Amos & Obadiah
Amos & Obadiah, the Roar of Jehovah
Memory Verse Amos 1:2a; 3:2; 4:12b; 5:6 {
Introduction Today we will study the next two minor prophets, Amos and Obadiah. Amos and Hosea were contemporaries (living at the same time). They were both sent to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but their messages appear to be direct opposites of each other. Hosea tells us of the love of God, but Amos tells of the roar or wrath of Jehovah. As Romans 11:22 tells us, those who fall and refuse to repent can wait for the severity of God, but those who abide in Him will find the goodness of the Lord. Whether it is severity or goodness, both come from the loving heart of God. So we need the message of Amos just as much as that of Hosea, as well as Obadiah’s.
Lesson and Application for the SR and MD Classes
(1) Amos was called to be a prophet. (Amos 1:1; 7:14,15) The prophet Amos was an ordinary man. He did not come from a priestly family, like Jeremiah. He was a shepherd from a town called Tekoa (Te-KO-ah) in the southern kingdom of Judah. He also had a second job, taking care of sycamore-fig trees. Amos was quite content with his life. But the Lord had something more for him. The Lord called him to be a prophet and sent him to the northern nation of Israel. Amos obeyed, even though that meant leaving his home and friends. So we see that an obedient person is one whom the Lord can use. At that time, there was peace and prosperity in the northern kingdom. Because of this, the people thought God was pleased with them and had blessed them with many material things. But that was not true. The first words which Amos spoke were, “The Lord roars from Zion.” The Lord was angry. The people had no idea that punishment would be coming on them soon, if they did not repent. The Lord repeatedly said, “I will not turn back My wrath (anger).” The Lord began by naming the sins of the nations around Israel and then He listed their sins. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3)
(2) The words of warning. (Amos 3, 4, 5) All those nations were under the Lord’s anger and judgment. Even though God was angry, He was still merciful to His people and sent Amos to warn them. The Lord had Amos say again and again, “Hear this word.” “Hear this word the Lord has
1 Amos & Obadiah spoken against you, O people of Israel. You only have I chosen, of all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all your sins.” What were their sins? The people had turned their hearts away from the Lord and worshiped idols. They were also very unkind to each other. The rich lived luxuriously, while the poor suffered. Some of the poor even became slaves to their rich relatives. God was very angry with them. Sometimes we may be just like those people of Israel. We think that everything is fine because we have believed in the Lord Jesus and have become God’s children. God is love, and He loves us very much. We may think that we can do whatever we like, even things which we know do not please the Lord. This is not true. Because God loves us, He cares very much about what we are and what we do. He will not spoil us and let us do what we want. As Hebrews 12:6 tells us, “The Lord disciplines those whom He loves.” So He told the people of Israel, “Because you belong to Me, I will punish and discipline you.” Therefore, we should not be careless, as they were. The Lord is patient, as we can see in Amos. He tried again and again to get the attention of His people in order to turn them around. He said through Amos, “I gave you empty stomachs in every city, yet you have not returned to Me. I sent plagues among you. Your young men were killed in war, yet you have not returned to Me.” Five times in Amos 4 the Lord said, “Yet you have not returned to Me.” How patient the Lord was! How deaf His people were! They refused to turn back to Him. The Lord did not desire His people to suffer and die. He told them again and again the way to life. He said, “Seek Me that you may live. Seek the Lord; seek good and not evil, that you may live.” But the people did not listen. Finally the Lord had to say, “Prepare to meet Your God, O Israel.” They had to face God’s judgment. Some children can be very stubborn and rebellious. Are you like that? Do you refuse to listen to warnings? Do you ignore your parents when they are angry with something you have done? When your parents give you a scolding or a small punishment, do you resent them and continue to do the thing which made them angry? The Israelites were like that. God wanted them to turn away from doing all the bad things. The Lord showed them the way, which was to seek the Lord. If they had turned to look for the Lord, they would have turned away from their evil way. That was what God was after. But they refused to listen and repent. Don’t be like those people. Let us learn to be children who are pleasing to God and to our parents.
