Amos 5:1-27 Pursuing Justice

Amos 5:1-27 Pursuing Justice

I need to live my life with a sense of justice, with a sense of personal respect and fairness. Personal justice is integrity. However, personal justice or a personal sense of proper morality can only come from the Great Judge. Personal integrity will help me live out my Christian life by how I live. Of course, I don’t just live the Christian life. I show others the Christian life in word as well as deed.

These verses are divided into two groups: (1) loving others, and (2) loving God. So I pursue justice by living a life of integrity, with respect and fairness to others. I have also love God by showing Him respect and integrity in my worship. The verses are written in a chiastic style. It is a form of Hebrew poetry used to emphasize a point.

Within this first part of pursuing justice by loving others, I do that by my walk with God. The way I walk with Christ tells other people that I am a loving Christian. The first four steps into this chiastic structure is about how I walk with God:

HOW TO PURSUE JUSTICE BY LOVING OTHERS

MY PERSONAL WALK WITH GOD

1. LISTEN to the warning.

“Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:” (Amos 5:1, HCSB)

“She has fallen; Virgin Israel will never rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.” (Amos 5:2, HCSB)

“For the Lord God says: The city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left in the house of Israel.” (Amos 5:3, HCSB)

2. SEEK God.

“For the Lord says to the house of Israel: Seek Me and live!” (Amos 5:4, HCSB)

“Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal or journey to Beer-sheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.” (Amos 5:5, HCSB)

“Seek Yahweh and live, or He will spread like fire throughout the house of Joseph; it will consume everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.” (Amos 5:6, HCSB)

3. STOP SINNING.

“Those who turn justice into wormwood throw righteousness to the ground.” (Amos 5:7, HCSB)

4. LOVE God.

“The One who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the earth — Yahweh is His name.” (Amos 5:8, HCSB)

“He brings destruction on the strong, and it falls on the stronghold.” (Amos 5:9, HCSB)

God is awesome. He is bigger than the stars. He can do what He wants. We should respect Him because of that power.

As I step back out of this chiastic poem, I begin to live out my life for others. I live my Christian OUT to other people.

MY WALK TO OTHERS

3a. STAND UP for OTHERS.

“They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate and despise the one who speaks with integrity.” (Amos 5:10, HCSB)

“Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him, you will never live in the houses of cut stone you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.” (Amos 5:11, HCSB)

“For I know your crimes are many and your sins innumerable. They oppress the righteous, take a bribe, and deprive the poor of justice at the gates.” (Amos 5:12, HCSB)

“Therefore, the wise person will keep silent at such a time, for the days are evil.” (Amos 5:13, HCSB)

A “prudent person,” i.e., anyone who wanted to succeed in life, knew that he would have to “keep silence in such time.”All who under ordinary circumstances might be expected to rebuke the public iniquity remained silent. This was “an evil time.” Not only was it futile to speak out, it was dangerous because of the ruthlessness of those in high places. The implication here is that a messenger of God cannot be prudent. He must speak out regardless of the cost (5:13).1

“And so, keeping quiet in such evil times is the clever thing to do!” (Amos 5:13, GNB)

Personal justice does not think just about the self. No matter how evil the times are, as Christians we have to stand up and speak for others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is quoted as saying:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”2

2a. SEEK God and DO good works.

“Seek good and not evil so that you may live, and the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed.” (Amos 5:14, HCSB)

“Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” (Amos 5:15, HCSB)

Love is the litmus test. And that love is expressed by sharing our faith and working for social justice. The spiritual and physical needs of people become the passion of our lives.3

We are not saved by good works. We are saved for good works. We prove that God is good by the good works we do of others.

“For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it. God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8–10, GNB)

1a. WARN others.

“Therefore Yahweh, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: There will be wailing in all the public squares; they will cry out in anguish in all the streets. The farmer will be called on to mourn, and professional mourners to wail.” (Amos 5:16, HCSB)

“There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass among you. The Lord has spoken.” (Amos 5:17, HCSB)

HOW TO PURSUE JUSTICE BY LOVING GOD

Within this second part of pursuing justice, I do that by loving God. The first set showed how I showed other people that I love them. I come to Christ. I show that life by the way I live my life for other people. I come to God, listen to Him, seek Him, and stop sinning. Once I stop sinning, I spend more time loving God by the way I relate to other people. I stand up for those who are weak. I search for God and He shows me the good works I can do for others. I also can warn others about their need for Jesus Christ.

When I warn others about judgment and their need for Jesus Christ, I am showing my love for people who need God. I am also showing that I love God. If I don’t really love people, I would not warn them about the danger they are getting ready to encounter. If I didn’t warn other people, then I wouldn’t care about God as well. If I really love God, I will warn people that God is alive and that Jesus is coming back.

1. ANNOUNCE the warning of God.

“Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord! What will the Day of the Lord be for you? It will be darkness and not light.” (Amos 5:18, HCSB)

“It will be like a man who flees from a lion only to have a bear confront him. He goes home and rests his hand against the wall only to have a snake bite him.” (Amos 5:19, HCSB)

“Won’t the Day of the Lord be darkness rather than light, even gloom without any brightness in it?” (Amos 5:20, HCSB)

2. WORSHIP God with sincerity.

I also love God by the way I worship God. These people are acting like hypocrites. They are not really singing to God. They are not offering themselves. They are just going through the motions. Come in, check out. Wait for church to end.

“I hate, I despise your feasts! I can’t stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.” (Amos 5:21, HCSB)

“Even if you offer Me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will have no regard for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.” (Amos 5:22, HCSB)

3. FOCUS my attention.

“Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.” (Amos 5:23, HCSB)

When I worship God, my audience is Him. I don’t get into the song. I don’t tune out when I tune in. I don’t check out when we are singing songs to God. I focus on God. I spend my time in worship with Him.

The reason that God doesn’t listen to these people and their songs is their focus is not on God. God can choose not to listen to me, if I choose not to listen to Him. If I think that spending time with God is not important, do you think God could say the same thing to me? It is just like a teenager who doesn’t focus on what they are supposed to do. If as a father, I want to spend time with my kids, I want them to focus on me. I want to focus on them. God is the same way.

3a. TRUST God.

“But let justice flow like water, and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.” (Amos 5:24, HCSB)

If the verse sounds familiar, it is because Martin Luther King Jr, paraphrased it during his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.4 Even in the midst of all of this evil, justice will flow like water and righteousness will flow like a stream when we trust God.

2a. LOVE no substitutes.

““House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to Me during the 40 years in the wilderness?” (Amos 5:25, HCSB)

“But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves.” (Amos 5:26, HCSB)

God made the stars. But the Israelites were worshiping the stars. They were worshiping substitutes. When it comes to worship, there should be no substitutes.

1a. ANNOUNCE God’s name.

“So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name. He has spoken.” (Amos 5:27, HCSB)

Just as we announce the warning, we also love others by sharing God’s name. This is sharing the good news.

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