Sharper Iron From Kfuo Radio

Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor at Christ Lutheran Church in Hebron, CT, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 7:1-3. This text starts the final third of the book of Amos. He has preached, “Repent!” but the people have refused to respond and return to the LORD. The series of visions the LORD shows to Amos beginning with this text proclaim the LORD’s judgment against His people Israel. The first vision is a swarm of locusts. The LORD forms them to send against His people at the time when the most destruction will be caused, before the first crops have been harvested yet after the second crops have sprouted. If this vision comes to pass, the devastation against Israel will be absolutely terrible. Amos responds as a prophet should. He prays on behalf of the people, with whom he is one. Amos asks the LORD to forgive, not based on any worthiness from Israel, but based on the LORD’s promise to send the Savior in the line of Jacob. In response, the LORD relents from His verdict of judgment for the time being. In A

Rev. David Vandercook, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in North Little Rock, AR and Shepherd of Peace Lutheran Church in Maumelle, AR, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 6:8-14. The economic and political prosperity that Israel enjoyed in the first half of the 8th century BC had filled them with pride. They believed that they had attained to such heights on their own, apart from the LORD. They were sorely mistaken. Swearing by His own name as a guarantee of absolute certainty, the LORD declares that He hates such pride. This is the same sin against the 1st Commandment committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden, by their forefather Jacob, by Jeroboam son of Nebat, and by each and every sinner. With strikingly grim imagery, Amos declares that such pride does not lead to life; it only leads to death. This will be true for all, whether rich or poor, who have fallen away from faith in the LORD. Their prideful perversion of justice and righteousness is utter foolishness. The LORD mocks such pride and decla

Rev. Dan Speckhard, pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Godfrey, IL, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 6:1-7. The LORD gives authority in various vocations in order to serve those under that authority. God’s people in Amos’ day had turned that truth upside down. Those with authority had become complacent toward the LORD’s Word, despising those for whom they should have cared. Amos declared woe against these leaders, who should have known better. If other greater nations could fall, so could Israel. They had attempted to avoid the LORD’s judgment, but they had only brought it nearer. Forgetting the authority and judgment of God that stood over them, they had treated with harsh judgment those under their authority. The religious leaders particularly had engaged in such abuses. Amos describes their great excess and debauchery, mocking them for thinking that they were following in David’s footsteps. Instead, they were actually failing to be faithful shepherds to God’s people, choosing to care for themse

Rev. Luke Zimmerman, pastor at Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mechanicsburg, PA, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 5:21-27. Amos’ shocking preaching turns once again to the worship life of Israel. The LORD declares that He hates what His people offer as worship, refusing to accept it or take any delight in it at all. The reason is twofold. First, their worship has deviated from the true form that the LORD commanded in His Law, as they worship the LORD alongside idols in places that the LORD has not commanded. Second, their worship is faithless. The people of Israel think that if they only do the ritual by the book, the LORD will be pleased, regardless of what they believe about Him or the way they treat their neighbor. Amos’ preaching, therefore, connects right faith with right living. The LORD does desire that His people worship Him as He has commanded, not as a way for us to earn something by going through the motions correctly, but rather as a way for Him to deliver His forgiveness freel

Rev. Joel Heckmann, pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Okarche, OK, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 5:18-20. Amos was sent to Israel to preach during a time of military peace. The people expected that the day of the LORD would come as an increase of that peace, when the LORD would fight and win for them as He had in the days of the Exodus. Amos shocks them out of such illusions. Because of their idolatry and injustice, the day of the LORD was not a day that they ought to desire. The day of the LORD would not bring victory for them, but defeat. That day came for Israel in 722 BC with the Assyrian army and for Judah in 587 BC with the Babylonian army. Yet the day of the LORD for Amos and the other prophets was more than these historical events. The day of the LORD pointed further into history, when One would take the darkness and defeat of God in the place of sinners. The day of the LORD is Good Friday, when Jesus suffered and died on the cross. Only those who approach the day of the LORD in H

