Amos 7:10-17

The book of Amos chapter 7, verses 10 to 17. Then Amaziah, the priest of Bephel, sent to Jeroboam, King of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer go, flee thee into the land of Judah, and there eat bread and prophesy there. But prophesy not again any more at Bethel, but it is the king’s chapel. It is the king’s court. Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, go, prophesy unto my people Israel. Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord. thou say it’s prophesied not against Israel and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac. Therefore thus saith the Lord, thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line, and thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall surely go into captivity, fourth of his land. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this evening. Many years ago, I remember presidential candidates. Some of you may not be old enough to remember. Gary Hart was exposed by the newspapers during his campaign run for presidency as a womanizer. It seems that Mr. Hart was caught red-handed on several occasions, cheating on his wife. and the newspapers had the goods on him, even photographs of him with this other woman. They knew the time and the place of his various affairs, and it ended his presidential aspirations. That was it for him. Now, how did he respond to these charges? Did he attempt to prove that he was falsely charged, that this was slander, that he was being framed, no, he couldn’t do that. He attacked the press for invasion of his privacy. He shouldn’t have invaded my privacy. He was really without excuse. He followed the age-old pattern. If you can’t answer the charges, attack the messenger. It seems that Amaziah here, who is the priest of Bethel, is following that idea here. He can’t answer the charge. that are brought against him by the Lord through Amos, all the threats and the rebukes and the condemnations. And so what does he do? He attacks the critic. He attacks Amos, the prophet. There’s a lesson here, I think, about the kind of opposition that you and I are going to face when the Word of God is faithfully declared. These are the kinds of things you can expect. Let us begin tonight by looking at Amaziah’s attack upon Amos and verses 10 to 13. First, Amos misrepresents or, excuse me, Amosiah misrepresents Amos to the king in verses 10 and 11. Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying Amos have conspired against thee in the midst of the house Israel, the land is not able to bear his words. For thus Amos said, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. As soon as Amos mentioned, the house of Jeroboam in this chapter, verse 9, in a negative light, we see that Amaziah decides he’s going to tell the king. he’s going to get the power of the government involved against the prophet here. As chief bishop, Amaziah thought that he could let the king know about these revolutionary statements from this prophet, this foreign prophet. Amaziah immediately sent a messenger to the king at Samaria with a report of this nature. Amaziah is plotting against him. you right here in the middle of the land. The country can no longer tolerate his subversive teaching, why he is teaching that you’re going to die by the sword, and Israel shall go into Axe. So we see Amaziah here hoping to mobilize the king’s soldiers here, hoping to get Amos in trouble, hoping that the government will deport him, physically maybe from land, Amos here is charged with conspiracy. He has conspired against the, verse 10. His loyalty to Israel is called into suspicion here. Now when you think about it, this is pretty rich. In the very first six verses, twice, he prayed for Israel to be spared, and twice God relented and put off the judgment for a period of time. And so, to say that he was someone who was conspiring and not being loyal to Israel is certainly not true. But this is a favorite trick of those who wish to discredit someone who know the plain facts are not on their side. Amos’ charge was stirring the people up in rebellion against the king. treason against the government. But what Amos reported to the king was not actually a truth. What he said, some of it’s true and some of it’s false. It’s a mixture of things. It’s true that Amos had spoken against the royal household in chapter 7 and verse 9. But Amos didn’t specifically say that the present king, Jeroboam. The second would die by the sword. He talked about the house of Jerobolm, and as we saw in a previous study last week, that he was talking about Jeroboam the first. The original king of the nation, which got the nation off on the wrong foot by setting up the golden calf worship and so forth. So when he talks about here, the house of Jeroboam, He’s taken it back to the really beginning of the nation. He’s not talking about this Jeroboam. In fact, historically, Jeroboam the second died, it seems, of natural causes, and his son, Zachariah, succeeded him as king. If he had truly been talking about Jeroboam II, I would have to come to pass, or he’s not a true prophet. But he meant the government would eventually be toppled, Israel would certainly go into captivity. It’s true that there’s no doubt what he taught stirred people up. But it’s also true that the people were not forming a rebellion against the king. If anything, they were weary of Amos’ teaching and were hostile to him. It’s not like they had a friendly ear to hear what he had to say and would join some type of rebellious cause. In fact, Amos, had no intention of raising a rebellion, like an armed rebellion against the king. So, as was successful lies, there’s a mixture of truth in with the error that is being spoken of here. But just enough to make it sound