1. Amos Prepare To Meet Your God!
Look At The Book!
Amos
Prepare To Meet Your God!

2. Straining God’s Patience
Our God is amazingly patient!
Numbers 14:18 – “The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity o the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations.”
God’s patience CAN be strained!
Happens when mankind increases their sinfulness and pressed the envelope of wickedness.

3. Amos Sent By God To Sinful Nations
Amos was sent by God with messages for all the sinful nations in the middle eastern part of the world.
It was a message of impending doom. God roared from Zion!
What was making God so angry?
Let’s explore

4. The Sins Of The Nations Amos 1-2
Calls all the nations to repentance by revealing God’s judgments against them.
“For three sins and for four….”
They have strained the patience of God with their wickedness.
Each nation will be punished for its sins.

5. Sins Highlighted By God
Damascus: Threshing Gilead with iron
Gaza: Deported an entire population to Edom – i.e. slavery after war
Tyre: ditto with Gaza
Edom – No compassion in war
Ammon – Brutality in war – especially upon women
Moab – Cruelty after war
Judah – Rejecting God’s word
Israel --- Oppression of the poor

6. Why Do These Things So Anger God?
Psalm 11:5 – “The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates.”
War is sometimes necessary
Excessive, unreasonable violence is not
The spoils of war do not include people
Slavery is a dreadful ill in our world
As for Israel and Judah – the knew better!

7. Wake Up And Smell The Admonition!
God was especially demanding of Israel and Judah. With great knowledge comes great responsibility.
Call for repentance
Amos 3:2,8 – “You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities…. A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?”

8. Admonition and Punishment
God addresses the “cows of Bashan” 4:1
Not a pretty illustration to describe rich, lazy, demanding women who prey on the poor.
God is opposed to opulence, especially when it robs from the poor to make the rich even richer.

9. Ways God Tried To Humble Them
Amos 4:6-7 --“But I gave you also cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places, yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord. “Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you while there were still three months until harvest. Then I would send rain on one city and on another city I would not send rain; one part would be rained on, while the part not rained on would dry up….”

10. Ways God Tried To Humble Them
Amos 4:6-7 --“But I gave you also cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places, yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord. “Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you while there were still three months until harvest. Then I would send rain on one city and on another city I would not send rain; one part would be rained on, while the part not rained on would dry up….”
With famine and hunger

11. With Pestilence and Disease
Amos 4:9 – “I smote you with scorching wind and mildew; and the caterpillar was devouring your many gardens and vineyards, fig trees and olive trees; yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.”

12. With Plagues Like Those Of Egypt
Amos 4:10-11 – “I sent a plague among you after the manner of Egypt; I slew your young men by the sword along with your captured horses, and I made the stench of your camp rise up in your nostrils; yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord. I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze; yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.”
Does God use the same methods today?

13. With A Famine For Hearing The Word
Amos 8:11-12 – “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and from the north even to the east; they will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.”

14. When People Refuse To Repent
Amos 4:12 – “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.”
!!!!!!
This is NOT going to be a pleasant sit down with tea and crumpets!

15. Restoration And Messiah!
God can be very gracious to those who repent.
Amos 5:14-15 – “Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and thus may the Lord God of hosts be with you, just as you have said! Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate! Perhaps the Lord God of hosts may be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

16. A Time For Restoration
Amos 9:11 – “In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David, and wall up its breaches; I will also raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old….”
Acts 15:16 – “After these things I will return, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it.”
James quotes from Amos concerning the Messianic fulfillment of Amos 9:11

17. Days Are Coming
Amos 9:13-15 – “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; when the mountains will drip sweet wine and all the hills will be dissolved. Also I will restore the captivity of My people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live I them; they will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, and make gardens and eat their fruit. I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted our from their land which I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

18. Only Those In Christ Will See Such Days
Only those who are faithful on this earth will enter heaven.
Matthew 25:23 – His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of you master.”