Amos 7 Lesson by Dr. Bob Utley

we're beginning a new division Amos as you know this is the last literary genre type in the Book of Amos this is the vision section now he caught their attention in chapters 1 & 2 by prophesying judgment against the surrounding nations even Judah and then in 2:16 he switched to Israel herself and for the major portion the book is from 2:16 through chapter 6 is the condemnation of Israel but now in chapter 7 8 & 9 comes to his five visions three of them are going to be in Chapter eight one in Chapter excuse me chapter seven one in Chapter eight and one in Chapter 9 and chapter eight they began with a formula thus the Lord God showed me and behold now that formula is repeated in verse four verse 7 and chapter 8 verse 1 so the first four of these visions are very much related there's a much discussion about these visions are they related to seasons of the year are they his initial call that his messages recorded earlier grew out of we just do not know those kinds of things now it says and God was forming the locust swarm now locusts were a constant problem in the ancient Near East merica there are twelve different Hebrew words to describe locust plagues now we see this plague some in Exodus chapter 10 verses 12 and following about one of the plagues that camp on Pharaoh in Egypt during the exodus period locusts are also one of the things in Deuteronomy 28 that God says if you don't keep my Commandments I'm going to curse you and one of the curses is locusts Deuteronomy 28 38 through 42 as the Levitical singers were split one little amount gives RM women it will write a ball and they an typically sang back and forth if you keep God's commandments you'll be blessed with if you break God's commandments you'll be cursed with and here's one of the curses coming into being now when the spring crop begins to sprout we're talking about somewhere in April in Palestine there's earlier rains and latter rains and the latter rains have to come to help the seeds to germinate in the crops to start developed so we're in the spring of the year that's why it's talking about and behold the spring crop was after the Kings now you probably have mowing which seems to imply the king got the first cut from all the pastures but there's no other evidence and all the old testament for that and matter of fact this hebrew word primarily means shearing like shearing sheep not mowing so i already believe it's just another way of saying it was in the spring of the year after the King had sheared his own flock it's what I think it's talking about and it came about when he had finished eating the they had finished eating the vegetation of the land I said now here the Prophet is going to act as intercessor he sees a terrible judgment coming and he says Oh God please don't do this you see in the Old Testament it wasn't the priests that primarily acted as intercessor but the Prophet now this prophet is often accused of being a hard prophet a prophet of judgment but he loved these northern people and here he asked God several times to spare them and God did I don't understand in an intercessory prayer I really don't somehow God has chosen to be affected by his children's prayer now I know God loves Israel more than Amos does but God is willing to be affected by Amos his love isn't that amazing and and he says Lord God now that's the idea that's adone Yahweh okay please part this an imperative in Hebrew he's just saying please God act on their behalf forgive them the word pardon here is a Hebrew word that is only used for God forgiving man okay how can Jacob stand for he is so small notice that the Prophet appeals to need not to the Covenant because Israel had totally batted the Covenant so the Prophet prays they're so little they're so they're so in need and you know God has a you that's not hear people say American has has a love for underdogs well so does God Arvin's widows the poor the alien the down-and-out God cares has a compassion for them now a strange little statement the Lord changed his mind about the it shall not be says the Lord now you might have the Lord repented it's also translated that way look down in verse 6 the same thing appears again now this is a very unusual word and it's a very unusual concept I've got a graphic I want to show you that I think will help you notice the root term here is the term breathe heavy and it's using the sense of deep emotion my daughter I can tell how mad she is by how much air she blows up her nostrils at me and that's the idea here a sigh a groan and an expulsion of air other passages on God's repenting you might see Psalms 106 45 Jeremiah 26:19 Jonah 3:10 God's purpose for man and God's nature never change numbers 23:19 1st Samuel 15 29 Hebrews 13:8 James 1:17 but on an individual basis God has chosen to act in according with the prayers of his children God is affected we pray now I used to hear all the time that intercessory prayer changes us and I think that's true but friends what happens when I pray for world events and believe God's going to affect him the prayer didn't affect aim is here Amos wanted to affect God's judgment and he did God has chosen to limit himself it on carden's were the prayers of his children we can affect history we can affect change we can affect someone else's even personal reception of Christ by praying for them you say how I do not know I do not know man verse 4 the same little formula appears again another plague or judgment Amos sees and this time the Lord God was calling to contend with them by fire now this may be drought or volcano or like Sodom and Gomorrah raining fire from heaven I read Oh No and it consumed the great beep now the great deep is the underground water source in the Old Testament it taught it seems to be if we're let me go back and the Old Testament is written in the language of description not in language of science it is not anti scientific it's pre scientific if you dig a hole in the ground and you wait a few days what will appear in that hole most time it's water so the ancients believed the earth floated on a large ocean of water in this underground water source is where the flood came from in Genesis is where the rivers have their source and on and on and this drought or whatever it is going to be so bad it's going to dry up the underground water source now this word is a word that's using the mythological accounts of creation from the Sumerians and the Babylonians there are many words like that using the Bible chaos qiyamat and on and on but really in the Bible they've been stripped of all their theological in scuse me mythological implications and are not used that way here and begin to consume by the way I want to give