The Visions of Amos

Transcription of the tenth episode in the Studies of the Book of Amos brought to you by Pastor Rusty Tardo.

You can listen here.

“And thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall surely go into captivity, fourth of his land.

Seventeen verses. We'll see as we look at these verses a little closer.

I hope that you read ahead of me, and that when we come on Wednesday night, you've already read that next chapter that you know we're going to be dealing with.

And so you have an idea of where we're going.

But one of the things you'll notice in this chapter, you'll notice Amos' prayer, Amos' intercession.

You know, prophets do more than prophesy.

Prophets pray.

And one of the things you'll see that Amos did powerfully in this passage is he prayed for Israel.

He interceded for Israel.

A lot of times we read of prophets and all we see is the part where they're standing in front of a great crowd and they're shouting, Thus saith the Lord, Fire will fall from heaven and consume you from off of this land. And we read about those parts and we shudder and we shake and we see the harshness and the sternness and we almost hear outrage against sin and anger against the vileness of the people.

“And we hear these harsh pronouncements of judgment.

But one of the things we don't always see, not because it's not there, we just fail to see it there, is that before a man can preach like that against a nation, he needs to be a man like Amos who prays for that nation, who prays for that nation to turn, who prays for that nation's repentance, who even prays for God to stay His hand of judgment from off of the land because He says the people are weak, they can't bear it.

It will destroy them.

It will wipe them out. You see in Amos, not just a man who preached and pronounced judgment and seemed harsh and so forth, but you'll see a man in this chapter, you'll see a man who prayed for these people, who was burdened for these people, who didn't want to see God's hand wipe them out.

I think that's real significant.

You'll also see Amos' message being opposed by one of the premier religious leaders of the time, Amaziah.

That shouldn't surprise us.

I don't suppose that a prophet would be opposed by the religious leaders of his time.

“And then, Chapter 7 winds up with a little personal information that Amos offers to Amaziah about his own calling, his own qualifications, his own credentials. Amos had some very impressive credentials.

Here he was a sheep herder, a gatherer of sycamore fruit.

I'm sure a lot of folks wondered about old Amos and said, Yeah, well, where did you get your degree?

Who sent you?

Who told you you could be a preacher or a prophet?

Well, let me see your credentials. Where's your ordination papers?

Well, Amos had the most impressive ordination papers of all.

He said, Look, I was just out gathering figs and herding sheep.

It was God who called me.

I was content doing that, but God stopped me in my tracks, and God sent me here to say this. And that's the way it is, you know, with a true preacher or a true prophet. It's not that a lack of education qualifies you for anything, but what does qualify us is the calling of God on our lives, that God called them and God sent them.

And that was Amos' calling.

Amaziah had no such calling.

Now, he may have had enough degrees, so many degrees you could have nicknamed him Fahrenheit.

He may have had enough certificates you could have.

He could have wallpapered a wall with them, but he certainly wasn't called of God because his messages were corrupt.

I also want to point out something back in chapter 3. Turn back over here with me.

Amos chapter 3.

I want to remind you of verse 7.

Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

Amos 3.7.

The Lord will reveal his secrets unto his servants the prophets before he reigns judgment upon a people, upon a nation. His prophets will warn of impending judgment. And certainly this is what we see in this passage, because one of the things, as we read chapter 7, we read it as we also will see in chapter 8, and you see a little glimpse of it in chapter 9.

I want you to notice how often Amos says this.

He not only says, Thus saith the Lord, like he did all the way up until this point.

Now, he says, God showed me.

See, these are visions. God showed me this.

For instance, notice verse 1 of chapter 7.

Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me.

Now, prophets are also called seers because they see.

God gives them things.

He shows them things in the spirit realm.

Shows them these visions.

And later on, Amaziah actually calls Amos a seer.

He says, get out of here, you seer.

We don't want to hear all of these visions that you're having. But you'll notice statements like this, this series of visions that Amos has.

Chapter 7 verse 1.

Thus hath the Lord God showed me.

In verse 4, he says this again.

Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me.

God showed him this.

In verse 7, the same thing.

Thus he showed me another vision he had.

You see in chapter 8 in verse 1.

Thus hath the Lord God showed me another vision he had.

And in chapter 9, he says, I saw the Lord standing on an altar.

So here you have these visions of Amos.

Now, I've been charismatic long enough to have heard a number of people tell me from time to time, well, the Lord has showed me this, or the Lord showed me that. You've probably heard people say the same thing.

Maybe you've said it yourself.

Maybe the Lord did show you something.

But I'm going to tell you what I've come to realize. Now, a lot of the things people say the Lord showed them, the Lord didn't show them at all.