Rev. Clint Poppe, pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Lincoln, NE, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 5:10-17. The courtroom scene of Amos 3-4 has shifted to a funeral dirge in Amos 5. The LORD tells His people that they have died and the reason why. They have been faithless in their legal transactions at the city gates, fleecing the poor for a profit. They have loved lies rather than truth; they have sought to increase their wealth at the expense of justice. For this reason, the LORD’s great reversal comes upon His people as Law. They will not dwell in the custom homes they had built, nor will they drink the wine of the choice vineyards they have planted. Such an evil time requires silence before the LORD so that His people will hear His Word and confess their sin. When they silently hear His Word, God’s people hear what He desires above all else. He desires to call His people out of their death and into His life. Even if His faithful remnant experiences the same tribulation as faithful Jose

Rev. Steve Andrews, pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Lee’s Summit, MO, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 5:4-9. The worship life of Israel comes into focus with this text. The LORD desires His people to seek Him. He alone is the source of life as both Creator and Redeemer. If His people desire life, they will only find it where they find Him. That is why the LORD commands His people not to seek Him in their self-chosen ways. Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba may have an impressive historical pedigree of the LORD’s work in the past, but they no longer carry the LORD’s promise. To seek Him these places now is only idolatry and false worship. Amos’ call to seek the LORD and live is all the more urgent as he once again speaks of the judgment of fire, one that will be unquenchable by any false god. Such judgment comes because Israel has turned justice and righteousness upside down. Because they did not seek the LORD’s gift of righteousness and justice, their actions toward their neighbors became poi

Rev. Sean Daenzer, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Great Bend, ND and Peace, Barney, ND, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 5:1-3. When a funeral dirge is sung, our ears perk up to learn who has died. The surprise of Amos 5 is that death has come to God’s own people, Israel. Though physically alive, they are spiritually dead. They have not heeded the LORD’s call to repentance through increasingly severe plagues, and so they have met their God in death rather than life. Their failure to cry out to the LORD for mercy, having not even recognized their need for it, has led to their own fall, which they have brought upon themselves. Tragically, due to her own idolatry and injustice, the virgin Israel did not receive the wonderful gifts her husband, the LORD, desired to give. On her own land, the destruction of Israel would occur at the hands of Assyria in 722 BC. Only a tenth of the soldiers would remain, and these ten tribes of Israel would be lost to history. Yet the prophet sings this funeral dir

Rev. Peter Ill, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Milstadt, IL, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 4:6-13. As Amos continues to preach to Israel, he draws on previous Old Testament texts. As the LORD sent plagues against Egypt in order to bring them to repentance and faith in Him as the only true God, so He has sent plagues against His own people Israel with the same goal in mind. He has enacted the covenant curses listed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy in order to wake His people up from their apathy toward Him. His plagues gradually grow in intensity and hit closer to home to the people each time. The LORD sent famine, drought, blight, mildew, pestilence, death, and destruction against His people, all in an effort to call them away from their idolatry and injustice. Each time the refrain rings with growing tragedy: “Yet you did not return to me.” For that reason, Israel will meet their God in an unmistakable way. They will know for certain that He is the Creator and the God of His angel armies. Su

Rev. Ned Moerbe, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Blackwell, OK, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 4:1-5. Amos’ satire and sarcasm are biting. He holds back no punches. Though every detail may not be easily identified, the overall clarity of Scripture remains in order to drive us to repentance and faith in Christ alone. First, Amos attacks the women of Samaria, shockingly calling them cows of Bashan. Like these well-fed, plump cattle, the women of Samaria have enjoyed the good life. Yet they have neglected to care for the poor and needy as they, by their demands for more alcohol, have only encouraged their husbands to continue to oppress these weak members of society. Their punishment fits the crime. Those who have treated others no better than animals are treated the same. They are led with fishhooks into captivity, a warning to us still today to consider the need to be stewards of what God has given in order to care for our neighbors’ physical needs. Such sins against our neighbor stem from s

