Complacency & Consequences | Israel’s Wake-Up Call | Amos 4:1-13

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's version of The

Bible Guys.

Today's Friday.

That's amazing it is.

Why is it amazing?

Because we made it the whole week.

Oh there you go.

Yeah, we got all the way through it, the whole thing,

man oh man.

For those of us who made it.

Yes, So this is everybody's favorite segment because it's Friday,

is it? Yes, everybody's favorite segment. I just had a

meeting yesterday.

Did you hear the way that Desiree wrote it? She goes?

You asked, you asked, we listened, we acted. It's Friday,

and we're back with your favorite segment.

Just mad this Well I had a meeting yesterday, Yeah,

and with some folks and they're really regular listeners to

the podcast, and they said that what made Chris mad

this week is their their favorite segment.

Well, thank you for that.

Okay, So here's what I did before we get into

what made Chris mad this week. I you know, I

love AI love it, and so I asked AI knowing

Chris Arball has a penchant for hyperbole, answer the question

what made Chris mad this week? And it sort of

knows me, and yeah, it's amazing. So people, I'm telling you,

I've taken message outlines before and asked chat gpt to

give us a transcript in Chris Zarba's voice. And it

starts off the way you start off. It's got a

ton of you've read it before.

I've read actual actual phrases.

Like I use yes, So so AI is really really

intrigued by you and your personality. If we do it

for me, it doesn't, it doesn't do it uses more

Bible verses. That's that's the only difference between how it

does it for me and does it for you. Mine

is less personable than yours and uses more Bible verses,

but yours is way more engaging and way more applicable.

Right, we can't use too many Bible verses, Jeff.

That's right, that's right. But that's the only difference. And

I wasn't saying that to brag other than I am

a Bible guy. But beyond that, it's the only like

it's like, it doesn't have my voice, it just has

my attitude.

The Bible guy and his companion named Chris, but.

It writes it writes, well, I'm pretty sure yesterday you

said it was you.

You're the companion.

Yeah.

So anyways, here's what I said. I asked it, knowing

that Chris Arball has a pension for hyperbole. Answer the

question what made Chris mad this week? Yep, it reasoned

for a couple of seconds, and this said. It all

started when someone dared misplaced Chris's meticulously sharpened pencils by

a mere two millimeters?

Do you or don't you have OCD a little bit?

That is hilarious?

Huh?

How did you even know that?

I know?

Of course, in classic Chris fanhion, the fashion the minor

offence got described as the single most catastrophic organizational apocalypse

in stationary history. From there, every trivial annoyance snowballed. Someone

used there instead of there. In an email, a Brista

added whipped cream to his latte unrequested, and even mentioned

the coworker who spoke at normal volume while Chris was

clearly trying to drink.

Is you know what my drink is? And I bet

that was a lucky yes.

Yet No, you've already talked about Barrista's and serving before. Okay, yeah, yeah,

so it knows and so you know you basically, every

each tiny misstep quickly got promoted to a crisis of

epic proportions, and before you knew it, Chris was convinced

the universe and conspired to rob him of every ounce

of peace, every.

Ounce of piece.

It knows you talk about hypers. I'm saying that's pretty extreme.

So anyways, so okay, all right, well okay, so what

made you mad this week?

Chris?

It comes down to one.

Thing, and this is the thing that everybody can relate to.

And I think that everybody I'm mad on behalf of

all folks.

Thank you, Thank you, Chris. We wouldn't have even thought

to be mad, but thank you for doing it for us.

Okay, tell me you have not experienced this.

It is when you try to get your broken car

to perform for the mechanic and make that noise and

it will not do it right, right, right, So it

makes the noise, It makes the noise, It makes the noise,

and then you pull up to the mechanic and you're like,

it's making this noise and then and then all.

Of a sudden, it runs perfect.

You know what I'm talking about.

Okay, So this happened to me just like a few

days ago.

So so my son, he's in the middle of buying

a car right now, a truck, and so we're sort

of using this really really old car that I had

bought Sarah, and it's just sort of sticking around on

the driveway. It's a two thousand and eight Ford Focus

Get like two hundred thousand miles on. It's just pretty

pathetic anyway. But this this this thing, Fernando is his name,

by the way.

The car.

Yeah, I name car.

Name is Fernando.

You don't know I name all my car I didn't

know that. You really didn't know. I name all my cars.

I've named every car that I've ever had since I've

since I've been driving.

Wow.

Yeah, and even your dealership cars, Uh no, you don't

you know car that I owned, the ones that you own, Okay.

And in the dealership cars that I'm in, they're all

John Doe.

