How's Your Worship?

We worship our football teams, our baseball teams, tonight even as we meet here a worship fest is taking place in Los Angeles as the World Series kicks off

or any other sport you can think of

We worship our spouses, our children and our pets

We worship our jobs and careers

We worship nature, trees, animals and stars

We were created for worship

The sole recipient of true worship is God alone

It was He that we were created with a natural bent to worship and all those other things are just substitutes that we put in His place

True worship is defined not by the emphasis or effort the worshipper devotes, but by the worthiness of the person being worshipped

(say that again)

In our passage tonight we’re going to see an example of a society that has lost it’s way in worship

This is not the key verse of the book but it is probably one we will continue to come back to throughout our study

Amos 3:10

The nation of Israel was a lot like the character in the old Eddie Murphy movie “Life” - Can’t Get Right

No matter what they did they just couldn’t seem to get themselves right with God

Tonight we’re going to see how they devoted themselves to false worship and missed all the signs and opportunities to repent and return to Him

Let’s read the text and then we’ll dive in to what God wants to teach us about worship

Read Amos 4:4-13

Pray

False Worship

Amos 4:4-5; Psalm 95:6-7; Genesis 12:8; Isaiah 29:13; Malachi 1:5-10; Matthew 6:5

Wierd Al Yankovic made a living in the ‘80s making parodies of popular songs - but he wasn’t the first to do so

Amos here parodies the priestly call to worship

Psalm 95:6-7

His call to the people to come to Bethel and not worship but transgress would have shocked an audience that had already been shocked by him

Bethel had a long history of being a sacred location

It was here that Abraham had first worshipped when he arrived in the land that God had promised to bring him to

Genesis 12:8

This was in effect the first place where God was worshipped in the promised land

When Jacob fled Esau after stealing his blessing, it was here that he slept and saw the angels ascending and descending from Heaven on a ladder

Genesis 28:11-22

It was used as a place of worship during the days of the Judges and Samuel judged from there

1 Samuel 7:16

So you could understand the confusion of the Israelites when Amos sarcastically calls them to not worship but to transgress

And not even to simply transgress - like a little white lie - but this word to transgress carries with it the sense of to be in open rebellion against God

Isaiah uses this same word in Isaiah 66:22-24 when he describes the last days

This would have abhorred the Israelites

But they had forgotten what was right, and had forgotten that their God had placed His name in one location - a mere 11 miles to the south - Jerusalem

In accordance with the Mosaic laws this was the only location where sacrifices and worship could be made

Deuteronomy 12:11

The promise of a location made by Moses was fulfilled by Solomon who built the house of God in the first temple and consecrated it to Him for worship

1 Kings 8:26-29

And it was not simply that they were worshipping in the wrong location - but they were worshipping in an improper manner

Their worship had little to do with glorifying God and everything to do with honoring themselves

Amos tells them to keep bringing their sacrifices every day and their tithes every three days

If the people were gathering in Bethel for a festival the sacrifices would have taken place on the first day and the tithes would have been brought for the temple on the third day

If these were sacrifices for atonement they would only be offered once a year

But the Israelites were bringing sacrifices every day

Not out of an effort to attain atonement but for the fact that they were being witnessed and viewed as more holy than everyone else

Isaiah 1:11

Isaiah, Amos’ contemporary says that God is fed up with sacrifices offered wrongly

He goes even further in Isaiah 66:3

While this was spoken to Judah, it very well could have been copied and pasted by Amos into this very sermon in Israel

It was a raucous party at the temple in Bethel - those who were offering lambs for sacrifice walking right alongside the temple prostitutes

Amos goes even further to indict them for offering improper sacrifices

While there was an offering that could be made of leavened bread Leviticus 7:13, - it was never to be burned

Leviticus 2:11

Leviticus 6:14-17

The Israelites don’t really love God or each other as the covenants and the 10 Commandments demanded - what they loved was their status and the rewards for following the rituals, using it as a thin covering for their social and religious failures -

