Amos 5:18-24
Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,
as if a man fled from a lion,
and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
and a serpent bit him.
Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
“I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Old Testament reading for Sunday, November 12, is Amos, chapter five, verses 18 through 24. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord, why would you have the day of the Lord. It is darkness and not light, as if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him or went into a house and leaned his hand against the wall. And a serpent bit him is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it. I hate I despise your feast, and I take no delight in your solemn assembly. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your hearts, I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Here ends the reading. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord says the prophet Amos. It is darkness and not light. To understand this, we have to look back and see this phrase, The Day of the Lord. The day of the Lord was the idea of God coming down to visit his people. And usually the idea was that it would save them. And so ancient Israel believed that God was their local God, the God of their people, a lot like the pagan gods around them is like every town had a god and every people had a God that would protect them. And they sort of fit God in with all the other pagan gods in the pantheon. Which is why often they would end up worshipping ball and Ashra and the true God, and sort of fit all of this together as if he was just one of the many. And so the day of the Lord was supposed to be a day when God would come and save his people and protect them. But when he is just one of the many gods that's not how God works. God, sometimes his visitation is judgment. Sometimes his visitation is destruction. And we would see that many, many years after Amos prophesize when the Babylonians would come in and tear down the walls of Jerusalem and destroy the temple. That's the day of the Lord coming with his judgment, that darkness and not light. And so Amos gives us this idea of the day of the Lord the day visiting his people, which for Israel would have been a day of destruction because they were being unfaithful. And that's the image that he says, it's as if you fled from a lion and ran into a bear, as if you get into the safety of your house and under the wall bytes a serpent. It is darkness, judgment. When God comes to a sinful people, he brings destruction. Later, he goes, I hate I despise your feasts. And I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. It continues to go on and talk about the burnt offerings and grain offerings and peace offerings and all the sacrifices and the songs and the harps. Why Does God hate these things? He hates them not because those things are bad in particular, but because they do not come from people who are worshipping God correctly. In the Old Testament, throughout all this time, every time that the Bible would talk about bringing in false gods into the temple courts, or even into the holy place, and the Holy of Holies itself. It's not saying that the people left the true God to go worship false gods, saying they incorporated false worship into the worship of the true God. And so they were trying to act as if God was just like any one of the pagan gods. And in that system, the way you got a God to be on your side was that you offered sacrifices, the sacrifices were almost like bribes, that you would send up to God so that he would protect you. And this pagan system lasted not just through ancient Israel, but it was also the system for Rome, is that if you worship to God, that God would protect your city and your people. If you worship to God that God would provide fertility for the land and crops and such. And so it was an exchange. The idea was you bribe God to protect you, and take care of you. And that is not how the true God works. God had commanded these feasts, the feasts of the Old Testament and the solemn assemblies, he commanded burnt offerings and grain offerings, but he commanded them not as a thing that was designed to get him good things and make him happy. But the feasts, the sacrifices were for the people in their true worship of Him. And so what they were doing was they were simply worshiping God falsely, as if he were a, a, one of the many false pagan gods. It sort of was an exchange, like their works, their offerings, their all their things were given to God in exchange for his gifts. We often think about God that way. I think we think about our worship, our prayers, our devotion, sometimes is all about, if I do these things for God, he does good things for me. Sometimes it's not that explicit, sometimes it's just, well, I'm a good person, God must love me. All good people go to heaven when they die, right? If I know the name of Jesus, I may not receive His gifts in worship, I may not trust in Him. But you know, I've got these Inklings about Jesus, and I've got good feelings about him. All that's just showing our works before God, and saying to God, look how great I am. Perhaps God's judgment, the day he returns will be darkness and not light. For those because the day of Christ's return, is also a day of judgment, and not just resurrection and joy. For those who do not follow Jesus, who are not receiving His grace and filled with the Holy Spirit, it is a day of judgment and destruction. And Amos tells that same thing, not just for Jerusalem, but also for all of us Christians, many 1000 years later, that when the Lord comes, it is not just joy, there will also be destruction and judgment. And we need to be prepared for that. And we do this by worshiping the true God and serving him only and receiving his grace through His Word and Sacraments. And Amos points us to the the severity, and the seriousness of our need to receive these things in the divine service. That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai