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A Call to Repentance
Amos 5.18-24
Good News Translation (GNT)
18 How terrible it will be for you who long for the
day of the Lord! What good will that day do
you? For you it will be a day of darkness and
not of light.
19 It will be like someone who runs from a lion
and meets a bear!
Or like someone who comes home and puts
his hand on the wall - only to be bitten by a
snake!
20 The day of the Lord will bring darkness
and not light; it will be a day of gloom,
without any brightness.
21 The Lord says, "I hate your religious festivals;
I cannot stand them!
22 When you bring me burnt offerings and grain
offerings, I will not accept them; I will not
accept the animals you have fattened
to bring me as offerings.
23 Stop your noisy songs; I do not want to listen
to your harps.
24 Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and
righteousness like a river that never goes dry.
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Taken from 'word-on-the-web' supplied by the
Scripture Union
...enjoying God's favour...
In Amos' day,
most people who counted for anything
would have felt
they were enjoying God's favour
and that their good life was secure -
but it was an ill-placed confidence.
Because of their past experience
of God as a warrior,
fighting for them,
Israel's optimistic belief
was that 'the day of the Lord'
would produce the
final destruction of all
its enemies.
Amos turns the tables
and declares that the day
Israel is yearning for
would result in its own doom
and that darkness,
gloom and exile lay ahead.
What do we understand by
'the day of the Lord'
for us today?
Jesus' second coming?
Do we desire that?
If so, why do we desire it?
Will it live up to our
expectations,
or will we be shocked
to realise that we have
fallen short of God's
requirements of us?
It was in its people's worship
that Israel's false idea
of the day was perpetuated.
Now, in cutting language,
God dissociates himself
from the people's worship.
He cannot stomach the stench
or sight of it,
when they are abusing it
so flagrantly.
Scrap the songs and harps!
Water is essential for life;
verse 24 underlines how vital
justice and righteousness
are in the believer's lifestyle.
We cannot love God
if we do not love our neighbours -
and not just those we feel
comfortable with! 'Concern for the rights
and welfare of all his people flows,
like a mighty river,
from God's own heart.
Whoever would truly serve him
must go with that flow.'
Honest worship
Amos cries, 'let righteousness flow
like a
never-failing stream' (v 24).
He's not talking about a
one-off pledge
or an occasional donation on a Sunday.
He's calling us to a
different and radical existence.
Brennan Manning,
author and priest,
puts it another way:
'The great single cause of atheism
in the world today
is Christians who acknowledge Jesus
with their lips
and walk out the door
and deny him by their lifestyles.
That is what an unbelieving world
simply finds unbelievable.'
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