0:01 Welcome to words of life. In our study through the Bible, we have now come to the book of Amos. And Amos is a person who prophesied to Israel, 0:19 the northern kingdom. And before that in Israel, the prophets Israel had were people like Elijah and Elisha. They did not write down any prophecies. 0:39 They were miracleworking prophets. And Amos started prophesying about 40 years after Elisha finished. And you know it's very interesting that 0:56 if Gazi had not been unfaithful in the area of money, he may have been the next prophet instead of Amos. So Gazi missed that wonderful 1:13 opportunity. The Lord warns us to be careful that no one takes away our crown. There is a crown that God has for you, but you may not get it if you're unfaithful. And here Amos, God gaz his crown. 1:38 Amos was not a prophet. He had no desire to be a prophet. Says in verse one, he was a sheep herder. He was just looking after sheep. 1:54 And just like Elisha was a farmer and the apostles were simple fishermen. See these people did not go into the ministry because they took it as a profession and a job to get a salary. A lot of people in Christian work today 2:18 for them it's a profession just like somebody else is an engineer or a doctor or a nurse. But the Lord's work can never be a job or a profession. To be a prophet is not a profession. 2:39 It's a calling. and Amos says that in chapter 7 verse 14 and 15 when people asked him he says I'm not a prophet he was a prophet called by God what he 2:58 means is he's not a salaried preacher like the others he tells those false prophets I didn't go to Bible schools like you fellas I was just doing my secular job and the Lord called me away from it and told me 3:17 to go and prophesy. Throughout the centuries, God's prophets have always been like that. They don't work for a salary. They don't go through a Bible school. From their secular job, God calls them, 3:36 anoints them. and they're not jobless people. They are not unemployed graduates waiting around for something and who then go and join some Bible college. Throughout scripture, you find the ones 3:56 whom God called were all working people needed to have that experience in order to be able to preach God's word. And that's what's lacking in more than 90% of Christian workers today. Just because 90% of Christian workers do 4:19 it one way doesn't mean it's right. 10 out of the 12 spies said don't go into Canaan. And they were wrong. 50% are usually wrong. 4:38 It's 10% that's usually right. Why did God pick Amos to be the first person to write down a prophetic message? Timewise, he was the first prophet to write down a prophecy. God must have watched him to see if he 5:02 was a man who feared God. faithful in his work. He was not a great Bible scholar or a priest. He looked after sheep and he did it faithfully. And God called him one day and say, 5:21 "You're going to be my servant." God watches you in your everyday life, too. You don't have to be a scholar. You don't have to be a person with great ability. You got to be faithful. 5:39 And he he sees whether you take time to listen to what he has to say to you. Study the scriptures, whether you're faithful in little things. That's how it was with Jesus. He was faithful in little things. for 30 years 5:57 in Nazareth. And one day, God told him to leave the carpenter shop and go and preach. You can be faithful in little things for many, many years and wonder whether God will ever call you, whether he's forgotten about you. 6:16 No, no, no. He hasn't forgotten about you. All of a sudden, one day you'll get a call from God and say, "You're my servant. go forth and speak my word. That is how it was in the Old Testament. That's how it was in the New Testament. 6:34 There are two expressions that we never find in the book of Amos. One is the God of Israel and the Holy One of Israel. Because Amos saw God as the God of all the nations of the world. And one of the things he says to the 6:55 Israelites is this chapter 9 verse 7. Do you Israelites think you're more important to me than the Ethiopians? I brought you out of Egypt, but I've done just as much for other 7:13 nations, too. I brought the Philistines from Cree and I let the Aramian Syrians out of Kir. What's the difference between you and them? The Lord cares for all. The people in Israel didn't like that 7:33 message. God cared for all people. We can say that Amos was a prophet with a new covenant vision. all the people of the world. He believed that God would gather the 7:52 non-Jewish people one day. Like other prophets, he got out of this narrow-minded attitude that many Israelites had. He had a large heart for all the people of the world. It's like many Christian groups today 8:13 who feel we are the only ones whom God has accepted. There is only one way of salvation. There's no doubt about that. Christ said, "I am the way. No one comes to the father but by me." But the ones whom the Lord has chosen 8:32 are not in one particular denomination. When people in one group think we are the only ones God has chosen, that's definitely a cult. The people in Israel were like that and 8:50 Amos criticized that and Jesus criticized it. A servant of God, true servant of God is a large heart that accepts God's people in all groups. when we talk about Babylon, 9:11 don't think that Babylon is in one particular denomination. No, Babylon is a spirit that can be found in people sitting in any denomination. God has got no favorites. 