Hello and welcome to this week's, this week's, or this month's, non-farm payrolls webinar with me, Michael Huston and my colleague in Canada, Colin Zizinski. Hopefully we won't have any of the technical problems that we had last month. I apologise for that. I wasn't here so I don't really know what the problems were. But before we get started, I have to bring up the various risk warnings for compliance purposes. And once we've got past then Colin and I can then move on and really start to get started with respect to what's expected with respect to these numbers, what's particularly important about these numbers, or what parts of the internals of these numbers that we are particularly interested in. Because I think it's the internals more than anything else of our interest rather than the headline numbers. So we're pretty much done there. I can now get rid of that. And we can now start to move on towards what's expected for the actual numbers themselves. Now it's a double report today. It's not only US non-farm payrolls, but it's also the Canadian jobs report. And we've just come off the back of a Bank of Canada rate hike, and obviously a June rate hike by the US Federal Reserve. And I think the big question I think that I'm wrestling with, well actually I'm not wrestling with that much, is whether or not the Fed will do another rate rise this year. It's coming to the opinion that I think they're pretty much done in terms of rate hikes. And I think the Bank of Canada is debatable whether they'll get another one in, but I'll let Colin talk to you about that. But what we are seeing, Colin, and I think you've noticed this as well, is that while US markets continue to make progressively new highs on an almost daily basis, particularly the Dow Jones, the S&P and the NASDAQ, the Indian markets appear to have topped out. Yes, and in fact, even in the US, it's really just the Dow now. The S&P still stuck between below 2482, and the NASDAQ, NASDAQ 100 hit 6,000 in the last two days. It's just been hanging around 5,900, even with Apple earnings, even with Tesla earnings, even with some good numbers out of the big tech stocks. NASDAQ just hasn't been able to get any farther ahead, and what this is telling me is the breadth in the market is terrible right now. We've got this ongoing rally, it's nearing exhaustion, and the number of stocks keeps shrinking. We'd be talking a month ago about the 5 or 6 NASDAQ stocks that were driving the market. More recently, it's been down to 1. It's been Boeing basically driving the Dow higher, and that's about it. It's really getting tired here in the markets. We can see the NASDAQ here, and the NASDAQ really topped out towards the end of July. This is a four-hour chart we're looking at at the moment, so there's a big base around about 5845, that sort of area. If we take that out to the daily, we can see that once again, look at the shadows on those candles. We can see there's still plenty of buying interest, judging by the long shadows on these daily candle charts. When we look at the weekly, I think we're still really predominantly showing that the market is very undecided of these sorts of areas, or these sorts of levels, and I think it's going to be very difficult to establish where we go to next, but Colin is right. The Dow has been the one market that continues to push higher, but ultimately, if we look at the S&P, the S&P, again, peaked at the end of July and really has pretty much gone sideways. That's not to say that it can't continue to go higher, but ultimately, what these markets are telling us is that there's an awful lot of what I would call caution out there. Okay, this is a five-minute chart, it's probably not very instructive. Yeah, and I ask myself if some of this is starting to become distribution, but it's too early to make a definitive statement on that. Yeah, you've also got the weaker dollar, and I think the weaker dollar is also playing into, I think, the resilience of US markets, because ultimately, if you've got a 10% decline in the dollar, and that's what we've had since the beginning of the year, that is going to translate quite well into foreign earnings in terms of the amount of dollars that you can basically bring back into the country. So on a purely exchange rate basis, that does act as a significant tailwind, whereas on the opposite side of that, if we look at the dollar index here, and this is over the last two years, we are now starting to approach a very, very key support level, a 200-week moving average. And we're also near the lowest level that we've been in over the last two years in terms of the weekly close. So we're at a very, very key point in time for the US dollar. Do I think we can go lower? Yes, I do. I really do think that we can go lower. Can we go lower today? That's the big question, and I'm not entirely convinced about that. That being said, we have broken above the 200-week moving average on euro-dollar. So there's an awful lot of conflicting signals out there with respect to the technical levels. And I think that's great. Yes, and one more on that, Michael. The dollar index is flashing oversold on the RSI, but it's just kind of bouncing around under 30. It's not deeply, deeply oversold, but at the same time it's not that encouraging either. It's not, but also... Either way. Yeah, absolutely. But I think there's also other things we need to bear in mind when we look at the dollar index. Let's look at all the other dollar major currencies. So let's start with Aussie-dollar, because I think that's actually quite... I thought that could also be quite instructive in terms of where it is with respect to its own 200-week moving average. So we've broken above the 200-week moving average on euro-dollar. And that's very important because euro-dollar makes up around about 58% of the dollar index. So it's a significant driver of the dollar index. But it certainly doesn't mean that we're potentially going to go... Oh, we haven't had confirmation on the dollar index. The euro-dollar is going to go higher, so we could potentially drift back. This is the Aussie-dollar on a weekly chart, 200-week moving average. Let's look at the Canada chart, dollar CAD, because I think that could be important in light of the Canadian Jobs Report. I was looking at that just before we came on air. And this is the daily chart. Let me just bring it up into a weekly chart. Now, there's potential here for a potential bullish weekly reversal on the dollar CAD. We can see that, but look also where the 200-day moving average is as well. So we've had one, two, three, four, five successive weekly declines on the dollar CAD. We've had four successive weekly declines on the dollar index. So this, I think, speaks to first and foremost confidence in the Trump administration, but also, I think, in a fairly weak inflation outlook in terms of what the Fed is going to do going forward. So if I'm looking at dollar CAD here, do I want to be long or do I want to be short dollars? And ultimately, I think even if we get a weak number, I'm going to take some doing to get back below this very key support level on the 200-week moving average, but also this trend line support that I've drawn in from the lows that we saw in 2012. So dollar CAD is approaching a very, very key level here. Is there anything you want to add to that, Colin? No, Jen, just to note that on the, what do I do with the Canada Jobs right now? So we had the rate hike in July. There's a reason why they raised rates, which is basically the Canadian economy is doing extremely well. The Canadian economy has continued to do well. We'll see if there was any kind of a hiccup in hiring around the rate hike, although, finally, they did a pretty good job in the month proceeding to signal to the market and to businesses and everybody else that they were going to raise rates, why they were going to raise rates. And basically for Canada, what we're looking at is in 2010, they raised rates twice from half a percent to 1%. In 2015, they cut them back twice, and now it's looking like they'll probably go back up twice. So we're basically looking and they've done one. They'll probably do another one later in the year. But it's overall, it's a function of the fact that the Canadian economy is doing really well. So the streets are taking 10,000, actually 12,000 increase this month down from 45,000 increase in jobs last month. We had two huge months in a row in May and June, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of a retrenchment in July. However, I also think the streets have been overly pessimistic about Canada all year. So I'm looking at 25,000, which is pretty much the middle between those two numbers. That's pretty bullish, mate. In terms of US payrolls, you're going 200. The consensus, I believe, is 183. We can see that down here. I'm going the other way. I'm going to go 150. And the reason I'm going to go 150 on US payrolls is because of the weak readings in the employment components of the ISM manufacturing that we saw earlier this week, but also the services as well. The employment components were a little bit softer than the previous month. Now, the previous month we showed a fairly decent 222. We may get a downward revision to that. I think it could be all about the revision. But also I think there's been a breakdown in correlations between the ADP report and the non-farms in the past two or three months. If you can see from this spreadsheet here, the yellow column is the ADP numbers. And there's never been more than, say, for example, a 50,000 deviation between the various