Its name is Shufut.
It means shoe for the foot.
A path of a Yanomami village in the Brazilian rainforest.
In the book Spirits of the Rainforest, Shufut tells what his life was like before turning
to God as a savior and lord.
What was his life?
War between villages, murder, violence and constant fear.
At the base of this violence, there was a religious vision of the world that we could call
animism.
A belief in which the world is filled with good spirits and bad spirits.
And we have to seek to protect ourselves from bad spirits.
And the means for the Yanomami to protect their village is not the path that speaks to
the bad spirits, that makes sacrifices, interventions to protect their village.
But Shufut tells us in this book that when he was charming the spirits with little s,
oh I'm sorry, little o, they always tell him not to approach the spirit with a capital
O, because it would destroy three Shufuts and your whole village.
But Shufut realized that it was a lie.
The spirit was the real living God who had given his Son to open the way in the jungle
of life so that we could enter the house of God, the spirits lied.
When Shufut and others came to faith in Christ, everything changed in the villages of his region.
It was even a surprise for the anthropologists who were disappointed by the work of missionaries
with the Yanomami.
The wars have stopped, the mothers have stopped, the rapes and the bad treatments inflicted
on children have stopped.
I want to propose this morning that our secular culture is similar to the enemy religion of
the Yanomami.
A religion is a set of beliefs through which we interpret the world around us.
The secularism is the religious beliefs that God does not exist and if he exists, he is
not relevant to our development.
Our evolution depends entirely on our human ingenuity.
It is a whole network of religious beliefs.
Our public systems, our public schools that say they are not religious, we cannot have
information without the foundation of a vision of the world.
This is exactly what is propagated in our schools.
It is a vision of the world, a religious, a series, a network of beliefs that is the
foundation of their perception of life.
And like the shamans, the enemy shamans who see that human impoverishment is better achieved
when they do not communicate with the only true spirit, the E.
The people of our secular culture think that the development is better achieved when we
do not approach God.
That we live like in a sanitary laboratory, but it is not life.
It is too narrow.
We are cut off from the history of humanity and the future in our secular culture when
every minute, how many of us have a watch, a cell phone, how many times, we count every
minute minutiously, but we forget eternity.
This is secular culture.
The search for peace in society through secularism does not happen without seeking God.
Shufut is wiser.
The social injustices that we try to repair, the violence, the inequality in society, the
injustice, it is important we must fix them.
But we cannot do that without God.
So the need that I want to address this morning with you, and this is the title of this preaching,
searching for the eternal and living.
Searching for the eternal and living.
For you who are not yet Christians this morning, let's seek the meaning of turning to Him for
the first time.
Turn to your sins and turn to God for the fulfillment, for life.
For us who are Christians here, we need to hear this preaching too.
Searching for the eternal and living.
This means we must turn to our sins, we must turn to how secularism has invaded our own
thoughts, our own habits, how many times we have spent three hours on our phones and
we say we do not have time to read his words.
We are invaded, saturated, supersaturated by secularism.
We must turn to the Lord, we must seek the Lord and to live, let's seek the eternal
and living.
So we are in the series, in the book of Amos, which was written by Amos, a shepherd, and
in the 8th century BC.
And the first two preachings were six things that God hates.
He targeted all nations around Israel, but the people of God did not spare the judgment
of God.
In His grace, He sends messengers, that is grace, that is a prophet, a messenger, to
call upon the people of God to return, to seek the eternal to live.
Today we are going to look together at the central section that covers three messages
of judgment.
Look with me in your Bibles and I hope you can find the book of Amos.
Sometimes it's difficult for me too.
Amos is in the middle of our Bibles.
We will start with chapter 3 verse 1 until chapter 5 verse 17.
In chapter 3 verse 1, chapter 4 verse 1 and chapter 5 verse 1, it says this sentence,
listen to this word.
We see that we have three sections here, listen to this word.
The word listen, the verb, is an important word in the imperative form for the people
of God, for Israel, which was far from God.
And it means to hear, understand and spread.
So for the original public, it was in the danger zone.
So there were messages of warning at the same time as the Lord had sent.
They were in the danger zone.
They were so far from the Word of God that they no longer seemed to be worried.
Their distance from the Word of God manifested itself in two things.
A corrupted cult and social injustices.
They needed to listen to what God said because they were enough.
So God said enough is enough.
So listen to me, I am your God.
So there are three sections that we will look at together.
The first is chapter 3 verse 1 to 4 verse 5.
The title is this, we seek the eternal before it comes to judgment.
