Amos 1:3-2:3 The Fourth Transgression

“For three transgressions … and for four”

This poetic formula is repeated eight times to preface the announcement of ensuing judgment. Amos employs a common poetic technique used often in Biblical literature called ascending enumeration or x/x+1 parallelism (see Psalm 62:12, Proverbs 6:19, Micah 5:4 for other examples). This is not to be taken mathematically, but idiomatically – that is, the cities indicted by Amos have not merely sinned three or four times, but transgressions have mounted up upon transgression.

 

God is patient, in fact more so than any man. He does not judge haphazardly based upon emotion; He is very calculated as He distributes wrath upon those He finds guilty. He watches over the career of man’s sinfulness. After the first evil He rebukes; the second time He threatens; the third time He raises His hand to smite; but then upon the proverbial fourth transgression – He smites! Though God may bare long with wickedness, He will not be mocked. In Amos’ day, the nations, as well as Judah and Israel have all crossed the line, exhausting the patience of a longsuffering God, and as a result He judges in His wrath, and chastises in His mercy.

 

The fourth transgression is the outward sign of the desperately wicked heart of man. When human values get cut loose from a solid foundation upon God and His Word, and become based upon the free choice of each person, it is not hard to predict what will happen. Soon the thoughts and attitudes that motivate people will be based on what is important to them at the moment; the inevitable result being that man will value himself over others, pleasure over work, spending instead of saving, and freedom to do his own thing in place of commitment. The sin that runs like a sinister thread throughout the transgressions of these six nations in Amos 1:3-2:3 is that of living for self. We find the self trampling on others, intent on its own profit, ignoring obligations, indulging in secret pleasure, and callous and indifferent to the need of humanity around them. The outcome of such selfishness today is manifested in famine, disease, immorality, poverty, terrorism and oppression.

 

How are we going to react to international atrocities in our day? Will we process them as merely, more bad news about our troubled planet, and then go back to eating our dinner? Or will we attempt to defend people created in the image of God, and therefore worthy of dignity, as well as our respect, compassion and aid? Isaiah 58:6-7 calls upon the people of God to loose the bonds of wickedness, undo heavy burdens, free the oppressed, break yokes, feed the hungry, house the poor, and clothe the naked. James 1:27 calls it pure religion to visit orphans and widows in their trouble. God manifests a peculiar care for the poor, defenseless and deprived. Do you?

 

There are several venues to which Amos’ indictment of the nations apply in today’s international society, but one need look no further than the holocaust of unborn babies in our own nation to find the same hideous evil doing described by Amos. Every individual is created in the image of God, and it is the responsibility of the church to uphold the sanctity of all human life, in particular the most defenseless of human life. While our legal system greatly hampers our efforts to protect them, one way that we can take positive action in their defense by supporting the efforts of pregnancy centers that save lives.

 

Again this week consider how you can be practical ‘salt and light’ in making an effort to defend the defenseless people for whom God is concerned.

Amos 1:3-2:3 A Cyclone of Nations

After announcing a general warning against Israel in chapter 1, verse 2, Amos’ turns to announce the first six prophetic oracles against the Gentile nations that surround Israel. Like a whirlwind or a cyclone, Amos accuses one nation after the next until by chapter 2 his indictment zeroes in on Judah and Israel, which is in the ‘eye of the storm’ of his prophecy.

 

There are a number of important theological doctrines contained in these opening paragraphs of the prophecy of Amos to the nations. Not the least of which is monotheism (the Lord is One). Of course this idea is hated and even mocked in a world that embraces the many ways which are supposed to lead to heaven. But Scripture announces most vigorously, that there is but one living and true God and that all peoples are subject to Him and will stand before His righteous judgment throne. God is sovereign over all, including the heathen nations, even calling for their worship (Ps 100:1, 117:1). Further, Amos teaches the equal depravity of all men, lumping the nations and the people of God together under sin and guilt before this holy God in very much in the same way as Paul does in the first three chapters of his epistle to the Romans, coming to the conclusion that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Further still, Amos announces that the sins of these nations are sins for which they should know themselves guilty. So we have here a study in doctrine of conscience. The Bible makes it clear that the moral law of God is written on the heart of every man, so he knows, at least in general, the obligation he bears to God and to his fellow man (see Rom. 2:11-16). Paul even says that though the people of the world know God’s righteous judgments and know that those who rebel against them deserve punishment, they nevertheless continue to transgress (Rom. 1:19-32).

