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Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Monday, September 15, 2008

Amos 4

Amos has much to say to the northern kingdom of Israel. In the fourth chapter he begins by speaking to some of the leading women of the nation. God looked for them to have a concern for the poor and a dedication to true worship and holiness. Instead, Amos calls this group “cows of Bashan.” They clamor for drinks and oppress the needy. They will soon find out what it means to be under the authority of cruel masters when they are dragged away by the Assyrians.

It is not that the people were irreligious. They had holy places where they thought that they were worshiping a host of gods, perhaps even thinking that Jehovah, the god of their fathers, would look favorably upon their ceremonies. God tells those involved in these endeavors that they go to their special spots only to multiply their transgressions, no matter how much they imagine that they are serving Him. They love to have all kinds of offerings, sacrifices, and tithes for God or gods, but that cannot change the fact that they have abandoned the true Word of the Lord.

If any system of devotion is to work with God it must be done in accord with His will and it must have some ground of real obedience that makes it efficacious. Israel had problems on both of these points. They were not following God’s way of worship, which at this point in the history of revelation would have required them to travel to the temple in Jerusalem for the festivals and to bring their sacrifices and tithes to that place. More importantly they had no appreciation for the obedience of a coming Messiah, through whom they could have peace with the Lord. The knowledge of that kind of deep peace grounded in the perfect obedience of a substitute leads men and women to repentance, and there was no sense of that change of heart and life among the worshipers in the north.

They certainly should have known that something was deeply wrong. The Lord had already sent them many extraordinary signs of his displeasure. None of these seemed to move them in the proper direction. They lived under a particular time in the covenant life of God’s people when the words of Moses concerning blessings and curses in the land should have been particularly operative. If there were problems with food or rain in one place or another, these were things that should have caused them to wonder. If their crops were destroyed by pests and their fruit trees damaged through some agent of harm, if there was sickness or trouble in battle, they should have humbled themselves before God, and sought to turn away from sin. If one town or another faced some unexpected disaster, someone somewhere should have been moved to return to God, but they did not seem to do this.

What the Lord required of His people should not have been a mystery. Amos was not the first prophet among them. Others had expounded the Word of the Lord over several generations. Many of the things that people do against the Lord and His people do not even require any special Word from God in order to be exposed as sin. Our souls know what is wrong. The kinds of truth that are summarized in the Ten Commandments are written upon our hearts, and are known well to all who will be honest about it. Yet people continue to sin against God though they know they are fighting the glorious Creator and Sustainer of their lives.

Therefore, action would have to be taken. No more scattered hints and nudges sent to one town or another over many generations. Now the time had come for a visit from the Lord of the covenant in a sweeping judgment against these northern tribes. Now the Assyrians would be used by God to bring about a curse upon His people.

God created the mountains, the wind, and the waves of the sea. God is the author of light and darkness. He is the authority over heaven and earth and He has a great host of men and angels at His disposal to be used for His purposes. How could any of us stand in His presence were He to come in judgment against us for our sins? We would be the ones hiding in the mountains hoping for the rocks to fall upon us so that our misery would be over. The problem is that the challenges that we would face on account of our sin would not only be for our lives here on earth. How could we stand against almighty God if our souls were to encounter Him in His holiness beyond the grave? How can we live in the coming age of resurrection if the Lord is angry against us because of our sin?

We need to perform true ceremonies of worship and the duties of holy living with an honest heart of devotion to God, but we especially need some solid ground to stand on in any of our religious acts of devotion or service. We need the Rock of the sinless Messiah who can be counted for us as acceptable in the sight of His Father. We need that obedience and suffering credited to our account, so that we can move out of the bondage of our overwhelming disobedience and into the liberty of a new and growing sanctification. This is what Christ has provided for us. Let us worship Him today and always with gladness of heart and the sincerity of humble repentance and service.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 2:32 PM

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