All John Doe, Yeah, every John Doe. Yep.

So because because I knew that, I knew i'd be

switching cars anyway, So all my brothers name all their cars.

All my family names the cars. All my kids named

the cars.

So Fernando thousand miles.

It's kind of a but he sold Shanaia.

Ok.

So I gets old and so so he so he

puts all his work tools into Fernando and it's just

a small, dinky, little Ford Focus and uh So, anyway,

he gets out there and it's like remember the remember

last week, uh during uh it was like literally like

negative five degrees outside. So he gets out there like

four in the morning and he goes to start Fernando and.

No, no, no, no, no, no, it's the crank.

So it's like it's like the what do you call it,

like the tethers or whatever. It's the it's the it's

the where your keys go in. So it's not it's

not the actual starter. It's that it actually won't catch.

So and sometimes if you push up and push in

it'll it'll start. But at the first couple of clicks,

you know, the battery comes on, but it won't. It

won't it won't crank. So and it's been this way

for like three years. We've never fixed it. So so

Steven's like you just have to push and push and

then he starts it. So he goes out there at

four in the morning. It doesn't start well. His car's

parked behind my car, and so I said, well, just

take my truck and he goes, I can't do it

because fans behind behind that, and I said, okay.

So it's four. So I literally get up and in

my robe.

So I literally am in my you know, underwear, put

my robe on, and I put boots on. So I

am freezing beyond belief and I am pushing the car

but he's but he's late now. So I'm like, come

help me, and he's like, I'm late. I gotta get

this thing. So it runs back in the house. He's

trying to get ready and then I'm pushing this car

out to the middle of the road in just a

robe and it is just I'm the coldest I've ever

been in my life. So then it sits there for

like three days.

I got there.

Every day I try to crank, it doesn't crank, and

I'm like, fine, I get this thing, toad. I got

Triple A. So I called Triple A and they say, hey,

we'll be there. I got to pay extra money because

it's beyond the miles my mechanic, so they finally sh

up after waiting.

Like two hours.

So I figured I'll go out there and I'll brush

it off for the mechanic. So I go out there

and I want to brush off the snow, and so

I think, oh, maybe i'll do is just I'll turn

on the ignition. Just the winter wipers will help me, right,

So I turn it on and it cranks yep. And

so then I take it to the mechanic and he says,

what do you mean it's starting fine?

And I said, are you kidding me?

For the last three years, when I put the ignition

in there and I turn it, without fail, it does

not crank like like, it doesn't do anything. And he said,

I'm telling you right now that I'm putting the key

in and I'm turning it every so gently, and every

single time it starts right up.

Well, are you kidding me?

So did he replace it? Anyways? He still has it,

still has it, So he's just just telling just tell.

Him keep it until you find it, like right like, But.

But does it happen for the doctor to where you

take your kids to the doctor they're so sick, But

by the time you get to the doctor, it's the

adrenaline rush.

They feel great. Doctor asks how you feeling? I feel fine?

Right?

They just talkative and all that kind of stuff.

When that happens, is that funny?

But I'm mad on behalf of every time the car

doesn't perform for the mechanic for the world.

That's right, and the car knows what it's doing. That's

the cars of America.

That's right. When when when you are are not functioning.

Right, you need to show that off for the hashtag

night writer, night writer doo doo?

Yeah is real?

Okay?

Talking about failing to learn from uh.

The anger of the owner?

That was rough. That was by far. You're worship Israel.

Israel is failing to learn their lessons from God.

Who's the owner of h Yeah.

I don't know, man. Okay.

So so here's that's my favorite phrase in the Book

of Amos.

I'll say it the Lord I crank and nothing happens.

All right, We're going to read literally in this next

sentence is my favorite sentence in all of the Book

of Amos, all the Book of Amous, the whole Book

of Amos Amos chapter four. He says, listen to me,

you fat cows living in Samaria whoa, wow, isn't it great?

That is amazing.

God's kind of ticked off.

Remember he just said earlier, you know, your family's the

only family I've ever been intimate with.

Yeah, and now he's like, you bunch of fat cows.

Hey. By the way, there's that. There's a note.

I know we normally don't interrupt the reading, but it

says Israel's wealthy women were called fat cows, pampered, sleek,

and well see Psalm Chapter twenty two, verse twelve. Excuse me,

well fed? These women selfishly pursued, or excuse me, push

their husbands to oppress I can't read the uh to

oppress the helpless in order to support their lavish lifestyles.

Be careful not to desire material possessions so much that

you were willing to oppress others and just please got

to get them.

So they were literally referred to fat house Psalm twenty two,

verse twelve.