Now, they had a dream, or they had a vision from their own mind, or a vision in their flesh, but some of the things people have told me, the Lord showed me, the Lord didn't show them that at all. If it was the Lord, well, you know if it would have been the Lord, it would have came to pass, for one thing.

I'll still remember a lady who came up years ago, she came up to me and told me, the Lord showed me, and she named one of the men in the church, a single man at the time.

She said, the Lord showed me that I was supposed to marry him.

Well, I found out later the Lord didn't show the man the same thing, you see.

But, praise God, that dear sister had been shown a lot of other things, and none of them were the Lord either.

I think she ate pizza before she went to bed, but she had a lot of night visions.

Bless her heart.

People say a lot of times, they say those things rather freely. I think we'd be wise to not use that language unless we know the Lord really did show us something. I think a lot of times people say that, and you know what it does?

How can you say, well, I don't think that's right if they say the Lord showed me that.

The Lord.

What do you even say?

The Lord is wrong?

It's almost like, you know, I can do this or I can say that because it's the Lord who showed me.

It justifies just about any action they want to take.

I just believe we need to be careful about that.

When Amos said it, it meant something.

When Amos said, the Lord showed me, the Lord showed him. We can be sure the Lord did show him and the Lord did send him with this message.

Go tell. The Lord showed him. He said, go tell.

His very first show and tell.

Now, the first part of this chapter, verses one through nine, we see Amos the visionary.

He has his visions.

And in the last part of the chapter, we see Amos the villain. Not that he really was a villain, but that's the way Amaziah, the religious leader, saw him.

He saw him as a bad guy, a real villain, even a threat to the security of his own country.

Now, let's look at this first vision that Amos has, the vision of the locusts, the vision of the plague of locusts.

That's verses one through three.

Let me read these verses again. Verse one, chapter seven, Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, He formed grasshoppers, literally locusts, in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth. And lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.

And it came to pass that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech Thee. By whom shall Jacob arise?

Now, Jacob, you know, is Israel.

And many times the Bible uses the name of one of the patriarchs to represent the nation itself.

He says, by whom shall Jacob arise?

Well, he's speaking of Israel, the nation.

Later on, he says, what about Isaac? He's talking about Israel, the nation of Israel.

But they'll use these names to represent the nation.

That's really not an uncommon thing in the Old Testament.

So notice, he says in verse 3, the Lord repented for this.

It shall not be, saith the Lord.

Here Amos has a vision of a plague, a tremendous plague of locusts that are coming and devouring all the green crops, the grass, the leaves, the trees, all the food, all the things in the land. Now, locust plagues were greatly feared in ancient times. They were a plague that occurred occasionally, but they were feared because when the locust plagues appeared, famine followed.

These swarms of locusts would be so huge that they'd literally blot out the sky.

Literally. As they flew overhead, the sun became dark.

You couldn't see as they blotted out the light, and they filled the ground, every square inch of ground, as they would fall and crawl, and every blade of grass would be devoured.

Every green leaf would be eaten.

All the trees would be stripped bare, and the crops would be left nubs.

That's all that would be left.

Now, in verse 1, the point that Amos makes here is not only do these locusts appear, but they appear at the worst possible time. Notice they appear at the latter growth after the king's mowings. Now, historians tell us that the custom was, back then, for the king to actually tax the crops.

Whatever they planted, the king came first.

He had his assessors come, or his tax collectors come, and they took the first crop.

They'd cut it and they'd carry it off.

And you know, the king, he had all these armies to support, and horses and chariots and cattle and all those things, because he was the king of the whole nation, and providing for all of this army and their cavalry and so forth. So that first gleaning went to the king.

So it was, when the time came for the next one to grow out, boy, they were really ready.

I mean, they really were in need for this, because now the summer heat was about to fall upon them.

The rains, the spring rains had just about finished.

And they really desperately needed this crop coming in, so that they wouldn't starve. And that's the time the grasshoppers came.

All the, well, actually these big locusts. That's the time they came.

At the worst, absolute worst possible time, the locust came. The locusts to devour everything. That would mean the average Israelite would go hungry.

That would mean these locusts would turn the whole ground to nothing but nubs and stubble.

They would devour the crops.

They would be no food for many months.

It meant a lot of people would starve to death. It would devastate the whole nation.

And that fact was deeply impressed upon the mind, the thoughts of Amos. And there's something else we want to recognize as well, and that is the symbolic significance also of this great locust plague, because symbolically, the locust could represent the Assyrian hordes who would come up like locusts, like almost out of the ground, and they would come.

They just wouldn't stop coming one after another.

An innumerable host of Assyrians, and they would devastate the land, and they would devastate the people.

So there's a spiritual significance in this vision also.

But verse 2, here, notice here, the intercession of Amos.

Amos sees this vision of all of this devastation.

He realizes the implications.

His nation will be decimated. Israel, even though he's from the south and he's preaching to the north, he realizes it will wipe them out.

They'll be totally devastated. There'll be mass starvation.

And so he intercedes for the nation. Here's his prayer. Now, notice this.

Then I said, He's right in the middle of the verse. Then I said, O Lord God, forgive. He's praying for the forgiveness of Israel.

So, you know, it's easy to get a picture in your mind that Amos is some stern and hard and uncaring or unloving prophet who just enjoys preaching judgment to that northern kingdom.

But that's not so at all. We see that here he is interceding, praying for the forgiveness of the nation. He says, I beseech thee, by whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small. He had a heart for Israel.

He had a heart for these people.

He didn't pray, Lord, forgive them because they deserve to be forgiven. He didn't do that. He didn't try and bring out any of their fine qualities or their attributes because they really didn't have any.

He just appealed to God's mercy, strictly appealed to God's mercy here, and just prayed, Lord, forgive these people.

Lord, forgive them. Now, it's interesting that he says, for he is small.

He's speaking now of Israel.

For he is small. He's weak. He's puny.

Now, that's not the way they viewed themselves, you understand. They viewed themselves at the time as probably the most powerful nation on the earth.

Jeroboam the king had expanded their borders.

They were arrogant. They were proud.

They were ruthless.

They were mean-spirited.

They were haughty.

They looked down their noses, not only at other nations, but even the poor in their own country. They were an arrogant people. One thing they didn't think of themselves as was weak or small.

But Amos saw them for what they really were, and Amos saw them as God saw them, a pitiful, puny, weak people who God was about to squash like a bug.

And so Amos is interceding for them.

Oh God, God, forgive them.

God have mercy on them.

They're weak.

They just don't know it.

They're just an insect that you're about to step on.

They just don't know it.

Forgive them.

I'll tell you, I was moved by Amos' intercessions for this wicked nation.

And then in verse 3, notice this. The Lord repented for this.

Now, it's not that God said, Oh, I'm done wrong.

I'm sorry. You know, the word literally means He turned.

In other words, Amos' intercessions prevailed on God. God stayed His hand of judgment.

And notice what He says.

It shall not be, saith the Lord.

Okay?

Amos interceded. He said, God, forgive these people.

And so God turned His hand.

He said, it shall not be.

I won't do that.

Now, that's powerful stuff.

The intercession of a prophet.

The intercession.

Well, what is it that the Bible tells us?

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Here's a perfect example of that.

One man's intercession.

God!

God, forgive these people.

They're weak.

God, they don't know.

And God stayed His hand at that time.

He said, all right, I won't send that plague of judgment.

I won't send that locust swarm.

I'll tell you this.

I believe God wants to show mercy on people, on individuals, and on nations. I believe God wants people to stand in the gap and pray. I am convinced God does not want to judge people.

He does not want to judge nations if we'll stand in the gap for them, if people will pray for them. Don't ever think that intercession gets nowhere or that prayer is an exercise in futility, because here's a perfect example.

God showed him this vision.

This is what I'm going to do.

Amos prayed, and God said, all right, all right, I won't do it.

It won't be. It won't come to pass.

Now, that is profound.

That is profound.

Now, obviously, God wants people to turn from their sins. If they don't turn from their sins, eventually, wrath will fall. But the very fact that this nation, after all of these pronouncements of judgment, after one series of judgments after another that Amos has predicted, as we've read all through these previous chapters, to get to this point, and Amos intercedes for them, and God says, all right, I won't do that.

That just reveals to me just how merciful God is. Just how merciful He wants to be.

How He doesn't delight in judgment. He doesn't delight in wrath. And if people would turn from their sins, then God would turn from judging them.

But if they persevere in sin, then you know judgment will eventually overtake them.

So here's Amos' second vision, verse 4-6. Here, his vision of fire.

Verse 4, Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep and did eat up a part. Well, you know the Northern Kingdom didn't repent. They didn't turn from their sins.

So God showed Amos another vision.

After the vision of Locus, here is the vision of fire.

God would contend with them by fire.

In other words, He's saying, if they won't listen to the Word, if they won't listen to the Prophet, then I'll communicate with them through another means.

I'll communicate with them by fire.

I'll communicate with them by judgment.

I'll communicate with them another way. If we won't listen to His Word, if we won't listen to His warnings, if we won't listen to His prophets, His preachers, then God has another way to get our attention.

