Amos 5:18-27

Introduction

What is something you hate?

-I’m almost afraid to ask that for fear of the answers that we might get, but I want you to at least answer that question in your mind

-What is it you hate?

-When I was a kid, I remember that we’d go play outside with our friends

-We’d run around and play basketball, or football, or manhunt, or something like that

-And I remember at least one time where I came inside

-I was probably sweaty and dirty from playing

-I don’t remember all the details exactly, but I remember that I took off my socks and put them either on the dining room table as I headed upstairs, or hanging off one of the backs of the chairs right near the dining room table

-And my mom had a talk with me

-I don’t remember everything about it, but I’m sure it went something like this:

“son, we do not put dirty socks on the dining room table where we eat. That is disgusting.”

-You see, for my mom (and probably everyone else in my family), stinky socks on the dining room table was something that they hated

-That’s disgusting. That’s repulsive

Well today, we’re going to look at something that God hates

-You may think this may be something like child sacrifice, or homosexuality, or something like that

-And while God does hate these things, this is not what God says He hates in this particular text

-In this text today, God says that He hates a particular kind of worship

**Read text and pray**

Background

Amos is the 3rd book in a section at the end of your OT called the Minor Prophets

-They are called this, not because they are unimportant, but because they are shorter than the major prophets like Isaiah or Ezekiel

-These 12 books span hundreds of years, and record the sermons of some of the prophets of God to the people of Israel

-You see oftentimes, in many nations around Israel, the prophets and holy men worked for the king

-The king was the highest authority in the land, and so the prophets were to work for him and say what he wanted them to say

-It wasn’t wise to censure the king or his people or government too harshly

-The king is the guy who has the authority to kill, and so for many prophets in surrounding nations, you wanted to say things that would not rock the boat

-Not so in Israel

-The prophets in Israel were different than other nations, because their allegiance belonged to someone higher up than the king of Israel or Judah

-The prophets worked for the King of Kings

-They acted as the voice of God and fearlessly gave His message, whether it was popular or not . . . and often it was not

-As we open up the pages of the book of Amos, the year is 755 B.C.

-The Kingdom of Israel has been split for over 150 years now

-The Southern Kingdom at the time had Uzziah as king, a good king in the estimation of God

-The Northern Kingdom of Israel had Jeroboam II reigning, a good king in the estimation of men

-During Jeroboam II’s reign, he was able to bring, what would appear to anyone outside, relative stability and prosperity to the Northern Kingdom

-But on the inside, the Northern Kingdom was corrupt, decayed, and vile

-The Kingdom was filled with injustice

-The poor were oppressed

-Their money was taken from them through various means

-The court system was of no help to them at all

-Those lower on the social ladder were completely helpless against the onslaught against them

-People were violated and taken advantage of sexually

-The wicked threatened any prophet who tried to speak up

-The people who tried to live holy lives were pressured to sin

-Anyone who spoke up for righteousness and justice was hated

-Into this dismal situation, God sends His chosen instrument

-Not a politician

-Not a philanthropist

-Not a masked vigilante

-Not an educator

-Not an inventor

-God sends a preacher

-A prophet

-A man named Amos with a thoroughly humble and unimpressive background

-His father wasn’t a prophet, so he wasn’t a preacher’s kid

-Amos wasn’t brought up in some prophet-training school

-He didn’t go to Judean Theological Seminary

-Instead, he was a sheepbreeder

-A tender of sycamore trees

-A blue-collar man with no pedigree and no formal training

-Just a call from God Almighty to preach to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and command them to repent and receive God’s mercy, or to face God’s holy judgment if they did not

And what we have here today, is the very heart of the message of Amos to Northern Kingdom

-the message is simply this:

“God is not pleased with outward signs of worship and religion when they are not accompanied by righteousness in our relationships”

The book of Amos has 9 chapters, and this is chapter falls in the very middle of the book

-The passage we’re looking at today is the climactic finish of this particular sermon

-The first 17 verses of this chapter is a funeral song of lamentation over the nation

-Amos is proclaiming them as already dead, waiting to be sent into Exile by the Lord for their crimes of injustice

-However, even during this funeral song, the message of hope goes ringing forth from Amos in verse 4

“seek Me and live!” is the message from God Almighty

-If Israel will but repent of their selfish and corrupt treatment of their neighbor, they can experience life as God designs it!

