Famine in the Land

The contemporary church suffers from a famine for hearing the words of God, but it is a self-inflicted wound.

Many credible men of God have warned over the years that the Church will experience a “famine for the word of God.” I initially took this to be a prediction that the Bible would be suppressed even in Western-style democracies as governmental authorities persecuted the Church. The actual famine we see today is something rather different.

These men often cited a passage from the Book of Amos to validate their prediction: “The days are coming when I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Yahweh” - (Amos 8:11).

[Photo by Amy Tran (Houston, TX) on Unsplash]

The warning of Amos was given to Israel. The key phrase, “the words of Yahweh,” referred to the words of God spoken by His prophets to the nation. As God withdrew His hand from Israel, His prophetic declarations became increasingly rare until only silence remained. This “famine” is the reality today, and in ways alarmingly faithful to the original passage.

Yahweh himself withdrew His spoken word from Israel. The people of God refused to hear, so He chose not to speak. It seems they preferred the ramblings and lies of false prophets to the Word of God.

Did not Moses warn Israel that God would send deceivers among them “to put you to the test, to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul”? – (Deuteronomy 13:3).

Paradoxically, today, this “famine of hearing the words of God” is raging when access to the Bible is easy and inexpensive, and tens of thousands of “prophets” and “apostles” occupy our pulpits, all claiming to speak the words and revelations of the Lord.

There are genuine prophets today, but to find one and hear genuine words from God, we must slog our way through the swamp of deception that has flooded far too many churches. The man who understands and faithfully communicates the word of God from the Scriptures is the rare exception that proves the rule.

The cause of our present famine is not the suppression of the Bible by Caesar but the ignorance of Scripture that prevails in our pews, and the twisting of scriptural passages by the deceivers in our pulpits.

Many of us know little of what the Bible says, let alone how to study it ourselves. We welcome false teachers that “tickle our ears,” the money-grubbing hustlers who propagate sweet-sounding “doctrines of demons.” They have transformed Charismatic Christianity, in particular, into a profitable business devoted to the true god of many a prophet and apostle, Mammon.

Far worse, and all too common, are the so-called “Prophetic” leaders who steer us away from reliance on the Bible. Instead of clinging to Scripture, we are encouraged to pursue subjective personal and mystical experiences and “revelation” from the “spirit realm,” whatever that is. The man or woman who challenges this popular narrative and appeals to the written Word is charged with legalism and harboring a “spirit of religion.”

Why labor to learn and apply Scripture when you can receive instant “downloads from Heaven” and new “truth” previously unknown through dreams, visions, numerology, stargazing, lunar cycles, eclipses, monthly prognosticators, and angelic visitations?

SELF-DESTRUCTIVE CHOICES

This tragedy is of our own making. We prefer exciting experiences and easy “words” from Facebook “prophets” and “seers” who have been to “the third heaven” over the written Word of God.

In the Book of Amos, God withdrew His words from the Israelites. If we continue our present course, He may do the same to us. If we, like ancient Israel, refuse to hear God’s clear words recorded in the Bible, and for our benefit, why should the Creator of All Things make the effort to communicate with us any longer?

Perhaps God has judged us already by flooding our churches with false prophets and grifters. Do they not peddle the very things we wish to hear with little or no regard for what Scripture says? Did not the Apostle Paul warn what would happen if we rejected the Apostolic Teachings?

• “But evil men and howling impostors will advance up to the worst stage, deceiving and being deceived. But remain in the things that you have learned and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them; and that from a babe you have known the sacred writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” – (2 Timothy 3:13-15).

• “And with all deceit of unrighteousness for those who are perishing, because they welcomed not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God is sending them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but were well-pleased with unrighteousness” – (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).

Jesus continues to warn us today, through his words preserved in Scripture, that many deceivers will come and “deceive many.” His stress is on the term “many.” And so, it has and continues to come to pass. As Paul, who was a genuine Apostle according to the qualifications provided by the Bible, also warned:

• Many choose not to “endure sound doctrine; instead, having itching ears, they have heaped to themselves teachers after their lusts, and turned aside their ears from the truth, and turned instead to fables” – (2 Timothy 4:2-3).

• “But the Spirit declares expressly, that in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, seared in their own conscience as with a hot iron” – (1 Timothy 4:1).

Paul left instructions on how we are to avoid deception and apostasy, namely, by holding tightly to the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles:

• “So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions that you were taught, whether by word, or by epistle of ours” – (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

This Apostolic Tradition is found in the New Testament. If we fail to take advantage of the present opportunity to hear and learn the Word and make it our own, not only will deception continue to prevail in our churches, but it will be too late when the storms of apostasy and persecution overwhelm us.

• “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which, having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by them that heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by manifold powers and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will?” – (Hebrews 2:1-4).

Let us not forget that Jesus of Nazareth is the center of the Apostolic Faith, which is founded on the historical events of his Death and Resurrection. The ‘Logos,’ the Word of God, was embodied in him, and he is the ultimate expression and revelation of God, and there is no understanding of the Father apart from the Son. Moreover, our only reliable source of knowledge about what Jesus taught and did is the New Testament - (John 1:14-18, 14:6-7, Hebrews 1:1-3).

The “words of Yahweh” will save us, not the words of false prophets who “masquerade as angels of light” and tell us exactly what we want to hear. We must not listen to men and women who proclaim things contrary to Scripture, especially those individuals who teach us to rely on the “prophetic” and the “supernatural” rather than the Word of God. They do not speak “the words of Yahweh.” Their words are from another source.

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SEE ALSO:

• Misdirection and Apostasy - (Believers watching for apostasy to occur outside the Church will miss the real thing since it is operating stealthily inside our congregations)

• Howling Imposters - (The New Testament warns repeatedly of coming deceivers and false prophets who will cause many to depart from the faith)

• Stand Fast in the Tradition - (To avoid deception and apostasy, believers must cling to the apostolic traditions, lest they drift away)

• Famine dans l'Église - (L'Église contemporaine est en proie à la famine pour les paroles de Dieu, une famine qui est une blessure auto-infligée)