Return to your God

Context: Prophet Amos (v7,10-13, Amos 1:1, 2 Kings 14:23-24, 2 Chronicles 26:16-20)

• Amos prophesied – 2 years before the earthquake around king Uzziah’s time
• Timeline: Uzziah king of Judah and Jeroboam king of Israel – two bad kings
• People disregarded justice and righteousness.
  • Lived luxuriously on bribes. Didn’t want to hear the truth.
• It was such an evil time, that it was better for people to not speak up!

Did the house of Israel want to live? (v4,6,14, 1 Kings 12:26-29, 2 Chronicles 28:23)

• Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, was afraid that he would be killed
  • So he took counsel, that is consulted the wise folks
    • Setup idols for the house of Israel to follow
      • From border to border – Bethel to Dan
• Other kings truly believed that the gods of other nations would help them
  • So they went and worshiped
    • Other gods, sun, moon, planets and the army of sky (2 Kings 23:5)
• House of Israel followed their kings

What is wrong in seeking Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba? (v5)

• Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba – they all had great history:
  • Abraham planted a treed and prayed to God in Beersheba (well of oath)
  • Jacob saw God in a dream and built an altar at Bethel (house of God).
  • Gilgal (circle of stones) marked the end of Egypt’s influence over Israel.
• However, house of Israel, gave more importance to these places then to their God
  • In some they built altars for other gods

What should the house of Israel do, to live? (v4-6,8-9,14-15)

• Seek God!
  • The God who made the Pleiades and Orion
    • He can turn the shadow of death into morning
      • Turning around impossible situations
    • He can also turn midday into night!
      • Calamity in the midst of good times
  • The God who controls the waters of the sea – and the rain
    • Not baal as some nations believed – and perhaps Israel too
  • The God who can suddenly destroy the strong and their fortress
    • Walls of Jericho came tumbling down
  • The God of Armies
    • If God be for us, who can be against us?
  • Yahweh is His name!
    • He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists
  • Seek good and not evil – hate evil and love good.
    • Establish Justice in the courts

Conclusion / Application

• Seek God!
  • Seek good: Justice in courts. Don’t trample the poor and don’t afflict the just.
• Romans 12:2 Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Main Passage Amos 5:4-15 – World English Bible (WEB)

4 For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;

5 but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba:

for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

6 Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph,

    and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.

7 You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth:

8 seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion,

    and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night;

    who calls for the waters of the sea,  and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name,

9 who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress.

10 They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly.

11 Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat:

    You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them.

You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

12 For I know how many are your offenses, and how great are your sins—

    you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn away the needy in the courts.

13 Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.

14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say.

15 Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts.

    It may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

Notes / Cross References

Genesis 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of Yahweh, the Everlasting God.

Genesis 35:1 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there. Make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”

Joshua 5:9 Yahweh said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Therefore the name of that place was called Gilgal to this day.

1 Kings 12:26-29 26 Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to David’s house. 27 If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in Yahweh’s house at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” 28 So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 29 He set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. 

Hosea 9:15 “All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.

2 Chronicles 30:5-6 5 So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover to Yahweh, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, for they had not kept it in great numbers in the way it is written. 6 So the couriers went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, “You children of Israel, turn again to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant of you that have escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.

1 Kings 13:32 For the saying which he cried by Yahweh’s word against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, will surely happen.”

Job 9:8-10 8 He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea. 9 He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the rooms of the south. 10 He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number.

2 Chronicles 28:23 23 For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which struck him. He said, “Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, so I will sacrifice to them, that they may help me.” But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.

Romans 1:22-25 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, four-footed animals, and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves; 25 who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.