Be Concerned - Amos - Three Visions

Amos 3-6, he preached three sermons. He was looking within the hearts of the people, and he closes with a funeral dirge telling us that Samaria, Israel is going to fall.

Now beginning at Amos 7 through the end of the book, Amos 9, the prophet looks ahead and he shares five visions. First he sees some locusts and then fire or drought in the land, and then he sees God standing on a wall, holding to a plumb line and measuring whether or not the wall is straight.

In Amos 8 he has a vision of summer fruit. The nation is ripening for judgment. In Amos 9 he sees the Lord standing by the altar and he's going to shake everything and the nation is going to go into captivity, but the book ends with a promise, a note of promise that there will be a time when God will rebuild the tabernacle of David.

Amos 7 really divides itself into two parts. In fact, the easiest way to study it would be to notice that there are two struggles in the life and ministry of Amos. I said it's not easy to be a prophet and it isn't because you struggle. Amos was a patriotic man. He longed to see his people living for God and serving God and doing what God wanted them to do and his heart was broken. And in Amos 7:1-9, he struggles with God.

Now if that sounds like a strange statement to you, let me explain it. God is giving to Amos visions of the future. He sees locusts coming to devour the land and he cries out and says, "Lord, forgive them. Don't let this happen."

Then he shows fire, a drought that comes and things are so dry that a least little fire starts a great forest fire of damage and dust and dirt and and destruction. And he cries out and says, "Oh, Lord God, cease." And then he shows him the plumb line and he says, "I'm about to knock down this wall. There's going to be judgment."

Now that's not easy. You say, oh, I want to understand the word of God better. I do too, but the more I understand the word of God, the more concerned I become about what's happening in the church and in our world today. Someone says ignorance is bliss. Well, maybe it is on a certain level, but I tell you the more you know about God and the word of God and the God of the word, the more concerned you become. You feel the weight of it.

And Amos was feeling the weight of this. He did not want the people to be destroyed. Nobody in his right mind would want to say, okay, Lord, go to it just take them off and slaughter the children and kill the women.

Amos was interceding for the people. He struggles with God in Amos 7:1-9. God gives him three visions. Now these are three visions of judgment. Amos loved his people. He was from Judah. They were in Israel, but that didn't make any difference. They were all descendants of Abraham. And he loved his people.

True patriotism does not mean we close our eyes to the truth. A true patriot loves his nation and loves God and wants his nation to love God. Wants his nation to be true to the word of God. A true patriot is burdened with anguish when he or she sees the things that are going on, the corruption and the sin and the violence.

Now in the first vision, he shows him locusts being formed for judgment. Thus the Lord God showed me, behold, he formed, that is he was in the process of preparing, locust swarms at the beginning of the late crop. Indeed it was the late crop after the king's mowings. They had mowed down the crop for the king to pay their taxes and now they were going to wait for the second crop to come in just before that terribly hot summer season. So if the locusts came along and destroyed that second crop, they'd have nothing to eat.

Now just think about that, famine coming to the land. Would you want that to happen where you live? I think you and I would do exactly what Amos did. Indeed it was the late crop after the king's mowings and so it was when they had finished eating the grass of the land that I said, "Oh, Lord God, forgive, I pray."

Now here he joins the ranks of the intercessors. A preacher had better know how to pray. Amos was not just a proclaimer of the word of God. He was a man of prayer and intercessor. He joined the ranks of Abraham who interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah. Some of us might not have wanted to intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah. Those were wicked cities. We probably would have said, Lord, I rejoice to hear that all these cities are going to be destroyed and all these lost souls who have been so wicked are going to go to hell.

Abraham didn't have that attitude. Abraham said, "Lord, if you find even 10 righteous people there, will you spare the city?" Why did Abraham want to spare the city? Because he enjoyed their sin? Of course not. He wanted to see them come and trust the Lord. Abraham had rescued those people. Abraham had risked his life to rescue them in a war and they knew Abraham and they knew that Abraham believed in God and Abraham wanted one more opportunity to witness to those people. Lot wasn't doing a very good job of it.

Moses was an intercessor. When you intercede, you're in good company. God said, I'm going to destroy Israel and Moses said, "Lord, forgive them. Don't do it, please. If you have to, take my life, but don't destroy them."

Samuel was an intercessor. "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you." Elijah was an intercessor. Paul was an intercessor. "My heart's desire and cry, prayer to God for Israel that they might be saved." Our Lord Jesus was an intercessor.

