Amos Ch. 3:3-12 Reggie Webb- Cause and Effect lesson 7
http://countrysidechurchofchrist.sermon.net/main/main/21462272
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
Amos Ch. 3:3-12 Reggie Webb- Cause and Effect lesson 7
http://countrysidechurchofchrist.sermon.net/main/main/21462272
thedailylily.com 
“For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.”
Amos 3:7 ESV
I love the emphasis on “prophet”. Sure helps to know listening and speaking very important.
Responsibilities….pause and think!
Thinking this week on Responsibilities I have tried to pause and give thought to the ones I have been given. Pastor Reggie reminded us we all have been given some just as Amos, the farmer/prophet. Francis of Assisi’s genius was that he was ready for absolute “newness” from God, and therefore could also trust fresh and new attitudes in himself.
In his “Testament,” Francis said, “No one showed me what I ought to do,” and then, at the very end of his life, he said, “I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours!”
Thanks for sharing about Francis of Assisi, Sara, and his quotes both above and in below comments.
How wonderful that he was confident, clear and diligent in his responsibilities, which apparently enabled him to rate his personal success and encourage others to do the same by “practice of the better”.
Sara, you said, “I love the emphasis on “prophet”.
As I listened to this lesson, I would sure agree with you that there was a lot of emphasis on “prophet”; what God reveals to them; and what will surely come to pass as they deliver His message.
Pastor Reggie told us God always reveals His major plans to the prophets, and said that once this revelation has occurred and the Lord has spoken, that the judgement was “sure to follow”. Amos knew that what God had revealed to him, God was going to do to Israel. And Pastor Reggie cited Ezekiel to let us know that if the watchman/spokesperson for God, delivers the message, then the watchman’s/prophet’s responsibility is fulfilled and the responsibility is now transferred to the people who have been warned. If they don’t listen and heed, then the blood is on their head’s, not the prophet’s. The prophet has to carry out his task or “woe be to the spokesman.”
Bringing it home, we learn in this lesson that if God gives us a message, we better deliver it; if God gives us a responsibility (and He has given us many), we better “see to it that we carry them out.”
Pastor Reggie emphasized to us in many ways that, “the ultimate cause of a political disaster is God Himself, telling us what the cause of this disaster is…sin and immorality. He uses the example in Amos of Israel who, “by any standards of international decency” was guilty, and had sunken lower morally than the surrounding pagan nations. He said they no longer “knew how to do right”, right meaning just, honest, decent and proper. He then fast-forwards to America today and says, “some people in America are the same way – they have forgotten how to do things that are just, honest, decent and proper. Their moral sense has become so warped that the concepts of right and wrong are totally blurred…”
Israel, Pastor Reggie instructs us, used their political power and influence to plunder the poor so they could live in wealth and luxury. He defines this as “legalized robbery/thievery, but says that these oppressors and plunderers will soon be the ones falling to terrible destruction, oppressed and plundered by God because God has determined it and spoken it through His prophet.
Pastor Reggie then brings application to our day, today, telling us that, “if God determines that America is going to fall, it’s going to happen regardless of the size of America’s military forces.” He goes on with a sobering warning saying, “I think people are still lying and cheating and taking advantage of the poor…but the day will come, it will come! when God will turn the tables and those that are doing the oppressing and plundering will be oppressed and plundered…mark it down – the Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy. What He has spoken will surely come to pass.”
We are clearly seeing and I think Reggie reminded us God is NOT to be toyed with. I think of a toy gun maybe no harm to another yet it can bring great fear. I heard of a man that robbed a pharmacy with a toy gun. He got what he wanted but he also got justice.
Pastor Reggie gave a sober warning in this lesson and Debi has once again clearly written some of his teaching out for us.
I wonder if we are living in disbelief of God as Judge. God as prophet? Maybe some of us accept priest to humble himself and serve us our request.
If we don’t believe the message of Prophet Amos tune in to the nightly news and our ears will hear and eyes see what justice of a nation might look like! Amos’ message is sounding a trumpet to nation after nation. We seem to like the message when it’s not about us!
God’s Word will not return void.
“I wonder if we are living in disbelief of God as Judge. God as prophet? Maybe some of us accept priest to humble himself and serve us our request.”
Sara, this question and statement of yours sounds like the answer is most probably ‘yes’. Pastor Reggie told us that Israel thought they were the chosen people of God, therefore God was always going to give them success. But he went on to say that they were wrong in assuming that they had nothing to fear; and that if they engaged in wrongdoing and were sinful then God would punish them, “just as sure as He punished the surrounding foreign nations.” He pointed out that God revealed to the prophet Amos what he was going to do to them and that “once this revelation has occurred (the Lord has spoken), the judgement on Israel was SURE to follow.”
These scriptures remind me that God is still the Judge and prophet today… He is unchangeable:
“God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” Numbers 23:19
“In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.” Psalm 102:25-27
Wonderful overview Debi
and Sara’s focused and application words. The lesson by Pastor Reggie this week makes my blood pressure rise as I heard the lesson, took notes, and read over all the comments.
I find myself viewing a nation in Snow White’s mirror saying, “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest in the land.” Yes a story from “Snow White” is that not what we ask with a puffed up image of ourselves, this nation of America. We have learned a lot about Israel’s infidelities as relayed through Pastor Reggie’s lesson. Now it’s not Israel in front of the mirror, it is America. The mirror speaks, “No the image you see is a fantasy, you are not the fairest and are found lacking.”
If we raise our heads to heaven, we as a nation can see, we are in the crosshairs of the LORD.
Book of Amos as Pastor Reggie shows us every week, the evidence is in the court of Heaven and continually has grown, and the gavel is poised to thunder out His judgements.
Puffed up sounds like Pride and Arrogance. I heard a lady say years ago there is no such thing as a little Pride. Pride is Pride? Wonder if that’s true?
My understanding of Snow White is vanity shining from a vain queen. The Word has plenty to say about vanity. Here are a few:
Proverbs 30:13 There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Proverbs 21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin.
Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.
Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
James 1:26 If anyone among you thinks to be religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, his religion is vain.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
In thinking about what Rena wrote, “The mirror speaks…”, I thought about a scripture place where a mirror speaks if we will look long enough to see and hear and then do what it says: “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” James 1:22-25
The scripture Sara wrote above about vain religion and the unbridled tongue from James follows right on the heels of this.
Debi, your scripture quote reminds me of the first comment I gleaned for my week’s work while listening to just the beginning of this lesson, responsibly. I have commented on this above.. Your quote, “God will bless you for doing it.”
And, this mirrored my practice for my bright light, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.” Francis of Assisi
I believe I understood Pastor Reggie in the lesson, referring I think to the people of Israel here? It doesn’t matter how “morally superior “ you think you are, if you do not heed God’s warnings, it will not go well with you. Did I misunderstand?
Tammy, my understanding from listening to Pastor Reggie’s lesson, was the same as what you wrote above.
He told us that Israel “considered themselves to be morally superior” to the Philistines and the Egyptians. So when God summoned these two pagan nations to come to the hills and witness, look and see for themselves just how low the Israelites had sunk in their immorality and sin, that was an indictment against Israel. He said their level of sin was worse than the surrounding nations…”worse than the Philistines and the Egyptians.”
Thank you Debi, for your clarification.