Audio Download

The Book of Amos – Chapter 6:1-14 – Woe to Those at Ease in Zion

[Aired January 11, 2025]

In 1983, Cyndi Lauper released her song “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” It is a catchy pop song that, despite its light-hearted nature, highlights the many emotional challenges women face. Most men delight in the unique blend of a young woman’s intelligence and playful spirit, which brings a sense of joy and peace into their lives for the hopeful greater unity of spirit. A woman’s emotions can prettily billow, wane and disappear, and suddenly reappear like the aurora borealis and leave her fleshy male counterpart’s mind pixilated by both the ‘silly dove’ and Solomon’s Shulamite creation.

Hos 7:11  Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

Israel, like Ahola and Aholibah, and children just want to have fun. Men delight in God-designed, breezy, light-hearted, and pretty girls; they are irresistible. But when a foundation of wisdom and intelligence is absent, she is just another self-validating silly dove, ‘innocently’ flashing abuse of her heaven-sent jewels of mind and body.

Son 1:10  Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.

Son 7:1  How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.

Eze 16:38  And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.
Eze 16:39  And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.

Women directly symbolise churches, and particularly the most frivolous churches, the today’s world of 40,000-50,000 splinter harlot Christian churches of Babylon. They all, in seeking their own pleasures and speaking their own words, ‘just want to have fun’, and thus ‘are at ease in Zion’.

“Ease” – H 7600 

1. at ease, quiet, secure 

a. at ease, secure 

b. at ease, careless, wanton, arrogant subset. 

2. security, pride, arrogance

Isa 58:13  If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath [Christ’s commands], from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
Isa 58:14  Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

The strange paradox all Christians face is the vast difference between seeing the sensual joys of the world, the pretty things that particularly women and churches are drawn to, compared to their vaguely seen faith and belief that Solomon’s Shulamite and the Bride are brightly given to see in her Husband; it is that earthquake-like spiritual sensuality that arousingly overwhelms us to desire more.

Son 2:5  Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.

Looking back on our time in Babylon, the Elect of God saw that we were sensually at ease, eating, drinking, and doing our own business, overflowing our barns in that Great City full of temporary, genuinely fulfilling, yet corruptible delights. All is vanity, saith the Preacher (Ecc 1:2).

Luk 12:16  And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
Luk 12:17  And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
Luk 12:18  And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
Luk 12:19  And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Luk 12:20  But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Luk 12:21  So is he that layeth up treasure for himself [AT EASE IN ZION], and is not rich toward God.

With those deliberations above, we could pretty much stop here since they broadly identify the Lord’s indictment against us spiritually. Nonetheless, we will continue to tease out other arousing spiritual nuances to increase our lovesickness for Christ’s spirit on the subjects.

Significations:

Woe to Those at Ease in Zion

Amo 6:1  Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came! 
Amo 6:2  Pass ye unto Calneh [City of Babylon], and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath [Syria] the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border? [… ‘bigger barns’ containing personal dogma and not Christ’s doctrines] 

Israel is named ‘chief of the nations’ and doted on the Assyrian, Philistinian, and Babylonian paramours’ affections. She just had to submit to the outwardly appealing sensualities of her neighbours. So, too, is our nature to this very day. It takes an Elect of God to be ‘instant in prayer’ continually to combat the lusts of the flesh and the eyes that substantiates our pride, the most damning aspect of those three sins that firmly nails the idol to our heart. Why? To gain pride, we have first “accused” some other person or aspect of our thinking to “excuse” ourselves for eating our own bread and drinking our own water; we are thus prideful. (Isa 4:1).

Alarmingly outwardly, on this very day in 2025, the physical representation of modern Israel in lockstep with Gentile Christianity who, clandestinely rules over the kings of the Earth, is at ‘ease’, hell-bent on enlarging her borders, if possible, all the way to the Euphrates River since she thinks that she is untouchable as the Lord’s elect. It will be very interesting to see just how far our Lord lets her go before utterly burning her with fire.

Rev 17:16  And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
Rev 17:17  For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
Rev 17:18  And the woman [Babylonian Christianity/Zionism] which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Amo 6:3  Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; 
Amo 6:4  That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; 
Amo 6:5  That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David; 
Amo 6:6  That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. 

