Book of Amos 1: FOUNDATION of Amos (Prophetic Literature)

if you've never been to a Bible College or a Seminary it is a little bit different a good different I can remember coming home from the first class of jbu and I told my wife I said you wouldn't believe this place because I had a hundred hours at Northeastern State University before God called me to preach and I just scrapped everything and then went to John Brown University I came home and I said they actually pray before they start the class and it was a tremendous experience and I had some of the best teachers over there in fact the reason I chose John Brown University is because most of the professors that I had and if it they're dead now which tells my age or they're retired but they were all really respected in their field and many of them were published they had written commentaries in different books and I have some other books from Zondervan in my library but they were fantastic instructors but I will say this some of the classes were very boring and tonight might be a little bit boring because we're gonna get into dates and names but the reason we're doing that is because we're building a foundation for this book I'll be honest with you most people that I know of don't like reading the prophets and the reason they don't like reading the prophets is because they don't understand them there's a few verses in there that maybe they've heard pastors expound on and as a result of that they say oh I like that passage of Scripture in the Book of Isaiah but if the truth be known they know nothing about the book itself but the reason they don't is because they don't have the foundation and tonight we're gonna lay that foundation not only for the Book of Amos but for all of the prophets and I guess again if you're here tonight I guess you know that we're starting a Wednesday night series on the Book of Amos now Amos is one of the twelve minor prophets you see most scholars divided the Old Testament prophets who pin books into two major categories you have the major prophets in the Minor Prophets the major prophets are Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and Daniel the minor prophets are Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi let's all say them together can't do that right well that's one of the first things you'll learn at Bible College of course if you can't come in and memorize the books and you haven't memorized the profits then you're in trouble but anyways the only difference between the major prophets and the Minor Prophets is the length of their writings in other words the messages of the major prophets are not more important than the messages of the minor prophets they're just longer in length in fact to give you an idea of the difference in size between the two consider this there are a hundred and eighty-three chapters in the five books of the major prophets and there are only 67 chapters and the twelve books of the minor prophets the longest book of the major prophets which is isaiah has 66 chapters just one less than all of the twelve minor prophets combined and the shortest book in the Minor Prophets which is Obadiah has only one chapter but my point is this and this is a very important point if I was actually a professor I would be giving you tests and this would be on the test don't think that the major prophets are more important than the minor prophets they're not they're just longer in length now most Christians find the Book of Amos difficult to understand because they're not familiar with the historical cultural context of the book so they don't know when and why he prophesied they don't know who this prophecy was to or what was happening at the time that warranted God actually sending a prophet to them and to make matters worse the different messages within the Book of Amos are placed within a narrative in other words his prophecies are not placed within a story so if you don't know what was happening at the time then you don't know the context in which the messages and the prophecies were given and people that's a big problem you're saying if you don't know the context in which a prophecy was given then determining the meaning can be very difficult if not impossible that's why it's so important to understand the historical cultural context of the book does that make sense so this is my point in order to understand a prophecy you have to know the context in which it was given the historical cultural context in fact let me give you an example to illustrate what I'm talking about because if you don't get this point you really won't understand hermeneutics and that's a required class if you're going into theology so you need to understand so let me give an example to illustrate what I'm talking about Elijah and Elijah are known as oral prophets as opposed to writing prophets in other words they prophesied but they didn't write their prophesies down so we don't have a book of Elijah or a book of Elijah in our Bible do we but we do have stories about them and within these stories they prophesied turn to first Kings chapter 17 verses 1 through 4 and I'll show you what I'm talking about and Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabitants of Gilead said unto a Happ as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand there shall not be due to rain these years but according to my word and the word of the Lord came unto him saying get the hints and turn the eastward and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan and it shall be that thou shall drink of the brook and I have commanded the Ravens to feed thee there now if you're familiar with the Bible you know the story behind this prophecy you know that a hab was a wicked king over Israel and he was married to Jezebel and we don't Regis traverse Jezebel what do we refer to as that wicked Jezebel right because she worshipped the pagan