You know that.

God will get our attention, brothers and sisters.

We can listen to the Word.

We can harken to God's Word and obey, repent, get our lives in order.

If we don't, God has another way to talk to us.

He's got another way to get our attention. If we won't listen to the Word, won't listen to the Prophet, He says, all right, I'll communicate with them by fire. It's fire then.

God knows how to get our attention.

Now, through the years, various scholars have interpreted this verse, verse 4, in a variety of ways. They're saying, okay, God's going to contend by fire. What is that fire?

What is He speaking of?

One school of thought says that the fire is the fire of drought.

That what God is actually predicting here is a period of intense heat, no rain, a judgment where the sun literally bakes the earth, dries up the lakes, dries up the reservoirs, dries up the riverbeds, dries up the creeks, even goes so far.

It's so bad.

The heat's so intense, the drought's so severe that it actually will dry up their wells and their subterranean waters, because notice verse 4 says, it devoured the great deep. It even dried up their subterranean waters so that the people were literally dying by fire, dying of thirst, dying with their thirst unquenched.

So that's one school of thought, and that's a good possibility.

Another school thinks that it's the fire of war, and we have to recognize that fire is often used in the Old Testament as a symbol of war, the ravages of war.

Even in Amos, in this very book, in chapter 1 and so forth, we looked at some occasions where he said, I will send a fire upon these nations.

And literally what he was speaking of was sending war, the ravages of war against them, that would devour them like a fire devours and leaves only ashes.

That that's what this war would do.

It would just leave ashes and rubble in its wake because of the vicious, horrible devastation of war.

I tend to fall into another train of thought here at this particular point, however, and take this passage literally and consider it a prophecy of a supernatural judgment of fire, just like the fire that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah. When God speaks of, I'll judge them by fire, I believe he's speaking here, not only of the ravages of Assyria of war and not only perhaps a period of drought but a supernatural fire from heaven that would fall and literally consume the people, devour the land. In fact, there's actually a reference here.

I don't think I'm reading this into it, but there actually seems to be a reference here of not only fire falling down from the sky, but fire erupting from below, from the deep. So that the fire comes from both above and beneath, almost like volcanic action.

This would take a cataclysmic, gigantic volcanic reaction.

But one version translates the last part of verse 4 this way. When it speaks of the fire falling and the fire erupting from beneath, it says it was destroying the entire land. So we're talking here about something of gigantic proportions.

Obviously, Amos sees this vision, he realizes nothing is going to survive.

Nothing and no one is going to survive.

A judgment of... How many people survived when the fire fell on Sodom?

Not one. Not one who was in the fire survived. Only those, his family that got out, they're the only ones who survived.

But they weren't there.

Anyone in Sodom perished.

And what Amos saw here is all of the nation perishing.

So, in verse 5, he intercedes for the nation again.

Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee.

By whom shall Jacob arise?

For he is small.

He's praying for God to literally stop. Stop this judgment.

Don't let it fall like that.

There will be nothing left.

Israel will be decimated.

There will be no one left.

So he intercedes, and again, he pleads for mercy for the Northern Kingdom. Verse 6, once more, God halted this judgment.

He halted his hand of judgment.

Notice, verse 6, the Lord repented for this.

The Lord turned from that judgment.

And this is what he said, This also shall not be, saith the Lord.

Oh boy, once more, we just want to tell you, don't underestimate the value of prayer.

Don't underestimate the power of intercession when we pray. When you pray for others, when you pray for mercy, when you pray for forgiveness, or whenever you pray for others, don't ever underestimate the power of those prayers.

I believe if Israel had repented, even at this late stage in their lives, as rebellious as they were, as defiant towards God as they had been, as idolatrous, as wicked, as immoral, I'm convinced, had they repented at this point, God would have forgiven them.

God would have had mercy. But there was no repentance.

And so even though God stayed His hand at that point and said, all right, I won't send that judgment on them.

I won't send the locust.

Now I won't send this fire.

Not this fire that's going to fall from heaven like it fell on Sodom and Gomorrah.

I won't do that.

God would spare them.

No repentance came, and Amos had another vision.

Verse 7, the vision of the plum line. Thus he showed me, and behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plum line with a plum line in His hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou?

And I said, a plum line.

Then said the Lord, behold, I will set a plum line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them anymore.

And the high places of Isaac, again, that's just another name for Israel. The high places of Isaac of the nation, represents the whole nation. The high places of Israel shall be desolate.

The sanctuary of Israel shall be laid waste.

And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.

The vision of the plumb line.

The plumb line was a very simple instrument used back in antiquity, still used today.

That's how good it was.