I repeat, we seek the eternal before it comes to judgment.
Chapter 3 verse 1 to 4 verse 5.
The second, chapter 4 verse 6 to 13.
If we persist in rejecting God's warnings, we will have problems.
And the third and last is this, we seek the eternal and live.
We seek the eternal and live.
Chapter 5 verse 1 to 7.
So the first section, chapter 3 verse 1 to 4, 5.
We seek the eternal before it comes to judgment.
We see the first word, listen to this word.
We don't have time to read each verse in this section of scripture.
So I hope you will read word by word what we will discuss today.
But verses 1 and 2 of chapter 3 help us to place ourselves in the argument.
Listen to this word that the eternal says, before it comes to judgment.
He has said this before in his speech.
We see it and then look to the
next, he said not to get a tongue out and say
the eternal.
Come on, listen, Islam.
understand and answer. Israel is called to listen carefully to the message of the Eternal.
The basis of this message is that the Eternal chose them. He saved Israel
from slavery in Egypt. It is his people. He chose to be their God and that they be
his people. So it is the language of the alliance, the language of commitment, the
commitment of a relationship between God and his people. The consequence of being
in a relationship with God is that God wants us to live for him and Israel was not
living for God. So he said that I must, in love, in my grace, send a punishment.
Not because you are not my people, but because I love you. I love you Israel. I have been
a father for 13 years, almost 14 years. It is not easy. Sometimes it is complex, but
we must, we cannot let our parents, we know that we cannot let our children do
what they want sometimes. In love, we send warnings, advice, we listen to them,
we leave. This is what God did with his people by sending the prophets. It is a discussion,
it is a reminder, it is the grace of God in the ancient alliance. In Hebrews chapter
12, it says that if we are the children of God, sometimes there are the punishments
that come from our Heavenly Father. It is a lie that we are, in fact, his children. Sometimes
if we continue to live in sin, the Lord sends us little reminders, it is not my
voice for you, I want you to return to me. We see in the next section, chapter 3, 3 to 8,
in fact, it is a series of statements explaining the cause and the effect. Basically, the
formulation is, this does not happen unless this happens first. So there are several
examples, but in verse 6, it becomes more intense. Verse 6, do we feel, chapter 3,
verse 6, do we feel the storm in a city without the people being in the scary?
Of course, yes, alone we ignore a warning storm. Next sentence, does
misfortune happen in a city without the Eternal being the author? In our secular
vision, we think that everything happens without God, but it is not the biblical vision.
There is no wall between God and creation. Does misfortune happen in a city
without the Eternal being the author? No. Even misfortune comes from God, in his wisdom,
in his providence, to accomplish his own plans, to achieve a goal, the best goal for
humanity, is to be close to God. Verse 7, because the Eternal Lord does nothing
without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets, the red lion who would not be
afraid. The Eternal Lord speaks who would not prophesy. So the idea, Amos
sends a prophecy because the lion, the Eternal, has reddened. That is the cause.
The cause is the Eternal reddened like the lion. We spoke in the last
preaching, our vision of God must not be minimized. God is not the Father in heaven.
God is not. He is much more than that. His love is much more than your
grandfather has for you, but he is holy. I like a lot Jordan Peterson, but in my opinion,
he aligns more with Stoicism than with a vision of the biblical world. In Stoicism,
it is discipline that is the answer to all our problems. But the God of the Bible
comes into contact with us. He loves us. And we love God. The Bible is the prophetic
of God for us in this time before the day of judgment last. Are we listening? Are we
listening to what God says? The Eternal is described as a lion who reddened. He sees
everything. He is powerful and he acts. Is that our vision of God? In our secular
era, who says that God does not exist and he is not relevant. Is our culture wrong?
But yes. But yes. Chapter 3 verse 9 to 10. The witnesses are called. What are the
witnesses? Verse 9 in fact, it is Asdod Egypt. Asdod was the main city of the Philistines.
We have the Philistines and the Egyptians who were well known for their atrocity against
humanity. And God says, the Philistines come, the Egyptians come to see my people. The injustice
is enormous in the center of my people. Look, they are worse than you. And look what
the lion will do to me. The confusion. Look in the middle of verse 9 and see what a huge
confusion in the middle of it. That's what God says to the Philistines and the Egyptians.
The confusion in the middle of it. What violence in its breast. Verse 10. They do not know
how to act with rightness, says the Eternal. We have confusion, violence and ignorance.
Confusion, violence, ignorance. Which has even surpassed Egypt and the Philistines.
