In his sermon titled 'Amos: God's Mouthpiece,' Peter Allison discusses the prophet Amos, emphasizing his humble beginnings as a shepherd from Tekoa and not a trained prophet. Despite his modest background, Amos is chosen by God to deliver a powerful message to Israel, reflecting God's judgment on their sins and urging repentance. Amos' message is seen as relevant to contemporary times, drawing parallels between the socio-economic conditions and cultural practices of ancient Israel and modern America. Amos' prophecy is described as a roar from God, highlighting the nation's transgressions such as injustice and spiritual complacency, while also offering a promise of redemption and restoration for those who turn back to God. The sermon underscores the idea that God's Word can be delivered through anyone, regardless of their social or educational status, and highlights the sovereign nature of God's judgment and mercy.

Amos, chapter 1, as we begin a new series this morning. A shorter series than we did in Luke, for sure, to be sure. I'd like to read simply the first two verses. The first two verses. The words of Amos, who was among the sheep breeders of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Aziah 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. May God incline our hearts to perform His statutes forever. Heavenly Father, we ask that Your Holy Spirit may instruct us this morning. That You would give us ears to hear Your roar to us.

May ask that You would sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim the Gospel of repentance and the remission of sins. Be with us Lord as we continue to worship. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, if we were to try to identify a people in the Scriptures who are most like us here in America today in terms of our perspective on life, in terms of our financial and economic and material situation, in terms of our cultural practices, the way we go about living, what we think of as normal. If you were to try to identify a people in Scripture most like us, I think the people that are described in the book of Amos would have to be a leading candidate.

It's surprising, of course it shouldn't be surprising, at how accurately this book describes our times, our perspective, our situation, our cultural practices. Our cultural practices. It won't be all that hard to apply Amos's sermons to ourselves and to our nation. This man, Amos, I'd like this morning to, in this introduction, to look at this man, Amos, who he was, and to look at his message that he gave, and then the effect of that message. The man Amos, his message, and the effect of his message.

Who was Amos? We don't... What do we know about him? We know that he wasn't a prophet, and he wasn't the son of a prophet. Amos tells us that he was a sheep breeder or a farmer.

But he doesn't use the ordinary word for shepherd. He uses a word that's used only one other place in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 3-4 where it's used of the king of Moab, King Mesha, And in his capacity as this sheep breeder, he sent 100, 000 lambs and the wool of 100, 000 rams to the king of Israel every year. That certainly speaks of great wealth in any culture. If you can give 100, 000 lambs away every year and still have enough lambs left over to maintain the flock and satisfy your own needs, And if you can shear 100, 000 rams, he must have had upwards of half a million to a million sheep.

Although He may have been taxing all that from across all the people, but many believe that he was wealthy. And because of this connection with this one word and the only other place it's used, some have believed that Amos was wealthy. Maybe not to that magnitude, but wealthy by individual standards. But the word itself, the word that Amos uses, simply means a shepherd, at least according to every lexicon that I could find. It means a shepherd.

One dictionary says it refers literally to a person who grazes sheep but extends to the total care involved in raising them. Even a king or a prophet could be a sheep breeder or a grazer. I mean, the difference meaning is the difference between somebody who owns a thoroughbred racehorse worth millions of dollars or maybe a whole stable of such racehorses and the stable hand that actually walks those horses and feeds them and mucks the stalls every day. Tukoha was probably not a fertile, well it wasn't a fertile area and probably therefore not an area of wealth. It was an arid land, like our western states.

It was not a place you could grow crops. It was a place that was primarily suited for pasturing sheep. Sheep are able to pasture on very sparse land. If you see pictures of this area, It's very arid. It wasn't like Jericho, which was a fertile place down on the plain of the Jordan River.

Now, sometimes the Septuagint, that's the translation made in the Old Testament times of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. And sometimes they can provide insight into the meaning of these very infrequently used words in Hebrew. And in the case of the king where this word is used of the king of Moab in Second Kings, it translates this word as a sheep owner. Use the word in Greek that specifically means somebody who owns sheep as opposed to somebody who is taking care of them every day. So obviously the king did not care for 100, 000 sheep himself, even if he did own them all himself.

But he had many servants to do that work. So he was the owner, and he had many servants to do the work. He couldn't have sheared 100, 000 sheep every year himself. He would have had to have servants to do that work. So he was obviously a wealthy sheep breeder.

Nabal, the husband of Abigail, was a wealthy man. He lived about 10 to 15 miles south of where Amos comes from in Maon. And he had business, the Bible tells us, in Carmel. And he only had 3, 000 sheep, but he had many servants to do that work. And he was wealthy.

So it's obvious from the context that the King of Moab was a wealthy sheep owner. And so the Septuagint translates that word as sheep owner. But when the Septuagint translates the word in Amos 1.1, that New King James called sheep breeder, they don't translate that word with the same word they used in 2 Kings. In fact, they don't even translate it. They simply transliterate it, which means they didn't really know what it means, so they just brought the sounds over from the Hebrew word and wrote them with Greek letters.

We do that a lot, right, with words. We transliterate them from one language to another. And the word sounds the same in both languages. And that's done sometimes when the meaning is not clear. We simply create a new word in the new language.

And this is what they did with this verse in Amos. But the main reason I believe that he was not a wealthy sheep breeder is that a little later in the book in chapter 7 verse 14 Amos says that he was just a herdsman, an addresser of the trees that produced the mulberry figs down in the Jordan Valley for people or even animals to eat. That's how Amos described himself a little later on. Now the New King James translates that word in chapter 7 where Amos describes himself again as this occupation, the new King James translates it to sheepbreeder. They use the exact same word in both places.

But Amos does not use the same word in both places. In chapter 7, Amos uses the word for herdsman. The Septuagint translates it as goat herd, as do most actually of our English translations. I checked The King James and most other English translations in Amos 7 describe him as a herdsman, somebody who was actually involved in the day-to-day grazing of sheep. In other words, he wasn't a wealthy owner, but rather he was somebody who was grazing sheep.

One commentator who believes in a wealthy Amos, and there are a number of them, especially the more recent commentators, One of the recent commentators who believes in a wealthy Amos says this of the second passage in chapter 7 where Amos calls himself a herdsman. He says it sounds like a much humbler role than being a sheep farmer in Tekoa. So even he is acknowledging that here in chapter 7, Amos is describing himself as a lowly herdsman. Now his answer to that is well, he's being ironic. But I think Amos is simply a gifted writer.

And he used a wide vocabulary. And that he was actually just an ordinary herdsman from Tekoa, which wasn't a wealthy place. See, actually another reason people put forward for his being a wealthy sheep breeder is that the Hebrew experts consider Amos to be a very eloquent speaker and an eloquent writer, which is sometimes indicative of wealth. But not always. Not always indicative of wealth.

It's not necessarily a proof of wealth. David was also a shepherd who spent his days feeding sheep and fighting bears and killing lions. Yet he was a very eloquent poet. David never went to advanced school. He was homeschooled.

Yet he was a very eloquent writer. Try writing 176 verses, the first eight of which begin with the first letter of the alphabet. The second eight verses begin with the second letter of the alphabet, and so on, all the way through the alphabet. And at the same time, have that poem communicate profound truths. That's not easy.

You know, many writers can communicate rhyming books like Dr. Seuss. But very few writers can communicate profound truths in these intricate rhyming, acrostics, and poems like we find in the Scriptures and like we find David writing. So just because Amos was very eloquent, very gifted writer doesn't necessarily mean that he was wealthy. We live in a day of financial inflation, lots of worthless money, and we live in a day of educational inflation, lots of proliferation of lofty degrees that are worthless.

David was homeschooled, But he wrote in Psalm 119 that he had more understanding than all of his teachers because he meditated on God's testimonies. So I think Amos, I believe, was an ordinary herdsman from an area that wasn't all that wealthy. But he was a very gifted communicator. Amos is from to Koah. Now any study of ancient Israelites should not be divorced from geography Because geography shaped families in ways that's unusual for those of us that have lived our lives all over the place, moving around, never really having one hometown.

But the physical land of Israel was unique in that it was promised to Abraham for his descendants in the fourth generation from him. A promise that has been expanded to include all the earth in the New Testament age. And so, Tekoa was a town in the central highlands of Judah, about 10 to 12 miles south of Jerusalem. And it bordered the desert on the east. So, it's right around the Dead Sea.

There are a lot of mountains. And Tokoa is right at the start of those hills, those mountains, very arid land, not very fertile. And the man Tekoa was a fourth generation descendant of Judah, Judah being the son of Jacob. That's the tribe from which David and Christ descend. Tekoa was four generations after Judah, seven generations before David.

And a grandson, he's a grandson of Hezron, who is listed in Christ's genealogy. If you remember, Joab used a wise woman from Tekoa to prompt King David to permit Absalom to return. Remember he had that little thing he staged to try and trick David into getting Absalom back. He took a wise woman, she was from Tekoa. Ira was one of David's mighty men, was from Tekoa.

Under the days of Rehoboam, Tekoa went from being just a village unprotected to being a fortified city, meaning it had a wall around it and would have had some armament. It could have withstood an invading army for a little bit longer than just a village with no protection. So it says it was not a very important city if it went all the way into the days of Riobom before becoming fortified. And after the return from exile there were a couple of families or I should say two sections of the wall of Jerusalem were rebuilt by The by the people from to koa even though the nobles from to koa didn't help them So this is this is where amos comes from an area that is in the land of Judah. And God called Amos from this lowly background as a shepherd and gatherer of figs to be his mouthpiece.

You see, Amos didn't have any theological training. God didn't call a prophet. Or He didn't call a son of the prophets. Someone who had grown up in a prophet's house or someone who had been to prophet school. And they had prophet schools, what we might call seminary today.

They had these in Israel at the time. The Scriptures mention such schools of the prophets or communities of prophets associated with the city of Bethel, with Jericho, with Gilgal. Elisha was attached to one of these schools of the prophets. But Amos wasn't any of these. He wasn't a professional prophet.

He didn't go to school to be a prophet. He didn't grow up in the home of a prophet. You see, very often when nations depart from the Lord, when they reject His commandments and think that they can do it better, think that they understand justice better and understand how to be kind to people better than the Lord does. The religious leaders, the professional religious leaders, the ones who have received all the training and the schooling of their day, are often following the cultures and they are guilty of the same sins that the people are guilty of. They aren't qualified to call the people to repent.

And that is certainly, that was true apparently in Amos' day, and it's certainly been true in our day. Unbelieving professors get established in previously good seminaries. And they are able to influence a generation of future ministers who then spread out across the nation teaching the unbelief that they acquired in seminary. And it's gradual, yes, it goes step by step, but it's a very definite progression. And the seminaries are often the seedbed of the unbelief.

Machen went over to Germany to study in one of these seminaries. And he writes that he almost lost his faith as a result of studying in these seminaries. Bart Ehrman is another example of a man who was, as a high school student, zealous for the Lord, doing door-to-door evangelism, part of the Navigators. By the time he left seminary, he was pretty much an atheist, an unbeliever, who denies the inerrancy of the Scriptures. This is often what God does in times of apostasy.

He called David from being a shepherd. He called Elisha from being a farmer who had his hand on the plow. He was in the act of plowing when Elijah came by and anointed him. When Jesus chose His twelve disciples, He didn't pick religious professionals. Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes.

They were hardened to the truth. They couldn't see the light, no matter how brightly the light shone in their face. Jesus picked fishermen who were uneducated and untrained. He picked tax collectors who were despised by the Jews. And he called them to be his mouthpieces, his messengers, His heralds of the Gospel.

See, that was the complaint that the Pharisees had of Jesus' disciples. They saw the boldness of Peter and John, and they perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. Now, Jesus also used highly educated and trained people as well. There's no premium on ignorance.

He called later, God called Paul. He was a highly trained Pharisee. A Pharisee of the Pharisees. Studied under the feet of a prominent Pharisee. God called him to be an apostle.

And through him wrote a lot of the New Testament. Luke was another educated man of his day. And he wrote, I think, the most of any writer in the New Testament between Luke and Acts. He used Moses. Moses was an educated man, trained in all the learning of Egypt, but of course he had to unlearn that training in the 40 years in the Midian.

Called Abraham. Abraham was also a wealthy man. But he doesn't need. He's not limited to using these kind of people who are learned according to the learning of the day. He's able to raise up of lowly people who are uneducated and untrained and make them His mouthpieces too, as He does with Amos.

Now this is not to glorify ignorance in any way. Ignorant preachers and heralds have caused just as much damage to the church, in some ways, as educated people. Jesus picked untrained people, but He didn't leave untrained men when He ascended to heaven. He left men who were trained. And He quit, having spent three years.

The Pharisees recognized these disciples were trained because they'd been with Jesus. Amos is God's Prophet. It's God's mouthpiece. God raised up and God trained and God sent. God sent him during the days of Aziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam, the king of Israel.

Jeroboam being the king. Jeroboam the second. The first king of Israel in the divided kingdom was Jeroboam. This is the second Jeroboam later on. In both of these kings, Isaiah and Jeroboam had very long and relatively stable reigns.

Jeroboam reigned 40 years and Isaiah over 50 years. And both of these countries enjoyed a time of prosperity in this era, apparent prosperity. The northern kingdom of Israel flourished under Jeroboam, for though he was an ungodly and a wicked man, and there were many injustices in the culture, which Amos addresses, Nevertheless, they enjoyed a great deal of material prosperity, apparent prosperity. They enjoyed political and military prosperity. Jeroboam enlarged the kingdom.

He was able to get back cities that had been taken in earlier days. And despite many of the injustices in the land, despite the oppression of the poor and other things that were going on, there was a peace in the land which lulled the people into complacency about the serious sins that pervaded their culture. Egypt, Syria, and us Syria were in what we would call today rebuilding phases. In other words, they were focused on things at home and rebuilding their might. And there were several decades there under the reigns of these kings when Israel and Judah were more or less left alone and not bothered by these other invading nations.

And in many ways, that's very similar to our culture. Apparent prosperity, peace. We don't have to face military roadblocks on our way to church this morning. We don't face shootouts and gang warfare and these kinds of things. We don't face mass starvation.

There's a lot of apparent peace in our culture, and yet there are very grievous and wicked sins that are pervasive in it. Isaiah was likewise a good king for most of his reign, although he was lifted up in his latter end of his reign. And in that pride, he tried to offer a sacrifice in the place of a priest and incurred God's judgment. Amos began his ministry two years, he says, before the earthquake. And many people believe that that earthquake happened at the time that Asziah tried to offer that sacrifice as a priest when he was not authorized as he wasn't a priest.

He wasn't allowed to offer a sacrifice. But we don't know exactly when this earthquake happened other than Amos began his prophecy two years before he Listed as something that was well known that everybody would know and everybody would be able to date And we know it was memorable not only because he refers to it as a memorable event, but also Zechariah refers to this earthquake over 200 years later. So think about an earthquake or a tornado or something 250 years later. How many of such things do we remember? This was a, whatever this earthquake, whenever it was, was memorable.

It was massive. And Zechariah refers to it when he prophesied about a similar earthquake that came on Pentecost in 8066. He said it would be like the earthquake in Isaiah's day. Behold, the day of the Lord is coming and your spoil will be divided in your midst, for I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem the cities shall be taken the houses rifled the women ravished half of the city shall go into Captivity but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as he fights in the day of battle. And in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west, making a very large valley.

Half of the mountain shall move toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And then you shall flee through my mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee, and as you fled, yes, you shall flee, as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Isaiah, King of Judah. Thus my God will come, and all the saints with you. And it shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light.

The lights will diminish. It shall be one day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time it shall happen. Then it will be light." That's how Zechariah describes this earthquake that did come in 8066 that split the Mount of Olives in half. Josephus tells us that in this earthquake in Isaiah's day, He said, By it half of a mountain was removed and carried to a plain four furlongs off, and it spoiled the king's garden. God by His prophet gave warning of it two years before that God by it would shake down their houses.

