Seek Me and Live Amos 5:1-61 Hear this word which I take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel: 2 The virgin of Israel has fallen;She will rise no more.She lies forsaken on her land;There is no one to raise her up. 3 For thus says the Lord GOD: “The city that goes out by a thousand Shall have a hundred left,And that which goes out by a hundred Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.” 4 For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live; 5 But do not seek Bethel,Nor enter Gilgal,Nor pass over to Beersheba;For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,And Bethel shall come to nothing. 6 Seek the LORD and live,Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph,And devour it,With no one to quench it in Bethel–
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Seek me and live. This phrase is one that permeates all of scripture. In the book of Amos, God is proclaiming His pending judgment on Israel and all the nations round about Israel. These nations had quarreled and made war with Israel, took slaves from Israel and sold them to one another, practiced idolatry, ripped open the pregnant women, burned their dead and so on. Israel had turned their back on their God, worshiped other gods, oppressed the poor, denied justice to the oppressed, and despised those who told the truth. All of these nations were ripe for judgment and were judged by God. Throughout God’s proclamation of pending judgment however, God is ever calling Israel back to repentance, the implication being, that if they repent, God will relent.
What of our government today? Does God still call nations to account in our modern New Covenant dichotomy? Consider Romans 13:1-2
13:1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
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If there is no authority except from God, and the authorities are appointed by God, then the governing authorities have a responsibility before God. The latter verses of Amos 5 declare:
7 You who turn justice to wormwood, And lay righteousness to rest in the earth!” 8 He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning And makes the day dark as night; He calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the face of the earth; The LORD is His name. 9 He rains ruin upon the strong, So that fury comes upon the fortress. 10 They hate the one who rebukes in the gate, And they abhor the one who speaks uprightly. 11 Therefore, because you tread down the poor And take grain taxes from him, Though you have built houses of hewn stone, Yet you shall not dwell in them; You have planted pleasant vineyards, But you shall not drink wine from them. 12 For I know your manifold transgressions And your mighty sins. Afflicting the just and taking bribes; Diverting the poor from justice at the gate. 13 Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time, For it is an evil time. 14 Seek good and not evil, That you may live; So the LORD God of hosts will be with you, As you have spoken. 15 Hate evil, love good; Establish justice in the gate. It may be that the LORD God of hosts Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
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The last phrase says “it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph”, but this does not only apply to Israel. The nation that repents before God is given mercy, as Nineveh was in the book of Jonah. The United States as well has reason to repent before God, we have become a nation that hates the one who rebukes in the gate and we abhor the one who speaks uprightly. How so you ask? Try quoting from the scripture to rebuke ungodly policies (handing out condoms to prevent aids while omitting the teaching on abstinence, the teaching of atheism in our schools, the movement to redefine the definition of marriage are just a few examples) and your argument will be shut down before you even finish the verse. We are told that the public forum is no place to proclaim God’s word and laws are passed to silence the scriptures. We tread down the poor and take taxes from him while our representatives take votes on pay raises (though you have built houses of hewn stone). Imminent domain laws have given increased power to the state to take property from the poor, thereby diverting justice from the poor at the gate. Last but certainly not least, we also engage in the sin of the Ammonites (Amos 1:13), we rip the fruit of the womb from the pregnant women. How sick and distorted are those that defend such a practice.
But even still verse 14 proclaims, seek good and not evil, that you may live, hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate. There is hope, God has graciously waited for us to return to Him as a nation, as when we first began. Seek Me and live says the Lord. Will we?
In Galatians 1:6-10 we read:
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
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What of the church? As a church have we faithfully administered the gospel of Christ to His sheep? I would say that at least from what we see on television and media the answer to that would be no. When Joel Olstein and T.D. Jakes are touted as great evangelists and what Christianity should look like by some Christians and those in the world we are in desperate trouble. The doctrine of hell, along with the Trinity has been thrown out by the bunch mentioned above. How can we proclaim the Gospel, the good news effectively when the current condition of the unbeliever is denied or omitted? One must have knowledge of his dangerous position before God, that he has offended God and that God is holding him accountable for that offense for repentance to actually take place. One must know the nature of the God he serves to be able to serve Him and bring glory to Him. 2 Peter 1:3 states:
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
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How can we be given all things pertaining to life and godliness if we deny the very triune nature of God? As Paul states above, this is no gospel at all and is accursed by God. But it doesn’t stop there, my observation has been that we live in an information age that has produced the most biblically illiterate Christians in centuries. Doctrine is despised or shelved in place of elaborate worship and drama skits. Preachers, preaching the gospel have been replaced by entertainers putting on a show for the seeker. The law of God has been abrogated, to recall it fondly is called legalism, and as a result license permeates the church. Divorce is rampant, fornication the norm, church discipline is shunned and called judgmental and harsh. Known wolves are welcomed by the so called shepherds into the fold. Modesty is old fashioned, replaced by tattoos and body piercings. Narcissism is the prevailing philosophy of life of most church goers, despising their neighbors, dishonoring their parents. Is there any hope?
The Western Church was in darkness for nearly one thousand years under Roman Catholic rule, with very similar problems the Protestant Church faces today in America, before the reformation; but the reformation woke up it’s believers and theologians and renewal followed to the extent that the greatest non canonical document the church has ever known was produced, The Westminster Confession and Catechisms. 2 Timothy 4:1-2 declares:
4:1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
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We must preach the Word, not a watered down compromised word, but the full council of God. We cannot be ashamed of the gospel as some are today, we must embrace the hardest of sayings as we would the most beautiful of sayings. The church must seek God and live!!
Lastly, let me quote one scripture from Deuteronomy 32:35:
35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompense;Their foot shall slip in due time;For the day of their calamity is at hand,And the things to come hasten upon them.’ NKJV
Not only does God judge the nations, and the church but the individual as well. You who are faithless, you are found to be under condemnation. The wrath of God follows your every step, it is waiting for your foot to slip, and when it does (and it will), you will experience sudden and unexpected, eternal destruction; and the only reason that you have not already slipped is because God’s appointed time has not yet come. You are held without excuse before God, as Romans 1:20 clearly proclaims and when you face him you will only experience his anger and fury.
For the moment you are kept out of hell by the ordinance of God, for some purpose that only He is aware of, but as Jonathon Edwards says in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, “Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies. God’s creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with, and do not willingly subserve to any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end. And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. There are the black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff on the summer threshing floor”, and “hell opens its mouth wide to receive you; and if God should permit it, you would be hastily swallowed up and lost”.
But, this does not need be your end, God is waiting for some reason, repent and be saved! You may not be assigned to this end and God may be calling you. You who are religious, who spend your Sundays hearing over and over, what must be done to be saved, and yet have refused to do so in the presence of God in church, you are in an even more dangerous position before God. You are deceived into thinking that you may escape God’s curse and wrath but Matthew 7:21 states:
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
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Do not be deceived, God knows your heart and He has told you what it is to serve Him and you are responsible to do the will of the Father, as He has revealed. Do not sit in church for one more Sunday under wrath, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, seek God and live!!
Clay
