Amos chapter 7, Amos chapter 7. Tonight we're going to look at two visions that the Lord is going to, I'm sorry, three visions that the Lord's going to give to Amos, and then we're going to be pulled back from these visions into an event that was taking place to Amos, kind of in a narrative section. And then the next chapter is another vision, but we won't get to that tonight. But what we're gonna see here is, we're gonna see the, The mercy of the Lord put on display as we see Amos pleading for the people of Israel, but we're also going to see God standing true to his Statement of judgment that there is a there is a standard and Israel is outside of that standard and there are consequences for that and then we're going to see really the rejection of the message and the criticism that Amos is going to take from the priests. And so, I'm going to begin just by reading the first nine verses and then we'll read the rest as we come to it. Amos chapter 7, the Bible says, Thus the Lord God showed me, behold, he formed locust swarms at the beginning of the late crop. 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, O Lord, forgive, I pray. O that Jacob may stand, for he is small. So the Lord relented concerning this. It shall not be, said the Lord. Thus the Lord God showed me. Behold, the Lord God called for conflict by fire. and it consumed the great deep and devoured the territory. Then I said, O Lord, God cease, I pray, O that Jacob may stand, for he is small. So the Lord relented concerning this. This also shall not be, said the Lord God. Thus he showed me. Behold, the Lord stood on a wall, made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, a plumb line. Then the Lord said, behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not pass by them anymore. The high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. I will rise with the sword against the house of Jeroboam. Let's pray. Lord, help us tonight as we look into this word. I pray that it will benefit us, Lord, and honor you. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. We begin with these two visions, the vision of the locust and the vision of the fire. Some will say the fire is more a picture of military conflict, but what he says is fire. In this vision, as God is speaking to Amos, He's showing Amos these things. He begins by talking about this locust swarm that God Himself was forming up. God was pulling together this judgment here of the locusts in this vision. And it tells us that the swarms were coming for the late crop. after the king's mullings and so to to help us understand this to how uh... how horrific this would have been if this would have taken place the way that things went when they were kings in israel and in fact when uh... when israel's crying out for a king right before saul was anointed king uh... these are some of the things that god warned them about when they said they wanted a key he told me said look you're gonna You want this king, but he's going to take this. He's going to take tribute off of your crops. He's going to take your young men to be soldiers. He's going to take this, and he's going to take that. And so what would happen is they would go through and they would cut the part that was to go to the king. He was to get the first and best, right? And so they were to give that to him to sustain the monarchy of the kingdom. That was their tribute, that was their order, that was their law. And so the king had already gotten his in this vision. And so everything else that was left would have been what would be food for the people. And so for the locusts to come and to eat that would have meant that they would have been in starvation mode. They would have been completely just wiped out. They would have been hungry beyond measure. This would have been an absolute catastrophe for the nation if the king's mowings had been taken, and then the locusts would have come through and cleaned out the rest. And so, in this vision, Amos sees this and understands this, and he begins to stand in the gap and plead for the people. He cries out to God, asking for forgiveness And he asks for forgiveness and he says that Jacob, so that Jacob may stand, for he is small. He's telling him, Lord Israel, Jacob there being a synonym for the nation of Israel, he's saying, Lord, our nation is not going to survive if this happens. Lord, Jacob must stand. And so God hears his prayer and he relents. And what we see here woven in within this vision of potential judgment is we see the heart of God to preserve the nation of Israel. You see, we understand from our perspective that the nation had to be preserved to a point. There had to at least be a remnant because Christ was coming through the lineage of Israel, through the lineage of Judah ultimately. But we know that the nation had to be maintained. And so God is hearing the cries of Amos. He's showing them the potential disaster that's looming over the horizon. He's talked about it all throughout the book. But when this catastrophe is shown to Amos, he stands in the gap and he intercedes for the people. The second vision is much the same. It says the Lord God called for conflict by fire. and it says it consumed the great deep and devoured the territory. The best as I can kind of ferret out and understand that language is that it was going to be a fire and a drought so harsh that the groundwater was even going to go away. I think that's what that means when he's talking about it consumes the great deep. Water was going to completely go away. The territory was going to be devoured by fire and by drought. And the prayer of Amos is much the same. Instead of asking for