December 18, 2000
Get more information about Bible Study for Texas here.
January 21 Lesson
God demands his people act justly to everyone
___Amos 5:1-12, 21-24; Jeremiah 7:2-11
___Amos 5:1Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lament I take up concerning you: 2"Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, and not one to lift her up."
___3This is what the Sovereign Lord says: "The city that marches out a thousand strong for Israel will have only a hundred left; the town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left."
___4This is what the Lord says to the house of Israel: "Seek me and live; 5do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing." 6Seek the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it. ...
___11You trample the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. 12For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins.
___You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts. ...
___21"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. 22Even 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. 23Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream. ...
___Jeremiah 7:2"Stand at the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim this message: 'Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. 3This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!" 5If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow ... 7then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.
___By Dan Gentry Kent
___How many thousands of traffic accidents have occurred when people failed to pay attention to proper warnings? "Reduce speed!" "Road work ahead!" "Slippery when wet!" The motorists involved were warned repeatedly and adequately, but they did not feel the warnings applied to them, or else they did not pay any attention.
___Likewise, the Lord never leaves people without warning. His warnings through the Hebrew prophets were direct, and were repeated over the centuries. Why, then, did the people not take heed? Why don't we?
___A warning from the 8th century B.C. (Amos 5:1-7)
___Amos was the first of the great 8th-century prophets and the first of the writing prophets. He was from the southern kingdom of Judah, but he preached in the northern kingdom of Israel. He predicted the tragedies we studied about in the first part of last's week lesson.
___The first three verses of Amos 5 give the diagnosis of the fatal illness. The next four verses prescribe the cure. The nation did not have to die. The way of life was open, if the people would seek the Lord. (See also 5:6,14.)
___Most of the time, the expression "seek the Lord" meant to go to the sanctuary or to some religious leader like a priest or a prophet, offer sacrifice and receive an oracle. But notice how Amos put it. Seek the Lord but not at the sanctuaries. Seek the Lord, but do not go to church to do it. Do not have anything to do with any of those preachers (5:5).
___The people had the idea that if they attended the festivals and made the pilgrimages and brought their tithes and offerings to the sanctuary, they were OK. They thought they automatically were right with the Lord. Amos' view was that you show you are right with the Lord by living justly, not by attending religious festivals or by giving big offerings.
___Some say 5:7 goes to the heart of Amos' message. The prophetic spokesman used two great words for the first time--"justice" and "righteousness." Those two words are the best summary Amos could come up with of the people's covenant obligations. The people were overturning justice. They were disregarding justice. This is justice in the official, the formal, the judicial sense.
___Amos used "justice" four times (5:7,15,24; 6:12). He might well have used it in every line. That is how much the term dominates the entire prophetic collection.
___It helps to know the background for Amos' use of this term "justice." Every Israelite village had two classes of people--full citizens and the disenfranchised. The disenfranchised included women, children, slaves and strangers. Full citizens owned property and took part in a town assembly that settled disputes.
___This semi-democratic system broke down when some people became extremely wealthy and the rest remained poor. The rich members of the community lorded it over the poor. They resorted to bribery in order to get their way (5:12). They turned justice into wormwood, a bitter, unpleasant plant. Injustice is bitter, even poisonous (5:7, 6:12), like that.
___Amos' other great word is almost a synonym for social justice, "righteousness." They had thrown righteousness to the ground. This is righteousness in the sense of right relationship with the Lord and with others.
___A hymn to God's sovereignty (5:8-9)
___This is the second of three hymn fragments in Amos. It praises the Lord as the creator and Lord of nature and history. It sets the Lord's deeds indicated in vv. 1-7 into the context of his activity as creator.
___The Lord created the stars. Some ancient peoples worshipped these heavenly bodies. Some modern people think their astrological signs are determined by them. Well, the Lord created them.
___The Lord makes the daylight and the night. He keeps the pattern of day and night rotating right on schedule. Have you ever known it to fail?
___The Lord gives the rain. Rain was far more important to people in that time. Remember that the pagan peoples had a god of rain, named Baal. Amos said actually the Lord is the god of rain.
___The Lord is the judge of people and of nations. The first part of 5:9 reminds me of 5:6. Notice that "destruction" is mentioned twice--destruction against the strong; destruction against the fortresses. Isn't this a warning: Their national God was fully capable of destruction, not merely blessing.
___Judgment on blatant injustice (5:10-12)
___Notice the idea of hatred in 5:10. Who is doing the hating? It is Israel, specifically the wealthy class. And who do they hate? Anyone who speaks out on behalf of the poor.
