Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of
hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. Amos 5:15
I can be pretty stubborn. I think if we are brutally frank, many of us would say like Rev. Marion
McCreath, “Amen to that”. When I am convinced that my position is right, it takes a lot to
convince me otherwise. Undoubtedly, one of the most dangerous things in life is to be convinced
we are on the right track when we are really not. None of us likes to be wrong. And if,
perchance, we happen to be wrong, we are very willing to buy into a delusion that says we are
right. When we are wrongly convinced that we are right, then we are capable of all kinds of
things. First, we believe that those who oppose us are wrong. Then we believe that they are
tempting us away from the right. We then believe that such people are evil, and it is our moral
duty to oppose them. This can become messy very quickly.
As we read through the story of the nation of Israel in the Scriptures, it is obvious that they got
off track of righteousness often. Jeroboam did not want his people going back to Jerusalem to
worship alongside their former fellow citizens, and so he created an alternate religion from a
variety of Israel and non-Israel laws and customs and assured the people that the gods he was
presenting to them were really the ones who led them out of Egypt. It was those in the south who
were worshiping in the wrong way. In response, God sent prophets to the people in an attempt to
call them back to the right path, with no positive response. God had to use grand signs and
miracles to get their attention. They were utterly convinced they were in the right. So, for the
Prophet Amos to announce that not only were they not on the right track, but that they were
facing terrible judgment for it, their reactions ranged from apathetic indifference to angry
opposition. After all, they assured themselves that they were very religious. There is no reason
God should be upset with them.
Importantly, God did not really care about their religion. He wanted their hearts. God knows that
their bad religion was a revelation of the state of their hearts. We become what we worship. By
worshiping the wrong things, they were becoming something other than what God wanted them
to be. Not surprising, they had become unjust, unkind and cowardly. They lacked compassion
and mercy for the weak and the hurting. They were violent and flew to anger quickly when they
did not get their way. Idolatry had boiled the righteousness out of them while concentrating the
sinfulness into an ugly mess. How would this be resolved? Today’s text is clear: reflect God’s
character again. They needed to pursue good and not evil. They needed to hate evil and love
good. They needed to commit themselves to justice in all of their dealings, both public and
private.
God still wants our hearts, and our worship is still one of the main vehicles He has for accessing
us. When we worship the wrong things, we will gradually come to reflect those things. We need
to worship God consistently and carefully until we start to reflect His characteristics in our lives.
If we are riding along on the wrong track, going in the wrong direction, the God who loves us so
much that He sent His Son to die for our sins, so we can have eternal life through Him, is going
to do everything He can to get us headed in the right direction again. His grace is still available.
God wants us to enjoy the blessings of living in His kingdom, and to avoid the pain of sin’s
terrible end. Yet, the choice is always ours to make. What will be our choice today? Amen.
Jermaine Gibson