Don't think that these ancient folks were ignorant, because I'll tell you, their devices, many of them were so effective that they still use them today. Plumb line, actually, the word comes from the Latin word plumbum, which means lead. And a plumb, a plumb line, was simply a piece of lead tied to the end of a string.

And wherever they'd drop that, hold that string, drop that piece of lead, you've got a straight vertical line, no matter where you hold it. Whenever they'd build a wall, whenever someone was constructing a wall or whatever, they'd drop that plumb line, and you follow that line, you've got a straight up and down wall.

That thing won't budge if you'll follow that plumb line.

That wall will be straight. If you don't follow the plumb line, you know what happens. No matter how straight you think you're looking, that wall will start to lean.

And you know what goods are leaning walls? It's no good at all because it's dangerous.

You're either going to have to straighten it out some kind of way or tear it down. So God is showing Amos, I believe, a very significant vision here of him. Now, I want you to notice, this is no ordinary carpenter holding this plumb line.

Look with me in verse 7.

This is his vision.

He showed me, verse 7, Behold, the Lord stood upon a wall.

It was the Lord standing there with a plumb line in His hand. It's the Lord doing the measuring.

And what is He measuring?

He's measuring Israel.

He's saying, this is my standard.

This straight up and down line.

This is my standard. You know how God wants us to walk?

Straight.

What's the plumb line?

It's His Word. It's His will. It's His way.

That's the plumb line. It's His standard that He set before us. This is the way you walk.

This way. Straight, not crooked.

This is the way you live.

Straight, not crooked.

God has a standard for righteousness.

It's His Word.

And He measured Israel and what did He find?

A crooked wall.

A crooked nation.

Instead of walking in holiness and truth, they were an unholy bunch, an immoral bunch, an idolatrous bunch, a crooked, thieving, conniving, greedy bunch that they would oppress their own nation.

They would cheat.

There was no justice to be found in the land.

They had corrupted the court systems and so forth.

God, holding this plumb line, was measuring Israel to see if they stood straight, to see if they measured up.

And of course, they did not.

God checked Israel's character, Israel's morals, Israel's spiritual life. He checked them out by the plumb line.

Did they measure up?

They didn't measure up, did they?

They didn't measure up.

The people were morally, ethically, spiritually, every other way, they were corrupt.

They were a wall that couldn't be fixed.

And so they'd have to be torn down. That's the message of the vision of the plumb line.

They were a wall that couldn't be fixed.

They would have to be destroyed.

That's a sober message. That's a sober message.

I want you to note something also over here in verse 8.

He says this. He makes this statement.

Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel.

I will not again pass by them anymore.

You know what he's saying there?

No more Passover.

You know, I passed over them in judgment. When the angel of death came through Egypt, I passed over them.

They were spared.

They got under the blood.

They were spared.

But this people, they're a crooked wall.

They have failed to measure up to the plumb line, straight, holy, separated, obedient, loving, faithful, dedicated.

They're anything but that.

They're a wall that must be torn down.

I won't pass over them anymore.

Their judgment, Amos didn't even pray for them this time.

God apparently didn't even give him the opportunity to intercede for them at this point.

God just said, it's too late. I won't pass over them now.

There comes a period of time.

There comes a time eventually where a nation, a people, a person could go too far.

What is it, Proverbs 29? He that being off-preproved and hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be cut off and that without remedy. The one warned and warned and warned and warned, eventually they just go too far.

They cross the line.

They go too far.

They get to the point of no return where all that's left for them is judgment. I'll never forget the very first message I preached in 1981 when we started this church. We were still meeting on top of Time Saver.

I taught a message on God's judgment.

If I can't, I just can't happen to think right now of the title of the message, but it was a message on judgment. And I dealt with the theme about, oh, I know what it was.

It was God draws a line.

That's the title of the message.

God draws a line that you can go so far in rebellion and disobedience that you actually cross a line.

You know how when you were kids?

I know the guys used to do things like this.

You'd make a line on the ground, and you'd say, I'd day to cross that line.

Boy, you cross the line, then you'd be hitting them or trying to push them back over or fighting with them and things like that.

It may be a crude analogy, but you know, God does draw a line and say, you can go so far, but no further.

You cross that line, and you've gone too far. It's just wrath and judgment after that.

And God will give warnings as people get close to that line.

There's warning.

There's rebuke.

God will contend with them in a number of ways to get their attention, but if they still tread towards that line, you know, you can cross that line.

You get to the point of no return where all that's left for you is just destruction.

All that's left is judgment.

And I think of Egypt.

They're a perfect example of that.

Egypt holding Israel in slavery.