 

But why should the Christian pay attention to the transgression of the world? After all, should we not expect the pagan to act like a pagan? Why should we spend any of our Lord’s Days buried in Amos’ relentless exposure of the sins of the unrepentant heathen? Would it not be better for us to consider happier themes? After all, we have confessed our sin and been granted forgiveness through Jesus Christ. As important as it is for Christians to move on from their sin and to live out their forgiveness, the Bible spends much of its time and space indicating that God is concerned with the welfare of nations. Psa 145:9 reminds us that the Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. In this age of individualism, we too often narrowly think of Christianity as it relates to personal faith, piety and ethics, but Amos reveals that God has genuine care that nations not commit atrocities, not persecute God’s people, not break treaties, and not even desecrate the bones of a heathen king. Men are created in the image of God, and although that image is defaced, it nevertheless exists after the fall. And on the basis of this, Christians must take care to love our neighbor as ourselves, by taking a genuine interest in and action against national atrocities against man, as he is created in the image of God. It is the church’s prophetic task to declare the mind of God as revealed in Scripture on social, national, and international issues. This is not a ‘social gospel,’ but rather the social and ethical fruit of the gospel.

 

Think about what social issues afford the church its greatest challenge in our day; find God’s outlook on the matter from Scripture; and consider how you can be practical ‘salt and light’ in working to support a people for whom God is concerned and how you might stir up others to do the same.

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Galatians 1:3-5 The Evil Age

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

John Stott has said that if the nature of Christ’s death on the cross was “for our sins,” its object was to rescue us out of this present age of wickedness. J. B. Lightfoot writes that this verb meaning deliver or rescue, “strikes the keynote of the epistle.” “The Gospel is a rescue,” he adds, “an emancipation from a state of bondage.” Christianity is, in fact, a rescue religion. The Greek verb in this verse is a strong one: exaireo, in the middle voice. It is used in the book of Acts when speaking of the rescue of the Israelites from their Egyptian slavery (7:34), of the rescue of Peter both from prison and from the hand of Herod the king (12:11), and of the rescue of Paul from an infuriated mob about to lynch him (23:27). This verse in Galatians is the only place where it is used metaphorically of salvation.

Christ died to rescue us; but from what does His death rescue us? We cannot say that He rescues us out of this present evil world, for God’s purpose is not to take us out of the world, but that we should stay in it and be both, “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth.” But Christ died to rescue us, “out of this present age of wickedness.” The Bible divides history into two ages: “this age” and “the age to come.” It tells us, moreover that, “the age to come” has come already, because Christ inaugurated it, although the present age has not yet finally passed away. So the two ages are running their parallel courses – they overlap one another. Christian conversion means being rescued from the old age and being transferred into the new age, the “age to come.” Yet the Christian life is actually living the life of the age to come, in this age. The purpose of Christ’s death, therefore, was not only to bring us forgiveness, but that having been forgiven, we should live a new life, the life of the age to come. This week write down various things you can do to become salt and light to those around you in this present age.

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Amos 1:2 The Lion’s Roar

“The LORD roars from Zion, and utters His voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Carmel withers.”

A roaring lion; can there be a more spine-chilling sound and image? It paints a savage even vicious picture; yet this is exactly the portrait of God which Amos chooses to open his book. Is God a lion? Does He roar? The lion’s roar points forward to imminent destruction and death; can we imagine that such is true of the acts of God?

