1. Introduction
a. A messenger of God will face personal opposition (10)
b. A messenger of God will face verbal misrepresentation (11)
c. A messenger of God will face sensible temptation (12-13)
i. Wouldn’t it be nice to go home?
ii. Eat your home cooking?
iii. It’s OK to prophesy—just don’t do it here.
iv. Remember who’s in charge—it’s the king’s territory, not yours.
2. How can a messenger of God stand strong in the face of opposition and temptation, diversion?
a. Confidently understand the Source of the message (14-16)
b. Boldly proclaim the strength of the message (17)
Have you ever heard the Mailmen’s Creed? It goes like this: “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Actually, it’s not an official creed. But it gets the point across, doesn’t it? It lets us know that mailmen are going to do what it takes to get you your mail on time. No matter what obstacle is presented to them. No matter what tries to get in their way or slow them down. It doesn’t matter. They will overcome the obstacles and get you your mail. Some of you are grinning, because you know it doesn’t always work that way. I know the lady that runs my route refuses to come down my driveway. Sun shining, not posted, no dogs, plenty of room to turn around. Yet every time we get a package, all of a sudden, no one seems to be home. We get a slip that says we have to pick it up at the Post Office. That’s OK, I know she works hard. But it doesn’t quite match the so-called Mailmen’s Creed does it? As Christians, we have a kind of a creed too. It’s found in Acts 1:8. It goes like this: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Kind of like the Mailmen’s Creed, that’s not really an official creed either. But it does get the point across. As Christians, our job is to be witnesses for Christ. To spread the gospel—the Good News of Jesus Christ. Where? Everywhere. When? Always. How? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ calls us to be messengers of His gospel. No matter what obstacle is presented to us. No matter what tries to get in our way or slow us down. We are supposed to overcome all obstacles and spread the message of the gospel. But it doesn’t always work that way does it? So many times we get so hung up on the obstacles that we never get the message out. We do like my mail lady does and make people come to us instead of us going to them. But that’s not what Amos did. Amos was faithful to deliver the message that God gave him. And just like any time a person is faithful to deliver God’s message, he ran into obstacles. But Amos overcame the obstacles and delivered his message. I want each of us to faithfully obey God’s call to be messengers of His gospel. In order to do that, we need to see what we’re up against. We need to see the obstacles that will be placed in front of us. But not only do we need to be able to see the obstacles, we need to be able to overcome them. A little bit later on, we’re going to see how to overcome the obstacles that we will encounter as messengers of the gospel. But first we’re going to look at the obstacles themselves. As messengers of the gospel, there are three obstacles each of us will face. The first obstacle is personal opposition. Look with me again at verse 10:
AMOS 7:10
A messenger of God will face personal opposition. Now I want you to remember the scene of where we are. For six and a half chapters, Amos has been hammering on these people. He has been faithfully delivering God’s warning message to Israel. It’s been a harsh message to a bunch of people who were very comfortable with the way things were going on. They had money. They had security. They had comfort. They even had religion. But God sent Amos to tell them that none of that stuff was going to save them from the wrath to come. He was going to judge them because their heart wasn’t right. That’s a hard message to deliver to someone who thinks they’ve got it going on, isn’t it? And it wasn’t well received. Isn’t it interesting what happens when people don’t want to receive the gospel? Most people—especially people with some respect for God—most people won’t make a direct attack on the content of the message. Instead, where is the first place they attack? They attack the messenger. And that’s what happened to Amos. It wasn’t a physical attack. It was more of an accusation. It was an accusation against his personal motives. Amaziah the priest told Jeroboam the king that Amos was conspiring against him. A conspiracy against the king? That’s a pretty serious charge! As a matter of fact, it’s one that could get you killed. Now, what basis did Amaziah have for that charge? None. But since he couldn’t attack the substance of what Amos had been saying, he had to attack something. So he attacked Amos himself. He opposed him personally. And I can tell you that it’s no different today. When you faithfully deliver the message of the gospel, you will be personally opposed just like Amos was. Why? Because people can’t argue with the truth of the gospel. And since they can’t logically argue against the truth of the gospel, they have to escape somehow. And the first place they’ll try to escape is by presenting personal opposition. They will present personal attacks against religion in general. “Well, religion is just a crutch for weak people.” They will present personal attacks against the church. “Well, the church is just looking for your money anyway.” They will present personal attacks against the pastor. “That preacher is boring. He just puts me to sleep.” They will present personal attacks against the members of the church. “Those