Outwardly, everything was working well in Israel at the time that the book of Amos was written. The economy was booming, religion was growing, and their borders were expanding. It was a time of optimism. Then, the skunk at the garden party showed up – Amos. He looked at the outward success, but could see the dark underbelly of injustice, greed, hypocrisy, and oppression. He declares the coming judgment of God. 

Well, open your Bibles to the book of Amos and prepare to meet your God, to let justice roll down. Those are some of the great statements that you find in this book. Amos is a very helpful book for us, particularly in the times that we live. The times that Amos was prophesying in are very much like our times. They were times of prosperity.

Outwardly, Everything was working well in Israel. The economy was booming, religion was growing. What Jeroboam had done to establish this fake religion in the north was going quite well. Everybody was into it. People like shallow religion.

You can gather quite a crowd to a religion that doesn't demand much and everybody's pretty much un-confronted in their sin. That's what was going on there. And so their boundaries were expanding, it was a time of optimism, and then something happened. The skunk of the garden party showed up, and his name is Amos. And he looked at the outward success, and he could see the dark underbelly of the injustice of the hypocrisy of the greed of that nation and so he announced that judgment was coming.

Be prepared to meet your God was really a critical matter of his message. And he came to announce judgment. We need people like this in a culture who will look at what's going on socially and speak the truth in love. That's what Amos does. Amos was a social commentator to the religious and the political leaders of the nation.

So when you're reading this, think about that. He's speaking to the religious and the social aristocracy, those who have created this culture and this system. And just think about that as you read it, that that's what is happening. Here's some key verses. If you look at chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, you can see one of the critical verses in the book.

The words of Amos, who was among the sheep breeders of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. And he said, the Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem. The pastures of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers. Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron. In chapter three, verses one and two, we find another key section.

Hear this word that the Lord has spoken to you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together unless they are agreed? Here in Chapter three, verses one and two, Amos is giving a history lesson and he's saying I brought you up out of Egypt and now you turn away from everything I taught you through Moses. And then a third text, chapter 8, verses 11 and 12.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And then he says in verse 12, they shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east. They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they will not find it." In other words, there will be some people in the nation, they want God, they want the word of God, but they won't be able to find it. What a tragic thing that is. And that's the situation that we have here.

The time of writing, item number two on your outline, it's identified very clearly in verse 1 of chapter 1. In the days of, and now we get the historical markers for where Amos was prophesying. In the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. So we get quite a bit of detail. There's a physical event that took place, an earthquake that Zechariah records in Zechariah chapter 14, verse five, but also we learn that it is during the days of Uzziah, king of Judah and Jeroboam Josephus the historian Tells us that that was the same time That Uzziah got leprosy now.

We don't know if that's true But Josephus the Jewish scholar historian tells us that it happened right about the time when Uzziah got leprosy. Remember what happened? Uzziah had such a wonderful reign, and toward the end of his life, pride gripped his heart and remember when he went in the temple to sacrifice and 85 priests chased him in there to try to stop him and he threw them off and got very very angry and finally you know he was taken out of there but before he was taken out of there he was given leprosy by God so anyway Josephus tells it was right about the time that Uzziah got leprosy. We don't know if that's accurate or not. He's writing before Obadiah, before Joel and Jonah, and just before Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah.

Now Isaiah and Hosea are speaking at the same time. Tomorrow we're going to go over Hosea and it's in the very same time period. Let's talk about Amos. He's a remarkable man. His name means to lift a burden or to carry.

He is a burden bearer. He's going to carry a burden and he's going to lay it upon the Northern Kingdom. By the way, no other book in the Bible specifically mentions Amos. Now, you will find allusions to some of the things that he writes, but no other book specifically mentions him. He came from a rural area, Tekoa.

He was a rancher slash farmer. In chapter 7 verse 14 we learn that he was untrained. He was not part of the educated class. He was, you know, kind of a cowboy preacher. He was unsophisticated.

And yet he was charged to bring this message to the leaders of the land. Another thing that's really interesting about him is that he didn't live in the Northern Kingdom. He lived in the Southern Kingdom where Uzziah was the king and he was sent or he went He was sent by God from the southern kingdom to the northern kingdom. So he wasn't a native of the northern kingdom, but he was of the southern. And where did he go?

He went to Bethel. This was the place where the idolatrous worship was taking place. This was where Jeroboam, who caused Israel to sin, set up this alternative to the worship of God, where he made everybody priests, he made it all easy. He just took vestiges of right Hebrew worship. And he modified it completely.

In Chapter 714, we learn that the Lord took him from following the flock. He was a cultivator of figs. I remember I heard a sermon back when I was probably 18 years old, and the pastor said that he thought he was a fig picker. So he was a fig picker. He was a rancher.

He was a shepherd. And he specifically says that he wasn't the son of a prophet. And that means that he didn't have a prophetic background. He didn't have formal religious training. He didn't live a sophisticated life.

He had a common life. And it's a wonderful example to us who have a common life. We have an ordinary life. And we never know how God might use us. God often uses the ordinary and the unsophisticated people of this world to speak truth.

And he forms these unsophisticated vessels. And in the case of Amos, they're raised up to insult the sophisticated institutions of the world. And it's what the Apostle Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 26, how God uses the foolish and the weak and the insignificant to accomplish his work. Paul says, there are not many wise among you, But God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. You know, God turns everything upside down.

The first shall be last. Those who are praised in this world will be cursed by God. It's just the way that God has wired the world here. Also notice his style. You know, as you read through, try to imagine saying words like this, And he's extremely direct.

When he talks about the greedy women in Sumeria, he steps on toes. Well, he stomps on hooves. He calls them the cows of Bashan. He calls the greedy, you know, self-loving women of Samaria cows. You know, that's direct.

You know, he speaks very, very directly to the priest who is in Bethel. In chapter 7, verses 10 through 13, we see that His message was so abrupt, it was so unpalatable that Amaziah the high priest spoke about it. Amaziah the priest, I don't think he was a high priest. Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.

For this is what Amos is saying. Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile Away from their native land. So you just see how direct he was and then Amaziah said to Amos Get out you seer Go back to the land of Judah Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there You know, he was so direct Amaziah I want him to go home. He said go home and there's something in this language in verse 12 that indicates that Amaziah is saying, you know, you're not going to be able to make any money here. Your message isn't going to gain traction here.

Hey, go back to Judah where people appreciate your message. Maybe you'll get bread there. Maybe you'll get support down there, but you're not going to get any support here. So he says in verse 13 in chapter 7, don't prophesy anymore at Bethel because this is the king's sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom. So he was very direct.

Now let's look at the social conditions because the social conditions are critical to understanding why Amos said the things that he said. You know Amos is speaking about social justice. He's talking about how justice to the poor is perverted in a land. Moses talked about this. Moses said, do not pervert justice for the poor." And that's exactly what happened in the days of Amos.

So the social conditions are times of prosperity, times of religion that is prospering. The people are prospering. In chapter 3 verse 15, he talks about destroying their winter and their summer houses. He says in 3 15, I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house. The houses of ivory shall perish and the great houses shall have an end.

You know, what's the winter house and the summer house? We're not sure. It could be two separate houses. It could be two separate houses that they take advantage of the summer and the winter. You know, if you turn your house facing north in the summer and facing south in the winter so that you're warm and you're cold at the right time of the year.

So he says, I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house. The houses of ivory shall perish. So it was a time where people had multiple dwellings, most likely. It was also a time of treading down the poor. Chapter 5 verse 11, Therefore because you tread down the poor and take grain taxes from him, Though you have built houses of hewn stone, you shall not dwell in them.

You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink the wine from them." So Amos is the skunk in the garden party. He's saying, hey, you built these nice houses, you're not going to be able to live in them very long. All your hopes and dreams are going to get thrown down. Then also it was a time of leisure. If you look at chapter 6 verses 4 through 8 there's a description of the kind of leisure that they had.

You know, just recognize we have all these things. We live in a time of leisure. We live in a time of unparalleled wealth. And so here's what we read in 6.4. Who lie on beds of ivory, who stretch out on your couches.

I mean, this just has to do with luxury on your bed. You have enough money to have a really nice bed. Eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall. Verse 5 is really interesting. Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments.

In other words, this is people, they just, they just, they're idle, they're just listening to music. They're not doing anything of any value. They're just listening to music. They're addicted to their music. And then he says, and invent for yourselves musical instruments like David.

In other words, they're inventing musical instruments. They're doing things that don't really prosper them at all. And then verse 6, who drink wine from bowls. In other words, they can drink a lot of wine. They have a lot of money to buy wine.

And anoint yourself with the best ointments, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore, they shall now go captive as the first of the captives. So in there is prosperity. There was leisure. You know, you Think about the leisure opportunities that there are in this culture.

It's unbelievable how much leisure time we have, how much discretionary time we have. And this was a society just like that where, you know, People were just spending hours on end doing nothing in leisure. I don't know what their recent statistics are, but I think the average person, you know, is doing nothing about eight to nine hours a day on some form of media and entertainment in America today. It's astonishing. It was a time of greed, a time of injustice, a time of hypocrisy and worship, even though they were economically prosperous.

And God uses this man, Amos, this fig picker, this skunk in the garden party to come in to speak the truth to them. In the next item You can see the New Testament connections. There are just various allusions to the things that Amos speaks of there But let's jump into the book. You see the outline there. We're gonna just walk through the book now What you see are number one there are eight prophecies and then there are three sermons and Then there are five visions and then there are five promises.

That's the book right there. So let's just sort of walk through them, and then we'll conclude with some lessons and then an understanding of Christ and Amos. So let's begin with these eight prophecies. Now these are directed to the nations and when Amos started preaching, he was probably really well embraced. You know, because he starts prophesying against all the nations around him.

So as he starts speaking, the people are probably swelling with pride. Yeah, that's right. These nations are terrible, you know. So he starts that way. But it won't be long before he gets a little bit close to home and starts stepping on the toes of those in Israel.

While Amos' first prophecy might have been pleasing to Israel, that would end. Now, there are six of the nations who were pagan nations surrounding Israel, but two of them were not of that same category. They were Judah and they were Israel. So each one begins with the same kind of a pattern for three transgressions and for four, right? And by the way, when you read about these judgments against the nations, you'll read the word, I will set fire seven times.

I will set fire. So the dramatic nature of the judgment is laid out here. You know God is a consuming fire and Amos is here to say that that God is going to destroy them. My view is that when he says I will set fire, he is talking about the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem, but he's also speaking of final judgment. It's figurative of final judgment and the fire that will consume the wicked at the final judgment.

And what we learn here is that God governs the nations by His law. There are people who think that the law of God doesn't have to do with the nations. Amos makes it very clear that God judges the nations based on his own law, and the nations have violated his law. And that's why each sermon begins with these words, Hear the Word of the Lord. Look for that as you read.

Hear the Word of the Lord. That phrase should always stop you short. I mean, the Word of the Lord, the God who created the universe is speaking here? That's exactly what it means. Now, while each sermon begins with hear the word of the Lord and seven times you'll read I will set fire, five times you're gonna read him saying you have not returned to me you have not returned to me now what does all this mean national sins will not be ignored by God He observes all the nations of the earth and he sees their national sins and God judges the nations just like he does Israel and God will bless the nations in the same way that he blesses the obedient.

And, you know, this theme in Scripture of God judging the nations can be found all through the prophets particularly, but even the Lord Jesus Christ who said, you know, woe to you, Khurasian, woe to you, Bethsaida. You know, he speaks of Sodom and he's, I think you can put different cities in their place, You know, woe to you, Washington, DC. Woe to you, San Francisco. These are some of the more wicked cities in America. God has something to say to the nations.