numbers. So we've got 268 there. Some of these are revised, 248. And then in March, we saw a big miss on non-farms. We had ADP at 255, non-farms at 50. And then we had 148. We had a weak pay ADP report and a strong non-farms. And then we had strong ADP, weak non-farms. Now, last month, June, there wasn't that much of a deviation between the two. So now we're expecting 183 in the non-farm number, whereas we got 178 in the ADP. Personally, I think that's too close. There's usually a bigger variance between the two. But as we well know, sometimes these correlations break down and the correlation between the ADP and the non-farms broke down in March quite significantly. So I don't think we can really draw too much in the way of conclusions as to what to expect today. Yeah, and there's a lot of mixed signals out there. So you focused more on the ISM, and I kind of focused more on the upward revision to ADP and also the fact that Jobless Claims 7 remained low, still hanging around below 250. So I think this is a report that really could go either way. I could have just as easily, as Michael did, made the case for 150 as I did for 200. And something else that's important that Michael and I have been looking at and discussing and Michael alluded to earlier is what does this mean for the Fed? And the answer is this time around, we've had a heck of a lot in terms of the headline number. And the reason for this is that it's really unlikely, despite all the chatter we've heard out there, that the Fed's going to actually do anything in September. And the reason for that is the U.S. hits their fiscal year-end on September the 30th. Budget negotiations are underway, but certainly we've seen that there's a lot of contention in Congress. Flally, they can't agree on anything, and the parties can't even really, on the Republican side, they can't even agree among themselves on what they want to do. There's infrastructure spending. There's all kinds of things to argue about. The Russian investigation has ramped up into a grand jury, and there's all kinds of chatter and noise out there. But also, though, the U.S. is heading towards hitting its death ceiling again, and there's a possibility that in October you could get a government shutdown. The last time we were staring at a government shutdown in October was in 2013. And at that time, the Fed delayed tapering its Kiwi program from September to December and waited for the whole thing to blow over. And we would expect that we'll probably see that again with the Fed's, the people out there that think that the Fed's going to start running down their balance sheet in September. I think they're dreaming. I think even October is pushing it on the basis that their problems could still be ongoing, or they might be just trying to get reorganized coming out of it. So I think more likely what you're going to see is the Fed start running down its balance sheet in September. And because of that, Michael and I are in agreement, the Fed probably won't raise rates again this year. Regardless of what the headline number is. Which is quite unusual for me, and you two agree on anything, isn't it? So the key number I'm looking for this week is the wages number. So that is expected to decline from 2.5% in June to 2.4%. And if it does do that, then ultimately I think that will be slightly dollar negative. It's certainly, I don't think, going to prompt an awful lot of dollar buying. But I would say one thing above all, I think the risk is for a bit of a dollar rebound today, simply because of the fact that we are at the lows of the week. And it's unlikely that people want to be overly aggressively short dollars into the payrolls numbers. Also on this cable chart, a key reversal day on the cable. So that suggests to me that we could get some dollar strength, particularly against the pound. And if we do get it against the pound, then we're probably likely to see it also against the euro and against the yen. Because if we look at the yen, there's a decent proxy for dollar strength and a decent payrolls number. We're at a very big support level on dollar yen, around about 109.80, 109.70. There's a conglomeration of support levels all the way through here between 109.40 and 109.50. It is very oversold. So the likelihood is that we could, well, get a semi-decent number. And I say semi-decent, you know, this is all relative. You could see a dollar rebound and dollar yen head back towards around about 110.40, 110.50. It certainly doesn't expect to see it much above 110.80. And as such, I think the risky side is towards the downside. We may get a moderate sell-off in the wake of the numbers, but I would be surprised, I'd be hugely surprised, if we break aggressively lower over the course of the next few hours, simply because of how far we've come already. We've come a long way. I think there's an awful lot of what I would call bad news already priced into this week's dollar move. And as such, I would be surprised if we move much above the highs of the day in the dollar. Can I add one more quick thing? In addition to all the payrolls data, we're also getting trade numbers out this morning. And I am keeping an eye on those because this is the last trade reports in the U.S. and Canada before NAFTA renegotiation started about the 15th of August. I'm going to be keeping an eye on that in the background as well. Oh, cool. Yeah, they are there. 10 seconds. I'm going 150, you're going 200. 200. 209. And in upward revision, I thought we'd get it downward. That's interesting. Okay, the street was actually right this time. 11K. Wages stay at 2.5. So I'd say that's moderately dollar bullish. Oh, one more. Manufacturing payroll, 16,000. Street was expecting 5,000. That should make Trump happy. And upward revision to manufacturing last month, up to 12K from 1K. So we'll probably see Trump tweeting about that in the next hour sometime. Absolutely. So all in all, a fairly positive job support. The unemployment rate drops to 4.3%. The participation rates gone up to 62.9% from 62.8%. So again, that's fairly positive. More people are coming back to the workforce and yet the unemployment rate is continuing to fall. Jobs growth, sorry, wage growth, 2.5, not 0.3 month-on-month. So again, that's slightly positive. There is the stirrings of a little bit of wage inflation there. And all a fairly decent report. And I think it's rallying on the back of those wage numbers probably. And also the fact that you've got a decent upward revision to the number in June. So we'd expect to see a little bit of... Trade numbers, $43.6 billion deficit for the US. That's a little better than the $44.5 expected. Canada trade deficit, $3.6 billion. That's substantially worse than what the street was expecting. So, yeah, dollar positive. And you can see how supermark it was by that dolly end chart. Nice little move higher there. That's really popped up. So let's have a look at where the resistance level is on that. And I would suggest that it's on the high of Wednesday around about 111. I think if we can break through that, we'll probably head back towards the mid-111s on that. Looking at euro-dollar a little bit. I think there's certainly potential on euro-dollar now to slip back if we can drill that in to around about 116, what am I talking about? Around about 117.80 in the short-term and potentially even back to 116.20 which was the initial breakout point. A little bit of profit-taking I would expect to see on the dollar here. A little bit of sterling weakness so I certainly think we can see the pound drift back to the trend line support that I drew on earlier in the session. Particularly given the fact that we've seen this key reversal day here and that would suggest that we're probably going to come back to this line here and potentially even as low as 130-40 which was this series of highs through here. We are starting to also turn over on the slow stochastic which would suggest to me that I think we've got some scope for a little bit of dollar strength now on the back of those numbers as we head into the weekend. Let's look at dollar CAD because I think when we're talking about being long of dollars against the CAD I think that was definitely the right move and we can certainly see that now based on the daily chart that we've got here. It's up to a half a cent on the numbers. I think looking at that looking at the resistance level on this particular chart I would suggest on a short-term basis if we can get back above 126.20 then that might trigger a little bit of buying but certainly I think if we then come all the way out I think there's certainly potential now looking at this weekly chart for a weekly reversal and that would suggest to me that there's potential scope for dollar CAD to head back to 128 in the longer term on the basis of that pattern there a bullish engulfing week or it's not a key reversal because it hasn't made a new low but it's certainly the body of this particular candle those appear to suggest that we're probably going to go for a little bit of a rebound so I would suggest that it's probably buying the dips on dollar CAD is the way to go now over the course of the next few weeks in terms of where we go to next given where we are with respect to long-term support on this particular chart let's have a look at if you've got any questions about any other indices or any other indices or any other markets please feel free to chip in the FTSE 100 looks as if it's going to be head higher that's not a surprise, weaker pound stronger FTSE it's the seesaw trade as I call it so if the pound goes up FTSE