HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 1172
Amos
Y O U R N E I G H B O R L E A N S over the fence and tells you he’s going
to do it. He’s going to leave your neighborhood and move into that nice
section of town. He’s finally made it—a high-paying job, a nice car, new
furniture, even a country-club membership. Yes, he’s arrived. But during the conversation, there is something nagging at you. You realize
that your neighbor never mentions anyone else but himself—his goals,
his dreams, his toys. Behind that smile, you begin to see he is hiding
a mountain of pain and uncertainty—a shaky marriage, unruly kids,
intense job pressure, a need for status and image, a need for belonging.
The pursuit of things has become his intoxicating drink, his addicting
drug, his materialistic fix to temporarily dull the pain and emptiness he
so often faces. The sad thing is, he doesn’t even realize it.
Things haven’t changed much since the time of
What you will be
reading about
Amos. On the surface, the days in which Amos
lived were a golden age for Israel, the northern
1:1– 6:14
A nation gone corrupt
kingdom. Jeroboam II had won important trade
routes in battle that brought wealth to the capi7:1– 9:10
tal city, Samaria. With favorable weather, crops
Amos’s visions of judgment
were bountiful and people prospered. Beautiful
9:11-15
homes and elegant public buildings seemed
Israel will be restored
to be going up everywhere. It seemed like a
wonderful time to be alive in the northern kingdom.
But all was not well. While rich men and women went to sleep on ivory
beds, others were selling themselves and their children into slavery in order
to stay alive.
Many got their wealth by cheating—mixing husks into grain, weighing goods
on rigged scales, gouging the poor with unreasonable interest rates. The golden
era of Israel was tarnished with ugly dishonesty, bribery, and a wide range of
other evils. It was the “me” generation of Israel, when people lived for self,
when the accumulation of possessions was the priority.
Enter Amos. He was not a professional preacher or prophet. He was a herdsman. That may suggest that he had wealth, honest wealth. God called him to
leave his home near Jerusalem in Judah, the southern kingdom, and go to Israel
to be an activist, to speak out against the evils of that society. Amos obeyed.
The message of Amos was not only for the northern kingdom but for prosperous people of every society. Amos was not preaching against accumulating
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