The World of Amos

Psalm 37:1-2 (Opening) 1  Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! 2  For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Introduction We live in a time of fantastic wealth. According to reports in March of last year, there were 11 million people in the United States who had a net worth of over one million dollars; one hundred seventy-two thousand of them had a net worth of over 25 million dollars. Billions of dollars are earned or lost in the stock market in a single day. And our national budget for last year was over four trillion, with at T, dollars. And the United States isn’t even considered to be in the top ten richest countries. But we also live in a time of great contradictions. In 2017, it was estimated that 40 million people in the United States lived below the poverty level. Globally, as much as 10% of the world population lives on less than $1.90 a day. That’s over 700 million people, more than twice the population of the United States. To show you how crazy this all is, the richest 1% of the world, those people whose net worth is over 1 million dollars, own nearly 45% of the world’s wealth. And most of us here know from experience, you can’t make money unless you have money to start with. Either that or you end up mortgaging your life and livelihood in order to have the opportunity just to try to succeed in some kind of business venture. Nearly 60% of the world’s poor people live in rural areas, where it’s harder to become financially secure because of limited access to the things that are needed to support a business. The inequality between the poor and the wealthy seems to be spiraling out of control, with the rich getting richer and the poor at best staying stable but generally getting poorer. But this isn’t a new phenomenon. This has been going on, at least on a small scale, for millennia. The “middle class” is a relatively recent concept, only coming into existence over the past hundred and fifty years or so, with the second industrial revolution. Those people who had the opportunity and ability to work to increase their disposable income, or even have disposable income, and the ability to spend that money on what had been considered luxury items, wants versus needs. “Minor” prophets (the twelve prophets) The situation today is similar to what we see during the time of the rise of the prophets of the Old Testament. There were a small number of rich individuals and families, who continued to increase their personal and national wealth, who took advantage of those who had very little to live on. The first of the “professional” prophets we find in the Old Testament is Elijah. I call them “professional” because being a prophet seems to have been their main job. Mostly what we see them doing is speaking for God or receiving visions from God, and performing signs, wonders, and miracles. Elijah’s successor, Elisha, had followers who traveled around with him as he prophesied and performed signs and wonders. Elisha started out as a farmer but left that job to follow and eventually take the place of Elijah as God’s spokesperson to the northern kingdom of Israel. Over the next 500 or so years, several prophets spoke for God, and those prophecies were recorded for us in several books in the Bible. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel are considered to be the “major prophets” of the Bible, simply because of the volume of their prophecy that was written down. There are twelve other “published” prophets, prophets whose words were written down either by themselves or by others. These twelve are known as the “minor prophets”, simply because the books identified with their names are shorter than the others. They’re so short, in fact, that all twelve of them were include in the same scroll of the Hebrew Bible, so they’re often called simply “the twelve” or “the twelve prophets”. These 16 prophets all lived during the time from a few hundred years prior to the exile of Jerusalem to Babylon until a few hundred years after the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. Some of them were giving their messages during the same timeframe. Some of them were prophesying in Judah, and some in Israel. The context of Amos’ prophecy I’m going to spend the next few weeks discussing the prophecies of Amos. To understand the context of that book, we need to know what was going on when Amos was prophesying. But to get a feel for what was going on during the time of Amos, we have start long before he came on the scene. We need to go back to the reign of Solomon. At the end of Solomon’s reign, he had turned away from God because of all the foreign influences in his life due to the wives and concubines he had “collected” over the years. For the most part, these women represented treaties with other tribes and nations, so each of them brought a part of their culture with them, including the gods they worshiped. Solomon tolerated their idolatry, instead of requiring his wives to be true to the God of Israel, and even participated in their worship of other gods. Because Solomon had turned away from God, God turned away from Solomon. 1 Kings 11:11 11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Jeroboam the son of Nebat was that servant. He had been a faithful servant for many years and was the foreman for a major building project in the city for Solomon. One day when Jeroboam was traveling, Ahijah the prophet from Shiloh came to him. Ahijah was wearing a new robe as they were traveling through open country. 1 Kings 11:30-31 30 Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces. 31 And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes 1 Kings 11:34-35 34 Nevertheless, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of David my servant whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my statutes. 35 But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand and will give it to you, ten tribes. But Jeroboam didn’t take the northern tribes at that point. Instead, he fled to Egypt and stayed there until after Solomon died. Solomon’s son Rehoboam was a weak ruler, and made poor decisions, raising taxes on the people even worse than what Solomon had done causing a lot of dissatisfaction with him and his ability to rule. So, the northern ten tribes turned away from Judah. Jeroboam returned from Egypt and was crowned king of Israel, the northern kingdom. What Jeroboam did next was the biggest cause of the northern kingdom of Israel falling away from God. 1 Kings 12:25-33 25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel. 26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. 27 If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” 28 So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” 29 And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. 30 Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. 31 He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not of the Levites. 32 And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. 33 He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel and went up to the altar to make offerings. Not only did he make new temples to worship in, but had golden calves made to represent their god, just like the one that the Israelites had Aaron make while Moses was up on Mount Sinai. He also set up a new feast for the people of Israel, a month after the festival of booths in Jerusalem, to gather at the temple he made in Bethel. He installed priests who were not Levites and in general made a mockery of the worship of Yahweh. Fast forward about 150 years. During those years, Elijah, Elishia, and a few others are prophets to the northern kingdom of Israel. They are written about, but there’s no specific book of their prophecy. Also during those years, there were 12 kings who ruled over Israel. 2 Kings 14:23-25 23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. Israel was in a period of great prosperity and expansion. Jeroboam the second became king over Israel somewhere around 786 B.C. During his reign, their borders expanded to the largest point they ever were. The rich got richer and oppressed the poor and needy. They still worshiped at the temples that the first Jeroboam made 150 years earlier with the golden calves, saying they were worshiping Yahweh, but doing whatever they wanted to do, rather than following what God had said. Meanwhile: 2 Kings 15:1-3 1 In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem. 3 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Azariah is also called Uzziah; same person, different name. Some scholars have said that the name Azariah came from a scribe copying the name wrong. Uzziah was a good king in Judah, to a point. At one point during his reign, Uzziah decided he was going to go into the Temple in Jerusalem and burn incense to God. Only Levites were allowed to do that. He was warned by the chief priest, but he went in anyway to do it, and came out with leprosy, and was leprous for the rest of his life. He was quarantined to a separate house, and his son ruled with him until he died. During Uzziah’s reign, Judah was also very prosperous. Only Solomon’s reign was more prosperous. His armies conquered the Philistines and the Arabians, and he received tribute from the Ammonites so Judah wouldn’t attack them. There were several military building campaigns, fortifying cities and fortresses, and the military was reorganized and reequipped. Crops were good, trade was good. Uzziah’s reputation was known as far south as Egypt. Jerusalem had become the capitol of a world power again. Who was Amos? During the 79 years or so from the beginning of Jeroboam the second’s reign to the end of Uzziah’s reign, several of the “published prophets” lived. Amos was the first of them chronologically, but not in the order of the books in the Bible. The first verse of the book of Amos tells us a little about him. Amos 1:1 1 The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds 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. Amos was from the town of Tekoa, a small town about 13 miles south east of Jerusalem, in Judah. Most translations call him a shepherd, but the Hebrew word there is only used twice in the Old Testament, once here and once to describe a king of Moab, who got rich as a sheep breeder. Amos wasn’t a hired shepherd, he owned the sheep he tended, and probably had other shepherds who worked for him. It’s like the difference between a man who owns cattle and a rancher. Amos was a rancher. We learn a little more about Amos later in the book. Amos 7:14-15 14 Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. 15 But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Starting around the time of Elijah, there were schools of prophets. These were students who would follow around a known prophet and learn from him in the hopes that God would use them to speak His message. In a way, these schools of prophets were not much different than the schools that have degree programs in Theology today. Amos didn’t have an MDiv. He didn’t go to any of the schools for prophets. He was a farmer and a rancher. God called him out of that and said, “Go north and tell My words to the people of Israel.” Amos lived during the reigns of Uzziah in Judah and Jeroboam II in Israel, which is somewhere between 786 B.C. and 740 B.C. But the time of Amos’ prophecies can be narrowed down more by one phrase in Amos 1:1, “two years before the earthquake.” To be that significant a point of reference for Amos to use in telling when his prophecies were given, it had to be a major event. Like 9/11, the assassination of JFK, or the attack on Pearl Harbor for us. Something that people would remember for generations, so they would know when Amos was prophesying. Scientists and archeologists have found evidence of a major earthquake throughout the area of modern-day Israel, that has been dated to around 750 B.C., plus or minus 10 years. The evidence points to an earthquake centered between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast. The archeological evidence points to an earthquake possibly as strong as 8.1 on the Richter scale. That’s about like the earthquake that devastated San Francisco in April of 1906. Archeologists have found entire villages flattened, major fortifications demolished, and palaces in ruins with pottery and other daily items crushed beneath the roofs. The destruction seems to be so wide-spread that every nation on the Mediterranean coast from the border of Egypt all the way up to the southern edge of Turkey would have some cultural memory of the earthquake for centuries after it happened. Theme Like I said before, the cultural problems we are facing today regarding poverty and income inequality were happening during the time of the minor prophets. Some things never change. Amos starts out by prophesying