people are just a bunch of hypocrites. All they do is fuss and fight anyway.” Those will all come. But the ones that are hardest to deal with is when they attack you personally. Like Amaziah did to Amos. You’re just a conspirator. You’re just in it for your own gain. All your words—blah, blah, blah—they’re just too much to handle. Go away—you’re bothering me. Religion is OK for you—I don’t need it. Door slams. Ridicule. Lost friends. Angry relatives. People avoiding you. Those are some of the kinds of personal opposition you will face as a faithful messenger of the gospel. Can you handle it? Will you let the message get through despite the personal opposition you’re going to face? Before you answer, know that personal opposition isn’t going to be your only obstacle. Another obstacle is verbal misrepresentation. A messenger of God will face personal opposition and verbal misrepresentation. Look with me at verse 11:
AMOS 7:11
A messenger of God will face verbal misrepresentation. For the past several weeks, we’ve been looking at the message Amos has been preaching to these people. If I could sum up all of those messages into just a few words it would be like this. Israel has continually sinned against God. God hates sin and will judge it. But before He judges it, He gives every opportunity to repent of it. Everything that He does short of the final future judgment is designed to point you to repentance and a right relationship with Him. When the message is presented that way, you can see God’s grace, can’t you? When it’s presented that way, you can see God’s mercy, can’t you? You can see God’s righteousness and justice and holiness and longsuffering. And when the message is presented the way Amos faithfully presented it, you can’t help but see God’s love. That’s the gospel. God’s holiness. His standard because of His holiness. Man’s rebellion. His failure to live up to God’s standard. God’s love for man. His provision to take away man’s sin by the shedding of His Son’s blood. And His provision to give to man His righteousness by giving new life in His resurrected Son. That is the fullness of the gospel. It stands on its own. Its truth is inarguable. But people don’t argue against the fullness of the gospel, do they? What do they do instead? They do what Amaziah did. They verbally misrepresent it. They only give part of it. They misquote it. They twist it into something that is easily rejected. Amaziah only told Jeroboam part of Amos’ message, didn’t he? Amaziah only told King Jeroboam that Amos said he was going to be killed and his kingdom was going to be captured and exiled. That’s not much gospel, is it? Well, you know all those Christians do is go around telling people they’re going to hell. That’s a verbal misrepresentation, isn’t it? Or how about this one—“stop judging me.” If you’ve faithfully presented the gospel message to someone and they say that, they’re verbally misrepresenting you. Christians are just a bunch of goody-two-shoes who think that everything fun is bad. That’s a verbal misrepresentation. Those things twist the truth of the gospel into something that’s easy to reject. When you present the message of the gospel to someone, and they intentionally misrepresent the words you said, can you handle it? Will you let the message get through despite the fact that your words are going to be twisted? Don’t answer yet. There’s one more obstacle to come. A messenger of God will face personal opposition, verbal misrepresentation, and sensible temptation. Look at verses 12-13:
AMOS 7:12-13
A messenger of God will face sensible temptation. You know, many of us can find every excuse in the book to keep us from delivering the message of the gospel. It seems that for every opportunity God gives us to witness, we can find ten excuses why not to. Notice the mood shift that Amaziah has here in verse 12. All of a sudden he becomes a nice guy. It’s like he becomes a big-brother like guy. You can picture him coming up to Amos in a condescending way and putting his arm around him. “You know Amos, I kind of like you. You’re a seer—a prophet, and I can respect that. But you ain’t from around here. You really don’t understand us folks up here in Israel. Why don’t you go on back home. Go on back to Judah where you understand the people and they understand you. Man, wouldn’t it be good to have some home cooking? Those folks like you down there. Why don’t you go and do your prophesying there. You can still do what God wants you to do—just don’t do it here. Do it where you’re more comfortable.” Can you imagine what was going through Amos’ mind? Do you suppose there was ever a thought, “yeah, you’re right Amaziah.” After all Amos wasn’t like those people. Remember what we talked about back in chapter 1? Amos was a no-named, nobody from nowhere. He was a dirt poor country bumpkin from a one-horse town in Judah. And here he was in another part of the country, delivering God’s message to priests and kings. It sure would be a lot easier to go back home and preach to the handful of people in Tecoa. At least they understand me. At least they’re like me. Can you imagine? How tempting would that be? About as tempting as when it happens to us. Don’t witness to those skater kids with the earrings hanging everywhere. They aren’t like us and might mess up our good kids. Stick to nice clean-cut kids. Don’t bring those colored folks in here. They don’t act like we do. Let their kind of people reach them with the gospel. Don’t make a way to reach the deaf for Christ. It’ll be too hard to communicate with them. Let somebody else reach them. We’ll