god bale and she not only supported 400 priests of Vail but she also tried to kill all of the prophets of the true God of Israel now Bale was the Canaanite god of fertility he was responsible for bringing in the rain or so they thought so to prove that Bale was a false god and Yahweh was the one true God not just the God of Israel but the god of this world Elijah prophesied that it wouldn't rain for three and a half years and it didn't and this forced to showdown between Elijah and the priests of Eilat Mount Carmel how many of you remember the story now my point is this if you had a book of Elijah that consisted of all this prophecies but it didn't place his prophecies within a narrative in other words within a story you'd have a very difficult time trying to understand his prophecies because you wouldn't know the context in which his prophecies were given does that make sense if it does and I'm going to go a little bit further with my illustration elif's illustration look back at first Kings chapter 17 verses 1 through 4 and you'll see what I'm talking about and Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabiters of Gilead said unto Ahab as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand there shall not be do nor rain these years but according to my word now people technically that is a prophecy he predicted that he it would not rain until he gave the okay and it didn't that's a prophecy and then he continues on with the prophecy notice verse 2 and the word of the Lord came unto Him so God spoke to him saying get the hints and turned the East versal this is a prophecy and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan and it should be that thou shall drink of the brook and I have commanded the Ravens to feed be there so II he was told what to do and then God told him this is what will happen in the future you're gonna drink from this brook even though every other Brooks gonna dry up and I'm gonna command the Ravens to feed you there and did that happen it did happen now if these four verses were all you had and you didn't know the context in which this prophecy was given in other words you didn't know the story behind this prophecy you would struggle trying to understand the meaning of the prophecy because you wouldn't know who he was prophesying to or why he prophesied that it wouldn't rain for three and a half years or what the circumstances were that he was supposed to go hide after he gave this prophecy and without knowing all of that you'd struggle trying to understand the meaning of this prophecy so he prophesized it it wouldn't rain so what why did he do that so he was told to go hide after he prophesied why well if you don't know the story you don't know any event you have to understand the story to understand those prophecies do you understand what I'm saying well people that's how it is when it comes to the minor and the major prophets you have all of these prophecies and all of these message is written down but they are not placed within a narrative in other words they're not placed within a story so you don't know the context in which these prophecies and messages were given and without knowing the context it's very difficult if not impossible to understand them that's why we study the historical cultural context of each book you see by knowing the historical cultural context of each book it's easy to understand the prophecies and the messages because we know who they were prophesying to and why God sent them to prophesied to that particular person or nation and we also know what was happening at the time and when it all took place so we're able to place their prophecies in their messages into the proper context which enables us to understand them in other words we are able to build the narrative from the historical cultural context that is so important I'm going to repeat it again and when I repeat something again what should you do write that down if you want to understand the Bible I am giving you the key right here especially when it comes to the prophetic books we're able to build the narrative in other words we're able to build the story from the historical cultural context and if you know the story you understand the prophecies just like when you were reading about Elijah telling a habit wasn't going to rain until he gave the okay now we know from the book of James that it lasted for three and a half years the drought did no rain no do for three and a half years you wake up in the morning and there's no do there how many of you when you wake up and there's no do on the ground you say yes especially in the summer time why because you can mow at 6 o'clock in the morning right when it's cool well for three and a half years there wasn't even do on the ground but we want to know why did he prophesy that well we're lucky he gives us the story behind it but when we get to the prophets we don't have that story but we can build the story or build the narrative from the historical cultural context which makes all the difference in the world right yes because now it's as if we have a story to place these prophecies into making them easier to understand so what I'm telling you is that Amos is really not that difficult to understand as long as you know the historical cultural context in which it was written and you're in luck I know that and I'm going to be sharing that with you as we go through the Book of Amos but first I want to give you some background information that you need to know whenever you're studying one of the major or minor prophets in fact this background information is part of the historical cultural context of this book now again what I'm getting ready to share with you is boring but it's very very important in fact it's so important that I would encourage you to do one of two things I would encourage you to listen to this again when we put it on the web and if you have a program like Camtasia when I show you some of these charts you take container and you take a picture of what's on the screen you print it off and you put it in your Bible or you buy the DVD so that you can go back when you're studying the prophetic --ax and watch this that's how important it is so let's start at the time of King Solomon's death Solomon died somewhere around nine-30 BC now that's an approximate date I believe it was probably in 930 some people place it at 931 others at 922 but when I look at all the other dates I believe that he died in 1919 930 BC and at his death his son Rehoboam inherited the throne but he also inherited a kingdom that was burdened by taxes and he forced manual labor from all of the different tribes in other words if you were part of the tribes at least one month out of the year not only did you have to give quite a bit of your bounty to King Solomon but you also had to go work on some type of public project one month out of the year so he inherited this kingdom that was burdened with taxes and with forced manual labor so shortly after he ascended to the throne he was approached by the leaders from the northern tribes and they demanded relief from the oppressive policies of his father and of course you know the story Rio Boehm refused their demands in a civil war broke out which eventually split the kingdom and to north and south much like our our civil war how many of you remember studying the civil war we had a north and south right well the North won the Union won the Confederates lost and as a result of that we maintained a unified nation well when these ten tribes broke away there was a civil war the problem is it didn't remain unified because the southern tribes Jude a Rio Boehm and his followers they lost the Civil War so the kingdom was split into two you had the northern kingdom in the southern kingdom the northern kingdom was made up of ten northern tribes and they kept the name Israel while the southern kinder kingdom became known as Judah so whenever you're reading through the Old Testament and it mentions the nation of Israel after the split in 930 BC it's referring to the ten northern tribes it's not referring to the unified nation Judah refers to the southern kingdom it was made up of two tribes what tribes was it made up of anyone no Judah and who Simeon Semyon Semyonovich and look at the way the land was divided but anyways you need to keep that in mind so you don't get confused as you're reading through the Bible especially after the time period in which Solomon died and this kingdom was split now as you look at the screen you're gonna see a list of all of the kings in each kingdom from the time it split but I want you to notice that I put a line in each box separating the kings that are mentioned in the book of first kings from the kings that are mentioned in the book of second Kings do you see that everyone see that notice it's darker blue in one and it's darker gray in the other the one that's darker gray those are the kings that are mentioned in the book of first kings the ones in the dark blue those are the kings that are mentioned in the book of first kings once the northern kingdom once the southern kingdom Israel's the blue Judas to the the greg everyone see that well in this series were only interested in the Kings that are mentioned in the book of second Kings because that's when the major and minor prophets ministered so I'm going to expand that portion of the slide so we can focus on those Kings and that's a little easier to see when you agree now all of the kings in the northern kingdom were evil in the sight of God and they led their nation into idolatry and they never repented of that in fact they just kept allowing it to get worse and worse they actually wanted that they they actually encourage that kind of like what America is doing today but because they refused to repent and turn back to the one true God to turn back to their heritage they were conquered by the Assyrians and they were carried into captivity in 722 BC that is a date that every Christian should memorize 722 BC that's when the Northern Kingdom was was conquered by the Assyrians and carried into captivity now the capital of Assyria at that time was Nineveh you've heard of that that city right yeah I placed it on this slide because two prophets prophesied against Nineveh who are the two prophets do you remember Jonah was one Nahum was the second joke Jonah prophesied against them and they repented NAMM prophesied the destruction and they refused to repent so his prophecy destruction came to pass when the Babylonians defeated them which brings us to the Babylonian Empire in 586 BC the Babylonian Empire conquered the southern kingdom and took them into captivity and I want to mention two things that most people probably are not aware of you might have been a Christian for all of your life and you're probably not aware of this because there are many scholars that are not aware of these two things first of all the southern kingdom continued to exist for another 136 years after the northern kingdom fail and the reason why is because it had a few good Kings who loved God kept his Commandments and encouraged all of its people to keep the commandments whereas the northern kingdom didn't have one good king not one all of their kings were evil in the sight of God but here's what you need to understand and this is what's important the few good Kings that the southern kingdom had prolonged the survival of their nation in other words those good Kings kept God's judgment from coming upon them at least temporarily how long at least for 136 years what you're going to find out is that actually Judah was much weaker than Israel and yet when the Assyrians came in and conquered the northern kingdom they didn't conquer the southern kingdom why God and only God but why did God