Rev. Dr. Ryan Tinetti, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Arcadia, MI, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 3:9-15. The prophet Amos pictures a courtroom scene in these verses. The LORD summons Israel’s archenemies, Philistia and Egypt, to serve as witnesses against Samaria in the northern kingdom. The LORD brings forward the evidence against Israel. In their storing of wealth as the source of their security and at the expense of the weak, Israel has in fact only stored up violence and robbery for themselves, a danger that all should guard against when it comes to money. The LORD speaks the verdict and punishment against Israel. He will send an adversary against them; though a remnant will be spared, the scene remains a gruesome and near-complete destruction of Israel for her injustice and idolatry. Like the father Jacob had been a deceiver, so Israel had believed and lived. Israel had placed her trust in the wrong houses, the idolatrous house of Bethel and the luxurious houses in which they lived.

Rev. Jacob Dandy, pastor at Zion Lutheran Church and Crown Christian School in St. Francis, MN, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 3:3-8. As Amos finished preaching the LORD’s judgment against Israel, they must have asked, “What gives this sheepherder from Tekoa the right to speak to us?” Amos answers that question through a series of rhetorical questions. Each one presents a situation to which there is an obvious answer, and Amos builds toward his goal as a master of rhetoric. Two people agree to walk together. They hear a roaring lion because he has caught and killed his prey. They see a bird caught in a snare. They hear the trumpet blown in the city, announcing the enemy’s arrival. The truth that Amos drives home to Israel is this: the LORD is coming as their enemy to bring disaster upon them because they have broken His covenant with them. He desires that they know that this is not a random occurrence. This is His alien work among them by which He desires to bring them to repentance so that He m

Rev. Brian Flamme, pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Roswell, NM, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 3:1-2. After his eight oracles against both foreign nations and God’s people, Judah and Israel, Amos continues to preach against the people of Israel. The LORD is angry with His people, and with good reason. They have engaged in idolatrous worship and shown forth their lack of love according to the Ten Commandments. This was true despite the fact that the LORD had known Israel of all the families of the earth. He had given His promise to Abraham that the Savior would come through his family. He had rescued Israel from slavery in Egpyt and given them the sacrifices that preached Christ crucified. He had given them His Word to hear and believe for the forgiveness of their sins. Israel, however, had not found their identity in the Word that God had given, but in their abstract status as Israel. Rather than receiving the LORD’s gifts by faith and responding in faith, Israel rejected His gifts and bel

Rev. Philip Hoppe, pastor at Peace Lutheran Church in Finlayson, MN and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Bruno, MN, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 2:6-16. Amos has finished his prelude; now he begins the main content of his prophecy. The LORD has sent Amos to preach to and against Israel herself. The wording of this oracle is similar to the preceding seven, for Israel has behaved and believed no differently than her pagan neighbors. Masterfully weaving together both general and specific sins, Amos calls Israel out for her mistreatment of the poor and licentious sexual behavior. These are tied closely to their idolatry; wrong worship has led them into wrong living. Of all people, Israel should have known better, for the LORD had saved them in the past and was still bestowing His Word upon them in the present. Yet even these gifts Israel misused. For this reason, the LORD’s judgment was coming. Not even the best of their warriors would escape. The LORD did not give this judgment lightly or gladly, fo

Rev. Zelwyn Heide, pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Grassy Butte, ND and St. Peter Lutheran Church in Belfield, ND, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 2:4-5. The first six oracles of judgment in Amos are against pagan nations surrounding Judah and Israel. Now the prophet turns the corner to address the LORD’s own people, starting with the southern kingdom, Judah. During the period of the Divided Monarchy, which began with Rehoboam of Judah and Jeroboam I of Israel, the southern and northern kingdoms were sometimes friend and sometimes enemies. During the time of Amos, Israel was enjoying relative peace and prosperity from an earthly perspective, while Judah was weaker. Yet even Judah does not escape the LORD’s judgment. Using the same words as He used against the pagan nations, Amos preaches against Judah for an even worse sin. They rejected the law of the LORD. It was bad enough for the pagans to break the law written on their hearts; it was far worse for Judah to knowingly reject the word the

