John Mark Hicks Amos 5
Amos 5:1-17: Admonition and Lament for Israel
http://johnmarkhicks.com/2013/03/14/amos-51-17-admonition-and-lament-for-israel/
John Mark Hicks Amos 5: boast of using THEOLOGY instead of the TEXT. That means that he jumps around and it is really difficult to follow. Jesus said that doctors of the law take away the key to knowledge. Therefore, we will look primarily at the TEXT which John Mark ignores. That is because the musical idolatry was not the problem: they just had a bad mental attitude.
We should begin a bit earlier: There is only ONE God whose "wisdom" and "breath" and "Word" are through instrumental means such as Jesus of Nazareth Whom God made to be both Lord and Christ: His Grace and His Righteousness. On the contrary, the Jews as proven by Amos and by Acts 7 had been abandoned to worship the starry host and sentenced to return to "beyond Babylon."
Isaiah 14
(14:4)Take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! The golden city ceased?
Who is this king of the "golden city" of Babylon?
(14:12-14) How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, you who enslaved the nations! You said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.
Revelation
(18:16-19)Alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones...what city is like unto this great city!...Alas that great city..in one hour is she made desolate.
The woman bearing the name Babylon is sitting on the seven headed scarlet beast (Rev. 17:3)--the same red dragon that in Rev. 12, is identified as "that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. (12:9)BECAUSE OF MUSICAL IDOLATRY GOD SENTENCED ISRAEL TO BEYOND BABYLON
After the musical fall from grace at Mount Sinai Moses was warned that this was beyond redemption because they had refused to listen to The book of The Covenant and returned to their Egyptian-Greek-Canaanite-Babylonian worship. Moses wrote an inverted version of the Babylonian Clay Tablets to prepare them to move into the promised land now turned into the killing fields as God turned them over to worship the starry host: we know the names they called their God. Apis the calf represented Osiris, Isis and Horus the Egyptian triad.
The story of Creation is written in terms of ALL of the pagan religions and was a warning that what God creates evil religions can burst asunder.
Jesus said that truth had been hidden in parables from the foundation of the World: that was to prevent the merchandisers (Isaiah 48) from the truth: Jesus did not preach so they could understand. Jesus called the Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites: in the Ezekiel 33 example Christ named self-preachers, singers and instrument players. That is why they do not understand what is happening when Amos by the Spirit OF Christ writes.
Amos 4:7 And also I have withholden the rain [imber] from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.
Amos 4:8 So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
Amos 4:9 I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.If you read the rest of the SINGING DOCUMENT you will discover that they were hungering and thirsting for the Word of God but could not find it:
SCRIPTURE ALMOST ALWAYS POINTS TO THE PAGAN PRACTICES BEFORE DEFINING THE RESULTS AND THE GODLY ANTITHESIS.
The Worship in Egypt had been that of Dionysus in various forms and showed up at Mount Sinai where Isreal engaged in musical idolatry of the Egyptian triad. The Jewish worship was Sabazianism.
I have withholden the rain (Bacchus) 1 from you three months before the harvest ! — Amos, iv. 7 ; Isaiah, xxx. 23.
" But thou didst, Cupid, incite even Rhea [Eve, Evah] herself now an old woman and mother of so many gods to love a Boy and to desperately love that Phrygian Youth ! And now she is frantic through you, and harnessing the lions and taking with her the Korubantes (priests of Cubele), since they also are frantic, they stroll up and down the Ida ; but She lamenting over the Attes : but the Korubantes, one of them cuts himself in the arm with a sword, 2 another loosening his hair goes maddened [prophesying] through the mountains, a third blows a horn, another again beats upon a drum, or makes a noise upon the cymbal and, in fine, all things on the Ida are uproar and mania !" — Lucian, of Aphrodite and Eros. "Making the rich eunuchs, that, becoming priests of Cubele, they may 1 ba^ak, bahsk, " raining." — Richardson's Persian, Arabic, Diet.; 1 King*, iviii. 43 ff. [dunlop]
The Hebrew Religion stepped out from the noblest side of the Dionysus- worship, influenced, no doubt, to IV PREFACE. some extent by Persian and Babylonian ideas, but still retaining the Phoenician impress. The name of the Phoenician Highest God is Bal, Bol, Bui, Sadak, Suduk, Adonz. This last is the Phoenician-Greek Adorns, the Phoenician-Hebrew Adon, Adoni, Zadak (Jupiter), Zadik (Just One). It is true that the Rabbins and the modern clergy call the Hebrew God's name Adonaiy but before the Rabbins added their points to the text the Old Hebrew letters were Adni (Adoni)
The modern week is thus a curious monument of ancient astronomy.
— Mackay, I. 99. Chiun . . . , the Star of your God, is Sabatai, Saturn.