9:29 All those who fear him and reverence him in any nation you will receive them and forgive them in Christ. The other thing we see here is that Amos's illustrations all from his from his simple shepherd life. God used Amos's human personality to 9:55 bring forth the message. God gave us a message pronouncing judgment on the rich people in Israel and on the wives of these rich people who were living in great luxury ignoring the poor people like many other prophets. 10:19 Amos was not a popular prophet at all. See, Amos lived at a time when one of the most wicked kings was ruling over Israel. Jeroboam. You read about him in 2 Kings 14. 10:39 He reigned 41 years and did evil in the sight of the Lord. There were no wars that time. It was a peaceful time in Israel. So when there's no expense on war, the Israelites expanded their businesses. 10:58 They became very very rich like many Christians today in Western countries. They built huge palatial houses and other mansions to go and stay in winter. The rich had a house in the mountains 11:17 which they could use during the summer. house in the plains which they could use in the winter. Their beds were made of ivory and they would sleep and lie down there 11:35 and listen to music and get drunk and enjoy all types of delicate foods. And they were living in gross immorality on top of all this. And they exploited poor people by 11:55 charging high rents. Bri judges in the courts to pass verdicts in their favor. So the poor people as slaves. 12:14 The businessmen, rich businessmen, already had so much money. They eagerly waited for the Sabbath to be over so they go out and start business again. All they thought about was money and their wives were drunkards. 12:33 Nobody cared that the country was being destroyed morally. This is the type of situation today in which communism comes up where rich people exploit the poor. So you see Amos was preaching in a type 12:54 of situation which is very common in many countries today. And just like today the interesting thing is along with all this these people also had a lot of religion. They were not atheists. They were 13:14 religious people who offered their offerings tithes every 3 days twice a week. They had their special meetings, religious festivals, 13:32 songs of praise. But the Lord rejected all of this as just a lot of empty noise. Everything that I said just now, you can read between chapters 2 and chapter six of Amos. I've just given you in a nutshell what's 13:54 written in chapter 2 to chapter six of Amos. It's the same thing today in Christendom. Many rich people, rich preachers live in grand houses which are built with the offerings taken from poor believers. The board members of these churches are 14:17 the rich businessmen. Such rich preachers and rich businessmen don't like anyone who will speak the truth to them. Amos had a very difficult ministry. The poor people may have appreciated but 14:38 all the rich preachers and rich businessmen hated him. In those days there were many salaried preachers too. In chapter 7 verse 10 you read about one of them called Amziah and he was a person who confronted Amos 15:01 frequently. The rich board members of the temple paid a good salary because he would get up every Saturday and preach sermons to keep them happy. He was the one with the Bible school 15:21 degree. And into this place comes this shepherd called Amos who had no degree. And it was as a prophet thundered away against all this sin. And these rich people became furious. 15:44 They said, "This man is preaching wrong doctrine. Get him out of here. Get rid of him. Throw him out. So Amos, Amaziah promptly told Amos, verse 7, 12, and 13, get out and go away to the land of 16:01 Judah. Don't preach around here. You know what happened when you oppose a man of God like that? What happened to Amziah? 