I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the prophet Amos. Amos was from the southern tribe of Judah, about 170 years after the split of the nations of Israel and Judah. Amos wasn’t a professional prophet. He was a shepherd and a fig tree farmer—a man accustomed to the rhythms of daily hard work. He was connected to the earth and to God’s creation. We don’t know much about his life before his ministry begins other than that. But this is the man God chose to call out the sin of the nation of Israel in his time. God called him to travel up to Northern Israel and confront them for the ways they were sinning.

The book of Amos, however, does not begin with a condemnation of Israel’s sin. Instead, it starts by calling out the sin of the surrounding Gentile nations. And only after he has done that does he set his sights directly on Israel.

Why would he do that? If God called him to go to Israel, why worry about the surrounding nations? The answer is because the surrounding nations’ customs and wickedness had found their way into Israel.

From the moment Israel broke away from their brothers in Judah, they wasted no time adopting the ways of foreign nations. The king at the time, Jeroboam, looked around and realized that the people of Israel were going to want to worship. His problem was that Jerusalem—the place where Jews were meant to go to worship—was in the southern tribe of Judah, and he wanted to keep them worshiping in the north. It was a purely political move. So he set up two golden calves: one on the southern end of Israel in Bethel and one on the northern end in Dan. He told the people that these were the gods who had saved them from Egypt and that this is who—and where—they should worship.

Fast forward almost 200 years, and Amos is standing in an Israel that has now set up worship to nearly every other god in the region. They were involved in the evils of the surrounding nations—evils that would completely blow our minds.

We’re tempted to shake our heads at these rebellious, backward Israelites from thousands of years ago and think about how we would never do such a thing. But it’s important to remember that essentially all they were doing was practicing the way of life they saw in the cultures surrounding them.

They were deceived, and it’s almost certain that you and I would be highly susceptible to the same deceptions. Another prophet, Jeremiah, said it this way: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”

Amos, however, is not deceived. He clearly sees what’s happening, and he wastes no words in calling it out. He points to many sins—oppressing the poor, sexually exploiting women in the name of other gods, and even commanding prophets to stop prophesying. But the sin I want to highlight is religious hypocrisy. You see, in all this worship of foreign gods, they apparently hadn’t stopped worshiping Yahweh. They had simply added Him as another god in the region. And Amos tells us that God is livid about it.

Amos 5:21–24
I hate all your show and pretense—
 the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
 I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.
 I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.
 Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
 I will not listen to the music of your harps.
 Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,
 an endless river of righteous living.

What is God saying through Amos here? He’s saying that all of your religious festivals don’t amount to a hill of beans if they are not accompanied by justice and righteousness. God would rather be ignored than worshiped in pretense.

Once again, let’s turn the mirror of Scripture back on ourselves. How have we allowed our culture and its acts of worship to seep into our worship of God? What other gods—sex, entertainment, money, politics, sports, etc.—have we given allegiance to?

Obviously, I can’t answer that for you, but it’s worth thinking about. And whatever your answer is, it won’t be easy to tear yourself away from your culture’s gods. You’re going to have to do what Jesus asked of His disciples when He said, “Leave everything and follow me.”

For myself, I can say that as I’ve leaned more and more into my walk with the Lord, “the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” I am less interested in the American gods I listed above than ever before. But that disinterest didn’t come from simply walking away from false gods—it came from walking more closely with Jesus. The one true God who existed before all things, through whom all things were made, who holds all things together, and who knows me best and loves me most.

One influence that has made a huge difference in my outlook is the study Practicing the Way. If you haven’t had a chance to go through it in a group, I would highly recommend it. Please reach out to me, and I’ll help you get connected with a few people to walk through the study together. Or, if you already have a group of as few as three and no more than eight, I’d be happy to help you get started.

February is another great month of opportunities to grow closer to the Lord here at Hope. We have a Worship Night on Friday the 6th, Men of Hope and Women of Hope as usual, and a new Prayer Course launching on the 22nd. (This time, we’ll have childcare!)

I love and appreciate you all more than I can put into words. I hope you have a great month of growing closer to the Lord and growing closer to your family.

Godspeed,

Pastor Dan