NIV MEMORY VERSE: Amos 8:11 THE DIVIDED KINGDOM 15 1



"SEEK THE LORD AND LIVE"Amos 5:19:15MEMORY VERSE: Amos 8:11"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign Lord, "when I will send a famine through the land not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord."We stand on the shoulders of giants – John Wycliff and William Tyndale. Both paid with their lives the price it took so that we might have the Word of God in our language. SLIDE: Lord, open MY eyesThe last reported words of William Tyndale, strangled and burned at the stake in 1536, referred to Henry VIII: ‘Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.’ 230926824937900While Luther worked on translating the Bible into German, Tyndale sought permission from the bishop of London to translate the New Testament into English. The bishop denied his request—such translations were illegal. The priest and Oxford-trained scholar—who spoke seven languages and was well-versed in Hebrew and Greek—traveled to Germany. There Tyndale published in 1526 his New Testament, the first English translation taken directly from the Greek and Hebrew. Smugglers promptly carried copies back to England, where church authorities began buying them up to keep them out of circulation—fueling, in effect, Tyndale’s ongoing work.Undeterred by threats against him, the English Reformer began translation work on the Old Testament as the backlash from Catholic authorities—and public burnings of his New Testaments—increased. By this time Tyndale had moved to Antwerp, Belgium where he found safe haven in the home of an English merchant. Antwerp was one of the largest cities in Europe, a thriving port, the center of Europe’s diamond trade, and home to the largest printers. Tyndale continued his Bible translation work there, and with his merchant friend’s help began smuggling Bibles back to England in quantity, hiding them in bales of cotton or barrels of food.Tyndale dined often in merchant homes which led eventually to his undoing. Henry Phillips became a frequent guest at those dinners, Tyndale took into his confidence. In May 1535, Phillips led Tyndale out of his safe house to a waiting band of soldiers, who took him into custody. They delivered him to the Vilvoorde Castle, the state prison for the Low Countries, where he was jailed on charges of heresy.He was found guilty of heresy and hauled to the stake outside Vilvoorde Castle. Executioners bound him with an iron chain and rope around his neck. They strangled him before lighting a torch and setting fire to wood that burned his body.His dying prayer, according to historian John Foxe, was “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” It eventually came to pass. By 1539 church authorities placed copies of Tyndale’s Bible in every church in England as Reformation zeal took hold. A century later, translators for the King James Version found Tyndale’s translations the most reliable, and the newly authorized English version widely used Tyndale wording. Familiar phrasing like “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” and “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” derived straight from Tyndale’s English Bible.BUILD - The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…Let light shine out of darkness, (God) made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light (Hebrews) of the knowledge (Greeks) of the glory (Romans) of God in the face of Christ - 2 Cor. 4:4,6With every head bowed, let’s express a word of gratitude for the gift of the Word of God. SLIDE: THE BOOK OF AMOSBUILD - Content: in a period of rare economic prosperity and political strength for Israel, Yahweh announces their doom because she has failed to keep covenant with himBUILD - Prophet: Amos, a shepherd/farmer from Tekoa, south of Bethlehem in JudahBUILD - Date of prophetic activity: ca. 760 B.c., for an apparently brief period (at the peak of the reigns of Jeroboam II in Samaria [793-753] and Uzziah in Jerusalem [792-740])BUILD - Emphases: Yahweh is God over all the nations and the whole universe; Yahweh will bring utter ruin to Israel for her covenant disloyalty; syncretistic religion is anathema to Yahweh; Yahweh requires justice for the innocent and mercy for the poor; religious observances are no substitute for doing good and showing mercyAmos is the first of our four canonical eighth-century prophets (a contemporary of Hosea, and a bit older than Isaiah and Micah). The historical-political background to Amos can be found in 2 Kings 14:23-15:7 (cf. 2 Chr. 26). Jeroboam II (in Israel) and Uzziah (in Judah) came to reign at about the same time and both had long and prosperous reigns which included territorial expansion of a kind that together nearly equaled that of David and Solomon. This was made possible mostly because their reigns coincided with a very low period of Assyrian fortunes (782-745) until the rise Tiglath-Pileser III. And, of course, the royal house and the wealthy considered this period of growth and expansion as evidence of Yahweh's blessing, with a still brighter day of Yahweh awaiting them! In response Amos records, “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD. “Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light” – 5:16-18. It turned out to be a brief “golden” period that lasted barely one generation. For less than a generation after the death of Jeroboam the kingdom of Israel ceased to exist altogether (B.c. 722) and Yahweh's voice was no longer heard there (8:11-12). God having used Assyria as his rod of Judgment against his wayward people (see 2 Kgs 17:7-41).What Amos saw and spoke most clearly at the peak of this period (Amos 1:1) was that everything was in fact the opposite of what it seemed. Their 'blessing' had nothing to do with Yahweh, but everything to do with their own corrupt practices; nor did their religion have much to do with Yahweh, even though it was undoubtedly still being carried on in his name. SLIDE: Thus only two broad categories of sin were denounced:BUILD - Syncretistic religion = a piece of this, a piece of that with no loyalty or allegiance to anyone or anything. (2:7-8; 4:4-5; 5:21-23, 25-26; 8:10, 14) and BUILD - Social injustice (2:6-8; 3:9-10; 4:1; 5:7, 10-13, 15-24; 6:12; 8:4-6) which are clearly spelled out in the opening prophesy, where they blend (2:6-8), as they do again in 5:21-24 and 8:4-6. It is this combination of oppression of the poor in a context of distorted religious enthusiasm that leads to Yahweh's judgment in the form of exile.Amos has seven woes to the nations. The seventh being Judah. You can hear the Israelites to the north saying, “Yay, get them Amos!” That is until the eight woe, SLIDE: “For the three sins of Israel even for four (2:6-7)… BUILD - They sell the righteous for silver, and BUILD - the needy for a pair of sandals. BUILD - They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and BUILD - deny justice to the oppressed BUILD - In 5:10-12., the prophet restates his indictment:BUILD - You hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truthBUILD - You trample the poor and force him to give you grain (see Luke 12:18-20) 8:4-5, “you skimp the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales”BUILD - You oppress the righteous and take bribesBUILD - You deprive the poor of justice in the courtsIsaiah personalizes his indictment. He records six woes directed at Judah (5:8-23). The seventh woe is to himself following his encounter with the Holy God, “Woe is me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips…” (6:1-8). Paul would write, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God” (Rom. 3:10). Note: We all depend on the gracious hand of God to exchange our heart of stone for a heart of flesh. Ezek. 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” 5:1-17 Third Announcement: False Religion and InjusticeThis third "Hear" prophetic speech in many ways forms the heart of the book. Note its striking chiastic structure. It begins and ends with a lament over Israel's fall (w. 2-3, 16-17), followed by an invitation to seek the LORD and live (vv. 4-6, 14-15). We’ll look at this remedy in a moment. 5:18-27 False Security in ReligionHere Amos speaks directly to Israel's false security in multiplied religious exercises (more religion = more favor with God), but the day of the Lord they are looking for will in fact turn out to be a nightmare (vv. 18-20). Indeed, Yahweh hates Israel's religious practices (vv. 21-23), because the people themselves are full of injustice (v. 24). Their belief wasn’t reflected in their behavior. 6:1-14 False Security in Material Goods and Military SuccessChapter 6 opens with the second woe directed at Israel's leaders (v. 1), who will be among the first to go into exile (v. 7). Their security lies in their great wealth and luxury (vv. 3- 6) and In some minor military conquests.7:1-9 Three Vision Reports: Locusts, Fire, Plumb LineWith these three visions the final series of judgments begins its move toward Israel’s determined end. Note how the first two indicate that what is to come will not be like former plagues (locusts/drought; cf. 4:6-9); Israel's future will be full of "groaning" (NIV, "plumb line") because their destruction is now inevitable and final. Note especially that the king is finally specifically named in 7:9, which is what raises the ire of the king's priest, Amaziah.Key verse: “I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.” – Amos 7:8. Here is the measuring rod for behavior for those who call themselves followers, who have sworn loyalty to my covenant. 7:I0-17 The Encounter with AmaziahThis report is full of interest. Amos is at Bethel, and Amaziah, the king's priest, reports him to the king (vv. 10-11); when Amos is forbidden to prophesy (vv. 12-13), he indicates he is not a prophet by choice, nor does he belong to the prophetic family (vv. 14-15; Then Amaziah (the priest at Bethel) said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.” Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ See Ps. 78:70. Os Guinness wrote, As followers of Jesus we are called to live before one audience, the audience of One. From Abraham on, the life of faith has always been “all at the sound of a voice.” There is only one voice that matters for us—the voice of God, and not the voice of the people or the voice of the times. And certainly not the warm embrace of popularity, the soft whisper of our own desires for comfort, the careful eye to our own reputations, the siren lure of being on the “right side of history,” or the mean faces of the bullying activists and the social media mob. Equally, there is only one judgment that matters, and one word of approval that counts in the end: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”He then uses this encounter to pronounce Yahweh's judgment against Amaziah and his household (vv. 16-17). Thus both the king and the priest are singled out for individual pronouncements of doom.8:1-9:10 Two Vision Reports: The Certainty of Israel's Coming DestructionThese two visions spell out the final doom of Israel. The first (overripe fruit, 8:1-14) especially recapitulates the issues of the Israelites' false religion mingled with injustice (vv. 4-6), in which their temple songs are turned into wailing (v. 3) and their treatment of the poor turned into the ultimate "famine" - the total loss of Yahweh's word in Israel. See Isaiah 3:1-15. Here the prophet spells out the results of the loss of divine guidance. The second (9:1-10) is climactic: Yahweh stands by the altar at Bethel, which crumbles on the heads of the people for their failing to seek good and hate evil (9:5-6), it concludes with the announcement of Israel's total annihilation (vv. 8-10). Israel is no better than her pagan neighbors (v. 7).9:I-15 Hope for the FutureAfter all that has gone before, this word of hope is welcome relief. It comes in two parts, (1) the promised restoration of Jerusalem (vv. 11-12) and(2) the coming of the great messianic age (vv. 13-15), which have found their beginning fulfillment in Jesus Christ.Let’s now turn to the what is the remedy to this destruction and some points of application. SLIDE: The RemedyBUILD - 5:4b – Seek the Lord and live, do not seek Bethel, nor Gilgal, nor Beersheba. Don’t go to your sacred places! “Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps - Amos 5:22-23. NO! Seek the Lord and live! (5:6). “Truth is a person, seek Him. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” – John 14:6.Isaiah’s call to Judah, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. (FOR WHAT PURPOSE?) He will teach us (right belief) his ways, so that we may walk (right behavior) in his paths.” (2:3)That’s a tall order. In the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus said to his followers, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” i.e. if you want to be my follower, you’re going to have to pick up your cross of surrender EVERY DAY, EVERY MOMENT of your life. Verse 66, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” Jesus turns to the twelve, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” (6:67). Peter responds with perhaps the greatest of confessions, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (vv. 68-69).5:14-15…BUILD - Seek good, not evil (as God defines the Good)BUILD - Hate evil, love good. How do we know the difference? In Isaiah’s indictment against Judah, he writes, “woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (5:20) You have no standard by which to know the difference. This is what we’re experiencing in culture today. Steve Turner, the English journalist wrote in 1993, “As I look around at the culture that we have created, this is the creed by which we live: We believe in Marx, Freud, and DarwinWe believe everything is OKas long as you don’t hurt anyoneto the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge..We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.We believe in the therapy of sin.We believe that adultery is fun.We believe that taboos are taboo..We believe that everything’s getting better despite evidence to the contrary.The evidence must be investigatedAnd you can prove anything with evidence..We believe there’s something in horoscopes UFO’s and bent spoons.Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.He was a good moral teacher though we think His good morals were bad..We believe that all religions are basically the same- at least the one that we read were.They all believe in love and goodness.They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation..We believe that after death comes the NothingBecause when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it’s compulsory heaven for all except perhapsHitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn...We believe that man is essentially good.It’s only his behavior that lets him down.This is the fault of society.Society is the fault of conditions.Conditions are the fault of society..We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.Reality will adapt accordingly.The universe will readjust.History will alter.We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth..We believe in the rejection of creeds, And the flowering of individual thought..Postscript: If chance be the Father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky and when you hear: State of Emergency! Sniper Kills Ten! Troops on Rampage! Whites go Looting! It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.Can we live in Eden with each voice determining what is right and what is wrong? “Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules.”BUILD - Maintain justice in the courts, Amos 5:24, But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!See Isa. 1:16-18. The words of the prophet to Judah have a strikingly similar tone…Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! HOW? (1) Seek justice, (2) encourage the oppressed,(3) Defend the cause of the fatherless, (4) plead the case of the widow. Unleashing CompassionThe words of Amos remind us that an authentic love for God manifests itself in genuine concern for people and their well-being. The Apostle John wrote these words, (1 John 3:16-20)We know what real love is form Christ’s example in dying for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for our Christian Brothers. But if someone who is supposed to be a Christian has money enough to live well, and sees a brother in (genuine) need, and refuses to help him - how can God’s love be within him? Let us stop just saying we love people; let us really love them, and show it with our actions. Then we will know for sure, by our actions, that we are on God’s side, and our consciences will be clear, even when we stand before the Lord.How do I know when to help? Here are a few helpful questions to ask:Is the need genuine? It is backed by others whom you trust? Henry ford once said, “The only thing you can give a man without hurting him is an opportunity”Have you prayed about it? How are you sensing the Spirit leading you?Is your spouse in agreement? How must you adjust your budget to meet the need? Where are you willing to sacrifice? Again, is your spouse in agreement? Am I (we) motivated by compassion and gratitude or by quilt?SLIDE: One Final WordBUILD - Isa. 55:10-11(TLB), As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry,?so also is my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it.Let’s be what we were made to be - People of the Promise. Let’s keep this declaration handy. Let’s say it out loud. BUILD - We are building our lives on the promises of God.?Because his Word is unbreakable, our hope is unshakable.?We do not stand on the problems of life or the pain in life.?We stand on the great and precious promises of GodAmen!? ................
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