Fearlessly Courageous

FAMINE OF HEARING AND OBEYING!

I was reading an old post from a dear friend William Sanford who is a messianic Rabbi and in it, he mentioned Amos 8:11, and the phrase “Famine of hearing the word of God” struck me hard. The Hebrew word Shama actually translates to obeying. I went off to research more precisely what that meant today.

Amos 8:11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD”. Amos was the name of a Biblical prophet of the 8th-century BC. His name meant in Hebrew “borne by God”.

By occupation, he was a shepherd; whether he was merely that or a man of some means is not certain. He preached for only a short time.

What a precise and even a peculiar famine, actually much worse than food or water, but it hits at the heart of God’s people. In effect, causing the very fabric of society to unravel. (Just look around you).

Let's look deeper, it didn’t say a famine of the word of God…but one of hearing. God’s word would still be there, but it will be rare that they are heard. The truth…still obtainable. Inspired messages… still accessible. However, a curse from God on the land…It is God who causes the truth to not be heard. How can that be?

This famine of hearing occurs due to people not esteeming the Word of God, and because it is not valued and not acted upon, He removes it. However, it does not have to be that way with us. We have been blessed with understanding — with the ability to hear God's words and rightly respond. If we value the truth, we will continually search it out, and we will hear it. Because we value it, we will recognize what is false and contrary, and not want to have anything to do with it.

But my heart is screaming there is more still and the scripture comes to mind. Malachi 4:5-6 “ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

" And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse”.

And in my heart, I know that too many of us fathers have not done that. We have not done if for ourselves and the mass exodus of fathers who have turned their hearts away have unleashed a curse on our country and that is real and clearly evident.

Would anyone contend that the first victims of this famine are the young? They are more susceptible because their parents failed to provide a solid foundation of truth. The young only know what the older generation has taught them. With anything remotely Christian being banished from public schools and colleges and ridiculed in the media, and with churches increasingly neglecting the Word of God, the youth are being supplied with a very weak or non-existent diet of truth.

An entire generation is falling for the line that there is no absolute truth, that everyone's opinion is valid (unless that opinion is biblical), and that the only modern sin is to judge. All of these forms of idolatry are flourishing because God's words are not being heard, and something else has taken their place.

Amos 8:14 describes those who are so adamantly committed to their idolatry, who are so spiritually sick from malnourishment, that they will

"fall and never rise again."

One of God's annual feasts instructs us in how we can avoid becoming a casualty of such a famine of hearing. The New Testament clearly shows that Jesus Christ and the disciples observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread (see Matthew 26:17; Mark 14; Luke 22), and the latter did so even after Jesus' death (Acts 12:3; 20:6; I Corinthians 5:7-8).

In the New Testament, leavening and unleavened bread take on the added meaning that the ancient Israelites did not grasp. In addition to leavening symbolizing sin, hypocrisy, and pride, Jesus uses it as a metaphor for false doctrine (Matthew 16:11-12). Conversely, Paul describes unleavened bread as symbolic of "sincerity and truth" (I Corinthians 5:8). A famine of hearing God's words, then, is like a famine of eating unleavened bread. When such a famine occurs, people turn to eat leavening—false doctrines, false philosophies, and ways of thinking that are ultimately "malice and wickedness."

Remember that this famine, this curse, simply continues the trajectory that the people are already on. They suppress the truth and reject God's Word, and so God gives them what they ask for. However, this famine begins in the heart, in the mind. It has its genesis in the regard and esteem—or lack thereof—in which the people hold God's Word. When His Word is not valued, God takes away the hearing of it. The result is stumbling, as the people lack the means to evaluate their circumstances and make the right decisions.

The instructions for the Days of Unleavened Bread give a solution—a simple one, but one that takes continual diligence. God instructs, on the one hand, to remove all leavening and to ensure that none is seen with us (Exodus 12:15, 19-20; 13:3, 7; Deuteronomy 16:3-4). He is telling us to be vigilant to keep the falsehoods out. We are to guard against this world's philosophies and ways that may seem harmless enough but are actually slowly poisoning the mind.

In fact, God gives more instructions about eating unleavened bread than about avoiding leavening. If the relative number of instructions is significant, ingesting truth to make it a part of us is more important than avoiding falsehood. Even the name of the festival suggests that the greater emphasis is on the unleavened bread, which ultimately represents Jesus Christ Himself.

Of course, neither action can be neglected—God requires us to do both. Yet studying truth is vital because it enables us to identify and resist the leavening—to recognize what is false because we are so familiar with what is true.

The mind will feed itself on something. If we pass over the truth for something that may not be altogether wrong but is not actually nourishing, over time we will become spiritually weak and unable to resist the lies. All the while, because our minds are full, we may not realize that we are starving ourselves to spiritual death. This does not happen overnight, but it does happen.

When the famine of the Word of God occurs, the youth of Israel will fall most readily into the trap. There will be a tremendous revival in false religions, especially of the great false church. Where else can the young turn? They will be more susceptible because their parents failed to provide a solid foundation of truth on which to base wise spiritual decisions.

The young only know what the older generation has taught them.

Where does repentance start?

The first is responsibility: We must recognize that we have done wrong. The second is regret: We must have true remorse for doing wrong and for the pain and problems we've caused. The third is resolve: We must be committed never to repeat the act regardless of the temptations or situation.

1 Peter 4:17

Waymaker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsypFJ5mNw0

Excepts are taken from https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/9063/Famine-Hearing-Word.htm