A Collision Course

Amos 5:1-6

The fifth chapter of Amos has been given a title in my Bible of “Seek the Lord and Live” and that implies some and maybe many will not seek the Lord and will not experience the blessing that one who does seek Him will receive.   We live in a culture that can best be summarized in the song “I did it my way,” and it has been this way most of my life.  You can bet the farm, doing it your way will be on a collision course with “Seek the Lord and live,” and then the question much be asked, what does it profit a person if they achieve great success and acclaim in this world, but have missed out on knowing God and receiving His free gift of eternal life; is that worth eternal damnation?   Jesus asks the question in both the gospel of Matthew and Mark, this is the question: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? (Matthew 16:26 ESV)

Amos 5:3, “For thus says the Lord GOD: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.” (Amos 5:3 ESV)  And you may ask why, why would God do this to a people who He has chosen from all the peoples of the world?  Could it be after many warnings, and many prophets coming to them with “Thus says the Lord God” and they said by their actions, “I will do it my way” and only judgment would return them to acknowledge that God’s plan for life on planet earth is best. 

And we understand that often they tried to con God, by outward acts, religious acts, but their hearts were far from God.  Listen to the voice of God:   For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.” Seek the LORD and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel, O you who turn justice to wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth! (Amos 5:4-7 ESV)

People are people and flesh is flesh, as we have said often, Channel One is the deceptive channel that seems to resemble our own voice, and Channel Two is the Spirit of God, and is often not listened to because of sin in our life, or the busyness of life and the noise we have grown accustomed to.  But we like the people of Amos days also have those places where we, or someone else has met with God, and we have placed markers at those places in our minds and hearts that we need to go back to that place to experience God.

That is what God is telling them not to do, “do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.”  You may be asking what was Bethel to them, and the answer is found in Genesis 28:12-19, where Jacob had his vision of the stairway to heaven.   And Gilgal was the embarkation point for crossing the Jordan River and the invasion of Canaan, and Joshua set up a memorial there (Joshua 4:19-20).  And Beersheba is closely associated with the sojourns of Abraham (Genesis 21:14) (footnotes from page 1499 in the HCSB Study Bible) All of the areas had shrines, all three were pilgrimages, to observe what God had done, but God was telling them to quit going back to what He had done, and follow Him into what He is doing.

We should never forget that the deceptive channel is telling us to go back to some place and find God, it may be the little church where you grew up or the one with the great orator and teacher that stood on the massive lot with the large oak trees and the big white pillars, and yet God is saying “Thus says the Lord” follow me where I’ve planted you.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice