The Prophet of Righteousness

Transcription of the first episode of Studies in the book of Amos brought to you by Pastor Rusty Tardo.

You can listen here.

“The Prophet Amos. I'm really excited about this series of messages because Amos' message to Israel is so relevant to our society today. Amos prophesied to a self-indulgent, materialistic society, a very prosperous nation, a prosperous society.

In fact, at the time of Amos' ministry, Israel was more prosperous than it had ever been. In the divided kingdom, it was at its pinnacle, at its peak of prosperity. And here comes a prophet with a message of doom and gloom.

If there ever was a prophet of gloom and doom, it was Amos. So if you're there in Chapter 1, we're going to pray. Father, we ask that your anointing would abide tonight upon the teaching of the Word.

Help me, Father, to teach with clarity and insight. And Father, make the message relevant and applicable to each and every one of us tonight. Father, I pray that I'd be able to speak beyond myself by your prompting, by your moving, Lord, and let these messages come alive in our hearts.

Teach us, guide us, instruct us, help us. Father, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Amos, you know, I was going to subtitle this, Amos' Prophecy to America, because that's just how relevant it really is, his prophecy to America. Amos is called the Prophet of Righteousness because that's his message.

His message is a call, a continual call to righteousness, righteous living. Actually, this is a relatively short book. I hope that some of you went through it during the week since we announced what our topic was going to be.

Maybe you read chapter one or chapter two, went through some of it. Mostly, this book consists of pronouncements of judgment against the neighboring kingdoms around Israel, but also of Israel and Judah. And these pronouncements of judgment were coming against these nations for several predominant reasons.

Let me tell you what they are. First of all, judgment is pronounced against the people because the people were morally degenerate. Now, I want you to think about this and think about how current the Bible really is.

Keeping in mind, this is written 8th century BC. But his message was a message of judgment because the people were immoral. They were morally degenerate.

Secondly, the people were consumed with selfishness and greed that characterized their everyday lives. It was a prosperous time, and the people were totally caught up in the materialism that characterized their society. So judgment was going to come upon them because of that total consumption by materialism.

Thirdly, justice had been perverted to the point that injustice prevailed. The rich were oppressing the poor, robbing the poor, depleting the poor. And, you know, that too is current in any materialistic society.

And fourthly, a fourth reason for the judgment that was going to fall was because the people were spiritually apostate. Spiritually, they were bankrupt. And for these reasons, God was going to judge these nations and judge them thoroughly.

Now, look with me in verse 1, and let's look at the time period of this prophecy. Chapter 1 and verse 1, The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. Now, verse 1 locates the time frame in which Amos prophesied.

We see here very clearly that the book was written, the prophecy came in the period of king Jeroboam of Israel. Now, this is Jeroboam II, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So, remember the time this is the divided kingdom?

Israel was the northern kingdom, Judah the southern kingdom. The kingdom divided actually after Solomon's death, when Jeroboam I took the ten northern tribes, and Rehoboam, Solomon's son, took the southern two tribes of Judah. That's when the kingdom divided.

This is 150 years after the divided kingdom. After the single monarchy, when the kingdom divided, this is 150 years after Jeroboam I. Actually, the Jeroboam, who is mentioned as king of Israel here, is what historians record as Jeroboam II.

Now, we know from history that Jeroboam II reigned from 782 to 753 BC. 782 to 753 BC. He was king when Amos prophesied to the northern kingdom.

Also, Amos says, notice this, Uzziah was king of Judah at the time of Amos' prophesy. Now, we know that Uzziah reigned in the southern kingdom of Judah from 767 BC to 739 BC. Both of these kings were in office.

Jeroboam in the northern kingdom, Uzziah in the southern kingdom. So, that means Amos' ministry had to have occurred during that 14-year period when those two kings' reigns coincided, which means that this prophecy, this book, Amos' ministry at this point occurred sometime between the years 767 and 753 BC. We also note, notice right at the end of verse 1, notice right at the end that they say it was two years before the earthquake.

You see that mention of the earthquake there? Now, this earthquake had to have been a really momentous event in Israel's history for several reasons. One, they used that earthquake as something to fix dates on.

They didn't, keep in mind the Ancients didn't keep the calendar like we do. You know, we say, yeah, well, it's January 2nd, 1991. They didn't say things like that.

Somebody would say, well, when did this event occur? They would say, well, you know, it was two years before the earthquake, or it was in the fourth year of the reign of Uzziah, or, you know, that's the way they fixed dates. If something of real momentous event occurred, then they would fix that as a date.