16:16 See verse 17, his wife became a harlot. His sons and daughters were killed and he himself died on unclean soil. So you see Amos's message is very relevant for the 16:36 time in which we live. I showed all that to you to show you that the Bible Old Testament prophets are very relevant to our time. First of all, Amos pronounced judgment 16:55 in chapter one and two on many foreign countries against Damascus, Gaza, Edom, Ammon, chapter 2, verse one, Moab. 17:15 And as long as he was preaching against all these countries, The Israelites must have been delighted and said, "Praise the Lord. Amen." But then after that, he turned to Judah in chapter 2:4. Israel chapter 2:6. 17:43 Then the people stopped saying amen because now he was preaching to them. You know, we all like preachers who will tell us what's wrong with the worldly people or what's wrong with people in other denominations. That's fine. There are a lot of things 18:06 wrong in the world and in other denominations. But the mark of a house of God is that we judge ourselves. And a true prophet will tell you what's wrong with you. And Amos uses an expression for three 18:28 transgressions and four. Chapter 1:3 for three transgressions and four which he uses very frequently. What he means is the Lord saying, "I've let you off a number of times. 18:48 I've forgiven you, but I'm not going to do that anymore. You've taken advantage of my goodness. Now I have to punish you." Some of the sins these people committed were this. They treated poor people very badly. 19:07 That's a very common sin among many Christians. It says they threshed the people like grain in Amos 1 and verse three. They threshed the poor people 19:30 as if it's as if they are grain. They broke the covenant of brotherhood. And they whenever there are a sin where we treat other people badly is very serious in God's eyes. And whenever we are hard on others, God 19:53 is very hard on us. You know, we we may think alcoholism, getting on high on drugs is sin. It's true. But worse than that is sins that hurt other people. 20:12 And those are the sins God is speaking about here. In chapters 3 to six, the Lord tells Israel why they are being judged. He says in verse three, "Can two people walk together if they are not agreed? If you're not in agreement with me on 20:33 holiness, God says, how can I walk with you? And he says, "The Lord, verse seven, does nothing without first revealing a secret counsel to the prophets." Before he judges, he warns us through 20:51 the prophets so that we get a chance to repent. It's like Noah, he preached for 120 years to get people to repent. And many times in Israel, we do the same thing. 21:11 And Amos says in verse 8, "A lion has roared. We should fear." How much more if the Lord God has spoken to us in chapter 3:10. It's amazing. God's people had sinned so much that he says they have forgotten to 21:31 know how to do the right thing. You know, you can sin so much that your conscience doesn't even bother of you about what you're doing. In chapter 4, it says, "Hear this word, you cows of 21:50 Bashan." That's referring to the women, to the women, the wives of these rich businessmen who were always asking their husbands to get them one more drink. Verse one, and he warns them that God is going to 22:14 punish them. He says, "You go from one town to another town and you keep on multiplying transgression." Verse four, at the same time. Verse four, you sacrifice every morning and bring your 22:34 tithes every three days. How many people bring their tithes every three days? A lot of people think if somebody does that God will be very happy. The pastor is happy. God is not. 22:56 God is interested in holiness. God's not a beggar who wants your money. A lot of preachers are beggars who want your money, but not God. What the Lord is saying is don't go to all these places Bethl Gilgal and keep 23:14 on sinning. You know a lot of people glory in the fact that we are associated with so and so great man of God. In that so- and so year in the past he founded our church. See Bethl, Gilgal, Beersa all mentioned 23:36 in chapter 5 verse 5. These are all places if you read Old Testament history, great things happened there. And that's what a lot of people glory in today. Yeah. 200 years ago, man of God founded 23:54 our church. What's the use? What's the condition of your church today? He says here, you have turned justice into wormwood. Verse seven, and cast righteousness down on the earth. You despise, verse 10, those who speak 24:16 the truth. You trample the poor. You charge high interest. You live in beautiful stone houses. Verse 11. But your sins are so many and so great. 24:33 Verse 12. I hate all your hypocrisy of pretending to honor me with your feasts and assemblies. I'm not going to I'm not going to accept your offerings. 