Amos 5
I. Outline of Amos
A. \\#1:1\\ The Time of Amos
B. \\#1:2-2:5\\ Judgment Against Israel’s Neighbors
C. \\#2:6-9:10\\ Judgment Against Israel
1. \\#2:6-6:14\\ Three Sermons
a. \\#2:6-3:15\\ Israel’s Past Sins
(1) \\#2:6-8\\ Israel’s Sins
(2) \\#2:9-13\\ God’s Power and Love
(3) \\#2:14-16\\ God Will Remove His Blessings
(4) \\#3:1-10\\ Israel’s Privilege and Accountability
(5) \\#3:11-15\\ A Coming Enemy
b. \\#4:1-13\\ Israel’s Present Sins
(1) \\#4:1-3\\ God’s Pledge
(2) \\#4:4-5\\ God’s Indignation
(3) \\#4:6-13\\ God’s Judgments
c. \\#5:1-6:14\\ Israel’s Future Sins
(1) \\#5:1-3\\ A Fallen Virgin
(2) \\#5:4-10\\ A Call to Repentance
(3) \\#5:11-27\\ A Just Punishment
(4) \\#6:1-6\\ Woe to Wealthy
(5) \\#6:7-14\\ They Will Suffer First
2. \\#7:1-8:14\\ Five Visions
D. \\#9:11-15\\ God’s Promise of A Future Restoration
NOTES:
I. \\#Amos 5:1-6:14\\ Israel's Future Sins
A. \\#5:1-3\\ A Fallen Virgin
1. \\#1\\ "lamentation" - A lamentation is a death song.
a. \\#Amos 4:12\\ - God promises Israel a final judgment
that will end in their death.
b. To add to that image, God gives the nation their
death song. It won’t be long until it is needed.
2. The death songs does two things:
a. It describes Israel death.
(1) \\#2\\ "the virgin of Israel is fallen"
(2) Being referred to as a fallen virgin, Israel had
lost its purity for ever.
(3) Such is a death from sexual sin would be a long
and painful death.
(4) There was no one who could "raise her up" again.
b. It gives a prophecy concerning the remnant.
(1) \\#3\\ "the city that went out by a thousand
shall leave by a hundred… an hundred shall leave
ten"
(2) The survival rate would be no more than one in
ten.
B. \\#5:4-10\\ A Call to Repentance
1. \\#4\\ "Seek ye me and ye shall live" - God continues to
call to these people with an offer of forgiveness and
life. \\#5:6, 8, 14\\
a. These are not offers to stop their upcoming judgment
but to give them some mercy in the midst of their
judgment \\#Amos 5:15\\.
b. All of these invitations will go unheeded.
c. There will come a day when God will stop offering any
mercy at all.
Mic 3:4 Then shall they cry to* the LORD, but
he will not hear them: he will even hide his
face from them at that time, as they have behaved
themselves ill in their doings.
2. \\#5\\ "Bethel… Gilgal… Beersheba" - But Israel would
have to look for Jehovah in some place other than the old
religious cities for they had all been corrupted by false
worship.
a. Bethel was the place where Jacob saw the vision of the
ladder. It became one of the preeminent cities of
the northern tribes. Jeroboam I placed the false cow
god there.
b. Gilgal was the first stop of Israel once inside the
Promised Land. Their first memorial to God’s grace
was there. It was a prominent ruling and religious
center.
c. Beersheba was 22 miles south of Jerusalem and so it
would seem that it should have belonged to the
southern kingdom; however, it belonged to the tribe
of Simeon and so went to the northern kingdom.
Although Israel’s borders ran further south,
Beersheba was often mentioned as the southern extreme
of the nation, perhaps because the land was mostly
barren to the south of the city.
3. "shall surely go into captivity - All of these cities were
to suffer when the enemy came. Indeed, the northern
kingdom’s judgment was already degreed \\#27\\.
4. \\#7\\ "you* who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off
righteousness" - Two sins of Israel are mentioned.
a. They make had perverted justice, making it bitter.
b. They had turned away from anything right.
5. \\#8\\ "Seek him" - God must introduce Himself to His
people.
a. "maketh the seven stars and Orion" - He is the Creator
of the constellations, Orion and Pleiades. The
people might worship the created but they do not know
the Creator.
b. He is the One who "turns* the shadow of death into
morning" - Jehovah is the God who determines life and
death as these people are soon to find out.
c. He makes "the day dark with night" - This is very
similar to \\#Amos 4:13\\, "that maketh the morning
darkness." Both are probably a reference to God’s
rule that the day should pass to night.
d. He is the One who gathered the waters and poured "them
out on upon the face of the earth," a reference to
God’s power is creating the seas and establishing
their boundaries.
e. "The Lord is his name."
(1) The name is Jehovah, the unspoken and unwritten
name for God among the Jews.
(2) \\#9\\ "That strengthens* the spoiled against
the strong" - This is the God who is able to
defend Israel, "the spoiled," from Assyria, "the
strong"; but it will not happen in this conflict.
(3) \\#10\\ Why? Because "they hate him that
rebuketh… and they abhor him that speaks*
uprightly."
C. \\#5:11-27\\ A Just Punishment - God knowing that Israel will
not repent, determines their reward.
1. \\#11-15\\ God knows.
a. God list more of their "various* transgressions" and
"mighty sins" \\#12\\.
(1) \\#11\\ "treading is upon the poor"
(2) "you* take from him burdens of wheat"
(3) \\#12\\ "afflict the just"
(4) "take a bribe"
(5) "turn aside the poor… from their right"
b. God also lists some of their judgments.
(1) \\#11\\ "ye… built houses… but you* shall not
dwell in them."
(2) "ye… planted… vineyards, but he shall not
drink… of them.
c. And God lists some things that they should do.
(1) \\#14\\ "Seek good and not evil"
(2) \\#15\\ "Hate the evil"
(3) "love the good"
(4) "establish judgment"
(5) If these things are done, "it may be that the
Lord God of hosts will be gracious to* the
REMNANT"
(a) Doing these things is not a promise of
deliverance from Assyria but of some mercy.
(b) A little mercy is better than none and none
is what they will get if they continued in
the way they were going.
d. \\#13\\ God even lists one thing that the wise will
do when judgment comes.
(1) They will keep silent.
(2) That means that they will not be surprised or
bitter at what God does for they will understand
why He has done it.
2. \\#16-20\\ God warns.
a. \\#16-17\\ There shall be great wailing.
(1) \\#16\\ "in all the highways" - Meaning no street
will be left without dead.
(2) "they shall call the husbandmen to mourning" -
Meaning either his family is dead or that his
vineyard has been destroyed.
(3) "skilful of lamentation" - The wealthy Jews had
professional mourners come to wail for them to
be certain that someone cried at their funeral.
That crew will be busy when this judgment comes.
(4) "in all vineyards" - Weeping shall be heard In
the city and around the countryside.
(5) Why? "For I will pass through you*" - God will
walk as the Angel of death throughout Israel.
b. \\#18-20\\ "the day of the Lord" - This term is some-
times used to describe the endtime judgment of God
(the tribulation) and sometimes not. And again, the
prophecies associated with the term can have a dual
reference to them, speaking of a horrible near-at-
hand judgment but also referring to a far worse
judgment in the end time. Here, I believe it is
making a statement that is true of any judgment that
God would refer to as "the day of the Lord." It will
be a dark day of pain with no light (joy) in it.
(1) \\#18\\ "Woe to* you that desire…" - Some who
had understanding of sin may have longed for the
day when God would deal with the sinners. What
they did not understand is that suffering comes
to the righteous in days of judgment just as it
comes to the wicked. All suffered at the hands
of the Assyrians.
(2) "… is darkness, and not light"
(a) God’s day of judgment will be so severe that
it will be darkness for everyone.
(b) This truth is repeated in \\#20\\.
(c) What some did (and do) not understand is
that suffering in judgment comes upon the
righteous just as it comes to the wicked.
(3) \\#19\\ "…lion…bear..serpent" - This verse
describes the nightmare of trying to flee from
one danger only to meet another.
3. \\#21-27\\ God rejected.
a. \\#21-23\\ God rejected all of the elements of Jewish
worship.
(1) \\#21\\ "feast days" - God rejected their holy
days.
(2) God rejected their "assemblies." This would be
the three times each year the Jews were
required to come to Jerusalem \\#Ex 23:14-17\\
(Passover, Pentecost, Booths).
(3) \\#22\\ "I will not accept them" - God rejected
their sacrifices and the offerings.
i. Question - If Old Testament saints were
saved by offering sacrifices, how could
they repent of their sins if God forbade
them to offer sacrifices?
ii. This is another evidence to me that
sacrifices did not provide salvation.
(4) \\#23\\ "Take away from me the noise of your*
songs" - God rejected their songs.
b. \\#24-27\\ And God determined a judgment upon Israel.
(1) \\#24\\ "let judgment run down as waters"
Instead, God will send judgment that will flow
freely.
(2) Why? Because like those who wandered in the
wilderness for forty years…
i. \\#25\\ They had offered sacrifices and
offerings to God.
ii. \\#26\\ But they had kept and worshipped
their false gods, Moloch and Chium.
(3) This passage not only speaks poorly of Israel
since the days of Jeroboam I. It also speaks
poorly of the generation who died in the
wilderness. Apparently, even after God rejected
them, they continued to do evil and worship
other gods. Idolatry seemed to have been
inbreed into the Jews.
(4) \\#27\\ "Therefore will I cause you to go into
captives/captivity* beyond Damascus"
i. It is no longer a question of "if" God will
remove Israel out of the land, but when.
ii. God does not mention Assyria by name here
but does give a generation direction,
"beyond Damascus."
<Outline
Index> <Close Window>
