Studies In Amos

1. Studies In Amos Presentation 01

2. The Lion Roars Chapter 1v1-15 Presentation 01

3. Introduction Amos is one of the most readable, relevant yet neglected portions of God's word. It deals with social injustice and religious formalism- it tends to scratch us where we itch. It also shatters our purring pussycat image of God but presents us with a God who can be roused to act as a roaring lion. God is not indifferent to the social injustices in our world, his failure to immediately respond does not argue in favour of his indifference or, as the atheist would argue, against his existence, but it is a measure of his patience with sinful men. Presentation 01

4. Dan Amos The Prophet We begin with a little historical background. After Solomon's death the kingdom was torn into two. The Northern Kingdom retained the name Israel and was composed of ten tribes. The Southern Kingdom, Judah was made up of two tribes. At the time of Amos' ministry circa 750 B.C., the people of God were a divided nation. We will begin to appreciate something of the difficulty which Amos encountered as we realise that God sent him from his home in the South to preach in the Northern Kingdom. It might be compared to an English minister coming to Scotland to tell the people what was wrong in their lives. Israel Samaria Bethel Jerusalem Judah Moab Edom Egypt Presentation 01

5. Amos The Prophet Why was it necessary to send Amos into Israel? Well, the church in the North had become a puppet of the state. It is important for the church not to side with one particular political party. Where moral permissiveness and social injustice is being condoned by the government of the day then the church has a duty to speak out. And it was because no churchman living in the North would speak out fearlessly against the state, that we find God sending Amos from the Southern kingdom. Presentation 01

6. Amos The Prophet Amos had no formal religious training. He had no theology degree from Jerusalem University. And so not only was he a Southerner ministering in the North, he was not even a part of the recognised religious establishment! He was a shepherd and a pruner of trees. God often uses the most ordinary and unsophisticated of people to challenge the complacency, coldness and formalism of his church. Cf John the Baptist. He chooses to work through weak, frail, human vessels in order that he might receive all the glory and credit for what is accomplished through them cf. 1 Cor.1v27. Presentation 01

7. Amos The Prophet Think of the influence which D. L. Moody, the American evangelist, had on both sides of the Atlantic in the C19th. He had no formal training and as a result many churchmen resented his activity. Nevertheless, his ministry was clearly blessed of God and thousands were converted. This is not to say that anyone can set himself up as a minister. A Lack of training is not an automatic qualification! Amos, Moody and countless others knew the unmistakable call of God. It is a dangerous thing to enter the Christian ministry without a very definite awareness of such a call. Presentation 01

8. Amos The Prophet Some set themselves up as preachers because they want a personal following. Others have entered ministry in order to exercise control over others. Some have thought that the ministry could give them some kind of job security. A young man came to Spurgeon, the famous Victorian preacher, and said that he believed that God wanted him to be a minister. Spurgeon began to test the call and asked the young man what had led him to this belief. The young man cited a long list of jobs he had tried but had failed to make any headway in. He concluded that God must want him to be a preacher because he had failed in everything else he had tried! Presentation 01

9. Amos The Prophet Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the greatest theologian America has produced lived during the famous C18thevangelical awakening. The revival stopped quite abruptly on the eastern seaboard of America. Edwards attempted to analyse the reasons for this. He considered that a major reason was the number of self-styled preachers, who split and divided the church because they had zeal without knowledge and were immature in their understanding of the faith! With good reason the N.T. gives prominence to the role of the church in testing the call of God to a preacher and missionary alike. We should be suspicious of those who do not welcome such testing. Presentation 01

10. The Drift Of Amos’ Message In 1v2we are given a clue to the direction which Amos's preaching will take. God is like a roaring lion poised to pounce. But before he does so he will pronounce his judgements on those guilty of social injustice. The lion roars once it is committed to attack. Its roar is calculated to paralyse its victim with fear. Now if a lion’s roar is a spine-chilling experience, how much more will be the intervention of God. God is thundering from Jerusalem a message that will have devastating results . Note the language of v2.. Presentation 01

11. The Drift Of Amos’ Message We must understand this message of judgement however in its proper context. You will notice that each of God’s judgement begins with the formula, "for three sins of....even for four I will not turn back my wrath". cf v3, 6, 9, 13; 2v1. This is a very significant phrase. God is saying, “I don't pounce immediately you step out of line. No! I have been patient with you but time after time after time you have behaved in an abominable manner. You have abused my patience. [cf2Pet.3v9]. Time has run out. Now is the time for me to act. Presentation 01

12. The Drift Of Amos’ Message These judgements include judgements against the surrounding heathen nations. What does that imply? God is the God of the whole earth, all are accountable to him not just his own people to whom he has revealed himself in history and through his Word. God does not judge only those who have Bibles but all men! Someone asks, is that fair? As we read through the lists of these nations crimes note that God does not take them to task for not worshipping the God whom they did not know nor for their abominable idolatrous religious practices. But he does condemn them for the way in which they have treated their fellows. They had sinned against their conscience given that the law of God is written on their heart. cf Rom 2.14-16 Presentation 01

13. The Drift Of Amos’ Message A preacher denounced the awful effects of alcohol upon family life and a woman turned to her neighbour in church and said, "Now that's what I call preaching".The preacher then challenged the values of the permissive society and the woman again said, "That's what I call preaching". Then the preacher began to speak about the danger of gossiping. But his time the woman was heard to say, “That's not preaching, that's meddling.” Its easy to commend preaching when the finger is pointing elsewhere but it is disturbing when we find it aimed right at us. Presentation 01

14. The Drift Of Amos’ Message That story echoes Amos’ experience. He draws his congregation in as he begins to publicise the sins of the surrounding heathen nations and pronounces impending judgement. Even the denunciation of Judah to the South would have had a favourable response. But last of all in 2v6the spotlight falls on Israel’s national life and they are outraged. Amos had spread his net wide but Israel are stunned to find that they too have been caught in the net. This begs the question, “What do we consider good preaching?” Is it that which exposes the sins of others or that which addresses our own hearts. Presentation 01

15. The Judgement Of Damascus: People Or Things? The first judgment of God is directed towards the Syrians in the North whose capital was Damascus and whose King was Hazael. Hazael’sphilosophy of War was quite simple, “There's only one way to make war; you hit the enemy with everything you've got in every way you can.” If anyone raised a voice in protest against such extreme warfare and torturing of captives, then back would come the reply, “There's a war on! Don't you know that exceptional circumstances justify exceptional measures.” Presentation 01

16. The Judgement Of Damascus: People Or Things? That's a view God doesn't share. War or no war, Hazael had no right to treat people as if they were things. The first absolute moral principle in Amos’ manifesto is: "People are not things!" Even if the description of Hazael's conduct as ‘threshing Gilead’ doesn't literally mean that he used animals to drag flint-studded, weighted platforms of wood back and forth across the bodies of the inhabitants of Gilead, even if its a just a metaphor, then we're told that he treated people just like a grain crop, that is threshed to extract profit from it. Presentation 01

17. The Judgement Of Damascus: People Or Things? That's precisely what Hazael did in Gilead. He treated people as things. That is what you are doing when your armies destroy whole villages! Did Hazael behave in this way simply massacring all these people simply to fulfil his expansionist dreams? Notice it is the man who drew up the rules of engagement who bears the brunt of God's anger v4... At the same time the nation who supported him and fuelled his megalomania would also be punished by being subjected to captivity. cf 2 Kings 16v9 Presentation 01

18. The Judgement Of Damascus: People Or Things? This is all very contemporary. Some today say that in war there is only one rule; hit the enemy with everything you've got, in order to win an absolute and unconditional victory. It may appear good logic from a twisted human perspective. Many contemporary world leaders have made use of it. But God condemns it! He says that even in warfare there are certain obligations which mercy imposes, and victors must not be ruthless neither, after the victory nor, in the way they go about achieving it. Presentation 01

19. Conclusion God places great value on human life. To treat people like things, in order to advance ones personal ambitions, is to stand on very dangerous ground. Today medical science wants to use the human embryo in a whole variety of ways. A newspaper recently reported a technique pioneered in Mexico to employ the human embryo to develop a cure for Parkinson's. But surely that is treating humans as things and is surely no less culpable than the Nazi experimentation on Jews prisoners in the concentration camps during WWII. God requires us to value all human life and to treat humans as humans not as things! Presentation 01