The Importance of Integrity and Honesty in God’s Eyes | Lessons From Amos 8:1-14

Show Notes

Episode 639: 
In this episode, Chris and Jeff explore Amos chapter 8, where God presents a vision of ripe fruit, symbolizing Israel's readiness for judgment due to their unethical practices. The hosts emphasize the importance of integrity in business, discussing how God holds people accountable for dishonesty, even in seemingly minor transactions.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, my name's Chris. This is Jeff, and we are the Bible Guy the Bubble Guys. I like that. That's good the voice the Bubble Guys. Yeah, let me go so. And by the way, you could get that rasp there, I heard it. Yeah, I can put it there. Yeah. Well, hey, listen, today we are excited because Desiree has given us the opportunity, the ability to read a news article. And we love giving the most reliable news. Yeah, from only the most reliable sources. That's right, which for us is the Babylon Beat. Yes, she don't know. It's a satire website, very funny stuff. And today, says Instagram algorithm, since his wife tired in bed, ready to buy whatever. And by the way, you can't. See it, but there's a picture of this woman lying in bed on the phone. The glow is on her screen and he's got a smile on her face. That's right, because she's ready to buy whatever. Oh right. Salt Lake City, Utah. The algorithm that dictates ads on Instagram. Sprang into action. As Rachel Myers settled into bed, the app, sensing she was tired and ready to buy literally anything put in front of her. So funny. Instagram has worked for years attempting to discover precisely when a wife is at both her most exhausted and most comfortable, and then to strike. Do you believe that's true? I do believe that's true, because that is incredibly smart. I think so. Oh those pants are cute and they're on sale, and if I give them my email addressed, they'll take ten percent off my order. Meyers said, her eyes barely open. Wow, look at those gardening gloves. I definitely need those. And this lady has an ergonomic mouse. Oh how about this matching apron bonnet? Combo bonnets are making a comeback, Oh, added, though ostensibly checking Instagram to see what a couple friends had posted. Only minutes later, Myers had loaded seventy three new items into her online cart. My goodness quote, the algorithm is truly amazing. If if at times it right, wives will buy literally anything, said Instagram software engineered David Khan. They'll buy dog food even though they don't own the dog. The defenses to the bank account are Zilch during that little window before she falls asleep. At publicly publishing time, Maya's husband had quietly pulled his wife's phone out of her hand as she fell asleep, quickly canceling her order for a jumbo ant farm. That is so funny, so funny. Yeah, that's really good. I told my wife one time, I said, she told me she got some stuff. We've had a run since we moved into our new house where the Amazon guy comes like every day. Yeah, every day. That's that's me, every day, no matter what. Yeah, and so I'm not kidding. Yeah, no, I'm not kidding. Yeah, it's it's sometimes five six packages this day. Part of your family. What's that? Is the Amazon guy part of your family? Oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah. We just them, we know them. Backyard barbecue. Yeah yeah. So uh. I told my wife, I said, why do we keep it on these packages? Getting some really good after Christmas sales, really good. We're saving a lot of money, I said, I can't afford to save this much money, right right right. So, by the way, let me let me be clear. My wife doesn't order extravagant things. She orders like deodorant or you know what, I mean, or just. Just saves a trip to the store, that's right. Like paper towels come in Amazon packages, right, So like you know, I don't want people to misinterpret like she's not a shopper, like like like hey, I bought this diamond ring and like this thing that this woman has in the ad of bonds and things that is not her. She just swipes to do her grocery shopping. A lot of time, I saw a light sweat start breaking out on your brow after you mentioned that five packages a day come to your house, and you thought, I need to make sure everybody knows my wife's not wasting money. Oh no, no, no, no, she doesn't. She doesn't do that. And by the way, she'll even tell me, because I'll come home and I will literally complain and I'll go, there's five packages, and then she'll open them up and she's like, paper towels, really, And I said, why do you buy paper towels that? Why don't just grab my Kroger And she says, believe it or not, it's cheaper. And by the way, that is incredibly hard to believe it's cheaper. So how is that even possible that it's cheaper? And it's because Amazon is a conglomerate, right, So it's like it's like, that's how big Amazon is where somehow you can buy a regular item through Amazon and have it. By the way, delivered to your house the next day or that day or that day, and somehow you save forty cents. Yeah. Figure, how was AIDM possible? I don't know. Yeah, so it's pretty it's pretty crazy. I saw that packaging. We're cutting down a million trees so we can save forty cents. But that's okay, right right, It's not good for the world. But you know, I had a guy who worked at our church. His name was Carl and he was the communications director and he's in charge of all printing, and people