"Is Your Worship Real?"

Big Idea of the Message

We can perform all the religious acts we can think of, but if we are standing in the way of justice, God will reject them.

Fresh from Talking with God

Facts vividly brought before the mind greatly influence a speaker. A sinner seen as lost touches the heart. Jesus seen as crucified affects the speech.

If I were to stand up in the council of a certain town to urge them to look to their fire escapes, I would do it with tremendous vehemence if I had just come out of the midst of that shuddering crowd that saw a poor woman hanging out of the window in the midst of the flames for lack of proper apparatus to reach her. Any man fresh from such a sight would plead with energy. His whole soul would burn as he thought of the poor perishing fellow creature in the midst of the fire. Would not yours?

It is just so when you come fresh from talking with God. The truth is vividly realized, an awe is upon you, holy zeal and sacred ardor inflame your breast. If you dwell away from God you do not feel the value of the gospel message, nor the weight of men’s souls. The grandest of all truths lose force when they cease to be realized facts, but their power returns when we come again under their actual influence. Is your worship real?

Amos, the Prophet/Shepherd from Tekoa

Amos, possibly the first of the writing prophets, was a shepherd and farmer called to prophesy during the reigns of Uzziah (792–740 b.c.) in the southern kingdom and Jeroboam II (793–753) in the north. During this time both kingdoms enjoyed political stability, which in turn brought prosperity. It was also a time of idolatry, extravagance, and corruption. The rich and powerful were oppressing the poor. Amos denounced the people of Israel for their apostasy and social injustice and warned them that disaster would fall upon them for breaking the covenant. He urged them to leave the hypocrisy of their “solemn assemblies” (5:21) and instead to “let justice roll down like waters” (v. 24). Nevertheless, said Amos, God would remember his covenant with Israel and would restore a faithful remnant.

Amos Chapter Five in Context

Against the backdrop of both nations enjoying unprecedented prosperity brought on by political stability, Amos highlights not their prosperity, but the fact that idolatry, extravagance, and corruption. Like today, how the privileged misuse the underserved and poor for their own whims, Amos sees how the rich and powerful oppressed the poor. The institution of oppression and slavery of another race based on ethnicity and race are not privy to just the 400 years of slavery or the year where Africans were brought on ships to the British colonies. Modern slavery today according to the United States is trafficking in persons, human trafficking, compelled labor, and sex trafficking, so to answer the mental question, yes slavery still exist even in our modern and “woke” culture. What Amos describes in chapter five is akin to the forced labor of today. Forced labor, sometimes also referred to as labor trafficking, encompasses the range of activities—recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining—involved when a person uses force or physical threats, psychological coercion, abuse of the legal process, deception, or other coercive means to compel someone to work. Once a person’s labor is exploited by such means, the person’s prior consent to work for an employer is legally irrelevant: the employer is a trafficker and the employee a trafficking victim. Migrants are particularly vulnerable to this form of human trafficking, but individuals also may be forced into labor in their own countries. Female victims of forced or bonded labor, especially women and girls in domestic servitude, are often sexually abused or exploited as well.

Amos 5:1-17 is a type of lamentation or funeral dirge for the nation of Israel, implying that the nation of Israel was dead. That understanding must have stunned the audience, since the nation then was strong and prosperous. What that use of language suggests is that the future death of the nation was so certain Amos saw it as an accomplished fact, and it made him grieve. Once God declares war on a people, they are as good as defeated. Having just declared the destruction of Israel, it was appropriate that Amos should lament the impending death of Israel. He implores Israel to “seek the Lord and find life” in contrast to the lamenting over the finality of Israel’s death. Wolff calls the contrast a contradiction. Others understand the lament as hyperbolic of the call to repent as ironic. This is unnecessary. According to Jeremiah 18:1-10, the Book of Jonah, and countless other places in Scripture, until judgment comes individuals still have the opportunity to repent by the grace of God. Amos words in chapter 5 were his last effort to persuade them to repent and return to God.

The Lord Cares for the Poor, Why Don’t You

Mother Teresa said: “When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor. I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.”

Proverbs 14:31 says, “Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.”

Matthew 25:40-45 says, 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 25:40–45.

“To ensure that you treat people accordingly, you must see people from God’s perspective.”

Therefore and because carries the connotation of the conclusion and consequences to the matter of how the privileged, powerful and rich Israelites treated the poor and underserved who lived among them. Often, we think slavery is a black and white issue, but it is also a black and black issue. “Slavery and forced labor is not just a matter of race superiority; it is a matter of the heart.” “What we experience here is a heart matter, and if the heart isn’t fixed, then discrimination, misogny, racism, and systemic racism will continue to exist.” The word trample here is basas, meaning to press down by stepping on, but it is related to another term meaning to “levy taxes” The word poor here is dal, or having little wealth and so of a humble condition and low status and vulnerable to oppression. “Privilege does not give the person a right to discriminate or suppress another person.” The way some people trampled on the poor was by taking from them the fruit of their labor. The small farmer no longer owns his own land; he is a tenant of an urban class to whom he must pay a rental for the use of the land; he is a tenant of an urban class to whom he must pay a rental for the use of the land, a rental that was often a lion’s share of the grain which the land had produced. The greed would be matched in God’s judgment by taking away the material advantages gained from trampling the poor. The fruit of their corrupt business and legal practices would be snatched from them before they really had opportunity to enjoy them.

Verse 12, Amos switches from from second to first person, speaking for God as to the offenses, or sins of the people committed by the leading citizens of Samaria. The first sin was oppression of the righteous, carries the idea of constricting or impeding, that is, of causing distress. It is a participle indicating its continuous occurrence. The same is true of the second sin, bribery. The “righteous” were the ones in the right. They were innocent. Bribery implies either taking money for declaring cases the poor brought against the rich to be without merit or by favoring the rich in cases against the poor. The final sin listed was that of depriving the poor of justice in the court. “And the poor ones in the gate they turn aside” is a literal rendering of the text. For the poor to be turned aside in the gate meant to be denied their only source of help. The protection they sought in the legal assembly was not available to them because of corruption there. God knows intimately the corruption rampant in every arena of life, in politics, family, religion, industry, and business. Claims of innocence are useless. God know the facts. “It may be safe to say that justice is blind to some and not to others.”

How long will we keep silent? Are we not the voice of the poor and underserved? Who will speak up for them? Ergo the grace of God we would find ourselves in the same predicament. Silence, however, is not recommended in the verse. Certainly Amos was not silent in his time, nor were those referred to in v. 10, though silence would have been the safest and easiest course. Although speaking out might be a waste of effort, the righteous could not keep silent. The point could be that the times were such that wise men, who in better times would be consulted for their wisdom, were silent because no one would listen. G. Smith has argued cogently that since the root of hammaśkîl (śākal) can mean “to be clever” or “to prosper,” the meaning of the noun here that best fits the context is “the prosperous.” This would make the word refer to the very people Amos had been describing who used their position, power, and wealth to oppress the poor (v. 11). Smith translates the sentence: “Therefore, the prosperous will be silent at that time, for it will be a disastrous time.” This silence he takes either as the silence of grief or of death. Whatever details of interpretation are adopted, it seems clear that the verse is a prediction of judgment.Or the term maśkîl could be a morally neutral reference to one who knew how to avoid trouble, in which case silence would be the best policy in such evil times.

The church is more than a spiritual body, it is a civic body with the responsibility to speak out and turn the world upside down with the kingdom. When we are silent, then we subliminally and visibly support what occurs.

The Lord’s Requirements for a Gracious Response

These verses resume and parallel the exhortation of vv. 4–6 in keeping with the chiastic form of vv. 1–17. The Lord’s exhortation earlier to “seek me” (5:4), echoed by the prophet’s “seek the Lord” (5:6), held out life for those who responded. But the offer of hope here following the parallel exhortation to “seek good” is stronger than the clause in v. 6 (lit.), “lest he sweep through the house of Joseph like fire.”

