Chapter five begins the next message from Amos. I wonder how this was received by the people. We don't know if Amos delivered these messages in a day, a week, a month or more. Whatever the duration, we know it is hard work to ignore the truth. It convicts and causes discomfort. When stopping their ears became difficult, they likely began to find ways to get away from Amos or get Amos away from them. Things haven't changed much ins everal thousand years. Our culture has grown tired of stopping their ears so they are actively removing God and His word from their presence. However, hiding the truth doesn't change the fact that it is still truth!
The apostle John noted that men loved darkness rather than light simply because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).
Amos 5:1-3
Amos begins his presentation with a lamentation. A lamentation was a funeral song, sung in memory of a dead person. This song speaks of a virgin who has fallen. She is not yet dead but as good as dead because there is no one to assist her. It's a particularly sad because she was young and had her whole life in front of her. There was so much of life she had not experienced and she had no offspring to leave behind. This virgin is a picture of Israel. They had fallen. None of their idols could help them; their former glory and reputation meant nothing. All that had been previously done was meaningless; the heritage offered no assistance.
In their deadness and of their last gasping breath, Israel will struggle to put together an army. Where they once had a thousand only a hundred will be left. Where they previously had a hundred only ten will remain.
Amos 5:4-7
If they heard the truth and understood what the Lord said through Amos the people would see their great need. They would agree with God regarding the state of their hopelessness. We experience a similar hopelessness in our sin:
6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God doesn't punish for the sake of punishment. He brought correction and chastiement to them repeatedly and it was rejected. As the prophets speak of God's judgment they always open this door of hope. That hope is in repentance and trust in the Lord. For this fallen virgin who was without hope He said, "Seek Me and live." God brings life where there was only previously death. He brings hope in the most hopeless situation.
He invites them to seek Him and not some substitute. There was no help at Bethel in a golden calf. No help would be found among the idols of Gilgal. All of these places had previously been significant spiritually. Great events happened in these places; but now they were places of idolatry and would rightly need to be destroyed. Beersheba was way down south, probably a place of idolatry in Judah; he said don't pass over into Judah and seek help in Beersheba, there was none to be had.
Bethel means 'House of God'. This was where God met Jacob (Genesis 28:11-19). Gilgal means 'rolling away' (from rolling away the reproach of Egypt; Joshua 5:1-12). Beersheba means 'well of the oath' and was part of life for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 21:22-33; 26:23-33: 46:1-5). It seems like a play on words in God saying to seek Him; not the His house, not a rolling away or an oath. In all three we see a history and heritage of God that does nothing for them. They simply needed to seek God.
Failure to seek God would result in the fire of judgment. That fire would devour the house of Joseph; this is the tribe and area of Ephraim that had become corrupt and wicked, no longer knowing justice and righteousness. Bethel was the chief center of worship in Ephraim; howeve rit was false worship. So there was no help for them in Bethel. Wormwood was bitter and is used to show that justice had been corrupted; righteousness was trappled down and laid to rest. Justice and righteousness had passed away.
Amos 5:8-9
Almighty God is the one they ought to run to. He holds up righteousness and judgment going to great lengths to do so. He is their only hope of deliverance. He is the one who put the stars in the sky and named them. The shadow of death is the dark of night when God has brought judgment and turned away. He can turn this dark night of the soul into the hope of morning light. God controls the waves of the sea and waters of the flood. God is qualified to maintain justice and righteousness; God is qualified to deliver them and offer hope. But this must be on God's terms.
Amos 5:10-11
The gate was the courthouse, the place where justice was sought. It was at the gate the poor might find a voice. But the elders, prophets and judges at the gate were hated and subsequently silenced. Because of this the poor were beat down and taxed to death. What could they do? The rich had oppressed the poor folks who were trying to get by. Because of how they treated each other, the rich wouldn't get to live in their fine homes nor drink wine from their fine vineyards.
Amos 5:12-15
The 'manifold transgressions' were evil actions beyond the ability to count. The 'mighty sins' could the failure to do the right thing. They failed in doing evil and not doing right. With no justice, the wise kept silent. The remedy for this entire situation was repentance; turning from evil and seeking after good as well as establishing justice once again at the gate. Justice was (and still is) important to the Lord; and the foundation of justice was God's law and the righteouness of God. This would bring life from the death that they faced.
Amos 5:16-17
It's almost as if Amos told them repentance is their only hope; 'therefore' things were going to get bad, knowing they wouldn't repent. Things were about to get bad. The mourning wouldn't be done in private, it would extend to the streets. The cry of Alas will be prevalent in the land as it is a cry of woe in the streets. They will run out of professional mourners (skillful lamenters) and have to call in the farmers from their fields to help.
The Lord passing through them is the picture of the death of the firstborn in Egypt. It is God's judgment passing through the land. I suppose this was a picture they couldn't fathom. As they looked around in this day and time, things seemed pretty normal. Even as bad as they were spiritually and morally, they couldn't imagine this mourning and all this death. Amos was probably scoffed at for this radical and ridiculous message.
Amos 5:18-20
Their religious practices brought them a false hope. In their rituals of religion, they held to a longing for the day of the Lord. Amos warned them that they didn't know what they were saying. The day of the Lord was going to be a bad day for them. Amos gives them picture exampels of being surprised to find out they had gone from bad too worse.
The day of the Lord is a time of darkness, a time of judgment. They had no basis for desiring that day to arrive when they were in such an rebellious state.
Amos 5:21-27
Beyond Damascus was Assyria. They were coming to destroy the northern kingdom. Their religious practices did nothing to save them from the coming judgment because they were revealed to be ritualisms. The keeping of feast days and making offerings before the Lord probably looked very religious and maybe felt very religious. However, when the stream of righteousness was dried up it reveals their heart. They might sing their pious songs with all kinds of musical instruments dedicated to the Lord. Yet, all of it was noise because the stream of justice had dried up. God essentially told them to keep their ritualism and show him their heart by their actions; let justice rund down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. Not a drip or a trickle, but a mighty stream. This would get the Lord's attention.
The rebellious ways were nothing new. They failed in their sacrifices for the forty years in the wilderness. As they wandered, they carried idols of their false gods. Sikkuth may have been a sun god of Egypt; others believe it is a babylonian god. Chiun is a babyloniam god Saturn. It appears they were worshiping the heavenly bodies, the starts and planets. How strange that they did this while the Lord led them through the wilderness and provided for them supernaturally and numerous ways
©2016 Doug Ford
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