Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20100620.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Amos: Heeding The Word Of The God Of The Whole World
Part X: Our Great Need To Avoid Religious Hypocrisy
(Amos 5:18-27)
  1. Introduction
    1. Jesus warned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which was hypocrisy, that form of evil where one pretended to be upright when in truth he was not, Luke 12:1.
    2. Leaven is often symbolized in Scripture as an entity that corrupts (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Matthew 13:33), and the corruptive tendencies of hypocrisy are presented in full bloom in Amos 5:18-27, offering us a lesson and a warning to avoid religious hypocrisy for our edification (as follows):
  2. Our Great Need To Avoid Religious Hypocrisy, Amos 5:18-27.
    1. Amos announced a "Woe" to those who desired the "day of the Lord" (Amos 5:18a), and this call in its context would have been a startling one to say the least, a fact we explain as follows:
      1. A "woe" was usually an expression of grief expressed because a party had died, so to pronounce it to the living was equal to "a prediction of death," Bible Knowledge Com., Old Testament , p. 1441.
      2. The "day of the Lord" was an expression about God's time of taking vengeance for His people, a time when God would vindicate them and avenge them for the wrongs done unto them by other people, Ibid.
      3. Thus, the people of Israel longed for the time when God would take vengeance in their behalf for all of the wrongs the Gentile nations had leveled against them, but God's prophet Amos shockingly gave a prediction of death for those who hoped God would slay their abusive foes!
    2. Indeed, God announced that such a day for Israel would not be the expected day of light and joy, but a day of the gloom of great darkness in divine judgment upon themselves, Amos 5:18b!
    3. Israel's experience would then be like that of a man who ran from a lion only to meet a bear, and then to run into a house from the bear and lean his hand on a wall in rest only to have a poisonous serpent bite it, Amos 5:19; Ibid. Namely, it would be a time of inescapable terror and hopelessness, Amos 5:20.
    4. To explain why God's wrath was so strongly, surprisingly leveled at Israel, God exposed her religious hypocrisy that had deluded her, leaving her vulnerable to slip into great sin against Him, Amos 5:21-26:
      1. God announced He hated Israel's feast days, that He would not tolerate (literally "smell") her solemn assemblies, and though she offered Him burnt and grain offerings, He would not accept them, nor would He would even show awareness of her choice fellowship offerings (Amos 5:21-22 NIV).
      2. The Lord even ordered Israel to take away the troubling "noise" of her songs of praise, that He would not listen to the presumed beautiful accompanying music of her harps, Amos 5:23 NIV.
      3. The reason? God explained that Israel needed to let justice roll on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream, Amos 5:24 NIV. In other words, all the religious worship offerings and music minus righteous and just actions of God's people made their religious efforts repugnant to Him, and left the people of Israel deceiving themselves into thinking God would avenge them of their enemies when they themselves needed to be judged for how they had abusively, wickedly treated one another!
      4. By a rhetorical question, God recalled that even in Israel's early days, in her 40 years in the wilderness, she had at times hypocritically worshiped in syncretism [the golden calf of Jeroboam's day recalled Aaron's golden calf in the wilderness, a worship where the calf was likely seen as a god along with the Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt], Amos 5:25; 1 Kings 12:26-30; Ex. 32:1-4; Ibid., p. 155, 1442.
      5. However, such syncretistic worship coupled with hypocrisy had since then led Israel in self-delusion into rank pagan worship of the heavenly bodies: the NIV's "shrine" and "pedestal" can be rendered as "Sakkuth" and "Kaiwan", gods of the stellar bodies, especially Saturn, Amos 5:26; Ibid., p. 1442.
    5. Accordingly, God Almighty promised to cause Israel to go into captivity on the other side of Damascus that was north by northeast of her, a reference to captivity in Assyria, Amos 5:27; Ibid., Ryrie, Map 7.
Lesson: Religious hypocrisy had led Israel to adopt a syncretistic mix of truth and error, and that led to full apostasy where Israel self-deceptively longed for God's judgment to avenge her abusive Gentiles foes when she herself had actually become God's foe for her abusive wrongs, and would be punished.

Application: Since religious hypocrisy dangerously deceives one's self, may we avoid it at all costs!