations and all that stuff

because everybody knew my dad could work eighty hours a

week if he wanted to do. Because everybody knew if

Glenn Forster said it's yes, it's yes. If Glenn Forster

says it's no, it's no right, and that's God honors that.

That's the that's what God says, I promise I'll honor

you for doing that. How many times should the Bible

does he say that Book of Proverbs talks about honest weights.

God blesses honest weights, but in this one he says,

dead bodies is gonna be everywhere. So you think that,

you know, you're shooting a move in your business. Isn't

that big of a deal. You know, at least you're

not cheating on your wife. God goes, Yeah, there's gonna

be dead bodies everywhere, right right, Some integrity matter, I

think is the message of this of this passage.

Yeah, and that's not to say that, you know, if

you're a businessman listening to this right now and that

you're doing a bad business practice, that's not that doesn't

translate into you're going to wake up tomorrow and your

family is going to be dead in your bed.

Yeah, well you have you have time to turn around. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

you go they have thirty years to turn this aroun.

Yeah yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a it's a it's

more of a statement about, uh.

God, judgment will come. That's not going to get away

with it.

That's how well I was going to say, Uh, it's

it's definitely a look into how God feels about those things.

And and so we think it's not a big deal.

And yet God says it's so strong of a deal.

God hates sin so much that he is willing to

call them out on it, and then judgment's going to come.

And this was a prophesied specific for Israel.

I just don't want people thinking that their dead bodies

are going to literally be in their beds.

But I could. I can imagine God going, I'm going

to ruin your business. You keep this up.

That's what it's saying.

If you claiming to be, if you're claiming to be

a godly person, but you're you're shooting a move like this.

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm going to ruin your business.

That's my right. That's my point. That's metaphors that have

to be dead by Yeah, that's all I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's great. So so yeah.

I think that there's several sermons in here. And by

the way, let me say one more thing I had

I had not remembered, although I've read it before, but

I've not remembered that it says, now the Lord has

sworn this oath by his own name, the pride of Israel.

Isn't it great?

I did not remember that that was one of his names.

So God the Father has many names referred to in

the Bible, and and by the way, that's its own

Bible study, isn't it. So there's how many names do

you think I've seen these on posters before?

There's probably what probably over one hundred, maybe two hundred something.

I should know that I've known it. I just don't

remember what the number.

Yeah, but I think I think it's definitely dozens and

dozens and dozens, right, I mean, if it's not a hundred,

it's very close. But there's there's different names that God

has for himself, and then there's also a lot of

different names that the son Jesus has for himself. He's

known as several different names, not nearly as many as

as God of the Old Testament, God the Father. But

but it's interesting how each name carries with it sort

of like a different attribute, right, And so it sort

of sort of magnifies the different attributes of God.

And in this and in this case.

He says the pride of Israel, and so think about

the significance of that. So if God is the pride

of Israel, then what he's really highlighting here is he's

highlighting he's not very proud, right and that, and that

God is not you know.

That they're not.

Respecting his name right right, because if he's the pride

of Israel, they're dishonoring who the pride of Israel is.

Because back then, you know, Israel was definitely known to

be the people who are worshiping the One True God,

and all the way throughout the Old Testament, people associated

those people with the One True God. And so the

more that they reflected his attributes and you know, behaved

and everything else, and then God would have great victories.

I mean, sometimes people would fear the name of Israel.

Of Israel came, the people would literally just tremble because

they're like, oh, I've heard about these people. This is

the God who shows up, this is the God of

great miracles. And so therefore God could revel in the

fact that he's the pride of Israel. But in this

particular case, when Israel is dishonoring God.

So I just think it's.

Very interesting how God chooses to call himself by this

particular name, the Pride of Israel, because what he's really

saying is it's a great disrespect, it's a great dishonor

it's a great blasphemy.

He's kind of reminding them.

I used to be right the focus of your world, right,

I used to be the pride.

Yeah.

Like like like my grandson Rowan thinks his dad Jonathan

is the toughest guy in the world. Right, Jonathan kind

of is the center of Rowan's universe right now, right,

And and you know, Jonathan is the pride of Rowan.

It is kind of it's that thing. And then he said,

remember when it used to be that way, and it's

not that way anymore.

Awesome.

Well, hey, that is definitely our time. So we will

see you hopefully tomorrow on the Bible guys. H