In Matt. 6:31-33 Jesus said if we seek His kingdom and His righteousness, God will supply all our needs . Here’s a beautiful story from the Old Testament to show this wasn’t a new idea when Jesus spoke it, but was documented in their history.

The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”

Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”

“Your servant has nothing here at all,” she said, “Except a little oil.”

Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the doors behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars and as each is filled, put it to one side.”

She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

She went and told the man of God and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.” (2 Kings 4:1-7)

What’s The Meaning Of This?

In the time following the death of King Solomon and the division of Israel into two kingdoms there was a period of general indifference and apostasy, especially in the North. During this time men who maintained their faith in the Lord formed study groups in various places for the purpose keeping knowledge of the Lord alive. These study groups were called companies of prophets. Although the men in these groups were not official prophets of Israel, the Lord blessed them with spiritual gifts including the gift of prophecy. Both Elijah and his successor Elisha maintained close relationships with these groups.

As our story opens, a man who had served the Lord by joining one of these companies of prophets has recently died. His time of service obviously limited his income and at his death he not only had no inheritance to leave, but had actually gone into debt. Now it was the duty of his family to repay his creditor.

Having no property or money, they were facing indentured servitude, a legal form of debt repayment in those days. But since there were no jobs for women back then, if the sons were forced into slavery the widow would be left with no means of support. It was a huge problem for which they had no remedy. It was miraculously solved by the Lord’s increase of her small supply of oil, a valuable commodity.

Elisha told the widow to ask her neighbors for as many empty jars as she could get. Then the Lord supernaturally increased her supply of oil so that when she had finished filling all the jars she had collected, she had so much oil to sell that she could pay off all their debts and support herself and her family for the rest of their lives with the money she would receive.

The widow and her sons hadn’t done anything to earn this. It was a gift by the Grace of God, and it far exceeded their wildest expectations, solving not only their current problem but preventing any future financial problems as well. They were set for the rest of their lives, and all they had to do was to ask.

Concealed In The Old…

Paul wrote, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”(Romans 15:4). It’s a statement of enormous significance to New Testament believers because it explains that the history of Israel (the Old Testament) is filled with events that are meant to instruct us in the ways of the Lord. It’s there to encourage us as well, as we bring a New Testament perspective to Old Testament events. The story of the widow and the oil is a great example, and even though it really happened, it can be interpreted like a parable where every character and thing represents something else.

The widow and her sons can represent the world. Ever since the Lord had Moses anoint Aaron with special oil in creating the Levitical Priesthood, oil has traditionally been used to symbolize the Holy Spirit. And the empty jars stand for unregenerate man just as they do in Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine (John 2:1-11).

Revealed In The New

Financially speaking, the destitute widow and her sons were facing a life of slavery. Spiritually speaking, when the Messiah came everyone in the world was facing a life of slavery to sin. It was a huge problem for which they had no remedy. The only presence of the Holy Spirit to be found was in Jesus (John 7:37-39). Just as Elisha had told the widow and her sons to gather empty jars, Jesus told His disciples to go into all the world baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19).

As long as the widow had empty jars, her supply of oil expanded to fill them. As she filled each jar she set it aside. As Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to His disciples (John 20:22) and they in turn gave Him to others, the availability of the Holy Spirit expanded beyond Israel to meet the world wide need. From then until now every new believer receives the Holy Spirit at the moment of belief (Ephe. 1:13-14, 2 Cor. 1:21-22). There is always enough for each one and there always will be for as long as people come. As each one of us comes and receives the Holy Spirit we are set apart. Our debts are paid (past sins are forgiven) our appointment with slavery is cancelled, and we will never be indebted again (our future sins are also forgiven). Colossians 2:13-14, 2 Cor. 5:17, Hebrews 10:12-14 all confirm this.

When all the jars the widow and her sons had collected were filled the oil stopped flowing. The widow and her sons were set for life. When the predetermined number of believers has come into the Church, the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit will end and we will be whisked off to our eternal home with the Lord (John 14:2-3, Romans 11:25). We’ll be set forever.

Are you as amazed as I am at the New Testament theology in this passage from 2 Kings 4:1-7? Here is salvation by grace, the remission of sin, the redemption of the soul, the gift of life, and eternal security all rolled up and tied off in one neat package. Of course you have to know something about the New Testament to see it. And if you didn’t know the Old Testament you wouldn’t know where to find the story. Proof again that the Bible isn’t two books, it’s one. And those who only read half, no matter which half, are missing the point. And that is, what’s contained in the Old is explained in the New. Put another way, what’s concealed in the Old is revealed in the New. To get the whole story, you have to read the whole book.

We’ve come to the final installment in our study of the Book of Amos. The Lord’s anger against the Israelites continues, His promise of judgment clear. There will be no last minute reprieve; the Northern Kingdom will cease to exist. But as He always has, God will preserve a faithful remnant to keep the flame of His people flickering.

Amos 8

A Basket Of Ripe Fruit

This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.

Then the LORD said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

“In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!”

Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?” —skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done. “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt. (Amos 8:1-8)

Originally, the Pride of Jacob was the Lord.  He was swearing by Himself that He would never forget what the people had done. To give our vows additional authority we swear by someone higher than we are.  We might even say, “I swear to God.” There is no one higher than God, so when He wants to underscore a vow He swears by Himself (Hebr. 6:13-14).

The Nile River flooded every Spring, its waters flowing over its banks to cover the entire delta region. The Lord used this to symbolize the fighting men of Israel rising as a great army to resist the Assyrians.

The River of Egypt, or Wadi al Arish, is a different river that has water in the spring but dries up in the summer. It symbolizes the outcome. Though Israel’s army would be like the flooding Nile at the beginning, it would soon disappear into the ground like the River of Egypt under the onslaught of the Assyrians. The Lord could tolerate their corrupt practices no longer.

Throughout the Bible the Lord gets especially upset when the powerless are exploited. Whether it’s widows and orphans, or slaves, or the poor, He’s predictable in his reaction. He takes their part and oppresses those who oppress them. His laws were written to give people every opportunity for a second chance. Israelites weren’t allowed to charge each other interest. They couldn’t keep collateral to secure a debt. Debts were to be forgiven every 7 years, and those held in servitude as a means of repaying their debts were to be freed and given a stake toward a new beginning.

In Deut. 15:4 He said that the land was so bountiful that there shouldn’t be any poor among them if they just obeyed His laws. That means the poor were a class created by the disobedience of the rich, and that’s what made Him so angry.

America is the wealthiest country in history. Compared to world standards even Americans of average means are rich. And yet we have many poor among us, and they’re exploited just as surely as those in Biblical times. It still makes the Lord angry, and he’ll judge us in our time just as He did them in theirs.

“In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.(Amos 8:9-10)

Although the context here is Israel’s defeat, this prophecy was eerily fulfilled on the day Jesus died. The Sun went dark at noon and from that time forward Passover has been associated with the death of God’s only Son. And in Zechariah 12:10 we’re told that near the end of the Great Tribulation as the Lord sets out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem, He will pour out a Spirit of Grace and Supplication upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. “They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

Just in case they didn’t know who He was talking about, the Lord had a two letter un-translated Hebrew word placed after the phrase “look upon me” in Zechariah 12:10. They’re the first and last letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, the Aleph and the Tau. These two letters also appear in the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:1 after the phrase “in the beginning God …” Their better-known equivalents are the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, used to describe the Father in Rev. 1:8 & 21:6 and the Son in Rev. 22:13. Zechariah was saying that the one they would look upon as the Messiah is God Himself.

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

“In that day “the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst. They who swear by the shame of Samaria, or say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’—they will fall, never to rise again.” (Amos 8:11-14)

Contrast this with the Lord swearing by “the Pride of Jacob” above.  The people are swearing by “the shame of Samaria”, and the pagan idols of Dan and Beersheba.

The people wanted to be free of any relationship with the Lord so now they would be. They wouldn’t hear any prophets calling them back though they traveled the length and breadth of the land.  The word of the Lord would be like water during a time of extreme drought, nowhere to be found.  And would the pagan gods to which they had given their allegiance save them? Not a chance.

Some believe that this famine of hearing God’s Word will occur again at the end of the age, as the anti-Christ seeks to eliminate all reference to God from society. He’ll even try to change the calendar (Daniel 7:25) in his effort to erase every reminder of God from peoples’ lives.

