023306 Finding God in the mysteries of every day
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Amos 5:21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even 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.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream! (NASB)
Tekoa Amos’s hometown lay about tn miles South of Jerusalem, Judah, the Southern kingdom was marginally more moral and observant than the Northern kingdom. Amos was a farmer who tended sheep and cultivated figs. He dod not consider himself a prophet and his speech was earthy and direct. God called him to prophesy to the Northern kingdom, Israel, during the reign of Jeroboam.There are a couple things to note here during this season of lent.
- God called Amos out of his familiar and presumably safe context to bring an unwanted message of truth to an extremely debauched people.
- The direct nature of his speech must have surely been a shock to those who heard him. See Chapter 4 verse 1, etc.
Why is it important to note these things? I almost get the sense that God is warning them, regarding them as approaching the same kind of wickedness that existed in the whole world at the time of Noah. Look around you. Do you not see how the direct speech of Amos exists in direct contrast to the way in which we speak to sin in the world today? Do we make people too comfortable in their sin by being afraid to tell them the truth?
Larry M Lawrence- Mysteries 