While the first exhortation to “seek” was set in contrast to seeking corrupt sanctuaries (5:4) and the second with receiving the fiery blast of God’s judgment (5:6), here it is in contrast to seeking evil. Seeking what is good is not the same as seeking God, but it is a corollary. Seeking God and seeking good represent the two dimensions of true religion, not rituals and forms but relationships with God and other persons. “Good” (tôb) refers to that which pleases God, here especially justice for the poor. To “seek” it in this context means not only to live in such a way oneself but also actively to endeavor to see good prevail over evil (rāʾ), the denial of justice for the poor. The implication of the larger message in this passage is that one who truly seeks the Lord also seeks the welfare of the poor.

“The church cannot see God while simultaneously ignoring the poor and underserved. God is not the God of just hamlets and mansions; He is God of the hood and projects too.”

James 1:27 ESV

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Twice in vv. 14–15 Amos formulated highly conditional promises. One promise is that God will really be with his audience as they claimed he was (v. 14b). The phrase that begins the promise (wîhî kēn) is the command form (called jussive) of the phrase in Genesis 1, “And it was so.” After the imperative “seek” it expresses purpose and could be translated, “That it may be so, [that] Yahweh God of hosts will be with you, just as you have said.” Followed by the term translated “just as,” Amos’s words also are similar to those of the divine messengers who accepted Abraham’s offer of hospitality with the response, “Do as you say” (Gen 18:5). The language refers to the relationship between speech and reality. While the relationship in the case of God’s words is direct and immediate, this is not so with human speech. In spite of their practice of injustice and corrupt worship, the people in Israel continued to claim that God was with them and to encourage one another with these words. But as long as they continued seeking evil rather than good, it was not so. Israel had only been lying to themselves. God does not participate in your search when He is not who or what you are looking for.

If Israel were to seek good, they must love good, almost an equivalent expression. To love (ʾāhab) something means to choose it and to delight in it. And to delight in seeing good prevail, one must hate (śānēʾ) evil. That is, one must abhor behavior that displeases God, as the wicked hate and despise righteousness (v. 10). Amos was exhorting his audience to pursue and embrace justice passionately and to hound and crush injustice just as passionately.

Seeking God for Amos: (1) God’s life, and (2) God’s presence

The third exhortation in the verse would be the outcome of carrying out the first two. “Maintain” is the translation of a verb that means to “set in place” or “establish” (Judg 6:37; 8:27; 1 Sam 6:17). “In the courts” is again the term found in vv. 10, 12 that is literally “at the gate.” At the time there was no justice at the gate for the poor. Amos was ordering his audience to reestablish it. The word establish is yasag, meaning: making an event occur as an extension of setting forth an object to a place. “You cannot maintain anything you either have not started or have no interest in.”

Following the commands in v. 15 is another highly conditional promise introduced by the conditional particle ʾûlay, “perhaps.” It expresses humility before a sovereign God who is not under compulsion to be gracious. “His presence was an act of grace. It could not be bought by magic or bribery, and it was not an eternal possession that could be manipulated to advantage.” The hope was that repentance might move God to spare some, “the remnant of Joseph,” when the inevitable destruction came upon the Northern Kingdom, as it did in 722 b.c.

It is their total lifestyle—the combination of ruthlessness with religiosity, their values, attitudes, and actions in court and cult—that makes the religion they profess and practice in their rites abhorrent and abominable to God.… It is the smugness and self-satisfaction of those who presume to violate the covenant and at the same time act as though nothing were amiss. They revel in sacrilege and injustice yet believe that they are welcome in the Lord’s house, at the altar of sacrifice and the communal table. It is the gap between unrighteous doing and living and the profession and practice of official and formal piety which disturbs the prophet or, more properly, the God who sent him.