goes down if the pound goes down the FTSE goes up it's generally tended to work fairly well and would account for the recent resilience of the FTSE particularly particularly with respect to the sterling weakness against the euro so it looks to me as if we're probably going to head back towards around about 75-30 on the FTSE 100 with respect to the DAX the weaker euro is probably going to play into a slightly more positive outlook on the German DAX over the course of the next few hours and we can see that born out from this particular move here once again it's a currency story with respect to European markets set off in the euro is going to translate into a fairly decent rebound in the DAX but if the euro starts to go back towards 120 over the course of the next few weeks expect the upside on the DAX to be fairly limited in fact let's draw a trend line in on this particular chart here to give you an indication of where I think the resistance levels are on this particular downward trend that we've got in the DAX at the moment and you can see it there so I'll be keeping an eye on around about 12,400 but I would expect I would expect 118 to come under pressure in the euro dollar over the course of the next couple of days always assuming that of course Donald Trump doesn't say anything stupid and that's by no means a given I mean we saw how the dollar sold off last night when Robert Muller came out and suggested that he was going to convene a grand jury so we can see that the dollar is very much driven by politics at the moment and it doesn't take much and the other one to keep an eye on is that Trump has been they've been talking about potentially doing trade sanctions against China and that's the kind of thing that could really upset stock markets and currencies so we keep an eye on that he was supposed to announce something today apparently that's been kicked off to who knows when but that's one of those things that can pop up anytime just keeping an eye on that in the background just been asked about when I think the DAO is going to reverse honestly don't know and if you're trying to pick the top on the DAO or thinking about it don't because ultimately you're trading against the trend and looking at this chart here it's difficult to say where the DAO is going to top out we can easily go to 22,000, 22,500 very very quickly the problem we're trying to pick the top on the market is that you can be right in the long term so it causes the next five or six months but in the short term over five or six weeks you can get squeezed out quite horribly so trade what you see and what I see at the moment is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine consecutive updates don't try and pick the top, trade with the trend so at the moment it's finding support above 22,000 once it's above 22,000 you've really got to be long of it until such times it drops below this series of lows that we've got down here so if we look at around about here you've got a little bit of what I would call congestion or sideways consolidation so essentially what I would do is draw a horizontal line through that try and drill down to see whether or not there's any short term support levels through there and it does appear to be a little bit but ultimately what we've seen or we can see from this chart here in the early chart is we've got a whole host of support coming in there and then we've gone parabolic since we went through 22,000 simply because simply because the market was basically banking on the fact that 22,000 or cap it didn't and what we've got is a series of stop losses all the way up to 22,100 and this candle here or the alley candle suggests that ultimately it's finding decent buyers now around about 22,070 and on a short term basis you're going to go poor very very quickly if you continue to try and pick the top in these sorts of markets the trend is your friend until it comes to an end and I know that sounds very cliched but ultimately it's true there's been no evidence so far that I can see that this Dow trend higher is showing any signs of reversing and yeah the S&P is not following it and the NASDAQ is not following it but that doesn't mean that it can't all of a sudden play catch up and we can see that here 2,480 decent top there but just above that we've also got resistance to 24,85 and it looks like it's a move up consolidation and then a move up again so I don't know whether there's anything you want to chip in on that particular at this point in time it's an interesting one because we find ourselves here at the beginning of August we're staring at what's historically the weakest time of the year for stocks between mid-August and mid-October there's all the potential for turmoil in the US government and the government shutdown which historically has knocked stocks down at some point I think we're in definitely a long-term bull trend here that started on the US election but at some point we're going to get a correction but tightening the correction is really difficult right now and at this point Michael's right you need to see an actual break before calling the trend change because people have been asking me this for months now it's like we're in a bull trend until it changes and at this point it's not changing but all the signs are there everything's flashing yellow but we're not at red yet as far as trading is concerned and this is the best advice I think I can give trade what you see not trade what you think you want to see you have to trade what you see in front of you, the charts ultimately are the ultimate clues and benchmarks as to what the market is doing it's like this oil price chart here that we've got in front of us here we've seen a decent rebound in prices in the oil price over the course of the past couple of days and if we actually look at it on a weekly basis we saw a very strong up move last week and this week we've seen a little bit of a consolidation but ultimately what this chart is telling me here is we've got 1, 2, 3 areas of resistance at $53 and around about $53.50 so until such times as that $53.50 level breaks then really you need to sell the rally on crude oil and even if it does break you've then got trend line resistance coming in all the way across from here a lot of the reasons why oil has been rebounding is because partly I think we've seen five successive weeks of draws on US inventories but the dollar's been weak as well so if the dollar's weak generally that tends to be fairly broadly supported with commodity prices and as such I think that's why you haven't seen much of a bit of a sell-off in crude oil prices but we've got an OPEC non-OPEC meeting next week where these members will be discussing non-compliance and I think the market has also been pricing that in a little bit with respect to the meeting in Abu Dhabi now I'm not convinced they're going to be able to agree anything over and above what they already have and if that's the case then ultimately I think the upside in crude oil is likely to be fairly limited and as such we'll probably drift back down certainly if you look at the way that it's been trading so far since the beginning of this year we saw at the beginning of the year a decent support area around about $53.30 we've sort of oscillated around that yes we are above the 200-day moving average and haven't pushed below it yet but we did that here and we did that here and ultimately the 200-day moving average is all well and good in terms of the overall long-term trend but in the long-term trend for oil prices at the moment there isn't one that's the biggest trend so in that context the 200-day moving average doesn't have as much importance as say for example when we look at that dollar CAD chart we have the 200-week moving average where you had a very long-term uptrend in terms of the dollar CAD and it's more than likely it's less likely that it's going to break through it on the first attempt and I think it's can I add something here on Oil Michael something else to watch for this afternoon is the Baker Hughes U.S. drill rig count which comes out at 1 p.m. Eastern time 6 p.m. in London and what's important about this is that the rig count has been climbing and then that's to be expected first of all during the summer spring into the fall in the winter the rig count generally goes up that's the seasonal trend and that's the annual trend that's the way it usually goes but what's important to note is when the oil and gas oil earnings came out these drillers in the state said demand is flowing for oil field services several of the big U.S. oil companies cut their exploration budgets and their capital budget so something's going on there because a lot of the back and forth we've seen between the U.S. and OPEC has been based on this idea that well higher prices are coming and increased U.S. production will sop up whatever OPEC cuts back on but we're starting to see signs out of the U.S. that perhaps production may not continue to ramp up as much as it has in recent months so when we see the rig count today it should go up and if it goes up then that's not going to be a surprise to anybody the surprise would be if the rig count happens to drop then that could be a surprise a surprise that people would see as bullish for the oil price that's just one that's out there in the background but Keith and I because that could impact oil this afternoon I'm surprised that because U.S. production has gone up this week it has been going up no question it's really intriguing that the all the oil and gas companies have been getting bearish interesting