And He judges nations when they violate His law. And that should really get our attention, particularly because of the ways that our own nation is violating the law of God on so many fronts. And you know, we need an Amos. So these were national sins. Okay, let's talk about these various nations in chapter 1 verses 3 through 5 he's speaking to Damascus or Syria And all of these nations have different qualities of sin.

Damascus or Syria was sinning in their cruelty. He says, they've threshed Gilead with the implements of iron. I will send fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad. They were cruel, and God was judging them for their cruelty. The next nation is Philistia, or Gaza, in chapter 1, verses 6 through 8.

And what was wrong with them? The slave trade. They, it says for three transgressions of Gaza and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because they took captive the whole captivity to deliver them to Edom. So they're involved in the slave trade. You know, it was right when the slave trade was abolished in America.

And then in Tyre and Phoenicia, they were actually slave traders. They were the agents in chapter 1 verses 9 through 10. Because they delivered the captivity to Edom. They were agents, They were hired to move slaves. And then the next nation is Edom, verses 11 and 12.

Unforgiveness. No mercy toward his brother, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity. This was a nation that had no pity and had no forgiveness. They just kept their wrath up forever. That's a tragic thing, to never have your wrath be quelled, but you're always angry with someone.

This was their culture. There are cultures that have these features where the people are kind of just like that. Have you ever heard jokes about people in the Northeast or different places? But there are cultures that have particular sins that just grip, they grip their cultures. And it was unforgiveness and anger that was perpetually rolling in that society.

What a horrible thing it would be to live in a culture of anger and unforgiveness, where that was, you know, highly valued. And then Ammon was judged for their cruelty and their anger. And then Moab, they were violent. That's in verses one through three in chapter two. Then after dealing with the nations, Amos turns to Judah in chapter 2 verses 4 and 5.

Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because they have despised the law of the Lord and have not kept his commandments. Their lies lead them astray, lies which their fathers followed." Why is Judah going to get judged? Well, she despised the law of the Lord and refused to keep His commandments. Why the Babylonian captivity? There's your answer right there.

They refuse the law of God. Moses prophesied this. He said that, you know, cursed shall you be in the city, cursed shall you be in the country, Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall you be when you come in. Cursed shall you be when you go out.

This is what is happening to Judah, and Amos is announcing it. And then Israel is addressed in chapter two, verses six through 16. And here the sin is corruption, just using people, doing whatever you want to do. In verse 7, a man and his father go into the same girl to defile my holy name. This is just doing whatever you want to do.

One of the interesting things about this judgment against Israel is he mentions the prophets and the Nazarites. Two giant problems in the northern kingdom. They hated the Nazarites and they hated the prophets. And you learn about this in verses 11 and 12 in chapter 2. And I'll read it.

I raised up some of your sons as prophets and some of your young men as Nazarites. Is it not so? Oh, you children of Israel, says the Lord. But here's what they did. But you gave the Nazarites wine to drink and commanded the prophets saying, do not prophesy.

So they tried to nullify the Nazarites and they tried to nullify the prophets. Now they essentially had rejected two things. First of all, They rejected the Nazarites who had set themselves apart for God. That's what a Nazarite did. He set himself aside to be used of God.

The Nazarites are actually a type of the church. They took a vow of separation. You know, Christians in many ways take a Nazarite vow when they turn to the Lord and they say, Lord make me holy. They're taking a Nazarite vow. They want to be holy.

They want to hear you shall be holy for I am holy and they say yes Lord I want to be holy. They want to flee your morality they want to mortify the flesh you know like Jesus said it's so dangerous you know you should cut off your hand or pluck out your eye. But here's what happened. The people in Judah were commanding the Nazarites to break their vow. Here, drink wine.

They were commanding them not to be holy. Don't be different. Don't act like this. You know, it's probably like today. You know, if you do anything different, if you dedicate yourself to God, people are gonna say, oh he's a legalist.