-God is pronouncing judgment, but there is a chance for repentance, because that is Who God is!

-He desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth

So we really have a fairly simple outline:

God’s coming day of judgment

God’s hate of empty worship

God’s desire for righteous people

1. God’s Coming Day of Judgment (vs. 18-20)

-If you’ve been around much at all during the past year, you’ve become somewhat familiar with the term “the Day of the Lord”

-When used in the Scriptures, it often refers to the coming day when the Lord will return to judge His enemies and rescue His people

-It seems that many in the Northern Kingdom were waiting for and desiring the Day of the Lord!

-they desired the Lord to come back!

-That seems like a good thing, right??

-According to Amos, it is not

-How do we know that?

Well, Amos pronounces a woe to those who desire this day

-Amos says that this will not be a good day for those in Israel

-This is not something they should be looking forward to

In the famous (and incredibly quotable) movie, the Princess Bride, we meet a few loveable and rather silly bandits at the beginning who who are kidnapping a princess

-One of them is a squeaky, short, self-proclaimed genius named Fezzini

-He thinks that everything should go according to his plan, and whenever things don’t go according to plan, he cries out “inconceivable” with a shrill, loud voice

-Finally, another of the thieves with him, a swash-buckling spaniard named Inigo Montoya, turns to him and says, “You keep using that word . . . I do not think it means what you think it means.”

And similarly, the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom were probably saying things like, “I just can’t wait till the Day of the Lord!” “I want the Day of the Lord to come!”

-And Amos tells them, “that does not mean what you think it means.”

Imagine, mother of 4 children leaving the house and telling her kids, “now make sure that while I’m gone, you clean up your rooms!”

-So the mom leaves and the kids do what kids usually do . . . they forget to clean their rooms and begin running around the house playing, and having a good time

-Well, their mom pulls back in the driveway, and the kids are so excited to see Mom again!

-They run to the door, shouting “mom is home!”

. . . but this reunion is not going to be a happy one is it?

-Because of their actions, this is not a reunion they should be looking forward to

And in the same way, the people of Israel were looking forward to the Day of the Lord!

-They were probably even saying things like, “I cannot wait until the Day of the Lord!”

-But little do they realize that because of their actions of selfishness and injustice towards others, this is not going to be a good thing for them

What will the day of the Lord be like for them?

It will be a day of darkness

-Notice how Amos stresses the darkness of this day 3 times in these verses,

-And each time, he doubles down and says it will be darkness, not light

-This carries the idea death, destruction, horror, no hope . . .

Zephaniah would say this about the Day of the Lord

Zephaniah 1:15 NKJV

That day is a day of wrath, A day of trouble and distress, A day of devastation and desolation, A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness,

2. It will be day of no escape

-Amos gives a graphic picture of just how hopeless it will be to escape from judgment on that day

-He says it’s like someone running from a lion!

-Imagine tearing through your fields, trying to escape from a roaring hungry lion

-Let’s say you’re somehow able to escape him

-Maybe you climb up a tree

-And sitting on the branch right next to you is a hungry bear!

-Let’s say that you scream, you jump out of the tree, you somehow dodge the lion

-And now the bear is chasing after you

-You somehow outrun it, or trick it, and you make it safely to your house

-Your gasping for breath, so relieved that you escaped 2 life-threatening situations

-You lean your hand against a wall . . . and a poisonous snake comes out of a hole in the wall and bites your hand

-The judgment of God is inescapable

-It’s inevitable

-There will be nowhere for people to run to escape from God’s judgment

-Now this message would have been shocking for the people of Israel

-They would have been absolutely stunned

-Why?

-Because they were the people of God!

-The Day of the Lord was going to be a day in which God came back and exacted judgment on His enemies!

“So what do you mean that the Day of the Lord is going to be darkness for us?”

“We’re God’s people!”

