Amos 5:1-27. 8-31-13. SEEK THE LORD AND LIVE – my devotional

Amos 5:1-27                                                                                                 Kevin E. Jesmer

Key Verse: 5:6a,14                                                                                       9/6/13

“Seek the Lord and live,… Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.” (NIV 2011)

    Dear Lord Jesus, this world makes one very weary. Even when one tries to do good there is always the devil prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Sometimes I feel weary and worn, but I find healing in your love and your word. Strengthen me as I follow you all the days of my life. I pray that you may bless the wedding of Jason and Mayra. Please help them to live in your love and help them to glorify you, Jesus, in their lives. Grant them great joy. Thank you for helping us to be their friends. Please grant me to one word of God through this passage. Calm my heart with your love and your grace. Give me your peace as I follow you. I thank you and I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen!

1. Seek Good And Not Evil (1-17)

Amos shocked his listeners by singing a lament song of grief to them as though they had already been destroyed. Verses 1-17, “Hear this word, Israel, this lament I take up concerning you: ² “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.” ³ This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Israel: “Your city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left; your town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.” ⁴ This is what the Lord says to Israel: “Seek me and live; ⁵     do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.” ⁶ Seek the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it. ⁷ There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground. ⁸ He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the Lord is his name. ⁹ With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold and brings the fortified city to ruin. ¹⁰ There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court and detest the one who tells the truth. ¹¹ You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. ¹² For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts. ¹³ Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times, for the times are evil. ¹⁴ Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. ¹⁵ Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. ¹⁶ Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. ¹⁷ There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.”

      God cares about the condition of his people. Verses 1-2 contains God’s lament concerning Israel. “Hear this word, Israel, this lament I take up concerning you: ² “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.” Virgin Israel (2) meant that she, as a nation, has never been conquered, but God knew that would not be forever. God does cared about his people. If God didn’t care he would not even lament. Think about it. Those whom you don’t care about, you don’t even think about. People come and go, live and die and we don’t pay much attention to them. It is the people who are closest to us that we think about, care about and concern about. God really concerns about his people and he wants to help them. God tried his best to draw them to himself with cords of love. This would be God’s loving kindness, turning them from destruction.

In their deception, the Israelites believed that their wealth and religious rituals would deliver them and Amos lamented their upcoming destruction.  On the day that they had to face the consequences of their sin. They could not hide from God for there is no fortress that can be a refuge from him. First, there would be great destruction to the military. Look at verse 3, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Israel: ‘Your city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left; your town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.’” only one tenth of their military forces would survive. Second, verses 16-17 reflect the destruction that was going to occur for the rest of their society. “¹⁶ Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. ¹⁷ There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.” Carnage would not just be in the cities, but also in the country. Loud weeping occurred at funerals as paid mourners cried loudly with funeral songs. Amos was saying that there would be so many funerals that there would be a shortage of professional mourners, and so farmers would be called from the fields to assist. Eventually they would be carried off into exile. Surprisingly, the destruction of 90% and the survival of 10% meant nothing to them. They remained unrepentant and so judgment would surely come. They would never rise again as a nation. They would loose their identity as they melted away into the societies of their conquerors.

It always surprises me that even though people hit rock bottom, and I am not just talking financially, I am talking spiritually, health wise, relationally, mentally and emotionally…even though they hit rock bottom, people will still refuse to repent and come to God. This is so foolish. What do you have to loose? Come to Jesus and taste his love and grace and redemption. Taste his salvation. You have suffered enough. It is time to come to the only Savior. Give Jesus a chance to demonstrate his love to you.

There is a remedy to their predicament. It is found in a repeated phrase in this passage, “Seek God and live.” God, out of his love, is implores them to seek him and live. One who is cut off from God is dead. Just as a flower that is cut off from the stem quickly wilts and dies. One must seek the living God to truly live. Sin seeks to destroy, but hope is found in seeking God. In times of difficulty and struggles, seek God. When others are struggling encourage them to see God too.

What was keeping them from seeking God? Look at verse 5, “do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”Bethel was the great center of the worship of God by utilizing a calf. Apparently, some were worshipping the Lord Jehovah in their own way. While the sacrifices were being offered before the golden calf, psalms and hymns were being offered to God. I am sure that they were very sincere worshippers but their sincerity was channeled in the wrong direction. The Lord would have none of this. The object of their faith was in the ritual, and not at all in what the sacrifices were supposed to represent. Though man made religion may resemble God’s true way of salvation, God hates this kind of spiritual deception. God hates every man made form of atonement. Even if they tried day and night to make offerings God would not delight in their offerings nor accept them.  (Gen 8:21; Ex 29:18; Lev 26:11) No matter how sincere they tried to worship the Lord using the golden calf, that would not quench the fire of God’s judgment that was about to brake out against them.

God does not want superficial religion. He wants real faith. He wants us to seek him with all our hearts, and turn from evil. How can we seek God? We must give up trying to worship Jesus in our own way, in ways that are not sanctioned by God. We must give up mixing our worship with the things of the world and come to Jesus in true Biblical worship. God is looking for worshipper that worship him in spirit and in truth.

