Famine In The Land

 

There's a famine for the hearing of The Word. See this Bible? It's never been used. Never opened. Never read. Never loved. No one ever preached from it, nor shared the love of God from it. It's just window dressing in some homes. 

Amos 8:11

Behold, the days come, says The Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing The Word of The Lord. 

The only thing we can do to prepare for this famine is get into The Truth of The Word of God. But why is God sending this type of famine throughout the land? 

Famines happen because there is no food. There is no food because there is a drought. There is a drought because there is no rain. There is no rain because there is no gratitude, no worship of the One True God.

Everyone is right in there own eyes but not in the eyes of God. We need to get right with God the Way God wants us to get right with Him. In Isaiah 1:18, The Lord God calls to His people, “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool." 

A famine for the hearing of The Word will come because there are few preachers of The full gospel Truth of The Word of God. Many will preach only the sweet and not the bitter Truth. Those who preach in this manner are not seeking God, seeking to hear God's Voice and receive from Him what He has to give. There hearts are empty, though they appear to be in the understanding, they too, are in the dark. 

There is no Holy Spirit rain to fall on these preachers of empty words because they do not allow Him to sanctify them and prepare them to be in God's eternal presence. There is no power to their words, nor are the hearts of the people changed. 

It is the Truth of God's Word that changes a person's eternal destination when that person hears The Word, believes The Word, receives The Word and The Word gets applied to their heart. Romans 10:16,17 "But not all of them welcomed the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by The Word of God. 

Many many who need to hear The Truth of The Word of God will refuse to do so. For this Truth reveals The Message of the Love of God to all the world. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

To refuse such an invitation from God is to send one's self to hell. For hell exists though it was not created to punish people, but to punish one-third of heaven's angels for rebelling against GOD and to punish Satan, the archangel formerly known as Lucifer. 

There is a famine for the hearing of The Word of God. How is it going to affect you? 

Taken Out of Commission

Amos 8:11 "Behold, the days come, saith The Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing The Word of The Lord."

Why are you not listening to God's Word being shared by God's people? It is you who are accountable to God for what you hear and what you do with what you hear. It is you that will stand before God some day and have to tell Him why you refused to not only hear His Word being spoken, but rebelled against having to obey His Word.

It is not enough to just hear God's Word being preached into your ears; you must let it fall on your heart, as well. Anyone can memorize words and repeat them back to themselves or others; but it takes The Holy Spirit to recall to mind at times of crises, the storms in our lives, to bring the spoken Word of God back to us, that we may declare with our mouths and our tongues that "Thus sayeth The Word of The Lord God".

Your refusals to hear and obey God have brought the Famine for the Hearing of The Word of God to you and those who are around you. You can deny your responsibility all you want to, that doesn't make you right.

One of these days God will call His people (all believers) into His eternal presence. He will send His Son Jesus Christ once again to this planet, not to die (for that has already been done by Him), but to bring us home with Him. We who believe call this moment in time "the rapture", or 'caught up in the air with Him and so shall we ever be'.

We who preach the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, and Him crucified and resurrected, are God's people, God's children. We who teach The Word of God and live it are leaving soon. And very soon.

It is at that time that there will be a world-wide famine for the hearing of The Word of God. You who chose not to believe will see that God's Word is True and Faithful. Some of you will believe then and search God's Word and seek God's face. You will repent of your wicked ways and believe. But you will pay a high price for such faith. As those who have gone before you will testify, you will have to choose between your new-found belief in God, your faith in His Christ, and denying God. Your reward depends on your choice.

Choosing to stay with God will bring about your immediate and swift death at the hands of those who are in constant rebellion against God's Word. But know, also, that choosing to stay with God will bring you into His eternal presence where you will live eternally, for ever and ever, time without end, with Him and His people. For upon your repentance and belief, you became His people, too.

A Famine For The Hearing of The Word of The Lord-Part 2

Amos 8:11
"Behold, the days come," saith The Lord God, "That I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing The Words of The Lord."