Two years before the earthquake, three years after the earthquake. We do the same thing. Somebody says, how long have you been living in the parish?

Oh, about a year after Betsy.

You know, it's just fixed. These events, these catastrophes just fix in people's minds. And so they don't say, when did you move here?

They don't say 1966, they say about a year after Betsy. When did you move out on the Gulf Coast over there? Oh, about a year after Camille.

That's the way they do it. Also, Zechariah mentions this very earthquake in his book. Let me read a verse to you from Zechariah chapter 14.

If you want to turn over there, Zechariah is really just a few chapters over.

Zechariah chapter 14 mentions this very earthquake, and he speaks of it in the context of the end times, because Zechariah's book is a book of end time prophecy. He says this, Zechariah 14.5, And you shall flee to the valley of the mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal. Yea, you shall flee like as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.

And the Lord, my God, shall come, and all the saints with thee. You notice he says the way people fled, they fled in terror at the shaking and quaking of this tremendous earthquake back in the times of Uzziah the king. So that's the same earthquake.

It had to have been a terrible cataclysm, a terrible earthquake, for people to scatter and run and flee to valleys and so forth to get away from the shaking and quaking of the earth. Zechariah uses that and says, You see how you ran then? It's going to be that way and worse in the last days when judgment really falls.

So we know that that earthquake was quite a momentous event. So we placed Amos then as one of the 8th century prophets, 8th century BC prophets. He would have been a contemporary of such prophets as Isaiah.

Isaiah was an 8th century BC prophet. He also prophesied, I might add, to the Northern Kingdom. He was also a contemporary of Hosea and Micah, all of which were 8th century BC prophets.

Now let's look for a minute at Amos, the man himself. Amos, you know how Hebrew names meant something? Hebrew names, Abraham, father of a multitude, father of many nations, and so forth.

Well, guess what Amos meant? A burden, or burden bearer. That's what Amos' name actually means.

Burden, how would you like to have that for a name? Scholars are divided in their opinion as to whether or not that was really his given name, or whether it was a term, a derogatory term that was given to him by people that he prophesied to. See, Amos' message was not a message of peace, prosperity, pleasure, and joy.

Amos' message throughout his whole book is judgment, damnation, ruin, devastation, desolation, doom and gloom. That was his whole message. So, some think that his name was actually a derogatory term that people threw at him and said, oh no, here comes that old burden again.

Here comes the pain, in other words. Amos the pain, Amos the burden. You know, they don't like to hear him.

They don't want to be around him. They don't want to hear his message. It wasn't a pleasant message.

You didn't listen to Amos and get edified. You didn't listen to his preaching and leave feeling good. But Amos' message, some people think even, it offered no hope because it was all gloom, all doom, all judgment, falling, coming.

Of course, he ends his prophetic message with the end of chapter 9 speaking of a restoration, restoration of Israel and a remnant, the salvation of a remnant. But I'll tell you, if there ever was a gloom and doom preacher, it's this man right here that we're studying, this man Amos. His message was hard.

His message was brutal. His message was devastating. No wonder they called him a burden.

Now, we notice also here in verse 1, we want to learn a little bit about who Amos is. We know where he's from because of verse 1. It says, The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa.

So, we see that he was from Tekoa, a little village or city about five miles southeast of Bethlehem, ten to twelve miles from Jerusalem. Actually, the area of Tekoa is the same area that John the Baptist ministered in, that wilderness area there. They also say it's the same area that the Lord was tempted in when he went forty days out into the wilderness to fast and was tempted of the devils in that very area.

So, it was an area that would later be very prominent in God's economy. We also recognize in verse one that Amos was a herdman. You see here, verse one, he was among the herdmen.

He was a sheep herder, in other words. That's what he did. He was a sheep herder.

Now, we find also a little further back in the Book of Amos. For instance, if you look with me back to chapter seven, that besides being a herdsman, he was also a gatherer of sycamore fruit. Verse 14 of chapter seven, Amos, then answered Amos, I'm in Amos 7.14, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son.

But notice what he says here. But I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. The sycamore fig, there was a particular species of tree, sycamore there, that actually produced fruit, a type of fig tree.

And we see here that Amos was not a priest. Amos was not a professional prophet, a professional clergyman or anything like that. He wasn't the son of a prophet.

He says that right here in verse 14. I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son. I was just a herdsman, a sheep herder.

That's all I was. A sheep herder and a vine dresser, a dresser of trees, a grower of sycamore figs. That's what I did.

He had no professional training. He didn't go to seminary. He had no degrees.

He had never been ordained by any religious council or anything. He was a plain old simple farmer. That's all he was.

Plain, simple farmer and herdsman. He lived a very plain and simple life out there, herding sheep and dressing these trees. This is the man that God chose to bring into a very affluent society.

Now, think about this. That the Lord would choose a man out in the wilderness somewhere, out herding sheep, a simple, unassuming man, vinedresser, herdsman and so forth, out there, and bring him to go preach to a very affluent, wealthy, prosperous society of people that was flourishing, where there was great nobility, where the people were really proud and pompous and thinking a whole lot of themselves, that God would take this herdsman and bring him to go preach to the people in the north. You know, God doesn't always do things the way we would do things.

We would think, you know, if you're going to send somebody to preach to those people, you need to send somebody from their own background, or somebody who can relate to them. But this is just a good illustration of 1 Corinthians 1, where in verse 27, God says that he takes the simple things to confound the wise, and the things that are not to confound the things that are. And, you know, the Lord knows what he's doing.

A lot of times, we would think of doing things totally different and opposite of the way God does them. But we have to let the Lord be the Lord, because he took this simple man with his cutting message and thoroughly rebuked the pompous nobility and merchants and so forth of the Northern Kingdom. Let's notice also here in Chapter 7 that God called Amos supernaturally to, into the ministry of a prophet.

Chapter 7, this is what he says, Verse 14, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. I was just a herdsman and Verse 15, he says, And the Lord took me as I followed the flock. And the Lord said unto me, Go prophesy unto my people Israel.

God gave him a supernatural call. I believe in the supernatural call of not just prophets or apostles, but all fivefold ministry. I believe in a supernatural call.

Today, we have a great deal of people who don't believe in the fact that God calls people to particular ministries and offices and so forth. But I'm one who believes he does. I believe he calls them, and I believe that those he calls, he anoints.

He equips them. It's not seminary that equips anybody to be a prophet or a teacher or a preacher of righteousness. It's God's call that equips them and prepares them and anoints them to go.

Amos didn't apply for the job. He didn't put in an application and say, I'd sure like to be a prophet. God called him supernaturally.

Let's notice a few other things about this man. He prophesied to the Northern Kingdom. His ministry was to the Northern Kingdom, but he was from the Southern Kingdom.

He was from down in Judah. But Tikal was just five miles from Bethlehem. So that would make him a missionary, that he would leave his own nation.

And remember, there was a great deal of a strife and competition between the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. But God called this man from the South to go preach to the North. Now that made his message even more unacceptable to the Northern Kingdom.

Remember, God doesn't do things the way we would do things. We would think if God's going to send somebody to preach to the North, he needs to raise somebody up from the North. But here he sends a man from the South, a simple man, a herdsman to boot, and sends them to the North when they don't like each other to begin with, the North and the South, you see.

They've got all this conflict between one another and suspicion towards one another and didn't have a whole lot of faith or confidence in one another. And here God sends a man from the South to go preach to the North. You know what their response would be.

Get out of here, man. Go preach to your own kind. Go preach to your own people.

You want to go around preaching gloom and doom and judgment. Go back to the South and preach it. Don't come up here with all that noise.

We don't want to hear it. And that's basically the response they had. Just basically that.

Well, here's something else that you might find interesting about Amos. He never worked a single miracle. Now, he's a prophet.

But don't place all prophets in the category of Elijah and Elisha. That went around raising the dead and telling lepers to go wash in Jordan and so forth, because not all prophets ministered as did Elijah and Elisha. In fact, the greatest prophet who ever lived never worked a single miracle in his life.

Who was that? John the Baptist, from Jesus' own lips. Jesus said, there's never been a greater prophet than John the Baptist.

But John the Baptist never worked a single miracle. I mean, he didn't go around stopping up the rain and calling down fire and so forth, like Elijah and Elisha and so forth. He didn't do those things.

Amos never worked a single miracle. And yet, he was a prophet, a tremendously, mightily used prophet of God. Sometimes people get the idea that, you know, a person is a prophet when they predict the future or when they prophesy to people, when they line everybody up and give them a word of direction or personal prophecy and so forth.

Don't get the wrong idea about a prophet's ministry. A prophet's message is basically the message of the prophets of the Bible. Messages of get right, judgment is coming.

