Amos - The God Of Justice - Preach The Word

THE GOD OF JUSTICE
David Legge
When God is going to revive and renew the church, He raises up intercessors. My
question to you tonight is: who will intercede like this for Ireland? Who will intercede
like this for the United Kingdom? Maybe you're here these nights, and you're getting
on in years, and you hear the challenge and you think to yourself: 'What could I do for
God?'. I know I've been relaying a lot from the revival of the Hebrides and the Isle of
Lewis. There were two old ladies, I think their names were Peggy and Mary,
bedridden, who interceded to God for those islands - and God heard their prayer, and
God will hear your prayer too if you rid yourself of sin, if you cleanse yourself, if you
keep short accounts with God, if you rest in His grace, if you wallow in His love, if you
fellowship moment by moment - but if you've a heart like Amos for the people that is
breaking, and you can hear what God is saying, and you can see visions from God
about what is happening to our nation and to our church, I believe God will hear you!
E.M. Bounds says: 'It's a great thing, as the prophets did, to talk to men about God;
but it's a far greater thing to talk to God about men'.
God gave him a vision of the locusts, and he interceded. See the second vision, verses
4 to 6 of chapter 7, it's a vision of a devouring fire: 'Thus the Lord GOD showed me:
Behold, the Lord GOD called for conflict by fire, and it consumed the great deep and
devoured the territory. Then I said: 'O Lord GOD, cease, I pray! Oh, that Jacob may
stand, for he is small!'. So the LORD relented concerning this. 'This also shall not be',
said the Lord GOD'. An awful drought is this devouring fire, that's what it is. It's going
to hit the land, and Amos intercedes again and God delivers. Now here's my
conviction, and I believe I have Scripture to back it up: though Amos appears to be
the sole, lonely intercessor, receiving the second vision - if all the people, in a general
sense, if a remnant of the people had arisen to pray and to intercede against God's
judgement, I believe it would have stemmed the fire of judgement that came upon
them. Now I know the sovereign will of God is a great mystery, but I do know this:
when God made His covenant with His ancient people, Israel, one of the stipulations
that He spoke was this in 2 Chronicles 7:14: 'If My people who are called by My name
will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land'. So if the
people, even in a small remnant number, had turned to God - who knows how God
would have panned it all out?
There is a great power in an intercessor, but there is greater power in an army of
intercessors. Andrew Murray, in his book 'With Christ in the School of Prayer', said:
'The man who mobilises the Christian church to pray will make the greatest
contribution in history to world evangelisation'. The man who mobilises the Christian
church to pray will make the greatest contribution in history to world evangelisation.
The third vision is verse 7 through to 9, the vision of the plumbline. Verse 7: 'Thus He
showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb
line in His hand. And the LORD said to me, 'Amos, what do you see?'. And I said, 'A
plumb line'. Then the Lord said: 'Behold, I am setting a plumb line In the midst of My
people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore. The high places of Isaac shall be
desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. I will rise with the sword
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