Luxury, Dead Religion and Stubborn Hearts

Amos didn't mince words with self-centered people. He called out the women in the higher end of society who specialized in wine drinking and exploitation of the poor with some of the most shocking words in the book. 

Amos 4:1 (ESV) “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’

Notice these "society" women are referred to as cows, grazing and eating to their hearts' content, along with drinking excessively and ordering their husbands around. A sign of judgment upon a land is when women dominate men. 

Amos is calling out the state of the nation. They lived in luxury while exploiting the needy to suit their own desires. Luxury can be just as dangerous as poverty. For it deadens the senses of the heart away from the Lord and makes people expendable. Those who use people for their own overindulgence will have to give account to the Father who sent His only Son to die for people. What happens to fat cows but the slaughterhouse? 

Thus, Amos stipulates their end will come just so at the hands of the Assyrians, who often lead prisoners of war away with hooks in their noses and ropes through their mouths to lead them away. 

Amos 4:2 (ESV) The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.

Secondly, Amos calls out the empty religious festivals among the nation.

Amos 4:4–5 (ESV) “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; 5 offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord GOD.

Bethel and Gilgal were two places of worship established by Jeroboam, who sought to lead the Northern kingdom in their own syncretistic religion. Notice all the symbols of true devotion - sacrifices, tithes, and offerings. Yet the Lord saw their injustice against their neighbors and despised their showy form of religion. 

It is possible to be part of a popular church and not really please the Lord! 

In the next section, the literary genius of Amos comes to light as he poetically runs down the overt measures by which the Lord sought to awaken Israel out of her dead religious state. 

Amos 4:6–8 (ESV) “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 7 “I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; 8 so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.

Five times total the judgment is cast: "Yet you did not return to me". This was a stubborn heart in the people refusing to repent despite the waves of judgments preceding the great judgment to come. Famine (cleanness of teeth), drought, pestilence, and entire cities overthrown were not recognized as the warning signs they were. 

Finally, there was one judgment left, the unpredictable decree:

Amos 4:12 (ESV) “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

How would they meet God? In the form of the Assyrian army. The Lord would send them out of the land He gave them and discipline them in a far-off nation. No one will stand before the Lord in judgment. To meet Him is to be wiped out, for He is holy and righteous.

The last verse:

Amos 4:13 (ESV) For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!

Look at that phrase: "declares to man what is his thought". God knows our hearts and minds. He searches all things. We cannot hide in our assumed security of riches, nor in our false pretense of religion. The examination is inevitable. And so God speaks to us through Amos today to measure our own life, are we living with generous hearts, seeking the true and living God, and hating the sin that brings death? 

I pray that we do, and more and more. 

Amen.