prolong their survival why was his judgment postponed because they had some good Kings now eventually they fail to because the majority of their Kings were evil but those few good Kings prevented God's judgment from coming upon them at least temporarily they were able to postpone God's judgment for 136 years now who were the good kings in the southern kingdom do you know where there were eight of them in other words there were eight that did right that kept God's commandments that tried to rule and reign the way that God told those kings to rule and reign here are the eight ASA Jehoshaphat Jo as a messiah Uzziah Jotham Hezekiah and Josiah almost all of the ayahs right yeah the second thing I want to mention that most people don't know and this is very important is that when the Babylonian Empire began to grow it conquered the Assyrian Empire so all of the people from the Northern Kingdom of Israel who were carried into captivity by the Assyrians became a part of the Babylonian Empire do you see that on the screen the Babylonians conquered the Assyrians and they incorporated that kingdom into their own which meant that all of the people from the northern tribes who'd been deported went into the Babylonian Empire and we sometimes forget that but it's very important because they were able to return to the Land of Israel when Cyrus gave the decree so to refer to the northern tribes as the Ten Lost Tribes is a misnomer people they're not lost and they never were let me explain something about the Assyrians one of the things that the Assyrians tried to do when they conquered nations to keep them from rebelling against them as they would deport the people and they would take up a whole city sometimes or a whole village and they would move them outside of their Kingdom and place them inside another Kingdom but here's what's interesting about the Jews God had so ingrained within them that they were separate that they were not supposed to mingle with others and their culture and their customs were so different than the pagans around them that they kept that culture even when they were outside of their own Kingdom so when they were allowed to go or not allowed they were deported and they went into other kingdoms they still maintain their own villages they still maintain their own community now is that what the Assyrians want to know what the in Syria Syrians intended was to almost be like America when people come to America it becomes a melting pot and so you might have your ancestors from Ireland and some of you might be from Italy and some of your ancestors might be from Russia but you know if your second or third generation you're part of this melting pot that didn't happen for the Jews so even though they were in captivity for a hundred and thirty six years in a different country they stayed within their own little villages so when the Babylonians conquered the Assyrians they're still there but they become part of the Babylonian Empire and then when the Persians conquered the Babylonians and you understand that story becomes the Persian Empire cyrus gives the great decree knee allows all of the people to go back to their homelands yeah most people don't why because they had assimilated with everyone else it was a melting pot and even though it been almost 200 years these Jews were not like that and so you had a lot of the northern tribes they actually went back to Israel and settled in the Galilean area how many of you knew that not many scholars know that people but it's true so to refer to them as the 10 Lost Tribes is a misnomer every time I hear that the thing that I realize is they have a liberal education background yeah now following the Babylonian captivity we have the period known as the post exile it's that period of time in which those who were carried into captivity were allowed to return to Israel and three books were written during that time period Ezra Nehemiah and Esther so when you're reading those books you need to realize okay Cyrus has given the great decree people are allowed to move back and now these books are written and they're writing to the Jews who have returned during the Exile now Esther didn't return but you're getting a picture into the Persian Empire and how God spared those who had been scattered and that's why you had all of those Jews even RAK in modern times now let me show you when each prophet ministered in to whom they ministered to because this is very important why well I'll explain why in just a minute let's begin with the major prophets first you have Isaiah people Isaiah had a very long ministry he ministered anywhere between 62 to 64 years I'm not talking about living I'm talking about prophesying he ministered for about 62 to 64 years his ministry spanned four Kings Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah you'll find that in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 1 secondly you have Jeremiah now the interesting about interesting thing about Jeremiah is we have a tough time determining where to pudding because he actually prophesied before the Babylonians came but he also prophesied after they were carried into captivity for a brief period of time in fact the book of limitations was actually written as a result of the temple being destroyed and them being carried into captivity so he ministered during both time periods so his ministry went for quite a while next you have Ezekiel and then you have Daniel now I want you to notice in Isaiah and Jeremiah ministered before the Babylonian captivity and Ezekiel and Daniel minister during the Babylonian captivity and as I already mentioned Jeremiah's kind of in between there now let's look at the Minor Prophets and when they ministered you have Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi Hosea ministered to the Northern Kingdom at the time of Jeroboam ii he was a very important king what you're