Lecture on Amos

The book of Amos was really hard for me to digest. First, it was lengthy to condense into a 10 minute lecture. Secondly, it was very convicting, especially with the state of our nation right now. If God could allow Israel, His chosen people, to suffer from such horrible tragedies, what more would he allow to occur to the United States? We have so much, including complete religious freedom, and yet we as a nation scoff at God and even try to remove Him from public places. Thirdly, it was hard to talk about this with children, even these who are fairly mature, spiritually.

Bob enjoyed my plumb line, by the way. I need to give it back to him now that I'm done with it. It was just black embroidery floss with a large, pink button I got through a swap with someone from Finland. I spent a little bit of time talking about physically what a plump line is and then talking about how this was a visual example for Amos to see that any sin make man morally unstraight to God.


Amos

Don’t raise your hands on this, but think of a time when you did something wrong at home, you were disciplined, and then…you did it again! My example is playing ball in the house. The first time you do it, your mom fusses at you and tells you to stop. And you stop. For 3 minutes. Then you do it again. She fusses at you again and really lets you have it. So you stop, but then do it AGAIN! This time, she takes away the ball, sends you to your room, tells your dad about it and he yells at you, too. Now you’re really in trouble. You didn’t listen the first two times when you had a warning. Your parents don’t fuss at you because they like to, they would much rather hug you, kiss you, and give you ice cream. But they discipline you so that you will learn. Usually you obey when you are told to, don’t you? But when you get in trouble, it really is so that you will understand that what you did was wrong.

We studied the book of Amos this past week. Amos was called by God to talk to the Israelites about their sinfulness and upcoming punishments. Amos was not a prophet by trade, although he became one when God told him to. Amos had been a shepherd and a farmer. But God is able to use anyone to do His will, and this time He chose a shepherd. God tells Amos about the bad deeds and punishment of many of Israel’s neighbors. While these nations were sinful, they didn’t have the Bible to help them know right from wrong. God also tells Amos about Judah’s sin of rejecting God and that He will punish them for that. And then God tells Amos about Israel’s sins and their punishment. Both Judah and Israel knew better. Some of Israel’s sins include not helping the poor, not honoring God, and dishonest business practices. Judah and Israel both knew the Word of God and knew God’s commands, and they disobeyed God. God disciplined them with locusts, famine, drought, war, and other ways. They would change their ways for a while, but then they would start worshipping idols and committing other sins again. So, the pattern was that God would bless Israel, they would sin, God would allow something bad to happen to Israel to get their attention, they would repent, God would bless them, they would sin, and so on. God got pretty tired of this.

Because Israel and Judah knew God’s Word, God expected them to obey Him and keep His commandments. This was illustrated in our lesson by the plumb line in Amos 7:7-8. This is my homemade plumb line here. (Show string with weight at the bottom). If I hold it up against this stand, it shows that the stand is straight. But if I hold it up against it now, I can clearly see that the stand is no longer straight. God was showing Amos that He expects His people to be morally straight. Anyone who didn’t measure up would be disciplined quite harshly.

Our study this week asked us to look at Hebrews 12:10.
“Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.”
The discipline that we get from God is so that we will learn to be more like Him, so we can be holy. God didn’t want Israel to lose any battles or have problems with their crops, but He allowed those things to happen so they would pay attention to God.

Amos didn’t only deliver bad news, though. God told Amos that He would sift out all of the evil from Israel and would allow Israel to stand free again one day. We know that this came true because Jesus reigns as our King and Savior.