God sent them the word of Moses.

They rejected that.

They wouldn't listen to the prophet.

They wouldn't listen to his word, so God began sending them plagues.

You know, he's got ways to get your attention. Well, Ophiro wouldn't listen to the plagues.

That didn't work, so eventually the angel of death came and took the firstborn.

Well, it softened Ophiro up a bit, but the next thing you know, after he had let Israel go, he went chasing them out in the wilderness.

God opened up the Red Sea, let Israel go through, and he drew a line.

God drew a line right down the middle of the Red Sea, and he told Egypt, cross that line, you've gone too far. There's no turning back. He crossed that line.

That's the last straw.

He gave them all those chances to stop, all those warnings, all those opportunities to repent, to get their attention. You know, when they drove those chariots down into the Red Sea after Israel, he actually took the wheels off the chariots. The wheels fell off.

He did everything to stop them, everything to slow them down, and yet they still persisted in chasing Israel across the Red Sea.

And once they crossed that line, he closed the Red Sea on top of them.

They had gone too far.

He that being off reproved and hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be cut off, and that without remedy.

Well, at this point, God told Israel, God said, I'll not pass over anymore. Judgment is going to be delayed no longer.

At this point, even Amos' intercession wouldn't stay in God's hand of wrath and judgment.

He says in verse 9, although wrath certainly would fall upon the entire Northern Kingdom, at this time, God specifically says there are three areas in particular where judgment is going to fall. Notice this, verse 9. It's going to fall, first of all, in the high places of Isaac, the high places of Israel.

Isaac didn't build high places.

The high places were those groves up on the hilltops where the idols were worshiped, where incense was burned, sacrifice was offered to the Baals, all the idols, false gods of the heathen nations. Israel allowed those things to be reestablished in the northern kingdom, and God pointed those places out as one of the specific areas where judgment will fall.

You know, God hates false religion.

God hates idolatry.

God hates it. And that's, although the judgment would fall on the whole nation, he specified those high places, judgment will fall there.

And then he names another place.

Notice this.

He says, it will fall in the sanctuaries. You see this?

Verse 9, the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. Now, those sanctuaries, actually called the holy places, were those two temples in Dan and Bethel, where the calves had been erected by Jeroboam almost 200 years previously, Jeroboam the first. The king now is called Jeroboam the second.

There were numerous kings in between Jeroboam the first and Jeroboam the second.

I assume you realize that.

But sometimes a king will have the same name as a previous king.

So he'll be that king. They'll just call him the second.

So this is Jeroboam the second.

But here, these sanctuaries were supposed to be the places of true worship, but they were vile because they had been corrupted by these calves. So what you've got here is the institution of false religion, false worship, false churches, you might call it.

And God specified that as another area that would be a recipient of his particular judgment. And then he mentions also in verse 9, the house of Jeroboam as one of the places where judgment would specifically fall.

I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

The king's house, the king's family would fall by the sword. God always holds leadership accountable for the direction that they bring a people. And in this particular time, the nation of Israel always had bad kings.

The Northern Kingdom never had one good king, not one. Every single one was wicked.

Everyone was vile.

Everyone brought the people further and deeper into idolatry.

And God just wasn't going to tolerate it anymore.

The house of Jeroboam will perish was the judgment he pronounced. And in 721, 722 BC, of course, these judgments did fall when Assyria destroyed the nation, and the Northern Kingdom existed no more.

Now, I want you to see this latter part of the chapter, the opposition Amos receives from Amaziah.

Now, this is the part I called Amos the Villain. The first part was Amos the Visionary, because he saw these visions. Here we see Amos the Villain, because Amaziah opposed him and accused him of being a conspirator.

Now, I want you to look with me in verse 10.

Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel saying, Amos has conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel.

The land is not able to bear all his words. Amaziah charged Amos with conspiracy. He's charging him with treason.

This is what he's saying.

He's saying Jeroboam, because that's who he wrote to.

That's who he sent his message to.

Jeroboam.

Amos is against you.

You see, the verse before, Amos had just prophesied the death of Jeroboam.

And so Amaziah says he's plotting treason. He's plotting to overthrow the king.

Verse 11, he says, For thus, this is what Amos is saying. Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel be carried away captive out of their own land. See, that's conspiracy.

That's treason.

He's out to get you, King Jeroboam.

You need to do something about this guy.

Of course, Amos was not a political...

He was not involved in the politics of the nation.

He was just speaking against sin.

That didn't make him guilty of conspiracy.

He prophesied the destruction of the king's house because the king had led the people into sin. The king had kept the people into sin. But Amaziah was accusing him of treasonous acts or conspiracy or maybe even plotting to overthrow the king.

But it's also obvious that the king didn't take those charges too seriously because he didn't have Amos arrested or anything.

So notice now verse 12. Here's Amaziah's command to Amos. Now Amaziah, he's the religious leader here at Bethel.

He likes things the way they are.

He's well paid. He's a religious functionary, a priest.

He's well respected in the community.

He's probably got a whole bunch of degrees, and he's eloquent, and he's circulates in the right crowds, and people respect him, and so forth.

He likes it that way.

And he figures, oh, Amos is over here just upsetting the apple cart.

Amaziah verse 12 said unto Amos, O thou seer, go flee thee away into the land of Judah, and go there and eat bread, and go prophesy over there.

In other words, get out of town.

I don't want you around here.

Go back to Judah.

Go back where you came from. Go back to the southern kingdom.

Go prophesy over there.

Go make your money over there.

Go eat bread over there.

That's what he's saying.

Go make your money over there.

See, there were a lot of prophets who traveled around prophesying for money, prophesying for pay.

That's just what they did.

It was, they were false prophets, and perhaps Amaziah put Amos in that same category.

Go prophesy in the south.

They would like to hear all of your messages against the northern kingdom. They would like that, and they probably pay you pretty good to go prophesy against the north down there.

But he tells them, verse 13, notice this, Amaziah says, but prophesy not again anymore at Bethel, for it is the king's chapel and it is the king's court.

You see, it's the king's chapel.

We've got the big sanctuary here.

We've got the calf here.

This is the king's court.

The king's got his home.

One of his residences here.

So don't come here with all of this noise.

Amos, he's telling him, get out of town.

Go be a nuisance somewhere else, in other words.

One thing you have to have if you're going to be a prophet or a preacher, you have to make sure your calling is of God. Because if it's not, you won't have the ability to deal with this kind of rejection, believe me.

A prophet sure can't look for people to pat him on the back, or anybody with any kind of a prophetic message.

Not just a prophet, but I'll tell you, even a preacher.

It doesn't make you popular.

You know, it really doesn't, in a lot of circles.

And sometimes the fiercest opposition comes from religious circles.

Here, Amos' message was really hated by who?

By the religious leader in Bethel, by the priest.

The priest is the one who got upset with this message.

It's the priest. The people probably didn't like it too much, but it's the priest who says, man, you got to get out of here.

You get out of town.

We're not going to put up with this noise.

You go back and prophesy down south.

Prophets have to have thick skin because they get rejected a lot, you see.

Notice Amos' response, verse 14. Amos answered Amaziah and said, look, I wasn't a prophet. I wasn't a prophet's son.

I was a herdsman, a gatherer of sycamore fruit.

God took me. The Lord took me as I just followed the flock, and the Lord said to me, go prophesy to my people Israel. You see, Amos is responding to Amaziah.

Amaziah said, go flee.

Go back to Judah.

That's what he told him right back there in verse 12.

Yeah, verse 12, Amaziah said, go flee away from here. Go back to Judah. But God had told him something else.

He said, God said, go prophesy to Israel.

So I'm here by divine commission. I'm not here for money.

That's what Amos was coming across to Amaziah.

I'm not a professional prophet.

I don't do this for money. I don't do this because it's the only thing I know how to do.

I don't do this because my dad was a prophet before me or because I went to some school and learned how to prophesy. I'm here because God stopped me in my tracks and sent me to Israel with this message.

I'm here for no other reason. I'm not here to please you.

I'm not here to please anybody.

I'm here because God sent me here.

That's what a prophet has to know.

In fact, that's what anyone in the ministry has to know that God sent them. God called them.

Because otherwise, I'll tell you what, when you're reposed, you won't be able to handle it.

You won't be able to stand up to it. Now, not that opposition would feel good, but if you're called of God, you can stand with confidence, knowing I'm here by divine mandate, by divine commissioning.

I'm here because God called me and God sent me. I'm not here always even to make everybody happy.

You know, a minister has to know those kinds of things.

He really does, or else he'd give up.

He'd grow discouraged and quit when he was opposed.

Maybe even, maybe Amaziah had ridiculed Amos because of his lack of credentials.

You know, where's your degrees? And who told you you had permission to come prophesy here? And well, you know, let me see your ordination papers and all this kind of stuff.

Amos says, look, I don't have any of that.

I was a herdsman.

God sent me here.

You want, my ordination is from God.

Verse 14, I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit.

The Lord took me as I followed the flock. God is my only credential.

God's my only ordination.

His is my only ordination.

I want you to see something else. Verse 16 and 17 is powerful verses. You see, Amaziah opposed Amos' message.

