Amos the 'Burden Bearer'.

Since I have been in Malawi, it has been my privilege to be able to teach on the book of Amos on a number of occasions. What I have found very interesting is that the message is relevant for life to today more than we might at first imagine, this is true whether we are living in the West or in Malawi. Amos’ strong message of judgement upon Israel is very striking and reveals the heart of God that is serious about sin and blatant disobedience in the light of His word.
Amos is a man who is often considered as rugged and rough, uneducated and a little bit simple – after all he was only a keeper of sheep. Well, all is not as it might seem at a first glance. In Malawi we could say that Amos was an ‘Abusa’ – a shepherd, but what type of shepherd/pastor was he? He was not a loner, but a man respected by his community and was probably an elder in his own small unknown little town of Tekoa. He would have known Gods word and Law and been able to apply it into the lives of people with compassion and truth. It seems that his message is one sided with judgement, but closer inspection shows that it is filled with the grace and sovereignty of God. Amos was a man who was not afraid to speak truth, but spoke it with life and compassion, and had the desire to see people enter the life of God (Amos 5:4). Today there are many ‘prophets’ of doom and judgement, but where is the grace in their message, where is the song of the sovereignty of God? The fullness of the shadow of the man Amos is seen in Jesus’ death and sacrifice on the cross. Too many seem to love preaching people into hell, rather than preach a gospel of the life saving power of the grace of God. Amos bore a heavy burden of having to take a message of destruction and end to a nation, yet his heart was that the nation would not be destroyed. He considered the reality of God’s word more important than the popular religious opinion of the day, which as the bible reveals was full of idolatry and worship that was mixed, the hard and fast opinions were based in a 200 year history of unaccepted worship because the ‘golden calf’ was still present. What are the golden calves of today’s Christianity?
There is only one sacrifice that needs to be made for sin, and that has already been once and for all in Christ. Another prophet cried out "Behold! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29 NKJV) – pointing to merciful Jesus.
Matthew Armstrong
Blantyre, November 2009.