The Lord’s Reparations and Rejection

Amos, the sheep herder of Tekoa declares the wailing in the streets to the point where farmers and skilled wailers would be called in as the Lord will pass through the midst. Amos provides the key to accepted worship, yet prophesies that God would pass through, just as he did Egypt when he killed the firstborn of Egypt. Amos did not specify what type of calamity would produce the widespread lamentation, but it would bring everyone to express Israel’t grief over the unnamed calamity. Amos saw the coming of the Lord to judge disobedient Israel. It would be the Lord himself that stood behind the massive loss of life implied by the widespread mourning.

The prophet creates some tension in the text as he talks about the day of the Lord. Israel expected the day of the Lord to bring victory, blessing, and brightness. They considered themselves to be God’s people and worthy of God’s rescue. But, Amos is not predicting victory, blessing, and brightness for God’s people. Instead, he pronounces “woe” for those desiring the day of the Lord. Amos rebuked and warned the people that it would be a day of “darkness not light.” Darkness implies defeat, calamity, and evil. Contrary to their expectation for the day, no victory, no blessing, and no brightness would come for them. To illustrate how dark the day would be for Israel, the prophet used two comparisons, both showing the inescapability of disaster. The first comparison is with one who flees from a lion only to run headlong into a bear. Whichever direction he goes, he is doomed. The second comparison is with the one who enters a house, thinking he is safe, only to be bitten by a snake. The day of the Lord in all its darkness will be that inescapable for Israel.

Amos concluded with a final rhetorical question aimed at challenging the popular understanding of what the day of the Lord would mean to them. This reversal of popular sentiment is a repeated pattern in the Book of Amos. Only a dismal future awaited those whose false sense of security was encouraging them in sinful behavior. “Pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness” describes a gloomy, hopeless future.

In a sense the error of the prophet’s audience was not so much in their understanding of the general characteristics of the day of the Lord. Defeat of God’s enemies and blessing for God’s people were the two cardinal elements of the day. But God’s people failed to understand the nature of their relationship with the Lord. By their corrupt lives they had become God’s enemy, and as such they would experience defeat and destruction.

A constant danger for God’s people is false presumption of how God’s revelation relates to them. Often they see themselves as God’s friends when in reality they are God’s enemies. Enthusiastic proclaimers of the Lord’s return must be careful to identify correctly their relationship to God. “Just because you insert God in worship, does not mean God is presented where you tried to insert him.”

Amos, acting as God’s representative, methodically considered each element in Israel’s worship and rejected each one. One function of a cultic priest was to announce to the worshiper God’s acceptance of and delight in the sacrifices (cf. Lev 1:3–4; 22:18–19). To be greeted by a barrage of words of rejection from God’s prophet must have been shocking to the prophet’s audience.

“Hate” and “despise” are strong words. The term for “hate” (śānēʾ) is used three times in Amos, all in this chapter. Rather than hating evil (v. 15), Israel hated advocates of righteousness. Therefore God hated their presumptuous worship (v. 21). The term for “despise” (māʾas) is a synonym of the one in v. 10. It also means “reject” (cf. Jer 2:37; Ezek 20:13, 16, 24; Hos 4:6) and so is not only the opposite of “love” but also of “choose.” Those events the Old Testament designates as “feasts” (ḥag) were the annual pilgrimage festivals of Unleavened Bread or Passover, Weeks or Harvest, and Tabernacles or Ingathering (Exod 23:14–17; 34:22–25; Lev 23:34). Whether the Northern Kingdom followed this calendar is uncertain, but their festivals would have been similar.