Well, the Nazarites had turned to God and they'd set their lives aside to be holy. And part of that was they didn't drink wine. Part of the Nazarite vow was you don't drink wine. So the people are saying, forget that. Forget your stupid vow.

Drink wine. Essentially, they were saying, you don't need to be holy. You don't need to be different. That was their message. And then the second thing that they rejected were the prophets.

So not only did they reject holiness, they also rejected the Word of God. And they commanded the prophets to stop prophesying. They didn't want to hear the Word of God. They hated the Word of God. And that's why Amos is charged by God to speak like a lion.

Amos is very forthright. Verse 13 in chapter 2, Behold, I am weighed down by you, as a cart full of sheaves is weighed down. Therefore, flight shall perish from the swift. The strong shall not strengthen his power, nor shall the mighty deliver himself. He says in verse 16, the most courageous men of might shall flee naked in that day, says the Lord.

Amos is confronting this and he's confronting the rejection of the holiness of the Nazarites and the truth of the word of God. Okay, So we've just gone through these eight prophecies, six of them to the nations, and two of them, one to Judah and one of Israel. So that ends the prophecies. Now there are three sermons that he delivers. And the first sermon is in chapter 3 verses 1 through 15.

And the first sermon basically says this, it's really simple, you are caught. You remember in Isaiah 51 where Isaiah is talking about how the people are like an antelope caught in a net. That's the essential message of this first sermon. You are caught. And then God says he will roar.

He says, will a lion roar in the forest when there's no prey? In other words, you're caught, you're my prey, I'm a lion. The whole thing is about you are caught. Look at verse 12. There's just some astonishing imagery here in scenes.

Thus says the Lord, as a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion, two legs are a piece of an ear. Wow. He's giving them an example of a lion who has taken a lamb. And all you get out of that lion are two legs and a piece of an ear. He's saying, that's what's going to happen to you.

He says, so shall the children of Israel be taken out who dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch. And then he says in verse 14, in that day I will punish Israel for their transgressions. I will visit destruction on the altars of Bethel and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. So the first sermon is you are caught. The second sermon, which happens in chapter 4, verses 1 through 13, says this, Your luxury will end.

And he speaks about the life of luxury of the wives. And this is where he uses this graphic terminology. Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, bring wine, let us drink. The Lord God has sworn by his holiness. Behold, the day shall come when he will take you away with fish hooks and your posterity with fish hooks.

You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you shall be cast into harmon, says the Lord. So he's saying the luxury is going to end. And then he gives some examples of what he's gonna do. He gives examples of things that he has already done to judge them. He says in verse nine, I blasted you with blight and mildew.

When your gardens increased, your vineyards, your fig trees, and your olive trees, the locusts devoured them, yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord. He says, I sent you a plague in the manner of Egypt. This is the whole doctrine of God's sovereignty. God does send calamity into the world for his purposes. And it's in this chapter where you read, prepare to meet your God.

This is in chapter 4, verse 12. Prepare to meet your God. Remember Isaiah says, behold your God. Amos says, prepare to meet your God. The third sermon, which spans from five one to six fourteen, this is a lamentation and it's a call to return.

There's wailing here in chapter five, verse four. He says, Seek me and live. You know, this is God's merciful, compassionate heart calling out to the disobedient. You know, God never tires of calling out to the disobedient. It's amazing that He would continue even in our disobedience to call out to us like that.

And he says, turn to me. But he also says, prepare to meet your God. In chapter 5 verse 10, also you get a sense of the hatred that the people had for Amos. It Says this, they hate the one who rebukes in the gate and they abhor the one who speaks uprightly. You know, we live in a world that does not want any rebuke from anywhere.

And if you're a preacher and you rebuke a congregation, you might not have your congregation very long, because people will hate you. And this says it right here. They hate the one who rebukes in the gate. The ungodly hate the rebuke. The godly want to embrace it.