certainly something worth keeping an eye on so let's have a quick look at gold because we haven't looked at that yet but unsurprisingly I would suggest that's probably going to drift lower but again with gold this has been one of the most boring trades this year we've pretty much been trading sideways since April decent support around about 1210 decent resistance around 1295 at the moment on the basis of those numbers we're probably going to drift back towards 1250 having failed to get back above 1275 so looking at the oscillator that looks like he's about to roll over as well so that suggests to me that this range is probably going to continue for quite some time to come and of course as you suspected Donald Trump has tweeted excellent jobs numbers just released and I've only just begun I'm sure there's a song there many job stifling regulations continue to fall movement back to the USA give yourself a pat on the back Mr Trump you're an absolute superstar so yeah sorry about that so any other questions ladies and gents before Colin and I wind this up and then we can sort of look ahead a little bit to what's happening next week no okay well every Monday we have a weekly webinar on 1215 which my colleague David Madden conducts 1215 to 1245 so we'll be looking ahead today and find out details about that on the education section of the website next week the main drivers I think that I will be looking at will be US CPI looking to see whether or not inflation is picking up Chinese CPI Chinese trade and one of my favourites snaps latest numbers which I think will be disappointing and certainly I think if we look at what snap has done over the course of the past few weeks I think really that sort of just really reinforces what I thought about the company when it first IPO'd that it was less crackle and more pop and that's exactly what it's doing it's basically now looking to pop lower well below the IPO price I think that those numbers are out on the 10th of August so I can't imagine they're going to be any good I think Facebook is eating its lunch and I think it's going to be very very difficult to make any money at all so looking ahead at snap Facebook is eating everybody's lunch it's just amazing even though to send to like Twitter and stuff yeah it's it's a beast it's a beast ok well guys I think we'll wrap this up thanks very much for listening thanks for joining today and I hope you all enjoy your upcoming weekends and until next month when Colin and I will pick this up once again have a great day trading everyone thank you


Amos chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tequah, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Isaiah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. And he said, the Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem, the pastures of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers. All right, here we go. This is going to be a fun Bible study. Let's get some background information. Let me develop some things with you. And I don't think that the study tonight is going to take that long. It's really an introductory study. But let me give you some information related to this book and concerning Amos. And so for those of you who take notes, Amos prophesied, as mentioned, during the reign of Isaiah and the reign of Jeroboam. Now, Isaiah is the king of Judah. Jeroboam, the second, is who he's referring to, was the king of Israel. And so Bible commentators will date his book somewhere between 760 to 753 B.C. We see that Amos was a herdsman. He was also a farmer. And he was called to be a prophet to the nation. That's what it says in verse 1, when it says the words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tequah, when he saw concerning Israel in the days of Isaiah, king of Judah in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Jewish king of Israel two years before the earthquake. He was called by the Lord as a prophet. And a very interesting note that he refers to himself as a herdsman. He was a shepherd is what he was. And later on, he'll refer to himself, and I'll show you this in just a moment. He'll refer to himself as a farmer. And this is a man who was a herdsman and a farmer who's called by God to be a prophet to the nation. Now, when it speaks concerning Amos as a prophet, he does refer to himself in a certain way. It's interesting how the Lord used various men and women in the Old Testament to prophesy, to speak forth his word. Prophecy speaks forth, speaks up, speaking forth the word of God, speaking forth also as foretelling. So there are a couple of aspects of prophecy or a prophet. A prophet could be speaking forth the mind of God for that moment, but a prophet also, Amos is speaking concerning the mind of God for the future. There are times that he will forth tell, meaning he'll speak concerning what God is concerned about right now, and he'll declare the mind of God. And then there are other times when the prophet will give information related to things that will take place in the still distant future. And when you look at the various prophets, and I didn't want to do this because it would take too much time, but if you look at the prophetic in the Old Testament, you'll see that there are kings who were prophets, kings like David and kings like Solomon. There were rich men who were prophetic, men like Abraham. There were priests who also were prophets, men like Samuel. So it's interesting to note that God is speaking through a man who's referring to himself as a herdsman or a farmer. And so this call, this call to prophesy to the nation, well, it comes from God. It doesn't come from somebody's extreme qualifications. Like I said, there are kings and there are priests, rich men, etc., who are used by the Lord to prophesy. But he begins by letting us know that he's nothing. Nothing in the sight of others. He was simply a herdsman. He was a shepherd and he was simply a farmer. Now, he was from a small village. He refers to it as Tequah. The word Tequah speaks of a stockade. And if you were looking at a map of Israel and you saw the city of Jerusalem, well, Tequah would be a small city that was 12 miles south of the city of Jerusalem. And it's near the city that's also referred to in Scripture as Hebron. Now, as mentioned a moment ago, his humble origins didn't impress the people of his day. You can see that. You can actually fast forward that to even today. And you can see that people who have humble origins very often aren't looked at or regarded very highly by many people. They very often will think that if you're going to be somebody that is used in a mighty way, that you really ought to have to agree. But God has always had a way of using the off-scouring, using those that were not esteemed highly. He has always had a way of using them because Paul would tell us in 1 Corinthians because when he uses people like that who are not noble and mighty and all of that, he says that's because people like that don't steal glory from God because God gets all the glory so we'll look and say how is it that this person is being used in such a magnificent capacity and then they have to say within themselves it's got to be God because there's certainly no quality that that person has on their own. So his humble origins didn't impress the people of his day. When you look at this and we're going to be seeing this later on in chapter 7, there's a priest and his name is Amaziah. And this priest named Amaziah brings an accusation against him. Amaziah accuses Amos of conspiring against the king and he says you're causing the nation of Israel to become discouraged. You see Amos had told the people of the northern kingdom that they were going to go into captivity and so this priest Amaziah is very upset and actually brings an accusation against him to the king. You see at that time when you look in the Bible you'll discover this at that time the nation of Israel was actually divided into two kingdoms divided into what is called the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And when that division occurred during the time of Rehoboam, son of Solomon when that kingdom division occurred through a rebellion by a man named Jeroboam Jeroboam went to the north and he took ten of the tribes with him and they became what is called the ten northern tribes. And so Jeroboam divided the nation of Israel which was made up of twelve tribes into the ten northern tribes and the two southern tribes. Now in order to keep the people from the north from going to the temple which was in the south in the city of Jerusalem he set up alternative worship sites. So you have at the northern portion of the nation of Israel in a region that is called Dan you had an altar that was built by Jeroboam we have been to this altar twenty three twenty four times it is up in the north but there was a second altar it was in a place called Bethel if you were looking at a map Bethel would have been at the southern most border that was separating northern Israel from Judah so Amaziah is a priest in Bethel he is a priest over this alternative site to worship and Amos you will see this when we get to chapter seven Amos has been prophesying that the Assyrians are going to come and take the nation into captivity that the ten northern tribes are going to be taken into captivity Amaziah is typical of many people even to this day who gets upset to hear a negative report and so he is upset and he is saying you are discouraging the people by saying that people are going to be taken into captivity and he brings this report to the king and he