And brothers and sisters, understand this, there are people all around us, and maybe even here among us, who think that the Day of the Lord will be something good for them, and it will not be

-Did you know that it’s possible to be 100% sure that you’re going to heaven one day and be wrong?

-Brothers and sisters, you have neighbors, friends, coworkers, relatives, who think they are going to be just fine

-They think that when the Lord comes back, things will be just fine for them

-And it won’t be just fine for them

-There may even be some here this morning who think that they will be just fine in the Day of Judgment, and in reality, you will not be just fine

Matthew 7:21–23 NKJV

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

You see, the Israelites thought that because they were Jews, they would be ok

-But God saw right through them

-They were living in relational sin

-They were treating others around them poorly

-They were not fair and just in their dealings with other people

-What will the Day of the Lord be like for you?

-I want to urge you, trust Christ now if you don’t know Him

-And Christians, let us have pity and awareness for those around us who think they’re right with God, but show no fruit of a changed heart

So first, we see God’s coming day of judgment

But secondly, we see the reason for their impending doom

2. God’s Hate of Empty Worship

-Notice the complete and total disdain and disgust God has for the worship of the Israelites

-He “hates”, He “despises”

-That’s incredibly strong language

I used the illustration at the beginning of the sermon about my dirty socks on the table, and how disgusting and repulsive that is

-My mom and probably my family would hate that

Think about this: God hates the worship that these people are offering

-It’s not that God might prefer something else, but He can tolerate it

-It’s not one of those, “I’d not all that wild about this, but I guess it will be ok” things

-No, God hates this kind of worship

-It’s repulsive

-It’s disgusting

-It’s a vexation

-God in His eternal being loathes this kind of worship

-And this would have been incredibly shocking, given that all of these things that are mentioned here are actually prescribed and praised by God in other parts of Scripture

-God Himself had instituted various feast days that His people were commanded to observe

-There was the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Tabernacles

-These were times that God had set apart for His people to assemble together and honor the Lord

-These were times of special worship to God as a covenant community

-And guess what, in this time period in Northern Israel, God hated these feasts

-God had instituted all kinds of sacrifices

-These sacrifices were meant to express things like contrition over sin, fellowship with God, and thankfulness and rejoicing for God’s provision

-Three different kinds of sacrifices are mentioned here:

-Burnt offerings, grain offerings, fattened peace offerings

-And you know what?

-God hated these too

-He was not going to accept or regard them

-Singing to God has always been a way of expressing worship and praise to God! It’s a way to pray to the Lord and express love and worship of Him

-But notice what God calls it in verse 23

“noise”

“Take it away!” God declares

“I will not listen to any of it”

Why??

-Why did God hate and despise their sacred assemblies, their sweetened sacrifices, and their songs?

**Because of the way that they were treating those around them**

-They were failing to keep the covenant of God which commanded them to love God supremely and to love others as themselves

How do we know this?

Amos 5:10–12 NKJV

They hate the one who rebukes in the gate, And they abhor the one who speaks uprightly. Therefore, because you tread down the poor And take grain taxes from him, Though you have built houses of hewn stone, Yet you shall not dwell in them; You have planted pleasant vineyards, But you shall not drink wine from them. For I know your manifold transgressions And your mighty sins: Afflicting the just and taking bribes; Diverting the poor from justice at the gate.

-You see, when we fail to love others, we show that we do not really love God either

1 John 4:20 HCSB

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.

-Worship is more than simply doing outward actions

-It’s more than just singing, than giving in the offering, than coming to church

-To worship something means that I give it the highest place of honor and devotion in my life

-This thing is more important than anything or anybody else

So why does the way that I treat people matter?

**Because the way you treat those around you actually reveals whether you worship God, or whether you worship self**

-When I snap at my spouse or kids, when I get angry at that customer service representative, when I yell at someone in traffic

-What I am revealing is that life is all about me

-I am revealing that the people around me should serve me!

