Amos 1 - 4

Times were good in Israel.  The nation basked in peace, prosperity, strength, and security.  Then came Amos, breaking through the façade of respectability and exposing the rotten core of immorality, injustice, false optimism, and shallow piety.  To those who had grown soft and lax in luxurious living.  Amos declares God’s terrible warning and issues his last call to repentance.  But the people fail to respond, and Amos announces God’s unwelcome but necessary discipline. 

A farmer and fig-picker from the south is called by God to deliver a fiery message of judgment to the north.  Amos, whose coarse country manner is better suited to the pasture than to the palace obeys his prophetic call to take an uncompromising (and unpopular) stand for God in a day of materialism and injustice.  Six neighboring nations feel the sting of his verbal missiles before the prophet from Tekoa aims his blistering rebuke at his fellow Jews in Judah (southern kingdom) and Israel (northern kingdom).  There can be no mistaking God’s intent. “IO will set a fire….”

Chapter 1:  Fiery Judgment for Six Gentile Nations

Chapter 2:  Fiery Judgment for God’s Wayward People

Chapter 3:  Israel’s Painful Punishment REBELLION

Chapter 4: Jehovah’s Persistent Plea  RETURN 

“those who love darkness rather than light shall have their doom accordingly”

What symbol is used in the Bible to describe the tongue, the Word of God and angels?  James 3:6, Jeremiah 5:14, Hebrews 1:7

Few things in life can rival the bittersweet properties of FIRE.  With it you can warm yourself…or burn yourself.  Cook a dinner…or incinerate it.  Refine metal…or ruin it.  Heat a house…or reduce it to embers.  It all depends on how you handle the heat!!!!

33 of the 39 O.T. books talk about fire.  But none is more “fiery” in its theme than Amos!  The same God Who gave fire to man as a blessing will one day use fire to remove from His creation: the dross of sin and rebellion.  8 nations in Amos’ day learned that God means business when he declares, “I will set a fire.” 

“Where is there fire in the future of a Christian and what can we be doing today to prepare for it?”  Discuss… I Cor. 3:10-15

God is concerned for all nations, and they all must answer to His justice and judgment.  Notice how Amos begins His “Rogues’ Gallery” with Israel’s neighbors, then spirals inward, leaving the judgment of Israel for last.  Can you sense the expectation building as Amos moves ever closer to the principal target of his sermon? 

The theme of Amos’ message – sin brings judgment – is amply illustrated in the life of Amos’ nation, where oppression, corruption, and drunkenness have become a way of life.  Though God has repeatedly attempted to discipline His people, they remain stubborn in their rebellion.  Famine, drought, pestilence, mildew, death, defeat—nothing has turned them from their fatal course. 5 times over, God declares, “Yet you wouldn’t return to me,” prompting Amos to close his indictment.  “Therefore…prepare to meet your God in judgment Israel.”  4:12

The message of fire begins in Amos’ account of a vision God brought to him.  V. 4 of chp. 1 “…so I will set fire to….”  The people of Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom Ammon!!!! Moab, Judah, Israel   Why?  They – every one -- sinned  again and again and I will not leave them unpunished anymore!  (through 2: 8)

Yes, it was chastisement with no repentance!  YET think of all I (God) did for them!  Chp. 3 LISTEN, this is your doom!  “Of all the peoples of the earth, I have chosen you alone.  That is why I must punish you the more for all your sins…For how can we walk together with your sins between us?

I (God) am getting ready to destroy you…but always first of all I warn you through my prophets.  This I now have done.”  My people have forgotten what it means to do right.  God has always warned the world of coming judgments, in order that it may not bring them upon itself.  He warned Noah of the coming flood, Abraham and Lot of the future destruction of Sodom, told Joseph of the seven years of famine, Moses of the ten plagues on Egypt, Jonah of the destruction of Nineveh, Amos of the downfall of Syria, Philistai, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah and Israel.  Various prophets were told in detail of the final events in connection with the captivities of the chosen people, and in every case the warnings were startlingly executed.  At first in the case of Nineveh the judgment was postponed after Jonah’s preaching, but when later generations of Ninevites backslid, the warning of Nahum was carried out completely against them.  Christ’s coming was foretold from Genesis to Malachi.  Equally plain and inevitable of fulfillment are the warnings of Jesus and the prophets concerning the future that daily comes nearer to every nation on earth. 

Chp. 4  Immediately he addresses the INFLUENCE OF Women:  “Fat cows…you women who encourage your husbands to rob the poor and crush the needy…you who never have enough to drink!  … keep disobeying---your sins are mounting up.  Go through all your proper forms and give extra offerings.  How you pride yourselves and crow about it everywhere.”   PRIDE IN WHAT YOU DO!!!!!

V. 6 I sent you hunger, no rain and rain…Yet you wouldn’t return to me!!!  I sent blight, mildew, locusts, and still you would not.  I sent plagues, killed your lads and drove away your horses…and yet you refused to come.  Destroyed cities, but yet you refused.

v.12  THEREFORE…I will bring upon you all these further evils I have spoken of.  Prepare to meet your God in judgment, Israel….you are dealing with Jehovah, the Lord, Almighty!!!!