plausible. So Amaziah misrepresents Amos to the king. Amosiah attempts to persuade Amos to leave the Northern Kingdom. In verse 12, also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread and prophesy there. He appeals here to Amos’est’s self-interest. The Hebrew word here, go flee, implies the added emphasis for your own sake. For your own good. you need to get out of the country. You know what’s going to happen when the king finds out about this, and I told him, he’s going to send the military out and they’re going to forcibly remove you. He was implying, you know, it’s going to get very unpleasant for you if you stay around here. So you better leave before you get arrested. And then he said, in a sense, you know, your kind of message would be better preached down there that southern kingdom, your own kingdom of Judah. Go back down there. Why don’t you make your living down there? Why don’t you get your bread down there? Don’t come up here and make you living. So for your own safety and success, preaching Judah. Amos, I’m only looking out for your own best interest here. So he’s thinking here that Amos, of course, is only doing this for the financial gain. He’s going to get, he’s in it for the money. Now, it may be true. Amosiah is in it for the money, but it’s not true that Amos is in it for the money. The implication, though, is that he’s preaching for personal gain. So Amosai attempts to persuade Amos to leave the Northern Kingdom. Amosiah confronts Amos with his authority. Verse 13. But prophesied not again anymore in Bethel, for it is the king’s chapel and it is the king’s court. Here, Amosiah puts on his ecclesiastical robes here and basically uses his authority that the state church is not going to have this sort of thing. You coming up here and proclaiming this message. You have no right to speak up here. You have no authority up here. Bethel is the royal chapel. It’s the national cathedral. You’re out of place. Amos, you have no status. You’re an outsider to the official church. And therefore, you have no right to make all these pronouncements against us. So Amaziah attacks Amos. He misrepresents him. He attempts to persuade him to leave. He flaunts his ecclesiastical authority. Secondly, we see Amos’ answer to Amosia in verses 14 to 17. First, Amaziah is not in the ministry, he says, for the money. verse 14. Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet son, but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. He says here, basically, I’m no professional prophet. I’m not really even a full-time prophet, in a sense. I don’t come from a long line of prophets, as if it would be passed down successively from one prophet to another. Now that may be true among the priest of the northern kingdom that the son would take over for the father. But it’s not true among the prophets of Scripture. He says, normally, I make my living raising cattle and sheep. And doing a little fruit farming. As you recall, the word sycamore here is used in a sense it’s a species of fig tree. It’s not the sycamore trees that we have. in our country. So he raised fig trees. So he implies that, you know, he had a perfectly good living without entering into the prophetic office, so to speak. He didn’t need a second job. If God hadn’t taken me from my usual occupation, I wouldn’t be here. So he’s not in the ministry for the money. Amos has been commissioned by the Lord to speak. Verse 15, and the Lord took me as I followed the flock. And the Lord said unto me, go prophesied unto my people, Israel. Now here is where he says, the reason I’m here is because I have been divinely called to do this. I’m doing this under God’s authority. He doesn’t need the king’s permission. He doesn’t need the state church’s permission to preach. God has called him. now he says that he’s not a self-appointed prophet but we see the authority of his vocation the Lord said unto me go that’s his call we see the authority of his revelation what he revealed the Lord said unto me prophesied what I’m prophesying is what the Lord gave me and third we see the authority of his commission the Lord said go to my people Israel that’s why I’m here so he says in fact the Lord God has revealed all these truths with I preach and he sent me to Israel and not to Judah so Amos has been commissioned by the Lord to speak Amos places God’s curse here upon Amosiah in verses 16 and verse 17 now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord thou sayest prophesied not against Israel and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac therefore thus saith the Lord thy wife shall be a harlot in the city and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword and thy land shall be divided by line and thou shalt die in a polluted land and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land having confirmed his credentials, Amos now proclaims a prophetic message. What we have here is a revelation that God gave to Amos, which is specifically addressed to Amosiah and his family. Amosiah rejected the word of the Lord. Lord and the Lord rejected him. And God placed his plum line against Amaziah in his house and he’s got to pronounce judgment against them. The message to Amaziah isn’t a pretty one. It’s not a good message. His wife is going to become a prostitute in the city. His children will be slain by the sword. Without mercy. His land will be divided up. Although it’s very possible that this divided by line has to do with the people. You remember in the Samuel that David, when he conquered the Moabites, he majored by line. You know, two-thirds got put to death, one-third got saved, it’d be servants. So it could be that also. But either way, whether the property gets divided up or whether the people get divided up. This is what’s going to happen. He himself, a high priest, is going to die in exile in a foreign land. Never to return. The context here in which these judgments occur are some type of military defeat, which all along has been by Syria, as we have already studied. And after Samaria’s defeat, Amaziah, is going to be sent in exile. He’s going to die there. wife, evidently, will remain behind in Bethel, but now without any means of support. And because of that, she is forced to make a living as a prostitute just to survive. That seems to be the implication here. Amos’ words concerning Israel would indeed come to pass, and they would come to pass very shortly. Amosai is going to feel the effects very shortly. so he places God’s curse upon Amazai. This is the text. Now what are some of the practical implications? And I’d like to draw two major practical implications from this. And the first is this. You must expect opposition to your desire to please God. As a Christian, you can expect to be misrepresented. What did Jesus tell us? He said, Men shall revile you and persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely for my name’s sake. Falsely. Falsehoods, lies, untruths, will be spoken against you. Why? Because your attachment to Jesus Christ, for my sake, Jesus says. You speak about the people about their need of a Savior to save them from their sins. Look out. The verbal stones begin to fly. Oh, that hypocrite, he thinks he’s better than everybody else. He’s bigoted. He’s holier than thou. He is indeed narrow-minded. You talk about someone, to someone about God, sovereign grace and salvation and all of a sudden you’re a hyper-Calvinist who doesn’t care about souls. Let a minister faithfully preach the word of God and the people are thinking, we can get rid of him and we’ll get another pastor to say the things we like to hear. As a Christian, expect to be misrepresented. As a Christian, expect your motives to be questioned. You’ll notice in verse 12. The motives here are a question. Now, it’s true if you study scripture that the Bible doesn’t allow you to actually judge anybody’s motives because they’re hidden. You don’t know what that person is thinking. Only God knows the heart. What the scriptures tell us to do is judge the actions of people. Their words, what they say, and how they behave. Those things can be judged. They are open. They are public. But often the believer will find that others will attack them and assigned to them all kinds of wrong motives. They accuse you of intentions you’ve never had. You talk to someone about their soul and automatically they think to themselves, he just wants me to come and join his church. One time, I went to the hospital to visit one of the women’s, who was a member of the church, her husband was in the hospital. she was a professing believer, but he was not. She said, would you go in and see him, you know, would you try to witness to him? He’s not in great condition. So I went in there, and I pressed him about his soul. I thought, you know, I don’t know if this is the only time I’m ever going to get a chance to really speak to this man about his soul, and I pressed him about it. And later on, he told his wife that afternoon after I had left. Oh, he just said. wants me to join his church and he was pretty adamant about it or something like that. And that wasn’t, that wasn’t even on my mind at all. I had nothing to do with it. That very night, God took his soul. He didn’t survive. But, you know, I don’t, you know, until he’s converted, why would I want him to join the church? But that’s the way people think. They put the wrongly, attach wrong motives to what you’re doing. The minister preaches on giving and people said, he just wants more money. He wants a bigger salary. the minister teaches on eldership rule and people think all some of these people of the church just want to have power over everybody else let them gently point out the faults in another believer’s life and a brother in Christ and you’re going to be judged a nitpicker a judgmental troublemaker one time I had a woman who was a actually was the same woman to be honest with you. It was the same woman who had loaned money to someone she knew from a Methodist church. And because he was a professing Christian, she said to her husband, I know he’ll pay it back because he’s a Christian. Well, he had no intentions of paying it back. And of course, her husband’s looking at it and says, I told you about these Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. So she comes to me one day and she says, well, you, can you do anything? I thought, well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll call the church. And I’ll talk with them about it. I’ll talk to the pastor. And I’ll see what they say. So, you know, I call up on the phone and I talk to the pastor and he says, well, I don’t handle these kinds of things. I let that up to my elder. And he shifts me over to the elder. Of course, the elder didn’t take care of those signs of things either. So he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. But here is a man who was the choir director at this church who wasn’t going to pay the money back to this poor woman. And, you know, I’m the one that’s causing trouble because I’m calling up and saying, hey, this isn’t right. You know, this man professes to be a Christian, what kind of testimony is he going to have? I just pressed them on, even in your church. What kind of text? testimony he’s going to have. Within a week or so, he pays the money back because it was going to hurt him in his position in the church as being the choir director or the music leader in the church. But I’m the nitpicker. I’m the judgmental troublemaker. Because I point