Confusion, violence, ignorance. Are everywhere in our culture. Our culture has left behind
it, like Israel, the foundation of our morality, the factory of our morality. It is the word
of God. There is a book that I want to read and my wife is reading. It's Dominion. It's
written, not by a Christian, but by a historian who wants to show you how the Gospel is
the foundation of Western culture. Jordan Peterson says the same thing. That the foundation
of Western culture is the Bible. I studied English literature and what I learned
at Waterloo University is that the Bible is the foundation of all literature. It takes
themes and uses biblical themes. The secular project cannot solve these three problems
of violence, confusion and ignorance. How many of our culture, how many people are
so stressed. They live in fear. Stress is at a higher level than ever. Let's look for
the Eternal and let's live. Let's look for the Eternal and let's live. Blaise Pascal
said that there is a hole in our hearts that only God can fill. We, the people of God,
must be an example of justice. Israel failed in this passage here, but we, in the New
Alliance, we must be an example of justice. Next section, chapter 3, chapter 11 to 12.
Destruction is coming. Look with me at verse 12. Thus, by the Eternal, as the shepherd
pulls out the lion's mouth, two legs or a golden ear, so will the children of Israel
who are sitting in Samaria, it is in the place of Israel, at the corner of a bed and on the
carpet of Damascus. God will send a judgment in his love and his holiness that is just
and measured in the crimes of Israel and there will be a small number that will come out.
The rampant justice that reigned in Israel will bring a terrible judgment and that is
exactly what happened in 722 BC when the Assyrians attacked Israel in 1 Kings 18, 9 to 12.
Next section, chapter 3, verse 13 to 4, verse 5. There are two major subjects in this section.
The first is the false religion that took place in Bethel and Gilgal. The second is
the women described as the cows of Bashan. The two subjects are linked. The first is the
false religion in Bethel. So let me explain to you a little bit what the problem is. A
little bit of context. At the time of the division of the kingdom of the north, Israel with the kingdom
of the south, Judah, Jeroboam the first, wanted to prevent the inhabitants of the kingdom of
the north from going to Jerusalem for religious feasts because the temple was there. So what
did he do? He founded Bethel. He built two gold vaults and established two sanctuaries
on his territory. One in the north and the other in Bethel in the south. Two gold vaults
to prevent people from going to Jerusalem in Israel. Terrible. Terrible. So what does
God say in chapter 3, verse 13? Listen, declare this at the house of Jacob, says the Lord.
The Lord of the armies, that's the title, God of the armies, says that God is a warrior God. He is strong.
He acts. He doesn't have a kingdom that can face him. We saw in the last preachings,
he doesn't have the doors that are strong enough to prevent God from passing. He doesn't have
the walls of defense that are strong enough to protect us from God's judgment. We must
seek, seek God to live. Verse 14 of chapter 3. The day I will pound Israel for its transgressions,
I will strike on the hotels of Bethel. The horns of the hotel will be broken and will fall to
the ground. The horns of the hotel represent the place where people could find refuge and protection.
God will break them. Go not to Bethel. Seek me. Seek me. Chapter 4, verse 1. Listen to this
word. So we are in the second message, second key phrase, so listen to this word. What does it say?
Genesis 2, which is on the mountains of Samaria, who oppressed the miserable. So now,
it's the social injustice that is the problem. It's not just a corrupted cult, but it's the social
injustice. And it's the women here who are the objects of this message. You who oppress
the miserable, who crush the natives, and who tell your wives to bring and eat. Go to Bethel
and sin. Go to Gilgal and sin more. Offer your sacrifices every morning and your
deems every three days. We see that social injustice is linked with a corrupted cult.