24:52 Verse 21 to 24 of chapter 5. I will not even listen to your music. It says in verse 23, "What's the use of all that beautiful music?" If there's sin in your life, many people think if there's good music, 25:11 God is very happy. It's not at all true. So, let's take these words of him seriously and respond in repentance for our sin. Amen. Amen. 25:29 Welcome once again to words of life. We are studying through the Bible book by book and we are now in the book of Amos. And in our last study we saw how Amos was speaking to 25:47 a nation of Israel which was in a very similar state to a lot of churches today. And the Lord spoke to Israel through Amos, saying, "I've chasened you in number of ways, but you don't seem to 26:05 listen to me. You bring your sacrifices and your tithes, and you continue to live in sin." See for example chapter 4 6 to 11. He says I don't care for all your 26:27 offerings. I tried to chasen you. I brought hunger to one city, famine to another, but you won't listen to me. I sent a dry spell into your fields and you didn't get rain. Your crops were 26:49 ruined. Rain fell in somebody else's field, but not in yours. But you didn't take that seriously. People staggered here and there for a drink of water. You wouldn't return to me. 27:09 I struck your farms and your vineyards. So there was no fruit, sent plagues into your midst and destroyed some of your cities, but you still wouldn't come. Now there's only one solution. 27:30 Verse 12. Prepare to meet your God, O Israel. See, we use that verse sometimes to preach the gospel to unbelievers. Frighten them. Prepare to meet your God. 27:49 Do you know that verse is actually spoken to God's people? Is it God's people? He's saying, you're living in sin and loving this world. You're claiming to be my child and dishonoring my name. I tried my best to show you through your 28:09 failures and through the chastening I sent that I'm not happy with you. But you don't repent. Well, there's only one solution then. God's people prepare to meet your God as 28:28 your judge now, not as your father. So there's a call to repentance with all the prophets. And he says, "Woe to those chapter 6 28:43 verse one who are at ease in Zion and who are not concerned verse six last part over the ruin of Joseph." They just sit back and listen to all the 29:00 songs in verse five and six. The Lord is quite sarcastic there. He says, "You people think that you're as good musicians as David was. You composed so many songs." 29:20 But the Lord says, "I'm not interested in your music. You live in your comfortable homes, good music, good food, but you're not concerned about the sad state of the church. You know today many people are taken up 29:41 with good Christian music that the power of music has replaced the power of the Holy Spirit in many many Christian churches. They spend hours practicing and their 30:02 choir practice and very little time in fasting and prayer. They are more interested in perfecting their music than perfecting their life. That's the spirit of the world in the 30:25 world. They're not interested in perfecting their life. The worldly musicians spend hours perfecting their music. You got to be careful there. So many new songs you compose. He says wonderful songs. You think the Lord is 30:49 impressed with all that? Be deceived. 95% of God's people are being deceived. They think God's very happy with them because their music is very good because they've got grand church 31:07 buildings. Hundreds and thousands of people come to their meetings. God is concerned about if there's sin in the camp. God says, "I despise this false pride, the false glory of Israel." the pride 31:27 and the false glory of Israel. Chapter 6 verse 8. And I hate their beautiful homes. In chapter 7 to chapter nine, 31:46 God gave Amos five visions of Israel being judged. And then five promises of Israel's restoration. The first vision 32:05 in uh 7 verse 1-6 was of a great locust swarm and a fire coming to judge Israel. And immediately Amos began to pray, "Oh God, please don't let this happen. Please pardon. 32:27 How can Jacob stand? He's so small. And God listened to Amos and gave up his plans to judge Israel twice. Amos was like Moses there. So this shows the tremendous power there 32:46 is when a righteous man prays. Amos's prayer here would take about 10 seconds. It's not praying for 10 hours. 10 seconds is enough if you're a righteous man. We think God will listen if you pray for 33:07 10 hours. You can pray for a thousand hours and God may not won't listen if there's sin in your life. there's if you're free from sin, 10 seconds is enough. I'm not saying that we shouldn't spend 33:26 time with God. We don't need to pray so much. We need to listen a lot more. And so that's the first vision he saw here. And then the Lord gave Amos a vision in 33:45 verse seven onwards of a verse 8 of a plum line. And there Amos was God was testing whether Israel is straightforward, honest and upright. And if we are honest about our sins, 34:08 then there's hope for us. The plum line is not testing whether we are perfect then nobody's wall is straight but