In ancient Israel a sheepherder from Tekoa named Amos received the word of the Lord telling him that future days would come, in which there would be a famine, but not for food, but a famine of the Word of God.
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
Amos 8:11-12
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
In our time, can we possibly admit this is true, considering that tens of thousand churches in America read the bible from their pulpits every Sunday, and on Saturdays for traditional Sabbath-keeping congregations, and Jewish synagogues? As difficult as it may be to admit, we are living in times such as Amos portrayed.
The words of the Bible are read aloud, proclaimed, studied, discussed, written about in commentaries, but people are simply not hearing the words of the Lord, YHWH. There is an altered teaching, a different spirit, which blocks the transmission of the truth of Yah. There are towers that need tearing down, fortifications which block the knowledge of God. And we should be destroying all speculations (2 Corinthians 10) and destroying fortresses. Without that we will remain in the famine.
It is just as Jesus proclaimed to the churches in Revelation, under the words to Pergamum, you must stop eating the foods of Babylon if you are to receive the hidden manna. Which do you want? Do you want the ear-tickling spiritual foods of Babylonian religion, even Babylonian Christianity? Or can you renounce the Nicolaitans, and the false prophecies akin to Balaam and Jezebel, so you can be admitted with the white stone to enter the Treasury of Christ and eat of His flesh, the veil wherein lies the Hidden Manna? We are in a famine of the Word,
But surely, you will say, this occurred in ancient Israel, at the time of the diaspora, with the exile of Israel. There has frequently been a famine of the hearing of the Word of God. But since Christ said not one word of the Scripture would pass away before Heaven and Earth (Matthew 5:18). In fact, not even one stroke of a letter will pass away before everything should come to be that is written. So, yes, there is another famine for hearing God’s teaching.
What do we have instead, from Ephraim, from ‘the first fruits?’ We have the ‘Babylonian captivity of the church,’ as Martin Luther called it, and much regurgitated speculation from partial and fragmentary reading of God’s Word. Listen to the stinging rebuke YHWH delivered through Isaiah.
Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim,
Isaiah 28:1
and the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine!
These also reel with wine
and stagger with strong drink;
the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink,
they are swallowed by wine,
they stagger with strong drink,
they reel in vision,
they stumble in giving judgment.
For all tables are full of filthy vomit,
with no space left.
Isaiah 25:7-8
“To whom will he teach knowledge,
Isaiah 28:9-10
and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from the milk,
those taken from the breast?
For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little.”
And the word of the Lord will be to them
precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little,
that they may go, and fall backward,
and be broken, and snared, and taken.
Isaiah 28:13
No matter how much regurgitation of the literal words, there is no reception of the Living Word possible from a leadership drunk on strong wine. What is missing is the true wine – in Hebrew yayin, or ’embodied spirit.’ Without that there is no life.
The inner meaning of the text is clear: priest and prophet are intoxicated with their own visions, and the meaning of God’s Word is hidden from them. They have generated unclean foods, and unable to digest what is not healthful, it has come back up, and is clearly recognizable as Lo-Debar, not the Word. So while the priest and prophet speak words, they are not words of God, and thus are not testimony to Jesus which is the Spirit of prophecy (Revelation 19), but they are testimony to the speakers, to their visions.
All of this self-righteousness and self-glorification is unclean and testifies to the intoxicating spirits they have consumed in their own heady self-adulation. It is a mere vanity, a mere breath.
To put it in other terms, if there is only intoxicating spirits, and NOT the Spirit of the Living Word, then there is a Famine.
We can retrieve some of the hidden manna here as well as the tremendous irony of the situation, by looking at the shadow and type recorded in the scriptures. Joseph in Egypt is the physical shadow and type of what is a spiritual reality functioning in the body of God’s people. They had seven years of good harvest followed by seven years of drought and famine. Joseph planned ahead by storing grain in the storage areas of the temples and underground. We too, ought to lay up stores of the good, pure food of the Word so those of the true Israel that come in from the world’s vacuum of healthful proclamation will have True Bread to eat.
In so far as the scripture was written for our benefit (Romans 15:4) and not to advance the world by appropriating physical meaning to the words, but that the spiritual application of the physical type might obtain. Joseph stored physical grain so that the people would survive the coming years.
We are charged in these final days to secure spiritual bread, when there is a dearth of knowledge of God, so that people might not perish spiritually. (Hosea 4:6)
We could go on and speak of Elijah and the famine in Israel, and the fall of Ahab, who is shadow and type for the man of lawlessness and the pollution of the faith by the religion of Baal. But rather, let us return to Amos to complete our circuit in this journey. It is true that many wander to and fro and cannot find the true doctrine of Christ, growing parched and famished. Others sit in comfort having made their covenant with Sheol (Isaiah 28:15-19).
1“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,
and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria,
the notable men of the first of the nations,
to whom the house of Israel comes!
2Pass over to Calneh, and see,
and from there go to Hamath the great;
then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
Or is their territory greater than your territory,
3O you who put far away the day of disaster
and bring near the seat of violence?4“Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory
Amos 6:1-7
and stretch themselves out on their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock
and calves from the midst of the stall,
5who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp
and like David invent for themselves instruments of music,
6who drink wine in bowls
and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
7Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile,
and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.”
8The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts:
“I abhor the pride of Jacob
Amos 6:8
and hate his strongholds,
and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.”
The covenant with death will fail! As Isaiah 28:18 records it:
Then your covenant with death will be annulled,
and your agreement with Sheol will not stand;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through,
you will be beaten down by it.
The future of the eminent drunkards, the shepherds who feed themselves without fear (Jude), the fat sheep who devour the skinny sheep. They have created a famine — not exalting the Living Word of God, but exalting themselves, and they, with all the arrogant, shall be brought low (Isaiah 2). Death will not release them from their debt.
But there is good news in the midst of the famine. Joseph has stored away food. It has been hidden for the days of want. It is, as it were, ‘hidden manna.’ So put on the mind of Christ, that you may be able to receive the hidden manna and be fed in the Spirit. We must be the Josephs of today, ruling over Egypt (the flesh), and exalting the One True God, and not ourselves.
Our next blog will speak to this rich and lavish topic, a feast that goes beyond all of the dainty foods of Egypt and Babylon. In face, we will discover that the Hidden Manna can only be received when one has repented or turned away from the false foods of the princes of the earth. False prophecy, immorality, and self-glorification over others keep one from this life-giving food.