against all the nations surrounding Israel and Judah, but he doesn’t stop there. He prophesies against Judah, and then starts railing against Israel. In fact, Amos spends the most of his time prophesying against the northern kingdom of Israel. He points out the fact that the rich and powerful live in fancy palaces, and even have a winter and a summer palace, while the poor have little or nothing. He points out God’s hatred of many of the things Israel and the surrounding nations did: 1. Abuse of power 2. Human trafficking 3. Breaking treaties 4. Military atrocities 5. Excessive national greed 6. Destruction of national monuments 7. Ignoring God’s laws 8. Extreme income inequality and abuse of the poor 9. Cheating in the marketplace 10. Sexual abuse and perversion 11. Abuse of workers, withholding earned wages 12. Inappropriate worship of God, and idolatry Does any of that sound familiar? God doesn’t change. These things are still sickening to God, and they should be sickening to us, too. But over the 150 years from Jeroboam the first to Jeroboam the second, Israel’s conscience was seared; they became more like the nations around them than being set apart as God’s chosen people, a people who were supposed to be different from the nations around them. That was not what God wanted. This is what He told the people of Israel through Moses: Deuteronomy 14:2 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. Conclusion God doesn’t intend that for us either. He wants us to be different from the people around us, just like He wanted the people of Israel to be different from the nations around them. Peter tells us why we’re supposed to be different from the people around us. 1 Peter 2:9-10 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. God doesn’t want us to continue to live in darkness, because we are His people, and He is light, so we need to be living in the light. We show we’re living in the light by our behavior. We don’t live the way those who aren’t Christians live; we do our best to live in His will and follow His plan for our lives. We don’t live selfishly, or at least we try not to. We try to live our lives in a selfless way, the way that Jesus lived His life. We need to live a giving life, not a taking life. The people that Amos prophesied to lived a taking life, not a giving life. God is merciful toward us, and we should be merciful toward others. It doesn’t matter if you are living on Social Security, if you’re making minimum wage, or if you’re earning a six-figure income. You need to be selfless with it and use what you have to help other people. Do you have money for gas? Use that for God’s glory by driving people around. Do you know how to fix things? Use that for God’s glory by fixing things for people. Do you have a snow plow? Plows snow for God’s glory. It sounds simple, and really, it is. What ever you do, do it for God’s glory, and not for selfish reasons. You can’t change the world. But you can change yourself, and by doing good things for other people, you can make an impact on those people, showing them God’s love by doing whatever you can. Mark 8: 36-38 (Closing) 36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Bible Study 2 Chronicles 26 1 And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. 2 He built Eloth and restored it to Judah, after the king slept with his fathers. 3 Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem. 4 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. 5 He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. 6 He went out and made war against the Philistines and broke through the wall of Gath and the wall of Jabneh and the wall of Ashdod, and he built cities in the territory of Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines. 7 God helped him against the Philistines and against the Arabians who lived in Gurbaal and against the Meunites. 8 The Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah, and his fame spread even to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong. 9 Moreover, Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate and at the Valley Gate and at the Angle, and fortified them. 10 And he built towers in the wilderness and cut out many cisterns, for he had large herds, both in the Shephelah and in the plain, and he had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and in the fertile lands, for he loved the soil. 11 Moreover, Uzziah had an army of soldiers, fit for war, in divisions according to the numbers in the muster made by Jeiel the secretary and Maaseiah the officer, under the direction of Hananiah, one of the king’s commanders. 12 The whole number of the heads of fathers’ houses of mighty men of valor was 2,600. 13 Under their command was an army of 307,500, who could make war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. 14 And Uzziah prepared for all the army shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging. 15 In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong. Uzziah’s Pride and Punishment 16 But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17 But Azariah the priest went in after him, with eighty priests of the Lord who were men of valor, 18 and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God.” 19 Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord, by the altar of incense. 20 And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead! And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the Lord had struck him. 21 And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord. And Jotham his son was over the king’s household, governing the people of the land. 22 Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, from first to last, Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz wrote. 23 And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings, for they said, “He is a leper.” And Jotham his son reigned in his place. 2 Kings 14:23-29 23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. 26 For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. 27 But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash. 28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did, and his might, how he fought, and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah in Israel, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? 29 And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, the kings of Israel, and Zechariah his son reigned in his place.