forgiveness here, he just asked God to stop, cease, relent. Please, Lord, don't do this. The same reason is given that Jacob may stand for he is small. And again, the Lord relents. He says, this also shall not be. Again, I think on one side we see the picture of the Lord and His promise to carry forward for Himself a people, and ultimately the promised Messiah. But we also see that there is power in intercessory prayer, standing in the gap for other people. Intercessory prayer is something I think that we on occasion hear talked about in church. We hear prayer talked about a lot, but we even do hear that word sometimes, intercessory prayer, and it's thrown around, but what does that really mean? It means that you... within prayer, within your relationship of prayer with the Lord, you are laying yourself there between the Lord and someone else and their situation and their calamity as if you're saying, Lord, put it on me. Lord, here in prayer, I'll struggle with this issue even though it's not my issue. Lord, I'll give myself to you in every sense of the word spiritually and physically to help protect and sustain and have the needs of someone else met. Intercessory prayer is a powerful, powerful thing. In fact, it is the kind of prayer that we think of when we think of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ to the church now as He's in the heavenly places. as the Lord stands between us and the Father, and He takes our prayers and He presents them to God. He is interceding for us. Why do we use that phrase? It's because He's literally standing between. Because if Christ was not standing between us and God, number one, we would be receiving the full wrath of God for our sins. But also, we, in and of ourselves, are so completely unworthy, we cannot approach God. God would not hear our prayers, but because Christ is standing between us, we can boldly approach the throne of grace through Him. That's what it means that we're approaching the throne of grace on behalf of someone else. Have you ever had someone that you loved and you cared for and you weren't just praying and saying, God, I wish you'd help so-and-so? That's okay. But you were giving yourself to prayer and laying it on the line and saying, God, I want to wrestle with this thing. God, hear my prayers. And struggling in prayer on behalf of another person or a situation. That's what's being done here. That, I believe, is one of the things that we miss out on in our relationship with others, in our relationship with events going on around the world. I think one of the most wonderful things that we can be are those who are serious about intercessory prayer. I have heard so many missionaries and people in other places that have said that they had a few prayer partners that prayed for their ministry. And just how amazing it was when a potentially terrible situation was unfolding. And the person that had devoted themselves to prayer on behalf of these missionaries would maybe back in the day write a letter or maybe they'd email now or talk on the phone and they would say, the other night I woke up and I was just feeling really burdened by the Lord to pray for you and I stayed up and I labored in prayer all night for you. And the missionaries would say, you're not going to believe this, but about the time you're talking about, You know, this situation was unfolding. I heard of some missionaries that were in a country in northern Africa where the Islamic control is really growing strong. This had been several years ago. It wasn't quite to the level it is now. And they had gone through a military checkpoint. and it was looking very bad. Perhaps that they were going to be arrested or have everything that they had with them at least confiscated, and they had no idea. Their very life could have been at risk. And there was a lady who had prayed for them for years. And because she had this connection with the Lord on their behalf, God raised her up in prayer to be the one that God chose to use as a catalyst to meet their need and move them beyond that situation. If you're giving yourself to prayer on behalf of a specific thing, it's amazing how God will say, you're in this thing, and so let's get to it. That person that you're praying for that needs Christ, you say, I don't know if they'll ever come to Christ. And you may not know. You may pass on from this world before you ever know the answer to that. But wouldn't it be amazing to gather in the halls of heaven and find out that God used the prayers, the heart that you had to lay yourself on the line for someone else to bring them into the kingdom of God, or to meet another kind of need that they might have had. Having a prayer list is a good thing, but sometimes God leads us and leads our heart to give ourselves in strong and consistent prayer on behalf of something very specific. And that's what intercessory prayer looks like as we wrestle. Maybe we pray for people in a way that maybe they're not even capable of praying for themselves in the moment. It is a beautiful picture of standing in the gap, following the example of Christ. Amos is doing that here on behalf of his people, and God relents. He's not going to bring these specific judgments upon the nation at this time. He's going to preserve Himself, this people, in this moment. But God has promised judgment. There is going to be judgment here, because He said there's going to be. These are specific types and specific things that were going to take place, and God has chosen not to do that. But this vision of the plumb line is a powerful one. He showed that the Lord was standing on a wall that was made with a plumb line. I'm not much in the