Certainly if you were to ask many in the church today, they would say, “Never! For God is a God of love and mercy.” But if this be so, then of what value is Amos’ prophecy today? And if it is not profitable, then should we not toss it out of the canon of Scripture. Absurd you say, but that is exactly what many do as they ignore the attributes of God’s holiness, righteousness and wrath. In ignoring the Scriptures that portray God as a roaring lion, the modern church has created a quasi-god which is nothing more than an idol they have created according to their own likes and dislikes. The book of Amos roars with chilling reality to our western 21^st century Christian church. It roars against our privileged, affluent, religious hypocrisy.

At the same time, it is interesting that Amos invokes the covenant name of God – Yahweh – a name that cannot be separated from its Exodus context. In the exodus of Israel from Egypt, God acted in a saving as well as judging capacity. The anti-type of the exodus is clearly revealed, on the one hand, in the mercy of Jesus Christ as portrayed to us in the picture of a slain lamb, but also as the lion of the tribe of Judah; His cross being the place of meeting of mercy and wrath. The true Christian can rejoice in the truth that the Savior’s obedience and blood hide all of his transgressions from God’s view. At the same time, it is important that we realize that He remains a wrathful sin-hating God toward the world; and this is never more true than when He sees sin defiling the people called by His name. Amos reminds us of this. We will find as our study unfolds, how in a single act, God judges the unbelieving and hypocrite among His people, while chastening His own children.

The more we understand of the unity and fullness of the attributes of our God, the more we are struck with awe at His holy nature. The thrice holy God is also a Redeemer – a Savior of sinners and lover of souls. We can only but respond to such a grand Being, by living before Him with holy reverence and humility, and to be continually before His throne of grace and mercy with a penitent spirit, making full use of His means of pardon and grace. As the apostle John put it, My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 Jo 2:1).

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Amos 1:1 ‘Not So Famous’ Amos

The words of Amos, who was among the sheepbreeders of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

 

The book containing the prophecy of God through Amos is one of the twelve books commonly called the “minor prophets,” called so, not because of the relative significance of their content, but rather their length as compared to the four longer writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

 

Amos was a native of Tekoa, a small village about ten miles south of Jerusalem in Judah. This area is described as a wilderness (2 Chr 20:20), so we can deduce that Amos learned to endure hardness in his work tending sheep and dressing sycamore trees. Amos had no formal training in any “prophetic school,” where he could be equipped for what he was called by God to prophecy, nor had he assumed that this was his calling (Amos 7:14). Yet, during the reign of Jeroboam II (786-746 B.C.) in Israel, God called this simple shepherd, to leave his home in Judah to prophecy to the northern kingdom of Israel, which stood at the zenith of its power and material prosperity. In obedience to the summons, Amos set out for Bethel, the chief seat of idol worship in the north. His message was one of divine judgment upon the covenant people of God who strayed from His commandments. This was no easy task: Amos was a Southerner ministering in the North, a countryman facing the nobility and sophistication of a professional priesthood, a prophet a doom in an age of comfort and secure materialism.

 

While untrained, Amos was not unskilled; his prophecy reveals a deep understanding of the times in which he lived as well as an accomplished understanding of the Law. Amos not only knew the Word of God, but also knew how to interpret it to supply an answer to the covenant people of God in an apostate age. So in Amos we find a man prepared, equipped, disciplined and enabled by God. The call of God is always based on exact knowledge and the sufficiency of His power to equip. How confident we can be as we face the wise and noble of this world, knowing that God does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called (2 Cor 3:5-6). Amos provides us with a reminder that God chooses to exalt the humble; that not many wise men after the flesh are called; that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, that no flesh should glory in His presence (1 Cor 1:25-31).

 

Look up Ex 3:1-2, Judg 6:11-12, I Kings 19:19, Mark 1:16. Take note of how the call of God comes to these men as they diligently labor in their present task.

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