(3) Five visions of God’s judgment. (Amos 3:7,8; 7:1-9; 8:1-3; 9:1-4) Amos said in 3:7, “Surely the Lord God does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants, the prophets.” The Lord gave Amos five visions of what He planned to do to His rebellious people. In the first vision, Amos saw the Lord preparing swarms of locusts just when the wheat crop was coming up. When he saw the locusts stripping the land clean, Amos cried out, “O Lord, please forgive your people. How can they live when all the food crops are eaten up?” Because Amos prayed, the Lord said, “This will not happen.” In the second vision, the Lord showed Amos that He was calling for judgment by
2 Amos & Obadiah fire. Amos saw the whole land burned up. He cried out again, “O Lord, please stop. How can the people survive?” Then the Lord said, “This will not happen either.” Then Amos saw the Lord with a plumb line in His hand. A plumb line is a string with a weight on one end. It is used by carpenters to check if something is straight or not. The Lord said, “I am putting a plumb line among My people. They are so far out of line that I will spare them no longer.” What God found was very true. Amos knew that God had to punish His people, so he did not ask God to withhold His judgment. The Lord also showed Amos a basket of summer fruits. His people were like those fruits; they looked nice and ripe on the outside, but they were really rotten on the inside. They were ready to be thrown out. In the last vision, Amos saw the Lord standing beside the altar. He told Amos to smash the tops of the pillars and shake the temple until the roof crashed down upon the people. The Lord said, “Not one person will get away. No one will escape.” What Amos saw and heard was very frightening. That was why he said, “You should tremble because the Lion has roared. The Lord has spoken, I have to tell you about it.” The Lord is King, like the lion. (The Lord Jesus is called the Lion of Judah.) The roar told the people that His judgment was coming; none could ignore it.
(4) Promise of restoration in the future. (Amos 9:7-15) The Lord seemed to be very severe with His people because He had to punish them for their sins. However, His dealings with them were not for destruction but for restoration (restoring). Therefore, He said through Amos, “I will destroy the sinful kingdom from the face of the earth; but, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob. I will bring My people Israel back from captivity.” From 2 Kings 17, we know that within 50 years after the Lord spoke those words through Amos, the Assyrians came and destroyed the Northern Kingdom and carried all the people away as captives. They never saw their homes again; they all died in the foreign land. About 200 years later, a small group of the people did return. Some were probably descendants of those from the northern kingdom. This is recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Lord sent Hosea and Amos at about the same time to give His message to the nation of Israel. Hosea tells about the love of God; Amos tells about the roar or anger of Jehovah. Are they talking about the same God? Yes. God loves His people. When they live close to the Lord, in fellowship with Him, they find out how good the Lord is. If they sin but are willing to repent of their sins, the Lord is ready to forgive. But those who refuse to repent and turn from their evil ways can only expect the anger and judgment or discipline of God. God judges because He loves, and those He loves, He disciplines.
(5) Obadiah, the servant of Jehovah. (Obadiah 1) The prophet who wrote the book after Amos was Obadiah. His book is the shortest in the Old Testament, with only 21 verses. The Bible does not tell us who Obadiah was, but his name means “the servant of Jehovah.” The Lord gave him a vision and a message. He was obedient and passed the message on faithfully. When 3 Amos & Obadiah he finished, he left the scene, just as a servant is supposed to do. Obadiah said, “This is what the Lord said about Edom.”
