Amos – A Call to Justice & True Worship

1. Amos – A Call to Justice& True Worship • We need to discipline our children, especially when they have wronged another person. • God punishes His own children too, because He is a Holy God. • Hebrews 12:6–7 [NIV] The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

2. Background: • Amos was a country-boy: • Lived in Judah; town of Tekoa • He was a shepherd & farmer. • God called him from his agricultural career to be His messenger. • Jerusalem • Tekoa

3. Amos “to lift a burden, to carry” • Amos was a burden bearer: declaring judgment on a rebellious people. • Amos prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam in Israel ~ 760-753 B.C. • A period of national optimism in Israel • Economic and political success • With great wealth and prosperity come greed, corruption, and injustice.

4. Amos 1:2 [NIV] “He said: “The LORD roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds dry up, and the top of Carmel withers.” • v.3 This is what the LORD says: “For three sins…even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. • God’s Judgment on the Nations • God’s Call To Return to Him • God’s Promise Of Deliverance

5. Amos opens with God’s declaration of judgment on the neighbouring nations of Israel and Judah. • 1. God’s Judgment on the Nations

6. Damascus: Amos 1:3 [NLT] – They beat down my people in Gilead as grain is threshed with irons sledges. • Gaza: Amos 1:6-8 [NLT] – they sent whole villages into exile, selling them as slaves to Edom. • Tyre: Amos 1:9 [NLT] – they broke their treaty of brotherhood with Israel, selling whole villages as slaves to Edom.

7. Edom: Amos 1:11 [NLT] - “They chased down their relatives, the Israelites, with swords, showing them no mercy. In their rage, they slashed them continually and were unrelenting in their anger.” • Ammon: Amos 1:13 [NLT] – When they attacked Gilead to extend their borders, they ripped open pregnant women with their swords.

8. Moab: Amos 2:1 [NLT] – “They desecrated the bones of Edom’s king, burning them to ashes.” • Judah: Amos 2:4 [NLT] – “They have rejected the instruction of the LORD, refusing to obey his decrees. They have been led astray by the same lies that deceived their ancestors.” • We like to deflect attention away from ourselves when it comes to dealing with our own sin.

9. Spiritual pride can make us take our eyes off of our own wrong attitudes and behaviours and deflect the attention on others. • God judges the nation for ignoring their sin. • Amos 2:6 [NLT] – The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! • Amos 3:1 [NLT] - “From among all the families on the earth, I have been intimate with you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins.”

10. God cannot ignore our sin. • The people of Israel had been set apart to be a witness to these neighbouring nations of His Holiness; of His mercy; of His justice. • They had failed Him. • a. Immorality: • Amos 2:7 [NLT] – “Both father and son sleep with the same woman, corrupting my holy name.”

11. b. Injustice: • Amos 2:6-7 [NLT] - “They sell honorable people for silver and poor people for a pair of sandals. They trample helpless people in the dust and shove the oppressed out of the way. • Amos 3:10 [NLT] - “Their fortresses are filled with wealth taken by theft and violence.” • Amos 5:7 [NLT] – “You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed. You treat the righteous like dirt.” • Amos 5:10 [NLT] – “How you hate honest judges! How you despise people who tell the truth! You trample the poor, stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent.”

12. c. False Worship: • Amos 4:4-6 [NLT] - “Go ahead and offer sacrifices to the idols at Bethel. Keep on disobeying at Gilgal. Offer sacrifices each morning, and bring your tithes every three days. Present your bread made with yeast as an offering of thanksgiving. Then give your extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere! This is the kind of thing you Israelites love to do,” says the Sovereign LORD. • Hypocritical religious activities had replaced true worship.

13. Amos 5:21 [NIV] – “I hate your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies” • God hates “religious gatherings” & “false worship.” • Amos 5:21-23 [NLT] - “I hate all your show and pretense— the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

14. “Worship that leaves unchanged the way you relate to God and to others is false worship. God will not cooperate with any pursuit of spiritual maturity that leaves unrecognized and undisturbed your hidden energy of self-protection and self-enhancement.” (L. Crabb, 66 Love Letters) • Amos 4:5 [NLT] – “[You] give your extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere! • Amos 4:11 [NLT] “….But still you would not return to me,” says the LORD.

15. This is the sign of a callous heart. • The nation of Israel had marginalized God and pushed Him out of their lives. • Where does God fit into the priorities of your life? • God sent famine, drought, plagues, death, destruction but nothing seemed to turn the people back to Him. • What would God have to do to get your attention to turn back to Him?

16. Amos 4:12 [NIV] - “Prepare to meet your God!” • God’s people are called to a higher standard. • James 4:17 [NIV] – “Anyone who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” • Joel 2:13 [NIV] - He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

17. 2. God’s Call To Return to Him • God’s judgments are always preceded by warnings to return to Him. • That’s GRACE at work. • Amos 5:14,15 [NLT] – “Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed. Hate evil and love what is good; turn your courts into true halls of justice.” • Amos 5:24 [NLT] – “I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living.”

18. The message of Amos calls us to: • Social responsibility: • care for the less fortunate • stand for justice against the oppressed • support to the meek and humble • Spiritual responsibility: • come into God’ presence with hearts prepared for genuine worship • come into God’s presence conscious of our own sin and need for His grace

19. 3. God’s Promise of Deliverance • God made a covenant promise that He would never totally destroy the descendants of Abraham and David. • That’s His MERCY at work! • Amos 9:8 [NLT] – “’But I will never completely destroy the family of Israel,’ says the Lord.”

20. Amos 9:11–12 [NIV] - “In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the LORD, who will do these things. • God’s judgments are followed by His promises of deliverance and restoration.

21. Acts 15:16–17 [NIV] - “ ‘After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things’” • Amos’s prophecy pointed to the time when the Gentiles would come to faith in Christ and be brought into the family of God. • The message of Amos echoes the message of the New Testament

22. Amos 5:4 [NLT] – God: “Come Back to Me and Live!” • Matthew 4:17 [NIV] – Jesus - “Repent – for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” • God is only pleased with genuine worship • and followers who look out more for others than they do for themselves. • Amos 5:14 [NLT] – “Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper.” • What a promise to encourage us today!