The Sunday School Lesson Salvation Through God's Judgment by David McGee
Dec 18, 2016
Salvation Through God's Judgment (38:48)
Referenced Scriptures: Amos 1:1-2; Amos 7; Amos 8; Amos 9:1-15
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You've probably heard the expression, "Walk the talk." It is a reminder that our actions ought to follow our words. This is especially important to Christians. A healthy relationship with God should affect our actions as well as our words.
It can be tempting, however, to go through the motions in our walk of faith. Surprisingly, this is often a bigger problem when life is going well.
Amos prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel during times of prosperity during the eighth century B.C. Sadly, the people used this prosperity as an opportunity to indulge their desires, exploit the needy, and chase after false gods. From their tragic example we are reminded that God judges sin. Yet God can use times of judgment and suffering to call His people back to Himself.
The scriptures below are from the WEB Bible.
Amos 1:1-2
1) The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
2) He said, Yahweh will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.
Amos 7
1) Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, behold, it was the latter growth after the king‘s harvest.
2) It happened that, when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small.
3) Yahweh repented concerning this: It shall not be, says Yahweh.
4) Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: and, behold, the Lord Yahweh called to content by fire; and it devoured the great deep, and would have eaten up the land.
5) Then said I, Lord Yahweh, cease, I beg you: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small.
6) Yahweh repented concerning this: this also shall not be, says the Lord Yahweh.
7) Thus he showed me: and, behold, the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand.
8) Yahweh said to me, Amos, what see you? I said, A plumb-line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more;
9) and the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.
10) Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el 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.
11) For thus Amos says, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.
12) Also Amaziah said to Amos, you seer, go, flee you away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:
13) but don‘t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king‘s sanctuary, and it is a royal house.
14) 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 dresser of sycamore-trees:
15) and Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel.
16) Now therefore hear you the word of Yahweh: You say, Don‘t prophesy against Israel, and don‘t drop [your word] against the house of Isaac;
17) therefore thus says Yahweh: Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.
Amos 8
1) Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: and, behold, a basket of summer fruit.
2) He said, Amos, what see you? I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said Yahweh to me, The end is come on my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3) The songs of the temple shall be wailings in that day, says the Lord Yahweh: the dead bodies shall be many: in every place shall they cast them forth with silence.
4) Hear this, you who would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,
5) saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;
6) that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7) Yahweh has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8) Shall not the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells therein? yes, it shall rise up wholly like the River; and it shall be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt.
9) It shall happen in that day, says the Lord Yahweh, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.
10) I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end of it as a bitter day.
11) Behold, the days come, says the Lord Yahweh, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Yahweh.
12) They shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run back and forth to seek the word of Yahweh, and shall not find it.
13) In that day shall the beautiful virgins and the young men faint for thirst.
14) Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, As your god, Dan, lives; and, As the way of Beersheba lives; they shall fall, and never rise up again.
Amos 9:1-15
1) I saw the Lord standing beside the altar: and he said, Strike the capitals, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will kill the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape.
2) Though they dig into Sheol, there shall my hand take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there will I bring them down.
3) Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out there; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there will I command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
4) Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command the sword, and it shall kill them: and I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good.
5) For the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts, [is] he who touches the land and it melts, and all who dwell therein shall mourn; and it shall rise up wholly like the River, and shall sink again, like the River of Egypt;
6) [it is] he who builds his chambers in the heavens, and has founded his vault on the earth; he who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth; Yahweh is his name.
7) Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, children of Israel? says Yahweh. Haven‘t I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?
8) Behold, the eyes of the Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the surface of the earth; except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says Yahweh.
9) For, behold, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, like as [grain] is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least kernel fall on the earth.
10) All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, The evil shall not overtake nor meet us.
11) In who day will I raise up the tent of David who is fallen, and close up the breaches of it; and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old;
12) who they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations who are called by my name, says Yahweh who does this.
13) Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the one treading grapes him who sows seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
14) I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine of it; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
15) I will plant them on their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, says Yahweh your God.
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