tells the king that this man Amos is discouraging the people by saying they are going to go into captivity and so they are very upset now that tells me that when he is speaking to Amos it gives me some insight into Amos as being what would be called a prophet to the north but also referred to theologically as a northern prophet because he is speaking to the people in the north at that time and so he is a northern prophet and so this man Amosiah's response is typical of people who are convicted of sin and so he says this message that you are bringing is not welcome in Israel when you read Amos chapter seven verse twelve and we will get there in about six months when you get to Amos chapter seven verse twelve Amosiah said to Amos go you seer flee to the land of Judah there eat bread and there prophesy so he is saying we don't want your message here because you are bringing discouragement again fast forward and I like to take the Bible because I think it is practical through every generation there are insights we can gain from what God says and even to those in the past we should be learning from those things ourselves here in the present and once again it is not really a popular thing to give the full counsel of God it really isn't there are ministries today that are being built on making sure not to bring a word that discourages because people get upset I was just told that this just this last week that there is somebody to come here because they feel convicted they don't want to be convicted they want to go someplace where they don't have a sense of conviction and that's not an atypical thing there are quite a number of people who say speak to me smooth things speak to me things I want to hear tickle my ears don't make me feel that there is anything wrong in my life and that's what was taking place here that's what was taking place during that time and so Amosiah says don't be speaking like that here go to Judah go down south and speak to them and eat there and live there but leave us alone so when he tells them go you see or flee to the land of Judah there eat bread and there prophesy Amos responded by prophesying against Israel and he gave a personal word against Amaziah in chapter 7 verses 14 and 15 to Amosiah I was no prophet nor was I a son of a prophet but I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore fruit then the Lord took me as I followed the flock and the Lord said to me go prophesy to my people Israel and now he begins to prophesy and he gives a word to Amosiah and he says in chapter 7 verse 17 this is to this priest Amosiah your wife he says to Amosiah your wife shall be a harlot in the city your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword your land shall be divided by survey line you shall die in a defiled land and Israel shall surely be led away captive from his own land and so when he is saying prophesy to a smooth things to discourage us go down to Judah and say that to them but leave us alone he got very intensely personal at that moment well that message that message that he has that we'll be looking at as we go through Amos was not well received because the nation at that time was doing outwardly well there was a false sense of security that had taken over and people began to be callous concerning God his law and the things that he would require of man Amos prophesied that God would bring judgment and the judgment he speaks about is both near and future and we'll see that as we go through the book you see the nation of Israel is filled with outward religion but it's also filled with oppression of the poor with idolatry and self-righteousness the nation is filled with greed and materialism it's filled with arrogance and is now ripe for judgment so Amos begins to warn them but they refuse to repent and judgment is going to come upon them we will see that as we go through the book of Amos and so beginning in verses 1 and 2 here in Amos chapter 1 the words of Amos who was among the herdsmen of Tecwa which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Isaiah king of Judah the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel two years before the earthquake he said the Lord roars from Zion utters his voice from Jerusalem the pastors of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers eloquent words for a man who is really what we would today refer to as a country preacher he speaks of two years he says before the earthquake now that's speaking of a great earthquake that occurred in the nation of Israel and that is spoken of almost 200 years later in the book of Zechariah because in Zechariah 14 verse 5 it says you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Isaiah king of Judah so he's using that as a marker for time to let the people know when he is prophesying and all and he says in verse 2 the Lord roars from Zion the pastors of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers and so God is portrayed here notice how it says in verse 2 the Lord roars God is portrayed as a lion when it says the Lord roars from Zion utters his voice from Jerusalem he's portrayed as a lion that's about to pounce upon its prey God is being presented here in the book of Amos from the beginning as about to bring judgment he uses this description to awaken them Joel in chapter 3 verse 16 says it like this the Lord also will roar from Zion utter his voice from Jerusalem the heavens and earth will shake but the Lord will be a shelter for his people in the strength of the children of Israel so God is portrayed as a lion about to pounce upon its prey because he's bringing judgment and so it says and utters his voice from Jerusalem then goes on to say the pastors of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel Mount Carmel withers so what is he saying he's saying there's going to be a drought and this drought is going to cause people to mourn because the judgments are going to be coming across from God and the drought is going to produce a famine and the people are going to be hungry and there will be a time of great sorrow and great pain now as he's bringing this theme of judgment he begins to itemize different places that will go through judgment and as I said I'll touch on these things briefly this isn't going to be a real long bible study today I don't think we'll see I'll wake you up when I'm through in verse 3 because the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away its punishment because they have thrashed Gilead with implements of iron but I will send a fire into the house of Haseel which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad I will also break the gate bar of Damascus cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Avene and the one who holds the scepter from Beth-Eden the people of Syria shall go captive to cur says the Lord now he's beginning to bring judgment place by place so this is a section that deals with the judgments upon nations that are close to the nation of Israel now we need to remember that God is not simply the God of Israel but God is the God of the entire world and though we're living in his time of grace he still is going to judge the world for its rejection of him and the Bible makes it very clear that God is judge when you look at Psalm 50 verse 6 it says let the heavens declare his righteousness for God himself is judge during this time there was this belief amongst the pagan nations that you had what would be called local deities your local God and so the Ammonites would have their God but you'd have the Gods of the Mobites and you'd have the variety of peoples that are around Israel that had what are called tribal Gods and so if I were part of a nation that was at war with another nation I might bring an idol with me which was symbolic of the fact this God that I worshiped was on my side in battle but if the people that we are fighting against were to have victory over us then it would not simply be a picture of these people having victory it would be a picture of their God also having victory and so during the time of the writing of the Bible these people would carry with them their tribal Gods the Bible portrays God as a tribal God the Bible portrays God reveals God to be the God of the whole earth Abraham is speaking to heavenly visitors when he's there outside of a tent and beginning to speak to him God himself is beginning to speak to Abraham concerning judgment that is going to take place on Sodom and Gomorrah and some of the small cities that surrounded those two cities and as Abraham is speaking to the Lord it's in chapter 18 of Genesis when he's speaking to the Lord he says shall not the judge of the whole earth do it is right so Abraham from that point he knew that this God that he's speaking to is not a tribal God but God is the God of the entire earth and that's why the heavens declare his righteousness because God is a judge and so he's bringing judgment and that's the point that he's making and he's speaking concerning various places that judgment will take place on first is Damascus and as we look at that he begins to speak concerning that Damascus serious God is judging them God is judging them because of the cruelty and he's judging them because of the cruelty to the inhabitants of Gilead when you look in a map and you look on the east side of the Jordan river that area there south a little north of and to the east of Jerusalem we'll say that region in that general area is called Gilead and so he's speaking concerning the cruelty to the inhabitants of Gilead now it would seem that they've committed atrocities notice what it says for