Rev. Tim Koch, pastor at Emanuel Lutheran Church in Milbank, SD joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 2:1-3. The Moabites trace their lineage to the incestuous relationship between Lot and his oldest daughter. Related to Israel, the Moabites were sometimes friends and sometimes foes of God’s people. Perhaps best known among the Moabites is Ruth, who married into the Israelite family and ended up in the genealogy of Christ. Yet the idol worship of Moab was a snare to Israel during their history as well. Amos preaches against Moab’s crime of desecrating the grave of the king of Edom, burning his bones into lime for use as mortar. Such defiling of God’s gift of the body is horrific, even by one pagan nation to another. For that reason, the LORD’s anger literally burns against the people of Moab. His wrath will come against them publicly and loudly, as He cuts off their ruler and kills all of their princes. Such language echoes throughout the Scripture in contexts not only of temporal judgment, but also co

Rev. James Preus, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Ottumwa, IA joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 1:13-15. The Ammonites trace their lineage to the incestuous relationship between Lot and his youngest daughter. Due to this familial connection to Abraham through his nephew, the LORD gave Ammon land as an inheritance that Israel was not allowed to take. Yet their worship of Milcom, the cruel and violent idol who demanded child sacrifice, put them at enmity with the LORD’s people. The Ammonites were a thorn in Israel’s side at several points in the Old Testament, not only by military hostility but also by leading them into idol worship due to intermarriage. The LORD speaks His Word through the prophet Amos against Ammon for their heartless violence against pregnant women and their children. The day of their judgment did come, just as the LORD spoke against them. This day serves as a picture of the Day of the LORD, a theme throughout the book of Amos. This text stands as a sobering warning to us sti

Rev. Sean Kilgo, pastor at the Northeast Kansas Lutheran Partnership joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 1:11-12. Amos’ first three oracles against nations are spoken to people and cities farther removed from Israel. With the oracle against Edom, Amos begins to preach to people who are both geographically closer and related to God’s people. The nation of Edom includes the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s older brother. The hostility that existed between Jacob and Esau during their lives as brothers continued throughout the history of their descendants. Notably, the people of Edom came out against the people of Israel and refused them safe passage while they were traveling to the Promised Land under Moses. This incident in Numbers 20 lies behind the oracle against Edom in Amos. Their wickedness toward their blood brothers was unspeakable and continuous, attacking not only the men of Israel, but even showing no mercy toward the women and children. The anger and wrath that Esau had toward Jacob only continu

Rev. David Appold, pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Paducah, KY, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 1:9-10. The city of Tyre was located northwest of Israel. This island city was a center of commerce and wealth. Ships from every country carrying every commodity came to harbor at Tyre. Even the people of Israel had favorable dealings with Tyre, as King Hiram had provided materials and labor to King David and King Solomon. Yet the love of money became a snare to the people of Tyre. Through the prophet Amos, the LORD condemns Tyre for mercilessly selling an entire nation into slavery because they had forgotten the covenant of brotherhood. In general terms, they ignored the Law that the LORD writes on every person’s heart by selling their fellow human beings into slavery. In specific terms, Tyre forgot the treaty that had existed between them and Israel, just as the Pharaoh at the time of Moses’ birth forgot Joseph. The judgment that the LORD spoke against Tyre happened about 400 years later under

Rev. Dr. Adam Filipek, pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church and Immanuel Lutheran Church in Lidgerwood, ND, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 1:6-8. The LORD has the right to speak to foreign nations because He is their Creator. This is the foundation laid in Genesis 1-2. For that reason, Amos now turns to the Philistines. The tension between the LORD’s people and the Philistines goes back to their descent from Ham and conflict with Isaac and continues into outright warfare in the days of the judges and the kings. By the time of Amos during the divided kingdom, the prophet’s message is the same for Israel, Judah, and every nation: “Repent!” The Philistines particularly are called to repentance over their failure to leave any remnant of those peoples they conquered. Even though they did not have the Ten Commandments written on tablets of stone, they had the Law of God written upon their hearts; they should have known better. No human being created in the image of God should be treated with such indi