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SCRIPTURE REFERENCES FOR THIS SERMON:
Amos 7:1-9:7
7:1 The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw him making locusts just as the crops planted late were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest.) 2 When they had completely consumed the earth’s vegetation, I said,
“Sovereign Lord, forgive Israel!
How can Jacob survive?
He is too weak!”
3 The Lord decided not to do this. “It will not happen,” the Lord said.
4 The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw the Sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields. 5 I said,
“Sovereign Lord, stop!
How can Jacob survive?
He is too weak!”
6 The Lord decided not to do this. The Sovereign Lord said, “This will not happen either.”
7 He showed me this: I saw the Lord standing by a tin wall holding tin in his hand. 8 The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “Tin.” The Lord then said,
“Look, I am about to place tin among my people Israel.
I will no longer overlook their sin.
9 Isaac’s centers of worship will become desolate;
Israel’s holy places will be in ruins.
I will attack Jeroboam’s dynasty with the sword.”
10 Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent this message to King Jeroboam of Israel: “Amos is conspiring against you in the very heart of the kingdom of Israel! The land cannot endure all his prophecies. 11 As a matter of fact, Amos is saying this: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.’”
12 Amaziah then said to Amos, “Leave, you visionary! Run away to the land of Judah. Earn your living and prophesy there! 13 Don’t prophesy at Bethel any longer, for a royal temple and palace are here.”
14 Amos replied to Amaziah, “I was not a prophet by profession. No, I was a herdsman who also took care of sycamore fig trees. 15 Then the Lord took me from tending flocks and gave me this commission, ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach against the family of Isaac!’
17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:
‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets,
and your sons and daughters will die violently.
Your land will be given to others,
and you will die in a foreign land.
Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.’”
8:1 The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins.
3 The women singing in the temple will wail in that day.”
The Sovereign Lord is speaking.
“There will be many corpses littered everywhere! Be quiet!”
4 Listen to this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the destitute in the land.
5 You say,
“When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins?
We’re eager to sell less for a higher price,
and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales!
6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor,
a pair of sandals for the needy.
We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!”
7 The Lord confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob:
“I swear I will never forget all you have done!
8 Because of this the earth will quake,
and all who live in it will mourn.
The whole earth will rise like the Nile River;
it will surge upward and then grow calm, like the Nile in Egypt.
9 In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon
and make the earth dark in the middle of the day.
10 I will turn your festivals into funerals
and all your songs into funeral dirges.
I will make everyone wear funeral clothes
and cause every head to be shaved bald.
I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son;
when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.
11 Be certain of this, the time is coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a shortage of food or water
but an end to divine revelation.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea,
and from the north around to the east.
They will wander about looking for a message from the Lord,
but they will not find any.
13 In that day your beautiful young women and your young men will faint from thirst.
14 These are the ones who now take oaths in the name of the sinful idol goddess of Samaria.
They vow, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as your beloved one lives, O Beer Sheba!’
But they will fall down and not get up again.”
9:1 I saw the Lord standing by the altar and he said,
“Strike the tops of the support pillars, so the thresholds shake!
Knock them down on the heads of all the people,
and I will kill the survivors with the sword.
No one will be able to run away;
no one will be able to escape.
2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld,
my hand would pull them up from there.
Even if they could climb up to heaven,
I would drag them down from there.
3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,
I would hunt them down and take them from there.
Even if they tried to hide from me at the bottom of the sea,
from there I would command the Sea Serpent to bite them.
4 Even when their enemies drive them into captivity,
from there I will command the sword to kill them.
I will not let them out of my sight;
they will experience disaster, not prosperity.”
5 The Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies will do this.
He touches the earth and it dissolves;
all who live on it mourn.
The whole earth rises like the Nile River
and then grows calm like the Nile in Egypt.
6 He builds the upper rooms of his palace in heaven
and sets its foundation supports on the earth.
He summons the water of the sea
and pours it out on the earth’s surface.
The Lord is his name.
7 “You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” says the Lord.
“Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt,
but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir.