A Country Preacher Skins Hides

Well, I have an important message for us today, friends, and the title of it is A Country Preacher Skins Some Hides. We're going to be in the book of Amos today. Amos was a country farmer.

Some of the best preaching I've heard has been from country preachers. They've got a certain earthiness and realness to them that's relatable, that gets down to the bone in your soul where the rubber meets the road, if you know what I mean, friends. Well, we're going to talk about Amos and the atmosphere, environment that he lived in, in his day as a God-called prophet.

When Israel turned away from God, he didn't send them a prophet from among the choice priests of Israel, but he sent them a shepherd, a country farmer, to reprove them. The book of Amos begins with Amos' prophecies against the enemies of the people of God. He speaks of God's judgment on the nations.

Amos calls them out one by one, strips the bark off of them one by one to the delight of a Jewish audience. He denounces the transgressions of Gaza, and he gets hoots and hollers. He denounces the transgressions of Tyrus, and he gets hoots and hollers.

He denounces the transgressions of Edom, and the people rejoice. He denounces the transgressions of Ammon, and the people just love it. And he denounces the transgressions of Moab.

Oh, the people are having the time of their life as this country preacher is stripping the bark off the enemies of God. They're just loving it. And every time Amos slams these enemies of Israel with denunciations and threats of common punishment, the Jews are just having the time of their lives agreeing with his sermon.

But then he turns his guns on them. He turns his guns on Judah and Israel and starts to skin their hides as he denounces them with a fiery tirade as well for all their transgressions and despising the law of the Lord. Well, they didn't like that.

They weren't hooting and hollering anymore. They were skulking. He was losing his crowd.

Amos' audience goes from applauding to dodging. The other nations were called to the carpet over their injuries to God's people. But the crimes of Judah and Israel are far more worse than all of these, for the injuries are done to men, and they pale in comparison to the indignities done to God by a people of God who had been blessed and favored by God.

Aggravated sin is the worst sin, friend. It's far more grievous than regular sin. When we sin after receiving an incredible blessing or favor, it's far more injurious than sinning under normal circumstances.

And that's what's happened here to the people of God. The people of Judah and Israel have despised the word of God, and to do that is to despise God himself. When King David sinned with Bathsheba, God called him to the carpet by the prophet Nathan and told him that David had both despised the word of God and despised God.

Sin is despising God's word and is despising the God of the word. Well, God describes their collective sins in Amos 2.13. Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. Oh, the imagery here is their weight of sins was heavy to God.

We see the seriousness of their aggravated sins, which were committed against the blessings and deliverance of God, as seen in Amos 3.1-3. Hear this word, that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family, which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. And then God asked them a question, which delineates the standard for all followers of God.

Then, and since then, we read in Amos 3.3, Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Well, the answer is no, they cannot. And you can apply this truth, friends, to your personal walk with God every day of your life. If you become backslidden, if you fall into sin, if you walk away from God for self-gratification, it's because you're no longer agreed with him.

You can use this spiritual barometer anytime to gauge your intimacy with God. Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Can you walk with God with known sin in your life? Well, that's my little introduction, friends. Now, let's turn to Amos 4. We're going to study the remedial judgments of God, which are applicable to our own time, our own nation, our own church.

A remedial judgment is sent by God to his backslidden people with the purpose of turning them back to God. If the remedial judgment is ignored, the next one increases with severity. But the purpose of remedial judgments are not to bring destruction upon a people, but to get their attention, to get them to repent, to turn back to the God of the Bible.

We see this clearly in Amos chapter 4, where God is dealing with wayward Jews. The prophet Amos preached a solemn warning to the people of Israel to repent or face destruction, and this severe message made Amos an unpopular preacher because he ministered at the peak of Israel's material success as they were enjoying a prosperous reign under Jeroboam II, who had expanded Israel's territory. But this prosperity caused the people of God to forget God.

So God brings a series of remedial judgments upon them, one more severe than the preceding one. Well, how do the people respond? Much like we do today. They refuse to repent and turn back to God.

Let's look at judgment number one, as seen in Amos 4, 6. And I also have given you cleanliness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord? Well, judgment number one was that God sent a famine in the land. In his mercy, he sent them a famine.

