This is Daniel Whyte III with The Scripture & The Sense Podcast #405, where I read the Word of God and give the sense of it based on an authoritative commentary source such as the Bible Knowledge Commentary. This podcast is based upon Nehemiah 8:8 where it says Ezra and the Levites “read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” The aim of this podcast is that through the simple reading of the Word of God and the giving of the sense of it, the church would be revived and the world would be awakened.

Today we are reading Amos 1:3.

3 Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:

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That was Amos 1:3. Now here is the sense of it.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary reads:

The general declaration of irrevocable judgment occurs through the repeated phrase, For three sins or even for four, I will not turn back My wrath. The use of a number followed by the next higher number is frequent in the Old Testament. Usually the higher number is enumerated in detail, with special emphasis given the final item. Here Amos cited only the last of the crimes, the one which had finally gone beyond God’s patience. Meir Weiss argues that the phrase should be translated, “For three sins of … even for four,” as a poetic way of expressing the number seven, “a clearly typological number which symbolizes completeness”. If this is correct, it means irrevocable judgment was pronounced on each nation for its full and complete sin. In the case of the surrounding nations, only the final and culminating sin was named. But for Israel, the complete list of seven was given. Israel’s panic would likewise be sevenfold in the day God judged them.

The cause of judgment for each nation was its “sins,” its covenant violations. The word for “sin” means “rebellion” or “revolt,” and was used in secular treaties to describe a vassal’s disobedience of the terms of a covenant. The Old Testament prophets also used the noun peša‘ or the verb pāša‘ in denouncing Israel’s rebellion against God’s covenant with her.

Amos specifically viewed the sins of Judah and Israel as violations of the Mosaic Covenant. She had failed to observe the terms of God’s Law. But not only Israel had sinned against a covenant with God. The Gentile nations also were guilty of peša‘—rebellion against a divinely established and universally recognized agreement. Apparently Amos had in mind their rebellion against God’s universal covenant with humanity made at the time of Noah. In exchange for God’s suzerain promise never again to destroy the earth with a flood, the vassal peoples were to refrain from shedding blood because disregard for human life is an assault on God’s own image in man. Human life, rather than being destroyed or curtailed, was to multiply and increase on the earth. This mutual agreement, whereby God would preserve the earth and people would honor and extend human life, was called an “everlasting covenant”.

This is the covenant, Amos charged, that the Gentile nations had rebelled against. By their acts of barbarism (Amos 1:3), their wholesale deportations of slave populations (vv. 6, 9), their unnatural and stubborn hatreds (v. 11), their sickening atrocities (v. 13), and their desecrations of the dead (2:1), they had broken the covenant that forbade such inhuman acts. Because of these sins, the earth’s sovereign Lord declared, “I will not turn back My wrath.”
Similarly Isaiah (Isa. 24:4–6; 26:20–21) said that God would bring a “curse” of drought “to punish the people of the earth” because they had “broken the everlasting covenant” by shedding blood. As the New Testament confirms, though Gentiles may not have received the spoken or written Law, the requirements of human decency are nevertheless known to them, and their own accusing conscience tells them when they violate God’s standard (Rom. 2:14–15).
The culminating sin of Damascus, the capital of Aram, is that she threshed Gilead (also mentioned in Amos 1:13) of Transjordanian Israel with sledges having iron teeth. Threshing (cutting and separating the grain from the husks) was done on a threshing floor by pulling a heavy sledge over the grain. The sledge was a pair of roughly shaped boards, bent upward at the front, studded with iron prongs or knives. The reference here could be quite literal, describing a method of torturing prisoners; it is also a figure for harsh and thorough conquest (cf. Isa. 41:15; Micah 4:13; Hab. 3:12). Aram’s armies had raked across Gilead, slicing and crushing it as though it were grain on a threshing floor. This Israelite territory east of Jordan had suffered greatly during constant battles with the Arameans, particularly during the time of Hazael (841–801 b.c.) and his son and successor Ben-Hadad III (Amos 1:4; cf. 2 Kings 8:7–12; 10:32–33; 13:3–7; note the reference to “threshing” in 2 Kings 13:7).

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Thank you for listening to the Scripture & The Sense Podcast. Remember to read the Word of God each and every day and pray without ceasing to God for wisdom to understand it and apply it to your life. Most importantly, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Please stay tuned for a complete presentation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ so that you can get your soul saved from Hell to that wonderful place called Heaven when you die. May God bless you and keep you is my prayer.

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Chynna Phillips, the well-known singer who is also one of the music industry’s most outspoken Christians, says her niece and nephew-in-law — Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber — can make a difference for the kingdom of God.

“They are awesome examples of what it is to be a Christian and I feel like they’re going to help pave the way for other young people to see it in a new light and see that Christianity is cool,” Phillips told the New York Post’s Page Six.

Phillips, 51, is a member of the group Wilson Phillips and the daughter of John and Michelle Phillips of the 1960s group Mamas and the Papas. Her husband is William Baldwin, whose brother, Stephen, is Hailey’s father.

Phillips holds a Bible study in her Los Angeles home. Bieber and Hailey Baldwin don’t attend the Bible study, but Phillips said it “would be really fun” if they did.

She told Page Six she became a Christian at the age of 12 when classmates offered to pray for her.

“I knew in that moment,” she said, “that I had been touched by God and that Jesus was real and Jesus truly was the son of God and that I needed to come to terms with that reality because it was the truth. Ever since that moment I’ve known that Jesus is Lord.”

Her teen years, though, included alcohol and drug use, which she now says were a “Band-Aid to cover up all of my abandonment issues with my father and grief surrounding his drug use.”

Source: Christian Headlines

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HYDERABAD, India, February 4, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Hindu extremists in southern India who beat Christian children during worship on Jan. 19 and then filed a police complaint against the congregation left them with a warning.

“If we hear that you stepped out of your homes and told anybody about this, we will set your homes on fire and will burn you alive,’” some of the 20 assailants told Christians gathered for worship on the terrace of a home in Malasamudra village, Karnataka state, according to those present.

The Christians had begun worship at 7 a.m. when the radical Hindus came up the stairs to the terrace, unnoticed. Soon the small congregation saw the intruders taking photos and videotaping them, said Mary Bellary, who along with her husband Hanumanthappa Bellary was hosting the worship.

“They flashed camera lights at children, and we requested them to please go and not disturb the prayers,” Mary Bellary said. “But they continued taking pictures, videotaping us and passed comments, saying, ‘Look! Christians gathered here on the terrace to carry out conversions.”’

When Bellary and other women tried to stop them from taking video of the 12 children present, the intruders pushed them away, she said. The Christians asked them to leave, and the intruders put their hands on the women’s chests and pulled their sarees, tearing them, she said.

“They punched my 15-year-old son in his stomach, and other kids also got hurt,” she told Morning Star News. “They were kicked to the floor and were beaten up on their backs. My uncle and husband tried hard to protect the women and children, but those men were very aggressive and physically stronger than us.”

The neighbors only watched, the 32-year-old mother of three said.

“The children just kept looking at us crying for help,” Bellary said.

The attack and threat so terrified them, she said, that they did not leave their homes in Gadag District for the rest of the day. At about 7 p.m., officers from Gadag Town Police Station showed up with word that a complaint had been filed against them, she said.

“The police officer told us that we had attacked some people during Christian prayers that morning, and that they were injured and hospitalized,” Bellary said. “After attacking us on Jan. 19 morning, the Hindu extremists got themselves admitted in a hospital and filed a false complaint against us.”

When police summoned the Christians to the police station the next morning, they did not know what to do, she said.

“Our people were injured, yet we didn’t step out of our homes fearing for our lives, and there at the police station our attackers were influencing the police to frame us in cases,” Bellary told Morning Star News.

Michael Rosario, a lawyer with legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom-India, along with Christian volunteer Johnson David, set out to Gadag to accompany the victims to the police station.

“We ensured that the injured received treatment at the nearest government hospital,” Rosario told Morning Star News. “Basavanappa Malingpur [Bellary’s uncle] had injuries on his head and leg and had to remain hospitalized for three days. The rest, the injured children and women, received first aid.”

By the time Rosario and David reached the police station on Jan. 20, the Hindu extremists and their supporters were already there. The inspector informed the Christians’ counsel that since police had already received a complaint from the village president – who had led the attack – and his cohorts the previous day, he had no option but to book cases against the Christians, David said.

Rosario said their discussion with police continued for some time.

Source: Christian Headlines

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An atheist organization is calling for an investigation after 26 Alabama high school football players were baptized at midfield in the team’s football stadium, saying the event ostracized non-religious students and gave the appearance of school endorsement.

The superintendent, though, says the school followed the law.

At issue is a Nov. 21 event in which 26 members of the Reeltown High School football team who had made professions of faith were baptized in a trough at the 50-yard-line on a day the team didn’t play. The players had accepted Christ at an assembly held outside school hours and wanted to be baptized together, on the field where they play, AL.com reported.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), though, says the event was improper and possibly illegal. It sent a letter to Tallapoosa County Schools Superintendent Joe Windle asserting that “reasonable” students would have perceived “it was endorsed by the school.”

“The District should take the appropriate steps to ensure there will be no further religious rituals, including baptisms, during school-sponsored activities,” the FFRF letter said.

Further, the letter said, the event “ostracizes those students and families who identify as nonreligious.” FFRF calls itself an organization of “atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree.”

Family members were present, as was head football coach Matt Johnson.

Windle says he investigated the matter and found no wrongdoing. He also says he signed off on the baptisms. Players weren’t required to attend, and local pastors performed the baptisms, Windle said.

Source: Christian Headlines

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