- Unpack vv. 11-12 and the threat to take away the word of the Lord.
- We don’t really know what to do with that. Let’s try to figure it out.
WHAT MIGHT THAT LOOK LIKE?
1. Rejecting God’s truth, people do what they want.
2. Things start falling apart.
3. The consequences of their sin make them think twice.
4. In many situations, no witness to truth is left.
- Why wouldn’t God let them have the Word?
- The passage doesn’t tell us, but here are some possibilities.
a. Second chances aren’t guaranteed.
b. They sought this situation themselves in persistently rejecting the truth.
c. Even at this point, they may just dislike the consequences of their sin and not actually hate their sin.
- We presume that God will always give endless opportunities, but that doesn’t happen. There may be times when God doesn’t choose to continue to put more and more chances in front of someone.
- At the end of the day, hearing the Word is a privilege, not a right.
- A small note: back in this day almost no one would have hand printed copies of anything.
- When we think of accessing the Word, our minds go to “well, they could always just open up a Bible and read the truth.” That wasn’t a widely-available option back then.
- And so they would have had to rely on their priests or what those around them knew. If those people were compromised, they could have been in a situation where they didn’t have access to the Word.
- Of course, in our internet age, this is a foreign concept to us. We are used to instantly being able to access pretty much anything. It’s hard for us to imagine being in a situation where we just don’t know and have no way of finding out. But that may well be where they were.
- It should be noted that there is a sense in which “they asked for it.”
- As we look above at vv. 4-9, it’s clear that their sin was substantial. These are not innocent people caught in the hands of a capricious god. No, these are people who have been walking away from Him for some time.
- That there is no truth left could happen within a short time, several years later, or with the next generation.
- We have an example of something along these lines in the book of Nehemiah. In chapter 8, they are reading the Law of God to the people for the first time in a long time. See 8:5-11. There are multiple mentions of weeping. This is because the people realized how far from God’s original plan they had gotten. They had lost their awareness of God’s truth.
- This is a horrible reality.
COULD IT HAPPEN TODAY? It’s more likely if Christianity is discredited and unlived.
a. Discredited.
- What might it look like for people to not consider Christianity a legitimate option?
- We are moving in the direction of Christianity being more and more discredited. There was a time when it was the default spiritual option for many people, but that is decreasing.
- Let’s just focus on one way this is happening: the rise of the “nones.” It points us toward more people who don’t even consider an option.
b. Unlived.
- Someone said something along the lines of: “Christianity hasn’t been tried and found wanting so much as it’s been found difficult and left untried.”
- Today we see a fair amount of talk about Christianity, but not nearly as much tangible evidence of what it looks like to walk around and live like Jesus.
- One way that we have seen that happen in the recent past is hypocritical Christian lives.
- People may be intrigued by Jesus, but they are repelled by many of the Christians they know. They see their judgmental attitudes and their ability to justify their sins. And they want no part of it.
A FINAL CAUTION: It left the next generation without truth.
- Amos 8:13.
- Verse 13 is tied to vv. 11-12. The “thirst” mentioned in v. 13 is not physical, but harkens back to v. 11’s spiritual thirst. This may be the saddest part of the passage. It’s not just that they lost God’s Word for themselves, but their children are lost in the woods as well.