Now, Amos did not say, "Well, Lord, they deserve it. Go ahead, wipe it out." He was thinking of starving children and starving women. Well, do they deserve God's blessing? No. Do you deserve God's blessing? God lets his rain fall upon the just and the unjust. He sends his sunshine on the wicked and the righteous. Let God take care of that. That's his business.

"Oh that Jacob may stand for he is small." In other words, how can Jacob stand? How can Jacob rise up? He'll never recover from this. So the Lord relented concerning this. "It shall not be," said the Lord. So it didn't happen. God did not send the locusts.

Now, God is going to send judgment upon lost sinners. And our job is to tell them about the Lord Jesus. Are you happy because people are lost and they're going to go to hell? You have friends and neighbors, maybe relatives who make life miserable for you and quietly you say to yourself, "That's all right. Their day is coming."

Now, that's not the right attitude to have. It's one thing to be angry at sin and quite something else to have anguish in your heart because people do sin. What's the difference between anger and anguish? Love. Amos loved these people even though they were wicked, even though they were sinful.

Amos didn't apologize for praying. Amos didn't apologize for preaching. When God said to Amos, I'm sending a famine on the land. Amos didn't say, "Well, Lord, that's your will, so I'll just sit back and do nothing, take care of my sheep." No, he said, "You go and tell them." "I'm going to destroy Nineveh. Jonah, go do something about it. Go into all the world and preach the gospel." I feel sorry for any Christian who has that kind of a fatalistic attitude toward the will of God.

You're saying Amos was wrong. He interceded. He prayed and said, "Oh that Jacob may stand." And God relented. That doesn't mean that God changes. God is always God. It means that God changed his mind and his purpose in the matter. That's what prayer is all about.

If God is going to do what he's going to do without our help, then why pray? Why witness? Just sit back and enjoy life. That's the whole problem in Israel. They were sitting back and enjoying life and doing nothing.

Now I gives them the vision of the drought. Thus the Lord God showed me, behold, the Lord God called for conflict by fire. The word conflict means trial. Trial by fire. And it consumed the great deep and devoured the territory. There was a terrible drought so bad that it went down under the earth and dried up the springs. And this is what God did to Israel. Then I said, "Oh, Lord God, cease, I pray."

He didn't say, well, if this is God's will and this is God's way, let it go ahead. No, no. He prayed, "Oh, Lord God, cease, I pray. Oh that Jacob may stand for he is small." So the Lord relented concerning this. "This also shall not be," said the Lord God. You notice in the first vision he prayed, forgive. He didn't pray forgive in the second vision. He just prayed, Lord, cease.

Now there's a third vision here. You see, Amos is concerned that the sovereign God perform his will, but he's also concerned that he, Amos, be a faithful servant of the Lord. A faithful servant of God has a burden for the lost. A faithful servant of God loves people. A faithful servant of God intercedes.

You know if God came to us and said that someone we loved very much was going to have an automobile accident, wouldn't we pray about it? We'd say, "Now, Lord, you know what is best, but oh, if it's your will, we pray that you'll spare his life." That's all Amos was doing.

Don't get so caught up in divine sovereignty that you forget human responsibility. Why did Amos preach the word? That they might respond to the word. Why did he warn them a famine was coming? That they might do something about it. Alas, they didn't. But Amos at least had the joy of knowing he had obeyed the will of God.

The third vision is the vision of the plumb line. Amos 7:7. Thus he showed me, behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. I don't know what that looks like, God standing on a wall. The Hebrew says he stationed himself upon the wall. And the Lord said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line."

Now a plumb line is a long cord with a heavy weight on the end and you hold it next to a building to make sure the wall is straight. It's perpendicular. It's not crooked. It's not leaning over because if it was leaning over, it can't hold anything. It's going to fall. "Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel." This is the first time you find the phrase "my people" in the book of Amos. You'll find it at least five times, "my people Israel," my covenant people.

Now this plumb line is mentioned several times in scripture. God uses a plumb line to measure. God has standards. God says there are some things that are right and there are some things that are wrong. And Isaiah 28:17, for example. "Also, I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plummet." God is about to judge his people. He says, I am going to judge them by my righteous law, by my righteous word.

After God had sent judgment to Judah and the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. This is what Jeremiah the prophet wrote, Lamentations 2:8. "The Lord has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line. He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying. Therefore he has caused the rampart and wall to lament. They languished together."