going to notice is a lot of prophets were sent to Israel during this time period and if you're inquisitive you should be asking why this guy ruled for 41 years but I'm getting ahead of myself he was a very important King in Israel Joel was a very early prophet whom in to the southern kingdom during the reign of Emma saya Amos ministered to the Northern Kingdom at the time of Jeroboam ii so as you can see he ministered about the same time as Hosea in fact he was probably just a year or two before him the only difference between the two besides their messages was where they came from Hosea was from the Northern Kingdom so he was prophesying to his own nation but Amos was not from the Northern Kingdom he was from the southern kingdom so he was an outsider now why is that important I'll tell you why it's important think about us today it's one thing for you to be an American and to criticize America but you let some foreigner come here and criticize America what do we do well we're offended we need to ship them back you know like America then you get out right but if you're from America you can criticize America it's kind of like your family you know you might know your family is crazy and you can talk about your family being crazy but no one else better talk about your family being crazy am i right all right Hosea is from the Northern Kingdom so when he prophesized to them they're more receptive that do they receive him no but they're at least they're more receptive when Amos comes let me tell you the head priest the high priest actually writes the King says we need to port this guy who is he in fact maybe we ought to string him up because he's an outsider Obadiah prophesied against Edom probably during the reign of Jehoiakim but we're really not sure some place him during the reign of jehovah now why in the world would he one chapter actually prophesy against Edom because the were brothers to the israelites what do you mean by that or that the descendants of who he saw and just as there was animosity between Jacob and Esau there has always been an intense hatred between the and the Israelites now let me ask you a question who are the Palestinians the true Palestinians the ones who didn't come in because there was work when the when the Jews started repopulating and they came because the work I mean the ones who had been living there for the last two thousand year years who who are the Palestinians anyone now Ito Minds you want to know why they hate Israel because this hatred goes all the way back to Jacob and Esau and it's part of the prophecies that if you understand the Bible you understand the intense hatred it doesn't matter if you gave them all of Israel in Israel which would subjugate themselves to them and allow them to rule let me tell you they would still want to kill all the Jews you need to understand that you cannot appease them Obadiah prophesize against Edom anyways getting off Jonah prophesied to Nineveh he prophesied during the later years of amaziah king of judah and during the early years of Jeroboam ii king of Israel so as you can see he prophesied a little bit earlier than Amos and Hosea but he still prophesied during that period of Jeroboam ii his early years Micah prophesied during the days of jotham ahaz and hezekiah he was a contemporary of Isaiah and he prophesied to the Northern Kingdom and the southern kingdom so he wasn't just exclusive to one kingdom now he prophesied to both of the kingdoms look at Micah chapter 1 verse 1 I think this is important since the Lord gave this message to Micah of more chef's during the years when jotham ahaz and hezekiah were kings of judah the visions he saw concerned both Samaria and Jerusalem Samaria as most of you know was the capital of the Northern Kingdom and Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom so basically what this is saying is he prophesied to the Northern Kingdom and also to the southern kingdom Nahum like Jonah prophesied against the Assyrian Empire now under Jonah the Assyrians repented in judgment against them was postponed here's what's interesting the good kings in the southern kingdom postponed God's judgment coming upon them because they repented of what their previous leaders had done and they turned to God but here's what's interesting that principle doesn't just apply to God's chosen people it also applies to the Gentiles because when Jonah came in and he prophesied to the to Nineveh he said destruction is coming we know the story in Jonah right they've repented they fasted and God spared them and Jonah was upset why because they were an enemy of Israel why would God do that because God is just as concerned about Gentiles as he is to Jews in fact the Jews were supposed to be a witness to the Gentiles now because they repented and this judgment was postponed the Assyrian Empire continued on for another 70 years approximately but they didn't repent when Nahum came to them and prophesied against them and as a result they were conquered by the Babylonians and from that point on they are never mentioned again in history no completely and totally wiped out the Assyrian Empire never rises again they're not just conquered they're completely wiped out why because NAMM prophesied that it was a judgment upon them because of their cruelty Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah now everyone knows what I mean by contemporary right contemporary simply means that they prophesied at the same time now if you want to know what the conditions were like when Habakkuk prophesied you should read 2nd chronicles chapter 36 verses 11 through 21 and Jeremiah chapter 6 verses 9 through 30 in essence the spiritual condition of Judah was one of wickedness and justice and a total disregard of God in the things of God so in chapter 1 verse 6 Habakkuk prophesies that God is going to send the cow d-ends against Judah now who are the Chaldeans technically I can't say that the Babylonians but they are actually the the southern tribes of Babylon but they become the ones in power so Nebuchadnezzar is coming from that period so those are the Babylonia so he prophesized that the Babylonians are going to come and is going to conquer his own nation but this causes the Prophet to question the jest justness of God because basically Habakkuk wants to know how the Lord could punish Judah by using a nation that's more wicked than they are in fact if you read Habakkuk 1:13 that's Habakkuk questioning God God gives in this prophecy and he says boy these people are going to be wiped out it is his own nation and he said got out of those and this you're gonna use a nation that's more wicked at us to come in and conquer us I don't get that people you better listen God can use Russia and China against us these have specific messages that can be applied today I'll give you God's answer when we go through his book now what the heck I'll give it to you now basically God tells Habakkuk don't worry about them they'll get what's coming to them you just worry about yourself in your own nation and you know God gives us that lesson all the time you ever noticed when God starts teaching you something and you're going through a difficult time you always look at your neighbor and you go look at them god I know they do the same thing as me and they're doing good and usually God comes don't worry about them just worry about yourself remember when Jesus was with his disciples and he was talking about what was going to happen to them and they looked at this one and they said about the disciple whom Jesus loved or what about him Lord and Jesus says don't worry about him just worry about yourself yeah that's what he tells Habakkuk Habakkuk don't worry about them the Babylonians will get theirs and they did and we need to understand that Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah between 6:30 and 625 BC so he was also contemporary of Jeremiah since Jeremiah began his ministry sometime around the Year 626 BC and we know that because of Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 2 so Habakkuk Jeremiah and Zephaniah all prophesied around the same time how many of you knew that oh yeah so it's wonderful to take those three prophets and study them together Haggai prophesied during the post exile period in other words after the 70 years of captivity under the Babylonian Empire Haggai dated the beginning of the mists ministry in the second year of the rice the King you find that in chapter 1 verse 1 which means he ministered around 520 BC now Zechariah and Malachi also ministered during the post exile period now after the book of Malachi was finished there were 400 years between when that book was finished and the New Testament period and most scholars refer to this period of time as the 400 silent years how many of you have ever heard of the silent years referring to this four hundred year period between the last prophet who was Malachi and when John the Baptist came that was a period of about 400 years and so scholars refer to that period of time as the silent years but people that is a misnomer how many of you know what the word misnomer means the real meaning of misnomer a misnomer is a wrong or inaccurate name now the reason that's an inaccurate name is because the Bible is not silent about what happened during those 400 years in fact we know exactly what happened during those 400 years Daniel predicted what would happen in chapter 11 verses 5 through 35 and here's what's really interesting he prophesied in great detail about what would happen during those 400 years and it happened exactly as he prophesied it would in fact let me tell you this is why liberals reject the Book of Daniel because when they studied the Book of Daniel that passage of Scripture and they see what happened during those 400 years they say no one could have ever predicted at that precisely someone else had to have written that after the facts had occurred and then they attributed it to Daniel and that's what liberals still say today but people there's no way that could have happened I'll tell you why the Book of Daniel was translated into Greek 3 centuries before Christ yeah not only that if you ever go to Israel you'll go to a place called Qumran that's where they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Dead Sea Scrolls they found almost every book in the Bible except for the book of Esther but anyways they found almost every book of the Bible in Isaiah they found almost a complete copy but they also found the Book of Daniel and they can date that back to around 250 BC so we know for a fact that Daniel predicted it before it ever happened been that interesting now let me give you the chronological order of the writings of the prophets these are the prophets who prophesied before the exile before 586 BC I told you this would be boring with dates and names but this is very important and you're going to know you're going to understand why in just a minute Obadiah prophesied to eat them the descendants of Esau in 845 BC Joe prophesied to Judas between 1825 and 811 Jonah prophesied is serious sometime between 790 and 780 BC Amos prophesied to Israel sometime between 768 to 755 BC this 13 year period that's very important for us Isaiah and again his ministry spans so we're not saying prophesied sometime between we're saying he prophesied from the beginning of this time all the way down to here he prophesied to Judah from 760 all the way down to 698 his ministry lasted between 62 to 64 years what a man of God Hosea prophesied to Israel sometime between 750 to 725 BC Micah prophesied to Judah sometime between 735 to 706 12s F&I to Judah sometime between 6:30 to 625 Jeremiah to Judah from 626 is 575 BC now notice he prophesied before the Babylonian Empire conquered Israel but