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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty,
says:
“There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of
anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the
mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass
through your midst,” says the Lord.
“Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you
long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be
as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his
house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not
the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—pitch-dark, without a ray of
brightness?”
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your
assemblies are a stench to Me. Even though you bring Me burnt offerings and
grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship
offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I
will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a
river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
“Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in
the wilderness, people of Israel? You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the
pedestal of your idols, the star of your god—which you made for yourselves. Therefore
I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is God
Almighty.
Amos 5:16-27
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks
be to God.
The Israelites in the time of the prophet Amos tried to
live life on both sides of the proverbial street.
On one hand, they brought their worship to God in the
prescribed ways of the law, offering Him the required sacrifices and offerings,
giving the appearance that they were living in the righteousness that the Lord required.
On the other hand, the Israelites were conducting
themselves outside of the prescribed worshiping of God as if they were not in
and of God at all. In Amos, Chapter 5 alone, we learn of the injustices being
committed against the poor and needy in society. Worse yet, the Israelites were
worshiping gods and idols of their own choosing, bowing down to them in direct
disobedience to God’s command against it (Exodus 20:3-4a).
Here’s the saddest part of all this. The people of God
still felt that they were living in His good graces and as we see in today’s
closing verses from Amos 5, those feelings definitely generated false
expectations. Look again at today’s passage:
Therefore this is
what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says:
“There will be
wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The
farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. There will be
wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.
“Woe to you who
long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day
will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only
to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only
to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—pitch-dark,
without a ray of brightness?”
“I hate, I despise
your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to Me. Even though you
bring Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though
you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away
with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But
let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
“Did you bring me
sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel? You
have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of
your god—which you made for yourselves. Therefore I will send you into exile
beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty. Amos 5:16-27
Note here that the people were anticipating the day of
the Lord. They yearned for the day the Lord would come to them because in their
eyes, they thought it would be a day of light and celebration. Like a man who
fled from a lion expecting to be safe only to meet a bear and perish or like a
man who entered the secure confines of his own home expecting to rest only to
be snake bitten, the Israelites had false expectations that the day of the Lord
would be something to rejoice over.
But the Lord assures them that there would be no joy in
the day He was about to bring for it would be a day of judgment that would lead
to the following responses”
“There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of
anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the
mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass
through your midst.”
The Lord promised His day would be filled with darkness,
a day “without a ray of brightness” for His people who sinned as if there would
be no consequences for their actions. For the Lord hated and despised the
Israelites’ worship saying their practices were a stench to Him. He refused to
accept anything they did to honor Him because it all was a ruse, a fiendishly
devised cover for their sinful devotion to false gods and idols.
You see, nothing anyone does is ever done outside of the
Lord’s sight. He sees and knows everything. Thus, no matter how hard the people
of God tried to mask their wicked worship with seemingly legitimate sacrifices
and offerings, the Lord was seeing right through it all. He knew the Israelites
were lifting up the shrine of their own king, the pedestal of their own adored
idols, and the star of their self constructed god. They had no real interest in
Him and so He would no longer have an interest in protecting them.
For we read where God promised punishment on His people
in the form of an exile where they would be sent away beyond Damascus to
foreign lands and that’s exactly what happened but not before the northern
kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah were devastated and left in
ruins by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively.
The Israelites had believed they could do whatever they
wanted and get away with it. After all, they were God’s chosen people. But as
we see in today’s scripture, God makes no exceptions when it comes to judging
sin as it should be, sin that He hates and despises, sin that led His to
sacrifice His only Son Jesus as an atonement for all, showing that He is indeed
a God of love, grace, mercy, and compassion. For whosoever believes in Jesus
will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16) and no one can come to the
Father except by Him (John 14:6).
Given these truths, many people are living today with as
bad a false expectation as the Israelites in Amos’ day. They believe that all
they need to do is be good (good as evaluated on their own constructed scale)
in order to go to heaven. They hold out this same hope for their family and
friends.
In other words, do good things in life for others and you
will be in God’s favor and thus punch your ticket to heaven after you die.
There could be no worse false expectation one could adopt
in life. God and Jesus have already told us otherwise through the scriptures
and their words are the only ones that count in the end. Good deeds and works
are not going to get you to eternal life. Only grace from God through your
trust and hope in His Son Jesus as Savior will do that (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Don’t let another minute go by in your life or anyone you
love without coming to Jesus and receiving true salvation, a place where you
can rest easy with the blessed assurance that you will live with Him and God
forever when the final day of the Lord comes and Jesus returns to judge the
earth (Matthew 25:31-46).
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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