It had been some 200 years
since the ten tribes had seceded from the kingdom of David and had set up the
independent northern kingdom with calf worship as its religion.
During part of this time,
Baal worship also had been adopted and many of the abominable practices of
Canaanite idolatry were still rampant. God had sent the prophets Elijah,
Elisha, and Jonah, but to no avail. Israel, hardened in her idolatry and
wickedness, was now speeding quickly to her doom and ruin.
Israel was in the high tide
of prosperity but brazen in its idolatry and reeking with moral rottenness; a
land of swearing, stealing, injustice, oppression, robbery, immorality and
murder. God sent Amos in a final effort to stop the nation in its mad dash for
death.
Amos was a native of Tekoa,
a town in Judah about six miles south of Bethlehem. He was a shepherd and a
dresser of sycamore trees. He was not a prophet by training; he hadn't gone to
the regular prophetic schools. Although he was not a professional prophet and
not the son of a prophet, he was nevertheless divinely called to the prophetic
office to deliver the Word of God.
He was a native of Judah but
prophesied in Israel. The northern kingdom was enjoying great material
prosperity. Under these conditions Amos would look like an alarmist, a
pessimist. At this time the power of Israel's old enemy, Syria was broken.
With prosperity on one hand
and peaceful conditions on the other, the sense of safety and security
prevailed. In this happy state of things what could be more foolish than
prophecies of doom and devastation? But Amos foresaw the revival of Assyria
coming out of her present weakness into great power. He knew that she would be
the instrument in the fall of Israel as judgment for her sins.
His message did get to one
person: Amaziah the priest. He tried to discredit the claims of Amos as a
prophet of God and declared that he should be punished for saying these things
and for disturbing the peaceful state of the kingdom.
Jeroboam treated the message
of Amos with scorn. Little did he realize that in less than 50 years his
capital would be ruined and the people carried away by Assyria, exactly as Amos
had said.
Amos was one of the greatest
of all the prophets. He had no credentials. Amaziah sneered, but Amos knew he
had his call from God. How often God has laid his hand upon a man who has no
credentials from a school, and has commissioned him to go forth and share the
word with others.
Peter was a fisherman. David
was a shepherd boy. Amos was a keeper of sycamore trees. Often God by‑passes
the highly talented and well‑schooled to lay His hand on a person of a
very ordinary background.
God is not looking for
credentials. God is looking for men and women of humility and dedication with
lives of purity and hearts of love; people who pray. People who have invested
time in learning and applying the word of God to their lives.
© Copyright
2002, LeRoy Eims