Five Visions Series

Amos mentioned sins of greed and dishonesty and robbery and enslavement and Sabbath violation in Amos 8:4-6, “Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?’ ”

Amos stated the judgment that God was going to bring on the nation of Israel in Amos 8:11-12, “ ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.’ ” Earlier, Amos said in Amos 7:11, “Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.” And that did happen in less than a generation from the time of Amos’ prophecy. In 722 BC, the Israelites were taken into captivity and exile.

But worse than death and exile was a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Not hearing God’s word was a dreadful judgment.

So, the vision of the summer fruit would result in a judgment of a loss of the word of God.

E. The Vision of the Lord Beside the Altar (9:1-10)

And finally, Amos saw the vision of the Lord beside the altar.

This was the most unsettling of all the visions of Amos. God told Amos that he was going to destroy the people, wherever they might try to hide. Amos said in Amos 9:1-4, “I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: ‘Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape. If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.’ ”

The people of Israel thought that because they had a special relationship with God through the covenant they were safe. However, they utterly disregarded the terms of the covenant. God pronounced that there were no different than the pagan nations around them. And they would be judged.

II. The Lessons to Be Learned by the People of God

Let me briefly mention a few lessons we can learn from the five visions of Amos.

First, God’s judgment is sometimes held off through prayer. In the visions of the locusts and the fire, Amos prayed and asked God to hold off judgment. And God did answer positively to Amos’ prayer. God’s people should pray for God to hold off judgment. The judgment of God is a terrible thing. And we do well to ask God to hold off judgment until all the elect has come to a knowledge of the truth.