Seek Me, and You Will Live
4For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live; 5but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing. 6Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel. 7You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth: 8seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name, 9who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress. 10They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly. 11Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. 12For I know how many your offenses, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn away the needy in the courts. 13Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. 14Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say. 15Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
The world judges by its own standards. If a mansion and a thatched cottage were both on fire, people would pay attention only to the mansion and take little notice of the cottage. Their interest shifts with size and possessions because they measure even human happiness by the world’s yardstick. The two houses differ only in size: each is the one place where a whole family can rest, and each is a safe nest where they eat and drink together and share their affection. Yet people think of them so differently.
But God tells us that what we see is not everything. Those who neglect the unseen for the sake of the seen, he said, and ignore the gospel for the sake of the world, will be judged.
Israel was so loved that God called it the virgin of Israel, but because the people did not fear God, they fell into the evil religion of idol worship. Seeing Israel’s evil deeds, God could bear it no longer and raised his hand in judgment.
Knowing how painful God’s judgment would be when it came, the prophet Amos turned that pain into a lament and sang it. Just as Jeremiah composed laments, the prophets are said to have composed and sung them when a city, a people, or a nation faced death.
Amos 5:1-3
1Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel. 2“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.” 3For thus says the Lord Yahweh: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out one hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”
Israel ignored God’s judgment and lived only for its own wealth and glory, and since it did not want to hear the prophet, perhaps his lament over it seemed absurd. They lacked nothing and had more than enough, yet he was telling them that everything they had would be taken away and that they would beg for lack of food. In the same way, those who prophesy the end and proclaim judgment and the Second Coming to a world grown proud through too much plenty may be mocked for it. But even if people do not believe, judgment will surely come.
God broke down in a moment the tower of Babel that people had built so high, and when they set themselves against him with a single language, he scattered them in every direction, giving them the tongues of all nations so that they could not understand one another. That every nation now speaks a different language means that humanity committed an irreversible sin against God, and it is evidence that the tower of Babel really stood. However people join forces, by any means at all, they cannot stand against the almighty God. He is the one who can make wealth heaped up at the cost of one’s life worthless in an instant, yet people are still building towers of Babel for themselves.
Isaiah 47:1
1“Come down, and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
The prophet Isaiah declared that God’s judgment would fall on mighty Babylon, which had never once been conquered by a foreign enemy, and he must have felt then as Amos does now in singing a lament over Israel. Just as Isaiah prophesied, Babylon fell, and its people suffered the shame of being carried off as captives.
God had a reason for bringing so tremendous a judgment on Babylon. He had used Babylon as a rod to bring Judah to repentance, but trusting in its own strength, Babylon not only destroyed Jerusalem and its cities brutally; it also abused God’s people with a cruelty that crushed all human dignity. Babylon did not know that God was using it as an instrument to bring Judah to repentance, but its nature was so cruel that it was judged for that sin.
Babylon lies about 80 kilometers south of Baghdad in Iraq. The Babylonian empire can be divided into Old Babylon and New Babylon. Old Babylon, where the tower of Babel was built, appears in Genesis and was founded by Nimrod. New Babylon was ruled by King Nebuchadnezzar. Just as the tower of Babel rose in Old Babylon, a golden image rose in New Babylon, and from this we can see that the same spiritual current, whether of an evil spirit or a good one, keeps flowing on.
Nothing in this world lasts forever.
On this small piece of ground called the earth, countless people are born and die, over and over, building on the same spots and tearing down again; nothing in this world lasts forever. As we pass briefly through life, we must not cruelly trample the weak as Babylon did, nor need we lose heart because we have no power. For we who believe in the Almighty, who created the whole universe, were chosen to bring love and the gospel to the weak and to lead them to receive God.
Amos 5:4
4For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;
It was clear that Israel would come under God’s judgment, yet God said he would help those who sought him in the midst of suffering, so that they could live. Israel had fallen so far that it could not turn back, but he still showed them how they could live. He taught them that if they called on the name of Yahweh, there would be a way of escape.
Israel was so corrupt that God warned of judgment, yet even then he meant to save the lives of those who believed in him and endured. This is exactly how God’s people can live now, as the end draws near. Jesus had nails driven through his hands and feet, endured the whip and the crown of thorns, and was pierced in his side with a spear; he bore that agony patiently to save sinners. In every situation God works first to save life; for those who have faith in him, there is a way of escape.
