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The Book of Amos – Chapter 3:1-15: Israel’s Guilt and Punishment

“Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing,
but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets”– Amo 3:7

[Aired November 30, 2024]

Although this study and much of the Book of Amos focuses on Israel and, specifically, the Priests directly indicting us, highlighting our guilt and punishment, it is all integral to the Feast of Trumpets and the trumpet blasts in Revelation. Thus, a degree of repetition will be reflected during these studies.

Humanity innately desires an easy life that monetary riches enable. With money, we can make ourselves look more appealing than nature has provided; it vainly authorises greater intelligence and access to the world’s best academic institutions. Monetary riches engender personal wealth on all levels of one’s presentation to the world unchallenged while remaining semiconsciously yet unashamedly naked.

Ecc 10:19  A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.

In succession with those riches, our Lord intentionally created sexual awareness to be part of our daily lives, intrinsically. Even though it is a subliminally and constantly present spontaneity of mind, outwardly, we, and even the most debauched, thankfully, practice social sobriety. Accordingly, the Bible is about the marriage of the Lamb of God to the pinnacle of his creation in the Bride who is first to be blessed to see the spiritual implications of every Old Covenant Law. Consequently, the Bible is equally about two women; one a whore and the other the Bride of Christ, as it is about two men, the old and new Adam in Christ, who, paradoxically to the churches of the world, are one representation of the Bride in transition.

Without the Law in Christ’s commandments, we would never know the spirit of the Law. Amos and all the Bible’s prophets’ prophecies are deeply connected to our sexuality and broken covenant and the most profound aspect of indicting guilt for a guaranteed punishment. Incomprehensibly to Cain (Gen 4:13… “my punishment is greater than I can bear”) and the world who see us as masochists, we have learnt to glorify God for our chastisement and send each other gifts in the form of prayers, psalms, and encouragement for the torment He has given us (Rev 11:10). That response is us joyfully ascending into heaven in a cloud while our old enemies left in the old Adam below, mournfully look upward; a chasm impossible to traverse.

Rom 7:7-25  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

There, in the last sentence of that scripture, is our realisation for our acknowledgment of the subtlety of spiritual transgressions. As seen in the previous study in Amos chapter two under the Old Covenant, we could lust all we liked physically of mind and not transgress God’s Commandments so long as we didn’t physically engage sexually. However, now and in light of the New Covenant (subtlety juxtaposed in John 8:1-11) in our study of physical Judah and Israel, we are aroused most gloriously in righteous spiritual spontaneity by the lyrics of the song only the 144,000 in Revelations 14:1-5  are learning today!

Rom 7:8  But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence [meaning, inordinate ‘desire, carving, longing’ in the lust of the mind and spirit insidiously for what is now forbiden]. For without the law sin was dead.
Rom 7:9  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I [learned to] died [daily].
Rom 7:10  And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
Rom 7:11  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Rom 7:12  Wherefore the law is holy, and the [spiritual] commandment holy, and just, and good.
Rom 7:13  Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
Rom 7:14  For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
Rom 7:15  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
Rom 7:16  If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the [spiritual] mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the [disappearing] flesh the law of sin.

Significations:

Israel’s Guilt and Punishment

Amo 3:1  Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family [the twelve tribes inclusive of Judah] which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 
Amo 3:2  You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. 

Just wow! Don’t those first verses make you shiver? Our Lord addresses his Bride, the few, nonetheless the ‘whole family’ he will drag out of Babylon and sobering us with the stark reality of his will that it is “you only [primarily meaning his Bride] have I known of all the families of the earth“! The ‘kicker’ (colloquially ‘usually unpleasant’) for the spiritually immature is that he “will punish you for all your iniquities“! Now, that is too much for our former Gentile Christian selves to stomach and attracts a jolly good spiritual stoning for the consternation it unsettles the Babylonian within.

With the taste of wording common to the Body of Christ, ‘no person will ever see eternal life without the wrath of God through chastisement in his life at God’s appointed time’. This process of chastening brings salvation and teaches us righteousness (Isa 26:9).

Hos 11:1  When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
Hos 11:2  As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.
Hos 11:3  I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
Hos 11:4  I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love [hidden chastisement]: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.
Hos 11:5  He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return [to God].