The negated verb translated “I cannot stand” (lōʾ ʾārîaḥ) means literally to “smell” or “enjoy the smell” of something. It usually refers to God’s evaluation of sacrifices (cf. Gen 8:21; Lev 26:31; 1 Sam 26:19). The related noun (rîaḥ) occurs in the phrases “a pleasing aroma” and “an aroma pleasing to the Lord” (Exod 29:18; Lev 1:9). It pictures God receiving with delight the rising odor of the offering, so its negation here means he rejects it. But rather than an individual sacrifice Amos applied the term to Israel’s whole festive “assemblies,” which were like a foul odor to God. False worship arising from sinful lives is worse than unacceptable to him. Does your worship pass the smell test?

The next element of Israel’s worship that God rejected was the presentation of sacrifices. The three sacrifices mentioned here are the first three of the five main Levitical offerings presented in Leviticus 1–7. These are the “pleasing-aroma offerings” because of the phrase occurring with them (Lev 1:9, 13, 17; 2:2, 9, 12; 3:5, 16) and because they are the ones that in particular represent consecration and worship as opposed to the other two offerings used solely for atonement. Clearly they represent here the false worship in Israel that the Lord despised.

“Burnt offerings” (ʿōlôt) were sacrifices in which the entire animal was consumed on the altar and arose to God in smoke. “Grain offerings” (minḥōt) could also be used of various sacrifices brought as a gift. “Fellowship offerings” (šelem) were those in which part of the animal was consumed on the altar and part of it was eaten by the worshiper, thus symbolizing communion between the worshiper and God. The negated verb translated “I will have no regard” means literally to “look at.” Here the idea is that God is not pleased to see them.

Singing and playing the “harp” (nebel, perhaps “lute”) were forms of rendering cultic praise. God evaluated the sound of their songs as “noise” and ordered that it be taken elsewhere. He refused to listen to their instruments. The passage pictures God’s rejection of Israel’s worship in terms of body language: shut nostrils, closed eyes, and stopped up ears. The Lord’s attitude was similar to that expressed in Mal 1:10: “ ‘Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will accept no offering from your hands.’ ” While Israel’s worship was required to be in accordance with divine regulations (cf. Lev 7:18; 19:7), that was not the problem that faced Amos. Then as now, God’s acceptance or rejection of human expressions of worship is based on his assessment of the motives of the heart. “Elements of religion are useless without evidence of a relationship with the object of your worship. Required worship may be rejected worship.”

Elements of Jewish worship

Feast

Solemn Assemblies

Offerings

Worship

Only words of rejection greeted the prophet’s audience as he spoke of element after element of their worship. The missing ingredient in their worship was authenticity manifested in a lifestyle of obedience. Israel’s rejection of justice and righteousness in the social order made inevitable God’s rejection of their worship activities. “Authentic worship produces an atmosphere for the anointing to destroy the yoke of burden and bring deliverance.”

Verse 24 begins with a third-person command form (jussive) that expresses the will of the speaker (Amos speaking for God) and expects response from the audience. God’s will was for justice and righteousness to prevail in Israel’s social order as an outward sign of their religious devotion. Here justice would mean “reparation for the defrauded, fairness for the less fortunate, and dignity and compassion for the needy”; righteousness would entail “attitudes of mercy and generosity, and honest dealings that imitate the character of God” as revealed in the law of Moses.238 Finley makes an important point, however, that while these are always a part of God’s demands for an obedient lifestyle, they are not his only requirements. If Amos were evaluating worship activities today, he might point to other aspects of lifestyle that are signs of a lack of genuineness, thus making worship displeasing and unacceptable to God. Amos’s point was that “the way people behave in the marketplace or how they judge in the gate” are as much a part of worship as singing and sacrifice. Religious activity is no substitute for national or personal righteousness. It may even sometimes be a hindrance. As Andersen and Freedman observe, “It was because they were so religious that they did not repent.” This may have been the way Israel responded to the Lord’s discipline (cf. 4:6–11) rather than with true repentance.

“Like a river” is literally “like the waters.” The plural form may suggest flood waters that swell with sudden force. A few interpreters take the word translated “justice” (mišpāt) to mean “judgment” here and make 5:24 a proclamation of God’s overwhelming judgment. However, the combination of “justice” and “righteousness” in Amos elsewhere relates to right relationships and justice in the court. That seems to be the better interpretation here.

