August 31, Amos 5
"Seek me and live; but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing." - Amos 5:5
The best-known words in Amos 5 are engraved in black granite at a memorial to the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery, Alabama. The words are not attributed to the Lord who spoke them or to Amos who wrote them down, but to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His paraphrase of the words was, "...until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." It became one of his best known statements as a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement.
God wanted social injustice to stop in ancient Israel, too. But God told the Israelites that it would take more than social reform to restore their relationship with him. The people of Israel needed to return to God. Until they sought him and turned away from idols, they were headed for death and destruction.
This chapter marks the last of the "hear" appeals and the beginning of the "woe" statements. God spoke a lamentation over the disobedient people. He warned that the number of deaths would be catastrophic when the invaders came and Israel fell. And he offered an alternative to the carnage and suffering that was coming soon.
In the text, God said, "Seek me and live." The idols they had worshiped could not save them. He said, "Seek the LORD and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour with none to quench it...." A little later he put it like this: "Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said." God didn't want to destroy them, and he urged them to leave their idols and come back to him. Then they could again know the blessings and privileges of having God with them instead of against them.
The same power of God that made the universe also had the power to destroy them if they persisted in disobedience. God knew the number and the depths of their sins. He called for an end to the injustice and unrighteousness that had plagued their people. But social reform would not be enough. They had to seek him and not the idols, good and not evil. But they hated the prophets who told them the truth. They would not listen or change their ways. So they would lose all they had, and become casualties of war or deported captives.
They thought they wanted the day of the Lord to come, imagining the thundering wrath of God being poured out on their threatening enemies. But judgment was coming for them as well as their neighboring enemies. They would flee one consequence, only to run into another one. Disaster was at the door, unless they turned back to God.
God told them that he despised their fasts, offerings and songs as long as their lives didn't match their worship rituals. Their late idolatry was nothing new. They had worshiped false gods in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan, centuries before God's patience and their time ran out.
They mistreated and oppressed one another because they lost all respect for God and his commands. They needed to repent, but reform alone would not solve the problem of their distance from God.
The warning that disobedience would bring death goes all the way back to Eden when God told Adam and Eve they would surely die if they ate the forbidden fruit. God repeated the warning when he gave them their law at Mt. Sinai. And it would come to pass in Israel's near future.
Living in a fallen world, we need the same reminder that "the wages of sin is death." We also need to hear the warning that ritual religion without godly living is worthless. The only way to overcome the threat of death and ruin is still to "Seek the LORD and live."
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—August 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
Comments