Amos 1:1-3:15, Revelation 2:1-17, Psalm 129:1-8, Proverbs 29:19-20
Today is the 10th day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian, it’s great to be here. I guess this puts us at the 1/3rd way through this last month of the year, as we continue our journey forward. We’ve been moving rapidly; we’re working through the minor prophets and we take some of those in one gulp each day. Not all of them, not today, but we have been, and we have also gotten ourselves into the book of Revelation in the New Testament, our final book, the final destination in the New Testament and we’ll continue that today.
Introduction to the Book of Amos:
But as we go into the Old Testament, we have a brand-new prophetic book in the grouping known as the minor prophets. This book is known as Amos, and this is probably the earliest collection of prophetic utterances that…that are found in the Bible. Amos prophesied in the mid-eighth century BC. This was a time when the northern and the southern kingdoms were both experiencing peace and prosperity, everything was going well. And Amos, he wasn’t a trained prophet, he didn’t go to profit school. He wasn’t trained for religious duties. He seems to have been just an ordinary person, who was living a regular life of a shepherd or a farmer. We don’t know if he was like just a common laborer, like a day laborer, or whether he owned some flocks and groves. He’s certainly an educated person and certainly aware of what’s going on around him. He lived in the city of Tekoa, that’s about 10 miles south of Jerusalem. So, his home would’ve been in the southern kingdom of Judah, but his mission was to prophesy in the northern kingdom of Israel, so he probably just crossed the border to the border city of Bethel, which was a huge hub for trade, idol worship, commerce. And the northern and southern kingdoms were in good shape peace, prosperity, opportunity, it was so good. They hadn’t seen this kind of prosperity since like Solomon’s reign. So, it might be odd to think that God would send a person that nobody knew, an ordinary person to deliver a pretty severe message of judgments. It would’ve certainly been a difficult message to give, but that’s what Amos was told to do. Because the peace and prosperity that was being experienced had done what it does, what it still does, what we still see in the world today. The door for corruption had been opened and corruption was running rampant, and people were being pushed to the margins. The poor were being oppressed, greed ruled the hearts of the leaders, and Amos is in the midst of this denouncing the preying on the less fortunate, saying that social justice has to be considered. And I know man, we’re looking at a book and I’m saying this and this is thousands of years old. We got a buzzword here, like a political buzzword social justice, we’re talking about justice within a society to care for its people. This is a prophetic utterance to a prosperous nation, nations, to God’s people about what they’re doing to marginalize take advantage. And we’ve seen, we would have had this marked out by now, right, that this cycle wouldn’t keep going but we’re still dealing with these things. Amos shows us that we are nowhere near as powerful as we think we are, and God is vastly way more powerful than we can comprehend. And Amos tells us, basically all the scurrying around in the world, try to own our stuff and collect our garbage, keep all of our stuff in one place and protect it. Amos is like the whole world belongs to God. It’s all His and He is sovereign over all of it, including you. So, as we read the book of Amos, let’s let it, let’s let it be a mirror into the way that we conduct ourselves. We’ll read from The Voice translation this week. Amos chapters 1, 2 and 3.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word, we bless Your holy name, and we worship You Jesus, we love You. There is no hope outside of You. You are the only hope, and we thank You for the Scriptures that lead and guide us into this relationship, aiming our hearts in the right, correct direction. We take heed from all that we’ve read today, including from the book of Amos. We also look at the book of Proverbs. There is more hope for a fool than for a person who’s over eager to hear themselves talking. We take that on board and invite Your Holy Spirit to show us what we should and should not be saying in our lives this day, as we walk in fellowship with You and as we walk in community with our brothers and sisters. Come Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth, we ask, we beg, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hello DABers, this is Donna in Pennsylvania. The Lord is my strength and my song. And today I want to pray for those of you who are feeling utterly overwhelmed by your circumstances. Perhaps it’s health. I’ve been praying for Eyes of a Dove with something unusual and scary going on in your body and you’re waiting to find out what might be going on and what might be needed for treatment. And I’m praying for someone who called in with ALS and three small children. And for His Little Shari, who is battling MS and has to make decisions about treatment. And I can relate to that because I have severe osteoporosis and the drugs, they’re planning to use on me, sound worse than the disease. Those who are undergoing heart break. The gentleman who called in whose wife is, he called it a dry drunk and I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound good. And for those with children, with babies suffering with people who are losing relatives to cancer. Those who are in excruciating pain. I’m just lifting it all up to God because He loves us. He knows each one of us. Our names are written on His hand and whatever we’re walking through, he walks beside us. When we turn to Him and cling to Him, He’s always there. He will get us through it and we will have joy in His presence, despite our circumstances. Bless the DABers, in Jesus name. Amen.
Good morning DABers, Marjorie from New Mexico. Today, is December the 5th and I was just listening to the daily prayers, and I heard Blind Tony. And Blind Tony, I just want to tell you that your poems touch my heart. This morning, your prayer was about praying for you guys because of a fire. Your voice changed and I knew something was wrong. But you know, like you said, God is still good and that really, really touched me because you had a fire and you lost water and you lost your home pretty much until you can go back to it. And you’re still keeping the faith, Tony. You’re an inspiration to me. I am keeping my faith too with everything that’s going on in my family life, with my kids and my aunts and uncles and my mother. And I’m praying for you, Blind Tony, and I hope that you have the best Christmas that you can, with the circumstances that you’ve been dealt with the fire. And I just wanna say God Bless you and remain the inspiration that you are.
Salutations Kathy from Kentucky. This is His Little Songbird from Alberta, Canada. And I just want to take the opportunity right now, to lift up your friend Joanne, in prayer. Heavenly and most gracious Father, I come before you humbly today and I want to thank you for Your being so perfect and pure. Lord, You made us in Your image, and You also made us for eternity. We were never supposed to know death and to see our children die, and our grandchildren die. That was not part of your plan. That was something that Satan through in. Lord, I lift up Joanna to You, this morning Lord, and I want to thank You so much for this woman that You have blessed her with 94 years. But Lord, she has seen death in her time. Death of her children and grandchildren Lord, and I lift her up to You Lord. I ask for Your presence to be poured out upon her, for Your joy, for Your comfort Father God. And I ask that You would just wrap Your loving arms around her and carry her through these difficult times. In Jesus name I ask. Amen.
Father God, in the name of Jesus, I’ve come this morning to pray right now for Blind Tony. Our own, in-house poet laureate. I just heard the tragic story about your fire. Right now, I just ask Lord Jesus, keep this family safe and I’m praising God with you that you are okay and still with us. I also pray that paperwork is okay as far as you being able to get things reconstructed. But dear Lord, if it’s not, let Your angels bless around him, in the neighborhood, across the countries, wherever to come and help this family. Father, we thank You for Blind Tony. We love, love his spirit, we love him, and we lift him up to You, right now, and his family with the best outcome in this unfortunate, sad, sad situation. Blind Tony, thousands, I know thousands are lifting you up. Because we love you here at the DAB. May God be with you. May God strengthen you. May you continue to be empowered and know that He’s got you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.