Visions of Divine Retribution and Restoration
Comments for Study 4
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I. Judgment Relented (7:1-6)
>1. What was the Lord going to do? (1)
* Amos 7:1 "This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts after the king's share had been harvested and just as the second crop was coming up."
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>What did Amos pray? (2-3)
* Amos 7:2-3 "When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, "Sovereign LORD, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!" So the LORD relented. "This will not happen," the LORD said."
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>2. What was the next thing the Lord was going to do? (4)
* Amos 7:4 "This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: The Sovereign LORD was calling for judgment by fire; it dried up the great deep and devoured the land."
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>What did Amos pray? (5-6)
* Amos 7:5-6 "Then I cried out, "Sovereign LORD, I beg you, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!" So the LORD relented. "This will not happen either," the Sovereign LORD said."
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>What can be learned about intercessory prayer? (Phil. 4:6; Eph. 1:15-19a)
* Philippians 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."
* Ephesians 1:15-19a "For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."
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II. The Plumb Line (7:7-17)
>3. What kind of plumb line was the Lord using? (7-8)
* Amos 7:7-8 "This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD asked me, "What do you see, Amos?" "A plumb line," I replied. Then the Lord said, "Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer."
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See a picture of plumb lines found at a ancient Roman site to the right.
>What was the final verdict for unrepentant Israel? (9)
* Amos 7:9 "The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam."
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>4. What did the false priest at Bethel say to Israel's king? (10-11)
* Amos 7:10-11 "Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: "Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. For this is what Amos is saying: "'Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.'"
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>To Amos? (12-13)
* Amos 7:12-13 "Then Amaziah said to Amos, "Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don't prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king's sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.""
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>What did Amos point out about himself to show he was not a professional prophet? (14-16)
* Amos 7:14-16 "Amos answered Amaziah, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.' Now then, hear the word of the LORD. You say, "'Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the house of Isaac.'"
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>What awaited the false prophet and his family?
* Amos 7:17 "Therefore this is what the LORD says: "'Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country. And Israel will certainly go into exile, away from their native land.'"
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>What are some ways we tell true prophets from false? (1 John 4:1-3; and 2 Tim. 3:1-7, 4:3-4)
* 1 John 4:1-3 "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world."
* 2 Timothy 4:3-4 "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
* 2 Timothy 3:1-7 "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-- having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth."
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III. The Basket of Ripe Fruit (8:1-14)
>5. What did Amos see and what did it mean? (1-2)
* Amos 8:1-2 "This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. "What do you see, Amos?" he asked. "A basket of ripe fruit," I answered. Then the LORD said to me, "The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer."
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See a picture of a fruit basket to the right.
>What will that day be like? (3)
* Amos 8:3 "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies--flung everywhere! Silence!"
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>Will they repent at that time? (5-6)
* Amos 8:5-6 "saying, "When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?"-- skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat."
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>6. What else will happen in the day of the Lord's wrath? (7-8)
* Amos 8:7-8 "The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done. "Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt."
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>What will happen to the sun? (9-10)
* Amos 8:9-10 "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day."
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See a diagram of two types of solar eclipses to the right.
>What kind of famine will happen? (11-12)
* Amos 8:11-12 "The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land-- not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it."
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>Why? (13-14)
* Amos 8:13-14 "In that day "the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst. They who swear by the shame of Samaria, or say, 'As surely as your god lives, O Dan,' or, 'As surely as the god of Beersheba lives'-- they will fall, never to rise again."
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IV. The Lord by the Altar (9:1-10)
>7. Will people be able to hide from the Lord? (1-4)
* Amos 9:1-4 "I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said: "Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Bring them down on the heads of all the people; those who are left I will kill with the sword. Not one will get away, none will escape. Though they dig down to the depths of the grave, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up to the heavens, from there I will bring them down. Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. Though they are driven into exile by their enemies, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good."
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>What can be learned about the Lord from verses 5-6?
* Amos 9:5-6 "The Lord, the LORD Almighty, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who live in it mourn-- the whole land rises like the Nile, then sinks like the river of Egypt-- he who builds his lofty palace in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land-- the LORD is his name."
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See a picture of the tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in Japan on March 11, 2011 to the right.
>What did the Lord do with the nations mentioned in verse 7?
* Amos 9:7 "Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?" declares the LORD. "Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?"
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>8. Will the Lord totally destroy his sinful people? (8)
* Amos 9:8 "Surely the eyes of the Sovereign LORD are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth-- yet I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob," declares the LORD."
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>How has verse 9 been fulfilled in our time?
* Amos 9:9 "For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground."
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>What error had Israel and Judah made and why? (10)
* Amos 9:10 "All the sinners among my people will die by the sword, all those who say, 'Disaster will not overtake or meet us.'"
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V. Israel Restored (9:11-15)
>9. Has verses 11-12 been fulfilled; if not when?
* Amos 9:11-12 "In that day I will restore David's fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name," declares the LORD, who will do these things."
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>What will this mean?
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>10. What does verse 13 mean?
* Amos 9:13 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills."
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>Has verse 14 been fulfilled?
* Amos 9:14 "I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit."
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>And verse 14?
* Amos 9:15 "I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God."
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