Harry Ironside Collection: Ironside, Harry A. - Notes On The Minor Prophets: 19-Amos Introduction

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Harry Ironside Collection: Ironside, Harry A. - Notes On The Minor Prophets: 19-Amos Introduction



TOPIC: Ironside, Harry A. - Notes On The Minor Prophets (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 19-Amos Introduction

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Amos Introduction



Of Amos, we have much more information than is customary concerning the minor prophets. He gives us, by the inspiration of God, several autobiographical notices of deep interest, which it will be well to look at briefly ere entering upon the study of his messages to Israel and the surrounding nations.



His prophecies were given in the reigns of Uzziah king of Judah and Jeroboam II king of Israel. He describes himself as a herdman of Tekoa, a town in the hill-country of Judea, about twelve miles from Jerusalem, of which mention is frequently made in Scripture. Thence came the “wise woman” sent by Joab to persuade David to permit his murderer son to return to his patrimony, in plain violation of all law, both human and divine (2Sa_14:2). There too, Ira the son of Ikkesh, one of David’s mighty men, was born (2Sa_23:26). It is noticed on numbers of other occasions, and even after the return from Babylon, the zeal of the men of Tekoa is spoken of, though their nobles are reproved in connection with the building of the wall of Jerusalem (Neh_3:5; Neh_3:27). A desert town, surrounded by large solitudes, it was a suitable place for men of pastoral occupation; and there Amos pursued his humble calling till separated by the Lord to the prophetic office.



He tells us that he was neither born into the goodly company of the prophets, nor did he choose that calling for himself. But when he was “a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit” (that is, the fruit of the wild fig), the Lord said unto him, “Go, prophesy unto My people Israel” (Amo_7:14-15). This was enough for Amos. He was not disobedient to the voice from heaven, but, leaving behind the pastures of the wilderness, and turning his back on the place of his birth, we soon find him declaring the word of the Lord away up in the capital of the northern kingdom, greatly to the disgust and arousing the indignation of Jeroboam and his false priest Amaziah. When ordered to flee to his own land and do his prophesying there, he boldly gives his divine credentials, and delivers a message more searching than ever.



Of the duration of his ministry, or the time or circumstances of his death, we have no record. But what has been vouchsafed to us is fraught with most important lessons.



It is ever God’s way to prepare His servants in secret for the work they are afterwards to accomplish in public. Moses at the backside of the desert; Gideon on the threshing-floor; David with his “few sheep” out upon the hillside; Daniel refusing to be defiled with the king’s meat; John the Baptist in the desert; Peter in his fishing-boat; Paul in Arabia; and Amos following the flock and herding the cattle in the wilderness of Tekoa-all alike attest this fact. It is important to observe that only he who has thus learned of God in the school of obscurity is likely to shine in the blaze of publicity.



Amos had no thought of becoming, or being recognized, as a prophet, as men today select “the ministry” as a profession. He would doubtless have been quite content to pursue his humble avocation as a small farmer, or possibly a mere farmer’s hand or assistant, to the end of his life, if such had been the mind of God for him. But as he followed the flock, his soul was communing with Jehovah. As he gathered the wild figs of the wilderness, his heart was meditating on the great issues of the soul’s relationship to God and the importance of walking in His ways. As he tended the herds he was learning wondrous lessons of a faithful Creator’s love and care. And so, when for him “the fulness of time was come,” the Lord, so to speak, kindled the already prepared fuel into a flame, and the humble herdman became a mighty, Spirit-energized prophet of God, not only to his own people, but to all Israel and the nations around.



We read of no unbelieving hesitation, no parleying with God, no bargaining or questioning as to temporal support; even as before there was no fleshly impatience or desire to be at the front attracting notice as a prophet or speaker. Throughout it is the record of a simple, humble man of God, who can wait or run as his Lord sees fit. In all this how much there is for our souls today! There are many self-made ministers whose inner lives are in sad contrast to their ministry. Many, too, insist on taking the place belonging to a servant of God who have never spent any time in His school, learning His ways, as did Amos. Thus their utterances are empty and disappointing in the extreme, as might be expected when coming from men who had not been sent by the Lord. It is blessedly otherwise with Amos. The more we learn of the messenger, the more we are prepared to listen to his message.



Those hidden years had not been wasted. Not only were they years in which he listened to the voice of God speaking to his own soul, but in them he was acquiring experience, and an insight into men and things which would be invaluable to him later on. Again and again in his public utterances he uses figures, or illustrations, which show how closely and thoughtfully he had observed the many things, animate and inanimate, surrounding him in his early life. This the following passages make abundantly plain: Amo_2:13; Amo_3:12; Amo_4:9; Amo_5:8; Amo_6:12; Amo_7:1-2. Others too we shall notice as we proceed.



The theme of the book of Amos is emphatically one of judgment on Israel and Judah, and the nations about them.



In the first two chapters we have eight separate burdens, addressed respectively to Damascus, Gaza, Tyrus, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah, and Israel.



The second part of the prophecy includes chaps. 3 to 6, giving the word of the Lord to Israel, that is, the ten-tribed kingdom of the north.



The third and last division takes in chaps. 7 to 9, in which we have a series of five visions, with a considerable parenthesis (Amo_7:10-17) devoted to the personal history of the prophet, which we have already slightly noticed. The visions close with the declaration of millennial blessing and restoration, as seen in both the preceding books, Hosea and Joel, and generally throughout the Prophets.



For though judgment be the theme, yet judgment is but to prepare the way for glory. The Lord will not cease till He has established righteousness and blessing in all the earth.