way of construction, but here's what I understand. A plumb line is used to make sure stuff is straight and true. It's plumb. Vertically. It's a tool that's used to make sure things are built up in the way where they're going to stand the test of time, where they're going to have strength. They're made the right way. There's no getting around it. A plumb line shows the truth. You might eyeball something and think it looks okay, but a plumb line's going to tell the tale of whether or not it is what you say that it is. The Lord is standing on this wall that was made with the plumb line. And he holds the plumb line in his hand. I had a friend who was in the construction business, and his family had been in construction for years. And one day I was working with him, helping him out do something, and he was almost in a panic. I said, what are you looking for? And he told me, he said, I'm looking for my plumb bob. i don't know what in the world that was i thought some like a fishing bobber to me uh... just i don't know nothing about that kind of stuff he says you don't understand that's my great-grandfather's plumb bob the the the house that sits on my family's place was brought up out of the ground just using that plumb bob and know how i can't lose that thing he was going to use it many couldn't find it and he was all he he was so upset He began to tell me about that house, a house I'd been in dozens and dozens of times, and he said, no, no, it was more than a tool to him, but he was explaining to me why this was such an important thing. The Lord is holding this plumb line in his hand, and he asks Amos what he sees. He says, I see a plumb line. And the Lord says, behold, I'm setting a plumb line in the midst of Israel. I will not pass by them anymore. He's telling them, look, the plumb line is what the plumb line is. There is no changing it. It's not going to shift the way that you want it to shift just because you've changed your mind. The plumb line can't change because Israel wanted it to look differently. And friends, the plumb line can't change in your life. The standard that God has set can't change in your life or in my life because we've decided that we just don't quite like what God has to say about a particular thing. It can't be shifted. There's no faking it. There's no sneaking around it. There's no way to fool it. It's a simple tool that tells us a lot. And here God is using this as an image of His standard that Israel was aware of, His law, His truth. And they had gone well outside of that, and because it had been shown who they were, God now says, I will not pass by them anymore. I'm not passing over this. There is going to be a judgment to come. Here as we look at this in the life of Israel, we understand that this means a temporal judgment, but the story stays the same, doesn't it? We've got to be careful that we don't try to make our Bible into a story of two gods. The Old Testament's not a different god than the New Testament god. They're the same god. And the same god has the same plumb line. His law is His law. You say, well, we're not under the law. Well, we're not under the ceremonial law, but we're under the moral law to be sure. We're commanded to obey the law of God. And just because we are humans and because we have fallen short of this standard time and time again, God sent us a plumb line in living color in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the plumb line that stands up and shows exactly what things ought to be. He shows us what a life that is built up perfectly is supposed to look like. He had set this plumb line in this vision. to show the wickedness of Israel. And as we look at the person and the work and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, it does the very same thing for us. Because when we look at the perfection and the glory and the majesty of Christ, what we see is all of the ways that we shift apart from the standard of the plumb line. You see, some people say, and you begin to tell them that You must obey what God says. Jesus says, if you love Me, you'll keep My commands. They say, oh man, that's legalistic. No. We understand that there is forgiveness to be found for sin, both for the sinner who's coming into the kingdom and for the citizen of the kingdom, the Christian who is living a life and falling short here and there. There is forgiveness to be found, but the standard stays the same. Just because there's forgiveness under the blood of Christ doesn't mean that God's changed His mind. The life of Christ stands as this beacon, this plumb line that shows a world that is wicked and crooked and sideways. That if they build things up in the way that they're going, that it's all going to come down. I don't know if y'all ever watch any of this kind of stuff. I flip around on my phone too much, but I follow this guy that does construction inspections. and all my lord again i don't know anything about construction but i could have looked at that and so they didn't ride on most of these things and he had gone through this neighborhood doing some inspections and he'd been showing all of this stuff i think it's somewhere in texas and how this wasn't right and how they weren't even on on some of these houses they weren't even putting up like like plywood or part of war anything like that that it was it was just fall when there was nothing else on either side of it was this almost look like cardboard to me and one week that they had some of these houses were fully constructed some of them were halfway constructed but they all were framed up and this big wind came through. It wasn't a tornado, just a wind that blew up I think 50-60 miles