out, hey, this isn’t right. Truthfully, I don’t think the man was converted, but if I give him the benefit of the doubt, you know, he needed that pointed out in his life. but I was the one causing all kinds of trouble for people. So as a Christian, you can expect your motives to be questioned. As a Christian, expect to find those who think, those are looking out for the good of your soul and your best interest, when in reality they’re hindering you in your work. In verse 12, we see that coming out. You’re told it’s all right if you want to read your Bible in private at home, but don’t talk about it to others. you’ll look like a religious fanatic. Keep it private. Parents. Don’t indoctrinate your children with biblical truth. Let them grow old enough to make their own decision about these matters. Of course, that’s contrary to what God commands us to do in the scripture and the law and Deuteronomy 6 and so forth. You know, we’re to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, so we have a commandment to do this. Don’t bother us with any of your Christian ideas about social. society and political life. Don’t bring your religion into it. Isn’t it funny how those who are atheistic and communistic and they can bring all their ideas into politics, but a Christian is not allowed to bring his ideas into politics. Think about that a minute. Don’t let your religion control your life. It’s just a matter of mind manipulation. You’ll be just a religious fanatic. if you believe in the doctrines of grace, it will kill your zeal to see people come to Christ. You won’t have any concern about missionary work or anything of that nature. Stay away from such dangerous teaching. When I was 18 years old, I knew I was going to enter into the ministry at that point. And I was going to a fundamental Baptist church, which certainly wasn’t Calvinistic. It was Armenian. And we had an evangelist. They used to have evangelistic services for a whole week sometimes where they’d come in and some evangelists would come in. And we had this, I’ll just call it as it is, a hot shot evangelist. You know, he was going to win the world to Christ, you know. He was going to show you how to do it. And he was, you know, if he couldn’t get everybody up in the front of the church during the altar call, he just kept, you know, going through the just as I am song over and over 22, 23 times, you know, and you’re like, wow, there’s only six of us left, you know. You know, cause a break, will you? And so he says to me, he says, don’t you go to that seminary and become a hyper-Calvinist? My problem was, I didn’t know what a Hyper-Calvinist even was. I was kind of naive at the time I was kind of ignorant, and I thought, you know, I don’t know. Just going to go study for the ministry. What do I know about hypergovernism? I’m only 18 years old. You know, I don’t know about all this stuff. And so, I mean, this is the way people are sometimes. The minister’s told, you know, water down your sermons a little, don’t preach so hard against sin because you’ll turn people away. We want to get more people into the church. So as a Christian, you can expect to find those who think they’re looking out for your good, but ultimately they’re hindering. your work. As a Christian, expect to be considered a revolutionary. Verse 10. Now this is an old trick. It’s been used repeatedly. Wasn’t Jeremiah accused of being a traitor. Amos is true accused to being a traitor. Even Christ is true accused of being a traitor. You know, you’re gathering people together to fight against the Roman government here at Israel. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, but my kingdom isn’t of this world, and that’s not what I’m doing. So Jesus Christ was called an enemy of Rome. He was accused of exciting people to revolution against Caesar and so forth. The early Christians, we’ve studied this in the book of Revelation, were considered dangerous to the Roman state because they wouldn’t worship the emperor. They must not be loyal. Having Christians, when we think back in history and Nazi, Germany and communist Russia run into the same kind of problem. True believers often have been branded revolutionaries. They go about turning the world upside down. They say Christians have to be silenced. The gospel has to be blocked. And if reason won’t do it, we’ll use government force to do it. We’ll shut you down. The ACLU, in conjunction with public, schools and local governments has sought to remove all references of God and the Christian faith from society. In Oregon, a small business owner was fined for talking to one of his employees about the Christian faith. In Missouri, school officials sent a student to detention for praying over his school lunch. In Idaho, the ACLU sued to remove religious references from public monuments and memorials. In Texas, a third grade teacher at Mountain View Elementary School in Waco, Texas, was fired because her religious police were unacceptable to the administration. Think about this. These are the kinds of things that are going on in our society. Perhaps it won’t be long before you and I as believers find ourselves confronted by the government. Look at the situation right now. Suppose if we had a larger church, we’d probably be more obvious. You know, we had a building and things of this nature. Look at the pastors that have been arrested. And the people that show up, even for the drive-in church where he preaches from the back porch of the church and they stay in their cars, they all got fined. And the pastor gets arrested. Of course, we’re letting people out of jail that are criminals, but no, we have to arrest the poor church people who are going to assemblies. This is what happens. The government does this all the