all used to, you know, approach him about like all the paper that he's wasting, you know, all the trees that he's cutting down. And he used to say, you know that trees are replaceable product. Yeah, you see, to plant more trees. He's like you know that, people, He goes, We're not going to run out of trees. He's like, there's no way that we can run out of trees. He says, if you think about how many sheets of paper come. From a tree. He's like, there's no danger in running out of trees. We just have to Where it gets bad is where we're burning them, and then we're not replanting, right, right, right right, So anyways, talking about planting, Oh, today Amos has a vision of ripe. Fruit which is planted on a tree. Well, trees get planted and then rose trees. Yeah, yeah, well you should have said speaking of trees. Speaking of trees, that's what you should speaking of trees. Yes, you almost had it, almost, but. You should plant it. Yeah, yeah, speaking of planting and trees. And try it again, speaking of planting trees. There it is there you go. Yes, that's terrible. So we are in the book of Amos. Yes, everybody's famous Amos, Yes, his favorite book. And this is a vision another vision, say God has given only this is a vision of ripe fruit. And uh. And apparently we're walking through every bit. Of Amos, every bit, every bit, every bit. But that's okay. Yeah, Hey, I'm going to guess most of our listeners have never read every bit of Amos. Well, I would say that's true. Think about it. I think most Christians don't spend a ton of time in Amos. That's correct. And by the way, I'm a Christian and I'm a pastor for decades, and it's I have to confess, it's been a while since I've read through the book of Amos. Well, here we are. Every verse good. But I have done it before. Yes, but you but you implied that I have not. I did not. I did not you joke. I just said, you joke. I have a few favorite verses in the books. Well, I read it, Chrish. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing how much of the Bible you know when you read it, right, Okay, Amos Chapter eight, Verse one says, then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it, I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. What do you see, Amos, he asked, I replied, a basket full of ripe fruit. Then the Lord said, like this fruit Israel is ripe for punishment. I will not delay their punishment again. And that day the singing and the temple will turn to whaling. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried off of the city in silence, out of the city in silence. I the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample down the needy. You can't wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless. You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with discount or dishonest scales. You mix the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor. Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. Now the Lord has sworn his oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel. I will never forget the wicked things you've done. The earth will tremble for your deeds, and everyone will mourn. The ground will rise like the Nile river at flood time. It'll heave up and then sink again. And that day, says the Sovereign Lord, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is stilled day. And I'll turn your celebrations into times of morning, and you're singing into weeping. You will wear funeral clothes and shave your head to show your sorrow, as if your only son had died. How very bitter that day will be. The time is surely coming says the sovereign Lord. When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread or water, but of hearing the words of the Lord, people will stagger from sea to sea, and wander from. Border to border, searching for the word of the Lord. But they will not find it. Beautiful girls and strong men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord's word. Those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria, who take odes in the name of the God of Dan and make bows in the name of the God of Beersheba, they will all fall down, never to rise again. Is that it? Yeah, that's it for sure. Wow, So there you go. Well, there it is another vision and a very strong warning, and some of the same some of the same references, right, like enslaved people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. Right, that's been mentioned before, Cheating the buyer with dishonest scales, that's been mentioned before, religious festivals, cheating the helpless, dishonest measures. So again just a reiteration. Right. There's a note in our Life Application Study Bible on these verses, and it says these merchants were keeping the religious festivals, but not with the right spirit. They couldn't wait for the holy days and Sabbaths to be over so they can go back to making money. Their real interest was enriching themselves, even if that mean cheating. And then parenthesis says short changing the quantity while boosting the price or even selling chaff as wheat. Wow. And by the way, chaff is the bad part of wheat, right yeah, uh, the unusable part. Do you take a day to rest and worship God at least one day a week or is it making Is making money more important to you? There's a sermon? Is making money more important to you than anything else? When you give your time to God? Is your heart and worship or is your only religion only affront for an