All right, we're starting a new part of our series in the book of Amos tonight. In this nickel and dime series, every book that's five up to 10 chapters, this one has nine. And so it qualifies, and we're gonna hit Amos. Never have preached through the book of Amos. I've probably very rarely even referenced a few verses in the book of Amos and some of my other preaching, but I enjoy the challenge of preaching this way. It has been a blessing to me because it has kind of like puzzle pieces just coming together, connecting all these other books, all the history of the Old Testament, and of course, many things in the New Testament together. And I love history. Now, some people hate history. Some people think it's boring. I do try not to leave it where it might be boring to you. But when it comes to God, He observes history outside of the time frames. He created the beginning and the ending. He created time for man, and we are just in it. but he is not affected by the time we are affected by it. And just like we got through the book of Lamentations, God took one year for every year they did not give the Sabbath year, every seventh year they would have given him, they didn't. So after a 490 plus years of it, he took them all back and put them in captivity for 70 years. And of course he survived the captivity and he lived through it. And he was there at the end of it. And of course, he's there even right now. But this book in its time frame is before Lamentations. And so in a way of introduction, we're going to be on verse one all tonight and possibly next Wednesday if the Lord works it out. But I want you to read Amos 1 once so we can at least say we got started. Amen. But I do want to do some background work because I think it's important as we did in some of the other books to kind of help you maybe see some things. So in verse number one, the words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah. Understand where we are in this verse. What he saw was what God revealed to him in prophecy that he would speak the words of Amos. So that's what he saw. So there's a revelation that he had, a vision that he had. And so it says it was in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So there's two kings mentioned here Uzziah and Jeroboam. This happens to be Jeroboam the second because there was a Jeroboam the First, for anybody who's paying attention right now. Okay, there you go. Donnie got an A. He got an A. He gets a lollipop if I had one, amen. And then it says two years before the earthquake. And so verse one will be what we're focusing on for a little while. And because of that, I want you to turn in your Bibles to do some backdrop work to the book of second, excuse me, the book of first Kings, first Kings. chapter number 11. And what we're doing here, I'll just admit this, until I started getting into this verse by verse structure we've done, we did the four to one series, four chapters to one chapter. I was pretty fuzzy on my history and how everything divided into Judah and Israel. To be honest with you, most of the time I would just interchange that like they both were the same, but they weren't. This is going to give us the backdrop of what happened. Now our nation had a civil war. And there are some people still fighting it today, and there are some people they wouldn't want nothing to do. You would never confuse them with anything on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line. And that's what you got to understand. Judah is south, and Israel was north. Now, don't fall out with Israel because of that, because some of you probably, oh, boy, I can't stand them now. Don't do that. But understand, there were 12 tribes that made up the nation of Israel. And under King Solomon, they were at the peak, the greatest that they ever were. We already laid that groundwork before when we went into the book of Ezra about how great that they were and then how far they fell as a nation because there was a majestic kingdom. They had millions of dollars flowing through them. They had a navy of their own. I mean, they were a really, really powerful, great nation under King Solomon. And so here's the context of that in verse number 43, and Solomon slipped. with his fathers, which means he died and was buried with those in their tombs. He was buried in the city of David, his father, and Rehoboam, his son, reigned in his stead. So Solomon, the great king, is dead, and now his son's coming to reign over all the nation of Israel. At this point, there is no Judah, no southern region. They have not divided. There's been no civil war or civil unrest. Chapter 12, if you'll look as we flow down here. And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. So you see that everything looks like it's flowing to let him be king. Everybody's okay with Solomon's son. They believe that he should be a good man. Understand, if you've been here any in Sunday school with us, Solomon worked hard to try to raise his son to be the kind of man he should be. And even in that, Solomon drifted away from God on his own. He got chasing many, many wives, made many allegiances, 700 wives, 300 concubines. And his heart was torn away. He began to worship idols with them. So not only did Israel start declining, but he started declining in his heart. So Rehoboam comes in here, and it come to pass, verse two, When Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it, for he was fled from the presence of King Solomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt. tension that went on there, and he was afraid, and now that he's king, he's concerned about his life. And they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous. Now this gives us an insight that Solomon was not just a lovey-dovey, peaceful king. He put some pressure on the people. He taxed the people. He required of them. Obviously, if you understand, if you had a Navy, somebody had to fight in the Navy, somebody had to sail the ships, somebody had to build the cities, and they had cities dedicated to stalls of horses and chariots. I mean, this was a