an hour and there were a handful or if not a dozen or more of these homes that had just just blown over in a high wind. Brand new construction Why did that happen? They weren't meeting the right kind of standard. Friends, when the world is out there and they're building up their life according to their own standard, what they're going to find is when the winds of life come, that everything is going to be destroyed. Nothing is going to stand. But we as Christians, we look and we see that, thank God, that we're not only built up looking at the plumb line of who Christ is, but we're also built on He who is the rock and the cornerstone. And we not only have a plumb line, but we have a firm foundation. And because that's true, when the winds of life come, it doesn't mean that we're not going to struggle, it doesn't mean we're not going to suffer, but it means that we will stand the test of time because of who He is, the great and wonderful architect of this world and our life through Christ. The plumb line is a beautiful picture, even though here in this setting, it means that judgment's coming. It is the same story that we tell to those who know not Christ. We tell them there is a standard. His name is Jesus. His standard is perfection, and you have not yet met it, and you will not meet it. And because that's true, you need to give yourself over to Him. You need to trust in Him. You need to shelter under His wings. You need to look at Him and live after His example. He goes on here, Amos says, the high places of Isaac shall be desolate. It's this picture of judgment. The sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. I will rise with the sword against the house of Jeroboam. What's he talking about? Well, the high places. It's a picture of their worship, their wicked and pagan worship. The sanctuaries were the picture of their supposed worship of God, which we've talked about many times in Amos, how it was a false worship in many ways. He's saying this is going to be completely wiped out. This is not going to stand any longer. He's not going to let paganism stand in his land and among his people, and he's not going to let those flying under the color of his name do false things in his name. You know, I know a lot of times when somebody talks about taking the Lord's name in vain, that most of the time what we think about is about saying cuss words and attaching God to it, right? When we say take the Lord's name in vain. But I think that's one of the smallest examples of what it actually means to take the Lord's name in vain. What I believe that it means when the Bible's really talking about taking the Lord's name in vain, it means that we are doing things that are against God's revealed truth underneath the heading of saying it's godly or Christian, biblical. That is taking the Lord's name in vain. I don't know if y'all saw the big hoopla this week about the preacher wherever he was, and he stood up and he locked his whole church in the building and told them they weren't leaving until they raised $40,000. That happened. He told the ushers, lock the doors. We're not leaving here until we've raised up this money, whatever they were raising the money up for. God wanted them to raise this money. Can you imagine? A bit like me today sitting over at the spaghetti and standing in front of the line saying, hey look, go count the money. If we ain't got a certain amount, nobody's eating today. We laugh, but it's crazy. People are doing that. And they're doing it using statements like, God told me we ought to do this. Friends, what I like to call God told me theology is the greatest danger to Christianity that we have today. When people stand up and they say, God told me this and God told me that, I'll tell you this, somebody tells me God told you, I want to ask them what chapter and what verse it came from. Not that God can't lead you personally to do certain things and in prayer and through the study of the Word that you're led a certain way, but I'm here to tell you, people stand up all the time and they say, God told me this and God told me that, and I just want to tell them that you might want to go talk to God again. I'll never forget, my sister, she'll love me telling this story, but I don't care. She didn't listen to my preaching online anyway. She was in college and she was preparing to be a pharmacist. That's what she had said she wanted to do. She worked in a pharmacy in high school and college. That's what she was going to do. Well, I don't know if y'all know about this, but my sister's a principal. She's not a pharmacist. Sometime around her junior year of college, she really just Felt like that God was leading her. She had prayed and she had studied. God was leading her that she wanted to go into education. Her grandmother was a teacher. A lot of her aunts were teachers. A lot of people in education. And she just thought that was the way she ought to go. And I'll never forget, she went and told my grandparents that she really felt like the Lord was leading her to take a different path. And my good and godly preacher grandfather said, you better go talk to God again. Right? He wanted her to be a pharmacist. He thought that was the best thing for her. But friends, be careful. If they're not looking at their Bible and they say, God told me, you better be wary. We need to be Bereans. We need to study the Word and make sure that we're not being told things under the color of God in vanity that have nothing to do with the revealed Word of God. He was going to wipe out really their religious idolatry, their religious wickedness. And that's why this next section comes into play. Because after