still spread the message of the gospel, but only to those people who are like us. Those who look like us. Those who talk like us. Those who act like us. Those who we’re comfortable with. That’s tempting, isn’t it? Just like I’m sure it was tempting for Amos to pack up and go on home. Go on home to where it would be nice and comfortable. Where it would be familiar. Where it would be easy. But he knew it was where God didn’t want him. God had given him a message for Israel. So he knew he had to deliver it to Israel. God has given us a message for our Jerusalem, our Judea, our Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. Jerusalem—that’s right here. That’s home folks—the people who are like us. The people we’re comfortable with. Judea—that’s stepping out a bit. It’s expanding our boundaries, but those people are like us to. But what about Samaria? Those are the people who live right next to us. They live next to us, but are radically different than us. When you’re sensibly tempted to only present the message of the gospel to people you’re comfortable with, can you handle it? Will you let the message through to your Samaria despite the fact that you’ll be tempted to stay in your comfort zone? Don’t answer yet. Even though we’ve seen all the obstacles—the obstacles of personal opposition, verbal misrepresentation and sensible temptation. Even though we’ve seen all of the obstacles, you can’t give an answer just based on the obstacles. Because you have to know what will help you overcome the obstacles. Amos did two things to help him overcome the obstacles that were placed in front of him. First, he confidently understood the Source of his message. Look with me at verses 14-16:
AMOS 7:14-16
Confidently understand the Source of your message. These verses and the first verse of chapter 1 are really the only information we have on who Amos was. And in the world’s eyes, he wasn’t much. But what was even more important, in his own eyes he wasn’t much. I think this whole self-esteem thing is overrated. Did you know that the Bible never tells us to esteem ourselves? Why is that? Because that isn’t really a problem. By nature, we are selfish creatures. If you don’t believe me, hang out with a two year old sometime. Do you think they were taught to say, “mine” all the time? Do you think their mommy and daddy sat down and taught them to take toys and grab and pull and throw a fit when they don’t get their way? Of course not. We’re born selfish—that’s part of our fallen nature. Esteeming ourselves isn’t the problem. We naturally want to do that because we’re selfish. The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough self-esteem. The problem is that we don’t have enough God-esteem. Amos didn’t have that problem. He realized that he was nobody without God. He wasn’t a prophet by birth. He didn’t have the credentials. He hadn’t been to the school of the prophets. He was a simple shepherd. Anything that he ate, he had to pick along the way. But God called him up out of that. See, Amos’ birth didn’t make him special. His name didn’t make him special. His job didn’t make him special. But His God did make him special. God called him. God gave him a message. And God sent him. That’s all that Amos needed. He understood the source of his message wasn’t him. It was God. And all-powerful God who would equip him. Who would sustain him. Who would meet his needs. And who would bless him. All Amos had to do was obey Him. And he did. And when he obeyed God, he did the second thing to help him overcome the obstacles that were placed in front of him. He confidently understood the Source of his message, and he boldly proclaimed the strength of his message. Look at the final verse of our passage this morning, verse 17:
AMOS 7:17
Boldly proclaim the strength of your message. Amos’ message never changed, did it? He was presented with obstacle after obstacle after obstacle. And what did he do? He faithfully delivered the message God gave him. He faithfully delivered it despite the personal opposition he faced. He faithfully delivered it despite the verbal misrepresentation he faced. He faithfully delivered it despite the sensible temptation he faced. God gave him a message of holiness, sin, love, repentance, grace and redemption. God gave him that message and he was faithful to deliver it. What about you? What message has God given you to deliver? The same one He gave to Amos. Except the message He’s given you to deliver has all the blanks filled in. You have the benefit of having the whole story of salvation—the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Not just the message of national redemption available to Israel. The message of redemption available to the world. To Jerusalem, Judea, to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. What are you doing with that message? Are you holding on to it for fear of what someone might say to you? Are you holding on to it for fear of how someone might twist your words? Are you holding on to it because you’ve succumbed to the temptation to stay in your comfort zone? If, for whatever reason, you’re holding on to the message God has given you. If you’re not delivering the gospel like He’s called you to do, you’re failing Him. You’re disobeying Him. You’re sinning against Him. Tonight’s the night to turn that around. Tonight’s the night to present yourself before Him at this altar and repent. Repent for not trusting Him as the Source of His message. And repent for not boldly proclaiming the strength of His message. Tonight is the night to boldly recommit to being His witness.
