Amos -- Prepare to Meet Your God

1 The words of Amos, Joel means that Jehovah, He is God. That is the point of the festival of Trumpets and that is the point of the book of Joel. Amos means “burden” and it is reasonable for anyone to hear what God is about to do and to then wonder what is the burden, what is the cause for this. It is the burden of sin. one of the shepherds of Tekoa— As a school teacher I also feel like a shepherd. the vision he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash[a] was king of Israel. There is a distinction here between the people of God, some were of Judah and some were of Israel. My understanding of prophecy is similar to the golden ratio. I feel that you can look at a small event and see a big event in that. At the end of the age we know there will be a great earthquake and I am going to look at this prophecy as referring to a period 2 years before that earthquake, “the earthquake”. There are some similarities. Uzziah the king is puffed up with pride, invades the priests office and enters the temple to burn incense. He becomes leprous and it is thought that this event provoked God to bring about this earthquake. Likewise, at the end of the age, in the middle of the last week the son of perdition goes into the temple and sets himself up as god. At this time there is a great earthquake as the sixth seal is opened. So to my understanding Joel presents the beginning of this week mentioned in Daniel, and it begins in typology with the festival of trumpets. This festival takes place about two weeks before the end of the year in the Jewish calendar. After this festival the Israelites were to take stock of the year and consider their sins that they needed to make an account of. This takes place for ten days. That would signify the time it takes for a complete and thorough accounting of our responsibility before God. I believe this is what this two years signifies, the time right up until “the earthquake”, the sixth seal, where we are taking account of our sins prior to the day of atonement. This may seem confusing to those who have not studied end time prophecy, so I’ll briefly explain. I believe the end of the age is 7 years known as the tribulation. The first 3 ½ years are natural events. In the middle of this time we have this supernatural event referred to as “The earthquake” though it includes more than that. The second 3 ½ years is called “the Great Tribulation” and includes supernatural events. The book of Joel describes the start of this 7 year period and likens it to the festival of trumpets. Now we are in Amos and Amos helps us do a thorough accounting before God. We consider our sins, and we consider God’s great works in the past. We also see how God has been warning us but we have not heeded those warnings.