— Amos, v. 26, 27 ; Acts, vii. 43. The ancient Sabbath (Saturn's day) was a feast of rejoicinq (Hosea, ii. 11).—Mackay, I. 99; Exodus, xxxii. 5, 6; Jerem. vii. 9, 18 ; Ezeh. xxii. 8 ; xxiii. 38 ; Plutarch, Quaest. Gonviv., iv. 6. The later strict observance of the Sabbath dates probably from the Pharisaic period out of which came at last the absurdities of the Mishna. Mysteries of Adoni, Dunlap
Bacchus was nursed by rain nymphs, Hyades at Nysa. Sabazius is Bacchus and the Jewish worship was Sabazianism.
Cybele a Phrygian goddess, her temple at Sardis burnt: Hdt. 5.102 Or Cybele, the great goddess of the Phrygians and Lydians.
Commentary Hdt 5.102.CII. Kubêbês. The ‘Great Mother’ goddess of the Phrygians worshipped at Pessinus, the mêtêrDindumênê of i. 80. 1. For the Anatolian ‘Great Mother’ cf. App. I. 2, Frazer, G. B. iv, Bk. II, Attis, &c.; Ramsay, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary, extra vol., p. 120 f. The Atys myth which involved her cult is connected with Sardis by H.'s story of the son of Croesus (i. 34. 2 n.). The Great Mother was worshipped at Athens in the days of Sophocles (Phil. 391), and identified by the Greeks with Rhea, mother of the gods (cf. iv. 76; Strabo 469), with Aphrodite, with Demeter, and with Artemis as the lady of the wild woods. But here she is regarded as a foreign goddess.
[10.3.7] They invented names appropriate to the flute, and to the noises made by castanets, cymbals, and drums, and to their acclamations and shouts of "ev-ah," and stampings of the feet;55 and they also invented some of the names by which to designate the ministers, choral dancers, and attendants upon the sacred rites, I mean "Cabeiri" and "Corybantes" and "Pans" and "Satyri" and "Tityri," and they called the god "Bacchus," and Rhea "Cybele" or "Cybebe" or "Dindymene" according to the places where she was worshipped. Sabazius also belongs to the Phrygian group and in a way is the child of the Mother, since he too transmitted the rites of Dionysus.56
Plutarch: SYMMACHUS, LAMPRIAS, MOERAGENES.
Here Symmachus, greatly wondering at what was spoken, says: What, Lamprias, will you permit our tutelar god, called Evius, the inciter of women, famous for the honors he has conferred upon him by madmen, to be inscribed and enrolled in the mysteries of the Jews?K
Or is there any solid reason that can be given to prove Adonis to be the same with Bacchus? Here Moeragenes interposing, said: Do not be so fierce upon him, for I who am an Athenian answer you, and tell you, in short, that these two are the very same.
And no man is able or fit to bring the chief confirmation of this truth, but those amongst us who are initiated and skilled in the triennial [Greek omitted] or chief mysteries of the god.
But what no religion forbids to speak of among friends, especially over wine, the gift of Bacchus, I am ready at the command of these gentlemen to disclose.
When all the company requested and earnestly begged it of him; first of all (says he), the time and manner of the greatest and most holy solemnity of the Jews is exactly agreeable to the holy rites of Bacchus; for that which they call the Fast they celebrate in the midst of the vintage, furnishing their tables with all sorts of fruits while they sit under tabernacles made of vines and ivy; and the day which immediately goes before this they call the day of Tabernacles.
Within a few days after they celebrate another feast, not darkly but openly, dedicated to Bacchus, for they have a feast amongst them called Kradephoria, from carrying palm-trees, and Thyrsophoria, when they enter into the temple carrying thyrsi.
What they do within I know not; but it is very probable that they perform the rites of Bacchus. First they have little trumpets, such as the Grecians used to have at their Bacchanalia to call upon their gods withal.
Others go before them playing upon harps, which they call Levites, whether so named from Lusius or Evius,--either word agrees with Bacchus. [Bacchae: Dionysus = Bacchus = Evius = Bromius (all different names for the same god]
THE MUSIC AT THE ARCANE RITES. Iamblichus.III.html Mother or bake Queen of Heaven
In addition to these things you remark as follows: "So also certain others of these ecstatics become entheast or inspired when they hear cymbals, drums, or some choral chant, 21 as, for example, those who are engaged in the Korybantic Rites, 22
those who are possessed at the Sabazian festival and those who are celebrating the Rites of the Divine Mother." 23 described by the Apostle Paul in the first Epistle to the Corinthians. "If," says he, "the whole assembly come together to the same place and all prattle in tongues, and common men should come in, or unbelievers, will they not say that you are raving?"
Hence he counsels that only two or three should speak in turn, and one interpret; but if nobody present is capable of this, they should keep silence, and speak only to themselves and to God: "for not of tumult is he a god, but of tranquillity." (Ovid; Fasti IV, "The attendants beat the brass, and the hoarse-sounding hides. Cymbals they strike in place of helmets, tambourines for the shields; the pipe yielded its Phrygian notes.")
There is evidently a deeper meaning in all this than is commonly apprehended. Of the PROPHESYING John Mark Hicks and others among the scholars are trying to impose is that of the always-emasculated and gender-comppromised.
