Amos Review

 We will review what we learned from Amos.  First, we see that God calls ordinary people to proclaim or preach His word.  Amos was not a priest or an educated man, nor was he the son of one.  He was a herdsman.  We should look more at whether God called someone to preach today than we do at their education or family history.  Of course, if we are a Christian, then we are also called to share the gospel with others.  Next, we see that God uses ordinary things to reveal His word and accomplish His purpose.  God does not need a great army to defeat His enemies, but can do it with something as lowly as a grasshopper.  We also learned that we should be interceding with God on behalf of the lost.  Ultimately, it is their choice whether or not to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, but we need to be praying that they will do so before it is too late.  We then see that God punishes those who stand against Him and His people.  I believe that God will one day punish all those who refuse to accept His salvation plan, and that He will especially punish those who harm His prophets, or I believe we could say preachers today.  Yet, we also see that God will punish those who profess to be His people, but who instead worship idols, or the things of this world.   Simply claiming to be a part of God's family and not giving up the worship of the things of this world is not enough.  We must truly put our faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord in order to be saved, and then we must put God's will first in all that we do.  Finally, we learned that God will preserve or protect those who are truly His.  God said that He would protect the remnant of the people of Israel who were still true to Him and return them to the land that He had given them.  God will always protect those who are really His, and one day He will bring us home to Heaven, our everlasting home.  Next, we are going to look at the book of Zephaniah.