Oh you gotta look it up.

Look up Psalm twenty two twelve. So I'll read this

and then you can get to it. So let me go.

Listen to me, you fat cows living in some area,

You women who oppress the poor and crush the needy,

and who are always calling to your husband's bring us

another drink. The Sovereign Lord has sworn by this, This

by his holiness. The time will come when you will

be led away with hooks in your noses, every last

one of you be dragged away like a fish on

a hook. You'll be let out through the ruins of

the wall, and you'll be thrown from your fortresses, says

the Lord.

Go ahead and offer.

Sacrifices to the idols at Bethel, keep on disobeying at Gilgal.

Offer sacrifices each morning, and bring your ties every three days,

present your bread made with yeast as an offering for Thanksgiving.

Then give your extra voluntary offering so you can brag

about it everywhere. This is the kind of thing you

Israelites love to do, says the Sovereign Lord. I brought

hunger to every city and famine to every town, but

still you would not return to me, says the Lord.

I kept the rain from fall when your crops needed

it the most, and I sent rain on one town,

but withheld it from another. Rain fell on one field,

while another field withered away. People staggered from town to

town looking for water, but there was never enough. But

still you would not return to me, says the Lord.

I struck your farms and vineyards with blight and mildew

locus devoured all your fig and olive trees, but you

still would not return to me, says the Lord. I

sent plgus on you, like the plagues I sent on

Egypt long ago. I killed your young men in war

and led all your horses away. The stench of death

filled the air, but still you would not return to me,

says the Lord. I destroyed some of your cities, as

I destroyed Sadomighemora. Those of you who survived were like

the charred sticks pulled from a fire. But still you

would not return to me, says the Lord. Therefore, I

will bring upon you all the dads. Is that all

the disasters I have announced. Prepare to meet your God

in judgment, you people of Israel. For the Lord is

the one who shaped the mountains, stirs up the winds,

and reveals his thoughts to mankind. He turns the light

of dawn into darkness and treads on the heights of

the earth. The Lord, god of Heaven's armies, is his knee.

Woh yeah. Once again, he's not messing around.

No, No, you know what's interesting is I thought we

were doing the highlights of the Old Testament.

I thought we were too, but we're getting amos straight up.

Straight up Amos.

Yeah, And to be honest, it's a little bit more

of the same now now today is obviously a little different.

Right, So it's you know, so.

Chapter two was God's announcing judgment on all of the

different you know, chapters one and two he's announcing the

judgment on different places, and then he includes Israel, and

then all of a sudden, he goes on mostly about Israel.

He expresses his you know, disappointment, his anger, his patience,

you know. And then also, you know, doesn't it say

that God's a jealous god?

Right?

That God admits that he's jealous. Good.

Right, Not in a bad kind of way, no, but

in a committed kind of way, right, right, the way

that a husband would not want his wife cheating on

him with another person, or a wife wouldn't want her

husband cheating on her with another person.

That's it's that kind of.

It's the appropriate kind of jealousy.

Yeah.

And then and then so this chapter, sorry about.

The Yeah, that's okay, you're yawning at yourself. It doesn't

make me feel bad.

Yeah, oh, that's right, because you're not talking.

Usually when I'm talking. This time, you're boring yourself today.

Yeah right, I'm yawning in the middle of my sentence.

But but now it's now it's just God, uh, just

going on about Israel's, Israel's failure to learn. And uh,

you know, I've had this speech before with my kids.

By the way, have you ever had a speech where

it's like it's like, I just I don't know what

else to do. I don't know what else to try.

You know, I've I've taught, I've I've done everything I know,

I did everything that I've known how to do, and

and yet you just simply won't you know, respond, you know,

or obey or whatever.

So it's going to get hard, right right, right, so's

the that's the note for Ams four six through thirteen.

It says, no matter how God warned the people through famine, drought, blight, locusts, plagues, war,

they still ignored him. Because the Israelites didn't get the message,

they would have to meet God face to face in judgment.

That's the scary one, right, Yeah, No, longer could they

ignore God, they would have to face the one that

they had rejected, the one that they had refused to

obey when he commanded them to care for the poor.

One day, each of us will meet God face to

face to give account for what we've done or refuse

to do.

Are you prepared to meet him?

You know that I think of that that we were

just talking recently about this, I still think this'd be

a good idea. I'm really intrigued with the idea of

taking some of the great messages that were preached during

the Great Awakenings in the first grade Awakening, second Grade Awakening,

George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, some of these great

messages about about how God deals with his people, how

Hell is real, Heaven is real, judgment is real, opportunity

to serve God, blessings are real, all these things, you know,

because they're they're in the Old English, and so a

lot of times when you read those they don't make

So you know, if we just kind of updated them

with the modern language, but go back and reintroduce, you know,

these newer.

Generations to that language.

Because I could read those back when I was a kid.

Can read because I grew up reading the King James Bible,

so did you, right, grew up reading the King James.

So so you know this Shakespearean level English. So to

have that sophisticated seventeen hundred's English in preaching, wasn't that

weird to us?

We could?

We could, But now I think this generation has no

concept of that old English hardly.

So I'd love to go back and grab some of

those old messages.

But there's there's a great famous message Jonathan dwi was

preached sinners in the hands of an angry God.

Right, I remember reading in my freshman year of high school.

Yeah, I can remember a famous preacher judgment Days coming

right as another one some of these great messages that

were just rocked America at the time, going.

And it's not just God hates you and He's going

to judge you. That wasn't it.

It was God is is. He mentions here multiple times,

he's a roaring lion. I'm roaring from Jerusalem trying to

get your attention right, And and so God is, God

is merciful. He's this is what Jonah was mad at

him about. You're so compassionate, You're so merciful. Right, you're

so full of unending love for people. Right, he's mad

about that. But the other side is God is a

roaring lion. God is there is a limit to him

saying I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you from going any

further with the evil that you're choosing to do or

the bad choice you're gonna do, and that that judgment

also comes.

So God is love and God is just.

He's both, and so a lot of times we get

hung up on the love and mercy side and we

forget his justice, and then we're surprised. We're surprised when

things fall apart in life, and then we want to

blame everybody else instead of finally coming to the conclusion

these things are happening because I'm choosing to not obey God.

God says, how many famlinies do I have to send?

How much blake do I have? How often do I

have to send locusts?

War Guys, what do you think I'm doing.

I'm doing everything I can to get your attention, and

you refuse to believe that this is my way of

getting your attention. So all right, we're going to go

face to face on this one and I think that

you know you and I we don't have to hammer

judgment all the time with people. But I have had

conversations with people going why is this happening in my life?

And I'll usually say, I think you know what you

tell me? Why do you think this is happening in

your life? And people that are experiencing God's judgment in

their life almost always will say why it's because I

haven't been walking with the Lord right at this and

that I knew God wanted me to do the right thing.

I chose not to, so it's costing my marriage. I

knew God wanted me to do the right thing, I

just didn't want to. That's why now I'm being investigated

by the FEDS.

Whatever.

They knew what the right thing was. And then so

if you're in a judgment kind of a place in

your life where God is allowing heavy things to happen

and consequences in your life, I think you usually know

pretty clearly. The Holy Spirit speaks to you and lets

you know this is a judgment thing. If you're going

I don't know why, well, that's probably not judgment. It's

just circumstances. It's how the world works. It's one of

those things where then that's where you pray, like David prays, God,

you are my refuge, You're my strength, You're the one

and God. Then God allowed bad things in David's life

early on to make David a strong, mighty warrior, a

great king. So all those things, you look at it

life and you go, God must hate David and know

God was making David lift some heavy weight so it'd

be strong as a king. So sometimes God allows difficult

things in our lives to make us better. And in

those moments, usually people go, I don't know why God's

doing it, but I'm just trusting you. But there's other

times when God allows really difficult things, the famines in

your life, the locusts eating up everything that matters in

your life. And if you go, I know exactly why,

then the single best thing to do is repent. Do

what Nineveh did, Go back and go God, I'm going

the wrong direction, right. So I don't think that the

Holy Spirit leaves it vague and leaves you confused. I

don't know why this is happening in my life. If

there's a judgment moment, it's because God's going to be

clear on that with you, you'll know if it's not

that God's just making you stronger and better, it's the

circumstances in life that are going to make you stronger.

Yeah, that's a good word. And I almost feel as

you were saying that. All I'm doing is thinking back

in like my childhood and my early days of ministry,

and I was thinking about all the hardships and how

things are hard, and honestly, had I not gone through

like for instance, I had a group of ministry friends,

leaders and pastors. We're going down the room, we're giving

each other nicknames, and they said, oh, you're called this,

and you're called this, And then I think I told

you this before, but they said, we're going to give

you things wolverine and I said, well, why is the

white wolverine? They said, because you're a fighter. You've you've

fought for everything your whole life. You're just a scrapper.

And I thought, and I thought, how would they even

know that? You know, and looking back and sort of

seeing and piecing everything together. But honestly, it's probably one

of the reasons why I'm still standing today. Yeah, right,

is because you know, like you said, like you know,

he makes you strong to be a great warrior.