They were hiding behind the trappings of their religion without properly worshipping the foundation of their religion

They were like the atheist who once said I’d be happy to go to heaven as long as God isn’t there

They were quite happy to go to the temple and to exercise their religiosity as long as there was no real heart impact

Faith had been replaced by religious customs

Faced with a similar situation in his day the prophet Malachi challenged the priests to close the temple

Malachi 1:6-10

Yet this is a consistent problem through out church history

Jesus dealt with this

Matthew 6:5

I wonder if he didn’t have the false worshippers of Bethel in mind when he said “for they love” because here in verse 5 he says that they should continue to bring their aberrant sacrifices because it is what they love to do

The Reformers, the Puritans, every era of church history has had to deal with false worship

Today we see a man-centered worship taking place in the church - with speakers teaching that your not here for God, God’s here for you - He wants the best for you

Or those who would pervert the worship of our God to make it more about them

I find it interesting that the center of false worship in the Bible was found at a place called Bethel....

But we also have to face this on a personal level

Whenever we come to church and make a perfunctory effort or we fall into the trap of reading our Bibles just to check that box that says it’s done we are offering false worship

Now this is not to say that we should be perfectly attuned every time we come through the doors or that we should never struggle - that can’t happen this side of Heaven

But what I am saying is that it should be the exception and not the norm

It’s when our eyes are habitually on ourselves and the benefits we get from following the rituals, customs and trappings of religion rather than being on the One who gives us breath and sustains us that we are in trouble

And when we experience trouble - often that’s Him trying to reach out to us as He did to the Israelites

Clueless Worshippers

Amos 4:6-11; Deuteronomy 4:28-30; Hebrews 12:5-7

Invisible Gorilla Experiment

In 1999 two Psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris conducted an experiment

They showed a video to people showing actors passing a basketball

They asked the participants to count the number of passes the white team made

At the end of the video they asked two questions - how many passes did they make and did you notice the gorilla walk through the video

50% of people who watched the video missed the gorilla

This reveals that we have selective attention and that when we’re focused on one thing we often miss things going on around us

I didn’t - but I also knew ahead of time the gorilla was coming

In 2010 they produced the video again - with the same concept - I counted the passes and saw the gorilla

But this time I missed the color changing curtain in the background and the player from the black team who left the game

The nation of Israel would’ve missed all of it

In Amos 4:6-11 God lists all the ways He has tried to reach out to them

Notice as we look through these that the first person pronoun in used in each case - it is God who has done these things in an effort to reach out to His people

Despite the promises that days like this would come the Israelites still miss the signs

Deuteronomy 4:28-30

To “return to” God is a common expression for turning from idolatry and polytheism to orthodox faith

Yet they missed the signs of discipline from a loving father

Hebrews 12:5-7

The first way that He reaches out to them is through famine

The expression “cleaness of teeth” alludes to the fact that there is nothing to eat so their teeth would be clean for the lack of bread everywhere

Famines are common in that region - it was the use of a famine that God employed to elevate Joseph and to bring Israel to Egypt

No specific famine is mentioned but just a general picture of famines that have taken place in Israel’s history

Next God says that there was a prolonged and widespread drought that struck only in certain areas and right before the harvest

Neither group of people returned to the Lord - not those who received water out of gratitude nor those who didn’t receive water out of repentance

They failed to connect the drought to God’s judgement

Instead they simply went around in their misery seeking anyone who might still have a drop of water in the bottom of their well

Much like the woman at the well in John 4 they missed the point and looked for physical sustenance rather than the Spiritual source

Following the drought was a hot eastern wind that dried up the already brittle crops and led them to rot along with caterpillars and locusts devouring what crops they did have

This sounds a lot like the conditions that existed on the American Plains in the summer of 1874

The farmers there had survived a hard winter and now were weathering a dry, drought-like summer

The dry conditions had provided perfect breeding conditions for the Rocky Mountain Locust

One settler said ““They looked like a great, white glistening cloud, for their wings caught the sunshine on them and made them look like a cloud of white vapor,” one unsettled pioneer wrote. “It seemed as if we were in a big snowstorm, where the air was filled with enormous-size flakes.”