three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away its punishment because they have thrashed Gilead with implements of iron the implements of iron were instruments that were used for reaping and the picture that you have here is unspeakable cruelty that they were using on those that they were coming against these people from Damascus were actually butchering the people that they were coming against that's what he's saying they have thrashed Gilead with implements of iron which you say how cruel the people of that day were and we have that taking place even today through Isis and that's what was taking place even then there were atrocities they were using thrashing instruments in a brutal fashion and so as you're looking at the map and you're looking at Jerusalem and you're going north a little bit you're looking into an area there Gilead that would be called today and he says these atrocities took place so what is it going to do verse 4 he says I'll send fire into the house of Hazel which I'll devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad and so when he speaks of Hazel he's speaking of a king the palaces of Ben-Hadad speaks of ancestral palaces in Syria and what he's saying simply is I'm going to bring judgment on the King of Syria he says in verse 5 he says in verse 6 he says and the one who holds the scepter from Beth Eden the people of Syria shall go captive and curse as the Lord and so these are locations that speak of areas that are in Syria and he's saying that this is going to take place these people that he's referring to were taken captive by the Assyrians and they were relocated to a place near the Assyrian capital he goes on to speak of the kingdom Gaza thus says the Lord for three transgressions of Gaza and for four now when he uses that formula he's speaking about multiple transgressions it's not just that they had four but this is a way of saying you have many transgressions I will not turn away its punishment and he gives a reason because they took captive the whole captivity to deliver them to Edom but I will send a fire to the Gaza's I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod and the one who holds the scepter from Ashcalan I will turn my hand against Ekron and the remnant of the Flisting shall perish says the Lord God and so he continues and he's saying this is another location and this is for Gaza Gaza is in the south Israel, Gaza is to the south and to the west of the city of Jerusalem and it's the region that the Flistings occupied during that day is speaking of the Flisting Empire and he's saying I'm bringing judgment on you because what you have done is and he says in verse 6 you have taken captive the whole captivity to deliver them up to Edom you have taken prisoners of war and you have sold them into slavery and so I'm going to deal with you now this is something that did take place because in 2 Kings chapter 18 verses 7 and 8 it speaks concerning Hezekiah king and it says the Lord was with him he prospered wherever he went and he rebelled against the king of Assyria did not serve him he subdued the Flistings as far as Gaza and its territory from Watchtower to Fortified City so God says I'm bringing judgment which took place through Hezekiah verses 9 and 10 for three transgressions of Tyre and for four I will not turn away its punishment because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom did not remember the covenant of brotherhood but I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre which shall devour its palaces Tyre is also ancient Phoenicia it's up to the north in what is modern Lebanon and it's interesting what they're getting judged for they're getting judged he says for breaking a treaty for breaking a treaty they did not remember the covenant of brotherhood it's another way of saying they broke a treaty we'll take a moment to look at that what is he referring to if you read your Bible you're going to discover that there's a king by the name of David king David had a buddy a friend by the name of Hyrum Hyrum was king of Tyre king Hyrum was close to king David and so they had a covenant that they had made you see no king of Israel no king of Judah had ever made war with Tyre because they had a covenant but this covenant this treaty had been broken and as they broke the treaty with Israel they had sold the Jews into captivity to the Edomites we'll look at that in a moment because all of this is going to tie together and you'll see this in just a minute as they develop some practical application for this but they sold the Jews into captivity to the Edomites and they disregarded their covenant with the nation of Israel I mentioned that David made a treaty with this man named Hyrum and this treaty had been renewed by his son Solomon in 1 Kings 5 verse 12 it says the Lord gave Solomon wisdom just as he had promised him there were peaceful relations between Hyrum and Solomon and the two of them made a treaty but the treaty had been broken and God brings judgment on them in verse 10 it says eventually the Assyrians came against Tyre but they couldn't take the city eventually a king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came against them and they built a city on an island about a half mile off the coast Nebuchadnezzar came in and destroyed the city the former city but he allowed the one that was built a half mile into the sea he allowed that to remain around 250 years later a man by the name of Alexander the great came and these people on the city that were there on the island began to taunt him and so what Alexander did he was an amazing general what Alexander did is he built what is called a causeway he just got debris from the old city and they built a roadway into the ocean from the debris of the old city and they came and they took the city of Tyre Ezekiel tells us in chapter 26 verses 2 through 4 it reads son of man because Tyre has said against Jerusalem aha she is broken who was the gateway of the peoples now she has turned over to me she is filled she has laid waste therefore thus says the Lord God behold I am against you oh Tyre and will cause many nations to come up against you as the sea causes its waves to come up they shall destroy the walls of Tyre break down her towers I will also scrape her dust from her and make her look and make her like the top of a rock which is exactly what took place the city was destroyed in verse 11 and 12 thus says the Lord for three transgressions of Edom and for four I will not turn away its punishment because he pursued his brother with the sword cast off all pity his anger tore perpetually he kept his wrath forever I will send a fire upon Teman which shall devour the palaces of Basra and I will look at that judgment against Edom why was judgment being brought against Edom Edom had a vengeful spirit now when you are looking at a map and you are looking at Israel across to the east Jordan river you find the land of Edom Edom descended from a man by the name of Esau even as Israel descended from a man named Jacob when you read the Bible in the book of Genesis you discover that Jacob and Esau were twin brothers to their father Isaac and from the very beginning they had conflict even in the womb there were two nations within the womb that were battling against one another and so from the very beginning there was antagonism between the two men as you read the Bible Esau never had a good relationship with his brother Jacob and he never lives at peace with him so his descendants also opposed the Jews when Israel was delivered from Egypt and was in the wilderness they needed to pass through the region of Edom and it says in the book of Numbers 20 verses 17 through 20 that they made a request they said please let us pass through your country we will not pass through fields or vineyards nor will we drink water from wells we will go along the king's highway we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we pass through your territory Edom said to him you shall not pass through my land lest I come out against you with a sword so the children of Israel said to him we will go by the highway and if I or my livestock drink any of your water then I'll pay for it let me only pass through on foot nothing more we will not pass through so Edom came out against them with many men and with a strong hand and God says because of that I will bring judgment upon you notice what he says in verse 12 I will send a fire upon Taman Taman is a region that is there in what is today modern Jordan which shall devour the palaces of Basra and Basra is a town there in that area now I'm going to send a fire upon Taman all of you have heard the city of Petra Petra is the capital of Edom Petra was located in the region of Taman and so he's simply saying the palaces of the city of Basra will be destroyed and they were in Jeremiah 49-13 I have sworn by myself says the Lord that Basra shall become a desolation a reproach and a curse and all its cities shall be perpetual wastes and then he says in verse 13 thus says the Lord for three transgressions of the people of Ammon and for four I will not turn away its punishment because they ripped open the women with child in Gilead that they might enlarge their territory but I will kindle a fire in the wall of Raba and it shall devour its palaces amid shouting in the day of battle and a tempest in the day of the whirlwind their king shall go into captivity he and his princes together says the Lord Ammon Ammon is north of Edom again in the region of modern Jordan and was an ally of Syria Ammonites Ammonites are descendants that came into existence through an incestuous relationship between Abraham's nephew Lot and his youngest daughter when you look in the story of Abraham Abraham was an idolater in the land of Ur of the Caldees in ancient Mesopotamia and the Lord God spoke to Abraham said get out of your country I'm going to take you to a place that I'm going to bless you with in Mesopotamia now he was from a family of idolaters but God revealed himself to Abram at that time his name was Abram Abram had a wife her name was Sarai the name Abram when you look at it is literally translated High Father Exalted High Father Sarai is the name Dominative God speaks to Abram says get up leave your family and everything you know and follow me by faith into a region and a place that I'm only promising you that you by the eye of faith are going to have to see and receive and I'm going to take you and I'm going to bless you and ultimately you see this in Genesis 12 1-3 he says those who bless you I will bless those who curse you and minister in very specific ways from Genesis 12 following in the life of Abram Abram ultimately has an opportunity an opportunity to choose where he's going to be because you see he has a nephew by the name of Lot and Lot and Abram both had become very wealthy through the fact that they had herds and multiplied and the herdsmen for Abram and the herdsmen for Lot began to have conflict because the herds had grown so great in numbers and all that it is causing a problem between those two groups and so Abram speaks to his nephew and they're standing there at the plane of Sodom now when you read your Bible Sodom is described as being an amazingly beautiful place if you've been to Israel you know that when you go into the region of Sodom which is by the Dead Sea now that it is absolutely barren it's dead everything's dead around there it's very uninhabitable but that's how it became that's not how it was so during the time of Abram and his nephew Lot when they were standing there looking at this plane Abram said you decide what you'd like to do you go to the right I'll go to the left you go to the left I'll go to the right and so the Bible tells us very descriptively that when Lot is looking he sees how beautiful and lush Sodom is in the surrounding area and he chooses to go into Sodom so first he looks at Sodom and chooses to go there ultimately he dwells in Sodom and finally becomes a judge within the gates of Sodom so he became very situated in this very evil region very evil city as he's there and as he's amongst these people God makes a visitation to Abram his uncle and says the cry of the evil and wickedness of this area has come to my ears I've come down to see whether these things are so in other words I'm investigating for judgment and at that point we all know the story because Abram knows that he has his nephew his nephew's wife and a certain amount of family that is there Abram begins at that point to begin to discuss God's mercy with him and says for the sake of fifty will you spare the city and God says yes for the sake of fifty and he keeps on bargaining if you will speaking to the Lord how about forty how about thirty how about twenty he wants to come to the number ten he wants to come to the number ten because that's how many relatives he has there in the city of Sodom so he finally comes to the number ten for the sake of ten I've taken it upon myself to speak to you I'll speak to you one more time then I'll be silent for the sake of ten will you spare that city and God says yes I will spare that city for the sake of ten and now he knows that there can be mercy afforded to Lot his wife and daughters and sons and all of that he knows that that can take place and he rests in the goodness and mercy of God as God goes and pays that visit we all know the story of what took place when the angels came in and as they came into the city the city of Sodom they knocked on the door of Lot and Lot opens the door and brings them in actually you can almost see him dragging them in as quickly as possible because the men of the city were exceedingly wicked and he says come on in come under the shelter of my roof but the men of Sodom pressed against the door and started saying bring out the men that are lodging with you because we want to know them we want to have carnal relations with them and he came out and argued with them and he said no these men are visitors they're under the customary protection of my home how can you do such an evil thing he even went so far as to say take your daughters take them they said no you came to sojourn amongst us and now you've become our judge the angels caused blindness to take place and those who were trying to press into the house and they were groping as if in the dark they were blind and they couldn't find them and Lot is commanded get out leave nothing behind move well he had compromised his testimony with his family and when he said we've got to get out of here there's going to be a judgment that's taking place not everyone went with them his wife did and two of his daughters and as they went out we all know the story of Lot's wife as they were leaving the city and fleeing as quickly as they could to a small city called Zawar as they were on the way there she turned around and she looked and everybody knows the story of Lot's wife in fact Jesus uses it in his teaching prophetically by simply saying remember Lot's wife remember Lot's wife she turned and she looked and I used to wonder why did she get judged for doing something like that because the Bible says that when she turned and looked she became a pillar of salt she was caught in the judgment that came upon those cities it's because when you look at what it's saying there it is literally saying that Lot's wife turned with longing because though her body had left Sodom her heart remained and so she was caught in the judgment and she became a pillar of salt the two daughters are there with their father and they speak to one another and they say our father is not going to have any seed to carry on his name and this is what we'll do the older and the younger devise the plan and they gave drink to their father Lot and when he was drunk totally incapacitated apparently they went and lay with him and he impregnated both of his daughters one of his daughters became the one who bore the foundation of Moab the other daughter the younger one is the one who brought forth the Ammonites and so the Ammonites are being referred to here in this particular portion of Scripture they were descended from the incestuous relationship of Lot and his youngest daughter the Moabites and the Ammonites came into existence through them by way of application it began with a look with Lot it began with a look Abram said you look which side you want rather than humbly saying Abram I owe everything to you everything to you you see when you read the story of Lot Lot had been taken captive by the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah he had been taken captive when they had come and been arrayed and Abram armed men of his own household and they went off and rescued Lot from captivity and he had seen nothing but good from his uncle Abram but when he was looking and he saw how beautiful Sodom was how lush and beautiful and how great it would be to live in that upper echelon that upper neighborhood if you will his eyes just desired those things his heart was captivated by those things and ultimately he was dwelling amongst those things and began the scripture says that he was vexed by the sinful ways that they lived he remained there be very careful what you set your affection on be very careful what you set your attention on be very careful what you long for because you just may get it it's interesting how the scripture says that God gave to the children of Israel their requests but he sent leanness to their soul and there are some things that we might long for and desire to have things that we think we can't live without that are actually going to be destructive in our spiritual life or in our marriage or in our jobs or whatever because we're setting our attention and affection on things that are not edifying he began in a good way but he ended up having an incestuous relationship with his two daughters and producing Moabites and Ammonites now as it speaks here it says in verse 13 for three transgressions of the people of Ammon and for four I will not turn away its punishment because they ripped open the women with child in Gilead that they might enlarge their territory what they had done these people is they had joined the Syrians and they began to fight against the tribes of Israel that had remained on the eastern side the Lord had said to the children of Israel to cross over the Jordan and enter in and take the land of Israel but there were two and a half tribes that remained there was a tribe of Reuben which is the first Mexican tribe there was Gad and then you had half the half tribe of Manasseh and they remained on the east side of the Jordan and so these were people that had been attacked by the Ammonites who had joined forces with the Syrians and when it speaks concerning this horrible thing and notice they ripped open the women with child that there is hardly anything more descriptive of something more barbaric than the fact that these were pregnant women that these soldiers took their swords and sliced them open killing the women and killing those children well that occurred under Hazael in 2 Kings chapter 8 verses 7 through 12 it speaks of Elisha the prophet and it says Elisha went to