There's always another story behind the story. Let's talk about it on this edition of Key Life. That's the Borghorn 40s of Steve Rhyme. And this is Key Life designed to get you home with freedom, joy and faithfulness. If that is your desire, stay tuned and Steve opens God's Word. Thanks Mike. I hope you had a great weekend, restful and fun time. And I hope your time at church was celebratory and it's worship. Open in its love and the laughter of the redeemed echoed against the walls. And I also hope your pastor sermon was as good as my pastor's sermon. If you have your Bibles, open it to the book of Amos as we continue with our Old Testament survey here on Key Life. And a little bit later I'm going to tell you about it. But we're offering part two of our Old Testament commentaries, free pamphlets. But I'll tell you about it when we get to it. So listen up at the end of the broadcast. Before we turn to my friend Amos, the man who refused to Shelley Shelley, let's go before the throne. Father, we're thankful for the heroes of the faith that you've given us, the ones who were kind and gentle, the ones who were not so gentle, but were faithful. Father, we're glad for our family. A bent sometimes, wounded sometimes, sinful and you told us about that. But men and women who were faithful make us faithful. Father, make our land a land where giants walk again. Father, you know the people that are listening to this broadcast and you know those who are afraid and those who are lonely. You know those who have secrets that they dare not share with anyone, unless they be ostracized and rejected. Father, you know the lost, an angel and physical. The loss of loved ones, we're not here because we're good, we're here because we're yours. Meet us in this place. Meet us during this time. Give us a sense of your presence and your love and your acceptance. And remind us one more time that you're not angry. Father, I lift before you this week a broadcast. I ask that you would oversee these broadcast. Forgive the one who teaches his sins. They call him reverend and he's not much. We would see Jesus and him only and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, if you were listening last week, we talked about Amos. I gave you some major points to help you understand this book. We talked about the date, the man Amos. And then we looked at some preliminary observations. We saw that the name Amos means burden. And if God gives you a burden, don't try to get out of it. You can't. And then we saw that Amos was an outsider at the party. He lived in the Southern Kingdom. He spoke to the Northern Kingdom and also he was a farmer in the sophisticated age. And yet it was that which God used to make him a powerful man of God. We saw that Amos in his book never once refers to the family name of God, the God of Israel, his own people. He used his all other kinds of words in the Hebrew for God because he didn't want to sand down the sharpness of his message. And then finally last week and this was on Thursday by way of preliminary observation. We saw that judgment in the book of Amos is never tempered with anything else but judgment. Now, what we're going to do this week and maybe next week but certainly this week is that I'm going to become your tour director. And we're going to make our way through the book of Amos and I'm going to point out some of my favorite verses in the book of Amos are verses that lift up and enlighten in the book of Amos. So if you have your Bibles and if your spiritual you will or if you're in a place where you can open your Bible, I'm going to read the first verse of the first chapter of Amos. The words of Amos, who was among the herdsman of Dakota, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzia, King of Judah. Remember who else Isaiah said the same thing in the day which King Uzia lived. And in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joe Ash, King of Israel. And this is what I want you to see two years before the earthquake. And you go, what earthquake is that? Well, I'll tell you something. Amos, when he was writing this to people, he wrote it to people who knew about the earthquake. In fact, it was probably the biggest thing in their entire life. And some of you know just not too many weeks ago we went through the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew. I mean, that was a big deal to me. I was in my house and there was no place to run. I thought I was going to die. I'm, I'll tell you, it'll sure cause you to be repentant. The prospect of one's death not only clears one's mind, but it causes you to repent of every sin you ever had. And I was sitting there in the roof went and you know we were hiding under tables and then closets and then the roof there went and the wind was blowing and I thought we were going to die. And I'll tell you something. If we watched the special just a few weeks ago on Hurricane Andrew, I felt weird all over again and scared all over again and thought I don't want to go through that anymore. The truth is that Hurricane Andrew was the biggest thing in my entire life for five years. I mean a dishonest contractor stole $60,000. I had $15,000 in leans on my house, what was left of it. I want you to know I thought I was going to have to declare bankruptcy. It was just awful. It was a terrible time. It was a big thing. When I get to heaven, I'm going to tell everybody about it until I meet Noah. And then Noah is going