you a few references for the deep while I'm at it Genesis 1 2 Genesis 7:11 Genesis 49 25 Psalms 36 6 and Isaiah 51 10 you'll see how it's used so often and I said Lord God please stop another imperative there's no mention of forgiveness here just please stop this and God does and changed his mind again look at verse 7 thus he showed me behold the Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand now the vertical wall here the Hebrew word implies a wall built with stones either the wall of a city the wall of a house are a wall in a field now in Palestine there's so much rocks in the figure there's a pen there's a Jewish story that says that God gave a bag of rocks to an angel and tell him to go and spread those rocks around the world but when that angel was flying over Palestine the bag broke and all the rocks fell in the Promised Land if you ever been to Palestine you know that those poor farmers have rocks in those fields and they have to continually dig those rocks out and they make these little fences with them now when you originally make those fences you don't glue the rocks they just stack the rocks up and the fits is through earth minor earthquakes and rain they begin to shift and lean and so what apparently God's doing is looking at the straight wall that he built his people Israel but now he has a plumb line the word here means some kind of metal like 10 or LED tied to a string that shows the perpendicular nough structure and he's holding that measuring line by that wall and that wall has obviously she and of course it's referring to God's people and the Old Testament the root word for righteousness are just is the word measuring read and it means that God Himself is the standard be ye holy as your as the larger God is holy the Book of Leviticus so God places his characteristics his standard his nature a minutes people and they don't measure up every Hebrew word for sin means a deviation from the standard crookedness brokenness been dismissing the mark and that's the background here now a plumb line in his hand that word plumb line is often used in the Bible to describe judgment second Kings 2113 Isaiah 28 17 34 11 and lamentations 2:8 now as it says the Lord said to me what do you see Amos and I set a plumb line then the Lord said Behold I'm about to put a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel my people coven a term and I will spare them low longer Amos sees the rebellion of the people of God and he ask for no more pardon and no more cessation of judgment the Prophet is quiet he will not speak again on their behalf now most verse 9 the high places of Isaac I will be destroyed in the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste now the high places are the local altars probably Canaanite where people begin to worship Yahweh in the period of judges but slowly or surely these places reverted to Canaanite Bale worship the sanctuaries refer to Dan in the north and bethel in the south where reuse me Jeroboam the first in 922 when the Kingdom split with Solomon's son and the Ephraim addict Labour leader Jeroboam the first he didn't want his people going to Jerusalem to worship he thought that pulled their heart away so he set up two golden calves now these were not idols they were representations of Yahweh as Aaron's calf in the wilderness was but they were idolatrous in the sense that they pulled people away from the sanctuary where God told them to worship in Jerusalem and so they're condemned by every prophet and that's what the sanctuaries are referring to here then I shall rise up against the house of Jeroboam and you might want to say Jeroboam the first because that's who were referring to with the sword now the sword must be parallel to the fire and the locust plague it's a very disaster coming on the land okay and then in verse 10 a little break in the action occurs where a messiah the high priest at their national shrine at Bethel confronts Amos the prophet now I bet these people were really at loss to know what to do here they were bringing their sacrifices I'm sure many of them were sincere in their motives here they were bringing their sacrifices to God at the place the king told them to come to and here stands up the high priest and all his beautiful regalia and ritual and here stands up the country prophet of God Amos both claim to speak for God both claim to know the truth both claim to say do this and how do the people know let me give you a little background I've done a tape on this called how do you know who speaks the truth from first John chapter 4 you also are look at Deuteronomy 13 1 through 3 in the last part of Deuteronomy 18 you can know who speaks for God it's by content and lifestyle now notice where it says Amaziah the priest at Bethel sent word to Jeroboam now this is Jeroboam ii this is the contemporary king in the period we're in so put Jeroboam the first by verse 9 but put Jeroboam the second by verse 10 and this is the one who is the prosperous king of the northern ten tribes during this period and he was a very successful King a very successful king now Amos had has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel and the land is unable to endure his words now this priest is entak you accused the prophet of several things and I want to show you a graphic to show you what he accuses him first of all he accuses him a political sedition in verse 10 then in verse 12 he says you're not one of us you're one of those Judeans you're just a foreigner and then in verse three he says you're just preaching for money go back there they'll feed you and then in verse four he says well no one asks you to come here and you don't need to be preaching at this National Shrine so he really accuses the prophet of several things now Jeroboam ii doesn't answer at Amaziah so we don't know what happens but it takes on his own to confront the prophet thus for thus says aim is he's gonna quote to Jeroboam ii what Amos says now he doesn't quite quote him right but the essence of what he said is true he doesn't say that the sword will kill Jeroboam ii but he says it'll kill his house and it's been going to be several years before the assyrian exile really comes now notice where it mentions here a messiah said to Amos go you see her now the Hebrew word seer is an ancient word to describe prophets maybe because Amos has publicly related the visions that he had that ain't a messiah says you're just on a hallucinogenic fool that's what he's trying to say you you who see all these visions just go on got here that's what he's saying flee away to the land of Judah and here's the inference you're not one of us you're not one of our kind of folks you're a Judean you're not even supposed to be