It is the Lord’s very Elect who have learnt to see that they came out of that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth and caused violence against her Lord in murdering practically his every word. What a pompous old harlot we were, lying back richly at ease upon our more comfortably designed doctrines with our self-anointed thighs exposed, pretending not to notice the leers of eager payees—only to strip them naked of mineral and land-mass wealth while impudently thinking spiritually that we, as the Lord’s genuine Elect, cannot be touched; which is partly true, if we only acknowledge our sins, and with a broken and contrite spirit put our hearts to vigilant disease to speed our journey out of Babylon.

Isa 47:1  Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Isa 47:2  Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.
Isa 47:3  Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.
Isa 47:4  As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.
Isa 47:5  Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.

What a poetic indictment verse 5 above is outwardly upon Zion, for which we tremble to the soles of our feet for its spiritual connections! The West, driven by the “Lady of Kingdoms”, is in steep decline and, thankfully, likewise spiritually in us!

In glorious Ad nauseum, our uneasy alertness to being at ease in Zion is typified in Babylon by the ‘saved now’ lie. To me, it was very recently epitomised by a very good Babylonian friend who picked my spiritual brain on what was going to happen to him in the Lake of Fire. All he wanted to know was if he, too, would be saved. I left that meeting disheartened since he had a genuine interest in knowing the truth, but once he understood that everyone would be saved, he was greatly ‘at ease’, willing to suffer whatever the intensity of the Lord’s judgment. I couldn’t help but think, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”—I cast my pearls before a swine.

Mat 3:7  But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Mat 3:8  Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
Mat 3:9  And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
Mat 3:10  And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Mat 3:11  I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptise you with the holy ghost, and with fire:
Mat 3:12  Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Unquenchable fire denotes the timeframe of appropriate anguish for the strength of that ‘froward’ person’s obstinance.

Psa 18:26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.

Froward H6141 – 1. twisted, distorted, crooked, perverse, perverted, twist.

Mike quote: “If we are of the mindset that God created His weak, carnal-minded creatures knowing He would send most of them away into an ever-burning lake of fire to be tormented with excruciating pain for all eternity, as most Christian denominations, as well as the Jewish and the Muslim religions, believe, then that is exactly how the Lord will present Himself to you when you are being judged. Yes, the Lord has “cut Rahab and wounded the dragon”, but when our eyes are opened to see the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘olam’ and the Greek word ‘aion’ we are then given to understand that nowhere in all of scripture is anyone ever once threatened with eternal torment. Such a thought has never once entered the Lord’s mind. His judgments are always corrective and redemptive in their purpose and in their implementation. God’s judgments correct us and teach us His righteousness.” [end].

1Co 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. 

Heb 10:26  For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
Heb 10:27  But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
Heb 10:28  He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
Heb 10:29  Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace?
Heb 10:30  For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.

Amo 6:7  Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed. 
Amo 6:8  The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein. 

The Elect of God, today, are the ones who ‘first go captive’ before the Gentile Christians in lockstep with the “they go captive”, the entire world of humanity in the Lake of Fire. In there, they will receive their ‘banquet’ of God’s fiery word that will utterly reverse their every lie held secret. The excellency of Jacob represents our works substantiated by a dying Old Covenant, and the death of Old Jerusalem within.

Eph 4:4  There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
Eph 4:5  One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
Eph 4:6  One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Eph 4:7  But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Eph 4:8  Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Eph 4:9  (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
Eph 4:10  He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

The “might fill all things” for the spiritual mind is seen as he will fill all things—in their time and God-ordained order; the “might” is our hope of the First Resurrection, even as we who are hopefully Elect, ‘might’ in this age influence our sanctified unconverted physical families, that they, too, might be filled with a banquet of earthshattering truth, and be more elegantly named Seraphim instead of “vipers” (Isa 6:2 & 6).

Amo 6:9  And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. 

We know that “ten” means the complete number of mankind since Adam, who all will assuredly die physically in this life, and equally, a judgment of spiritual death of their innate lies in the Lake of Fire. Of course, some will not see a physical death since those few Elect will be alive at His coming.

Mat 16:28  Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

Amo 6:10  And a man’s uncle [beloved brother] shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD. 
Amo 6:11  For, behold, the LORD commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts. 