to go practices? So that's small writing right there. I'm starting to need my glasses. You know. The uh that sermon right there is? Is that? Uh uh? You know? The Sabbath day is included in that little sermon? Right? So? Do you remember there was a song a long time ago by Rascal Flats where where it talked about Sunday used to be a day of rest? Do you remember. You don't remember the song? I see maybe baby sitting on the poet drinking and ie cold cher Kaluk where everything is. Black and white, da dada. Anyway, uh so he so he's talking about the good old days, that's what he's saying. And in that song he says, Sunday used to be a day of rest and now it's now it's a day. Of making more money. And it's like, and. I thought that was so interesting that Rascal Flats is talking about the good old days and he had What he's really doing is is just sort of including right here this this passage that Sunday. People used to respect Sunday. They used to say, nope, we're not going to make Sunday a day of working. Sunday's a day of rest. And even in the olden days in our lifetime, right, we've seen it. Are in our fathers probably grew up with the mentality that nobody's going. To work on Sunday, and yet now they do. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, well, if you look at it, I think that there's you knows as you go through all these judgments, obviously he's already been frustrated with the fact that you know, they they're selling slaves and there they're abusing the poor and all these things. So, like you said, he's covered these things. But I think God drives home. When God repeats a thing, it's because he's trying to drive home what a big deal it is. Right, So if he repeats himself, he's not just stuttering. Right, It's not like, oh, did I did say this or not? Well, let me say it again? Right? Did I say that last service? Yeah? Yeah, exactly. So he's saying it on purpose. And when you look at all of these things, how how bad this judgment is? Right, there's going to be dead bodies scattered everywhere. You're going to be carried out of the city in silence. You're going to be hauled away. The punishment's coming. I'm not going to delay. So really, the singing is gonna stop and it's just going to be dead bodies. That that's pretty horrific description, right, Sure, then you read and find out why because you said you were selling twelve ounces and you only sold eleven. You said you said you were going to loan at a good interest rate, and you loaned an abusive interest rate. You said you were selling one thing, but you you know, you watered down the product right. That's and you're skipping the Sabbath day. So we think God brings judgment for big stuff, murder, adultery. Right. God's saying, if you claim you're selling twelve ounces, sell twelve ounces, right, or you're ripping off the poor, right, And I hate that, hate it, yeah, he loads it. Right. If if you're if you're saying that you're going. To uh sell a specific product, sell that product. God hates dishonesty, and he's saying, there's going to be dead bodies everywhere over your bad business practices. Yeah right, So earlier he goes, I'm so sick of you're fake worship. So don't you. Understand Sunday and Monday are the same to God? Right, God, God expects the guy you're pretending to be on Sunday to be the real guy you are on Monday. That's that's what he's expecting. And he's not talking to religious leaders here. He's talking to businessmen and business women, that's what he's talking to. And he's using a shepherd and a farmer to come and talk to him about it. These are everyday normal people. This isn't Saint Amos, This isn't Saint Chris Sarba. Right, Sat, Jeff Forest. That's right. This is this is a normal guy talking to business people about how God views everyday life. Yeah, that's good. And when he says cheat the buyer with just on a scales, you're talking about the scales of justice where one thing's supposed to weigh exactly the other. You know, you you weigh out. Uh, not the scales justice. These are business skills. Oh well, something like the skills. Yeah, we're going to use the yeah, yeah. Something something similar, right, They weren't exactly the scales of justice, but yeah, a similar mechanism where they would have it would. Be balanced on the top and then you'd have a specific weight on one side worth of value, that's right, and then you put the grain or the the metal or whatever you're buying on the other side and way, yeah. Yeah whatever. Yeah. And then and then they would do that, they would they would cheat it by removing right, and they would say it's. A certain round, but it's really not. So what they would do is they would so let's say you have we're going to buy it by the ounce, and we would have weights on the one side that would be one ounce, you know, five ounces ten ounces. So if it was something I'm weighing to where I'm going to have to pay you and I'm going controlling, sometimes I would would drill out the inside, hollow out and make it lighter by a few ounces, right, so that way i'd pay less. But if it was. From my advantage where I'm charging you, then i would have a different set of fake weights, where I'd drill it out and put lead inside and make it just a little heavier. So then that way I'm able to charge you more all you bought. You know, you bought night. So you ever go to the butcher shop. Have you ever noticed you go to the butcher shop, say hey, I need three