The noun translated “stream” (naḥal) refers to a wadi, which typically is dry or contains only a trickle of water except in the rainy season when it gushes with torrents of water. God demanded that justice and righteousness be produced in Israel like a wadi in the rainy season. But he did not want it to be restricted or sporadic but pervasive, overflowing like a flood, and permanent, like a river that never runs dry (cf. Ps 46:4; Rev 22:1–5). God’s expectations of justice and righteousness in society have remained constant generation after generation.

The message of vv. 21–24 is clear that God rejected Israel’s false worship, as is the message of v. 27 that he was going to send them into exile. But interpretations abound regarding the difficult intervening two verses, although the general point seems to be that sacrifices and offerings in themselves could not make Israel right with God and so could not keep them from exile.

A rhetorical question such as we find in v. 25 usually assumes a negative answer. No, Israel did not present “sacrifices and offerings” to God during the period of the wilderness wanderings. But there are several interpretative problems with the verse. The first term (zĕbāḥîm) refers to animal sacrifices generally, and the second (minḥâ) refers to grain offerings. So the two terms together cover presentations at the altar generally. But most would argue that Israel did sacrifice in the wilderness, at least to some extent, and so some kind of qualification is implied. G. Smith, for example, offers the translation, “Did you offer to me only sacrifices …?” Others suggest that emphasis is on “me” and that the verse points to the illegitimacy of Israel’s worship in the wilderness as being comparable to that of Amos’s day. This view, however, violates the emphasis of the grammar, which is on “sacrifices and offerings.” Some argue that the implied answer to the question is yes or that Amos’s question is in v. 26 dealing with idolatry and that v. 25 is only a subordinate clause giving the circumstances. The point would be that Israel was behaving again as they had in the wilderness when they brought sacrifices and offerings to the Lord while at the same time practicing idolatry. Therefore their attendance at the altar was clearly not a sure sign of their faith or a sufficient way to please God.

There is reason to believe, however, that sacrifices and offerings were severely limited during the wilderness years. Following Israel’s rebellion and God’s judgment at Kadesh in Numbers 13–14, certain regulations for worship are given but are introduced by “after you enter the land I am giving you as a home” (Num 15:2). D. Stuart explains that neither “slaughtered sacrifices” nor “grain offerings” were “usually” given while Israel was in the wilderness. “The sacrificial system was essentially predesigned for a coming era of normal food production … in a landed, settled situation.” Though inaugurated at Sinai, “sacrificing and its association with the three yearly festivals became regular only after the conquest.” Amos’s point in this case would be that in the absence of a regular sacrificial system, God still maintained a relationship with his people and blessed and cared for them. Therefore the sacrificial system alone is clearly not sufficient to gain God’s favor.

Wilderness years were not trouble free, but a close relationship between God and Israel characterized the period (Deut 2:7; Hos 11:1; Jer 2:2–3). Sacrifices and offerings did not maintain that relationship. Amos confronted a people who were eager and extravagant in their sacrifices and offerings, but those activities did not put them right with God. With Hos 6:6 and Mic 6:8 this text stands as one of the great themes in prophetic literature with regard to the nature of sacrifices and true religion. God is not pleased by acts of pomp and grandeur but by wholehearted devotion and complete loyalty.

God had delivered the people out of their exile in the wilderness (those who did not commit idolatry) into the promised land. Now God was about to drive them back into exile. God’s judgment word for Israel was “exile beyond Damascus.” This word was for a people who were enthusiastic in their worship but misguided in their devotion. This word would be carried out by Yahweh, the God of hosts. No intermediate agent is named. The absence of justice and righteousness in Israel and the presence of idolatry there meant that the nation could not survive the judgment of God.

Billy K. Smith and Franklin S. Page, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, vol. 19B, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 105–107.