Amaziah didn't like it one bit.

Go preach somewhere else.

Go prophesy elsewhere. Just get out of here with all of that stuff.

Now Amos the prophet said, Amaziah, I've got a word for you.

I've got a word.

Come here. I've got a word from the Lord for you.

You're not going to like it, but this is what it is.

Verse 16, now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord. Thou sayest prophesy not against Israel and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

You say, don't prophesy against them.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord.

Now, he's going to prophesy against you, Amaziah.

You oppose the message of God. You oppose the messenger of God.

You want to run the word out of town. You want to run the prophet out of town.

He said, now here's the message of God to you.

Your wife will be a harlot in the city. Your wife will become a prostitute. Now, to a Jew, no position on earth could be as degrading for a woman as a prostitute.

Nothing was so filthy, so vile, so degraded, so corrupt as a prostitute. Keep in mind, Amaziah is the priest at Bethel.

He and his wife, man, they traveled in elite circles.

They were in the upper crust.

They associated and hobnobbed with all the rich, with the upper crust crowd, with the politicians.

And he even had access to the king's ear because he sent off to Jeroboam this message about Amos making all these noise over here.

He traveled with the high group.

But God was saying, you're going to be so low.

Things are going to be so bad.

Your wife's going to wind up a prostitute in the streets. That's how low you're going to fall.

Then he says, your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword.

Your children will be destroyed.

They will perish.

And he says, your land, undoubtedly Amaziah was a wealthy land owner also, thy land shall be divided by line, bit by bit, parcel by parcel, every bit of it is going to be taken away from you.

You're going to have nothing left.

And then Amos says this to him, and thou shalt die in a polluted land.

You're going to die, and you're not even going to die here. You're going to be carried off captive into a foreign land, and you're going to die on heathen soil.

And surely Israel shall go into captivity, fourth of his land.

And Israel will be carried off.

Well, I'll tell you this.

Oh Amos wasn't intimidated one bit by Amaziah.

Amaziah got up in his face, Amaziah with all of his polish and poise and eloquence and degrees and all of his education and all of his friends.

And you know, Oh Amaziah got in his face and said, get out of town. You're not welcome here.

We don't want your con here.

Don't preach here.

Don't prophesy here.

Get lost.

Oh Amos.

Now Amos was just the opposite of Amaziah. Amos was old country boy, a herdsman, a gatherer of fruits and nuts from the sycamore trees.

Amos was crude by Amaziah's standards.

He probably wasn't dressed nearly like Amaziah would have been dressed.

Amaziah, you know, today he would have been wearing the equivalent of $500,000 suits. Or Amaziah, he'd come along with his clothing from the second-hand store, you know.

Or Amos, rather.

Amos would come along with his clothing from the second-hand store.

Or Amos, just the opposite.

He wouldn't have been educated in the finest schools like Amaziah. He probably spoke with a country twang.

But he sure wasn't intimidated by Amaziah. He wasn't intimidated by him one bit. Amaziah got in his face.

Amos got right back in his and said, I got a word for you.

I'll tell you this.

When a real prophet says, I got a word from the Lord for you, I don't think people just run, get in line, and say, oh, yeah, put your hand on my head.

Prophesy on me.

When it's a real prophet, there's fear and trembling.

You got a word for me?

Oh, Lord, let me repent real fast.

Let me get my heart right, my heart clear, because if God's got a word for you from a real prophet of God.

Amaziah didn't like this prophecy he got.

Amaziah Labo said, you got another prophecy?

I don't particularly like that one. Got something else in there?

See if you could come up with another one.

He didn't like that.

But this was the judgment God pronounced upon Amaziah because of his opposition to the Word of God and the Prophet of God and God's ministry against him.

I can't think of anything worse than that.

Your wife turned to harlotry. Your children, your sons and daughters murdered out in the street, slain by the sword.

Your land will be stripped from you, you'll have nothing.

You yourself will be carried off a slave, and you'll die on pagan ground.

And all of Israel will go into captivity.

It doesn't pay to oppose the Lord.

Well, we'll pick up with Chapter 8 next time.

Let's pray.

Father, help us, I pray, again, help us to apply these things to our own lives, so that they wouldn't merely be little bits of information that we learned about past lives, but that, Father, they would be made relevant to each of us, so that we can apply these principles to our own hearts and lives.

Help us to be an obedient people.

Help us to be a people who would measure up to your plumb line.

Because, Father, we know that you still have a standard for righteousness, for holiness, that you're still calling your people to walk straight, to live right, to do right, to obey, to serve, to be faithful.

Help us to be that people.

Father, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. Praise God.”