Yeah, the other side of it, I can remember, you know,

And I've told this a little bit, the story, you know,

coming out of high school going into college, I was

kind of the golden boy in our little world, and

a lot of the other famous pastors were saying, hey,

as soon as you finished, you got a job with me,

you know, all that kind of stuff. And I think that,

you know, I don't know if you've heard I have

a supreme level of self confidence. You have, you know,

I have heard this, and so you know that can

lead to an inordinate amount of pride, and everything that

I did turn to gold. And so I can't remember

I had an early season, you know, Paul Warrens, you know,

don't lay hands suddenly on any man. Be careful with

young leaders, right, Pride comes with four there's other things,

and so I think, you know, I make jokes about

it now, getting kicked out a couple Bible colleges. But

the consequence that was I crammed four years into six

years of college, but spread it over eight right, right,

and where everybody else to get done in four years,

it took me eight years. And by that point I

was married.

I had two kids.

It was really really physically demanding and hard, and I

was humbled. At that point, I wasn't the star anymore.

I went from being the star to not being the

star anymore. And then ever since, I feel like I'm

about a decade behind where I should be for the

talent level. That if I'm just being honest, the talent level,

I feel like God gave me the achievements. I'm hitting

them in my fifties when I other stars would have

hit them in their forties, right, right, And I know that,

I know I'm about a decade behind almost always. And

that's not God hating me. That's God allowing me to

go through a little bit of his judgment, to get

rid of that pride, to get rid of that self,

you know, sufficiency a little bit. And so I really

do see that that little window of time in my

life was God was I was refusing to learn how

many Bible colleges do most pastors have to get kicked

out of before they learned their lesson. Right, I got

banished from the crowd I ran with afterwards, right, they

declared to heritake all these things, and I think it

was that was a judgment element in my life and

I'm willing to go and I knew it.

It took me a while.

It took me a while to get to the point

where I would finally confess that and believe it or not.

That was kind of the beginning of the end of

it was when I finally acknowledged God, your hand is

really heavy on me. In the booky Hebrew says God

rebukes his children. If God doesn't, he literally says, if

God doesn't on occasion.

Spank you.

As are, then he says, you're an illegitimate son. You're

not even really one of mine if you don't occasionally

get it corrected. But the ending of the correction for

me was when I finally admitted God, I know you're

correcting me, and Okay, you're in charge. And so I

feel like I've run about a decade behind my timing

on this. So God didn't stop blessing me. I just

had this wasted time in my life that I was

spinning my wheels.

More and it was pretty heavy hand.

Interesting. Interesting, that's you're a point of view. You really

believe that, huh, But you felt like that that is true,

that is right.

Well, that's what I'm saying, the Holy Spirit will tell you.

Right.

Is this so when you read the Book of Hebrews.

Hebrews was written in the New Testament to Christians, and

he says you are an illegitimate son if God doesn't

punish you on occasion.

Right.

Matter of fact, King James says you're a bastard if

God doesn't beat you on occasion.

That's what it says, right, So it happens.

But it's only because we know God is merciful and

God is gentle and he's God is loving. But God

also will say, listen, I've got more for you, and

he'll smack you upside the head and say I'm gonna

get your attention and you can learn it the easy

way or the hard way.

Yeah, we can't close out our time together without me

reading the Psalm twenty two to twelve.

That I looked.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Remember we started this whole podcast.

Cows listen, listen to me, you fat cows living in Samaria.

Well, it turns out this is a horrible thing. I

can't even figure out why they told us.

To look this up. But here's what it says.

Herds of bulls come at me, the raging bulls stampede horns,

lowered nostrils flaring like a herd of buffalo on the move.

I'm a bucket kicked over and spilled. Every joint in

my body has been pulled apart. My heart is a

blob of melted wax in my gut.

Now. I actually quoted a paraphrase version.

The most Yeah, that'ssage, because I just thought, like, this

other thing doesn't even make any sense. So if I

go to NIV, just the first that they quoted, it

says many bulls surround me, strong bulls of bashan encircle me.

So there it is.

So it's using the cow element because it's talking about

the wealthy and the powerful are the ones bulldozing him? Yes, right,

that's that's the reference there.

Yeah, anyway, I thought it was gonna be different. Yeah,

I was looking forward to something more fun.

Yeah yeah, yeah.

Well here he's using the same analogy but talking about

the women who are encouraging their husbands to abuse other

people so they can have more stuff.

Right. Well, hey, that is our time together, so hopefully

we will see you next time on Monday.

On the Bible, guys,