Not returning to Egypt and going into Assyria and Babylon is part of our journey towards becoming Christ (Jer 29:3-23).

Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared [in their order of salvation] to all men,
Tit 2:12 Teaching [chastening] us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world [Not all sins are transgression, but are highly apt to lead into transgression. Christ must increase as we decrease the flesh subject to corruption];

Heb 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

1Co 11:32 But when we are judged [Hebrew: “krinō”], we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned [Hebrew: “katakrinō” = a later judgement] with the world [to the later “great white throne… judgment”].

Heb 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

It is only the Elect who are being chastened since Christ and the foundation of the world. All of the Gentile Christian Church are bastards in their own time and order.

Psa 119:71  It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.

Isa 33:14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
Isa 33:15 He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

It is only the Elect who can hear and live in the fire of his word. The Lord’s Elect, “they that have done good [in] this present time” (Rom 8:18), are being judged in ‘this present time’ and will not need to come up “unto the resurrection of judgment”. “When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world… unto the resurrection of judgment.” Nevertheless, even those who are condemned to the resurrection of judgment are still being judged by God, and when His judgments are in the earth men will learn righteousness, even those in the lake of fire, the second death, the Great White Throne Judgment:

Isa 26:8 Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

It is only by the Lord’s sovereign will that some few are given to be judged in “this present time”. If we are blessed to be part of “the house of God [in] this present time”, then we will also be given to believe these words of the apostle Paul concerning this the greatest of all honours:

Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Rom 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. [God chastises us for our good!]

Jer 24:5  Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.
Jer 24:6  For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
Jer 24:7  And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
Jer 24:8  And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt:
Jer 24:9  And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.
Jer 24:10  And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.

The answer to all of the following rhetorical verses is profoundly yes.

Amo 3:3  Can two walk together, except they be agreed? 

That verse makes a subtle connection with marriage. Every spirit-led Elect of God coming out of Babylon and married to an unbeliever, like Lot coming out of Sodom with his wife looking back, immaturely experiences initial ‘bitterness’ for their spouse’s seeming ridiculous blindness in not realising that it is God that blinds all people, including the incipient Elect.

2Co 6:14  Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

1Co 7:12  But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
1Co 7:13  And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.

Isa 42:19  Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD’S servant?

Isa 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles [In the Lake of Fire].

And, for the time being,

Isa 42:2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street [in this age unless he is asked about his faith].

Amo 3:4  Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? 

The Lord assuredly will roar as a lion out of Zion when we haven’t fed the spiritually hungry, just as the wolf feeds her young in the evening (Gen 49:27).

Joe 3:16  The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

Amo 3:5  Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin [lure for the unfortunate bird we are] is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? 

It is every person since and inclusive of Adam conceived to the end of the One Thousand Year rule who is the bird taken in the snare of our whorish mother, Babylon the Great. Even righteous Gideon bowed to femineity and unconsciously emasculated himself and Israel (Deu 23:1).

Ecc 7:26  And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.

Jdg 8:27  And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah [female fawn]: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house.
Jdg 8:28  Thus was Midian [Effectively the Ammorites] subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon.

Gideon’s subduing the Midianites is akin to what some Babylonian Christian girls do today, supposedly for Jesus, by deliberately luring unbelieving young men, justifying sex ‘for Jesus’, deludedly thinking that they have done their duty in saving them. Gideon’s action is a classic act of not trusting in God’s strength over appeasing the downright alluring girls next door who, with exposed thighs, are ‘delightfully’ ensnaring (Ecc 9:12. Prov 7:6-27).

Amo 3:6  Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it? 

Those rhetorical questions asked by our Lord through Amos lead us back to the theme of an earthquake, symbolised by a mighty trumpet blast corresponding to a force of 10 on the Richter scale. The Lord’s Elect, as seen in Isa 42:1, are blessed to have their earth shake their self-styled temple to powder and are wonderfully “afraid” to give Christ all glory. That verse of Amos 3:6 is one of the most profound statements emanating from God’s throne that affects everything we think and do; “shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” However, we all inwardly sigh for it being one of the greatest delusions and “gin” (Amos 3:5) to our family and friends for the ‘snare’ it is and them, as we once were, beguiled by the chief ‘birder’, Satan to oppose themselves stubbornly parroting that God allows sin by our will.