Damascus Ben Haddad king of Syria was sick it was told him saying the man of God has come here and the king said to Hazael take a present in your hand and go meet the man of God and inquire of the Lord by him saying shall I recover from this disease so Hazael went to meet him and took a present with him of every good thing of Damascus 40 camel loads and he came and stood before him and said your son Ben Haddad king of Syria has sent me to you saying shall I recover from this disease and Elisha said to him go say to him you shall certainly recover and however the Lord has shown me that he will really die then he said his countenance in a stair until he was ashamed and the man of God wept Hazael said why is my Lord weeping he answered because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel their strongholds you will set on fire their young men with the sword and you will dash their children and open their women with child when this man went back to Ben Haddad to bring this news he ended up murdering the king and took over himself and so Elisha was simply prophesying what was going to take place and for that God judged the Ammonites he said in verse 14 and shall devour its palaces amid shouting in the day of battle and a tempest in the day of the whirlwind their king shall go into captivity he and his princes together says the Lord and so he said I'll kindle a fire in the wall of Braba Braba is an ancient city it's the ancient capital of Ammon Ammon is located nearby and built upon its ancient ruins and this city was destroyed Jeremiah 49 says in verse 2 behold the days are coming says the Lord that I'll cause to be heard an alarm of war in Braba of the Ammonites it shall be desolate mount a desolate mount your villages shall be burned with fire then Israel shall take possession of his inheritance as the Lord and then finally the king shall go into captivity he and the princes together it's interesting and I'll close with thoughts when it says their king shall go into captivity that word king there is interesting because it is also translated molach the king referred to there it could be translated molach molach I mentioned to you it's also molach was a god a pagan god that I shared this with you recently was worshiped where they would actually it had a human human body and I believe it had a it had a I can't remember the kind of head it had but it was ugly but it and an animal's head and they had the arms in a certain way and it actually had seven chambers and you would make you would make sacrifices for a variety of things and you would put whatever your sacrifice whether it was grain or whatever you would put it on into a little they called it chapels in a little chapel and it would burn but if you wanted fertility if you wanted to have many children what you would do is you would come with your infant your firstborn and you would place it in the arms of this it was a bull you would put the baby in the arms of the bull god and the baby would roll his arms into a furnace during that act of worship and sacrifice music would be played very loudly and it would be what is called discordant it would be music that just made no sense it just was loud and confusing because they wanted the father who was making the sacrifice to not be able to hear the sound of his child who was being burned alive in the belly of this idol so when it says their king shall go into captivity he and his princes together the king is also translated moloch the idol of the ammonites so it can speak of moloch as well as the king itself the princes can also be speaking not simply of governmental officials but also those who are religious priests if you will leaders and so it may be that when he's writing he's speaking of not just the king in terms of politics but the entire system is the going to captivity everything is to be undermined and destroyed because god is going to conquer all of that the king shall go into captivity and the princes together could be another way of saying the god of Israel will be victorious not just against the human government but the religious system behind it one of the things and we'll close with this thought that we need to keep in mind especially today is that governmental system throughout the world though they may be denying their original foundation many of them are ideological governmental systems that are based on a certain religious principle and faith the united states was initially built on what has been referred to as the Judeo-Christian ethic because pilgrims came brought their god brought the bible brought their faith and pilgrims derived their faith not simply from what is called the Christian faith but from its Jewish roots and that's why it's called Judeo-Christian Jewish Christian I have right now you can't see it obviously because I have it under my t-shirt but I have a star David and a cross and that I wear and I was in line at a local market a while back now and the guy behind the counter who was doing the checking and all saw it and he was kind of interesting because he reached over and he grabbed it actually flicked it he kind of picked it up like that and said what's this and I'm looking at him and I'm thinking what is it to do I'm not used to people doing that it's kind of a rude thing to do so I said what do you mean he said well what is that and I said it's a star David with a cross and he says to me what's it mean I said it means I'm going to hit you in the nose I said I'm not going to pay for this bread no what does it mean and I said it's giving recognition to my Christian faith that the star of David represents the nation of Israel the cross represents Christ who is Jewish and so the star of David with the cross is symbolic of my faith in Christ who is Jewish and so it turns out that the guy was a professing Christian so he asks me what church do you want to go to and I said I go to Calvary Chapel Chino Valley oh and then he tells me I came out of a Calvary Chapel he mentions the name of the Calvary that he came out of and now he wants to argue with me about the pastor of that church and this I just want my bread give me my milk you know let me out of here well he's going to argue first you're picking a fight what do you want to talk about my friends it was odd but the whole thing is as a Christian I look back at the roots that I have and I know that my belief system is built in the Judeo-Christian faith and I also know that this government that we have is also built on that it's interesting when people begin to say we cannot legislate morality you've all heard it but the fact is that's what laws do every law that we have almost every law that you have is going to find it's outrooted in one of the commandments of God and that's one of the reasons why it's so very important for us to understand that when it comes to argumentation as it relates to the changing of laws to include different forms of making determinations as to what is right and wrong which is the argument that people are having right now concerning the implementation of what is called Sharia law because that comes into conflict with the American understanding of law and order and Americans right now don't seem to understand that whenever somebody who is Muslim who is very strongly Muslim whenever they say I don't like you saying Jesus or whenever they say I don't like you doing whatever in the name of Mary Christmas or whatever we don't like that what they're in reality doing and a lot of people don't understand this is they're basically saying I don't like your religion so I'm going to have mine over yours so every time we turn and we say oh you know we're being Christian and all that sure okay I won't mention Jesus because it'll offend you in reality I have just put myself voluntarily under their law which if you're in Saudi Arabia or any other government Sharia if you're in that country you can't wear a cross you can't bring your Bible in you don't mention the name of Jesus you won't find a church unless it's underground and that's what's taking place right now there is a battle going on it's spiritual in nature it is spiritual in nature it is a battle of God's truth and Satan's lie and as Christians we understand that we also know the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but are mighty in God to the pulling down of strongholds we understand that our weaponry is spiritual the sword of the spirit the breastplate of righteousness the helmet of salvation our loins are girded with truth we have our feet shot in the preparation of the gospel of peace we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit because we understand that it's not simply someone's opinion especially when they're trying to forbid the name of Jesus from being said but it is spiritual in nature because Satan hates Jesus Christ that's the reason why we understand that our God is not simply a God of compassion our God is an awesome judge of the universe and that's why we bow our knees to Jesus Christ alone because we understand that and God is simply saying those false gods that you have been worshiping I am the God over everything everything and that's where the New Testament comes in where the Bible says every knee shall bow every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to glory of God the Father so what you're looking at amen so he's saying I am victorious not just over government but I am victorious over the ideologies that create false religions that destroy lives I am the God that will destroy those too they will be under my feet all of that is fulfilled through Jesus Christ