(6) God’s judgment against the Edomites. (Obadiah 3,4,10-15) Who was Edom? Edom was the nation of the descendants of Esau. Esau was Jacob’s twin brother. Esau was born first, and then Jacob. Before they were born, God told their mother, Rebekah, that the older would serve the younger. The reason God seemed to favor Jacob over Esau was because Esau despised his birthright (Genesis 25:34). As the first born, Esau would have an inheritance twice as much as Jacob’s. More important than that, Esau would have the privilege of continuing the covenant God made with Abraham his grandfather and having a part in God’s purpose and plan. But Esau was more interested in satisfying his stomach than what God had planned for him. One day he came back from hunting, hungry and tired. Jacob was cooking lentil soup. Esau was more than willing to sell his birthright for a bowl of that red bean soup. (Edom means “red.”) Even though Jacob took advantage of him, Esau really did not care about his birthright. He only wanted the material part of the blessings from his father Isaac. But Jacob had already gotten that because he had tricked Isaac into blessing him, though it was rightfully his with the birthright. Therefore, Esau hated Jacob. This hatred continued between Esau’s descendants, the Edomites, and Jacob’s descendants, the Israelites. God gave the hill country of Mt. Seir to Esau’s descendants, the Edomites. They lived in caves in this mountain range and even built a great rock city. The only way in was through a long and narrow passage with cliffs hundreds of feet high on either side. It must have been quite a city. So the Edomites were very proud and self- confident. As Obadiah said in v.3 and 4, “You who make your home on the heights, the pride of your heart has deceived you. You say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ ‘I will bring you down,’ declared the Lord.” Through Obadiah, the Lord said to Edom, “Because of the violence against your brother Jacob (the Israelites), you will be destroyed forever. You stood and watched the invaders carrying off their treasures and refused to help. When they were in trouble, you took advantage of them and went looting into Jerusalem just as one of their enemies. When some of them tried to escape, you killed them or turned them over to their enemies. As you have done, it will be done to you.” The Lord said in the last verse, “The kingdom will belong to the Lord.” No matter how much Edom hated Jacob, or how much the Edomites tried to hurt the Israelites, Edom would eventually be destroyed, but the people of Jacob would be restored. The Israelites would return to their homeland. No man can hinder God’s plan. God will achieve His purpose at the end. But those who resist God are left out. From what happened to Edom, we learn that we should not be proud. When someone becomes proud, he becomes unkind and may even become an enemy to God’s people. Then he does things actually against God. So pride is a very terrible thing. We should thank God for giving us His Holy Spirit to help us. If we are careful to listen to the Holy Spirit and be obedient to Him, we will not become like the Edomites. Instead, we can have a part in God’s kingdom. 4 Amos & Obadiah
Lesson and Application for the PM and PS Classes
(1) Amos was called to be a prophet. Today we want to learn something from the books of Amos and Obadiah. Amos was a shepherd. He only had a few sheep, so he also took care of sycamore-fig trees, which had delicious fruit. He was very happy and content (satisfied). Then one day the Lord called him to be a prophet. God sent him with a message to His people in the northern country of Israel. Everything seemed to be going well with those people. They thought that God was pleased with them. But the message from Amos was “The Lord roars from Zion The Lord will not hold back His wrath (anger).” The Lord was angry so His message sounded frightening like the roar of a lion. Do you know why the Lord was angry? We learned from Hosea that the people had turned their hearts away from the Lord and worshiped idols. They were also unkind to each other. The merchants got rich by cheating their customers and charging high prices. When the poor could not pay, the rich made them their slaves. Sometimes we may be just like those people of Israel. We think that everything is all right because we have believed in the Lord Jesus and we are God’s children. God is love, and He loves us very much. We may think that we can do whatever we like, even things we know do not please the Lord. That is not true. Because God loves us, He cares very much about what we are and what we do. He will not spoil us and let us do what we want. He told the people of Israel, “Because you belong to Me, I will punish and discipline you.” It is the same for us, so we cannot be careless like the Israelites.
(2) God was patient and warned His people. We thank the Lord that He is patient. We learn from Amos that the Lord gave His people many chances to change their ways before He punished them. To get their attention, the Lord gave them some troubles. He said, “I give you empty stomachs in every city, but you have not come back to Me.” Instead of turning to the Lord and asking why there was no food, the people kept being stubborn and rebellious. The Lord sent plagues (diseases that spread quickly and killed many people). Many of their young men died in war. But they still did not return to the Lord. The Lord sent punishments, but He also told them the right way to live and not die. The Lord said through Amos again and again, “Seek Me that you may live.” But the people did not listen. Finally the Lord had to say, “Prepare to meet Your God, O Israel.” They had to face God’s judgment. Some children can be very stubborn and rebellious, like those Israelites. Are you like that? Do you refuse to listen to warnings? Do you ignore your parents when they are angry with something you have done? When your parents give you a scolding or a small punishment, do you feel angry with them and continue to do the thing that made them angry? The Israelites were like that with God. God loved them and wanted them to turn away from doing all the bad things which made God angry. They refused to listen and repent. The Lord showed them the way, which was to seek the
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Lord. If they turned to look for the Lord, they would have turned from their evil way. That was what God wanted them to do. Don’t be like those people. From what happened to them, we should learn to be children who please our parents and our God.
(3) Amos saw visions of God’s judgments. The Lord gave Amos visions (messages in the form of pictures) of what He planned to do to His rebellious people so that Amos could warn them. Amos saw the Lord preparing swarms of locusts just about the time the wheat crop was coming up. When Amos saw the locusts eating all the plants and food, he cried out, “O Lord, please forgive Your people. How can they live when all the food is eaten up?” Because Amos prayed for forgiveness, the Lord said, “All right; this will not happen.” Then the Lord showed Amos that He was sending judgment by fire. Amos saw the whole land burned up by fire. He cried out again, “O Lord, please stop. How can the people survive?” Then the Lord said, “This will not happen either.” Then Amos saw the Lord with a plumb line in His hand. A plumb line is a string with a weight on the end. Carpenters use it to check if something is straight or not. The Lord said, “I am putting a plumb line among My people. You can see that they are so far out of line that I will spare them no longer.” What God found was true. Amos knew that God had to punish His people, so he did not pray to ask God to hold back His judgment. The Lord also showed Amos a basket of summer fruits. His people were like those fruits; they looked nice and ripe on the outside, but they were really rotten on the inside. They were ready to be thrown out. What Amos saw and heard was very frightening. He told the people, “I have to tell you about it.” The judgment of the Lord was coming; no one could ignore it.
(4) The prophet Obadiah. Obadiah was another prophet. The Lord gave him a message for Edom. Who was Edom? Edom was the nation of the descendants of Esau, like Israel was from Jacob. Esau was Jacob’s older twin brother. All the promises of God to Abraham, their grandfather, and a bigger share of their father’s belongings would have been Esau’s because he was the first born. But Esau despised (did not care for) what God had planned for him. He gave it all to Jacob for just a bowl of red bean soup. Esau chose not to be one of God’s people. Later on he was sorry, but it was too late. So he and his sons and their descendants down through the generations hated Jacob and his people, even though they were relatives. The Edomites treated the Israelites very badly. Instead of helping the Israelites against their enemies, they became their enemy. They became very proud also. Because of their pride and what they did, the Lord said through Obadiah, “I will bring you down. What you have done will be done to you.” So we should learn not to be proud and unkind to God’s people. God is not pleased with this kind of attitude and behavior. God wants us to be humble and love others, even our enemy. 6 Amos & Obadiah
Activities SR Class: Give each student the prepared form with the memory verse and lesson outline for today’s lesson. Have the students take notes during the lesson presentation.
The unscramble-word activity—“The Word of the Lord to His People” may be done at home in addition to homework.
MD Class: Give each student the prepared paper with today’s memory verse. Have the student copy the memory verse. Have the student write down a few key words from today’s lesson on the board. Then copy them on the paper under the section “Bible Words”.
Do the unscramble-word activity—“The Word of the Lord to His People.”
When completed, have the students put the papers into their folders. Collect the folders. They will be given back to the students later.
PM Class: Give each child a piece of paper with today’s memory verse. Have the student copy the memory verse and learn the memory verse together.
Do the activity—“What Did Amos See?”
Color the picture—“Jacob and Esau.”
Collect the papers from the children and insert in their folders. The folders will be given out later.
PS Class: Learn today’s memory verse.
Do as a class, explain each picture in—“What Did Amos See?”
Color the picture—“Jacob and Esau.”
Sing with the children: “Jesus Wants Me For A Sunshine” (p.10) and “Oh, Be Careful” (p.15) from Wee Sing Bible Songs, or some other appropriate songs. Sing some appropriate songs with the children.
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