majestic, powerful nation. And so, there are Jeroboams coming and representing with all these people. And he says, thy father, verse four, made our yoke grievous. So he's complaining that the way your father treated us at times was a grievous thing. Now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father and his heavy yoke which he put upon us lighter. So we're asking you to be easy on us, easier than your father was. And then he says, and we will serve thee. So they're making conditional terms here. If you treat us better, a little bit easier than your father, the yoke of bondage and servitude and all that they felt like they had, they would agree to serve him. Verse five, this is Rehoboam. And he said unto them, depart yet for three days. Then come again to me. and the people departed. So his mind was to have three days of counsel, discussion, consideration. And the king Rehoboam, verse 6, consulted with the old men. Now, that's a good thing, to consult with some people who had been around the block, been through some things, understand they were there. Some of them might have been around even through the time when David was king and all through the time of the reign of Solomon. So he consults with the old men that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived and said, how do you advise that I may answer this people? And they spake unto him saying, verse seven, if thou will be a servant unto this people. Now think about the role reversal there. If you will serve them instead of focusing on them serving you. It's an interesting point of view. And so apparently they agreed that they had to work pretty hard under Solomon's reign. Now obviously think about, you can't have all the things they had and not somebody be working. You can't have a throne. made of ivory from elephant tusk, overlaid with gold to sit on as a king. And not somebody had to go to work, somebody had to travel. And they had their own zoo. I mean, he had peacocks and apes that were brought in on ships, spices. And like I said, they had a whole city dedicated just to taking care of the chariots and the horses. This was a mighty, mighty affair. So these older men are saying, How about you serve the people? Now, I think most of us would agree that we as people would appreciate the government serving us more than us serving them. And we pay taxes and we expect representation. I think that bought a roar one time then. It kind of caused some trouble one time when that didn't happen, amen? So, here the older men are giving their counsel If thou will be a servant unto this people this day, and will serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants forever. If you will serve them, they will serve you in return, committed forever. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Verse number eight, but he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men. men, young men that were grown up with him and what stood before him. Now the youngest person here is Dalton. So we're going to throw him under the bus here. Let's say Dalton is in this position and Dalton talks to the old people, Donnie, I'm just kidding. Donny way. I'd be right in the middle because I'm older than Donny and I'm younger than him. So anyhow, he talks to all us men that are in here. Brother Bobby, everybody's in here. He talks to us and this is what we told him. And then King Dalton turns around and said, well, these are my homies. These are my boys. This is the fellas I've been running with. These are my contemporaries. These are my friends. And obviously, if you found out your friend was going to be king, you probably thought, hey, I need to get my ear. I need to I need to persuade him. I want to be on. I want to be on staff. OK, anybody to want to do that. Now, I would have been a very, very poor king. I would have I would have been been especially when I was young. I would have been been bad. It had been been bad most of the time. That's why people look to people being older and more wisdom. They've been through some more things and they're more willing to listen, but he wasn't. And he listened to his friends and he took their counsel and. Verse number nine, he said unto them, what counsel give thee that we may answer the people who have spoken to me, saying, make this yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter. And the young men, verse 10, that were grown up with him, spake unto him, saying, thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us. Thus shalt thou say unto them, my little fingers shall be thicker than my father's loins. So he's saying, you need to respond to them. My finger was going to be thicker than my father's whole loins together. I'm going to be hundreds of times stronger, worse, more powerful, more service, more bondage. I'm going to put way more on you than that. So he says, My father made our yoke heavy, but make it lighter for us. My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loin, verse number 11. And now, whereas my father did laid you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips. This is what they're telling Rehoboam to tell them. My father chastened you with whips. I will chastise you with scorpions. So they want to put the image that he's going to be a powerful ruler and he wants to put what? Fear into people. Now the older men counseled, you serve them and they will serve you in return. And I think there's a great deal of wisdom to that. I think, you know, obviously not everything's perfect, But he didn't even try it. He didn't even listen. He threw away, he trashed all the counsel of those old men. He turned to his friends that he grew up with and some wise person amongst them said, let's just make it worse than it's ever been. And so that's what happens. And to give you a long story short, Jeroboam and all that crowd refuse, they rebel, they resist. Every man to their tent, he says, and they all go back. And the end result is, Rehoboam ends up with a civil war about to happen on his hands. And Judah is the southern tribe. Eventually, Benjamin will be associated