Their message is stern. It's a message of tearing up false religious practices, exposing error, revealing sin. It's a cutting, biting, ripping, tearing message that tears down all that is false, all that is erroneous.

And then it builds up what is right and true and noble. And that's the message of Amos. That's exactly the kind of message he had.

His message was to warn, to rebuke, to call to repentance, and so on. Because of his bold preaching and his incessant preaching against the sins, the moral decay, and depravity, and backsliding, and so forth of the people, Amos is called the Preacher of Righteousness, the Prophet of Righteousness. Now, let me give you a little bit of information about the setting here.

We talked about the time frame. We talked about the man. Let's just give you a little information about the general background.

Politically and economically, Israel was at this time in its history very secure and very prosperous.

The king had made some advances militarily. Jeroboam had been a very wise military strategist and had made the borders of Israel totally secure. In fact, they were probably more secure at this time than they had ever been since Solomon's reign, the reigns of that king some 150 years previously.

Jeroboam II was without question a military strategist. He had provided a buffer zone between himself and Syria. Assyria was just beginning to flex its muscles, but at this point in time was not a threat yet to the Northern Kingdom.

So Israel at this point was totally independent. You know, throughout her history, Israel had at different times become nothing more than a nation that was oppressed and ruled over by the surrounding nations, whether it was the Philistines or the Assyrians or Syria or whatever. There's nations that would impose heavy taxes and burdens upon them.

But at this time in their life, they were totally independent and prosperity. They just flourished. They prospered tremendously.

But here's what happened. In their prosperity, there was a squeezing out of the middle class, and the rich got real fat. The merchants and noblemen, all the nobility, they got real fat, real rich, and the poor got real poor.

The middle class virtually ceased to exist. It's something that many economists and so on, sociologists are saying is happening in America today. The middle class is dwindling and shrinking, and the poor are becoming more and more numerous.

The rich at the same time are becoming much richer. The middle class is vanishing. That's exactly what happened here in Israel at this time.

Amos makes reference to these merchants and nobility with their summer houses and winter houses. They were prospering to the point that they had different houses at different times of the year. Oh, yes, we'll go live in the mountainside in the summer to escape the heat, and then we'll come back down to the valleys in the winter and escape the bitter cold.

And they were really prospering and flourishing. They lived in very much ease and comfort. And, you know, you remember the passage over in Amos?

Woe to them that are at ease in Zion and so forth, chapter six and verse one. He rebukes those laying on their beds of ivory. It was a prosperous, rich time for the merchants and the tradesmen.

Unfortunately, many of these people became rich by oppressing the poor, which is something else that Amos takes aim at throughout this book. And we'll see how he rebukes the corruption that had set in. The people became so consumed with greed, with materialism, that they didn't think anything about oppressing the poor, denying them their wages, robbing widows.

It didn't matter. They were going to get rich no matter who they had to hurt in order to do it, no matter who they had to step on. They became thieves and robbers.

The merchants dealt unfairly and unjustly with their weights and so on. So it was a time of great wickedness, and Amos came with his message of stern rebuke and a sure coming of God's divine judgment. It was a time of self-indulgence, a time of luxury, a time of selfishness, of moral decay, a time of wantonness, a time of oppression, much like we see today right here in our own country.

That's why I say that Amos' message is really applicable to us today. You know, even with the recession that some are now admitting that the country has begun to slip into, we are a very self-indulgent people. We're a pampered people, a soft people.

We live with greater ease and luxury than virtually any nation on earth, and we really pamper ourselves. We're a self-indulgent people. I don't say that to...

That's in no way to flatter us. That's to our shame that we have become so self-centered and self-indulgent. People you know who become satisfied with their lot in life are not a hungry people for God.

They find very little need for God in their lives. They're not a hungry people, a thirsty people for more of the Lord, because I mean, they're happy, they're content. They've got all that they could want.

What do they need God for? Why do we need the Lord? We've got it all.

You know, we're like the Laodicean church that thought they were in need of nothing. Now, religiously, what was the state in Amos's time as he ministered to the Northern Kingdom? Religiously, the whole kingdom was given over to idolatry and apostasy.

Now, this is interesting about the Northern Kingdom. They were a very religious people. The people were very active, very busy with their religious activities, but they were totally backslidden, totally apostate.

It was a very carnal religion, a false religion that they practiced. It was a religion that catered to the lusts and the passions and the carnal desires of their unregenerate nature. Religion did not reprove their wicked actions.

Not at all. In fact, it actually promoted them. It was a very sensual religion that they practiced, that didn't make any real spiritual demands on the people.

It only made physical demands and financial demands on the people. Now listen to this, because this is important. It's the same kind of religion we see prospering in America today.

Religion that makes no real spiritual demands on people. No demand for holiness, for consecration, for taking up a cross, for denying self. No such demands were made.

The demands were physical ceremonies. You were to go through the physical rites and rituals and ceremonies. You know, your presence should be here and so forth.

And they made financial demands on the people. They had to give their tithes, give their offerings, bring their gifts to the altar and so forth, give their alms, do their good deeds. They made physical demands, presence and so forth, financial demands, but no moral demands on the people.

No ethical demands. They did not demand any change in their lifestyle. That's the kind of religion that's prospering in our own country today.

It's a religion of simply pay your vows, pay your vows, no call to holiness, repentance, brokenness, cross carrying, anything like that. Just pay your vows, give your tithes, be present, and God will bless you. But totally contrary to what the message of the Bible really is.

The Prophet of Righteousness and Book of Amos began leaving the Northern Kingdom to go back down to Judah, to the temple, to offer their sacrifices, to worship, and all the feast days and holy days and so forth. Jeroboam became very concerned. He was afraid that what would happen was the people would go down to the Southern Kingdom, and while they were down there in the temple worshiping the Lord, that their hearts would be pricked, that the people would say, you know, we really shouldn't have a divided kingdom.

We ought to all be down here constantly. We ought to all be reunited under Rehoboam the king. And so Jeroboam, the first Jeroboam, set up calf worship in the Northern Kingdom.

A golden calf was set up in Bethel, and another golden calf was set up in Dan. And the people were told, don't go down to Jerusalem. Don't go into the Southern Kingdom.

Stay right here and worship God. And they called these calves that Jeroboam set up, they actually called them, this is your God. This is Elohim.

Stay here, worship God. And so calf worship had become the religion of the Northern Kingdom. At the same time, Baal worship had crept in to Israel's worship as well.

They already had the calves, and that was apostate and idolatrous enough. But then Baal worship crept in, especially under the corrupt reigns of Ahaz, Jezebel, and so forth. You might also recall that the Northern Kingdom in all of its history did not ever have one good king, not a single king that did right.

Every time you read of a king of the Northern Empire, it always says this, and so and so, whoever it was, did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. Every single king of the North did that which was evil. Now, there were a few good kings in the Southern Kingdom, but not a single one in the Northern Kingdom.

Now, each and every one, after Jeroboam I, endorsed and approved of the false calf worship in the Northern Kingdom that had been set up by Jeroboam. So here comes Amos, the prophet from the South, preaching judgment to the Northern Kingdom because of their apostasy, because of their religious practices. And you have to keep in mind just how filthy and degenerate the religious practices of the people had become.

Remember what Baal worship was. Baal worship revolved around the cycles of the earth, you know, the summer cycles, winter cycles, and so forth. It was a fertility religion.

Baal was a bull, a fertility god. And the way these people practiced their religion was filthy and depraved beyond imagination, beyond belief. Keep in mind, the ancients held to the superstitions that the earth died at certain times of the year.

During the summer, when it was dry and barren and nothing grew and the grass all turned brown and the crops didn't grow, the grass died, the people thought the earth was dead. It had died. It had become lifeless.

The same thing was true in the bitter winters. When the cold turned everything brown, nothing grew. They believed that the only way to revive the earth was to awaken the fertility gods.

Baal. They had to awaken Baal. Guess how you did that?

By performing acts of sexual prostitution. They actually had temple prostitutes. Sexual immorality was a part of their worship system.

It was a part of Baal worship. So people would go to these temples and lie with prostitutes. Temple prostitutes, in order to awaken the fertility gods, in order to get the crops to grow back again after the bitter winters or the dry summers, in order to get their herds to become fertile again or their wives to become fertile, this was their religion.

Now they practiced Baal worship and they mixed it right in. Remember, they never forsook aspects of the Mosaic law. This was Israel, the northern kingdom.

They still held on to aspects of the Mosaic law. They still believed in paying your tithes. They still believed in sacrifice.

They still believed in the many other aspects of observances and so forth, as they went through the rituals and ceremonies of religion. But they never forsook the aspects of Baal worship. They just incorporated that into the Mosaic law or what aspects of the law they chose to keep.

You talk about a conglomeration of beliefs and practices. So here they are. They believe in, let's go pay our tithes.

Let's make our vows. Let's attend church. Let's be faithful.

Let's give our alms to the poor. And yet at the same time, they're lying with religious prostitutes. And that's why you read things in Amos.

For instance, look with me over to chapter 5. Let me read a couple of verses to you over here. Amos chapter 5.

They believed in paying their vows and giving their alms and singing their psalms and coming and offering their sacrifices and so forth, but it was just a ritual. It was just ceremony. Their actions, their lives were totally wicked and depraved.

Are you in chapter 5? Look with me in verse 21. And here's what God says to Israel.

He says, I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies as they gathered to offer up their incenses. Now, this is part of the Mosaic ritual that was actually ordered by Moses in the law. He says, verse 22, Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them.

Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of thy songs. They came singing, worshiping their acts of adoration and so on.

God says, take it away! For I will not hear the melody of thy vials. It's an abomination to God, all of it.

He says, verse 24, here's what he wants. But let judgment or justice run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. This is what I want.

Have you offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness, 40 years, O house of Israel? But you have borne the tabernacle of your mullock and ch'in, your images, the star of your God, which you made to yourselves. Here they are with all their idols, their pagan idols that they borrowed from the heathen nations.

Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. They had their religious observances, but they never stopped the abominable practices. You see, it was the religion that made no moral demands on them.

Just the physical demands, just the financial demands. God hated their practices. When they gathered and sang their songs, and even when they were observing those aspects of the law that God required, God said, it's all an abomination.

I won't honor it. I won't be there. In fact, I'm going to judge you for it because of your filthy lives.

It's all hypocritical. Look with me back to chapter 4. Let me point out a couple of verses over here.

Chapter 4, verse 4, where God, actually, this is a bit of biting sarcasm where God is saying to him, come to Bethel and transgress. At Gilgal, multiply transgression, and bring your sacrifices every morning and your tithes after three years, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings. For this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God.

In other words, the people came to worship. They came to offer their sacrifices and pay their vows. God says, oh yeah, come to do that, come to do that.

But where do you come to do it? Bethel, where the calf is. What are you worshiping?

The calf. So the whole thing is an abomination to the Lord. You know, God always did hate when people would take aspects of pagan worship and mingle it with the truth of God's Word.

He hates it then. He hates it today. When we take pagan practices, ancient pagan customs, we might mention a few, but it seems like there's some tracks on them that people take and mingle with Christian tradition.

What is right, what is true, God still hates those things. Oh yes, He does. The amalgamation of paganism with Christianity doesn't fly with God.

He hates these things. He hates the ways of the heathen. And I'll tell you something else.

“These verses we just read in chapter 4 and chapter 5 are an indictment against the pay your vows kind of religion that's spreading across America today. You know, just pay your vows. If you give to God, He's going to give back to you a hundredfold, a thousandfold, and so forth.

The false prosperity teaching that makes no moral demands on people, no message of holiness, no message of the cross, no message of denying self. All it is is just pay your vows, give to get, and God will give it back to you a thousandfold, a hundredfold, and so forth. That's an abomination in the eyes of God.

True Christianity, true faith, demands change, demands moral change. And any religion that just draws the physical presence of people or just is trying to act as a magnet towards their pocketbook and yet demands no moral reformation is not genuine. Chapter 5 and verse 24, some have said, actually, could be considered the theme of this whole book of Amos.

But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. There's the theme of the book, they say. In fact, I believe actually that there are two themes that are repeated throughout this book.

Because we see them repeated over and over again. And here's what they are. First of all, a continual call to righteousness.

Continuously a call to righteousness. And also a pronouncement of doom. Throughout the book, a pronouncement of doom.

Like I said before, if there ever was a prophet of gloom and doom, it's Amos. It's interesting, he really doesn't seem to expect the people to repent at his preaching. It's like he doesn't expect his message to have any effect on the people.

I mean, they were so self-absorbed, though, with their ease and comfort and wealth, their money, their own fleshly desires. Things were going real well for them. They were prospering.

They didn't really pay much attention to this little herdsman from Tekoa, who came preaching gloom and doom. They didn't have much time for him. As he came saying, God's going to pour out his fury.

He's going to pour out his wrath upon you because of your sins, because of your iniquities. Amos is not mentioned anywhere else in the Scriptures. There's a lot of things about his life and his ministry that we don't know.

We don't know when he was born. We don't know how old he was when he received his call to be a prophet. We don't know really how long he preached.

We don't know how long he lived. We don't know when he died. We don't know how he died.

There's a lot of things we don't know about Amos. One tradition says, later on when we deal with chapter 7, you'll see how Amaziah the priest opposed Amos at Bethel. One tradition says that actually Amaziah arranged to have Amos murdered.

Now, you don't know whether those traditions have any merit or not. I'm just mentioning to you that's one tradition stating. Let me give you a brief outline of the book.

It falls into three sections, three divisions. The first division is chapter 1 and 2, which contains eight pronouncements of judgment against Israel, against Judah, and against six of their neighboring nations. So chapters 1 and 2 is the first section, pronouncements of judgment.

The second section is chapters 3 to 6, which actually has three sermons of judgment against Israel for their sins. And each one of these sections can be easily distinguished. Let me show you how to do it.

Turn with me to chapter 3, and you're going to see how you can distinguish each of these three sections in chapters 3 to 6. Each section starts with this phrase, Hear this word. Notice chapter 3 in verse 1, Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel.

You see how it starts in chapter 3? Now look with me in chapter 4 in verse 1. Hear this word.

He starts the same way. Chapter 5, verse 1. Hear ye this word, which I take up against you.

It starts, each section starts with that phrase, with that introductory phrase, as God rails against the sins, the bankruptcy against Israel. And then, down into each of those sections, another key word is found. It's the word therefore.

Therefore, he starts each section with this. Hear this word, and then he pronounces all of the sins, all of the abominations, all of the atrocities, all of the category of sins that the people of Israel have committed. And then he comes to the next section, and he says, Therefore, for instance, in chapter 3 and verse 11, after he tells them all their sins, then he says in verse 11, chapter 3, Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, and then he pronounces their judgment.

This is what God's going to do. Hear this word, he exposes their sins, and then therefore, here's the judgment that's going to fall upon you. In chapter 4, that section, he starts, Hear this word, verse 1, but then by the time he gets down in verse 12, he says, Therefore, this is what I'm going to do unto you, O Israel.

This is the judgment. This is the fury. This is the wrath I'm going to pour out against you.

In chapter 5, he does the same thing in that section. Verse 1, Hear this word. Verse 16, Therefore, because of your sins, because of your abominations, this is the judgment that's going to come upon you.

So that's the second section, chapters 3 to 6. Then the third section is chapters 7 through 9, which contains a series of five visions that Amos saw. Chapter 7 through 9.

There was the vision of the devouring locust in chapter 7, verses 1 through 3. There was the vision of the flaming fire, verses 4 to 6 of chapter 7. There was the vision of the plum line in the remainder of chapter 7.

Then there was the vision of the basket of ripe fruit, the summer fruit, chapter 8, verses 1 through 14. And then, the vision of the altar in chapter 9, verses 1 through 10. The last part of the book, the last few verses, deals with the restoration, the eventual restoration, the future restoration of Israel as a nation.

We're going to give you a lot more detailed outline as we go along, but if there's just a basic framework, a skeleton, we'll put the meat and the bones and the muscle and the nerve and all that on it as we go along in these studies. Now look with me back to chapter 1, verse 2. Verse 2 kind of summarizes the whole message of the book.

Chapter 1 and verse 2. Verse 1 introduces it. Verse 2, here's what God said.

And He said, The Lord will roar from Zion and utter His voice from Jerusalem and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn and the top of Carmel shall wither. Here's a passage that speaks of the nature and the extent of the judgment that is soon going to fall upon the nation. Now Amos uses analogies that he's real familiar with.

Remember, he's a sheep herder. So he's familiar with lions and the threat that they posed to any herdsmen. Lions were a very real threat, a deadly threat.

And whenever a herdsman would hear a lion roar, he knew that lion was about to pounce upon some helpless sheep. And it wouldn't be but a matter of moments before that sheep was in the jaws and claws of that lion where the sheep wouldn't have a chance. Because once it latched those teeth around the throat of the lamb, once it put those paws on it, that lamb was dead.

It had no chance to escape, no chance to get free. And this is the analogy that Amos uses to speak of God roaring as a lion about to pounce upon the nation of Israel. It's a real fitting analogy.

See, he's a herdsman. He's familiar with these terms. And everyone knew what he was talking about.

God has roared. He's about to pounce upon Israel as a nation. And when he does, there'll be no escape.

Because the jaws will clamp around the throat of the lamb and rip its very life out of it. There will be no escaping. He's saying that Israel would be helpless once God fell in judgment.

He said the judgment would be so severe. Notice verse 2. He said, the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn.