time. Educate your children at home, they attack you. Discipline your children, they attack you. Now, you can abort you. your children and it’s okay. But you can’t, you know, you can’t discipline them. You can’t try to bring them up with some sense of right and wrong. So as a Christian, expect to be considered revolutionary. As a Christian, expect people to cling to their sacred cows. Verse 13. Most people are just like Amaziah. They refuse to give up their sinful habits. They don’t want to repent. And they have their little shrines. They don’t want you to bother them. We have our real shrines. religion, we’re just fine the way we are. And when someone comes along like you and disturbs their peace, they get angry. They get hot. And they tend to attack you. They tell you to go away. This is what unconverted people are like. They don’t want you to disturb their little world. They question what you’re doing. They certainly don’t like being pointed. the thing pointed out that they’re sinners. I remember years ago, I had an acquaintance who enjoyed the same hobby as I did. We used to do historical reenactments of battles. And we would do these all the time. And I was in his home one day when he led out a string of curses in which he took the Lord’s name in vain. Now, I looked at him. And I said, you shouldn’t curse because you’re going to be held accountable for that one day. And you would have thought I had said the worst thing to him in the world. And they, don’t you push your religious beliefs on me. Leave me alone. That was his attitude toward the whole thing. And all I was trying to do is really benefit him. You need to think about what you’re doing here. So you can expect opposition to your desire to please God. These are the good. kinds of things that are going to happen. And secondly, you can overcome all the opposition you face. How do you do that? Let me suggest a couple of things here from our text. The first is this. By the knowledge of God’s will. Verse 15, we see, the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said it’ll be go prophesy under my people, Israel. People like to play with your emotions, oh, you’re going to get into trouble if you stay up here and all this stuff. And they come up with all these ways to deter you from doing what God has required you to do. Now, as a Christian, you know you’re not to run your life by feelings, by emotions. Ephesians tells us this in 517, wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Victory comes in assurance that you are doing the Lord’s will. And of course, this knowledge of what God requires is only gained by Scripture. The Lord said unto me, knowledge of God’s revealed will calms your troubled heart, allows you to triumph in the midst of opposition. That’s the first thing. The second thing. By confronting people, with God’s truth in the latter part of verse 15 and then verse 16. Amos lost no time here in telling Amosiah that he was opposing God’s word. You tell me not to prophesied. The Lord told me to prophesy. The Lord told me to prophesy. And basically, he says the same thing Peter did long after this in the book of Acts. When they said to him the religious leaders, did we not straightly command you that you should not teach in his name, and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with his doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us. Then Peter, and the other apostles said to him, said and answered, we ought to obey God rather than man. And that’s how we look at this. No matter what anybody else tells you, we ought to obey God. The word of God is sort of like a hammer. It brings a severe blow against people. It can shatter people. It can break them. and therefore our duty is to bring the message of God’s word. As a soldier of Jesus Christ, it’s the only spiritual weapon you possess. If they take the sword away from you, what do you have left? Nothing. By which you can go on the offense. I think, therefore, is there need to say, now therefore, hear the word of the Lord. As verse 16 in the case. Hear what God says. Make people. aware they’re not really fighting against you. They’re fighting against God. And lastly, by being assured that God will severely judge those who oppose you. Verse 17. There’s nothing more dangerous for a person to do than to harm or to threaten God’s servant. Whether he’s a minister or not. Amos here talks about the terrible consequences that are going to befall Amaziah for his attack on the profit of the Lord. God says, I’m going to repay. He will not allow one of his precious children to be maligned, attacked, and harmed by the world. Ultimately, you’ll find that he does not overlook the sin, but he judges those who do such things. You find it all the way through the word of God. If 42 rebellious children come out and mock the prophet Elisha, a she-bear comes out of the woods and malls them. If the soldiers are insolent, the captain and his 50 men, who come to arrest Elijah the prophet, basically speak roughly to him. God sends fire down from heaven and destroys them. Ask Who dared to kill his brother Abel. If he didn’t suffer the consequences by being banished from the Lord’s presence. Herod, the king, if after he killed James with the sword and arrested Peter, if he didn’t have a price to pay when God sent the worms to eat him and ate him up. This consumed him. So no matter what happens to you, you really can’t lose because God is going to avenge you in due time. Indeed, it’s a fearful thing that will fall into the hands of an angry God. And so we see that here. So you can overcome all the opposition you face. If we just follow the procedure here of Amos, what he does in this passage is Scripture. Well, let us close with a word of prayer tonight.