So Amos comes two years before this earthquake to begin his message, which was also God's message. Two years before the earthquake, probably sixty years before the end of the Northern Kingdom, before they were carried away into captivity by the Assyrians. So God gives plenty of warnings. God is merciful. He is slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness.

And we see that in the length of time that He gives to this nation of Israel. This message of Amos is described as a message that he saw. It's a little unusual, isn't it? We normally think of words as hearing. We hear from God.

But Amos says that it was a message that he saw. The words of Amos, who was among the sheep breeders of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Isaiah, two years before the earthquake. Yes, we can see God's words. The Apostle John speaks of the words of life which we have heard, which we have seen, the word of life, which we have heard, which we have seen, with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. These things we write to you, that your joy may be full." So Amos, like the Apostle John in Revelation, Amos saw a vision.

He received a vision from God. He received God's words in this vision that he saw. And He wrote what He saw. This scroll is Amos' words. It says the words of Amos.

But it also says in verse 3, the very next first line there, thus says the Lord. So it's Amos' words and it's God's word. It's both. It's both. When God sends His heralds, they speak His words.

But they do so with words that flow from their mouths, with idioms and forms of expressions that grow and flow out of their own experience and their own personality and their own mind. And so these words are truly Amos's words. But they are also just as truly and just as certainly God's words. See, Amos was not some sort of robot. Where the words mechanically entered his ear and came out his fingers.

Amos didn't write things that he didn't know what he was writing. He wrote intelligently. God used Amos' mind to formulate the words that were written. But they are still God's words. Peter describes it this way.

He says, Holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is using their personality, their abilities and inabilities, their gifts, their knowledge, their understanding. He's using all that, And through all that, he brings out his perfect Word. And Amos' message was that Jehovah roars.

Jehovah roars from Zion. That's a powerful word. It brings to mind the roar of a lion. In fact, a few chapters later, that's what Amos says, the lion has roared. The lion of the tribe of Judah.

Zion is the habitation of God. It's the place of His throne. His throne is said to be in Zion. And so Amos is picturing here the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, seated on His throne, high and lifted up, a glorious temple in heaven. And it is from this place of power and glory that the voice of the Lord roars.

Roars to the nation of Israel. A lion has roared who won't be afraid, Amos writes. The Lord has spoken, who can but prophesy. Amos didn't have a popular message. It was a message of judgment.

Judgment that was certain to come because of their transgressions. Eight times God says in the first couple of chapters, because of multiple sins I will not turn away its punishment. That would not be a popular message in any day. And yet, the Lord has spoken, who can but prophesy. This message is like the roar of a lion.

The pastures of the shepherd's morn and the tops of Carmel wither. They wither under the roar of God's words. What is this message that God is roaring out? It's that God is sovereign over all nations. Nations that are not of Israel.

Nations that didn't have the Law of God given at Mount Sinai. They weren't blessed with teachers of the Law. Even these nations are brought under God's judgment for their sins. America can't say we don't need to obey God's law. It was binding on all the non-Israelite nations in the Old Testament days.

It's binding on all nations today. Much more binding since God's gospel has gone to all the nations. We have so much more light. Certainly no less is required of the nations today that have the light of the gospel than was required of these nations in the Old Testament who didn't have the privilege, many of them. Some of them did, like Nineveh had the benefit of Jonah, and there were a few others.

But for the most part, these nations didn't have the benefit of teachers of the law. That's a blessing to have people come and teach the law, teach God's Word to us. They didn't have that light, and yet they are still under God's judgment because of their sins. What sins were these? Well, they built a culture of gross injustice.

And they believed it to be a just and righteous culture. They talked a lot about justice and righteousness. But God said they had it all perverted. You Amos 5, you who turn justice to wormwood and lay righteousness to rest on the earth, do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there on rocks with oxen?

Yet you have turned justice into gall and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. These are people who prided themselves on we're just and we're a righteous people and God's saying no, you've forsaken my law and your justice is injustice. Your kindness is cruelty. Your righteousness is abominable. They oppress the poor.

There was abortion, cruel abortions, breaking of the Sabbath, Many unjust business practices that amounted to theft. There was gross injustice in their courts where the righteous were condemned. The wicked were justified. There was cruelty and torture in war. Warfare.