he also prophesied after they were carried into captivity for a little while Habakkuk to Judas some time between 612 and 6 or 6 during the Exile you had three prophets who prophesied and I mentioned Jeremiah again because he prophesied from 626 to 575 Ezekiel prophesied from 595 to 560 BC he was carried away in the second deportation Daniel prophesied and he had a very long ministry he was 14 years old we think when he was carried into captivity as part of the fourth first deportation when did the first deportation take place 605 BC now remember we talked about 586 as being when they destroyed the first time the Babylonians came and they surrendered Jerusalem they just surrendered they didn't want to fight so they said we'll pay tribute as a result of that to begin paying tribute Jeremiah was prophesying said give in to them this is part of God's judgment just do it and you'll be able to survive we'll still have to be under it for 70 years but they wouldn't do that they rebelled and so they can't Madeleine's came back and they did a second deportation that's when Ezekiel went in and then the third time they came back because Judah did not listen to the Prophet Jeremiah they totally destroyed Jerusalem in the temple and they carried everyone back except of course to the poor just wiped out the land all because they wouldn't listen to what Jeremiah prophesied and there were three prophets who prophesied after the Exile Haggai and 520 BC Zechariah sometime between 520 and 518 pretty specific and malachi prophesied sometime between 445 to 415 BC now you can see the time periods in which these prophets prophesied I got those lines up there that confused you all with the lines right well I want you to see who they prophesied to and let me blow that up I want you to notice that Hosea and Amos prophesied to the Northern Kingdom but you had three prophets who prophesied to Gentiles why because God was just as concerned about the Gentiles as he was Israel so why does he spend so much time with Israel because they are the nation through which his revelation is supposed to come the reason we know about God is because of Israel they were chosen to be alight into the world and of course they paid a great price for their disobedience but God has not forgotten them and the church has not replaced them and if you've been brought up with replacement theology that is wrong all of the promises that God made to Israel will be kept that's one of the main purposes of the Millenium all these promises that God made to Israel will be carried out America better not turn their back on Israel one of the reasons we've lasted as long as we've lasted and will continue and God's judgment will be postponed even though we deserve God's judgment upon us for our immorality is because we've got Israel's back and if you don't believe that let me tel say you better get on your hands and knees and start praying to God and studying the Bible because you don't know squat then you had the four prophets who prophesied to the southern kingdom the three during the post exile now the Prophet we're going to be studying during the summer is the Prophet Amos I get long-winded but we're going to try and cover a chat Deraa night don't know if that's possible but we're gonna try so let me ask you a question why is all of this important I spent all this time going through all of the profits and when they ministered and who they ministered to and who was the king at the time when they prophesied but why is all that important I told you this would be like a seminary class and you're listening you got your rock this is boring why is this important it's important because now we can sit we can study the historical cultural context of the book you see now we know the time period in which a ms ministered 768 to 755 we've narrowed it down to a 13-year period of time and we know which kingdom he ministered to Israel which is the northern kingdom and we know who was the king at the time Jeroboam the second so now I can study the history and the culture of that specific Kingdom at that specific time and that's going to give me the context that I need to understand his messages in his prophecies because when he was giving his message in his prophecies he didn't give it within a narrative so I got to build the narrative and how do you build the narrative how do you under this understand the story in which these prophecies and and these messages were given well we do that by studying the historical cultural context in other words by studying the historical cultural context I know exactly what was happening at the time and then when I place the messages and prophecies of Amos within that context I'm able to understand them believe it or not they make perfect sense is everyone with me that's why it was so important to show you all of these charts with all of the kings and both kingdoms and all of the prophets and where and when they prophesied we had to do that so we could place the messages and the prophecies of Amos within the proper time period so we could study the history and culture of Israel at that specific period of time and that helps us to build the narrative in which to place the prophecies of Amos so now we can understand them listen to me dating a book is very important most people just skim over that I never skim over that it's kind of like genealogies have you've been with me a long time I study every genealogy because there's always a golden nugget that's stuck in there right well let me explain something about dates in fact the best way for me to explain it is probably to give you an example to illustrate it let's suppose that we were not the generation that would see the Lord's return I believe we are I'm about 99.9 percent positive but if I live to be at least 85 years old I will see the Lord's return why do I believe that I believe that because of the