The mention of an ‘uncle’ denotes the permeation of either righteous or unrighteousness in a family, indeed, every family, meaning the world, for their time and order of understanding of our Lord’s word and typified by both the righteous and unrighteous leading personalities of King David’s household. Such is everyone’s “ease in Zion”, whether that ease is in strong delusion or our peace in knowing “the” Christ.

1Ch 27:32  Also Jonathan David’s uncle was a counsellor, a wise man, and a scribe: and Jehiel the son of Hachmoni was with the king’s sons:
1Ch 27:33  And Ahithophel was the king’s counsellor: and Hushai the Archite was the king’s companion:
1Ch 27:34  And after Ahithophel was Jehoiada the son of Benaiah, and Abiathar: and the general of the king’s army was Joab.

The burning of our bones to ashes signifies the whole destruction of our old selves, which helps us hold our tongues from uttering perverse things against the word of God. It is the utter destruction of the great wicked house attempting to be justified by our horn of works with no clefts or hiding places left for the contradiction of Christ’s commands.

Amo 6:12  Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock: 

No, it is not wise for a rider to run his horse upon slabs of rock, particularly when shod with iron shoes, since they lose grip, and both horse and rider fall. Not only that, but on pebbly rock, it is easy for stones to lodge in the horse’s frog, a triangular shape on the underside of a horse’s hoof, and extends midway from the heels toward the toe, covering around 25% of the bottom of the hoof. A stone lodged there, instantly causes lameness. Neither will a ploughman consider ploughing on slabs of rock or a boulder-filled field, all symbolising Judah and the Priests of God’s treachery while at ease in Zion as long as life is good, utterly deluded that theirs and our formally similar living were full of rottenness and death in our speech while sermonising lies for the laity—banqueting of falsehoods while judgment isn’t swift to be served causing us to rejoice in our unwitting delusion.

Ecc 8:11  Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
2Pe 3:10  But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Amo 6:13  Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength? 

Rejoicing in the flesh, whose short-term glory as is the beauty of a young woman, is guaranteed to deteriorate. With such self-indulgence to sustain beauty, men are eternally glad, but it is like ploughing on a slab of rock, as all older women will testify. Such determination to sustain youthful beauty is relying on the horn, the power of the beast, fruitlessly maintaining our position on the throne of God, unwittingly stating that we are god (Rev13. 17:1-18).

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Psa 18:2  The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
Psa 18:3  I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

Amo 6:14  But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the LORD the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath [kham-awth] unto the river of the wilderness. 

Although Israel was afflicted by the Assyrians and carried into Babylon, there is no greater nation that the Lord will raise up against Gentile Christianity and the world than the Lord’s Elect, who will afflict all those alive not included in the First Resurrection, preventing them from entering in.

Hemath is the principal city of upper Syria and means ‘fortress’ or ‘wall’, typifying the seemingly impregnable walls of those nations that Israel didn’t have the courage to conquer. There are several rivers of the wilderness that powerfully connect Israel’s boundaries—the Nile, the river Jordan dividing the wilderness to Israel’s east, the Phishon on the southern extremity of the Euphrates River, now and since Israel’s forty years of wilderness wanderings have disappeared. However, recent evidence strongly indicates its existence in keeping with Biblical references; and, of course, the mighty Euphrates itself, the location of Israel’s most insidious state of being ‘at ease’—in dreadful irony, now in Babylon! Even though the four rivers of the Euphrates generated incredible physical richness at this crossroads of commerce, they represent a covert mockery of Israel’s famine of her Lord’s word, soundly affirming her wilderness of sin mirroring us today, formally saying that we are rich and increased in goods, but are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.

Rev 3:16  So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, [at ease in Zion] I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Rev 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

The Lord’s Elect are most grateful that he is giving them his white robes of righteousness this very day, from the riches of the mighty river running out of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Zec 14:4  And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
Zec 14:5  And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
Zec 14:6  And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
Zec 14:7  But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
Zec 14:8  And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
Zec 14:9  And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.

From “that day”, which is this day, today, if we hear his voice, Christ’s people are, in the positive sense, blessedly ‘at ease in Zion’.