___Everyone connects 5:10 with 5:7. The verb tenses are different, but they talk about the same persons and the same attitudes. "Abhor" (5:10) is connected with the word "abomination." Idol worship is abominable, for instance.
___Well, Amos said, obstructing justice is abominable too. The gate (5:10) was the location of judicial and administrative government. This is where the community leaders met and held council. But the oppressors withheld evidence in such settings. They abhorred those who told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This was the same as opposing justice.
___Amos 5:11 gives still another charge before the pronouncement of judgment. The greedy rich had built luxurious houses. Before this time, only temples were built of stone. Ordinary citizens built their homes out of mud brick.
___The rich had planted vineyards they expected to be able to enjoy. But the Lord said no. The way they had accomplished these things was wrong. They had done it at the expense of the poor.
___There are more charges against the guilty in 5:12. They put the squeeze on the righteous. They were involved in bribery. The result was injustice for the truly needy.
___Denunciation of public worship (5:21-24)
___We are at the heart of the Amos material. And this part of the message starts off with a bang. Israel's worship was an abomination.
___How did the Lord feel about it? He hated it (see also 6:8). He despised and rejected it.
___He felt this way not only about the regular worship, but special religious activities too. Feasts were the annual pilgrimage festivals: Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. "I despise" means "I reject; I will have nothing to do with." The New International Version says, "I cannot stand it."
___Amos 5:22 lists three types of sacrifices. All three strike out with the Lord. He will not accept them. They displease him. Take it all away, 5:23 says.
___And while you are at it, take away the noise of the songs. (Sorry about that, all you music people.) But if it does not do any good to offer sacrifice, it certainly will not do any good to sing praises. Trained voices, choral arrangements and elaborate instrumentation were all off-key spiritually and socially. In fact, the term for noise in 5:23 is used in other places for the rumbling of chariot wheels and the tumult of an encamped army. It was only so much traffic noise. That was why the Lord stopped his ears.
___Why did the Lord reject their worship like that? Because there was no justice and righteousness.
___Amos 5:24 is the key verse in the book. It is the theme of the prophetic collection. What does the Lord want? He wants regular, consistent keeping of the covenant. He wants justice to flow steadily, unfailingly. What does the Lord want? He wants righteousness to flow, too, continually and consistently.
___A warning from the 7th century B.C. (Jeremiah 7:2-11)
___Jeremiah spoke later than Amos, during a period of Egyptian domination. It was a dark day, and the young, untried and undisciplined king was not the one to lead the nation through it.
___Jeremiah preached his most famous sermon at this time, his Temple Sermon. It is one of the greatest if not the greatest sermons in the Old Testament.
___Notice the reference to the Lord's house in 7:2. This was the temple! Jeremiah attacked the people's superstitious trust in the temple building. They had come to trust in the temple instead of in the Lord.
___They had the temple, so they were safe. The Lord would not let anything happen to his Holy City (7:4). Their attitude was direct: "Let's rally around the temple of the Lord. It is the foundation of our faith. It is the source of our security." This was nothing more than respectable idolatry.
___Don't listen to your preachers, Jeremiah warned. Don't listen to their popular, pious lies. It is delusion (7:8). Yes, this is the Lord's house. Yes, it is called by the Lord's name. However, it is polluted by unworthy worshippers.
___Notice how Jeremiah emphasized the ethical. Execute justice one with another (7:5). Do not oppress the undocumented alien. Do not oppress the fatherless. Do not take advantage of the widow. Do not shed innocent blood. Do not go after other gods.
___You talk about the temple while you live like the devil (7:9)
___You are so proud of your worship facilities, yet you break six of the Ten Commandments, Jeremiah told the people. Yes, he stressed the second table of the decalogue. The Ten Commandments address our duties to the Lord first. Jeremiah's Temple Sermon addresses our behavior toward others (the second table) first.
___Jeremiah was like all of the previous prophets, especially Amos. The true test of whether you are right with the Lord is how you relate to others. If your hearts are not right and you do not live right, it does not matter how often you repeat the formula, "This is the temple of the Lord." The only way to be secure is to change your ways. Return to the Lord. Then he will be with you, keep you and bless you.
___In 7:8-11 Jeremiah indicted their worship that was so divorced from everyday life. They committed all the sins listed in 7:9 and then came to stand before the Lord and say piously, "We are delivered!" We are secure. We have it made.
___This is why Jeremiah said the destruction of the temple was pending.
For thought and discussion
___
___
___
___
___
Get printer-friendly version of this story
Send this story to a friend
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!