pounds of salmon, and they give you three point five pounds of salmon? Right, right? That's what? Is that enough? And I always go, yeah, that's fine. But that's kind of the idea was what you think you're buying versus what they actually sell you are different things, right, And I'm not saying that's a dishonest thing because I'm letting it happen in that moment. But what they were doing is they were sneaking. They were always ripping everybody off. At least the butcher's calling it for what it is. Pounds that good. Yeah, yeah, but that's maybe the closest thing that anybody our listeners have had to this, right. But what they were doing was they were skiwing. Have two sets of weights they'd have, they'd have and they'd be. Either heavier or live. It's like loaded dice, we're paying what yeah? Right, So so. You know the the old trick of you know, loaded dice means no matter what you do, it's always going to roll a seven or whatever it is, right, So yeah, it's and. By the way, loaded dice is also in the Bible, loaded dice. Right. So this is this idea of being people of integrity all the time, giving, giving the product that you say you're giving, giving the the service that you're claiming, your serving those of you that have the ability to build. Maybe you're a CPA or an attorney or something. If you charge for half an hour, you better to have done a half hours worth of work. Right in God's mind or judgment's coming, that's kind of his attitude about it. Right. If you're if you're charging or you're billing right now, you know there's all this auditing happening in our federal government, right with Doge and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, sure, I'm not passing judgment one way or the other on whether or not that's all a great idea. But the federal government and by the way, the state to Michigan, they don't get audited, right, So so all of a sudden, they're being audited now and they're finding out there's billions of dollars worth of waste, dishonest decisions, yep, bad waste or horrifically bad management. Right, So it's dishonesty or bad management. Either way, it's time to fix it, right, Billions and billions of dollars of this stuff. That kind of stuff makes God sick when there's people who go, oh, well, it's just you know, tax money, it's just whatever. God's like, No, you be faithful. It's expected of a man who's a steward to be found faithful. That's what God says, It's required of them. And so this unfaithfulness with regard to how we do our business, God says, the singing in my temple is going to stop, and it's going to be dead bodies everywhere if they don't get this turned around. So we think wink wink is just how It's just how business gets done. There's a little bit for you, a little bit for me, a little bit for you, a little bit for me, right, and that's how business is done. God goes Nope, that's not how it does Not my people. If that's the way the world does it, that's the way the world does it, But not my people. Be people of integrity. And I think that there's an opportunity in our society today for businessmen and women to stand out by celebrating the fact by being people of integrity, by giving better service than what you're claiming, by by always going above and beyond, and you will build a great group of loyal customers. You know, my dad owned a company. You own a refrigeration company. And there's a lot of scamming in the refrigerator refrigeration world. The reason is you don't know anything about it at all, right, nothing, You don't know anything. So we can come in and maybe it's just a timer that we need, but we can tell you. You know, it cost you forty bucks get the timer fixed or something. Or there's a little heater in there to defrost stuff. But we'll go oh man, you need a new compressor. New compressor can cost you eleven hundred bucks, right and your thing, and grocery store owners and restaurant owners go, it's costing me money to have it be broken, and go ahead. And so there's all kinds. Of scam artists in the refrigeration world. So my dad decided, I'm going to go the other way. So he all of his advertisements honesty and integrity or motto, and Forster's Refrigeration became really famous all throughout the thumb that hey, you can trust Glenn Forster, and my dad on so many occasions would go in, you know, it's hard, you're diagnosing. It's like being a doctor something else. Diagnose on the thing, fix it, you think, and then it doesn't work. The whole industry would just come back in and go, oh, you know what, we fix this, and that pointed out the fact that this other thing's broken. You need to fix this too. But there's times when my dad had fixed the thing and then realized, oh he made a mistake, that wasn't the problem. And my dad would go back and fix the problem for free, and he would bring the thing and say, I thought it was this, so I replaced it. Charge you two hundred bucks for this, But the reality was it was this other thing, and I fixed it for free and would bring the other thing that we didn't realize was broken, bring that to the guy and give it to him. And my dad would eat five hundred dollars or four hundred dollars, one thousand dollars. Sometimes he'd eat it, but he would demonstrate to that owner, hey, I'm not going to charge you. I'm going to undercharge, and I overcharge you, or if I realize I make a mistake, I'm going to make it completely right. You will always be whole. And that's