Last week Pastor Keller gave you a headline, "God Calls A Preacher." He recounted the call of Ezekiel to preach to God's people. As Pastor Keller noted, it would not be easy for Ezekiel in his ministry. He would face many obstacles as he told the people what God wanted them to hear.

Today, we have another Old Testament prophet, Amos. His ministry would not be easy either. And the message would not change - God wants sinners to repent and be saved. Yet Satan places obstacles in the paths of God's messengers. Amos would face a formidable opponent, Amaziah. He was the king of Israel's priest and advisor. And so this week our headline reads, "King's Priest Battles God's Prophet." Let us see how God works through his called messengers in spite of the attacks of Satan.

Amaziah was a powerful man in the land of Israel. He was the priest in the city of Bethel. This was the hotbed of idol worship. People came from all over Israel to worship the golden calf. And their worship was anything but godly. It was based on the vilest self-indulgence imaginable. Amaziah was the leader of this terrible sin against God.

The hand of King Jeroboam had placed him there. This king was probably the most popular ruler the nation had ever known. During his reign, other nations feared him. Israel gained much land and the people lived very prosperous lives. He was extremely successful economically and militarily.

This is why it was so rattling to Amaziah that Amos would come from their rival country and preach judgment and destruction. Amaziah, the king's priest, saw Amos as a threat to national security and to the prosperity of Israel. And so he went to king Jeroboam with false accusations against Amos.

Imagine the first line of the newspaper article as this: "King's priest accuses subversive prophet of treason." It was a complete lie and Amaziah had no interest in the truth. Amos was not leading a conspiracy. He was just preaching the truth as God gave it to him. It is true that Amos foretold of God's wrath on the house of the king and that the nation of Israel would be taken into exile. However it was God's word, not Amos leading a rebellion for personal causes.

Then Amaziah added an insult to these accusations. He commanded Amos to leave the country. In doing so, he implied that Amos only preached for personal gain - "Earn your bread there," he said. This insult to the character of God's messenger was the ultimate hypocrisy. For Amaziah was the one who was looking out for his own hide and personal gain by attacking Amos. Amos threatened his very existence by preaching against the idolatry and self-indulgence of the nation of Israel. In fact, if you look closely at verse 13, Amaziah said, "Don't prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king's sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom." You'll notice he did call it God's sanctuary or the temple of the Lord. It was the kings and Amaziah was working for the king.

Amos faced the condemnation of the most powerful ruler. He was in a foreign land. He was not a professional preacher. He was in a very difficult position. And so you might expect the second half of the newspaper article to read like this: "The lowly prophet fled back to his homeland with his tail between his legs."

But in spite of the obstacle placed in his way by the Father of Lies, Satan, he boldly spoke the truth. And I guess this shouldn't surprise us because he spoke the truth of God throughout the book of Amos. Most of the book of Amos is law and so you might think that he was always unpopular with the people of Israel. But Amos starts out telling about the destruction of all of Israel's neighbors. If you would look at a map of Israel from this time and read the judgments of Amos, you would notice that all the surrounding nations get picked off one by one - Aram, Philistia, Phoenicia, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and even Judah.

You can just see the smugness of the people as they hear of the destruction of their enemies. Then the bomb is dropped on them. Amos calls them to repentance for their sins. He declares that if they fail to repent and turn from their idol worship, God would punish them most severely. In just moments, their sheer glee at the destruction of their enemies would have turned to sheer hatred for God's prophet.

Amos only told the truth as God revealed it to him. Yet I don't want to make this sound like an easy job. Amos was not a professional prophet. He did not come from a prophet's family. In fact, he had another occupation. He was shepherd and a fig picker. He never asked for this job. He said that God took him and gave him this command: "Go, prophesy to my people Israel."

The people did not like his message. Amaziah battled him for preaching rights. Yet he faithfully completed his mission given to him by God. Could Amos have done this on his own? Never - it was the Almighty Lord who gave him the courage and the words.

Likewise today God sends his messengers into a hostile world. People do not want us to tell them they are sinners. How do I know this? Because you don't have to go very far even in Adrian to find a preacher to tell you exactly what your sinful mind wants to hear. There are preachers near us who let their people wallow in self-indulgent idol worship. There are preachers who will not condemn sins as sin. There are church leaders who persecute you and me for doing this. We may even have family and friends who get angry at us for telling them what God expects from them. It is not easy all the time to be God's messengers.

So amid the obstacles that Satan places before us, we carry on by the grace of God. It is as if God picks us up and carries us over these obstacles in order that we might preach his message. There is nothing we can brag about. We are just shameful sinners. We don't even deserve to hold God's Word in our hands. Yet by his saving grace we have been transformed. We have been brought out of the darkness of sin and into the light of salvation. The blood of Jesus shed on the cross has rescued us and we have been given eternal life in heaven.

Amos did not shy away from preaching repentance for sin. And neither should we. It won't always be the popular thing to do. Family and friends may turn on us. But God gives us this command and we need to follow through with it. People's lives hang in the balance.

But be sure to remember that Amos didn't shy away from the preaching the gospel either. In the closing of his book, the prophet Amos described the coming days of the Messiah and the eternal home that awaits us. It is such a beautiful and comforting section of God's Word. We also need to share that message. The gospel and only the gospel changes hearts. And so our headline should really be: "Jesus saved sinners and gives eternal life!" Amen.