The women here are guilty of complacency towards themselves, depending on the poor and
the helpless in society. Oppressing the miserable, the miserable are those who lack material
wealth and social status. Through their actions, these cultivated women have become the
oppressors of the working class. They insist on having a higher standard of living. Their
demands push their mayors to neglect the rights of others. Having abandoned the Word of God,
these women are governed by the charnel passions, who, always when they are not corrected
by the Word of God, lead to the corruption of life and society. Let's look for the eternal
and living. These women and their mayors have not sought the eternal, and this has led to corruption
in the cult and in the community. We are the people of God. We, like Israel, are the people
of the New Covenant. And it is our responsibility to use our wealth to honor the Lord by taking
care of those in need in the family of the Church. We are a family. The offense that
God targets here, of these women and these men, was because it was against what God wanted
for His chosen people, which must be an example to nations, not an example of oppression,
but an example of justice. My great-grandfather, Thomas Tobin, was a very rich man, an editor
of a great Toronto newspaper. He had a big castle. But his wife, my great-grandmother,
was an alcoholic who spent most of her time in her bedroom drinking. My mother often remembered
that when she was a little girl, my mother was born in Montreal, she grew up in Rosemere,
when she was a little girl, her grandfather took her for a ride in a car to visit
various poor neighborhoods and bring things. He opened the car and told my mother to stay
in the car. He never told my mother what he was bringing in the house, but after, my
mother learned that it was money, it was food, it was everything that poor people
needed. When great-grandfather Tobin died, he had nothing left. He had given everything
to the poor. His castle, there was a family who was looking for a big enough house for
their big families. They didn't have enough money to pay for the house. And my grandfather
asked, how much do they have? He sold the house for that price. How do we use our
wealth, our power and our energy with the time we have? We must be an example for Quebec,
for Pierre-François. It is possible that you have been weak and helpless and therefore
a victim of injustice. Abuse in your childhood, emotionally, physically, sexually. It is terrible.
Come to me or the other pastors or our diaconess Valérie Picard. We have women, men who can
help you. Maybe it was an unfair treatment by a boss at work. Maybe you were treated
unjustly by a teacher at school because of your belief in God. Our passage today reminds
us that the Eternal sees and will act. It is not in us to exercise vengeance, but in the
Eternal. Christ was abused, abused. He is in solidarity with us in the suffering of injustice.
I want to say something else. Karl Marx is not a corner on the language of oppression.
It comes from the Bible too. We must be a people of justice, linked with the living God,
to be an example of justice in our society. The second section is in chapters 4, 6 to 13.
If we persist in rejecting God's warnings, we will have problems. In this section, the Eternal
reminds Israel of all the warnings it has addressed in the past. I will just go through
this briefly. We have famine, drought, bad harvest, plague and destruction like those
who hit Sodom and Gomorrah. It was the red flags in his love that he sent to his people.
In his grace, in his love. Stop, stop not going in this direction. Return to me. Verse
11 of chapter 4. I have troubled you like Sodom and Gomorrah, that God destroyed. And
you were like a rod torn from the fire. And I forgot to say that after each red flag,
the same sentence was said. Despite this, you have not returned to me, says the Eternal.
We, his people, must return to him. If there is injustice among us, we must return to
him. We must seek the Eternal to live. Verse 13. We do the last part of this
section, it ends with a warning and a magnificent reminder of who God is. Verse 13.
For here is he who formed the mountains and created the wind. So God is the Creator.
In our secular culture, he does not know how the universe is created. And he does not know
what happens after death. But we know, we know, the secular vision is too narrow and
too superficial. It is not up to us, and I want to be clear on this point, it is not that
we must be impolite with people in our culture, because we are, we have the same
tendency, we have the same tendency to live like secular people who think that God has
nothing to do with my daily life. But it is not true. God is the Creator. Look at the
next sentence. And who makes men know his thoughts? God knows our thoughts. God
knows our thoughts. We must be kind. We must have discussions with our friends at school,
at university, at work, in our neighborhood. Because their vision of the world is too narrow.
Too narrow. They can never reach the fulfillment they are looking for. The best thing
we can do in love for our neighbors is to talk in love and patience with the truth
with our friends who are not Christians. Next sentence. The one who changes the
horror in darkness, that means he can transform the rising sun in the darkness of judgment.
Keep this sentence in mind because it will be reversed in a few verses. And who walks
on the heights of the earth? His name is the eternal God of armies. The eternal name
means that God is above time and has no limits to his power and to the fulfillment
of his will. The God of armies means that he is a warrior. And angels are his soldiers.
And he never loses. More than 20 years ago, when I was at the Dallas seminar, I was
a celebrity. I was in the top three of men. And one of my best friends, Mickey Klink,
his name is Edward Klink III. He wrote one of the best commentaries on the Gospel of
St. John. Believe me, he is very intelligent. He is a pastor in Illinois and now he has
done his doctorate in Scotland. But also, he weighed 130 kilograms. He played football.
He is very, very strong. But one of my friends, another man in the doctorate, Paul and I,
we decided one evening, after a long day of study, we decided that if we took Mickey
away from us, we could win a pair of họ fighting each other. We entered Mickey's
room and I still remember him reading on his bed. He started laughing at it when pranked
I jumped on him with all my strength.
But literally, in about four seconds,
Mickey immobilized us and submitted two men of my size
with incredible strength.
We were all laughing.
I remember his hands were on our two elbows
doing this.