Are you closer to the world right now than to God? Then stop where you are and turn back to him. If you want to enter the eternal world, do not cling to this finite one; seek God, and keep seeking him, and you will live.
Amos 5:5
5but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.
Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba, the places God named, were where people of faith met God and pleased him. Bethel is where Jacob received God’s promise anew, and Gilgal is where Israel was circumcised with a faith ready to die. Beersheba was a place of faith where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all stayed, yet God commanded them not to go there. A true Israelite must go to Bethel, must show their faith at Gilgal, and must make the resolve at Beersheba of Abraham, who set out from there to offer up Isaac: that everything belongs to God.
Why, then, did God command them not to go there? The reason was Israel’s empty, formal faith.
It was a warning to people who sacrificed without faith: do not merely perform the rituals of worship, but worship God with true faith. When God said not to go to Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba, he was speaking in paradox; what he truly meant was that they should clean out those places that idols had defiled, offer sacrifices in faith, and bring honest tithes.
Formal worship at Bethel is worthless worship, and circumcision without a whole faith, even if people risked their lives for it, is mere self-satisfaction that God does not recognize. Because what they held had already become a religion that sought blessing, God told them not to call on his name with faith like that. It is like someone who treats you with contempt: however warmly they call your name, it makes your skin crawl.
Even now, churchgoers who have not truly met God imagine that they have faith as long as they attend church, even if they do not know the Bible. Because their faith is like this, they do wrong without truly apologizing and cannot fully repent before God. It is God who now commands them to do nothing more—those who boast, as Israel did, that they sacrificed diligently, tithed every three days, and were faithful to the point of death.
Worship offered as a formality, while we do not live according to God’s will, has to stop. Only when we can grasp the heart of a God who tells his people not to do even what they are plainly bound to do can we truly love him. No human being can ever escape God’s judgment. Since only God can lift his wrath, his people must repent before him and pray that he will withdraw it.
Amos 5:14
14Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say.
With judgment at hand, not all the people of Israel could be saved, but those who sought good and turned from evil were given a chance to live. God said that when war broke out, taking lives without regard to who they were, so many would die that people would wail in the squares, cry out in grief in every street, and call the farmers to mourning. Weeping would not cease in an Israel swept by war; it would be like fleeing a lion only to meet a bear, or leaning a hand against the wall to rest only to be bitten by a snake lying in wait—a state of terror that would go on and on.
Looking back on the wars Israel had fought until then, they likely thought that God was always on their side, and that any nation daring to attack God’s people would be wiped out by him. But such thinking shows that they did not see how deep in sin they now were. The nations that had threatened Israel had suffered great disasters, while they themselves had escaped harm through miraculous works, and so they ignored the warning of war. But God could not forgive an Israel rotted through.
Look at our own country now. Many people tolerate homosexuality and enjoy a culture full of the ideas of Satan worship; the nation is as rotten as it can be. Corrupt as we are, we think we are better than those outside the church because we go to church, and we expect God to protect us.
But sin has no degrees. Because God hates sin without weighing whether it is heavy or light, he is bound to judge. Yet just as he said that those among the people facing judgment who sought him would live, when faithful saints pray for the salvation of their nation and people, God will work to bring life.
The command to seek God does not mean shouting his name aloud; it means working wholeheartedly for the nation, for the people, and for the lives that need saving. If you know clearly what idolatry is, yet speak and act as though everyone in the world lives this way, you will have no choice but to share the judgment the world receives. God no longer stays with a corrupt Israel. He no longer protects an Israel that hates those who proclaim the word, tramples the powerless, and collects unjust taxes.
There is only one who is good in this world, and that is God. The people of the world measure good by morality and conscience, so what counts as good can change with each person’s standard. But when we set the word at the center, we can see that we ourselves may be evil, and we will come to know that no one is good but God. A candle flickers in the wind so that it will not go out, and that flickering is its suffering; in the same way, the life of those who strive to stay faithful in a dark world is suffering itself. Those who suffer to keep God’s righteous word receive his mercy and are protected by the hedge of the Holy Spirit, where the hand of evil cannot reach.
Amos 5:18
18“Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh! Why do you long for the day of Yahweh? It is darkness, and not light.
