Amos
continues to describe Israel’s sins. A nation that forgets God will ultimately
become very sinful: “For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty
sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in
the gate from their right” (vs 12). Amos calls on them to repent,
seek good and not evil (vs 14).
The
word “seek” appears five times in this chapter. Three times Israel was called
to seek the Lord (vs 4, 6, 8). Once she was called to seek good and not evil
(vs 14). And once she was called to seek not Bethel (vs 5).
Seek
ye me, and ye shall live - Amos laments for Israel and he calls upon its people to
awaken out of their dying sleep while they still can and waken up to their true
spiritual state before God so that something can yet be done! And the first
thing they need to seek is God.
From
where should they start to seek God? Amos said: “Seek not Bethel”
(vs 5a). Why not? Because Bethel was one place Jeroboam placed his golden calf
and said to Israel: “Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of
the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28, 29). They were the same words that Aaron
spoke when he too made a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:4).
They lied! Jehovah wasn’t in the golden calf.
Jeroboam
lied to Israel that God was in Bethel. Therefore, Israel sought God in Bethel.
But God was not in Bethel. The god, worshiped at Bethel, was not the One God.
Amos said such seeking is futile. He said: “Bethel shall come to nought”
(vs 5b). It means, Bethel shall be reduced to nothing.
The
sin of the Northern Kingdom was that it wanted to worship Jehovah under the
symbol of the calves. It is mixing God with idolatry. Still, too many of us
living today are doing just that – mixing God with something else. Elijah said
we can’t. He said we can choose only one – either God or Baal (1 Kings 18:21).
Baal
represents all the idolatries and false teachings today. For example, some mix
God with other images. They create an image of Jesus and said like Aaron and
Jeroboam: “Behold your Saviour. This is the Son of God that died for your sin.”
But, is Christ in that image? What difference is that image from the golden
calf at Bethel? Seek not Christ in an idolatrous image!
God
is not in a building just because it has a huge cross or called itself the
church. One should never seek God based on the beauty and magnificence of the
building or the size of the crowd that meets there every week. This is because
God can only be sought in the manner in which He wishes to be sought and
worshipped. Remember the words of Jesus: “But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9).
God
desires true and sincere worshippers: “God is a Spirit: and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
Worship
involves both the heart and the head. A heart that is sincerely and earnestly
engaged in worship (in spirit), and a head that knows it is doing according to
the will of God (in truth). True worship comes from people who are deeply
spiritual and who love sound doctrine.
God
is not in Bethel but in every heart that is sincere and desire to please Him: “for
the Father seeketh such to worship him” (John 4:23).
Jimmy Lau
Psa
119:97 Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.
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