SermonIndex Audio Sermons
SermonIndex - Promoting Revival to this Generation
Give To SermonIndex
Discussion Forum : Articles and Sermons : Amos' thoughts on "religious" OT Israel & "religious" last day "Christians"

Print Thread (PDF)

PosterThread









 Amos' thoughts on "religious" OT Israel & "religious" last day "Christians"

".....about the tendency of people - people are willing to make sacrifices for religion. They will make pilgrimages, they will travel great distances, they will sacrifice, so long as they can keep their religion under their own control. In other words, just like Cain and Abel; Cain was religious. Cain had faith. Cain made sacrifices. He was religious, but he did it his own way. He didn't want to do things the way Jehovah had told him he must do them - 'Here's how to worship me', and that's the way these people were. 
    They were willing to travel & sacrifice.....in fact, they thought that somehow the more you do to sacrifice, the more favor you think you're earning from God, and that's the superstition so many find themselves in....they keep making this claim that they are followers of God, and that they really know the Lord, but the reality is that their religion is corrupted through and through, and yet in their minds, they think they really are walking with the Lord. 
    Albert Barnes' commentary says 'they act as if their half worship really entitled them to all the full blessings God promised to true, full worshippers'. That's the way pseudo believers have always been. They act as if, 'man, I'm getting up and going to church on Sunday mornings, what else do you expect? I don't cuss anymore, etc." and that's the way they think. They think a few little diluted outward things obligates God to let blessings flow down into their lives and the Lord knows better. He knows what's really in their hearts and that they are not sincere in their worship of Him and are not fully given over 100% to His Lordship (He is not fooled by their religious self-delusion).
   There are people who are longing for the day of the Lord, and Amos asks, "woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! What purpose will it be unto you?  It shall be unto you darkness and not light. It will be as if when a man runs from a lion and is met by a bear! As though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the Day of the Lord be darkness, not light -- pitch dark, without a ray of brightness?" (Amos 5:18-20).
    Basically, It will be nothing but Judgment to you. They are thinking it is a good thing they are asking for and it is the very thing which will end their lives. They are that delusional in their religion, just as Israel. They would hear that "The day of the Lord" and in their delusion they think that the Lord is coming to save them & lift them up to be a great nation, and He is coming to judge them for their half-worship. It's not even half worship (it's 100% disobedience if it's not 100% obedience).
   The Lord says:
     "I hate your religious feasts, I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings & grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
    Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god --which you made for yourselves. Therefore, I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty" (Amos 5:21-27)
      A few years later, Isaiah speaks about the same exact thing; basically the same message in the same words in Chapter 1. Going through these same outward rituals & It's more of the same thing, the Lord knows they mean none of the things they say at his altar. They aren't really fully given over to His Lordship (Christ).....Just like Moses, the people were hiding these little idols in their tents (their homes) while they were in the wilderness as if the Lord didn't know it. Moses didn't know it, but the Lord did. It's so foolish to think we can hide anything from Him who sees it all, as if we are fooling Him. The Lord sees it all. 
     Basically, the Lord is saying that the upcoming judgement they are going to go through is for the sins of rebellion in their hearts they had been allowing for years (& they not only don't see it coming, but actually think it will be a good thing for them, because they are such good people who have done the proper necessary religious rituals and repeated the right prayers, but their hearts were really far from Him & they were in big trouble & in for a  big surprise when He did come to judge...."

  "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not do many wonderful things in your name?', & I will say to them plainly, 'I never knew you, away from me you evildoers!'" 
   (Matthew 7:21-23)

   Excerpt from Steve Gallagher, from the message, "Hatred for the Reprover", (going through the book of Amos on judgement in ancient Israel and in the last days prophetically before the 2nd coming of The Great King, Jesus Christ.)

 2012/6/12 9:56





©2002-2024 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Revival to this Generation.
Privacy Policy