The God of Creation Speaks Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The God of Creation Speaks Part 1. He will be reading out of Amos 1:1-2.

God’s message is not a message for yesteryear. It’s not a message for way into the future, but God’s message is for you and it’s for me and he speaks directly into our lives. Welcome to Hopeworth Having Radio Program.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders and I’m glad to be your host today and we’re looking forward to what God has for us as we begin a new study. We just finished going through the book of 2 Corinthians. It’s amazing how far we have come, but today we’re beginning a study in the book of Amos.

It might have been a while since you have studied the book of Amos. And so I want you to join me in the Old Testament and we’re going to begin studying today, verse 1 and 2 of chapter 1. So join me as we study together.

Well, if you have your Bible this morning, join me in the book of Amos. We’re going to begin a new study in the book of Amos and we’ll be spending some time there for the next few weeks. If you’re looking for the book of Amos, get to the book of Daniel, of course, in the Old Testament and just start tracking forward and you’ll bump into Amos.

And if you have made it to Micah, you’ve gone too far, back up a little bit. But the book of Amos is where we’ll be and we’re just going to cover two verses today in Amos chapter 1 and verse 1 through 2.

As always, church, remember that on our church app, my notes are put out there for you. So you can either follow along, you can go back, review, study. And certainly if you’re a Bible study leader, study school class teacher, mentoring, whatever you’re doing, use those notes to help you as you continue to study the Bible.

Amos chapter 1 and verse 1 and 2. The words of Amos who was among the herd men son of Tchaikov, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

And he said, the Lord will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither. Amos was an ordinary man with an extraordinary message.

The Bible reminds us in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 27 that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world. to confound the things which are mighty, reminding us that no matter what our lot in life is, no matter what our role in life is, that God is able to take an ordinary person and He is able to use that person to communicate an extraordinary message.

And though Amos was not a famous pastor, he was not a person who served in the temple or that he somehow was raised with a religious background, but he was just a simple man who had a simple job and yet God called him to communicate a great message to his people.

We note in our verse this morning that Amos is connected to the small city of Tekoa. It is a village that is about six miles south of Bethlehem and about 12 miles south of Jerusalem. I want you to take your Bible and go to Amos chapter 7.

We learn a little bit about Amos just in this passage, just two verses here in verse 14 and 15. Who is this guy, Amos? What exactly did he do? The Bible says in chapter 7 verse 14, then answered Amos and said to Amos, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit.

And the Lord took me as I followed the flock and the Lord said unto me, go prophesy unto my people Israel. Amos was most likely a shepherd, perhaps perhaps was an overseer of several flocks, but he not only was a simple shepherd, but he was a person who was responsible for gathering the sycamore fruit.

And this was simply something where the lower class people would in effort to try to provide their food that they needed would go out and on the different trees, they would gather the fruit. And so Amos was not some famous, as we already stated person, nor was he this big leader in the nation of Israel, but he was a man just doing his job every day.

And then God put his hand upon him and said, Amos, I wanna use you to reach out to my people. Now the circumstances politically for Amos are unique in that the world had politically changed. when Amos became a prophet.

Assyria was the new superpower. Before, Egypt had been the great superpower. Egypt was kind of a kind and gentle superpower, but Assyria was aggressive and went after more territory and wanted to literally control the world.

So it is during this time when the nation of Israel has actually been divided into what is called the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The nation could not get along and so they decided that they would split up.

And you see that referenced in verse 1 again of Amos chapter 1 as you’ll note that he says that in the days of Yisra ‘ah, King of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, King of Israel. So Israel was divided into these two kingdoms, one called Judah, one called Israel.

And it was in that time in these two kingdoms that Amos ministered and spoke to God’s people. The nation of Israel, collectively, the people of God within these two kingdoms, they were under assault by the Assyrians as they were making the effort to overthrow the entire nation.

When we come to this passage of Scripture, Amos is presenting to us an awesome God. He is showing us that God is not only awesome, but he is powerful. And he is able to fulfill all of his purposes despite the plans of man.

Despite all the turmoil that was existing in the nation, despite all the trouble that was happening politically and economically that God is able to accomplish what He has pre -determined. As we go through the book of Amos together and study chapter to chapter, our goal is to simply to shine the light of God into each of our hearts, to expose any darkness, and to deal with any changes that God is calling us to make.

In essence, God is calling the nation of Israel back to Him. And maybe more specifically, we could term it like this, that He is calling His people back to Him. And this is what God is saying to us in the world that we are living in, that as we extract these principles out of the book of Amos and make them applicable to our own hearts and our own lives.

We must be reminded that God is always speaking. He is always speaking to us. He is speaking to us and He is calling us back to Him in full devotion, total surrender, and complete commitment to His cause and His purpose.

In the book of Amos, there are three ways in which God speaks to us. And so I want you to note them this morning as we examine these two verses. First, God speaks through His messenger. God speaks through His messengers.

Go back to verse one right at the outset, the words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Takao. And then jump down to verse three. And again, you see that the Bible says, thus saith the Lord. Amos is an instrument.

Amos is a tool. He is the messenger of God. He is, if you will, the mailman who is simply delivering the mail. He’s not the guy that we need to be mad at. He’s not the guy that we need to blame because the electric bill showed up.

But He is the guy that God is using to deliver His message to each of our hearts. Amos is the authentic voice of the prophet delivering the message of God. And that is something that is consistent throughout the scriptures that I want you to understand this morning.

In Jeremiah chapter one in verse four, the prophet says, then the word of the Lord came unto me. That’s how God works. That God delivers His message to His messenger. The prophets in the Old Testament receive the word of God.

the word of God did not originate with them. It wasn’t that the prophets made up these words. It wasn’t that somehow they made the message up and designed it to be what they wanted it to be, but rather this is what God said.

And we are delivering that message to you. I want you to take your Bible. Don’t lose Amos, but I want you to go to the book of Psalms. And in the book of Psalms, I want you to go to chapter 50. Psalm chapter 50, I want to read a few verses to you to understand how God is speaking to us this morning in Psalm chapter 50 in verse 1 through 3.

Psalm chapter 50 verse 1 through 3, the mighty God, even the Lord has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty God has shy.

Our God shall come and shall not keep silence. A fire shall devour before him and it shall be very temptuous round about him. Simply what I want you to see is that God is speaking and that not only is God speaking, but he is speaking through his messengers into your life.

When the prophets speak, their words were always consistent to what already had been revealed with the other prophets. You say, how do we discern, Mike? How do we distinguish what is the true messengers or message of God?

It is always consistent to what we already know to be true. So when we hear the book of Amos, when we hear the prophets speak, what he is saying is consistent with Moses. What he is saying is consistent with Jeremiah.

What he is saying is consistent with the psalmist. And so over and over again, God has revealed his word. He has revealed it to his prophets and the prophets spoke his word and they penned his word. And that message is always in collaboration with what God has already said.

In 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 20, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. So someone says to me, well, Mike, that Bible, that’s just a book of man’s stories.

No, it’s not. That is the actual word of God. It is the message of God. It is God breathing his word to us. It is the Lord. literal breath of God. Jesus said, no man shall live by bread alone, but by every word, every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Friends, your spiritual vitality is in direct connection to your intake of the Word of God. And when you limit that in your life and you decide that you’re not going to listen to the prophets of God and you’re then you are making yourself vulnerable to all the temptations of this world.

What we need to understand, this is God’s literal word. And it comes to us from the prophets and the New Testament, it comes to us through the apostle. You see, God’s true spokesman wrote down his true word, a prophet in the case of the Old Testament, an apostle in the case.

of the New Testament. That’s why I want you to be discerning. I want you to be careful church. I want you to make sure that you are not availing yourself to false teaching or every wind of doctrine that may blow through the evangelical world that is not rooted in the truth of God.

People claim that somehow they have heard the voice of God. Listen to me, my friends, that God has spoken. He has revealed himself and it is all captured in his word. From Genesis to Revelation, there is no addition to the revelation of God because the Word of God is fulfilled and it is complete.

And so when someone says they’re sitting on their back patio and that they’re somehow received a revelation or some kind of vision from God, it may just be that they had too much pizza and root beer.

We hope it was root beer, amen. All I’m trying to say to you is this, and when they speak in terms and use terminologies that are not consistent with what we already know to be true, then it is our responsibility to reject that.

In the Old Testament, if someone claimed to be a prophet and the Bible says if they made prophecies and even if only few of them came true but some of them were not, they were considered to be heretics.

And so here’s the thing about God’s prophets. They’re always 100 percent right. I told you this that, you know, all through all the election mess that was going on that people were sending me videos left and right claiming this prophet said this and that, and none of it came true.

You know what that tells me? False teacher. False teacher. The junk that you see coming through social media, you need to understand that there is a lot of false teaching and communication. But the one true, reliable message that we have this morning is the word of God.

And what we are called back to is to understand that God speaks through his messengers that he has given us. It’s not that I’m just talking about that God speaks through somehow Mike Sanders, but I’m saying he speaks through the prophets.

He speaks through the apostles and they are sharing the message of God with us this morning. We believe that God has revealed himself through the Bible. So it is important that when Amos says in verse 3, thus says, the Lord, that our antenna goes up, that our attention is focused, for God is speaking through His messenger.

The second thing that I want you to see this morning is that God speaks directly into our lives. God speaks directly into our lives. We’re back in verse one, the words of Amos, which he saw concerning who?

Israel. In the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and then of course he would say, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joesh, king of Israel. God’s message is not a message for yesteryear. It’s not a message for way into the future, but God’s message is for you, and it’s for me, and he speaks directly into our lives.

As we recognize the historical setting of this book, and we see that God is speaking into the lives of His people in the midst of political turmoil, in the midst of the political changes that are going on, that God has a message for them, that God is wanting to speak to them.

God controls the course of history, and God is in control of nature, and he is in control of all the events and all the circumstances that are unfolding before us. A discerning Christian would begin to understand that we are not only living in the last days, but we are living in the last hours of the last days, and that God is soon coming, and that he is shifting things happening in this world, he is shaking up things in this world, and what he is trying to do is get our attention, and he is trying to speak into our life, and he wants us to respond to him in total commitment to him.

Now here’s what we do. We want to be rebel -rousers. We want to fight what God is doing. We want to somehow take things into our control and in our hands. But what God wants you to do is to hear his voice, that as he is speaking directly into our lives, everything that has been happening in this world is a message that God is at work.

And I want you to see that when the Bible says the things concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah and Jeroboam. The Jewish people, when they first read this message and they heard this message from Amos, they knew what was going on.

They understood all the chaos, all the confusion that was happening in the world, and they understood it in the context that God was speaking directly to them. That’s what I want you to see. That’s what I want you to know, is that his voice cannot be ignored.

God is speaking church. He is speaking not only to this world, but he is speaking to his church. And he is speaking to his people, and it is important for us to hear the voice of God. You say why, Mike?

Why? Well, first of all, that we might comprehend the truth of God. I want you again to take your Bible, if you don’t mind, and go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. That’s in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

And I want you to see that God wants us to comprehend the truth. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, in verse 7, we’re going to read all the way to the end of the chapter. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory.

Which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.

But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God, for what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knows no man, but the spirit of God.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual, but the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.

Neither can he know them because they are spiritually dessert. But he that is spiritual judges all things or examines all things he examines he measures all things yet he himself is judge of no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him.

But we have the mind of Christ. Now there is so much packed in this verse I could never begin to teach you everything. But I want you to understand the overarching message. He is simply saying the world can’t understand what God is doing.

Or had they known the princes the leaders of the world had they known what was happening. They would have never crucified Christ. But God used the events of political leaders. He used the events of the political changes.

He used the events of everything that was happening. To bring about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ which brought about the salvation of mankind. And now God is using through his spirit through his truth.

He is using all that is happening in this world to communicate to us the deep things of God. The world can’t know it. The world can’t comprehend it. But you and I we’re not comparing spiritual things with political things.

We’re not comparing spiritual things with material things. We are comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. We analyze everything through the lens of the Bible. We analyze everything through the lens of God speaking to us and God’s message to us.

We understand all that is unfolding is a message from heaven to each and every one of us so that we can comprehend the truth. That we can comprehend the truth of who God is. He says you have been blessed with the mind of Christ.

Did you see that in verse 16? Every Christian ought to underscore that. We have the mind of Christ. The world doesn’t have the mind of Christ. I mean, now just because you have the mind of Christ doesn’t mean you always access the mind of Christ.

Just because you are blessed with the spirit of God living in you doesn’t mean that you download the power of God in your life every time. But it’s there. It’s available. He instructs us. He guides us.

He leads us. He blesses us with insight and understanding. We are able to comprehend the truth about who God is. We are able to understand and comprehend the truth about ourselves. There’s a lack of self -awareness in the body of Christ.

We are deceived. We are blind to our own flaws. We are blind to our own failures. We are blind to the things that the world is luring us away from Him. And God wants us to be cognizant of our own selves, of where our sinful nature is, our weaknesses are, and where we need to make sure that we are making the changes and the commitments that God is calling us to.

This comprehending of the truth is also helping us to understand the truth about others. I mean, I am shocked that Christians are shocked that sinners sin. I mean, why does it shock you? Why are you stunned that the world hates Christianity?

Jesus said they hate Him and they will hate you also. Why are you upset that they want to cancel everything? Because they don’t like the truth. And they will eventually try to cancel us and they will try to cancel anything that is of God, anything that is of faith, anything that is promoting Jesus Christ.

This has already been prophesied in the Scriptures. We know these things are to come. We know the times that are going to be that there is a spirit of the Antichrist that is already exist in this world and that it will eventually culminate in a person who is the Antichrist who will eventually take over this world.

Why are you shocked, dear Christian friends? Or had you been studying your Bible, you would know these things. And you would know the truth about other people. And you would have compassion for them.

And you would understand that they are blinded by the world. They are blinded by Satan. And the reason that they behave like they do is not because they are trying to make your life irritable, but they don’t know any better because all they know is their sinful, selfish nature.

And so we know that the answer is the truth of God. We know it will awaken their heart. We know that it will bring light to the darkness. The God of Creation speaks. When we think about everything that’s happening in this world, how can we not know and understand that God is speaking to us?

The Prophet Amos, he was a man of meager means, simple farmer, and yet God used him to take a powerful message to his people and to call the people to repentance and true faith. I pray that as we see the great majesty of the God of Creation as he is speaking to us that each of our hearts will be humbled and we will be drawn to Christ and we will submit our lives fully and freely to him.

Now you might be interested that we’re putting out a newsletter and if you would like to sign up for our newsletter you can go to our website Hopeworthhaving .com and we can either email that to you or we can send it physically to your home however you would like it.

I just want to encourage you to continue to be strengthened in your faith and look for opportunities. of how you can know more about this ministry and be a blessing as you pray for this ministry. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.