What the Lord Showed Me

Introduction: We all have some innate fear that we won’t measure up.

The expectations of others: parents, boss or friends

To our own expectations

To God’s expectations

Do we even know what these are?

Do we project our own ideas onto God’s expectations of us?

Imbalanced Responses:

I can’t so why try?

I must do whatever is possible to live up to the expectations of others.

Visions of Amos

Locust (7:1-3)

Introduction

“This is what the Lord showed me: behold...”

This vision is from the Lord.

So listen!

This is the word of God.

Description - has not happened yet.

A swarm of locust descending on Israel.

During the spring time when the crop has first begun to sprout.

Right after they have harvested the King’s hay probably for his horses.

They ate all the grasses of the land.

The king’s horses might be okay, but the average farmer would be devastated by this.

Intercession - Amos prays for Israel

“O, Lord God, please forgive!”

Amos is not saying they didn’t do anything wrong.

Nor is he down playing their guilt in anyway.

“How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”

This probably made the people of Israel feel great.

Particularly Jeroboam the King.

But Amos understands how small they are compared to the incomparable holiness of God.

“The Lord relented concerning this: ‘It shall not be” said the Lord.

Wait, does God change His mind?

Example 1

Malachi 3:6 ““For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

Numbers 23:19 “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

Example 2

Exodus 32:14 “And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.”

Jonah 3:10 “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”

We must make a distinction between conditional declarations of God and unconditional determinations of God. In other words, when God said, “I will destroy Nineveh in forty days,” He was speaking conditionally upon the Assyrians’ response. We know this because the Assyrians repented and God did not, in fact, mete out the judgment. God did not change His mind; rather, His message to Nineveh was a warning meant to provoke repentance, and His warning was successful.

Fire (7:4-6)

Introduction: “This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold...”

Description - has not happened yet.

Judgment by fire

A fire so intense it can consume even the deepest waters of Israel.

It consumed the land.

Intercession

Amos cries out as before: Amos 7:5 “Then I said, “O Lord God, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!””

God relents in this case: Amos 7:6 “The Lord relented concerning this: “This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.”

Application: We should probably pause for a moment to examine the importance of intercessory prayer.

So twice now God has shown some great judgment to Amos that He is going to poor out on Israel, and twice Amos successfully intercedes on their behalf.

The truth is that we don’t really know all the time when God has made a conditional declaration or an unconditional determination so we should pray without ceasing.

I have a feeling that Amos cried out to God saying please don’t! But he was surprised when God said, okay.

Sometimes God in His sovereign will waits for us to ask for something before He gives it to us, and other times He waits for us to stop asking before He gives it to us and still other times He doesn’t give it to us at all and that turns out for the best.

Listen, I can’t claim to know the mind of God on all of this, but I do know that there are multiple examples in Scripture of God withholding judgment on the basis of the prayers of His saints.

So the point is, don’t stop praying for each other.

Plumb Line (7:7-9)

Introduction: “This is what he showed me: behold...”

Illustration

The Lord standing beside a wall built with a plumb line.

He has the plumb line in His hand. (In other words He built the wall.)

“Come, Israel, and stand by my wall and be measured.”

“Israel has been measured and they have been found wanting. Their path is not straight. Their walls are not plumb.”

“I will no longer spare them from judgment.” (pass them by)

Condemnation

Their high places shall be made desolate.

Their sanctuaries shall be laid waist.

I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

No intercession from Amos and no relenting from God.

What is God’s standard? Against what are we measured?

He is the standard.

His holiness is the plumb line, the ruler, the standard against which we are measured.

Matthew 5:48 “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Fruit (8:1-3)

Introduction: “This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold...”

Declaration

Amos 8:2 “And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.”

The illustration is that Israel is a basket of fruit that is well past being ripe.

You wouldn’t take a piece you would pass it by.

Lamentation

Amos 8:3 “The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord God. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” “Silence!””

In that day of judgment there will be so many bodies that they will piled up in somber silence.

Altar (9:1-4) - Two Weeks

Angry At Amos

Accusations Against Amos (7:10-12)

Amaziah the Priest of Bethel (v. 10,11)

Someone who should have been listening.

He accuses Amos of conspiring against the king.

Nothing perks up the ear of a king like a good conspiracy.

Jeroboam the King of Israel(v. 10,11)

The Desired Outcome: Eviction for Amos (v. 12,13)

Go back to Judah and prophecy there.

We don’t want you here anymore.

It hurts when the people you are trying to help reject you.

Amos Answers Amaziah (7:13-17)

My Background (v. 14) - I was just a simple farmer.

My Calling (v. 15) - The Lord took me and said, go prophecy.

My Obedience (v. 16) - You want me to disobey God?

My Message (v. 17)

After years of patience and judgment withheld

The worst possible scenario.

EXILE - you will die on foreign soil.

Announcement From Amos

Accusations Against Israel (8:4-6)

Trampling the Poor (v. 4)

Loss of empathy.

And no shame in their actions.

Disrespecting the Sabbath (v. 5)

They resent the fact that they cannot buy or sell on the Sabbath.

Worship is the last thing on their minds.

Cheating the System (v.5,6) - dishonest scales

Anger Expressed Toward Israel (8:7-14)

Judgment from God: “I will” (v. 7-11)

Amos 8:7–8 “The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?””

Amos 8:9 ““And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.”

Amos 8:10 “I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.”

Amos 8:11 ““Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when 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 feels much more like an unconditional determination of God.

Word of God: “They shall” (v. 12-14)

Amos 8:12 “They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”

Amos 8:13–14 ““In that day the lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst. Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’ they shall fall, and never rise again.””

Conclusion:

You probably have no idea just how effective your prayers have been.

Telling the truth isn’t going to make you the most popular person in the room.

When God’s standards are rejected spiritual famine always follows.

Living up to God’s standards isn’t a matter of will power.

God has placed His holiness within our grasp through the shed blood of Jesus.

God has placed His Spirit within you to mold you, and grow you so that one day we will truly be holy as He is holy.