EXTREME FAMILY DEVOTIONS
LESSON 34

 

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Session 34:  Who is Amos?
Guided Reading: Amos  We are reading the whole book! Its 9 chapters.

     

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Watch Yourself: Watch this overview of Amos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGgWaPGpGz4

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Kids Zone: Learn about Amos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwH9Y49ZqFs

 

Lesson:  The books of the prophets have a recurring theme.  The peoples’ sin leads to God’s punishments, but repentance leads to redemption.  We see this repetition so many times in the Bible.  You would think that having these stories and lessons would give us hindsight to not fall into the same problems, but nope...we are still the same.  In Amos 4, there are some harsh words to those who do not learn from past mistakes.  The chapters starts off by saying, “Listen to me, you fat cows.”   That should tell you how the rest of it sounds.       

 

This book is a message about how God deals with injustice.  God will not let injustice remain.  God will not let corrupt people remain in power.  All we need to do is look at history and see that evil is stamped out many times.  We also get a glimpse as to why injustice exists to begin with.  God’s people abandoned Him and continued to sin again and again.  So this injustice is a punishment but also a signal to turn back to God. 

 

God often sends voices of reason into situations of mass injustice.  Amos was a simple animal herder and tree farmer who spoke to the people of Israel and their neighbors.  More recently Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice was shouting over the noise of the injustice taking place during the civil rights movement.  One of his first speeches, which was just meant to organize a bus protest, he said, “we must keep God at the forefront.”  This ended up launching him to the most prominent social justice voices of the time.  Much like MLK, Amos was spoke against all of the injustice that he saw in the world.   

 

In addition to the prophetic words of a coming judgment, Amos also spoke about what Jesus’ crucifixion would be like.  Amos 8:9 “In that day...I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day.”  Later when Jesus was on the cross, the sun does go dark at noon.  Luke 23:44-45.  Amos goes on to say that, in verse 10, “you will wear funeral clothes…[and mourn] as if your only son had died.”  Jesus is God’s only son. 

 

With all prophetic warnings of the Bible, we are left again with hope.  God promises restoration.  Everything will be rebuilt and restored to its former glory. We know that Jesus describes a temple being destroyed and rebuilt in three days.  We know that this was not a physical building like they thought but rather referenced Jesus’ death and resurrection in three days. 

 

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Worship Zone:
Let us pray:
God, we thank you for the inspiration of Jesus. Grant that we will love you with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, even our enemy neighbors. And we ask you, God, in these days of emotional tension, when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, to be with us in our going out and our coming in, in our rising up and in our lying down, in our moments of joy and in our moments of sorrow, until the day when there shall be no sunset and no dawn. Amen.
- Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.