Amos

First, this map is from the NIV Study Bible and can help place where certain events occurred.

I was asked today about Amos, and I can't add more than is written in the Bible--he was a shepherd, and obviously a very learned one. The one interesting note I found in the NIV Study Bible was that he was a Judean who was a prophet to Israel, and that just didn't happen often. You can see where he was  born on the map at Tekoa, but he did much of his ministry at Bethel.

Amos will serve as our introduction to prophecy in general, since the message isn't going to change all that much:

1. Woe to Israel/Judah because

    a. you worship false gods

    b. you worship yourselves

    c. you're licentious and evil

2. There will be judgment

    a. it will be swift and total

    b. it will come from the Lord

3. REPENT

Lucky for us we're not like that today. Lucky for us we obey the Lord totally and completely and have no need of his judgment. Unlike them, we WELCOME the Day of the Lord, when we need to be just as wary of it as they should have been. As with most prophecy, there is a dual nature at work:

1. It is prophetic for their times (i.e., for the times the people were living in)

2. It is prophetic STILL for us today

For example, the Day of the Lord, referred to in Amos 5:18-20, occurred for Israel about 40 years after Amos spoke those words when they went into Assyrian exile. It happened AGAIN about 140 years after that with the people of Judah entering Babylonian exile. It will happen AGAIN at the Last Day, when all of us will be judged before the Lord.

Since we need to have every expectation that an impending judgment is coming, we need to be prepared and make sure we're not doing the same things the people of Israel and Judah were doing. The idols may have changed, but the nature of idol worship is alive and well in the world today. We don't know when the Day of the Lord is, we just know that for CERTAIN, each day on earth brings us one day closer to it--all the more reason to be ever ready and prepared for it.

Scott