Amos 3 -- We are supposed to be the salt and the light
3 Hear this word, people of Israel, the word the Lord has spoken against you—against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt: 2 “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.” 3 Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? 4 Does a lion roar in the thicket when it has no prey? Does it growl in its den when it has caught nothing? 5 Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything? 6 When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? 7 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.
We have a duty and a responsibility. We know God’s words, we know His laws. We are supposed to be the light of the world and the salt that kills the germs. If God and His people are going to walk together they must be in agreement. If you are a servant of the Lord you should hear when the Lion seizes the prey. You should be aware when the trap has sprung. You need to sound the trumpet! The fool in his heart says there is no God, but we need to let them know that when disaster comes to a city the Lord has caused it. This plan has been revealed to His servants, so the servants have a responsibility and a duty to sound the alarm.
8 The lion has roared— who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has spoken— who can but prophesy? 9 Proclaim to the fortresses of Ashdod and to the fortresses of Egypt: “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria; see the great unrest within her and the oppression among her people.” 10 “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “who store up in their fortresses what they have plundered and looted.” 11 Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “An enemy will overrun your land, pull down your strongholds and plunder your fortresses.” 12 This is what the Lord says: “As a shepherd rescues from the lion’s mouth only two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites living in Samaria be rescued, with only the head of a bed and a piece of fabric from a couch.”
The Lord has spoken that He will judge them for what they have done to the poor. They have plundered and looted the poor like an invading army, therefore an invading army will plunder and loot your strongholds. Joel describes this invading army as a “bug” and uses five or six different analogies. But consider what this virus will do to the banks and investment banks that sell mortgage backed securities. Shopping malls and theaters are done. Concerts and sports arenas are done. They will be bankrupt. Even if they are allowed to reopen they won’t be allowed to operate profitably. Also, all the small businesses in the malls will also go bankrupt, if they survive it will be through an online presence. And therefore the anchor businesses like Sears and Macy’s will also go under. Now the saying in the real estate business is this: if you owe $1 million to the bank you have a problem, if you owe $1billion to the bank they have a problem. The banks have a huge problem. The trap has been sprung, the lion has the prey in his mouth and is roaring. Maybe a few scraps here and there will be rescued, that is it. This situation has forced everyone to use the internet and you can expect orders over the internet to companies like Amazon.com will increase greatly but these in turn will cause most of the stores with a retail presence to go out of business. With unemployment at Great Depression levels you can expect the housing market to also collapse. Car sales are seeing a 30% drop nationwide, it is hard to imagine that showrooms can keep much of a retail presence anywhere other than cyberspace. Now one thing you can be sure of is the banks will keep a smile on their face and pretend all is well with the hope of somehow selling what few scraps they have left.
13 “Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty. 14 “On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground. 15 I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord.
This is talking about a “golden calf”, interestingly down by Wall Street they have a bronze bull indicating a bull market. The stock market has several sources of power, of course you have the major stock indexes like S&P 500, and you have the bond index, you have the commodities market, and you have currency markets. These will all be cut off. We are seeing major inflation due to the unrestrained spending of the Biden administration. They are using the printing press to print money and that is robbery to all those who have US debt. The only protection for other countries is to buy into some digital currency and to dump the US dollar as a reserve currency. That will cut off the horns of the altar. You will see a collapse of the US economy. Not so much for the poor and blue collar as we will shift to a barter economy, but to the wealthy, their entire wealth will be gone in a flash.
3 Hear this word, people of Israel, the word the Lord has spoken against you—against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt: 2 “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.” 3 Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? 4 Does a lion roar in the thicket when it has no prey? Does it growl in its den when it has caught nothing? 5 Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything? 6 When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? 7 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.
We have a duty and a responsibility. We know God’s words, we know His laws. We are supposed to be the light of the world and the salt that kills the germs. If God and His people are going to walk together they must be in agreement. If you are a servant of the Lord you should hear when the Lion seizes the prey. You should be aware when the trap has sprung. You need to sound the trumpet! The fool in his heart says there is no God, but we need to let them know that when disaster comes to a city the Lord has caused it. This plan has been revealed to His servants, so the servants have a responsibility and a duty to sound the alarm.
8 The lion has roared— who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has spoken— who can but prophesy? 9 Proclaim to the fortresses of Ashdod and to the fortresses of Egypt: “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria; see the great unrest within her and the oppression among her people.” 10 “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “who store up in their fortresses what they have plundered and looted.” 11 Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “An enemy will overrun your land, pull down your strongholds and plunder your fortresses.” 12 This is what the Lord says: “As a shepherd rescues from the lion’s mouth only two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites living in Samaria be rescued, with only the head of a bed and a piece of fabric from a couch.”
The Lord has spoken that He will judge them for what they have done to the poor. They have plundered and looted the poor like an invading army, therefore an invading army will plunder and loot your strongholds. Joel describes this invading army as a “bug” and uses five or six different analogies. But consider what this virus will do to the banks and investment banks that sell mortgage backed securities. Shopping malls and theaters are done. Concerts and sports arenas are done. They will be bankrupt. Even if they are allowed to reopen they won’t be allowed to operate profitably. Also, all the small businesses in the malls will also go bankrupt, if they survive it will be through an online presence. And therefore the anchor businesses like Sears and Macy’s will also go under. Now the saying in the real estate business is this: if you owe $1 million to the bank you have a problem, if you owe $1billion to the bank they have a problem. The banks have a huge problem. The trap has been sprung, the lion has the prey in his mouth and is roaring. Maybe a few scraps here and there will be rescued, that is it. This situation has forced everyone to use the internet and you can expect orders over the internet to companies like Amazon.com will increase greatly but these in turn will cause most of the stores with a retail presence to go out of business. With unemployment at Great Depression levels you can expect the housing market to also collapse. Car sales are seeing a 30% drop nationwide, it is hard to imagine that showrooms can keep much of a retail presence anywhere other than cyberspace. Now one thing you can be sure of is the banks will keep a smile on their face and pretend all is well with the hope of somehow selling what few scraps they have left.
13 “Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty. 14 “On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground. 15 I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord.
This is talking about a “golden calf”, interestingly down by Wall Street they have a bronze bull indicating a bull market. The stock market has several sources of power, of course you have the major stock indexes like S&P 500, and you have the bond index, you have the commodities market, and you have currency markets. These will all be cut off. We are seeing major inflation due to the unrestrained spending of the Biden administration. They are using the printing press to print money and that is robbery to all those who have US debt. The only protection for other countries is to buy into some digital currency and to dump the US dollar as a reserve currency. That will cut off the horns of the altar. You will see a collapse of the US economy. Not so much for the poor and blue collar as we will shift to a barter economy, but to the wealthy, their entire wealth will be gone in a flash.