the word that got out. And next thing, you know, my dad began to dominate all those restaurants and gas stations and all that stuff because everybody knew my dad could work eighty hours a week if he wanted to do. Because everybody knew if Glenn Forster said it's yes, it's yes. If Glenn Forster says it's no, it's no right, and that's God honors that. That's the that's what God says, I promise I'll honor you for doing that. How many times should the Bible does he say that Book of Proverbs talks about honest weights. God blesses honest weights, but in this one he says, dead bodies is gonna be everywhere. So you think that, you know, you're shooting a move in your business. Isn't that big of a deal. You know, at least you're not cheating on your wife. God goes, Yeah, there's gonna be dead bodies everywhere, right right, Some integrity matter, I think is the message of this of this passage. Yeah, and that's not to say that, you know, if you're a businessman listening to this right now and that you're doing a bad business practice, that's not that doesn't translate into you're going to wake up tomorrow and your family is going to be dead in your bed. Yeah, well you have you have time to turn around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you go they have thirty years to turn this aroun. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a it's a it's more of a statement about, uh. God, judgment will come. That's not going to get away with it. That's how well I was going to say, Uh, it's it's definitely a look into how God feels about those things. And and so we think it's not a big deal. And yet God says it's so strong of a deal. God hates sin so much that he is willing to call them out on it, and then judgment's going to come. And this was a prophesied specific for Israel. I just don't want people thinking that their dead bodies are going to literally be in their beds. But I could. I can imagine God going, I'm going to ruin your business. You keep this up. That's what it's saying. If you claiming to be, if you're claiming to be a godly person, but you're you're shooting a move like this. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm going to ruin your business. That's my right. That's my point. That's metaphors that have to be dead by Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's great. So so yeah. I think that there's several sermons in here. And by the way, let me say one more thing I had I had not remembered, although I've read it before, but I've not remembered that it says, now the Lord has sworn this oath by his own name, the pride of Israel. Isn't it great? I did not remember that that was one of his names. So God the Father has many names referred to in the Bible, and and by the way, that's its own Bible study, isn't it. So there's how many names do you think I've seen these on posters before? There's probably what probably over one hundred, maybe two hundred something. I should know that I've known it. I just don't remember what the number. Yeah, but I think I think it's definitely dozens and dozens and dozens, right, I mean, if it's not a hundred, it's very close. But there's there's different names that God has for himself, and then there's also a lot of different names that the son Jesus has for himself. He's known as several different names, not nearly as many as as God of the Old Testament, God the Father. But but it's interesting how each name carries with it sort of like a different attribute, right, And so it sort of sort of magnifies the different attributes of God. And in this and in this case. He says the pride of Israel, and so think about the significance of that. So if God is the pride of Israel, then what he's really highlighting here is he's highlighting he's not very proud, right and that, and that God is not you know. That they're not. Respecting his name right right, because if he's the pride of Israel, they're dishonoring who the pride of Israel is. Because back then, you know, Israel was definitely known to be the people who are worshiping the One True God, and all the way throughout the Old Testament, people associated those people with the One True God. And so the more that they reflected his attributes and you know, behaved and everything else, and then God would have great victories. I mean, sometimes people would fear the name of Israel. Of Israel came, the people would literally just tremble because they're like, oh, I've heard about these people. This is the God who shows up, this is the God of great miracles. And so therefore God could revel in the fact that he's the pride of Israel. But in this particular case, when Israel is dishonoring God. So I just think it's. Very interesting how God chooses to call himself by this particular name, the Pride of Israel, because what he's really saying is it's a great disrespect, it's a great dishonor it's a great blasphemy. He's kind of reminding them. I used to be right the focus of your world, right, I used to be the pride. Yeah. Like like like my grandson Rowan thinks his dad Jonathan is the toughest guy in the world. Right, Jonathan kind of is the center of Rowan's universe right now, right, And and you know, Jonathan is the pride of Rowan. It is kind of it's that thing. And then he said, remember when it used to be that way, and it's not that way anymore. Awesome. Well, hey, that is definitely our time. So we will see you hopefully tomorrow on the Bible guys. H