The locusts picked clean whole watermelon patches and stripped fruit trees leaving peach pits dangling from the branches

And yet even this didn’t drive the Israelites back to God

God next says that He sent plagues among them after the manner of Egypt

Consistently throughout this book Exodus references are made that should have driven the Israelites back to the God who effected the Exodus on their behalf

Yet these plagues didn’t succeed in driving them back either

Even the wholesale slaughter of their young men, leaving rotting corpses lying in the camps the smell of men and horse flesh rising in the hot air didn’t result in a spiritual awakening for the nation

The aftermath of a battle is awful - Caroline Hancock, a 23 year old nurse at the Battle of Gettysburg, said this ““she viewed it as an oppressive, malignant force, capable of killing the wounded men who were forced to lie amid the corpses until the medical corps could reach them,”

Can you imagine that stench rising throughout the nation of Israel

Surely this should have driven the Israelites back to the God who promised to take care of them

Yet they still missed the signs and calls

In a final effort God says that as Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown, so they were overthrown, with only a remnant pulled from the fire, like a branch pulled out of a campfire with the end ablaze

Yet the consistent refrain to all of these tragedies rings true - yet you did not return to Me.

The issue is selective attention and spiritual maturity - they didn’t see because they weren’t looking in the right direction

The Israelites failed to catch the signs and to notice the warnings because they had become indifferent to the God who was sending them

They were focused on themselves and what they could earn from God and others through their worship

I can think of times in my pre-conversion life where I knew God was there but I was busy looking after my own interests and what I wanted content to keep Him at arms length

And yet as I look back over my life I can see events where He was reaching out to me

Maybe you can think of some times in your life when God was trying to get through to you - maybe you’re in one of those times now

Well, you’d better get ready because there’s a promise at the end of this passage and it didn’t bode well for the Israelites and - if you’re far from God right now - it doesn’t bode well for you either

Conclusion

Amos 4:12-13; Exodus 19:10-13; Job 40:6-9; Hebrews 9:27; Hebrews 10:31

God never simply says anything in any of these oracles - He declares it

There’s a difference between simply saying something and declaring it - there’s an authority, a sureness behind a declaration

No one would respect a Saying of Independence - but a Declaration that got people’s attention

And this is what He declares

You ignored the famine, and the drought, the blight and the locusts, the plagues, the war and fire from Heaven

Now stand up and get ready because you’re going to meet Me

There is a subtle difference to this warning to the Israelites

In Exodus and other times whenever God is going to come before the people they are always warned to consecrate themselves

Exodus 19:10-13

But there is no such warning or opportunity here - it is simply stand up because you’re going to meet your God

This is an accounting

Much like Job

Job 40:6-9

or the moment that each of us will face

Hebrews 9:27

The Israelites are going to face their God

What the Israelites improperly sought by worshipping at Gilgal and Bethel they will genuinely get, although in a way they would never have chosen, when God reveals Himself to them

He who has the power to create ex nihilo - from nothing

The one who declares to man His thoughts - unlike the idols that Israel worshipped God didn’t depend on them for His thoughts or actions - the priests were told what God thinks not the other way around

He who rules the universe and the movement of the planets

The Lord God of hosts is His name - The God who has a host of angels at His command - it is this God whom they will have to stand before and give an account

Except they wont be standing - they’ll be kneeling

And so will we

Hebrews 10:31

Jonathan Edwards, the 17th century pastor, is probably best known for his angriest sermon

Most of his work was of a gentler nature, but in his sermon “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” he made this statement “there is nothing that keeps men at any one moment out of hell, but the pleasure of God.”

Don’t be caught one day saying, along with so many of the Israelites who heard Amos, “No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself: I thought my scheme good; but it came upon me unexpectedly…death outwitted me…O my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter.”

Instead seek God while He may still be found and worship Him in Spirit and truth.

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