Blow Ye the Trumpet in Zion

BY FRANK PABIAN

Amos 1:1-9:15
WITH THE EXCEPTION of just two passages, the entire nine chapters of Amos describe the extent of God's wrath and the certainty of His forthcoming judgment.

Ostensibly, Amos was prophesying the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 710 B.C. But in the first two chapters, we find that among those whose transgressions the Lord "will not turn away from the punishment thereof" are Judah and the neighboring pagan nations as well.

Indeed, a careful study of this prophetic book shows that, spiritually, it is really talking about the final tribulation period, when God judges the external church for its apostasy, and about the Last Day, when Christ returns to gather the elect and judge the unsaved. This is especially evidenced, as we shall see, in the dosing verse of the book.

But that truth is also implicit in the very first verse, which reads: "The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake."

Type of Christ. The name '"Amos" means '"burden-bearer" Immediately, we can see that Amos may be a picture of the Lord Jesus. At the cross, Christ bore the heavy burden of our sins.

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows," we read in Isaiah 53:4. And in Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus Himself says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me...For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Moreover, it says that Amos was "among the herdmen of Tekoa". A herdman is a shepherd. And in John 10, Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd who calls His own sheep by name and gave His life for His flock.

Tekoa was a dry in Judah (II Chron. 11:5,6). Amos therefore was from the tribe of Judah. The same holds true for Christ. He is "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev. 5:5).

Special trumpet. Significantly, the name Tekoa is closely related to the Hebrew word taqoa. That latter word appears only once in the entire Bible verse 14 of Ezekiel 7where it is translated trumpet. By way of contrast, for the nearly 100 times the words trumpet or trumpets appear in the Old Testament, God uses two other Hebrew words: chatsotserah and shophar.

Ezekiel 7 is a chapter in which God declares emphatically that He will someday judge the disobedient Israel for their sins. We read, for example, in verses 2 and 3:

Thus saith the Lord God unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land. Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations.
]n verse 5, God describes that sure-to-come end as an "evil", saying: "Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come."

End-time warning. It is in that context that God uses that special word for trumpet in verse 14, "They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof." Implication: This taqoa is blown strictly as an end-time warning.

In Jeremiah 6:1, in fact, God Himself links Tekoa with the blowing of the end-time trumpet: "O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-Haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction."

There again, the approaching judgment is identified as "evil".

Note that the blowing of the trumpet is accompanied by the command to God's people to flee out of Jerusalem.

Fleeing Judaea. That is precisely what Jesus warns in Mark 13:14"But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains."

This command to flee from Judaea was given by Jesus also in the context of the final tribulation, the period that immediately precedes Judgment Day. That' s the time when the "abomination of desolation" stands in the holy place-in other words, when false prophets dominate the visible church.

Because most churches will be preaching gospels other than the whole counsel of God, you see, to find truth during this period, believers must flee from Judaeathe external corporate churchand go to the Lord Himself, the Word of God, that is.

Psalm 125:2 likens the Lord to the mountains. It reads, "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever."

Hence, instead of the usual "he that hath an ear, let him hear," Jesus says, "let him that readeth understand." Toward the end of time, we must rely on the written Word for truth, not what we hear from the pulpits.

Of this very truth, Amos 8:11 says, "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."

Earthquake

Other than Jeremiah 6:1, there are only two verses that incorporate the idea of fleeing to the mountains.

The first is Genesis 19:17. Just before God rained brimstone and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, He said to Lot, "Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed ." In Luke 17:28,29, the Lord Jesus Himself likens that event to Judgment Day.

The other is Zechariah 14:5: "And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee."

Toward the end of time, we must rely on the written Word for truth, not what we hear from the pulpits.
 
The phrase "before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah" not only ties this verse directly back to Amos 1, but shows that the earthquake spoken of in both verses is analogous to Judgment Day.

That an earthquake is a picture of Judgment Day can be seen from many other passages in the Bible, especially in Revelation. Here's one example:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, 10, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when iris rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places...For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? (Rev. 6:12-14,17)
Secret revealed. With that in mind, we can safely conclude that through the prophet Amos, a type of the Lord Jesus, God is giving us insights into the final tribulation period and the Judgment Day that follows.

Hence, we read in Amos 3:6: "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?"

The "evil" there, as we saw earlier in Ezekiel 7:5 and Jeremiah 6:1, refers to the judgment at end-time. God is reiterating that He is the One who will surely punish the apostate church and the pagan world.

To the true believers, thankfully, God immediately gives this assurance in verse 7: "Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets."

This is the same promise we saw earlier in Jeremiah 6:1, that before Judgment Day finally comes, someone will "blow the trumpet in Tekoa" (where the sheep are) to warn God's children to "flee out of the midst of Jerusalem"

It is also echoed in Joel 2:1: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand."

Coincidence? When will God reveal His "secret" to His servants? This, I believe, is where the "two years before the earthquake" in Amos 1:1 comes in.

If Harold Camping is correct in concluding that in all likelihood the Lord Jesus will return in September 1994, then it is noteworthy that it was early last September that the publication of his book "1994?" was announced via radio to the whole worldexactly two years before the "earthquake"!

(Editor's note: Mr. Camping had wanted the book published in August, but numerous delays postponed the release date to early September.)

The good news. As 1 indicated at the beginning, even as He condemns Israel and the neighboring pagan nations, God does include two positive passages in the Book of Amos. First, there is this call for repentance:

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph (5:14,15).
Until Judgment Day finally comes, there is still time for the unsaved to repent and seek God. In Jeremiah 29:12,13, God promises, "Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart."

The Lord will be gracious to the "remnant of Joseph".

New Jerusalem. Judgment Day, of course, is also the day when Jesus returns to complete the salvation of His elect. As we saw earlier in Zechariah 14:5, the Lord will come with all His saints. To be more specific, He will return with the souls of all those who have died in Christ.

They will reunite with their bodies, which Jesus, as promised in John 6, will have raised up at the last day. And we know from I Corinthians 15 that in these new spiritual and incorruptible bodies, they will then inherit the Eternal Kingdom of God.

Hence, the Book of Amos closes with this exciting passage:

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.

The land out of which Israel "shall no more be pulled up" can only be the new universe that God will create after the present heavens and earth have been burned up. The home of righteousness, Ii Peter 3:13 says, is not in this world, but in the brand new earth. Clearly, Amos is a book that is especially pertinent to us as we approach the end of time. o

Frank Pabian, a New Life Digest reader, is a believer from Clayton, CA.
 

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