I remember the wall like this.
What I mean here is that it was nonsense for me and Paul
to think that we could win against Mickey.
How much more is it nonsense for us humans to think that we can win
by opposing the Almighty God?
Do we take God's warnings into account?
I know we don't want to talk about COVID anymore, but let me
for a moment.
COVID was allowed by God.
It destabilized the world.
It's a call to return to God.
Are we ready to meet God?
Not Christians here.
Thank you for being here.
The Bible teaches us that there is a day of judgment to come,
and we must be ready for that day.
Our secular society counts meticulously every second
by forgetting eternity.
Our society proudly thinks that it can prosper without God,
while it can't explain how the world was created or what
happens after our death.
The Bible answers these two existential questions and gives us
the meaning that we all seek in our lives.
For us Christians, in Hebrews 12, verse 6, it says that
the Lord chastises the one he loves, his children.
He does that in love for us.
The last section is this, chapter 5, 1 to 17,
Let us seek the eternal and we shall live.
In this third and last message, we have a funeral song
sung by the Eternal himself.
It brings about the sadness of Israel.
In the first verse, we see this important phrase,
listen to this word, this complaint,
the word complaint here is the word for a funeral song
that I pronounce on you, house of Israel.
It is God who sings here, verse 2 of chapter 5,
It has fallen and will not be raised again.
The house of Israel is laid on the ground,
no one will raise it again.
The verb listen is imperative,
as we said, it is to be careful, to understand, to answer.
Verse 4, that the Eternal speaks in the house of Israel,
the verb changes here, it is no longer listened.
What is it? Seek, seek me and you shall live.
Do not seek Bethel, I will break the horns of the hotel in Bethel.
Do not go to Gilgal either, do not go to Beersheba,
because Gilgal will be captive and Bethel will become a ruin.
All false religious sanctuaries will be destroyed by eternal light.
So do not seek refuge there.
Israel has only one chance to survive this massive defeat
by an authentic repentance.
The Eternal says, seek me and live.
Seek means to make knowledge of the Eternal our priority.
To know it and obey it,
the call is not to find something lost,
but to pursue someone or something without relapse,
to commit all your life to find God in order to stay close to Him.
It is a call to pursue God with passion.
Verse 6, seek the Eternal and you shall live.
If we read verse 8 to 11, it is a vision of God, remarkable.
He created the Pleiades and the Orient,
He changed darkness into horror.
It is reversed from what we saw in chapter 4.13.
In chapter 4.13 it says that He changes horror into darkness,
but here it says that He changes darkness into horror.
It says that the Eternal is the only one who can transform the morning into darkness of judgment.
Chapter 4.13, but here it is reversed.
The Eternal is the only one who can transform darkness into light of the morning sun.
Seek the Eternal and live.
In fact, it ends.
There are too many things to say in these two chapters and a half.
I encourage you to reread each word.
10 and 11, it starts.
In fact, it is the answer of Israel.
It is a sadness, a lamentation in response.
God predicts what Israel will do.
What is built on injustice cannot last.
In verse 14, seek good and not evil, so that you may live,
and that the Eternal, the God of the armies, may be with you as you say.
Eize the evil and love the good, let justice reign at the door.
We see that seeking the Eternal is to seek justice in the community.
How do we seek the Eternal?
We seek the Eternal in His Word and in His Prayer.
But because we are so affected by secularism,
sometimes we think that prayer is a waste of time, or to read His Word.
But it is not true.
It is a lie, a bit like Schubert has seen.
It is not that he must move away from the true spirit,
because the true life is in the spirit of this true God.
Prayer is the best expression of faith.
And to read His Word is the best way to seek the Eternal.
Seeking the Lord is the answer to all our problems, the deepest, personally and socially.
I have the impression that we have changed.
We rarely seek pastors, and more so psychologists or actors,
to alleviate our psychological problems.
But come to us, your pastors.
Come to us.
Come to your sisters and brothers in the Church.
Because the best way to remove psychological problems is to seek God.
Sometimes we need help to seek the Eternal,
to share our troubles with our brothers and sisters.
Secularism counts every minute, but forgets eternity.
It thinks it can solve its problems without God, violence, injustice and ignorance.
But it is not true.
In fact, people who spread secularism are like the chamomiles of Yanomami,
who cut the villages from the true solution.
Seek the Eternal and you will live.
Knowing the Eternal is to truly live life.
Justice and peace in society is in God.
It is in God, seeking God.
Knowing the Eternal is the only way for us to fully live life.
Amen.