to say you don't know for nothing. Let me tell you about bad times. You say things need to be in perspective and when Amos wrote about the earthquake, he just assumed that it was so big that everybody on the face of the earth would know about the earthquake. And when we read this verse, we think what earthquake? I don't know anything about earthquake. I never heard of an earthquake taking place in the time of Amos. What in the world is he talking about? And so we're not able to precisely date this book because we don't know when the earthquake really took place because it is no big deal. You remember, let me give you a name, John Robinson, his name. He wrote a book called Honest to God and he was a bishop in the Anglican Church in England. And the most impressive and salient thing about John Robinson is he was an atheist who used religious words. I mean he didn't believe anything. Not only tell you something, if you go to Amazon, you're probably not going to find the book Honest to God. And if you bring it up to anybody that you know any place about they book, they're not going to know what you're talking about. But there was a time in that book was the biggest thing on the face of your tried to remember to look at things in a way. I don't remember the God is dead movement, do you remember that? These guys, there were a number of them, there were three of them. There was Thomas Altiser and I don't remember the other two who were famous theologians who were talking about God's death. They had God's trial, it was on the cover of every magazine and every Christian in America was upset and angry and we wrote letters. And nobody even remembers their name anymore. It's very important that you look at things from God's perspective. I prayer ought to be, Lord, help me to see things from your perspective. When I cry, let me shed tears over something that's important. When I'm angry, make me angry at the right places, not angry at something that nobody will care about next week. When I'm afraid, may I never be afraid over trifles. When I give my life, may it be for you because you're the only thing who is that important. Until the earth was a big deal, I don't know what's a big deal in your life right now, maybe you're going through a really hard time. Maybe your son has hair that's longer than you wanted or maybe even came home with an air ring and you've gone ballistic. Let me tell you something, you're not even going to remember that. It's not going to make any difference again. Tell him, son, I love you. Maybe you're really upset with your wife. In a month, you're not even going to remember what the issue was. Earthquakes can seem so very big at the time, but this too shall pass, and you got to keep things in perspective. Now, let me show you another thing, and I'm just going to mention this, then I'll show you a little bit more about it tomorrow. But if you start at chapter 2 and you go through, well, it begins at the first chapter in the third verse and you go through the second chapter, you're going to notice a master communicator at work. Now, what Amos does, and we'll talk a little bit more about this tomorrow, but what Amos does is that he gets a big crowd by criticizing the crowd's enemies. Now, if I wanted to get a big crowd so that you could listen to something that I had that was important to say to you, I would tell you how bad Hussain is in Iraq. I'd tell you about the bad Hussama bin Laden. I'd tell you what horrible things they have done. I'm pretty sure I get a big crowd. Now, if I was a man of God once I had your attention, then I would tell you about you. Now, that's what Amos did, man. He starts out by going after all the surrounding nations. Everybody knew they were twits, they were enemies, they were bad people ungodly blasphemous, and once he got their attention, then he said, thou art the man to quote Samuel the prophet. He said, now that I've got your attention, let me tell you about you, a master communicator. God sometimes communicates that way too. You think about that. I'm in. Listen, if you don't have our Old Testament survey, part two, I'll send it to you. It's Job to Jeremiah, and as long as we have supplies last thing, I'll send you this pamphlet or this booklet, which will help you in your understanding of the Old. If you didn't get part one, which is Genesis to Job, if we have any left in the warehouse, if you let us know, we'll send those to you free. And I really mean these are free. Part two is just out. Job to Jeremiah will help you in your understanding of the Old Testament. If you'd like it, call 1-800-keylife-24-hours-a-day, or write key life, post office box 5,000, maintenance Florida 327-9-4, or key life Canada post office box 321-5-0, Cambridge, Ontario, in 3H5-3, or you can email us at Steve at keylife.org with your regular mailing address. It's free and we'll send it to you as long as supplies last. Hey, listen, send us some money as long as supplies last. I realize that most of you can't help us financially, but if you can, you will keep the broadcast on and keep ascending stuff to your brothers and sisters in Christ. You can't afford to help us financially. In charge of any Master Guard visa, Discover Guard, including your envelope, and for any contribution of any size when you request it, I'll send you the cassette teaching, the assets of weakness. It's got to go. Key life is a listener-supported production of key life network.