AMOS 9 (NOTES OF A READING)
AMOS 9 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC The prophecy of Amos at Bethel is a remarkable testimony to the patience of Jehovah with a people who had departed from Him. Bethel no longer had the character of the house of God. Amaziah said, “The land is not able to bear all his words”. If God’s word is refused He takes it away (see chapter 8: 11, 12). “Behold, days come, saith the Lord Jehovah, when I will send a famine ... of hearing the words of Jehovah”. Forty years ago a servant of the Lord said, ‘The Bible ceases to be light from God’, and it is more true now, though copies of the Scriptures are multiplied. What comes from God is the only security for men. When lawlessness breaks out men will feel the great loss they have sustained in the undermining of the Scriptures. Persons unable to cope with it will long for the restraint and comfort of the word of God and will not be able to find it.
Ques Will they have bibles?
CAC Oh yes, they will have bibles.
Ques What will the Scriptures be to them?
CAC A bit of ancient literature, as it is now for many. Meanwhile, God does not descend from His own standard, as we see in chapter 9 where the Lord is standing upon the altar. I think that indicates that God does not depart from His own standard of holiness. The altar, of course, speaks of the death of Christ; and that remains God’s standard, and there is no right or holy basis for anything in this world but the death of Christ.
Rem It speaks of judgment too. In Psalm 22, “And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”.
CAC Yes. The altar is expressly said to be “Holiness of holinesses”, which is the strongest expression used of holiness. It is the same expression as that used of the holiest of all.
God cannot endure the flesh. The only way of escape for any child of Adam is the death of Christ. God has made a holy way out, has He not? That evil is abhorrent to the nature of God is shown in the death of Christ; anything not in harmony with that must go. The Lord stands there to express His judgment of everything that is going on in Israel.
The plumb-line would speak of righteousness; there is no better illustration of it. And it is also a constructive idea; a wall is constructed according to the rectitude of the divine standard.
Rem “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him” (2 Corinthians 5: 21).
CAC And the result of that apprehended would be that righteousness would mark us. The plumb-line is to be applied at every point. It looks in this chapter as if all was excluded in Israel, yet verse 8 says, “Only that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith Jehovah”. Very beautiful is the introduction of a reserved remnant. All through the church period there is a remnant of Israel reserved as an elect remnant. Israel will be shaken, it says, “like as one shaketh corn in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth”. He is looking after His grain. And He is going to rebuild all that has fallen down. “I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old”.
Ques Why is the tabernacle connected with David here?
CAC Because I think the dispensation realised its full glory in David. He was the man after God’s own heart.
Ques Would it be in the sense that the service of God continued through all generations?
CAC Yes. Things in that dispensation came to a climax under David. In our dispensation we have come to the reality of that which is typified. We know Him in that character, we have to do with David. He says to Philadelphia, “These things saith the holy, the true; he that has the key of David ...”, and in Revelation 22, “I Jesus ... I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star”. That which came in of David, of Christ as David, was committed to man’s responsibility and has fallen down. It was divinely perfect in every detail but has fallen and is now a hopeless ruin, and that is the condition today.
Ques Would Acts 15: 16, 17 be some of the “prophetic scriptures” referred to in Romans 16: 26?
CAC Yes. James stood up to support the new departure there in Acts 15.
Rem God secures that which can be carried over into His purpose.
CAC The only way out of the confusion is to have [p. 440] divine thoughts built up in our souls. That is the character of the church today, God’s original thoughts set out by the apostles being built up in souls. The thing now is to get the truth built into souls, that is what God is working. It is not exactly anything new. It says here, “I will build it as in the days of old”; that is, going back to the original thoughts. And it is open to all saints. These thoughts in themselves cannot be ruined. Great and precious thoughts of God have been made known by the apostles and we are to walk together in the light and power — where there is power — of them.
The tabernacle of David in one sense is the whole divine system brought in by Christ and set up in the power of the Spirit. As built up in souls, it prepares for blessing, so there is no gap in the agricultural year, there is always something going on.
Rem It has been said that these prophetic books all end on a hopeful note.
CAC And the whole Bible ends on that note-the holy city. Revelation is a book of judgments, yet it finishes with the bride and the Lamb, and the holy city coming down. This scripture will be literally true for Israel in the millennium, but there is a far greater thing coming. The millennium is not only limited (it is not eternal) but it is an inferior order of blessing.
Rem There is wonderful blessing connected with the millennium too.
CAC Well, you do not want it in your circumstances now. We must not let the earthly side occupy our minds. Our own position, what God has given to us in Christ, is of a heavenly order. So we might be miserable in our circumstances, but in triumph in our portion; that is possible. I suppose Paul had a miserable life, and he said, “I die daily”; that is, he was continually ill-treated and spoken against, but he was always rejoicing in connection with his portion in Christ in heaven. The work of God now is to build up the truth in souls; then we shall be sure to walk together.
[p. 441] Rem The cities shall be built, it says.
CAC That is, the local assemblies; as the truth forms them they are brought to walk together. It is not a question of ‘getting into fellowship’. We want to get away from the outward to what God is doing to build up the truth of God in souls. You could not have six people built up in the truth without their being together according to the assembly of God. Thousands of saints have found this to be a great reality. There is always a harmony and correspondence in the ways of God whatever the dispensation may be, and we see a correspondence in what God is doing in the assembly with what He was doing in Israel. We belong to a dispensation that is ruined, that is, the truth as committed to man’s responsibility, all that is ruined. The truth that is built up in our souls cannot be ruined. There is no time lost; for saints walking in the truth there will always be something going on; there is no break in the continuity of the labour. The thing to be concerned about is that what is connected with our system should be built up in our souls. Then we shall become firm, a wall built by a plumb-line.
Ques It says, “The mountains shall drop new wine, and all the hills shall melt”; would you explain that?
CAC And it is all for a people who have forfeited everything and who are in captivity. For us it is the fulness of heavenly blessing, and who could describe that? I suppose few of us know much about what that is.
The church was in ruins when Paul wrote, “All seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 2: 21). Well, that is ruin, is it not? I hope we shall be encouraged to go in for the full wealth of God.