verse 9, we're pulled out of the visions and we're thrust into, really, this narrative that's going on. The Bible says that 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. Then Amaziah said to Amos, Go, you seer, flee to the land of Judah. There eat bread, and there prophesy, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the royal residence. What's he say? Amaziah the priest, Amos is stirring them up. He doesn't like it. He sends a letter to the king and says, look, this is what he's doing. He's saying you're going to die. He's saying the people are going to be led away captive from their own land. And Amaziah tries to run Amos off. You go do this, but don't do it here. No longer do it here. Don't do it at Bethel. Notice this, for it's the king's sanctuary and it's the royal residence. Can you imagine? He says, hey, we don't need to hear that. This is the king's house. This isn't God's house. That sound familiar to you? Sounds familiar to me. People stand up and say, hey, this is politics. You can't bring religion into that. Sure I can, and I will. Oh, you can't legislate morality. No, everybody's legislating morality, but whose morality do you want to legislate? God's morality or somebody else's? Every law that's on the books that's against murder is legislating morality. If we weren't legislating morality, we wouldn't have any laws at all and we'd be in chaos. That's the truth. The priest is saying, no, we don't need that here. This is the king's house. Friends, we hear this all the time, and things have been so twisted in our culture that when people say this, we kind of say, well, yeah, they're right. You know, separation of church and state. I want to tell them to get a dadgum history book, a real one, and go and look at it and find out that the way the Constitution was written was to keep the government out of the church's business, not to keep the church out of the government's business. That's the truth. Every colony at the end of the Revolutionary War, every colony in the United States had an official stated state religion. Every one of them. Every one of them, apart from Rhode Island, and theirs was, it was the first place where they basically said, you can be whatever you want to be, but Rhode Island was put together by Baptists. It was the first place where there was sole freedom for everybody, and it's stated in a government charter. It was in Rhode Island, and it was put together by Baptists. That's why we hold that principle dear. Friends, to hear people say, even to hear the priests say, we don't need God's Word in the house of the king. That's the problem. is that God's Word has had no influence. It's not reigning in the houses of kings and presidents and legislatures. Yeah, a lot of them will give a nod that direction to make sure they get the votes they want from here and yonder. I know that that's true. You say, well, this person says that, and I think that guy's a good guy. I'm sure they are. But the overarching reality is when you stand flat-footed and you say, thus says the Lord in the houses of government and the halls of government, people say, we don't need to hear that nonsense here. It's been going on this long. In the house of Israel's king. Amos has an answer for him. Amos answered and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, nor was I a son of a prophet, but I was a sheep breeder and a tenderer of sycamore fruit. Then the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go prophesy to my people Israel. Now therefore, hear the word of the Lord, You say, Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not spout against the house of Isaac. Therefore, thus says the Lord, Your wife shall be a harlot in the city, your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword, your land shall be divided by survey line, you shall die in a defiled land, and Israel shall surely be led away captive from his own land." It seems that there was an accusation within what Amaziah had said You know, there eat bread, he tells them, going to Judah, like he was prophesying for his own benefit. Yeah, go to Judah. Maybe they want to hear what you've got to say. Go get bread from them. They'll build you up. They'll take this nonsense and they'll be happy about it. Go do that. Go gain what you're going to gain down there. Amos said, well, hang on just a minute, Hoss. I didn't want any part of this. This wasn't my plan. I'm not out here for myself. Amos hadn't trained in the school of prophets. Amos didn't come from a long line of prophets and priests. He said, man, I was a sheep herder. I took care of sheep in Sycamore. That's who I was. I was out there doing the things that I know how to do, doing the things that I needed to do to survive, being faithful, and God told me to come do this. I'm not here for me. I'm here for you. I'm here for the people of Israel. I'm here because the Lord has sent me. How many times have people said Pastors, preachers, even church people. All you know down there at the church, they're all about the money. That's all they care about. Man, I know some of the most faithful preachers, church members. I know churches that ain't got two nickels to rub together, that got more God on them than these churches with million dollar budgets. There's a world out there that's saying, because of the bad apples that are very visible, right, the ones that are on TV, the ones that we always hear about, because of their foolishness surrounding finances, that, oh man, that Christianity in the modern day, it's all about the money. No. No. I promise you folks, if we were here about the money, we better go do something else. Right? Because there's