Preached by Chris Broom, 7/26/2009

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James Ebomoyi (2nd from left) Gets Baptized!

Life is full of surprises; good, bad, and ugly. You really don’t ever know what is coming, so what is important is to know who it is coming from. You have to trust in God and believe that he is sovereign. James said every good and perfect gift is from above – there is nothing good in our lives that we have ever received that didn’t come from God. But also, even the bad things God either makes happen or allows to happen because he is sovereign. Even when Satan wanted to test Job, he had to get permission from God. The Bible says that we will not be tempted beyond what we can bear, but God will allow things to come our way to remind us that he is still there.

1. The Lord has something to say! (Amos 1:1-3)
- Over 40 times in the book of Amos, he says “The Lord says” or “declares the Lord” etc. He wants to make it clear that these are God’s words, not his own.
- What is he saying? It is a warning. God is pronouncing a drought.
- Why was God bringing this judgment? Because of sin.

2. The Lord has something to say to you! (Amos 1:3-2:11)
- Often we can hear something preached and think “I hope so-in-so was listening, they really needed to hear that” instead of thinking about how the preaching applies to us.
- God had always pronounced judgment on pagan nations surrounding Israel and the Israelites were fired up about it, but here Israel’s sins are listed along side those of her neighbors.
- It is even worse. The other nations did what was wrong based on a general sense of right and wrong that people have. But Judah rejected what they believed to be the very words of God. (Amos 2:4)
- When we turn from God’s Word we turn to false gods, whether we want to or not. So God says he will take down or defenses – the things we put our security in that are not Him.
- We need to ask: “What does God want to say to me today?”
- Israel’s sin: loving things and using people, greed, immorality, materialism, perversion, and forgetting all that God had done for them. And these are God’s people!
- Our heart needs to be “Deal with me God” not “Deal with my neighbor.”

3. What does God have to do to get through to you? (Amos 4:6-5:6)
- God sent the famine! If God loves us why would he do that? To get our attention. (Hosea 13:6)
- Not only will God withhold rain from you, but he’ll let it rain on someone else.
- If we are man focused we’ll be bitter at God and jealous of others. But if we are God focused, we’ll ask “What is God trying to say to me?”
- He sends even worse things like death and disease. Why? Because he loves us and wants us to return to him!
- If you don’t want these things to happen to you, draw near to God. Seek God and live. (Amos 5:4-6, Psalm 119:1-2)

4. God needs servants to say it through. (Amos 3:3-8, 5:18-24)
- Amos came before the disasters and warned about those things.
- These verses are a series of cause and effect.
- Just like you know that these things don’t happen with out a cause, know that disaster doesn’t come without God causing it!
- Why? To get you back. So you’ll make God your fortress.
- It’s cause and effect: because God speaks, we have to speak.
- God sends his servants to talk to us, the question is: are we going to listen?
- When God gives us a heavy message, we can’t turn on love songs. Those aren’t true servants. You have to speak the message God gives you to speak.
- Amos 5:18-24 God hates feel-good religion.
- Without commitment to God’s word there is no basis for a standard of living.

Conclusion: Hebrews 4:12-13
What happened in the day of Amos was that God had been patient. He had spared them, and spared them, and spared them, but now his patience was at an end. It was time for them to face judgment. For us, as long as we’re alive, there is hope. But when we die, we will face judgment. The test for you today is: will you listen? Will you let the Word cut deep into your heart and expose who you are. Because if you do, you can change and you can grow. And then you can take the message to others.

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