This was all happening because they were treading down the poor. You get that in verse 11. And Amos speaks so clearly about what he's calling for. He says, hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph." Isn't that amazing?

After all this sin, after all this departure from God, Amos still says, maybe God will be gracious. Maybe God will give you relief. He says something that Isaiah says to the Southern Kingdom in verse 21 in that chapter. I hate I despise your feast days and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. He says, Take away from me the noise of your songs, I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments, but let justice roll down like the water and righteousness like a mighty stream." Now that might be one of the most recognizable statements in American history.

Can you do you recognize it? Do you know who used that? What was Martin Luther King in his I Have a Dream speech? Let justice roll down. And Martin Luther King was speaking against the injustices of a segregated society where racism was still operating in really dramatic ways.

You know, I remember the first time I came to the South, I don't remember how old I was. I don't know if I was 10 or 12 or 13. One of my most vivid memories of the South was going to a gas station and seeing the colored water fountain and the white water fountain. It completely soured me against the South. I despised the South when I saw that.

And you had segregated bathrooms. The bathrooms for the colored people were filthy. They were absolutely abominable. But the white bathrooms were just nice and clean. Let justice roll down, that's the message.

We haven't escaped race tensions in America. Americans don't understand that we're all of one blood. Americans don't understand that there's really no difference between white and black people. And it's a theological matter. The Christians should be the ones who should be destroying the racism in America.

And, you know, here, Amos is saying, you know, let justice roll down. Chapter 6, this is continuing on, this whole world of luxury and judgment that's coming. And then these five visions directed to the Northern Kingdom in chapter 7 verse 1 through 9 verse 10. You have almost three chapters dedicated to this. And there are five visions, the locust, the fire, the plumb line, Amaziah and the basket of rotten fruit, Amaziah the priest.

And the vision of the locust is found in chapter 7, verses 1 through 3. The vision of fire is in chapter 7, verses 4 through 6. The vision of the plumb line is chapter 7, verses 7 through 9. Now, we'll just stop at the plumb line. We could stop at all these and find remarkable things, but we'll stop at the plumb line.

You know, you who have built buildings know what a plumb line is. You hang a string with a weight on it and it will fall level. And you can tell whether your wall is plumb or not by that plumb line. And so here's what we read in verse 7, in chapter 7. Plumb line.

Then the Lord said, behold I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not pass by them anymore. The high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. I will rise with the sword against the house of Jeroboam." What he's saying is, your wall is crooked, your people are crooked. I lay a plumb line out, nothing conforms to the plumb line.

And he's speaking about worship, That's exactly what he's referring to in verse 9. And then in chapter 7 verse 10 he speaks of Amaziah. Amaziah the priest of Bethel. And here's where Amaziah, who hates Amos, says, go you see or flee to the land of Judah. You know, go try to make money down here.

It's not going to work up here. And then Amos rebuts what he says. Then you have the vision of the summer fruit. I think one of the most critical things in the book of Amos is this whole idea of the famine of the word of God. Where in chapter eight, verse 11, he says, "'Behold, the days are coming, ' says the Lord, "'that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." This is a real matter today.

Right now we live in a time where people, even in the church, know very little about their Bibles. It's very difficult to find people in churches that have read their whole Bible all the way through, it's difficult to find people who know the Word. Well, one reason is the Word of God's not being preached very much anymore. The church has been living on sermons that are really derived from a pastor's favorite verse or a verse that he wants to use in order to say something rather than to teach the whole counsel of God. Paul said, I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

And this is something we need today. We need the whole counsel of God. We need to read the Word of God and to preach the Word of God. It's so critical that we do that because there is a famine in the land now and that famine can be reversed by the preaching of the Word. Then there's the vision of the stricken doorposts.

You know, he strikes the doorposts and they shake. It's a vision of this remarkable thing. You know, think about that if that happened. If you're awakened in the middle of the night and something has hit your doorpost and the whole house shakes. You know, usually if you hit the doorpost in a house, the whole house is going to move a little bit, and that's what he's talking about.