2Ti 2:25  In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
2Ti 2:26  And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

For Babylon’s churches, there is no greater enigmatic demonstration of Trumpet blasts than the Seven Trumpets of Revelations. These Trumpets herald the Elect’s swift understanding that the Trumpets, Vials, Woes and associated plagues are different versions of the same great tribulation first to come upon them and, ultimately, all mankind in his order.

Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
Ecc 9:3  This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Everyone will hear Christ’s voice in his God-given time and order to hear. Understanding Jesus’s “loud voice” on the “great day of the feast” today is the greatest Trumpet blast the Elect will ever hear. The expression, “for three transgressions and four,” adds up to seven and represents the Seventh Trumpet expressed eight times (judgement) in Amos. The rest of humanity, hearing it, will assuredly hear it without understanding at the end of the One Thousand Year rule in death by fire, be that death his fiery word or both in a literal fire, before being instantly resurrected to hear it all again in the Resurrection to Judgment and the Last Great Day, the Eighth Day following the Feast of Tabernacles. Hence, every generation hears that trumpet blast.

Rom 11:7  What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

Rev 1:9  I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Rev 1:10  I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

Joh 7:37  On the last day, the great day of the feast, [of Tabernacles] Jesus got up and said in a loud voice, If any man is in need of drink let him come to me and I will give it to him.

For a far more in-depth understanding of the Feast of Trumpets, begin here with other localised links:
https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/revelation-81-6-the-seven-angels-prepare-to-sound-seven-trumpets-part-1/

As is demonstrated in those preceding verses, the Lord says,

Amo 3:7  Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. 
Amo 3:8  The lion hath roared [Trumpet and Earthquake], who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy? 

Luk 8:10  And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others [Everyone who is not given of God to be an Elect] in parables [designed to hide the meanings]; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.

Amo 3:9  Publish in the palaces at Ashdod [Powerful cities of Egypt, Sodom and Old Jerusalem – Babylon], and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults [confusion] in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof. 
Amo 3:10  For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces. 
Amo 3:11  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; An adversary there shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled. 

Today, December 2024, the entire world is living in foreboding fear of nuclear war, but not the Bride. She looks upon worldly, apparently end-time events with immense intrigue since she knows her husband’s mind in blessing her with good and not evil. She glorifies in her Lord identifying her confusion and seeing Satan coming afar off and having her old man within destroyed. She utterly disdains the physical riches of this world and shakes her head for having impudently exposed her beauty validated by a leering world to the point of spiritual adultery.

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Amo 3:12  Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch. 

The Bride of Christ is the ‘two witnesses’ represented as ‘two legs’, the shepherd who testifies in transition in hearing her husband’s voice represented as ‘a piece of an ear’ in the house of Jacob. She is embarrassed by her whoredoms and steps out of bed, and on looking back, is temporarily shocked that she was in bed with her sisters still fornicating with Damascus and, in humiliation, flees as did Joseph from Potiphar’s wife (Gen 39).

Amo 3:13  Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord GOD, the God of hosts, 
Amo 3:14  That in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Bethel [house of God]: and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground. 

Gen 6:1  And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
Gen 6:2  That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
Gen 6:3  And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Once our Lord has made us aware of our sins and transgressions and, in symbolic frustration, chastised us multiple times, we hopefully become acutely aware of our tendency to oscillate like Old Israel between physical riches and validating our beauty in bed with Babylon, much like Ohola and Oholibah. When this chastisement ceases, we no longer feel His spirit striving with us. This leads us into a dangerously insidious state as we again begin to act as a law unto ourselves, excusing our behaviour in the absence of His guidance and swift correction (Rom 2:14-18). Consequently, Christ, our horns and altar of his strength to overcome, are cut off, and we fall again to the dust of the earth. Accordingly, we return to a wintery fruitlessness in the summertime when we should spiritually harvest in abundance. Where there isn’t a harvest, our spiritual barns are empty, and we starve of Christ’s word.

Amo 3:15  And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD. 

To that end, and again, the indictment is upon the very Priests of God, his Elect; we shall continue to see in the next chapter our enduring guilt and punishment.