A famine is not caused by excess of a commodity, but by lack of one.  A commodity is an item of value that can be traded or bought and sold between two or more people. When The Word of The Lord holds no value for the hearer of it, then God will remove not only The Word but the speaker of The Word.

Churches begin to empty and tithes into the church decrease. Eventually, even the ministers will be moved elsewhere and the buildings themselves fall into ruin and decay. Apathy kills the soul faster than anything. And to assume that churches die out because of judgment against them is wrong thinking. The days come when people are going to want to hear The Truth of God's Word and that Word will not be found or it will be extremely hard to come by. The value of God's Word will increase to those who seek it; whose hunger cannot be satisfied with replacements; whose thirst will not be slaked by substitutes.
Matthew 7:13, 14 "Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to life, and few there be to find it."

They who preach any other word than The Word of The Lord are leading their flocks to destruction and eternal separation from God. Jesus Christ Is Lord, that is His Name. We know, through the reading of our Bible, that the name Jesus means "He saves" and that Christ means 'Anointed One, Messiah". Lord is the proper Name of The God of Israel: YHWH or JEHOVAH Is His Name.
   When we say we believe that Jesus Christ Is Lord, we are declaring that He is not only God's Son, but that He Is The Lord God, the Second Person in the trinity. The Holy Spirit overshadowed (covered as by a cloud) Mary and placed The Word in her womb in the form of a baby (Luke 1:35).  

John 1:1, 14 "In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. ... And The Word was made flesh, and dwelt (lived) among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of The Father), full of grace and Truth."

Jesus tells us He is The Way, The Truth and The Life in John 14:6 and that The Truth would set us free in John 8:32. To what do you believe He is referring? The Way to reach The Father is through Jesus. The Truth of The Word of The Lord is Jesus. The Life eternal is Jesus. And how does He set us free? When we believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ Is Lord (Romans 10:9 "If you declare with your mouth that Jesus Is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

When God removes the preachers and the teachers of The Word of The Lord from a people who refuse to hear it and not obey it, then the famine comes upon those lands. People rise up and declare their sins to be laws, their self-righteousness plagues their governments and their destructive ways bring about their own downfalls. 

The Word of The Lord tells us that people have 'itchy ears', meaning they do not want to be reminded of their sinful ways and that what they are doing is not only wrong, but evil in God's sight. So, they move to 'greener pastures': churches who preach only a fraction of The Word of The Lord or none at all. They worship the band and not The Lord; their bodies move to the rhythm of the beat and not to the moving of The Holy Spirit of God. 

They have ears that do not hear and mouths that do not speak; they who refuse to hear and obey The Word of The Lord have become their own idols. How true this is in today's world even now. False doctrines tell them they are their own god and they believe it. False prophets spin lies about personal profit and gain; such tales are seen as truth. The pulpit has been replaced by the politically correct platform and the preacher by a marionette, whose strings are regulated by the hand unseen.

God's Word tells us that today is our day of salvation. Why? Because to morrow is not promised. To morrow may not come. To morrow the preaching of The Word of The Lord may be gone and then how will they hear? To morrow the teaching of The Word of The Lord may disappear for ever and how will they learn? How will you know? How will you learn? Who will you go to when God removes His people permanently from this earth? What will you do then, if you neglect this thing we call salvation now? 

A Famine For The Hearing of The Word of The Lord

Amos 8:11 Behold (look now, pay attention), the days come (not are coming but are here now), saith The Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing The Words of The Lord.
1 Samuel 2:1 And the child Samuel ministered unto The Lord before Eli. And The Word of The Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he.
Amos 8:12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek The Word of The Lord, and shall not find it.