here then he says there eat bread and there do your prophesying now there were there were two kinds of prophets there was the prophet Geils like back in 1st Samuel where a group of prophets were worked together but they came to be identified with the state that the King fed them and closed them and and and gave them housing and most of those prophets of course would not speak against the king but there was a group of free prophets and they got their money not from the state but from the people they preached to would give them freewill offerings and so what a parent of a messiah is saying you're just preaching for money once you go back to Judah they'd love to hear your preaching on the destruction of Israel they'll pay you a lot for it go back there and I think verse 14 of his chapter is really related to this where Amos says I'm not a prophet of a son of the Prophet but I'm a herdsman and a dresser of Sycamore trees I've got my own means of support thank you I don't have to have money for preaching i wasn't i don't preach for money I have my own occupation that's what I think he's saying now verse 13 but no longer prophesy at Bethel for it is a sanctuary of the King and that's really ironical notice it's not a sanctuary of God it is the sanctuary of the king and that's the whole problem and what irony here and then my translation says a royal residence but that's not really good it should be a Nash shrine mat verse 14 I have another graphic I want to show you got a problem this verse there is no Hebrew verbs in this verse the American Standard Version supplies the present tense verb the Revised Standard Version supplies the past tense verb amos seems to be saying that he is not a preacher or the son of a preacher he doesn't come from a prophetic line and he didn't attend seminary if you please and then number three he said that he already has a job and God called him from his laymen status from a herdsman just like God called David and here we have him saying I don't know why I'm here I'm here because of God's call not because I'm a preacher type if you please now I don't know because obviously Amos isn't serving as a prophet so if you make it past tense what he's saying is I wasn't a prophet when God called me if you make it present tense he's saying I'm not a preacher I'm a layman but I'm here to tell you a message from God now which it is we really don't know look at verse 14 then Amos answered and said to a messiah I'm not a prophet not the son of a prophet I'm a herdsman and a grower of Sycamore trees now in the introduction I've dealt with this herdsmen and Sycamore trees and I'm not going to go back over it again go back to your introduction your outlines you'll see all the discussion there now verse 15 but the Lord took me from plowing the flock and following the flock and said to me go prophesy to my people Israel what the Prophet is saying is God told me to be here I don't have to ask your permission priest I don't have to ask the king's permission I've got God's permission friends I want to tell you a call from God will cause you to stand up to anything this country educated man I think a wealthy man said I'm not here because I want to be I'm here because there's a fire in my bones it's what Jeremiah said and I can't stand it unless I speak Paul said I'd rather die than be quiet friends if you got the call from God to speak it's just nothing else you can do to speak whatever the consequences may be verse 16 and now hear the word of the Lord you who are saying you shall not prophesy against Israel nor shall you now the way in verse 16 the word you have preached in your Bible well look in the margin if you have a note do you see the word drip or the word drop now I know some preaching is sounds like constant dripping you know in Proverbs it's the nagging woman's like constant dripping but here I think it's the idea I'm biased of course dripping of honey from a honeycomb or maybe a drop of water that cause concentric circles in a pool but that's the Hebrew word to drip or drop Amos says I'm going to go ahead and drip right here if you don't mind against the house of Isaac therefore says the Lord your life will become your wife scuse me will become a harlot in the city Amos got so mad that's pertinent priest he put his finger right in his nose and said friend your wife is gonna be raped publicly over and over your sons and daughters are gonna be killed by the sword your land is going to be parceled out to foreigners and you are going to be taken and exiled and die and never see the promised land again is it any wonder that nobody else stood up against Amos apparently was public what a condemnation this prophet said is going to happen now when he says I'm over the line Israel will surely go from its land into exile remember Israel here means the northern ten tribes we're referring to the Exile of Assyria that occurred in 722 BC now many times I've told you if you can get just a few dates together you can hang the whole Old Testament it 922 the kingdom will split into northern ten tribes in the southern - 922 in 722 the northern ten tribes are taken into exile by Assyria in 586 the southern two tribes are taken into exile by Babylon in 538 Cyrus the Persian Empire leader let's all the people's return home and they rebuild the temple somewhere around 5:15 to 5:12 if you get those days you can hang all the prophets and all the Old Testament around those days 922 722 586 538 5:15 to 5:12 that'll help where we're getting we're going to finish the Book of Amos next time in chapters 8 & 9 I hope you'll go back through and look up the words vision in your Bible encyclopedia and see what it says I think it's something you'll be surprised at there's a lot of discussion in the old and in Bible encyclopedias and dictionaries on visions I don't think we understand all that involved but the Prophet had a vision and it came true after his life Israel was very prosperous her military was very successful there was a lot of money floating around but Amos said it's going to come to a screeching halt friends because you have left to God and the the poor are exploited by the rich and religion is nothing more than ritual it's not personal faith and so Amos was a prophet crying in the wilderness but it happened there's a real parallel to our own country in there I've enjoyed being with you I'll see you again same time same place next week god bless you you

Channel: Free Bible Commentary

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Keywords: bible, bible study, bible commentary, hermeneutics, historical-grammatical, old testament, bob utley, amos, studio

Id: F7KJCetVT-Q

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 05 2014