We must long for the day when Jesus Christ comes, because that day is the day of salvation, the day of the marriage supper of the Lamb. When the trumpet shakes heaven and earth, Jesus will come in glory and send his angels to every corner of every nation to gather the saints who have been saved. But the day of Yahweh that Israel would face was a day of judgment on the wicked—those who offered empty sacrifices, robbed their poor brothers to pay their tithes, and drank wine in God’s house. Because such foolish and senseless people were waiting for the day of Yahweh and expecting blessings from it, God asked in his anger how they could possibly long for it and wait for it.
Even now many people are waiting for the return of Jesus Christ. Those who wait for his return must live with steadfast faith, helping the weak and bearing witness to the gospel; only then can they enter the Kingdom of Heaven by the grace of Christ. I have told you many times that God has no interest in people who stand outside the truth. The wheat is sorted from the chaff within the church itself; we must therefore fear God with honesty and sincerity.
Amos knows how fearful and dreadful God’s judgment is, so he pleads with them to turn without delay. When I tell you to cast the world out of your hearts, it is not because I do not know the pleasures the world offers; it is because judgment is that terrifying. Since we are all God’s people who are meant to enter heaven, we must turn our ears to God’s word rather than to the pleasures of the world, and live by it.
The one who pours out the waters of the sea on the surface of the earth, God said, is named Yahweh. Just as no one can escape a flood that sweeps everything away in a moment, not a single person can escape the judgment of God, who makes even the mountains sink beneath the waters. The day of Yahweh is dark not for lack of light, but because people are spiritually blind and cannot see what lies ahead. Since the spiritually blind cannot see God seated on the throne of glory on the day of Yahweh, they cannot sing praise toward the throne.
Friends, if you do not turn back now, you may receive in full the terrible judgment Amos proclaims. I hope you will keep in mind that, just as the powerful can fall in a moment, you may be judged along with them, and that you will restore your faith now and serve God.
Amos 5:10
10They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly.
When you keep God at a distance, you do not want to hear truth or counsel. If you hear the gospel and still do not give up human righteousness, you may find the counsel a fellow Christian gives you for your own good so burdensome that you avoid them. Because this is the mark of a heart seared as with a hot iron, guard against it.
Hearts like this have one thing in common: they point out only the sins of others and never look back on their own. The person who first looks at their own sin is the one who has been born again and grown mature. When your heart has been hurt, the first sign is that the word, once as sweet as the honeycomb, sounds like nothing but rebuke of your own sin, and you no longer want to hear it. Even knowing that a fellow Christian loves you, you find yourself wanting to oppose and condemn them and to pass judgment on everything. Be careful, then.
Amos 5:13
13Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.
If you counsel someone you love with all your heart, to lead them onto the right path, and they will not listen, there is nothing more you can say to them. With a judgment they could not bear drawing near, Amos cried out for repentance, but the people persecuted him instead, telling him to say nothing. Knowing they could be forgiven if they repented, Amos could not stop proclaiming the word, but they would no longer listen.
When a prophet stops proclaiming the word altogether and falls silent, it means they have given up on the people. So if someone who has always counseled us falls silent, we should look at our own faith and ask whether we have done something wrong. God had made up his mind to raise the rod of judgment, and the people had no intention at all of repenting, so there was nothing Amos could do. Even when such wicked people offer burnt offerings and meal offerings and attend feasts and solemn assemblies, it is not true faith, and they will be judged.
Amos 5:23-24
23Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
To make their sacrifices grand, Israel brought in choirs and all kinds of instruments for worship. Long before, when David offered psalms of praise with every kind of instrument and danced joyfully with the people, that worship too was magnificent. Outwardly, the sacrifices of Israel and of David look the same, but Israel’s, offered for its own pleasure, and David’s, which pleased God, are entirely different.
We too must examine the worship we offer now. We come to church at the appointed time, but are we only filling the hour while thinking about other things? If so, that is not worship. If God says that he will not accept the burnt offerings and meal offerings we bring and will not even regard our peace offerings, then that worship is nothing but a gathering of people. True worship is a life lived by faith—where justice and righteousness never run dry, where we do good and love our neighbors, and where we lift up God.
The lives of Israel and David were entirely different: they differed in how they treated life and in how they feared God. The judgment Amos proclaimed has nothing at all to do with believers who truly fear God, worship in spirit and in truth, and lead good lives. On the day God has decreed for judging the world, he will protect such people, as an eagle shelters its young under its wings.
Those who praise with all their hearts, who hope for the eternal Kingdom, and who pray to save lives will be protected. May you be people who seek God and keep seeking him, treasured saints whom God loves.