Then there are five promises. All of them are directed to the Northern Kingdom, And the first promise is that the tabernacle of David will be repaired. The second promise is that there will be expansion among the Gentiles and among his enemies. The third promise is a promise of astonishing fruitfulness. Stop on verse 13.

Look at this. This is really wonderful. Pray for this. This is in chapter 9, verse 13. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes, him who sows seed.

The mountains shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it it's a picture of astonishing fruitfulness where it's a picture of the plowman, the man who's plowing, he's plowing but he's there's so much fruitfulness he's being overtaken by the reaper. The moment he plows The fruit grows and the reaper is coming on him. That's the idea. Just astonishing, miraculous fruitfulness. Fruitfulness that you never see in nature.

I mean, when was the last time you saw somebody plowing and the fruit comes up right away? Doesn't happen. But he's saying that that's going to happen. There's a period of fruitfulness that God is going to bring. It's the blessing of God by the Spirit of God.

And then the fourth promise is that the captives will return and restore the land and be satisfied. That's in verse 14 in chapter 8. And then the fifth and final promise is a promise of security where he says, I will plant them in their land and no longer shall they be pulled from the land I have given to them, says the Lord your God." So there it is. There's Amos. As you read it, look for these contours.

It's very clearly laid out in these prophecies and sermons and visions and promises. As you read it, organize your reading by these categories and it'll help you see it. But when you read it, say, okay, I'm in a prophecy. Okay, now I'm reading a sermon. Okay, now I'm reading about a vision, and so forth.

Get into the book. Follow the way that it's written in that sense. Okay, here's some lessons. The first lesson is that God is patient. You know, in the first part you read, you know, for three transgressions and for four.

You know what that means? That God, it means God is patient. It means that God doesn't cut you off after one transgression, that he's long-suffering with his people. You know, in Genesis chapter 15 verse 16, you get this idea where God says that the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And that means that God doesn't execute his judgment immediately.

And it would take 400 years of God's patience while the Amorites heaped sin upon sin until they were finally destroyed. But God is patient. And when you read this for three transgressions and for four, think of God's patience. But God's patience runs out. Don't forget that.

Let's talk about Christ in Amos. There are many ways that you can see the life of Christ in shadows. You can see Christ in the Nazarite. Christ kept the Nazarite vow. He humbled himself, he took on the form of a bondservant, And he set himself apart to seek the words of God and to do the will of God.

The Lord Jesus Christ said, I don't say anything that I don't hear my Father saying. He said, I don't do anything unless I see my Father doing it. That was the heart of the Nazarite. It was the person who just wanted to be completely set apart before God. While there were no Nazarites that were able to perfectly set themselves aside for God, Jesus Christ did set himself aside perfectly for God.

He was holy. He did all things well. The second is the prophet. Christ is the prophet. Amos didn't speak perfectly, nor did any other prophet, but Christ did.

He was the lion who roared. He was the trumpet who called out. You know, in Hebrews chapter 1 we read, you know, in days of old God spoke through the prophets, but now he's spoken through his son. So when you read about a prophet in the Old Testament, think about the prophet Jesus Christ, the son of God. Also, Christ loved the poor.

Christ was never brutal to the poor. He was full of grace and truth. He was always around the poor. He was always healing the sick and speaking tenderly to the poor. So there it is, that's the book.

I think, you know, there's so many memorable verses. Prepare to meet your God. Let justice roll down. And that's what you should remember when you live in a prosperous society. A prosperous society where the hammer is going to come down.

That's exactly the kind of society that Amos lived in. He went to the north to say, the hammer is coming down, come to your senses. And he preaches these sermons and he brings out these visions to call for people to turn to God, to prepare to meet their God, even though everything seemed to be so outwardly prosperous and successful. Amos stood up and he spoke to the nations of the world and particularly his own nation. You know, every once in a while you need a skunk in the garden party.

You need to be rattled back into reality, and Amos is that kind of prophet.