Project 119: Amos 5:1-17
| Project 119 | Mary Splawn
Today's devotion is written by Colton Taylor, who serves in our Christian Life Center. Colton is a student at Beeson Divinity School.
“Seek Me and Live”
We live in a world that is constantly pushing and testing the boundaries of morality. Instead of seeing things as right or wrong, today’s society has created a gray area in which individuals try to justify wrong by deciding on their own terms what is the standard for right and wrong. As we watch around us, it’s as if people have no regard for holiness. It’s as if no one takes sin seriously. The problem, we know here as Christians, is that we have a holy God who has given us His standard of right and wrong through His Word and we have a God who takes sin very seriously.
Amos is writing in a society very similar to our own. The people of Israel had been chosen by God and given the law to set them apart from the other nations. God entered a covenant relationship with the people and promised them blessings for keeping the covenant and curses for breaking it. God had blessed the Israelites with the promised land and had blessed that land with protection. In spite of God’s constant faithfulness, the people of Israel were unfaithful. They chased after other gods, they made idols, and they continually lived as if sin were not a serious thing. As a result, God’s judgment was imminent. His curses would fall on the Israelites. God had warned the people time and time again to repent from their sin and to return to Him, but they refused to do so.
Amos’s lament here in 5:1-17 offers three pleas for the people to repent and turn to God so that God might relent of His judgment. The first, in Amos 5:1, is a plea to return to the Word of the Lord and to hear His commandment. The second, in Amos 5:4-13, is a plea for the people to seek the Lord. The people of Israel had put their trust in things and places other than the Lord Himself. They had put their trust in created things rather than the Creator. The Lord singles out their sins one by one. He knows their guilt and how great their sins are. The third, in Amos 5:14-15, is a plea to seek good and not evil. Even though the Lord has seen the unrighteousness of the people his grace abounds as he patiently offers them another chance to repent and return to him.
As Christians we must take sin seriously, because we have a God who takes sin seriously. Sin is so serious because it breaks our relationship with God and separates us from Him. But there is hope. We have a God who is patient and whose grace abounds to cover all sin. Remain in the Word of the Lord, seek the Lord alone, and seek good that you may live.
Amos 5:1-17 (ESV):
Seek the LORD and Live
1 Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel:
2 “Fallen, no more to rise,
is the virgin Israel;
forsaken on her land,
with none to raise her up.”
3 For thus says the Lord GOD:
“The city that went out a thousand
shall have a hundred left,
and that which went out a hundred
shall have ten left
to the house of Israel.”
4 For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel:
“Seek me and live;
5 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.”
6 Seek the LORD and live,
lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph,
and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel,
7 O you who turn justice to wormwood
and cast down righteousness to the earth!
8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
and turns deep darkness into the morning
and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the surface of the earth,
the LORD is his name;
9 who makes destruction flash forth against the strong,
so that destruction comes upon the fortress.
10 They hate him who reproves in the gate,
and they abhor him who speaks the truth.
11 Therefore because you trample on the poor
and you exact taxes of grain from him,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not dwell in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your transgressions
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
and turn aside the needy in the gate.
13 Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time,
for it is an evil time.
14 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.
15 Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
16 Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord:
“In all the squares there shall be wailing,
and in all the streets they shall say, ‘Alas! Alas!’
They shall call the farmers to mourning
and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation,
17 and in all vineyards there shall be wailing,
for I will pass through your midst,”
says the LORD.