easier ways to make money. There's things we could be doing with our time. We're not here for that. We're here because we understand that there is a God who loves us, a God who saved us, a God who's commanded us to gather and worship, and a God who has told us to go and to proclaim. Yeah, does it take money to do some of that? Sure it does. But it's not about that. This man was being accused, and he said, man, I was just doing what I was doing, and God told me to come here. Friends, don't let anybody denigrate you when you're out trying to do the things of the Lord and say, oh gosh, you just want people to think you're better than me. You just want people to give you this. You just want people to do that. No. You can tell them, hey, I'm just a regular person trying to do what God would have me to do, trying to take care of my family, live my life, and God has directed me through His Word and through His calling of me into His family to bring forth the message of truth to those that I encounter. It's not about anything other than seeking to obey God. And that's what Amos was trying to tell them. He says, you tell me don't prophesy against Israel, don't spout against the house of Isaac. Now Amaziah is going to get a special message for himself. Verse 17 is for Amaziah. Judgment's coming for Israel, but this message is for Amaziah. He says, your wife is going to be a harlot in the city. Your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword. Your land's going to be divided by a survey line. He said, you've stood up against the truth of God's Word, and because of that there will be consequences. He says, you're going to die in a defiled land. So what's he saying? He's saying, Amaziah, there is going to come a time when the people of Israel are going to be exiled. We know that would come. It would come eventually. The Assyrians were going to come. They were going to carry the nation away into captivity. And he's telling Amaziah specifically, when that happens, because you're gone, and there's no way for you to care for and protect your family, your family is going to suffer greatly. They're going to suffer greatly. There's going to be consequences in judgment because you have chosen to oppose the right and true message of the Word of God. You've tried to pull God away from the goings-on of His nation, and He will not stand for it. There are consequences for standing against the Lord. There are consequences for denying His truth. There are consequences for standing in the way of God's people when they're seeking to proclaim the truth. Whenever you encounter opposition, don't fret. Jesus promised us it would happen. And understand that one way or the other, that sin's going to be dealt with. They're either going to repent and be saved, or God is going to judge them righteously. Vengeance is the Lord's. We don't have to get all in our feelings. We don't have to get upset and overwhelmed. We need to move forward, shake the dust off of our feet, and go on carrying forward the message that God has given us. And for us, our message is the life and the death and the resurrection and the soon coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. there are consequences to opposing God's truth. And for us, in our time and our place, when we look around and we see a world, we see a culture, we see a people who are so opposed to God's truth, those who are perverting God's truth and calling it Christian, when we see that, we should clear our throat and clearly again tell them, this is the plumb line, this is the truth, this is the unmoving standard, and His name is Jesus Christ. Trust in Him, or judgment's coming. You say, well, that's kind of hellfire and brimstone stuff. Yeah, it is, but it's true too. Some people are going to be moved to salvation by the beauty and the majesty of the love of God for sinners. And others are going to be moved to repentance by the realities of judgment, some by the fire. one way or another, God's going to move. So if they move through the reality of you proclaiming judgment or the reality of you proclaiming the love of God in Christ, we've got to give both ends of that. When we do it, God can use it, and if they reject it, they'll deal with the consequences. So be encouraged It doesn't rest on you. It doesn't rest on me. It all rests in the power of the Holy Spirit. We're to be obedient. We're accountable to God for it. But the results are God's. So go forward as Amos. Whatever accusations were flying his way, he was resolved to tell the truth of what God had said. And we, as his people, we proclaim the same reality, the same truth. There is a standard. There is a plumb line. follow after God, trust in Him, go according to His plan, or judgment's coming. Beg people, plead with them, tell them the truth, love them enough to have the uncomfortable conversation that they must trust in Christ, or God's going to have something to say about it. tell them to repent and to believe in the gospel because God loves them. God would save them if they'll repent and trust in Him. And if they don't hear that, tell them that there's judgment headed their way, but there's shelter to be found in Christ alone. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. I pray it would encourage us and strengthen us, challenge us, Lord, to carry Your message forward. Thank You for the ministry of men like Amos and others who've faithfully gone in the face of just absolute opposition, gone on proclaiming your truth. Help us to be like-minded. Help us to live in a similar way, God, so that you'll be honored and glorified and your kingdom will grow. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.