prophecy that ezekiel gave you here when I taught on Islam in the end times you know that Ezekiel gave one of the most specific prophecies ever even more specific than Daniel when Daniel gave the exact day the exact month the exact year when the Messiah would come in and present himself as the triumphant Messiah Ezekiel went even farther Ezekiel prophesied the exact year the exact month the exact day that Israel would become a nation and they did it would you study the Book of Jeremiah and you go back to the valley of the Dead bones it says this generation that sees this they will know that his prophecies are true and when you study that in context what it's actually saying is you're going to see these things come to pass we are the generation that will see it and I believe that America will not be a player that's why it's really not prophesied about much in the Bible we're we've sunk we're doomed but we don't have to be nihilistic about it we have to know that if we if we begin to serve God that God spares us and I've never seen the righteous begging bread that's what David said and we won't be if we do what God tells us to do but I want you to understand that we are that generation now casting that aside and let's suppose that wasn't true and let's suppose that Christianity would go another 2,000 years and let's suppose that the Bible wasn't finished so let's suppose that God sent a prophet to America and he prophesied to the nation of America and 2,000 years later someone has that prophecy and he wants to and what this prophecy means to the nation of America so he starts trying to study when this prophecy was given and he narrows it down to 1960 to 2016 so somewhere between 1960 and 2016 this prophet ministered to American who gave these prophecies well people let me tell you that's pretty broad because in the 60s you had the hippie culture you had the sexual revolution you had rock-and-roll you had Vietnam you had in a sense kind of an acceptance of drugs among the younger people and then in the 70s we had Jimmy Carter Oh 18% interest rates gas lines Iranian crisis our foreign policy went to pot thank God for Reagan I'm a conservative Reagan came in and saved it and then we had the tech boom in the 90s no one ever dreamed that every home would have a computer now you've got a computer in the form of an iPhone I asked a questioning you google it on your phone let me tell you the reason it was prosperous under Bill Clinton is not because Bill Clinton was some genius he just happened to be the right president at the right time when technology boomed and then you had the Internet Al Gore invented and here's what's interesting all these dot-com companies came in and then it went boom because they weren't built on anything physical as a result many of you lost money in the stock market and then 9/11 hit oh my gosh terrorist attack twin towers fell and the culture in America changed and then things got better we kind of forgot about it and we had the housing bubble boom exploded in the Great Recession and here we are now I want you to understand even though this is only appeared from 1960 to 2016 56 years we're we go wow that's kind of hard to place this prophecy the closer we can get to the precise time if this prophecy was given to the 1960s we can really understand because we understand the hippie culture what was taking place and with Vietnam and we understand the sexual revolution and the drugs that were being taken so we go ah I understand the narrative in which this prophecy was given but if it wasn't in the 60s it was in the seventies ago oh yeah America was kind of in a decline in their foreign policy they weren't the big bad people anymore they didn't have the president said calling it the evil axis and calling these people up and saying Gorbachev that wall needs to come down but if it was during that time period we would know exactly we could build a narrative for it or if it's when the twin towers fail and that period of time when everyone was concerned about the terrorist attack and what had taken place and all of a sudden our world changed and if these prophecies came at that point we now have the narrative of this or the story in which to place these prophecies see the reason you don't understand the prophets is because you don't understand the historical cultural context these prophecies were not given interwoven with the story therefore you don't know the context in which they were given but we can build the context we can build the narrative if we know exactly when they prophesied who they prophesied to and what was taking place at the time and once we know that all of a sudden those prophecies make perfect sense now the good news is I've done all the work for you the bad news is I still have 20 pages to go but we're going to stop right here the thing that I want you to understand is I've showed you the foundation so now when I come back next week and I start explaining this specific situation of Israel in this 13 year period you go oh now I understand what amos was doing why he prophesied what he prophesied because we built a narrative by narrowing down when he prophesied who he prophesied to and what was taking place at the time

Channel: Cornerstone Fellowship

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Keywords: the book of amos study guide, book of amos study guide, amos study guide, amos guide, prophetic literature study guide, book of amos bible study, book of amos, prophetic literature, prophetic books of the bible, historical context of amos, cultrual context of amos, book of amos explained, book of amos meaning, purpose of book of amos, book of amos summary, amos old testament, cornerstone fellowship, cornerstone church, libro de amos guía de estudio, libro de amos explicado

Id: lu6Ow0KykIM

Length: 48min 48sec (2928 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 29 2018