A Famine of Hearing The Word of YAHWEH

Thoughtless people today are very proud of what they consider our very modern conditions and claim that we are very different from our ancestors. Yet, in truth there has been no change in the real fundamentals of life since most ancient times. As one philosopher said �The more it changes, the more it is the same.�

Are you really any better off because today, the bandit that robs you uses a gun instead of a sword, as he would have done 500 years ago? Is it better to have to leap for your life out of the path of an automobile, instead of a carriage? Have we really progressed because you are now made to pay excessive taxes with dollars instead of shekels? Are Russia�s slaves any better off than the captives of Babylon?

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Nothing but surface appearances have changed. The essential realities have and must remain the same as long as there are men living on earth. One of the ancient institutions which has come down to us unchanged is the stream of vilification and abuse directed at everyone who protests against current evils and seeks to warn the public of the consequences of continued wrongdoing. Our evils are always organized, because there are always those who have found out how to get money or power, or both, out of them.

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They foresee the end of their wealth and power if the public ever learns the truth. Therefore, they viciously attack everyone who tries to warn the public of what is going on.

Of course, this is not surprising, what is amazing is the degree to which the public generally loves only its real enemies and hates its true friends. About 790 B.C., the prophet Amos was warning the people of the Kingdom of Israel of the disasters which must overtake them if they allowed their nation to pursue its corrupt course.

Now general corruption cannot exist without the encouragement and connivance of the authorities whose duty it is to suppress it. Just as corruption in high places cannot exist unless approved, or at least tolerated by the general public.

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When Amos warned that the evils of the day both weakened the nation and would bring the wrath of God down upon it, he was accused of sedition, like Jesus who gave the same warning eight centuries later. We read,

�Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.� (Amos 7:10)

Also, they tried to drive him out.

�Also Amaziah said unto Amos, �O thou seer, go flee thou away into the land of Judah and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but prophesy not again any more at Beth‑el: for it is the king�s chapel and the king�s court.� (Amos 7:12‑13)

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Today, we find the same situation. We find a certain �minority group� (who were known as Canaanites and are now called Jews) (words in parenthesis added to original) become extremely wealthy by promoting organized evils and by their wealth have gained great power in government.

Power which no admitted minority should have. We find them in control of communism elsewhere and by their control of government steering the course of this nation towards communism here. We also find a few courageous men seeking to awaken the nation to its peril. Men like Gerald L.K. Smith, Upton Close, Major Williams, Joseph Kamp, Charles Lindbergh, Conde McGinley, and Dan Smoot for examples. Of course we find the most bitter hatred directed against these men, whose only �faults� are honesty, patriotism and truthfulness.

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Today we still find that the same forces are always attacking everyone who opposes communism and that they always make the same false accusations. Against Amos they said,

�Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the House of Israel: the land is not able to bear his words.�

Against Jesus they said,

�He stirreth up the people.�(Luke 23:5)

Against all patriots who would warn our nation before it is too late, they cry �Rabble rouser! Fascist! Bigot! Hater! Hitler! Intolerant! Neo-Nazi! anti‑ Semite! Hypocrite! Jew‑hater! Racist! � Every man who says that our American Constitution has proven to be good and should not be changed is said to be � extreme right wing. � They warned Amos to � flee thou away into the land of Judah � (Amos 7:12‑13).

Although Jesus had done miracles of good, yet we read that

� they began to pray Him to depart out of their borders. � (Mark 5:17)

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Today, they try in every way to bring ruin upon all those who dare speak the truth. The sad thing is that they are always able to get many thoughtless people to follow them and stupidly parrot their attacks against all true patriots and against those who would tell them the truth of religion.

But this, also, is not new. The� prophet Amos found the same conditions 2700 years ago. He records that

� They hate them that rebukeeth in the gate and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. � � (Amos 5:10)�

So also have vicious attacks been made, in our day, upon men who were trying to be patriotic Americans, men such as: Senator Taft, Senator McCarthy, Senator Jenner, Senator Eastland and upon Congressman Martin Dies and Governor Bracken Lee, to mention but a few.

To try to save the people from their own folly is surely not � How to make friends and influence people. � Patriots warn of the political, economic and social evils inherent in the course set by the popular � Left wing � politicians.

For this they are smeared in the press and over the radio and television by editors and commentators who have prostituted their talents to the service of a cause which can pay them well for it. But it is equally true that those few clergymen who dare tell the religious truth about the moral evil inherent in current policies are also smeared as � bigots � and � Hatemongers. �

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Why is it that every vicious attack against Christianity by those who fled here as � refugees, � seeking shelter in the kind of civilization that only Christianity could build, why is it that we must take this in silence as being just the exercise of those supreme rights that minorities are supposed to have?

Yet, when we defend our civilization and our moral standards against these attacks we are told that this constitutes � intolerance � and � bigotry � on our part! This also is nothing new. Through the prophet Amos, God Himself told the people of that day,

� But ye commanded the prophets saying � Prophecy not. � (Amos 2:12)

It is strange how rare is the quality of moral courage. Lots of men who have physical courage, who would not run away from a fight, whether with fists or with weapons, still dare not face the hostility of a wealthy and politically powerful � minority group � .

This too, is an ancient thing, unchanged from that day to this and expressly prophesied by Amos. In Chapter 5, verse 13, God says,

� For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.� THEREFORE THE PRUDENT WILL KEEP SILENCE IN THAT TIME: FOR IT IS AN EVIL TIME. �

Isaiah 59:14‑15, speaks of the same thing:

� Judgment is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it and it displeased Him that there was no judgment. �

What consequences must such � prudence � bring, when the wicked march from power to greater power in the land and few dare raise a voice in protest?

Amos 8:11‑12 gives the warning:

� 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: and they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. �

You see this condition largely prevailing right now.

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In how many churches can you hear any but � soothing syrup � sermons, to get your mind off the evil conditions? Just a few years ago, the then head of the National Council of Churches spoke of what he called

� The danger that the great religious awakening which is taking place in our country might become fanatical and be carried into our political and business life! �

If that be danger, I say � Let � s have more of it! � Nothing else can bring us out of this quicksand in which our nation is sinking. Perhaps they may sermonize in huge indignation against the man who takes a glass of beer but, how many sermons have you heard denouncing those who have barred Christ from our schools?

How many sermons have you heard demanding that we cease making treaties and � Executive Agreements � with Russia on terms satisfactory to the Reds? The Bible clearly warns us to make no leagues with the enemies of God, regardless of the ostensible purposes thereof. Yet, how many churches remind their people of this. Truly, the � famine of hearing the word of the Lord � has come upon us. We of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, are proud that, even in these days our church will always say, � Thus saith the Lord. � (Taken, in part, from an article � A Famine of Hearing The Word of YAHWEH, � by Pastor Bertrand L. Comparet)