There was slave trading and human trafficking. There was empire building. There was mistreatment of dead bodies. There was a fraudulent banking. Amos says, Hear this, you who swallow the needy, and make the poor of the land fail, saying, When will the new moon be passed, that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath that we may trade wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel large, falsifying the scales by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals even sell the bad wheat.

Many, many sins. And God was justly and righteously displeased, and Amos describes his message as a roar. But this was a judgment, a chasing of the Lord on a people that he loved. Hear This word, Amos 3, that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, a word that the Lord has spoken against the whole family which I have 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 your iniquities. You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.

You only have I known of all the families of the world." That word for no refers to the kind of knowledge that comes in marital love, like Adam knew his wife and she conceived. Israel was the only nation with whom God had this close personal relationship. They were His people. People that He loved. A bride that was unfaithful.

And so like Hebrews 12, speaks about chasing, God's chastening of His children because He loves us. It's not pleasant, but it's good. My son, he said, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him for whom the Lord loves. He chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. And if you endure chastening, God deals with you as sons.

For what son is there whom a father doesn't chasten?" This is God's chastening of His wayward children of Israel. And so this judgment upon Israel, although it's mixed in here with judgment on these other nations, it's different. It's different. And in the end of Amos, we see this difference as God promises redemption to these people. He promises in Amos 9 that on that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair its damages.

I will raise its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old that they may possess the remnant of Edom and the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord who does these things. The days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowmen will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, him who sowed seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, the hills will flow for it. I will bring back the captives of my people Israel. They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them.

They shall plant vineyards and and drink wine from them They shall make gardens and eat fruit from them I will plant them in their land and they shall no longer be pulled up from the land that I have given them, says the Lord, your God." This is a promise here of a church, that God would take from this remnant, this sinful remnant, He would preserve to Himself a people who were zealous for good works, and from them He would make a new church. And this church would triumph. It would bring in the Gentiles. And it would be a time of prosperity, Gospel prosperity and Gospel triumph. The plowman will overtake the reaper.

The harvest is so great, they're still harvesting it when the next spring comes and they're trying to plant. That's a great blessing. And this is God's promise to His wayward children. And yes, God will preserve His church, and He will preserve His people. But we need to give heed that we are a part of that people.

Give heed to make our calling and election sure. You know, God preserved His people that He brought out of Egypt. But that doesn't mean that everybody that came out of the land of Egypt were his people. Remember, that whole generation fell in the wilderness. Their carcasses fell, Jude said, because of unbelief.

They didn't believe, except for Caleb and Joshua and Moses and Aaron. And even those, Moses and Aaron, died in the wilderness. Only Caleb and Joshua entered the promised land. And so, God preserved his church, God preserved his nation, Israel, and he will preserve his church today. It doesn't mean that everybody that's in it is preserved, but only those who are his peculiar people who are zealous for good works, who walk in His ways and in His precepts, who delight in His mercy, who hope in His love.

May God grant to us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength and to not take our comfort from the fact that we are a part of God's earthly people, and that we are sitting here in a church, or that we grew up in a home where God's Word was read. Praise the Lord for all of those things. But they do not make one a Christian, one a believer, as these people to whom Amos is speaking are going to learn. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word and for its sobering reminders.

For Lord, we need to hear these reminders that your word and your law are true and just. And that it is those who seek you, those who are zealous for good works, who are your people. So Lord, we ask that as you call us to do, we might examine ourselves if we be in the faith, lest we become disqualified. We ask, Father, that our assurance of your love might be born not by the works that we do, but by the testimony of your Holy Spirit. As we see our very desires changed, our very desires changed.

As you bear witness with our spirit that we are your children. Father, we ask that you would keep us from boasting in our own works. For Lord, any good that is in us is your work in us. It is your work through us. And it is nothing for which we deserve any credit.

So, Lord, we offer ourselves to You. We thank You that You know us and that you have known us from before the foundation of the world. We thank you for your grace that enables us to persevere, and we ask that you, by that power, might keep us from stumbling, and present us faultless before the presence of your glory with great joy. Through Jesus Christ we ask. Amen.