Amos – Not immune from judgment

We interrupt the Good News of John for an urgent warning from the Prophet Amos.

“Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom,
And I will destroy it from the face of the earth

Amos 9:8a NASB

We are NOT IMMUNE to the #pandemic of sin!

A familiar forgotten history

Even though festival seasons of Passover and Easter approach, our casual celebrations may possibly be banned this year and diminished by the rulers of this world.

We know little of the first century church in this year of our Lord 2020, and struggles of the saints when Jerusalem fell not so many years after the Sacrifice and resurrection of the Messiah Jesus.

Yet during this time of Jesus and the Apostles, scripture from Amos and other Prophets of the LORD would have been familiar to some.

Briefly, the historical background of the time of Amos reads something like more recent times before our most recent struggles of these last days.

Prosperity before the fall

• Uzziah is King of Judah (792-740 BC)
• Jeroboam II is King of Israel (793-753 BC)
• Both kingdoms were blessed by tremendous wealth
• Both kingdoms had powerful military which had defeated their enemies.
• Both kingdoms had an aristocratic class who gained great wealth, enough to loan money to their poor neighbors.
• Both Israel and Judah believed their kingdom to be permanently blessed by the LORD as a chosen people.
• Israel and Judah believed themselves immune to judgment by the LORD.

Sound familiar?

It will to many of the suppressed working poor of first world nations.

Yet the LORD sent a poor shepherd of Tekoa, a hillside suburb of Jerusalem, to tell the nations why a judgment of the LORD would fall upon them.

It was a warning rejected, as we would have rejected such bad news just a short time ago when billionaires bragged of how good we have done under their affluent watch.

Amos speaks for the LORD

Perhaps you would like to sit still in dust and ashes, reading everything the Prophet Amos warns from the LORD – every call to repentance to a nation which has strayed far from righteousness. Here I can only list a few which may apply.

Jesus, the Messiah, and John the Baptist will both echo these same indictments to broods of religious vipers.

Peter, Paul, John and the Apostles of the first century church all encourage the saints, yet reprove the unrepentant who stray from teachings of the Lord.

The church witnessed judgment on Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, when the Lord struck them dead for lying to the church!

The Revelation of Christ to John warns the church. To one local church at Sardis, Christ warns though John:

I know your works; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.

Be alert and strengthen what remains, which is about to die, for I have not found your works complete before my God. Remember, then, what you have received and heard; keep it, and repent.

If you are not alert, I will come like a thief, and you have no idea at what hour I will come upon you.

Revelation 3:1a-3 CSB

Is your church in the the year of our Lord, 2020, like that? Not alert, though your reputation of this life multiplies the flock?

If so, the warnings of the Prophet Amos and other prophets of the Old Testament may help you to return to the will of the Lord our God.

Amos 1:

Various Indictments & Punishments

• Because they deported an entire population
• And did not remember the covenant of brotherhood.
• because he pursued his brother with the sword.
• He stifled his compassion,
• his anger tore at him continually,
• and he harbored his rage incessantly.
• Because they ripped open the pregnant women… in order to enlarge their borders.
  • (Was this a barbaric abortion to choose only the boys of their own culture?)

15 “Their king will go into exile,
He and his princes together,” says the Lord.

Judgment on Judah and Israel

4 Thus says the Lord:

“For three transgressions of Judah, and for four,
I will not turn away its punishment…

• Because they rejected the law of the Lord
• And have not kept His commandments.
• Their lies lead them astray,
  • Lies which their fathers followed.

Is your religious tradition more important than obedience to the Lord your God? A better perception of your own righteousness than the Perfect righteousness of the Messiah sacrificed for your redemption?

6 Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Israel and for four
I will not revoke its punishment…

• Because they sell the righteous for money
• and a needy person for a pair of sandals.
• They trample the heads of the poor on the dust of the ground
• and obstruct the path of the needy.

How sad the compassionless ambition of the rich who do not see the sufferings of the poor.

Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com

… And you commanded the prophets saying, ‘You shall not prophesy!’

13 Look, I am about to crush you in your place
as a wagon crushes when full of grain.
14 Escape will fail the swift,
the strong one will not maintain his strength,
and the warrior will not save his life.

וְשָׁמַרְתָּ אֶת־מִצְוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לָלֶכֶת בִּדְרָכָיו וּלְיִרְאָה אֹתֹֽו׃

“Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.

Deuteronomy 8:6 – Masoretic Text, NASB

I’m not even certain that christians blinded by science fear the Lord our God, let alone those chosen of Jesus’ and Amos’ times who turned away from scripture.

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”

“I and the Father are one.”

John 8:58, 10:30 NASB

Authority of the Prophet’s Message

Hear this word which the Lord has spoken against you, sons of Israel, against the entire family which He brought up from the land of Egypt:

⁷ Indeed, the Lord God does nothing
without revealing his counsel
to his servants the prophets.
⁸ A lion has roared;
who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
who will not prophesy?

11 Therefore, the Lord God says:

An enemy will surround the land;
he will destroy your strongholds
and plunder your citadels.

13 Listen and testify against the house of Jacob—
this is the declaration of the Lord God,
the God of Armies.
14 I will punish the altars of Bethel
on the day I punish Israel for its crimes;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
and fall to the ground.

Social and Spiritual Corruption

Perhaps some in this day will yet hear the indictment of our land, a warning to shepherds who lead the flock astray.

• [You rich women] Who oppress the poor,
• Who crush the needy,
• Who say to your husbands, “Bring wine, let us drink!”

Are these not the leadings of rich women who lead their husbands by day and discard them by the darkness of divorce?

Yet we have not listened to the Lord who places the man over his wife; also father and mother over their children and youth, raised in God’s Law. Raised as rebellious children ourselves, we do not believe God’s warnings to return to fear of His judgment.

⁶ I gave you absolutely nothing to eat
in all your cities,
a shortage of food in all your communities,
yet you did not return to me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

8 Two or three cities staggered
to another city to drink water
but were not satisfied,
yet you did not return to me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

• I struck you with blight and mildew… yet you did not return to me.
• I sent plagues like those of Egypt;
• I killed your young men with the sword,

¹¹ I overthrew some of you
as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and you were like a burning stick
snatched from a fire,
yet you did not return to me—
This is the Lord’s declaration.

“Therefore thus will I do to you…

Because I will do this to you,
Prepare to meet your God…

¹³ For behold,
He who forms mountains,
And creates the wind,
Who declares to man what his thought is,
And makes the morning darkness,
Who treads the high places of the earth—
The Lord God of hosts is His name.

4:13 כִּי הִנֵּה יֹוצֵר הָרִים וּבֹרֵא רוּחַ וּמַגִּיד לְאָדָם מַה־שֵּׂחֹו עֹשֵׂה שַׁחַר עֵיפָה וְדֹרֵךְ עַל־בָּמֳתֵי אָרֶץ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵֽי־צְבָאֹות שְׁמֹֽו׃ ס

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying,

“Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality,

and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”

Revelation 17:1-2 NASB

To be continued... Lord willing...