The TRUE God has no name in fact: He is the God who does certain things. He uses agents as instrumental means and his AGENT is always His Word (Dabar, Logos).22. The Korybantes are variously described. Their cult was identified or closely allied to that of the Kabeirian divinities, and that of the Great Mother. It was celebrated in the islands of the Aegean Sea and in Phygia. Music, dancing, processions, and ecstatic frenzy were characteristics.
23. Sabazios, Sabaoth, or Sabbat, the god of the Planet Saturn, was better known as Bacchus or Dionysos, and was also styled in Semitic countries, Iao or Yava. His worship was more or less associated and identified with that of the Great Mother, under various designations, and it was characterized by phallephoric processions, dances, mourning for the slain divinity, and the Watch Night. It came from Assyria as its peculiar symbols, the ivy or kissos, the spotted robe or Nimr, and the Thyrso, [shaken reed] indicate. The name Zagreus the Kissos and nimr remind us of Kissaia or Asiatic Ethiopia, and the Zagros mountains occupied by the Nimr. Assyria was called "the land of Nimrod." -Amos VIII.
After the SIGN of prophesying youth Zechariah has Christ warning that anyone who continues this is to be killed by their parents.
Amos 4:11 I have overthrown some of you,
as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, [called Jerusalem also]
and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
Amos 4:13 For, lo, HE that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The God of hosts, is his name.
There can be ONLY ONE Almighty.
For thus saith
- the Lord (Jehovah)
- that created the heavens;
- God (Elohim) himself that
- formed the earth and
- made it; he hath
- established it, he
- created it not in vain,
- he formed it to be inhabited:
- I am the Lord (Jehovah); and there is none else. Isaiah 45:18
He hath made the earth by his power,
he hath established the world by his wisdom,
and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding. Jer 51:15
When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens;
and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth:
he maketh lightnings with rain,
and bringeth forth the wind (spirit) out of his treasures. Jer 51:16Every man is brutish by his knowledge; every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath [spīrĭtus] in them. Jer 51:17
Their musical idolatry of the Egyptian Triad symbolized by Apis the bull calf was the CAUSE for Israel and later Judah being rank polytheists whatever they called their God.
Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. Acts 7:40
And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Acts 7:41
Euphrainō , Ep. euphr-, fut. Att.155.12, Pi.I.7(6).3 II. Pass., make merry, enjoy oneself,
Pind. I. 6 Just as we mix the second bowl of wine when the men's symposium is flourishing, here is the second song of the Muses for Lampon's children and their athletic victories: first in Nemea, Zeus, in your honor they received the choicest of garlands,
Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Acts 7:42
John Mark Hicks: This is the third of Amos’s three prophetic speeches against Israel. They each begin with “Hear this word” (3:1; 4:1; 5:1). The first announced God’s coming visit in judgment against Israel. The second highlighted divine patience and persistence in seeking to turn Israel from its sins. The third is a divine admonition and lament for Israel.
We have shown the dead end of theology: Theologians always quote theologians and do not need to track down the FOLLY to which the Spirit OF Christ points to in the Prophets. The church is built upon (educated) the Prophets and Apostles and all of the prophets radically repudiate MUSIC as that magical power used to Make the Lambs Dumb before the Slaughter. Magic tampers with the very nature upon which God created matter. Therefore it is ALWAYS called soothsaying, sorcery, enchantment, Divining, witchcraft for which the text consigns the witches to be cast alive into the lake of fire.
Harold Shank (College Press NIV Commentary), adapting a chiastic outline from Waard in Vetus Testamentum (1997) 170-177, suggests this structure for Amos’s oracle:
Theology can sort out the text but if you cannot LOOK where Christ speaking through Amos points then you can just wind up using the EVIL Thesis as the patternist's ANTITHESIS for dogmatically teaching the roles of WOMEN and Instrumental music. That's the way it is supposed to be for doctors of the Jesus said TAKE AWAY THE KEY TO KNOWLEDGE. No better way than to send forth a FLOOD of ANTI-Biblical theology.
First Lament (1-3)
Amos 5:1 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
Amos 5:2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
Amos 5:3 For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.
First Admonition (4-6)
Amos 5:4 For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
Amos 5:5 But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba:
for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.
Amos 5:6 Seek the LORD, and ye shall live;
lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it,
and there be none to quench it in Bethel.First Accusation (7)
Amos 5:7 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,Hymn (8a) Amos 5:8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth
Yahweh is the Name (8b) The LORD is his name:
Hymn (9) Amos 5:9 That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.
Second Accusation (10-13)
Amos 5:10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
Amos 5:11 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.
Amos 5:12 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.
Amos 5:13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.Second Admonition (14-15)
Amos 5:14 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.
Amos 5:15 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.
Second Lament (16-17)
Amos 5:16 Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing."Woe is me ! for I am as when they have gathered 1 There was a statue of Aphrodite Ariadne in Cyprus. In Athens they celebrated the Oschophoria to Dionysus and Ariadne in October. Athena had a share in this Feast.—Preller, I. 424, 425. Dunlap
Amos 5:17 And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the LORD.