it's testing whether we are honest where you have failed you say Lord I 34:27 failed and then in verse 7 10-1 17 we see Amos's confrontation with that salaried preacher You know, these false prophets are quick 34:45 to spread lies about the true prophets of God. Especially those who are seeking money and honor, they will spread lies saying this man is preaching false doctrine and if you listen to him, you'll lead to 35:06 confusion in your church. So, a lot of people listen to these false prophets and turn away from a message that could have brought deliverance to them in their church. That happened in Amos's time. 35:24 And it's happened in all the 2,000 years of church history. Amos, you came from Judah. Go back there. go back to Judah and earn money through your preaching there. That's what he said in verse 12 because he thought everybody's preaching 35:47 to make money. Go back to Judah, do your prophesying there and earn your bread like that. And Amos says, "Listen, I'm not preaching for bread. I was already earning my bread as a 36:09 herdsman. Verse 14, and a grower of sycamore figs. I didn't have to start preaching to earn my money. I didn't come here to earn my living or to make money as a prophet. You say, "You're like that. If you 36:30 oppose me, God will judge you. And God judged him and his family. When we oppose God's servants, even our family cannot be can suffer. It's a dangerous thing to fight against the true prophets of God. And then the Lord gave Amos a vision of 36:52 ripe fruit in chapter 8 verse one. And this was to show that Israel has become ripe for judgment. Because all the merchants were out to make money, cheating each other with weighted 37:12 scales, making slaves of the poor, selling them for a pair of shoes. Verse six, imagine selling a man for a pair of shoes. You think the Lord will not judge people 37:35 who take advantage of poor people like this? And then the Amos says these words which are true of our day. Amos 8 11 and 12. There'll be a great famine of hearing 37:53 the words of the Lord in the last days. People will stagger here and there looking for the word of the Lord and they won't find it. See the word of the Lord is different from the word of God. The word of God is the Bible. 38:15 There won't be any shortage of this. The Bible society distributes millions of Bibles every year. Bible. The Bible is still the bestselling book in the world. Shortage of the word of God. 38:34 But the word of the Lord is the prophetic word that a prophet speaks. God speaks according to the need of the hour through the mouth of a prophet. That's what he says will be rare in the last days. 38:53 people will go to this conference and to that conference the special meeting and the other speaker they won't hear a prophetic word they won't hear a word that leads them to holiness hear words as to how to get better cars 39:15 and houses and money and etc things like that they will go to places where the music is grand, but the word of the Lord will be rare. So, I want to say something to you. 39:34 We're living in those days. So, when you get a chance to hear the prophetic word, pay attention, listen to it, take it seriously, and share it with others. That way, you can spread the prophetic word to other people. It says in uh when God judges Israel 40:00 the even a small grain will not fall away. Not one true kernel will be lost. God will take care of even the smallest kernel. Amos 9:9. 40:23 That's a very comforting word. God will not ignore the smallest little believer. Those who genuinely fear him. Not a colonel will fall to the ground. 40:41 If it's shaken like in a sie and all the persecution and opposition, everyone who fears God will be saved. And then the Lord says, in that day, verse 11, I will raise up the fallen 40:59 tabernacle of David. This is the verse that James quotes in Acts 15 verse 16 and 17. saying that the Lord will rebuild will build the church and the church is in a ruined state in 41:18 many places. The Lord will rebuild it. And then we see in chapter 9 verse 13, a wonderful promise. The plow man will overtake the reaper. What does that mean? 41:38 That means all the years that we lost through failure and disobedience in our life and because of which we are reaping so many sorrowful things. The time will come when this reaping 41:59 will stop that the new things you're sowing will overtake what you're reaping. Isn't that a wonderful promise? For example, supposing you spent years 42:16 looking at dirty sexual pictures. Your mind is full of filthy dreams. Even though you're born again and forgiven, year after year after year, you're reaping the consequences of what you've 42:32 done in the past. reaping, reaping, reaping, reaping continuously because of the past failures that now you're also sowing God's word into your mind. What will happen, a time will come 42:54 when you will stop seeing all those dirty dreams and you will start seeing dreams concerning God's word and spiritual things. You know the ser has overtaken the reaper. So don't get discouraged. 