with Judah. So when you hear about the southern tribe of Israel or the southern tribes, it's two, Judah and Benjamin. And Jerusalem is there and involved in that. And that's where the temple was. That's where the sacrifices are. And so Jeroboam, they make him king over the new territory or the new world. of Israel, which is the 10 tribes. And he decides to forget Jerusalem. He's worried about if everybody focuses on that still, that they will turn against him and he will die. And so he decides to create a new system of worship and religion and sacrifice up that way. And they create golden calves. Well, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? And so that's where everything split. Now, I said all that to say this. In Amos chapter 1, you have two kings mentioned, Uzziah, king of Judah, I'm hoping I can get your mind to think about what we're talking about. And I'm not trying to talk down on you, I'm just, listen, I struggled with this probably until about four or five years ago. There were times I just interchanged that and I look at it later, I said, oh man, I'm just throwing geographically, I'm throwing Hezekiah and Isaiah, I'm throwing them all over the map. I really didn't know where they laid. I didn't know where they fell. I didn't know where they were preaching to. I really didn't grasp a hold of it. See, now I'm starting to get this and grab a hold of this. And it's been a blessing to me. I'm this many years old and still growing and learning. I'm thankful for that. But I did not understand geographically where things went and how it broke down. So this verse 1 of Amos, it talks about Uzziah king of Judah and Jeroboam Joash. Be careful, don't get confused. This is not the same Jeroboam several hundred years before. He's not the oldest man in the world. This is Jeroboam II. Like Henry V, okay? Pope John Paul II. Anything I can help you get your mind around it. He's a second king named Jeroboam. And so, as I mention these things, these two kingdoms are mentioned here. Amos is a herdman of Tekoa. He's not just a shepherd or a herdman, but the Bible says in Amos 7, same book, you want to turn and look? Chapter 7, Amos chapter 7. It's going to take me a while. When I say Amos, I think about the famous Amos cookies, and it's going to take me a while to get that image out of my mind. Now, some of y'all are thinking, what are we talking about, cookies? Amos chapter 7, famous Amos. Amos chapter 7, verse 14. This gives us insight to something. Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, now this is Amaziah not a king, but this is Amaziah the priest. He says, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. He was a gatherer and probably sowed the trees or at least helped what we'll call being a budsman or a person who takes care of a garden. They even called them husbandmen back then, some of them, that took care of the trees. He said in chapter seven, verse 14, as he's responding to them, I was not a prophet and my father wasn't a prophet. But God calls him, he was a shepherd in Tekoa, not Tekoa, Georgia. Notice the spelling, very important to keep up with that. And Tekoa was not even really a town, it was a little village. And God picked him who was a shepherd and gathering sycamore fruit to be a prophet, and not only did he call him to preach and prophesy, but Brother Donohue didn't even let him do it where he lived. He sent him to the northern tribes. Amos is a prophet to the northern tribes when he was from the southern tribe of Tekoa, or the area of Judah. And so it gives you the understanding. He probably wasn't very well received, right? Can you imagine that? So you're not even from around here, you know, there's been division, they've been divided many years at this point. Now, in Amos chapter seven, verse 15, he says, as the Lord took me, as I followed the flock and the Lord said unto me, go prophesy unto my people Israel. Now, when we read Israel there, it's very important to understand we are talking about the 10 tribes. Now, if you go way back before Solomon's day, if you, brother Carl, if you said Israel, you're talking about the nation. They were, they were not divided then, but now they are. And that's why Judah is mentioned. And that's why Israel is mentioned in Amos chapter one, verse one. So in this verse of Amos one, one, we have the name of Amos. His name means burden or a burden carrier. Interesting. We just got through the book of Lamentations and the very book of Lamentations is about lamenting and the sadness of what was going on. Amos' own name means one who's carrying a burden or a burden barrier. Now he has a burden of a message to give to the people of Israel in this book. And Amos chapter 7 tells us, you know, he didn't, he probably didn't have a lot of confidence because like, I am not a prophet. I was not a prophet. I didn't just jump up. Oh, I'm a prophet. I was taking care of sheep. I was counting sycamore fruit. And God said, go prophesy. No, this wasn't his idea. God called him to do it. God told him to go now. The reason God called him to go, I don't know necessarily why he picked him from the southern tribes and sent him to the northern tribes, but I do know this, the Bible even tells us, as Jesus said, a prophet is not without honor, save or accept in his own country. Be honest with you, many people you grow up with, especially if you become a preacher, oh, they don't have much respect for you. I remember you when you used to, I remember when you used to say this. I remember when you used to act like this. Because they grew up around you, they don't respect you. They don't listen to you. And they think it's cute, or they get mad, or they get offended. Maybe that's the wisdom God uses. I'm going to pluck you up out of here and send you up there. Nobody's going to know. Nobody's going to care. Everybody's going to hate you. And you just go prophesy, and you preach, and you do what I say. And that's what God did. He called him and sent him up there to warn them. Now, this whole book, the title we'll call it, this study, is Amos, Justice, and Mercy. What happens in the theme of this book, under King Jeroboam, I'm combining people's names together, Jeroboam, so just bear with me. There's a lot of J's in the Bible. Jeroboam, Israel, and when I say Israel, who we talking about? The 10 tribes. They prospered under his kingdom. They grew, they were wealthy, they had plenty. Now Uzziah in the southern tribes, they did pretty good too. Now if you ever heard Isaiah the prophet in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. Y'all know that verse, y'all probably heard it. Well Isaiah and Hosea and Amos all were prophets in the same time. Hosea prophesied to Israel and Judah. Isaiah mostly prophesied to Judah. He was very good friends with King Uzziah. They were actually very good friends and he counseled him. And when he died, it broke Isaiah's heart. But it was really God shaking him up. He was looking at King Uzziah and the plentiness. And at that point he said, woe is me. And at that point he began to turn and realize he had to see the Lord high and lifted up. He wasn't have his eye on a king. Now Jeroboam and the northern tribe there, they were doing well. And one of the problems was they were mistreating poor people. They were focused on themselves. They didn't care about their relationship with God or their relationship with people. And they were being very abusive. And in this book, he points it out over and over and over. So God calls Amos to warn them about this and preach against them for They have forgotten to be just with people and treat people kindly as God told them to do. They did not have mercy upon people. They were not having mercy upon people that were their own kinfolk and their servants or strangers. And he sent them to warn them of this, that they were loving themselves and they were taking advantage of people and mistreating people, especially poor people. Now, the mistreatment of the poor and all this stuff, it reminds me that that's what happens when everything starts going well, isn't it? We start forgetting about other people. When hardship comes, yeah, you want to take care of your family, but many times the Great Depression in our own nation, when people didn't have hardly nothing, they still helped other neighbors. That's where neighbors really became real back in that time frame and even in World War II. Now people don't even know who their neighbors are. They hardly even speak to each other. Some of you have different, you've got neighbors that are different, but it's because your Christian point of view, you understand it. But for the generalization, most people don't know their neighbors. They don't care about their neighbors. And all the evidence of Israel showed they had forgotten God because of their prosperity. And God sends Amos to warn them. Most nations, when they get prosperous and do well, they tend to forget God as well. And they begin to refuse to do what God says. They begin to reject His word. money becomes their God, morals and the treatment of God according to the Word of God, that doesn't seem to matter very much. But boy, you let God get a hold and shake some things up, it always seems, not everybody, some will rebel to the very last breath, but most of them, collectively, you'll see a return, a revival, people will wake up. So just for a few highlights, that's an introduction. For a few highlights, these are all verses in the book of Amos that I just want to read. I'm not going to try to draw them out. We'll go back to that later. But if you'll turn with me, this will be a little summary, hopefully get our appetite wet. This is Amos 7, 12. Just turn. Ain't that far for you to go. It's only nine chapters. We'll be studying this for a while. So it'd be good to get familiar with it. Amos 7, 12. Also Amaziah or Amaziah or however you say it, this is the priest now, said unto Amos, O thou seer. Now a seer is a prophet. Go, flee thee away into the land of Judah and there eat bread and prophesy there. Does it sound like he wants him there? No. Okay. So you have rejection of Amos, there's gonna be a revelation of what they have done as a people, and their rejection of what Amos is, and their refusal to repent of their sins. Let's go to Amos 2. Look at Amos 2. Amos 2, 6. Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. because they sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes. So you see materialism, money driving their actions. Verse seven, that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor and turn aside the way of the meek and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid And that's a sexual thing, sexual reference. To profane my holy name. So you can see that materialism, money, and morally, they are decayed. When a father and a son having the same sexual partner, and it seemed no one, nothing matters. So this is a messed up, corrupt group of people. Verse number eight. And they lay themselves down upon the clothes Laid to pledge by every altar, they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their God, little G-O-D. Amos 3.10, trying to refrain from so much commentary. For they know not to do right, Amos 3.10, saith the Lord, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces. Amos 4.1, hear this word. ye kind of Bashan that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, bring and let us drink. Now I just want to comment, I can't help it. Any of y'all ever grow up with some friends, maybe in a gang and a bunch of bullies and y'all were mean to some poor people or somebody that was a beggar or somebody that was, that's, that's a pretty low place to be. to treat people that way, to crush them, to abuse them, to steal from them. And that kind of stuff was happening. I'm glad I didn't grow up that way. I wasn't raised that way. I never did that. I realized when I got older that I was poor, much poorer than I thought. But we also help people poorer than us. We help people. Amos 4.1, Amos 5.11. Let's go to Amos 5.11. For as much, therefore, as your treading is upon the poor. So you see the theme here. The poor is mentioned a lot. I know we don't care about the poor today, because we usually don't care because we're not poor. And when you get poor, then you care about being poor. You care about poorness and poor people. When you're hurt, then it seems to wake you up to needs. But God sees all this. He saw what they were doing. You taken from the burdens of wheat, you have built houses and hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them. Notice that, that's a judgment, that's a prophecy. You're going to build houses, but you're not going to live in them. He had planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. Verse 12, for I know your manifold transgressions. and your mighty sins, they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right, or that what is right and just. Amos 8, just summarizing some verses that kind of give the tone or the tenor of this book. Amos 8, 4. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail. Saying, when will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn? This next phase comes by. And the Sabbath that we may set for wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great and falsifying the balances by deceit. Of course, I don't know if y'all remember the scripture in the book of Proverbs, a false balance is an abomination to God. That's talking about the scales. And if you were to weigh a pound of something, they would alter the weight of the scale. And when you paid for it, Sister Virginia would go buy a pound of sugar. I'm just saying. She gets home and said, there's only like seven tenths here. They've shaved it. They've manipulated it. It's a false balance. And God hated that. And they were doing that and doing it to the poor people. And so this is a lot of the corruption that was taking place. And let's back up Amos 5 21. I hate. I despise your feast days. Wow. Now God gave them their feast days. Now they may have made up some new feast days. We all know that when a nation gets real prosperous and their mind's on the wrong things most of the time, they'll just start making up holidays. They'll just start, they'll just look for a reason to celebrate something. And the ones that really mean something, they forget why they celebrate them. And so he said, I hate, I despise your feast days. You could understand that many of the Feast of Pentecost, et cetera, the Passover of what it meant when they put the blood on the post of the door. At this point, Brother Donnie, most of these people, they don't even know why they celebrate those things. And if you don't pass it along and teach it to your family, and prophets don't preach it, and the kings don't respect it, the nation just keeps getting turned into hell. It keeps getting further and further away. And God tells Amos, I want you to tell them, I hate, I despise your feast days. I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Yeah, he said smell. What does that mean? Well, I'm trying to be not careful of commentary, but I don't want y'all to be confused. Talking about the incense burning, sacrifices being made. I'm not accepting it. I will not, verse 22, though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beast. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy vials, but let judgment run down its waters. and the righteousness as a mighty stream." Wow. In essence, he's saying, let the judgment roll. Let it roll. So with that, we go to verse 1 and we find that Amos is called to go to the northern tribes, which is Israel. to preach based on all the verses that we have just read, kind of highlighted some of them, tried to be careful not to get bogged down too much. And we're going to get into chapter one and break down a few more things. And I don't know if you noticed this, but there was an earthquake. Earthquakes always seem to get people's attention, don't they? And Amos, in this verse, he's warning them of this earthquake or this judgment and in verse one it just tags it at the end of the verse putting us in remembrance. He prophesied all this two years before the earthquake comes. So judgment he warned and judgment came, an earthquake came, and we'll get into the earthquake a little bit. There's some history I want to bring out in that. I love history. I don't have to have history to prove anything about the Bible or God, but it sure excites me when history proves something about God in the Bible. I don't have to have it to support it, but I love it when God is proven right in history. And so the Bible shows us that. We'll get into that, and then we'll move on. And interesting phrase in verse two, he said, let the Lord will roar from Zion. And I've never been in an earthquake, but tornadoes make loud noises, earthquakes make devastating noises. And the image of a lion roaring and the fear of God being put into people, that's what this book is about. And what happens with Israel, is that God sends earthquake, and then later he sends the Assyrian Empire to judge them, to attack them, much like later he would do with Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar. So we're kind of doing a step back in a historical way, but it connects together, and we go, oh, yeah, I recognize that. I recognize God seems to do some of the similar things. When he says he's going to judge, he keeps his word. When people repent, he gives mercy, and he restores, and he has longsuffering upon them. But this is a book of a famous prophet named Amos. I almost wanted to name it that, but I'm glad I didn't. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. Pray you help us to grow in grace and knowledge. Lord, allow us to be able to see this piece together with other places in the scripture. Help us, Lord, to be equipped. I pray for our people, Lord, that they would, to learn the scriptures and they would be strong in the Lord, the power of your might, that they would understand these scriptures greater and better and feel more confident about sharing the gospel, Lord, and talking about the truth of the whole word of God. I pray that they would grow in grace and knowledge. In Jesus' name we all we pray, amen.