November 23-29
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Amos was an awesome prophet. He was just a tender of sycamore fig trees and a herdsman. He was not one of the elite, but he was called by God to go and preach to the northern kingdom of Israel. He was just minding his own business when the Lord took him away and sent him north.
In chapter 1, there is a poetic idiom that gets repeated five times against five different regions that were guilty of specific sins. Here is just one of the idiom occurrences.
Amos 1:9 Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant:
“For three transgressions…and for four…” The Lord was going to bring intense destruction because they reached “four.”
Three is a symbolic number in Hebrew. One of its meanings is “completeness,” though not as complete as the number seven. There was a full cup of sin that God had tolerated to this point. The cup was at a three. As that number increases to four, we are to understand that their sin has now gone beyond what God is willing to be patient with. The cup has spilled over. Consequences are going to occur.
So what does it mean to sin too much? Obviously, we would hopefully seek to not fill our cup of sin to even the point of fullness, but how do we know we’re in the black?
Honestly, I think that’s the wrong question. However, I asked it because I want to contrast it with the correct perspective. I don’t believe this cup analogy is about whether we’re worthy to enter the Celestial Kingdom. The cup analogy is about repenting and turning around. Satan loves to tell us that the cup has overfilled and now we’re going to be refused at the door of the Celestial Kingdom. Satan is dead wrong and knows it; he just likes to lie. Let’s talk about it.
Conner and I sat down to a theological discussion with some of our friends one evening. They knew their bible really well. They loved the bible and studied it. They loved God. They also believed we were going to hell. One of them in particular was extremely adamant about us stepping back from the blinders put on by our church. They wanted so badly for us to seek the Lord so that He could tell us that we were in the wrong church.
Little did they know that I’ve asked that question before. I’ve asked it multiple times throughout the course of my life. I’ve been scared I’m going to hell before, and I sincerely sought out the Lord.
On the flip side, this friend who was so adamant that we just needed to seek His will, said something extremely interesting. I cannot remember the exact debates leading up to this overflow of emotion, but suddenly my friend stopped all conversation by raising his voice and saying, “I don’t care! If I got to the other side and it was how you described, I still wouldn’t believe!”
He then looked very surprised at what had come out of his mouth. But here’s the really crazy part. He didn’t rescind it!
If you see something clearly and refuse to take part of it, you’re damning yourself. And when I say “damning,” I’m not talking about sitting in a fire. I’m talking about stopping your own progression. If you look around and see the spirit world as described by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then think, “Nope. Still not for me,” then God is not going to force you to receive it.
What you sow, that shall ye reap.
Israel was wealthy, and they had their empty religious rituals. They believed that both of these were signs of their favor with God. Amos came to tell them that they had things very wrong. Let’s look at what they got wrong:
Damascus was guilty of extreme cruelty in warfare. Gaza was selling entire communities into slavery. Tyre was selling captives and violating treaties. Edom was hateful and violent. Ammon was guilty of hurting women in their brutal expansionist wars.
God wasn’t destroying them because they had some flaws. He was destroying them because they were destroying others, and they refused to stop! He tried to warn them. Oh how he tried to warn them. There were so many prophets, but then they would kick the prophets out or kill them. The Lord had to stop it because they refused to stop it.
So back to our cup allusion. The cup isn’t necessarily about whether we’re worthy to enter the Celestial Kingdom. It’s not like, “Oh my cup is full of so many sins, and now I can’t be in heaven.” Rather, overfilling the cup is specifically about reaching the point where you need intense divine intervention in the form of consequences.
Have you overfilled your cup? Have you reached the point where the Lord has to bring in some consequences because you refuse to listen? It is SO important to note that this doesn’t always happen on an astronomical scale. It’s not always about destroying others and being destroyed. Sometimes it’s about a prompting that you refuse to listen to.
On one side, Israel overfilled their violence cup, and they received violence in return.
On a smaller scale, I have filled plenty of cups that required God to intervene. For example, the Lord whispered forever to me that I needed to slow down. I essentially told Him that He was crazy. Want to know what I reaped? A wall. I reaped a wall. I overfilled that particular cup by ignoring Him for forever until I reached the “fourth,” and He had to intervene. I got a wall and was forced to slow down.
And you want to know the best part about it? You want to know what is so completely wonderful and beautiful and perfect about this overfilled cup? The wall wasn’t even put there to hurt me. It was put there to bring me back to Him.
Even with the Israelites being destroyed by the Assyrians, God wasn’t just punishing them. Their destruction was a literal part of bringing them back to Him. He had to stop them from destroying others and taking themselves further and further away from Him. Even that “last straw” wasn’t about the Lord finally washing His hands of His people. That last straw was simply about reaping the big consequences that would hopefully get them to turn around.
When we talk about filling that cup and spilling it over in our own lives, we should not assume that we are eternally unworthy. Rather, it should be viewed as, “Whelp…guess I wasn’t listening and reached the point where I had to learn it the hard way.” If you’re listening to Come Follow Me videos, I’m assuming that you’re probably not committing these egregious sins that Israel was committing. There may be overfilled cups in your life but not abandonment. God loves you. Reaching the point where you have to learn the hard lesson is proof of that love, not proof of absence.
So take your cup. Recognize it. Accept it. Learn from it. And in all honesty, if you see that cup and those consequences clearly, you’re going to eventually find yourself eternally grateful for the intervention.
I testify that the Lord loves us. He loved Israel and intervening when the cup overfilled was a sign of that love. I testify that the Lord will intervene because of His love when we overfill our various cups and refuse to listen. I testify that the consequences are meant to turn us around, not to destroy us forever. Don’t let Satan tell you that you’re too far. Let God tell you that He was doing everything in His power to reach you.