43:15 It has many other applications too. Everything you reap will come to an end. The new things you have swed you'll get the benefit of that. And now we come to the book of Obadiah. 43:33 Obadiah was a prophet who just wrote a very little book. Just one chapter. Why did he write such a small book? Of course, the reason is God gave him very little to write. But the interesting thing is that 43:52 Obadiah was sensitive enough to know when to stop writing. He didn't say, "Oh, well, most prophets write about eight, nine pages. I can't write just one page." You know, I wish people who shared in 44:11 the meeting would have that sensitivity. I mean, if Jeremiah can write 52 chapters, that doesn't mean Obad should write 52 chapters. That's crazy. 44:28 God may give one man grace to speak for 52 minutes. He may give Obadiah grace to speak only for one minute. God has given you only one or two minutes to speak. You must be sensitive to know that and sit down when you're 44:44 finished. Many people don't have that sensitivity that Obadiah had. He wrote 21 verses. And he said, "Well, sorry. The Lord hasn't is not saying anything more to me." 45:04 Okay, sign finished. That's the end of my prophecy. What a man. I really respect him. I went over hundreds of brothers like this. When to stop and what is he speaking about? He's 45:21 speaking about the judgment of Edom. See, Obadiah preached around the same time as Jeremiah was preaching. That could have been another reason why he wrote a short letter because Jeremiah had already been 45:39 preaching for 30 years. And I think there is a humility in Oadiah. Let me let these godly Jeremiah speak and let me just add a little bit. You don't find many brothers like that. 45:57 Recognize the grace given to some godly brother who can speak at length. It doesn't mean you got nothing to say. You may be a prophet like Obadiah. 46:13 You may have only two minutes to share. Then sit down. Don't spoil a meeting by carrying on writing 50 chapters when God's given you only one chapter. If you learn that one thing from 46:30 Obadiah, he has done a good job for us. He spoke against Edom which is a picture of the flesh. The flesh is always trying to exalt itself. Verse three, the arrogance of your heart has deceived you. You live in the cliffs 46:49 of the rocks, in the loftiness of your dwelling place, and you say, "Who will bring me down to the earth?" But the Lord says, "I'll bring you down. And every little nook and cranny, every 47:06 little corner will all be exposed. Everything will be exposed." Verse six, be ransacked. All the hidden treasures will be searched out. I praise God that every little thing that the flesh does is all going to be 47:23 exposed in our lives. And it's all going to be cleansed. It says in verse 10 11 that when your brother Jacob was being troubled, you didn't lift one finger to help him. See, there are sins of commission and 47:45 sins of omission. Yeah, they didn't do anything. They just did nothing. They saw the Levite and the priest. They saw the man beaten on the roadside. They didn't kick him. 48:04 They didn't do any sin to him. The same was omission. They didn't help him. In our flesh, there are two types of sins. Things we do things we don't do which we should have done. Very often we think only of the things 48:23 we have done. We need to get light on the things we should have done which we didn't do. The other thing is they were very happy when their brothers were captured. Verse 12. Do you rejoice when somebody else is 48:43 suffering? That is evil. That's of the devil. Finally, the Lord spoke speaks here about the day when the remnant will come back and Israel will be restored. It concludes in verse 21 with saying the 49:03 kingdom will be the Lord's. The main sin Obadai speaks about is pride. pride of your heart has deceived you. Verse three, we get deceived when we are proud. 49:24 The moment you become proud, proud of your good looks or proud of anything. You realize it, but you're opening yourself up to deception. It's more dangerous than adultery. Adultery is obvious. Everybody you can 49:42 see it, everybody can see it. But pride is the main sin of Edom, the flesh. And if we are determined to have the kingdom as the Lord's in our life, then every nook and cranny, every little 50:01 corner of the pride will be removed from our lives. So, Obadiah speaks about pride and its consequences. And as I said, he has taught us how to stop speaking when God has nothing more 50:18 to say through us. May God help us to learn these lessons. God bless you. Amen.