     It is not that The Word of The Lord will be lacking, it is the HEARING of The Word of The Lord that lacks. Sermons are preached, songs are sung, lips move, but hearts remain unchanged.
     Christians are being tried by fire, literally. Churches are being burned. People are tortured and killed for their faith in Christ. Babies die at the hands of doctors who should be delivering them into life. Children are neglected and ignored because those adults choose self over others.
     Violence is in our streets, our homes, our schools and our churches because The Word of God is being ignored; not just by those who commit violence against each other, but by those who preach it. Why? Because it isn't being applied.
     Some of us can't let a day go by without eating or drinking something. But we do let days go by without studying our Bibles which contain a much more nutritious source: The Word of God. It is food for our souls: our minds, our wills, our emotions. We are succored by The Word of The Lord moment to moment.
     I use the word 'studying' instead of reading, because anyone can read the Bible and not understand any of it. We need to believe that what we are reading in The Bible is Truth and not fables. We must believe that God Is in order to believe that His Word Is.
     Without a clear understanding of what The Word we are reading means we will, indeed, perish. But there is no need for that. Bibles and Bible resources are available to us almost everywhere. And while there are many spirits in this world, we need to follow The Holy Spirit's lead and let Him guide us in The Word of The Lord that we may see and know God.

     The famine for the hearing of The Word of The Lord is sent by The Lord. It is sent as a judgment against a nation which has repeatedly disobeyed and ignored The Lord God. Though we are not always given a reason why God does things, we see here that disobedience brings curses from The Lord. It is a curse to not hear what The Lord is saying. It is a curse to turn deaf hearts away from His Word.
     This curse, this judgment, fell on Israel and Dan at the time of the writing thereof. For their oppression of the needy (vs 4) and thievery from the poor. Greed overcame obedience (vs 5); they wished their time away and forgot the reason for Sabbath, desiring only to buy and sell in the marketplaces-selling for exorbitant prices, but marking the account books lesser.
     While the souls languished, the wealthy increased. They sold that which was not fit for use (vs 6) to they who could not afford it. And The Lord judged them and condemned their actions (vs 7, 8). Joy would be replaced by mourning (grief and sorrow), songs would become lamentations (expressions of grief) (vs 9).
     The Lord would cover the transgressors with sackcloth (garments of mourning; state of repentance; public display of extreme grief) and baldness (shaved head). Everyone would see and be seen, for The Lord will make the sins of the land known.
     Knowing that the famine for the hearing of The Word of The Lord is sent by The Lord, what can we do but draw nearer to The Lord? And how do we do that? Pray, pray, pray to God for salvation from permanent destruction. We pray, pray pray for the salvation of other people, too. Commune with God, talk with God and allow Him to respond, listen to God with sincere intent to receive from Him.
     Our knowledge of God increases with each passing moment the more time we spend with Him. We are on spiritual alert to hear His Voice and know His Heart better and with greater clarity.

     And just what is God's heart? God's will is that none perish. We see this in John 3:16, 17 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." See? God wants every one to believe that Jesus Christ Is Lord. But He does not force His will on us: we have to make that decision for ourselves, on an individual basis.

   
     

Amos 8:11

This photo shows the result of famine and drought on the physical level.

Our spirit man is in this shape and form as a result of spiritual famine.

Amos 8:11

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord

A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply

Drought - In sports, a drought refers to instances in which a team has gone a lengthy period of time without accomplishing some goal (e.g. making the playoffs or winning a championship).

Period of starvation for large portions of a population. Famine often results from a sharp downturn in food supply, such as two consecutive years of drought

A famine is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any faunal species, which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition ...

A vision statement outlines what an company wants to be. It focuses on tomorrow; it is inspirational; it provides clear decision-making criteria; and it is timeless

A narrative description of a future state (vision) to help keep project teams focused. A concise statement of what needs to change, typically the promoter, sponsor, or leader’s “agenda.” A compelling, conceptual image of the desired future.

Steps to Famine of the hearing of the Word of the Lord

Malachi 2:2-4, 7-10

Refuse to hear

Refuse to believe

Refuse to worship

God curses you

God curses your blessings

Your generations are undone

Your solemn feasts, your holy days, are offensive

God makes you contemptible and base before all people, because you have not followed His ways fully.

Dissention and treachery are among you, because you have broken the covenant God ordained.

Micah 3:6

No vision

No understanding

Dark days

Shame

Confusion

God does not answer