Men on Mission of The Lord-Amos

​​Amos

Summary: Examining the lives of  AMOS, a man who served ON MISSION as God’s prophet 800 years before the birth of Christ

Series: Men on the Mission of The LORD

Scripture: Amos 2:6-8, 10-14; 3:1-2; 5:21-24, 26-27

Date: 20, March 2016

Introduction

Like many of you, most nights during the past couple weeks Indian families  gathered around the TV so that we could watch the T-20 Asia Cup. In fact some have gone without nap so that They could enjoy our favorite T-20 matches-even those that were broadcast after evening. After all this speculating, I've decided that of all the World cup T-20, the one I would MOST like to try is bobsledding… and the one I would LEAST like to try is judging!

Now, one of the things that makes the World cup T-20 so exciting to watch is the fact that the men and women who compete in these sporting events are the very BEST cricketers in the world. They have worked and trained non-stop for years, preparing to attempt to win the cup and one thing they do to get ready for competition of this caliber is to study the EXPERIENCE of other cricket teams who, over the years, have competed and won Cups and medals in the events they are training for. They watch movies of these champions  from yesteryear or read their books or journals. If possible they even hire these people to work with them.

They do all this because they believe in that tried and true principle that says: There is no better teacher than EXPERIENCE.

Well, since this IS such a trustworthy principle, I want us to spend several weeks studying the EXPERIENCES of several SPIRITUAL champions, men who’s lives are recorded in Scripture-specifically-men who were ON MISSION for God. I think it is important for us to do this because, as you know, God has called us as a church to be ON MISSION for Him this year in four specific areas: here in Bengaluru, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi. I believe that if we are to be successful in these endeavors it is crucial that we study the EXPERIENCES of others who have been ON MISSION for God. 

So, in this sermon series we will be focusing on the experiences of six MEN: Amos, Hosea, Daniel, Jacob, Barnabas, and Timothy. And, lest you think I have a gender bias when it comes to being on mission for God, I would remind you that two years ago we spent several Hours on Fridays studying the EXPERIENCES of several WOMEN in the Bible who served God in a powerful way.

Okay, the first individual whose experience I want us to examine is AMOS, a man who served ON MISSION as God’s prophet 800 years before the birth of Christ.

By the way, Amos was a contemporary of several other-more famous prophets of Israel. Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah all spoke for God at about the same time Amos did. Some even believe that old Jonah was still alive. But Amos was the FIRST to prophesy against the sins of the people of Israel and many Bible scholars think the others would have remained silent if he had not had the courage to do so. He was a pioneering prophet! 

Now, Amos was a simple man, a farmer who herded sheep and harvested fig-like fruit from sycamore trees that grew on his land. He lived and worked on the Tekoan plateau: a remote area southeast of Jerusalem. Centuries later the wilderness of Tekoa was the home of John the Baptist and also the scene of Jesus’ temptation. I've been there and it is a very rough piece of real estate.

Well, Amos’ business led him to come down from the SOLITUDE of his wilderness home from time to time to sell his figs and wool in the markets. And every time he did, he became even more disgusted with the immoral lifestyle of his people. He saw a culture in which wealth abounded and people gave themselves over to a life of luxury and self-indulgence. Families had multiple homes, a place to live in the winter and a place to live in the summer. Amos noted that these homes were lavishly furnished and that the owners hosted numerous banquets and feasts in them. 

And, this would not have necessarily been a bad thing if it had not been for the fact that this ease and extravagance contrasted with the misery and suffering of the poor who could not afford even the bare necessities of life. In other words, Amos saw that there were plenty of palaces in Palestine but he also saw that there were plenty of shanties or hovels-people living out of the equivalent of a cardboard box, which is why as another MOG put it, Amos snorted every time he saw a palace. 

Now, another thing that disturbed this farmer/prophet was the fact that the judges of Israel were dishonest and the government corrupt, which allowed the rich to gain their enormous wealth not by hard work but by acts of injustice and oppression. In fact, the dishonest merchants and judges conspired to make the lives of the poor miserable beyond endurance. They sold men into slavery if they could not pay their debts, even for some insignificant amount, such as the cost of a pair of sandals. The wealthy took their debtors’ garments as pledges but did not return them at sundown as God had demanded in Exodus 22:26-7. Instead these rich sinners visited pagan altars, where they got drunk on wine purchased with the fines they extracted from the poor. Then, in their drunken stupor, they slept by the pagan altars using the debtors’ clothing as a bed, defiling the garments and disobeying God’s law.

In short, the officials were getting rich by exploiting the people, and then were using their unjust gain in the committing of sinful acts. The women of the land, whom Amos referred to as cows were just as heartless and made such demands on their husbands that they in turn heaped new burdens upon the poor peasantry.

So, it was not a proud hour in the life of God’s chosen nation.

And, you know, perhaps the worst thing that Amos saw as God’s prophet was the fact that the people were OUTWARDLY religious. I mean church attendance was up in Amos’ day. In fact people were very pious in their claims to be the special creatures of Yahweh. But Amos saw that THEIR brand of religion obviously did not make for better moral behavior. In other words, back then, as our Gospel Choir sang last Sunday, everyone singing about heaven wasn't going there! Amos knew that worship is nothing but empty ritual unless it leads to changed lives-a principle that you and I should certainly heed today.
Now, how did Israel sink so low? I mean how did things get so bad?

Well, to answer that question, we have to back up a bit in the history books. You see, years earlier Syria had been the nation that most plagued Palestine. They were constantly at war and Syria usually came out on top. But, the supremacy of Syria ended when Adadnirai II became king of Assyria and smashed Damascus in one vigorous campaign. Then, a succession of weak kings in Assyria gave the Hebrew people full freedom of movement. Jeroboam II came to the throne in 783 B.C. and due to the weakened state of Syria, he was able to easily recapture lost territory and even EXTEND the limits of his kingdom.

In Judah, the southern part of Palestine… King Uzziah forged ahead along the same lines. His little nation was made into a strong, vigorous kingdom with armies, fortifications, trade routes, and powerful political alliances. So, these two aggressive kings carried their small kingdoms along in the same stride from victory to victory. The old limits of the kingdom built by David and Solomon were reached.

In short it was a period of expansion, freedom, activity, prosperity, and peace. Money poured in-the economy was in great shape… and I imagine that their equivalent of the nightly news reported continued successes by the armies. This lasted from 805 B.C. until 740 B.C.-a 65 year period in which the land of Israel enjoyed a season of peace and tranquility. But as so often is the case, with prosperity the people lost sight of their need for God. They forgot all that God had done for them in freeing them from bondage in Egypt and they became self-sufficient and materialistic-WORLDLY. Some began to practice the idol worship that was so prevalent in the world at the time. Amos even saw father and son using the same pagan temple prostitute.

Now, Amos was basically a preaching prophet. In fact, the book that bears his name in the Old Testament is a collection of nine of his sermons. I have heard it said that preachers are called by God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable and after reading Amos’ sermons, I would say that he tended to major on the latter. He delivered his first afflict the comfortable sermon at the temple in Bethel. Amos was there for business reasons and felt led to go to church. When he arrived, he stood on the steps near the altar and began to deliver his message.
Now, Amos may have been an uneducated farmer but he obviously knew one of the most important tactics for delivering a successful sermon, which is to have a GREAT introduction. And Amos did. He structured his sermon that day so that his first words caught the people’s attention and made them want to hear more. He did this by beginning his message with a detailed list of the sins of the nations all around Israel. He preached against the evils of the people of Damascus and Gaza and Tyre and Ammon and Moab and I can imagine the people loved to hear him do so. After all, it is part of our sinful nature to take a perverse delight in hearing about the sins of others.

Well, by doing this Amos had them in the palm of his hand… and that is a great feeling for a preacher-in fact I was hoping to experience that feeling myself about now. But THEN Amos’ sermon introduction ended and he began to list the sins of Judah and Israel. And when he did that I’m sure many who were present grew angry and felt that he had quit preaching and gone to meddling.

