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Amos,prophet of justice

Yvon Prehn, teacherwww.livelifebythebook.com

Historical Overview

• Kingdom Split 922 BC

• Jonah, Obadiah preached to Edom& Nineveh (Joel later in our reading)

• Amos approx. 755-760 BC

• One of the earliest to Israel

• Contemporary: Hosea

• Israel taken captive 721 BC

• Leading up to the fall of Jerusalem, 2 Kings 17

• Judah, final fall of Jerusalem 586 BC

History of Samaria• Capitol of the Northern Kingdom, also used

to refer to surrounding area

• When conquered by Assyria, resettled with people from many nations

• 2 Kings 17:24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamathand Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. . . . . 32 They worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33 They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.

Hatred continued until Jesus day, story of the Samaritan

woman at the well in John 4

Mt. Gerazim

Messages prior to judgment

• Amos 3:7 Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan

to his servants the prophets.

• Jn. 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

• God tells us what He will do, consequences of actions

• Challenge then and always: are we listening?

God’s Prophet: Amos

• Name means: Burden-bearer

• Not formally trained

• A shepherd and farmer

• From Judah, sent north

• Sent to an incredibly wealthy, prosperous and religious nation

• Called “the first Great Reformer”

• Summary of book: Justice

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Book begins with Judgment on surrounding nations

• Damascus, for cruelty in war

• Tyre, sold ‘brothers’

• Gaza, slave traffic

• Ammon, excessive cruelty in war

• Edom, anger, fury to brother

• Moab, excessive vengeance

• Judah, idolatry

• All accountable, Rom. 1

Now to Israel• Because they were chosen by God, greater judgment,

“you I have chosen” Amos 3:2 “therefore I will punish”– “to whom much is given, much is required” Luke 12:48

• Wrongs listed c. 2,3– Trample poor

– Idol worship

– Forbid prophets to speak

– Excessive drinking

– Self-indulgence

– 4: 1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”

God’s history of rebukes

• Previous judgments sent, but not heeded

– Famines, Dought, Locusts

– Pestilence, Earthquakes

Day of the Lord– Not a time of vindication

– Time of judgment

– First time used, continuing image

Wrong response

• Not more religion• “I hate, I despise your religious

festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,

I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.”

– Amos 5:21-23

Response God wants

Seek good, not evil, that you may live.

Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you,

just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good;

maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. Amos 5:14-15

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-

failing stream! Amos 5:24

Locust, fire, a plumb line• Because justice did not happen

– Judah time of repentance• Two judgments relented because of

prayers• Finally, Israel does not measure up And the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” “A plumb line,” I replied. Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed

and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house

of Jeroboam.” » Amos 7:8-9

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Response by religious leader

• Amos 7:10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. . . . . Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. 13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

• 14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now then, hear the word of the LORD.

• Judgment upon Amaziah pronounced

Many kinds of judgment

Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, . . . .

I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth

and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son

and the end of it like a bitter day.. . . .“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the

words of the LORD. Amos 8:11

• Because people don’t study or know the Word, cannot make correct judgments when difficult times come

“For I will give the command, and I will shake the people of Israel among all the nations

as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground.

10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword,

all those who say, ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us.’

Amos 9:9-10

Many warnings, but finally—judgment

Yet beyond judgment always mercy & hope

“In that day “I will restore David’s fallen shelter—I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins—and will rebuild 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. . . . .and I will bring my people Israel back from exile“They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them.

They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God.

Amos 9: 11-15

Application ideaGood News About Injustice

“In fact the knowledge of God‘s great anger toward and condemnation of injustice is what gives me hope to seek justice in this world. Standing with my boots knee deep in the reeking muck of a Rwandan mass grave where thousands of innocent people have been horribly slaughtered, I have no words, no meaning, no life, no hope if there is not a God of history and time who is absolutely outraged, absolutely furious, absolutely burning with anger towards those who took it into their own hands to commit such acts.”Gary Haughen in Good News About Injustice, from Christian Lawyer’s website

Discussion Questions

1. What does “justice” mean to you?

2. What do you think Amos would think of Christianity in America today?

3. What does a “famine for God’s Word” mean? Do you think we experience that today?

4. What does God want us to do to bring justice to our world?