God came with the plumb line, measured the wall and said, this wall is crooked. This wall is leaning. This wall is not straight. I have to destroy it. The builder uses the plumb line to make sure he's building straight. The destroyer uses the plumb line to make sure that what he's destroying is not straight.

Now we don't believe in plumb lines today. People say, "Well, now that's your opinion." "Well, now that's the way you interpret it." "Well, now there are many roads that go to New York and don't say your way is the only way." We hear about that.

A student said to me one day in Chicago, there are no absolutes and I said, "Does that include the statement you just made?" Because the statement you just made is an absolute. And if there are no absolutes, then the statement you made is not an absolute and it's not true. And he just looked at me and walked away.

There are absolutes. There are some things that are right and there are some things that are wrong. And God has his plummet line and God comes down to the church. Revelation 2-3 with his plummet line and he measures the church. You know, we're so concerned that when we build a building, the walls are straight. What about the building of the church, the people, are the walls straight? Take the commandments of God and measure.

And you'll notice here that Amos does not intercede at this point. He intercedes the first two visions. At this point, he does not intercede. Why? "I will not pass by them anymore."

Now he knows definitely that God is going to send the judgment. Pass by means overlook sin. All these years God had been passing by the people of Israel, overlooking their sin. That didn't mean that he agreed with their sin. No, it's just that he patiently waited that they might respond to his word.

And he says, "The high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste." Bethel and Beersheba and Gilgal, all of these places with their lovely buildings and their expensive furniture. It's all going to be laid waste. "I will rise with the sword against the house of Jeroboam."

Jeroboam the Second was the king of Israel. He died a natural death. His son was assassinated. The house of Jeroboam did feel the sword because Assyria came down and the dynasty was wiped out and the nation was wiped out just as God said.

Well, Amos has been wrestling with the Lord. He's been praying. He's been interceding. He has a burden for the people. He does not quit his ministry, however, even though he knows judgment is coming, even though he knows the Assyrian army is on the way, Amos doesn't give up. He goes to Bethel and continues to preach the word of God.

Now in Amos 7:10-17, the prophet has a second struggle, not struggling with God, but struggling with man. In particular, Amaziah, the priest of Bethel. Now keep in mind that Bethel was the king's private chapel. This is where Jeroboam the Second had his worship take place. And he went down there and everybody went with him in the court.

It was a popular thing to be religious in that day. People were saying, "Isn't it wonderful? We're going through a revival." It was not a revival. There was no evidence of revival. It was just a lot of external religion. I fear we have much of that today.

You find four messages in Amos 7:10-17. First, the priest sends a message to the king in Amos 7:10-11. Then the priest gives a message to the prophet in Amos 7:12-13. Then the prophet gives a message to the priest in Amos 7:14-16, and then the Lord gives a message to the priest in Amos 7:17. Now when you look at these four messages, you get the impression that we had better pay attention to the word of God.

There is a vast difference between practicing religion and walking with the Lord. In fact, when you read history, you just discover that many people who truly walked with the Lord were rejected by those who were religious.

Certainly this was true of the prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah were persecuted by their own people. Amos here is persecuted by the priest who states that he is the servant of God. After all, he had a priestly function to perform and he was a man who was highly esteemed.

When you read church history, you find that John Wesley was not allowed to preach in the very church that his father had pastored. Wesley was turned away from churches where he should have been allowed to preach the word of God.

This was true of Whitfield and of D. L. Moody. People laughed at Moody. And yet God used these people. God used him in a mighty way. And today we need more people like Amos. Amos didn't have the training and the background of Amaziah, but Amos was a man of God and God used him to declare the word of God.

Amos 7:10-11, the priest's message to the king. Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive from their own land."

Now, this priest did not feel an obligation to turn to God. He should have turned to God after he heard the word that Amos preached. I don't doubt that Amos had gone right up to the chapel there in Bethel and he'd stood up in the service and said, "Thus the Lord God showed me." He talked about the locust and he talked about the fire and he talked about the vision he had of God and the plumb line. And at that point, Amaziah the priest couldn't take it. And so he sent a message to the king.

And he should have sent a message to the Lord. He should have fallen on his face before God and said, "Oh God, I'm a sinful man. I have been leading these people astray. I have been using religion just as a means to make money. I've been catering to the king. I have been a part of a civil religion that is beautiful on the outside, but ugly on the inside. I have done nothing about stopping the sin that is going on in my nation. Oh God, forgive me."

But that is not the message that Amaziah sent to God. Instead, he sent a message to the king. He would much rather be on good terms with the politicians than with God.