Amos 9

Israel to Be Destroyed

I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Bring them down on the heads of all the people; those who are left I will kill with the sword. Not one will get away, none will escape. Though they dig down to the depths of the grave, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up to the heavens, from there I will bring them down. Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. Though they are driven into exile by their enemies, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.”(Amos 9:1-4)

No matter where they tried to hide, the Lord would find them and punish them. Psalm 121 says that He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep, but will watch over their coming and going forever. Now He tells them that because of their betrayal it will be like He’s hunting for an enemy, not watching over a friend.  As the writer to the Hebrews would say,It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.(Hebr. 10:31)

The Lord, the LORD Almighty, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who live in it mourn— the whole land rises like the Nile, then sinks like the river of Egypt- he who builds his lofty palace in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the LORD is his name.

“Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?” declares the LORD. “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?”

“Surely the eyes of the Sovereign LORD are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth— yet I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob,” declares the LORD.

“For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. All the sinners among my people will die by the sword, all those who say, ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us.’” (Amos 9:5-10)

The Cushites were another race of people in the region of Egypt, ancestors of today’s black Africans. Because of their sin, the Israelites, whom the Lord brought out of Egypt in a mighty act of deliverance, had become no better than the Cushites, whom He’d left there. No better than the Philistines whom He brought from Caphtor, or the Arameans whom He brought from Kir. Therefore He was about to judge them, sifting them as grain to separate the sinners from the faithful. The Kingdom would be gone, and not one of the sinners would escape. But the faithful remnant of Jacob would be spared.

The Church, instead of being preserved through the coming judgments, will be rescued beforehand.  In the original language of 1 Thes. 1:10 Paul said we’ll be removed from both their time and their place.

Israel’s Restoration

“In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the LORD, who will do these things.

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God. (Amos 9:11-15)

The Lord’s brother James, as the head of the early Church, presided over the Council at Jerusalem about 20 years after the cross. Because of the evangelistic efforts of Peter, Paul, Barnabas and others, Gentiles were becoming followers of Jesus. These leaders had all gathered in Jerusalem to determine whether a) Gentiles had to convert to Judaism before they could join the Church, and b) if not, what would become of Israel. After a lively discussion it was decided that Gentiles could be baptized directly into the Christian faith.

As for the future of Israel, James said that the Lord was first going to take a people for Himself from among the Gentiles (Acts 15:13-14).   Using Amos 9:11-12 as His authority, he said after that, the Lord would return to rebuild David’s fallen tabernacle. He was speaking of the nation in general and the Temple in particular.

Ezekiel had prophesied that in the latter days Israel would be reborn, (Ezekiel 36-37), but now James clarified that when that happened they would revive Biblical Judaism as well. Otherwise there would be no need for a Temple. Daniel had also prophesied a Temple in the Latter Days. (Daniel 9:27) You can read all about the Council at Jerusalem in Acts 15:1-21.

There are three critical clues to the End Times in the way James used Amos 9:11-12. One is the chronology. First the Lord will focus on the Church.  After He has taken us, He will return and rebuild the Temple.  The second is that Israel will not disappear as a people, nor will they be replaced in the Lord’s plan by the Church.  Israel and the Church will remain separate entities.  And the third is that His shift back to Israel will happen after He has taken the Church. The Greek word translated “taken” literally means to carry away, or remove. It’s most often translated “receive.” It’s a reference to the rapture of the Church.

Paul would soon write that Israel has been blinded in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in (Romans 11:25), agreeing with James that what we now call the Rapture of the Church will precede the Lord’s shift back to Israel. After alluding to it several times in earlier chapters, Ezekiel clearly said that this shift will happen as a result of the battle he prophesied about in chapters 38-39 (Ezekiel 39:22).

20 years after the Council at Jerusalem the temple was destroyed, and soon after that the nation ceased to exist. For the last 1900 years the Lord’s focus has been on the Church. Some day soon the Lord will cause events we are already witnessing to culminate in the Lord’s shift back to Israel. The Church will disappear, Israel’s eyes will be opened and their re-gathering will enter its final phase.

A Temple will be built, and after the most terrible time of trial the world ever has or ever will see, Israel will once again become the preeminent nation on Earth. God Himself will dwell in their midst (Ezekiel 43:7). When that happens, the land will rejoice with the people, its curse broken forever.

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

Their harvests will be so plentiful that they’ll hardly be in the barns before it’s time to plant again. The exiled remnant will have been brought back, their cities rebuilt, and no one will ever uproot them again.