“Responding to God’s Faithful Intervention” Series (Part One)
Lesson Six: “From Agriculture to Ministry”
Amos chapters 1 and 2
Conquerors Sunday School Class – Sunday, June18, 2023
Our Lesson’s Theme Verse is found in this passage of Scripture…
“Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek…”
Amos2:6-7a
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Today’s Lesson Thought can be summed up in this one simple Statement…
“God Uses Faithful Men From All Types Of Backgrounds To Declare His Message!”
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Lesson: ‘From Agriculture to Ministry’
I : Amos’ Prophetic Ministry
A: His Background (Amos 1:1)
B: His Occupations (Amos 1:1)
C: His Call (Amos 1:1)
II : Amos’ Prophetic Concerns
A: His Major Themes (Amos 1:2)
B: His Peculiarities (Amos 1:2)
III : Amos Prophecy Against the Nations (Amos 1:3 – Amos 2:16)
Conclusion:
God used faithful Amos to declare His message of condemnation of sin in the hearts and lives of His people. And don’t you know that it must have broken the heart of God to have to do this? But the people needed to hear the truth so that they could not stand before God and say, ‘I did not know…’.
Thank God for an ordinary man like Amos who was willing to be used of God to show his people the error of their ways and the needs for repentance of their sin!
And folks, God is still looking for some faithful men and some faithful women to do the same thing today, because, does this not sound like what is happening in our own nation and all across our world today?
And if God condemned such sin in the days of Amos, don’t you think He still considers the immoral actions of our world today to be sinful as well?
We must point folks to Jesus so that they are not blinded by this ‘whatever it takes to prosper’ sort of thinking today, but that they rather, turn from sin by turning unto the Lord and by immersing themselves in the Word of God!
Remember the words of our Saviour who told the people in Matthew 6:24-33, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
May you and I be found faithful today to declare what ‘Thus saith the LORD…’, even as did Amos, and Joel, and Hosea, and all the other faithful men known as the prophets of God in days gone by!