God is going to bring such a terrible judgment upon Israel that he says the pastures themselves that were once green and flourishing would be barren and desolate, and they themselves would mourn their desolation and their destruction. And the judgment would be so severe. Notice the end of verse 2.

He says they would reach all the way up to the top of Mount Carmel, that it should wither. So in other words, he's saying from the top to the bottom, judgment will be thorough. It will be complete.

From top to bottom, barrenness, desolation. There will be no place to go, no place to hide, no place to escape. From the mountaintops to the valleys, desolation, judgment, fury, wrath will be poured out.

There will be no escaping. The lion, the Lord has roared from Zion and is about to pounce upon this wicked nation. Judgment, it would be threefold.

Now, this is what it's going to be according to this verse. Judgment would be imminent because the lion has roared. And once it roared, judgment was imminent.

Death was sudden. Judgment would be thorough from the top of Carmel to the very barren pastures, bottom land, valleys and so forth of the herdsmen. Judgment would be thorough.

There would be no place of safety, no place to hide. When God judges, he does the thorough job of it. He doesn't leave any little place, little pocket of safety.

When he judges, he judges thoroughly. There was no house in Sodom or Gomorrah that failed to be judged. There was no place of safety, no pocket of safety.

Sodom and Gomorrah were thoroughly judged. There was no place but the ark that was safe when God poured out liquid death upon the earth in Noah's day. No little tree you could climb, no hill, no mountain was high enough, no cave deep enough.

Every place, every thing, everything died. And that's the way it's going to be, God says, in this judgment that's going to come. So it would be imminent, it would be thorough, and it would be devastating.

Devastating to the point, He said that the very pastures themselves would mourn because of the desolation. Forty years, approximately forty years after Amos' prophecy, it came to pass. Assyria invaded the Northern Kingdom, and the mass murders, the hideous atrocities performed by the Assyrians upon, those atrocities inflicted upon the population of Israel, were beyond anything that we could imagine.

We've spoken before about the cruelty, the inhumanity, the lack of mercy of the Assyrian peoples, the Assyrian empire. They didn't know the meaning of the word mercy. They didn't know the meaning of the word compassion.

And they fell upon Israel in such a way that the land was just as desolate as Amos predicted it would be. Forty years later, some forty years after Amos' prophecy. You know, there's always this principle of sowing and reaping.

Sowing the wind, reaping the world wind. When people are going to be judged, when God pronounces judgment, that judgment will come. Sometimes we think God's wheels of justice move mightily slow.

But though they may move slowly, when they do move, they grind their victims, their targets into fine dust and powder. And here, God judged Israel so thoroughly. The atrocities inflicted upon them by the Assyrian nation were beyond anything we could imagine.

Amos has a message to America. I believe the same sins that characterized Israel in the times of Amos characterize America today. It's a wanton society, a self-indulgent society.

It's a society that wants its religion cheap and easy. It's all right if it makes physical demands on us. It's all right if it makes financial demands on us.

Everybody's willing to give a little something. Everybody's willing to make some financial sacrifice, but no moral demands. People don't want demands made upon their lifestyle.

They like their sins, and they don't want to be bothered by the demands of religion that calls its people to reformation, to holiness, to consecration, to a faith that's embraced by the whole man, by the heart, so that our worship comes from the heart. It's not just a matter of ritual, routine, ceremony, or rite. Amos' message is extremely relevant to us today.

I read it and I get convicted by it. I get blessed by it. I get stirred by it.

And I trust that as we get into these messages into the weeks ahead, that they'll move your heart, that they'll shake you and encourage you and bless you and awaken you, just as they need to do to each and every one of us. I believe that we'll see Amos' call is a call to justice. Deal honestly.

Deal righteously with others. Deal with your fellow man the way you'd want to be dealt with. Deal ethically, morally.

And of course, serve God with your whole heart. Not just hypocritical actions, but with your whole heart, with your whole life, serving with all that you have and with all that you are. I believe too that judgment is going to fall on our country, just as it fell in Israel.

No nation that has ever received the kind of light that we've received, and yet has continued to spurn God, reject God, deny God, denounce God, blaspheme God has ever been spared judgment. I have no reason to believe that God would spare America. Our prayer is that before that hammer falls with all of His wrath, the wrath of great tribulation, that we would be a part of His broad that would be removed from the earth before His great wrath and great fury is unleashed.

So be in prayer for these studies in the weeks ahead, and we're going to believe the Lord to speak to each and every one of our hearts."