-And when they don’t serve me, I’ll either snap at them, or complain or gossip about them, or I’ll get pouty and moody because I am not being served sufficiently

-And brothers and sisters, understand this, when we live in this way, God is not pleased with our worship of him on Sundays or Wednesdays

Did you know that there are churches that are meeting right now, that are singing hymns, they’re passing offering plates, they’re maybe opening up the Bible together

-And yet God is not pleased with their worship

-Do you realize that?

-Do you realize that it is entirely possible for us, as Kingsway Baptist Church, to come here and meet as a church, to go to Sunday school, to sing our songs, to have our worship time, to preach, to have our afternoon service, and for God to take no delight in it?

-Do you realize that?

The truth is that when people who claim to be Christians come together and offer acts of worship to God, and then go home and Monday through Saturday to live in self-centered idolatry and treat others in a way that displeases God, God is disgusted with such worship

Maybe the verses would sound like this in our modern context

“I hate, I despise your worship services

I do not savor your Sunday school hour”

“Though you offer me your tithes and missions giving, I will not accept them. I will not regard your prayers of praise or worship.”

“Take away from Me the noise of ‘how great thou art’ and ‘In Christ Alone’ and your ‘Bow the knee.’

For I will not hear the melody of your singing and your piano playing.”

Brothers and sisters, how tragic, how heart-rending that would be for that to be what God thinks of our worship . . . is it not?

-You might be thinking, “well, maybe that’s just a OT thing. Surely that’s not the case nowadays in the NT.”

Not so fast.

Let me read a few verses to you and see what you think:

1 John 3:14–15 NKJV

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Matthew 5:23–24 NKJV

Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

1 John 4:20–21 NKJV

If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

Do you think that our relationships matter to God when it comes to our worship?

-Brothers and sisters, we need to hear this word from the Lord this morning: God is not pleased with our outward acts of worship here, when they are not accompanied by righteousness and love in our relationships with others

So we’ve seen

God’s Coming Day of Judgment

God’s Hate of Empty Worship

3. God’s Desire for a Righteous People (vs. 24)

Here is the good news of our message!

-There has been a lot of warning and rebuke in the message of Amos so far, but here is the exciting news for us!

-God tells us not just what’s wrong, but He tells us what to do in response to His warning

-Here is what God desires from His people:

Amos 5:24 NKJV

But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.

What does God desire?

First, He desires justice

One Hebrew Lexicon described the word like this: “the quality of being free from favoritism, self-interest, bias, or deception”

This quality grounds itself in the attributes of God

Deuteronomy 10:17–18 NKJV

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.

It’s treating others with grace and fairness regardless of how they look, dress, act, smell

-Regardless of how annoying or abrasive you may find them

-Regardless of the fact that they have nothing to offer that seems of any benefit to you

You see, God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust!

-God treats people with compassion and fairness

-And God deals with the sin and wrongdoing of each person without partiality

-God is completely just

And secondly, God desires righteousness

One Hebrew lexicon defines righteousness as “an action that embodies an adherence to moral principles and the will of God.”

-It’s treating other people in accordance with God’s Word

-God had told the people of Israel how they were to treat people in their society

-They were to punish sin and wrongdoing, regardless how how rich or influential the criminal may be

-They were to protect members of society from harm, no matter or poor or insignificant they may seem

-And they were to love their neighbor as themselves

-They were to take every opportunity to show grace and kindness to those around them, just like they would want to be treated

-Brothers and sisters, these attributes: Justice and righteousness, are reflection of the character of God Himself

-We find the greatest display of God’s attributes, including these two, in the cross

-For at the cross, God displayed perfect justice and righteousness

-He takes sin so seriously, that He laid all sin on His Son, Jesus, who then bore the wrath of God

-No one is ever going to get away with sin when it comes to God

-He’s too just

-John Macarthur has said that all sin will be punished: whether that’s in the Person of Jesus, bearing our sin for us.

