Amos 3v1-7 - Nursing Home - June
Amos 3:1-7
Amos was the earliest of the great prophets that we have in the Bible. He was on the scene around 750 years before Christ. He was a native of Judah, but preached in Israel. Of course this led to him facing some problems in his ministry, but with God’s help he was able to overcome. He had been raised a farmer, a herdsman and a sycamore fruit gatherer to be exact, in the village of Tekoa which was just a few miles south of Jerusalem. He was preaching and propecying during the rule of wicked King Jeroboam.
The times that he preached in are described to us in 2 Kings, in particular in chapters 14 and 15. The social conditions of the nation were bad and a solution was needed. There was a very rich class of people and a very poor class of people with very few fitting in the middle class. Religious conditions were pathetic, with the worship of Baal completely overshadowing the worship of God.
By nature Amos was a man with simple tastes and wants. He possessed deep spiritual discernment and a fearless courage growing out of a deep awareness of the presence and purpose of God for his life. He knew that the God of righteousness and justice would punish the wickedness that was overwhelming the land.
Amos looked at God differently than most people did then and a lot of people do today. I think maybe we need to have an opinion of God more like Amos had. He saw God as being personal. To Amos, God was more than just the principle behind the universe, or a being that lived way out in heaven somewhere and didn’t have time for man. He looked at God as being personal and wanting to communicate with man. He realized that God communicated through the law, the prophets, and even the events of life.
He also saw him as the Creator of heaven and earth. A great and powerful God that had the power to speak the heavens into existence, but still concerned enough about each person to want them to worship him.
Amos realized that God was omniscient. Amos’ God was not a weakling. His God was aware of everything that was going on and was at work in the process of affecting the destiny of the nations.
Amos saw God as a God that was righteous and just. The basic needs that the people had in the days that Amos was preaching was for a redefinition of an a restatement of the nature and character of God. The God Amos served was moral and placed moral demands on his people. He was righteous and required that justice be served. He could not be satisfied with ritual and sacrifices. Amos was used by God to reveal new insight into the righteous character of the God of Israel.
One of the most profound ideas Amos had about God, though, was that God was a God of mercy. In fact, getting this message across to the people was one of righteousness and God’s demand for moral actions to be taken by the people. Amos preached a message of doom and gloom as judgment was pronounced on a people that had both misunderstood and misinterpreted the God of their fathers.
So, we have a prophet that pronounced judgment, but also preached a message of mercy.
The God of Amos, the God of righteousness and justice, is also a God of mercy. Amos was not certain that God would forgive the nation of Israel, but he preached and hoped that the nation would turn from evil and love the good, and maybe God would turn from judgment. Today, we also need to pray that God will forgive us as we learn to hate evil and do good.