CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amos 5:21.] Festivals and sacrifices will not avert judgments. Your feasts] of human origin, not Divine appointment (Isaiah 1:10-15); the expression of Divine abhorrence is most emphatic.
Amos 5:23. Noise] as singing is contemptuously called.
HOMILETICS
THE RITUAL WITHOUT THE MORAL.—Amos 5:21-23
The judgments threatened will not be averted by feasts and sacrifices. God expresses his abhorrence to mere ceremonial observances, and will not accept heartless worship. “I hate, I despise,” &c. Notice—
I. Religious assemblies without true worship. Israel had feast days, to abstain from servile work and rejoice in God; solemn assemblies, to worship God and put themselves under some restraint. But in these things they followed their own device, or imitated the worship at Jerusalem; substituted human inventions for Divine institutions; “your feast days,” not mine; and thus prefigured many more who call themselves Christians. Men uphold the means of grace, attend the worship of God, but the name of God they will not adore. They defend religion, appoint ordinances, and put formal for spiritual service. They pervert the times and the places in which they should meet God. Solemn assemblies, social and private prayer, may prove a curse and not a blessing. Outward worship and superior privileges may increase our condemnation, and cause rejection in the sight of God. “I despise your feast days.”
II. Daily sacrifices without true obedience. They offered burnt-offerings, tokens of self-sacrifice; peace-offerings, signs of gratitude, from fat beasts, the best they could get; but they were not regarded. “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?”
1. Their ritual was external. The grandeur of the gift is nothing without the heart of the giver. Costly offerings are of no value without love. God hates dissembled worship. It is double iniquity. “The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination; how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind?”
2. Their conduct was immoral. They despised the poor and neglected judgment; cherished uncharitable feelings, and had no desire to do right. Love to God must be seen in right conduct towards men; true worship, in pure morality; and faith, in good works. God smells not the savour of splendid rituals without consistent lives (Leviticus 26:31). He may accept the moral without the ritual, but never the ritual without the moral. “To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.”
III. Instrumental music without true melody. It was noise, not melody; pleasing to man, but distasteful to God. Church-music is often mere display—intoned with energy, and ending in self. Music is the expression of emotion, the outburst of praise to God. When rightly conducted it will be attractive to man and honouring to God. In times of revival it has elevated the heart and quickened the life. But the best gifts of nature and art may be made instruments of evil. Music is abused when joined with immoral poetry and allurements of sin. When grace is not in the heart we do not sing with the spirit and with the understanding. If the life is not in tune with the lips, God says, “Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amos 5:21-22. Israel had feasts of solemn joy and the restraint of solemn assemblies. They offered whole burnt-offerings, the token of self-sacrifice, in which the sacrificer retained nothing to himself, but gave them freely to God. They offered also peace-offerings, as tokens of the willing thankfulness of souls at peace with God. What they offered was the best of its kind, fatted beasts. Hymns of praise, full-toned chorus, instrumental music! What was wanting, Israel thought, to secure them the favour of God? Love and obedience. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And so those things, whereby they hoped to propitiate God, were the object of his displeasure [Pusey]. Here is a warning to all who think to please God by elaborate musical services in his house; while they do not take heed to worship him with their hearts, and to obey him in their daily life [Wordsworth].
Amos 5:24. The sound of music, rolling in full chorus, will not profit in a drought of justice and righteousness. “Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner, for it was not sent him of the Lord” (Sir. 15:9).
When justice is duly administered it is said to ran down as waters, &c. Now waters and streams run not to one man’s house, or door, but the stream offers itself to every man, it runs down to the poor man’s door as well as to the rich man’s door, it runs by the meanest cottage as well as by the princely palace. Righteousness must run like a stream; it must be a common, a universal good [Caryl].
The first outward step in conversion is to break off sin. He bids them let judgment, which had hitherto been perverted in its course, roll on like a mighty tide of waters, sweeping before it all hindrances, obstructed by no power, turned aside by no bribery, but pouring on in one perpetual flow, reaching all, refreshing all, and righteousness like a mighty (or ceaseless) stream. True righteousness is not fitful, like an intermitting stream, vehement at one time, then disappearing, but continuous, unfailing [Pusey].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Amos 5:21-23. A man is not what he saith, but what he doeth. To say what we do, and not to do what we say, is but to undo ourselves by doing [Dyer]. Hypocrisy is filling up some radical defect with some shallowy pretence [Binney].
“’Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the God.” [Shakespeare.]