During my college days I lived in Guntur, just across the river from Krishna, Vijayawada and in those days the Guntur area was known for it’s brewery industry and it’s tobacco farming. For that reason the sins of alcohol excess and smoking were not usually dealt with from the pulpit, because most preachers felt that to do so would step on too many shoes. Well, what Amos did that day in Bethel was the same as if a farmer from the country around Guntur would have walked into first church and preached against the sins associated with alcohol and tobacco. I mean, ...his message really got the people mad. He definitely AFFLICTED THE COMFORTABLE. Listen now as I share with you a few excerpts from the sermon God gave him to deliver that day. Picture a farmer standing on the steps of a huge church delivering it:

Scripture Reading

Let us rise to our feet and together read Amos 2:6-8, 10-14; 3:1-2; 5:21-24, 26-27

Amos 2:6-8

2:6 – This is what the Lord says: ‘For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back My wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.

7 – They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane My holy name.

8 – They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.

Amos 2:10-14

10 – I brought you up out of Egypt, and I led you forty years in the desert to give you the land of the Amorites.

11 – I also raised up prophets from among your sons and Nazirites from among your young men. Is this not true, people of Israel?

12 – But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets not to prophesy.

13 – Now then, I will crush you as a cart crushes when loaded with grain.

14 – The swift will not escape, the strong will not muster their strength, and the warrior will not save his life.’

Amos 3:1-2

1 – Hear this word the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel-’against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt.

2 – You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your sins.

Amos 5:21-24

21 – I hate, I despise, your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.

22 – Even though you bring Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.

23 – Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24 – Let justice roll down like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Amos 5 : 26-27

26 – You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god-which you made for yourselves.

27 – Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,’ says the Lord, Whose name is God Almighty.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. May the sweet Holy Spirit add His manifold blessings to our text this morning... in our hearing. Amen! You may be seated in God's Presence.

Sermon

Well, there were no AMEN’S at this point. In fact their response was to throw Amos out, so he went home and wrote his messages down, which, as I said, is what we have in this little book of the Old Testament. Now, I’m sure you would agree that the people should have listened to the message God gave Amos that day… we should always heed the Word of the Lord but since they didn't listen, the inevitable happened. They suffered the natural consequences of disobeying God’s law. You see, the truth is…it is not so much that we break the laws of God as it is that we are broken by them. I mean, there is ALWAYS heart-breaking pain and suffering associated with sin.

In chapter 6 of his book Amos used an interesting word picture in one of his sermons. This farmer turned preacher asks, Does one plow the sea with oxen? He said this to make the people imagine what would happen if a farmer tried this. He and his oxen would of course sink to the bottom. That is inevitable. That is the law of gravity. And Amos was saying it is just as inevitable for us to suffer if we defy the law of God. We hurt ourselves when we sin, which is why God spends so much time in His book telling us not to do so!

I remember hearing the story of a time when Calvin Coolidge(scientist) went to church. For some reason his wife did not go with him so when he got home she asked him what the pastor’s sermon was about. He replied, Sin. She asked for more information, saying, Well, what did he say about sin? And he replied, He was against it. Well, God is against sin because He knows what it does to His creation, which is why He sent prophets like Amos to Israel: to warn them of the pain and suffering that would come if they continued their sinful lifestyle.

But, as I said, the nation of Israel ignored Amos and continued it’s downward spiral and a few decades later, in 712 B.C., the enemy marched in, captured the city of Samaria, and carried away the captives to Babylon. And, in that capture the ten northern tribes of Israel disappeared from the stage of history, never to be heard from again.

Now, I don’t know about you, but as I study the EXPERIENCES of Amos, I see many parallels between our culture and that of the people of Amos’ day.

So I think it is very important for us to pay close attention to His sermon… even if doing so makes US feel a bit uncomfortable. I mean, let’s be honest. Even as Christians, you and I are active participants in one of the most materialistic cultures in the history of the human race. And, many of us each and every day ignore the law of God – just like the people of Amos’ day.

I think our problem here is the fact that just like the Israelite’s, you and I are in danger of forgetting a very important spiritual principle, something AMOS would say that anyone who is sincere about wanting to be ON MISSION for God must understand…and that is the importance of pursuing HOLINESS.

Now HOLINESS is a very Scriptural idea. In fact the word holy in its various forms occurs more than 600 times in the Bible. Two of those times are found in Leviticus 11:44 where God says, I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be HOLY, because I am HOLY. But, what exactly does God mean? What is holiness? I mean, in spite of tons of verses in the Bible calling us to holy living, most of us don’t understand it and in fact entertain certain misconceptions. 