-Or whether that’s the sinner being punished for all eternity in hell

-And yet, God in His righteousness and love and compassion, chose to make a way for sinners to be forgiven

-He was so gracious and loving towards us

Romans 5:8 NKJV

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God perfectly demonstrates these attributes

And He desires His people to do that same

The imagery here of water would have been well-understood in this time period and culture

-The Middle East can be arid, dry, lacking consistent water flow

-The land was filled with what are called wadis

-A wadi was a ravine that was filled with water during the rainy season, but during the dry season, was simply a dry path cut through the barren terrain

-God doesn’t desire righteousness and justice to be like a wadi

-Sometimes full and running, but other times barely a trickle, if anything at all

-He desired that His righteousness and justice flow like mighty waters through the land, healing the sinful people and the broken culture

-And brothers and sisters, God desires today for his people to practice justice and righteousness and to let it flow through their lives and their relationships

-God desires justice and righteousness to flow through our church and touch every aspect of our life in this called out community

-Do we as a church deal with each other in life-giving righteousness and justice?

-Do we seek to help the needy and the fallen among us?

-Do we look out for the widows and the fatherless?

-Do we help those in need in our congregation?

-Are we faithful in fulfilling the God-prescribed methods of accountability and loving confrontation when there is sin in our midst, so that we can help restore a fallen brother or sister?

-Let me ask you:

-How do you treat those around you?

-Let’s start with your family:

-How do you treat your spouse?

-How do you treat your children?

-Young people:

-How do you treat your siblings?

-How do you treat your parents?

Brothers and sisters:

-How do you treat those you come into contact with?

-Are you kind and gracious toward your neighbors, even if they’re not so kind and gracious to you?

-How do you treat that waitress or that customer service agent that doesn’t serve you the way you desire?

Is God really the center of your life?

-Does that way you treat others reflect that?

-Or are we just self-worshippers?

-People who may come here and offer outward acts of worship

-But whose lives and relationships reveal that we are actually just self-worshippers

Do we come in here for our worship services and do the right things, only to leave here and live in relational unrighteousness the rest of the week?

-Brothers and sisters, God hates such worship

And the Israelites didn’t heed this warning, and so vs. 25-27 detail how they were exiled.

Application:

-Let’s make a few applications to our own lives and then we’ll be done

Do you really know that Lord?

-There were many Israelites who thought that the Day of the Lord was going to be a good thing

-And they were wrong

-They were idolaters, worshippers of self and not worshippers of God

-There may be people who here who think that they are going to be fine, but they won’t

-I’m urging you, if God is convicting you and showing you today that you’re heart has not really been changed, I’m urging you to repent and seek after God

-Let Him transform your heart so that you will truly worship Him

2. As a church, we must live in justice and righteousness among ourselves

-First, we must seek to live in love and compassion to those in our church

-Are we looking out for the fatherless and the widows in our church?

-Are we being aware to help those in need in our church?

-Second, we must be fair and just in the way that we lovingly seek to correct and confront sin

-We can’t turn a blind eye to sin that needs to be dealt with

-Christ has given us his commands on how to lovingly deal with sin and help erring Christians in our church, and we cannot be a respecter of persons in that

3. As Christians with a transformed heart, let’s continue to grow in God’s grace in our relationships

-Listen, none of us will ever be perfect in our relationships

-This will always be an area of needed growth

-This passage does not mean that if you mess up and sin in your relationships, God will shut you out or want nothing to do with you!

-Let me give you some encouragement: if you’ve been saved by Jesus Christ, then God has transformed your heart

-Your desire is to truly worship God and make Him the center of everything you do

-I truly believe that many of you here in this room have been transformed in this way

-And second, because of the finished work of Christ and in indwelling of the Spirit, this is an area you can grow in!

-If there are ways in which you’re struggling with your relationships, maybe with bitterness towards someone, or maybe in your marriage, come get help!

-These are not issues we can just sweep under the rug!

-We can’t just keep coming to church and doing all of this, when we know there is sin in our relationships

-And my fear is that maybe there are people here who have gotten used to the relational sin in their lives

-Maybe you’ve gotten used to your bitterness, your frustration with your spouse or kids, your unkind interactions with others

-Please repent!

-There is grace for forgiveness and growth in these areas!

-Christ has empowered us to live holy and righteous!

-He has given us His word, given us His Spirit, and given us His people to help us!

Please, don’t continue to live in relational sins:

Amos 5:24 NKJV

But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.