The prophet also implores the people to seek good and not evil. This has to do with seeking justice. Look at verse 7, “ There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.” Courts of law should always be places of justice where the oppressed can find refuge but instead the courts of that time had become places lined with greed and injustice. The rich milked the poor in order to build mansions for themselves, while good people just keep silent. People also oppressed those who spoke up for justice just like Amos. Look at verse 10, “There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court and detest the one who tells the truth.” Amos may have stood in the “Gates of the city”, where the city leaders were and called the worshippers at the golden calf to repent. The judges of ancient Israel hated Amos, and any like him, because he spoke uprightly. This would have infuriated them. But God calls them to a high standard in verse 15, “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.” Israel’s leaders would have to respond in practical ways to reform thier own legal and social system; stopping false accusations, corruption and bribery and the like. This would not be easy, but it is God’s way.

God puts a great emphasis on how we treat the poor and the needy around us. We treat the rich and our peers well because of what we hope to get from them, be it benefits, or praise and recognition. But the poor can offer us nothing. They might even demand our time and our resources.  But the truth is, how we treat the poor reflects our own character. How does a person treat anyone who, by some of society’s standards, is lower on the “totem pole”. As Christians we must treat the poor as Christ has treated us, with hope, understanding, forgiveness, absolute respect, inclusiveness, love and a servant’s heart.

The withholding of justice has always been a recipe for disaster in every society. A society is also in dire straights when those who try to do right, are hated for their pursuit to justice.  Our God is a champion of justice. Those who profess faith in Almighty God must hate evil and love the good. They must love justice. Then God’s favor will shine on us as a society.

So if the nation was destined to be conquered and thrown into exile, what is the usefulness of the prophet’s words to seek God and live and to seek good and justice? We can find the answer in verse 8, “He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the Lord is his name.” ThePleiades and Orion are star constellations. Ancient navigators have depended on their reliability. There is reliability among the heavenly bodies that call us to look to their Creator, our powerful, faithful and dependable God. He is able to save. He is able to reach down to where we are as a people and a nation and pick us up and place us on a solid rock.

2. Let Justice Roll On Like A River (18-27)

Verses 18-27, “Woe to you who long, for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. ¹⁹ It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. ²⁰ Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? ²¹ “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. ²² Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. ²³ Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. ²⁴ But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! ²⁵ “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel? ²⁶ You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god— which you made for yourselves. ²⁷ Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty.”

In these verses people were calling for the Day of the Lord, thinking it would bring to an end to all of their troubles. But God told them that they didn’t know what they were asking for.  Here, “The Day of the Lord” means the upcoming destruction by the Assyrian army, as well as the future day of God’s judgment. For the unfaithful it will be a day of darkness and doom (Joel 1:15). God’s punishment was more than defeat. It was complete exile from the homeland. This day of the Lord would bring God’s justice, and punishment to the unredeemed people on account of their sins.  That day would be a day of darkness for those who do not seek God.

If it would be a day of destruction for the people, why were the people calling for the day of the Lord? It was because they did not know themselves. They felt that they were “right” before God because of their religious practices. They were making burnt offerings and grain offerings and singing songs to God, but they were doing it before a golden calf and mixing their religion with pagan religious practices. They were actually making up their own way to come to God and falsely assuming that God would accept that. But that is not true. God can never accept that. He has told us how approach him in his word. If we neglect that we can see what happens…not knowing ourselves and our need for a Savior and becoming self righteous. The people did not even think that they would be the recipients of God’s judgment. We call this self righteousness. If they really knew where they stood before God, with all of their sin, they would be crying for God’s mercy and forgiveness instead of the day of the Lord. We would think twice before we automatically say that we want to go to heaven to be with God, even when we are in an unsaved condition of heart.

For the faithful, those who have a right relationship with God, “The Day of the Lord” will be glorious. It will be glorious because we know that we are forgiven through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Jesus shed his holy blood on the cross so that we can be forgiven. We are made acceptable to God. We become part of God’s family. We gain eternal life. When Jesus comes again, we don’t have to be afraid of being punished. We can lift our heads high and rejoice that our redemption is nigh. We can be very glad that we will be with our Lord Jesus forever in the kingdom of God. Praise the Lord.

The people had the wrong idea about religion. They felt that if they worshipped at a religious place, making offerings and sacrifices, one day a week, then they could spend the rest of the week exploiting the poor and enjoying lavish lifestyles. But that is not religion that pleased the Lord. Our religion does involve worship that is prescribed and ordained by God. It also involves personal devotion. But is also involves the promotion of justice. Look at verses 23 and 24, “²³ Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. ²⁴ But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” God wants more than just empty religion. He wants justice to roll on like a river. He wants this done through his people. This means that outside of our worship services and our personal devotion, we need to care about other people and their plights and their sufferings and work for justice to be brought about in their lives.

Prayer: Lord, help me to seek you with all my heart. Have mercy on our nation. Let justice roll on like a river through your people.

One Word: Seek the Lord and live