Jerry Bridges writes, 

To some minds the very word ‘HOLINESS’ brings images of bunned hair, long skirts, and black stockings. To others the idea is associated with repugnant ‘holier than thou’ attitudes. But, holiness is much more than a list of prohibitions, or a particular style of dress. It’s more basic than that. To be holy is to be morally blameless.

Now, of course only GOD is morally blameless. Only God is Holy but in this text from Leviticus and in hundreds of others like it God calls us to strive for, or pursue, holiness in our daily living. I think a good definition of holiness is this, willfully separating ourselves FROM sin and separating ourselves TO God.

Now, why do you think it is that so many Christians struggle with the pursuit of holiness? Why does the church of Jesus Christ so often seem to be more conformed to the sinful world around it than to our holy God?

In his classic book on this subject Bridges gives three reasons:

a. First of all, our attitude toward sin is more SELF-centered than GOD-centered.

I mean, so often you and I are more concerned about our own victory over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve the heart of God. W. S. Plumer said, We never see sin aright until we see it against God. All sin is against God in this sense. That is, His law is broken. His authority is despised. His government is set at naught. We must learn to say as the returning prodigal said, ‘I have sinned AGAINST HEAVEN and as David said, ‘Against Thee, Thee Oh God only have I sinned.’ God wants us to walk in obedience to Him in life. In fact, this must be our primary motivation in choosing NOT to sin-obedience and not personal victory. You see, victory is a by-product of obedience, not an end in itself. And it is important for us to get this in the right order because obedience is oriented toward God, whereas victory is oriented toward self. I would agree with Bridges and go so far as to say that to try to be holy or follow a set of God’s standards without a relationship with God is really idolatry, because it is putting our behavior above our relationship with God.

In any case, it is impossible to be holy without God’s power. PLUS to attempt to do so defies the definition of Holiness. Remember? I said that holiness not only means being set apart from the world. It also means being set apart TO God. And striving for holiness is based on our love for God, not on our prideful ability to be good.

b. And then, our second problem is that we have misunderstood what Paul said in Galatians 2:20 when he talked about living by faith.

We think that no EFFORT at holy living is required on our part… that all that is needed is faith in God and everything will be alright. We must face the fact that we have a personal RESPONSIBILITY to walk in holiness. We are called to use the freedom of choice that God has given us and decide to obey Him and live holy lives. You see pursuing holiness involves striving to live out our faith each and every day, intentionally trying to be holy. It is the same sort of difference that is found between enjoying playing with a bobsled and intentionally TRYING TO WIN THE CUP in the bobsled at the T-20. Pursuing holiness is training-striving-to be like God.

By the way if we don’t train for holiness then we are training for worldliness. This is what 2 Peter 2:14 is inferring when it talks of people who have trained themselves to be greedy. This verse should remind us that if we don’t strive to be like God… the world will pull us the other way-pursuing holiness involves pulling AGAINST the sinful influences around us. It’s like pulling against a huge rubber band. If you stop pulling in one direction you will be pulled back in the other.

The fact of the matter is that holiness doesn't just happen. You have to strive for it, as a Cricketer strives for the gold. Remember the words of Paul to the Philippians? He said, Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do… I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. [I press on in my pursuit of holiness!] All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. (Philippans 3:13, 15)

c. Our third problem with holy living is that we do not take some sin seriously.

We have mentally categorized sin into that which is unacceptable and that which may be tolerated.

We think that it is okay to commit little sins. And the danger with this way of thinking is that it is the little sins that always lead to the bigger sins. As Song of Solomon says in 2:15 It is the little foxes that ruin the vineyards. We must be willing to call sin SIN not because it is big or little but because God’s law forbids it.

Now I want to return to the basic definition of holiness I gave you a moment ago. Remember? I said holiness is separating ourselves FROM sin and separating ourselves TO God.

I want to return to that because I want to point out a very practical way that we can pursue basic holiness…

1. ….and it involves the practice of SOLITUDE.

AMOS-and anyone whom God has used in furthering His kingdom-will tell you that it is essential to pull away from the world on a regular basis…each and every day, so that we can experience solitude…uninterrupted time away from the world and uninterrupted time alone with God. Remember-Amos was a farmer, a man of the land who spent most of his time alone-secluded from the perverse culture around him. And this lifestyle made it possible for him to pray undistracted, and in this way deepen his relationship with God. It also gave him a godly perspective on the sinful world around him… he was able to see sin as sin.

