What the Bible says about Truth, Despising
(From Forerunner Commentary)
Unlike the judgments of the Gentiles (Amos 1:3-15; 2:1-3), Amos indicts Judah for breaking His commandments, specifically lying.
Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept His commandments. Their lies lead them astray, lies after which their fathers walked. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.” (Amos 2:4-5)
Judah's despising of God's law and Israel's commanding the prophets to stop preaching His Word (Amos 2:12) reflect the exact same moral condition: Both refused the voice of God as spoken through His prophets. What God intended to be their privilege through the revelation of Himself and His law had turned out to be their central peril. It is another way of saying, “To whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48).
Physical Israel today—the Anglo-Saxon nations of America, the British Commonwealth, and northwestern Europe—is rejecting God's way of life just as ancient Israel did. It is this proud attitude that spiritual Israel, God's church, is fighting. God will not accept any excuse for failing to live His way of life (Hebrews 6:4-6) because when He reveals it, He also provides the power to live it.
God promises He will never give us a trial that is too great and will always provide a way of escape (I Corinthians 10:13). He wants to see if we love His truth and follow His instructions. And if we need help to do what He has revealed to us to be His way, He will endow us with the ability to fulfill it (II Corinthians 3:4-6).
As God destroyed the Egyptians and Amorites to deliver Israel (Amos 2:9-10), He will also deliver us no matter the odds against us. We cannot overcome human nature, Satan, and this evil world without the help of God. We must seek God and ask for the gifts we need to overcome, grow, and produce the fruit of a godly way of life (Luke 11:9-13; James 1:5).
Despising truth is an inward attitude that outwardly reveals itself in immorality, and this is the condition God found in ancient Israel. The people had become complacent about His revelation to them. They zealously sought after knowledge—even religious knowledge—but they did not really love the truth (Romans 10:2-3). Their ambivalence to the truth was reflected in their immorality; if they truly loved God's truth, they would have lived it, and God would have had no cause for judgment.
In this Information Age, we accumulate mounds of data—regarding ethics, solutions to social ills, and the like—yet our morals decline. Intelligent, educated individuals have written many Bible commentaries, but they still refuse to keep the Sabbath or holy days. They write that Christmas and Easter have pagan origins and are not commanded in the Bible, but they still observe them. They do not love God's truth enough to change. Such was Israel's problem, and it could be ours if we are not careful.
Because God has revealed His truth to us, each Christian is responsible for conforming to it and growing. A greater diversity of distractions competes for our time and attention than at any other time in the history of mankind. If we are not extremely careful and lose our sense of urgency, we will gradually lose our understanding of what is true and what is not. Our ability to distinguish between right and wrong will become blurred. We must ensure that God, His Word, and His way are always first in our lives.
Christ said that if we keep the truth, the truth, in turn, will keep us free (John 8:31-36). If we live it, the revealed truth of God will protect us from sinking back into slavery to sin. But first, we must love the truth God has given us. Humanly, we pursue what we love. God wants a father-child or teacher-student relationship with us. If we do not love truth, and if we do not pursue it and God Himself, we will seriously undermine our relationship with Him, and He could interpret our attitude as despising His truth.
Love of the truth comes from God through His Holy Spirit and must be nourished through our response to it. We must not only learn it but also apply it in our lives. Doing so will make the difference between being saved and perishing (II Thessalonians 2:9-12).
John W. Ritenbaugh and Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (Part Two)Related Topics: Complacency | Distinguishing Right from Wrong | Distraction | Love of the Truth | Lying | Sabbath | Truth | Truth, Despising | Truth, Love of | Urgency, Sense of
Law in Amos 2:4 refers to instruction, not legislation and its enforcement. From a Hebrew verb that means “to throw,” its root describes casting lots or throwing dice. When lots or dice were cast, God revealed His will in the way they landed (Proverbs 16:33; see Leviticus 16:8-10; Acts 1:26). At times, lots were used in making judgments in criminal cases in which judges needed to ascertain God's will (Joshua 7:13-25). Thus, by setting a legal precedent, the casting of lots provided instruction in other cases involving the same basic principles of behavior. God's will—His law—was taught to His people through casting lots.
This instruction process implies a teacher-student relationship. When the Israelites rejected God's instruction contained in His law, they rejected the Instructor as well. Their relationship with Him quickly deteriorated.
The Hebrew word underlying commandment means “to engrave or cut into stone,” suggesting its permanence and immutability in contrast to temporary and changeable lies. The law comes from an unchangeable, righteous, and pure God in contrast to fickle and iniquitous men.
Judah's despising of God's law and revelation of Himself was internal—from the heart (Psalm 78:37; 81:11-12; Jeremiah 5:23). The personal and social failures Amos records provide evidence that the people had rejected the truth. So it is with us: God wants to change our hearts so He can change our actions and turn around our lives.
In every area of life, Israel perverted the truth of God to accommodate human ideas. In the final tally, they loved lies rather than the revelation of God (II Thessalonians 2:11-12). Thus, Amos says that God's people despised His law. They made the mistake of devaluing their calling and considered it common. Believing they were God's elect, they thought they were irrevocably saved. With this attitude, it was only a matter of time before spiritual and moral complacency set in. As the church of God, we cannot allow ourselves to slip into this attitude because we, too, would fall into immorality.
If that occurs, God must pass judgment because His justice is the same for everybody (Colossians 3:25; I Peter 1:17). God's laws govern the people on the outside as well as the people on the inside. No matter what makes Israel or the church distinctly different, His judgment is always righteous. When God could not change Israel's immorality through His prophets, He had to punish them. So will He punish an apostate church.
It is easy to see why this book was written for the end-time church. The people of America and the British Commonwealth are already in the moral and spiritual condition of the people of Israel and Judah in the time of Amos. Members of God's church come out of such a world. Just as Israel's privileged position became a curse, so will it be for the Christian who ultimately rejects his calling (Hebrews 6:4).
John W. Ritenbaugh and Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (Part Two)Related Topics: Calling, Rejection of | Casting Lots | Commandment | Complacency | Complacency, Moral | Despising God's Law | Fickleness | God's Judgment | God's Justice | Justice | Law | Moral Complacency | Rejecting God's Law | Rejecting Instruction | Teacher-Student Relationship | Truth, Despising | Truth, Love of
If a person does right, people will begin to persecute him. It may, very sadly, even happen right inside the church.
Amos confirms that the first thing that occurs if we really are undergoing transformation—if we have had an encounter with God—is that we will turn to God's truth. Our attitude will change toward God's truth. The author of Psalm 119:97 says, "O, how I love Your law!" He was in love with it. To him, it was so good to be able to look into God's Word. If a person loves something, what does he want to do with it? Talk about it! Share it with other people. Is that not what happens to the newly converted person? Indeed, it is. One can almost guage a person's conversion by how he loves the Word of God, for "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."
Amos states these truths so succinctly. All we need to do to understand it positively is turn what he says around backward. If we really do seek God, we are going to love His Word. We will hang on everything that comes out of His mouth—because we will see it for what it is. The most valuable thing a person can possess is the Word of God.
These people in Amos showed every evidence of a refusal to be governed by truth in their lives.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Prayer and Seeking GodRelated Topics: Conversion | Love | Love for God | Love of the Truth | Persecution | Transformation | Truth | Truth, Despising | Truth, Guarding | Truth, Love of | Truth, Trusting in God's | Word of God
A principle is being brought out here. The priests had let down in their devotion to God, performing their duties in a routine manner, not taking them seriously. Therefore, the people let down also. When the priesthood casts off the truth, then so too do the people.
John O. Reid
TithingRelated Topics: Tithing | Tithing, Principles of | Truth, Departure from | Truth, Despising | Truth, Guarding | Truth, Love of
Some think that, when someone accepts heresy, he will "leave the church." That may occur on some occasions, but this confuses hairesis with apostasia. In this verse, apostasia is translated "falling away" in both the KJV and NKJV, giving the impression that it refers to leaving an organization. But apostasia means "to depart from truth"! One can remain in an organization and be departing from truth all along.
This is vitally important to us living at the end time! Notice what Paul writes in II Thessalonians 2:9-12 about this:
The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Damnable HeresiesRelated Topics: Apostasy | Apostasy, Process of | Deception | Deception, Guarding against | Hairesis | Heresy | Heresy | Lawless One | Love of the World | Lying wonders | Truth | Truth, Departure from | Truth, Despising | Truth, Guarding | Truth, Love of
A major area that separates those who are being saved from those who are perishing is the love of the truth. Truth sanctifies; it sets those who love and use it apart for the rewards of applying it to gain eternal life or better health.
Salvation is a process. Consider this: When God brought Israel out of Egypt, He redeemed them, but the process was not finished. It had only begun and did not end until they entered the Promised Land, a type of God's Kingdom. God intended the journey through the wilderness to prepare them for living in the land. However, a whole generation died in that process because they did not love the truth God gave them throughout the journey. The journey symbolizes the process of being saved.
Salvation is not religious rite, nor is it just a catchy theological term given to make people feel at peace. It is the experience of being saved from what would otherwise destroy us, which takes place between the time of our redemption and actually being spirit beings in the Kingdom of God. God is using His creative powers to get us to respond to truth. It does not matter what area of life or where the truth comes from. Truth is truth, but some truths are more important than others.
Verses 11-12 add more: "And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." To those who will not yield to a love of truth, Paul warns, God will send a "deluding energy." As they reject the truth and continue in sin, a deceptive force will build and pull them deeper into it like a drug addiction. This parallels Romans 1:28, where Paul says, "God gave them over to a debased [reprobate, KJV] mind." This is what happens to people who leave the church: They continue to move further and further from the truth.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Eating: How Good It Is! (Part Five)Related Topics: Journey as Metaphor | Journey as Symbol | Love of the Truth | Reprobate Mind | Salvation Process | Truth | Truth, Despising | Truth, Guarding | Truth, Love of