But how did they respond? Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord? Well, let's look at judgment number two, friends, in verse 7. And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest, and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city. One peace was rained upon, and the peace whereupon it rained not withered. This judgment is more severe than the preceding one.

Why, you can go a week without food, but man cannot live long without water. God sent a drought to his disobedient people. Did they respond in repentance? No.

Yet have ye not returned unto me. The local Jewish weatherman said it was just Mother Nature acting up again. So God brings a judgment upon them with increased severity.

Look at judgment number three, friends, in verse 9. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew, when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmer worm devoured them. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord? Well, God sent them a financial collapse. Our economy is going weaker and weaker, and a global depression is on the horizon.

Are we ignoring the danger signs all around us? The remedial judgments of God, when unheeded, become the increased judgments of God. Look at how severe judgment number four is. Look at verse 10, friends.

I have sent among you the pestilence after the manor of Egypt. You young men have I slain with the sword and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stink of your camps to come up onto your nostrils. Yet ye have yet not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

This judgment was so severe, it removed the future of the community by removing the young men from the community. Did the people respond in heartfelt repentance, standing over those corpses? No. Yet ye have not returned unto me, God tells them.

Israel walked falsely before God and grieved his spirit, and Amos skinned their hides with his fiery sermon. And there should be a wake-up call to the modern church today. We too have walked falsely, to whom much is given, much is required, but we've dropped the ball.

We've hardened ourselves by sin. Let me ask you, friend, when was the last time you felt the power of God in a meeting? God has sent our nation remedial judgments, calling us back to him, and we too have not heeded the warnings, nor has the church pulled her head out of the ground like an ostrich and repented. Why, I've never seen a time in my life like this, where one natural disaster falls on the heels of another.

Fires and floods and tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes, our front-page news reads like a page read out of the Old Testament. The church has abused grace given, and we too have grievously sinned against God, and we are a guilty, backslidden people without any power or authority from on high, for we have also walked falsely with God. But the greatest judgment upon the church in the West today is the absence of God.

He has left us to our own devices. You walk into a church today and you'll see some pious people. You'll see some sincere people.

You'll see a religious service taking place. You may even hear the word of God preached, but there'd be no spirit of God in attendance, because the withdrawn presence of God is a most terrible judgment for any people. For the next step after the withdrawn presence of God is destruction on an incorrigible people.

If we refuse to heed the warnings as well, we're one step away from ruin, friends. Every nation that's been having remedial judgments upon it through mass shootings, through terrible calamities, is refusing to turn back to God. They are all facing utter ruin.

Time is running out. Revival is our only hope of avoiding destruction. And for ourselves, why? Why should we foolishly believe that we're different from the Jews of old? Why should we foolishly believe we are favored standouts of God, immune from the judgments of God? Our case is much more severe because we've been given so much more than the Jews of old.

Revival is our only hope, God tells Israel in chapter 5. Seek me and live. We should do the same. God gets serious with those who get serious with him.

Are you, friend, serious about getting right with God in your personal life? Are you ready to start pursuing a life of holiness? Brother pastor, are you sick of playing church each Sunday and propping everything up in the flesh? Don't you long for a breakthrough with God? Don't you long for the power of God in a meeting? Let us pray. Great God, have mercy upon us. We are completely bankrupt without you.

Our situation, Lord, is far worse than the Jews of old. For we have sinned against your grace given. We are void of your spirit.

Oh, King Jesus, send us a heaven-sent revival and walk in our midst again. Reestablish your prominence in our lives and your preeminence in our sanctuaries and have priority in our daily living. Forgive us, great God, for our multiplied sins and the promotion of evil and perversion in the land.

Oh, Lord, by these transgressions we have not only despised your word, we have despised you with our sins because the sins of the fathers or young people today or godless pagans, 20% of them are bisexual, homosexual, or transgender. What's going on in the world? We need you, Lord. It's truly a lost generation.

The church has played footsie with the world by compromise and conformity to the world, and we lost our voice of authority in the pulpit. We lost our influence for God. Oh, great heavenly King, grant us the needed grace to be brought to our knees, to be brought to our knees in humility to enter back a right relationship with thee through repentance and send a powerful revival to your church, Lord, and a mighty spiritual awakening in the land that will rock this nation from coast to coast.

Oh, God, come save our young people today, I pray. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.