I’m not saying that in order to be ON MISSION for God we need to join monasteries or religious communes. I’m just saying that to avoid the negative influence of our world we need regular time alone with God, time apart from the influence of the world. The New Testament records that Jesus engaged in this kind of solitude frequently. At the beginning of His ministry, our Lord went to this same Tekoan wilderness for an extended period of fasting and prayer. He also went into solitude when He heard about the death of John the Baptist and when He was about to choose His disciples and several other times. This pattern continued into the final days of His life, when again He withdrew into the solitude of the Garden of Gethsemane to pray on the night of His arrest which means that Jesus ENDED His ministry, as He BEGAN it, with the practice of solitude. And Jesus taught His disciples to follow His example. In Mark 6:31 He urged them saying, Come away with Me by yourselves to a quiet place. And He issues the same invitation to us today.

Now, what is it that makes solitude so important?

Well as John Ortberg says, Solitude is the one place where we can gain freedom from the forces of society that will otherwise relentlessly mold us. You've probably heard that, if we put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately hop out. But put the frog in water that’s at room temperature and heat it slowly, and the creature will stay there until it boils to death. To summarize… put him in a lethal environment SUDDENLY and he will escape. But introduce the danger GRADUALLY, and he will never notice. The truth that we can cull from this popular illustration is that the dangers to which you and I are most vulnerable are generally not the sudden, dramatic, obvious ones. They are the ones that creep up on us, those things that are so much a part of our environment that we don’t even notice them.

And, the deeper truth here is that you and I DO live in a lethal environment. Like the culture of Amos’ day, ours is filled with ideas and values and pressures and temptations about success and security and comfort and happiness that we will not even notice, unless we withdraw on occasion to clear our heads in the presence of our Holy God. So as the apostle Paul said in Romans 12:2, we need these daily times of solitude with God to prevent the world from…squeezing us into it’s own mold. (J. B. Phillips)

P. T. Forsythe put it this way. 

Solitude is important because, Unless there is within us a yearning for that which is ABOVE us, we shall soon yield to that which is ABOUT us. And, when we clear our heads through the regular habit of practicing times of solitude with God we come to see something… that people immersed in our materialistic world often miss.

2. …We realize that the world’s pleasures are TEMPORARY at best.

Amos’ book records that the people of Israel foolishly invested their lives in the things of THIS world, elaborate homes, expensive furniture, fat bank accounts. But this is a dead end road to take…because as Isaiah 40:6-8 says, All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass… but the word of our God stands forever.

As this text says, the best rewards this world has to offer have the substance and staying power of cut flowers. They droop, wither, and eventually perish under God’s judgment. As some one said, one day God’s going to set this world on fire. And 2 Peter 3:11 says, Since this is true…since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you and I to be? We ought to live holy and godly lives as we look forward to the day of God. In other words, you and I must live for things of eternal significance, things of TRUE value. William Farley writes and says that his time alone in the presence of God has led him to be, …deaf to the world…in the same way that a man with a Mercedes is impervious to the temptation to buy a Geo Metro. 

Invitation And The Final Challenge

This principle is what led George Beverly Shea to sing with such conviction, 

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I’d rather be His than have riches untold. I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands. I rather be led by His nail-pierced hand. Than to be the king of a vast domain and be held in sin’s dread sway. I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.

What about you? Are you pursuing holiness or are you living for the things of this world? Well, if you’re headed down the dead end street that the Israelites were on, remember God allows U-turns. You can turn from that way of living. You can return to God. Even old afflict the comfortable Amos, ended his sermon with a word of hope. In chapter 9 he quoted God as saying, I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins and build it as it used to be… So, if your life needs repairing due to the damage our sinful world inflicts, then bring it to Jesus. He will repair it’s broken places.

--

The Rev. Lenin Kumar
The Potter's Home International Church
The Christian Living

Preparing the Bride... For Christ's Coming!
www.pottershomeinternational.org

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  ~John 3:16

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them ~ Matthew 18:20

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hosea 4:6