What does God mean when He says, "Seek me and live" (Amos 5:4)?

Here the Lord entreats Israel once more to desist from her idolatrous way and to seek Him instead of the worship at Bethel and Gilgal, for judgment would surely be executed there. "Seek ye Me and ye shall live." Then again, "Seek the LORD and ye shall live," and in case of disobedience, He, whom they refused, would fall like fire upon the house of Joseph. The house of Joseph is mentioned because the tribe of Ephraim was the most powerful tribe in the kingdom of Israel, and Joseph was the father of Ephraim. Again they are told to seek Him "Who maketh the seven stars (the Pleiades) and Orion." These two great constellations were well known to the ancients (Job 9:9; and 38:31). And He also turneth the shadow of death into morning and darkeneth day to night. This is an illustration of the judicial actions of the Lord. As in nature He turns night into day, and the day into dark night, so He turns the deepest misery and sorrow into joy and happiness, and changes the bright day of prosperity into the night of woe and disaster. He is the Lord of judgment, who controls the waters of tribulation and wrath, the floods of judgment, and makes them pass over the earth.

“Return unto ME,” He said over and over again to Israel. He remembered them, the kindness of their youth, the love of their espousals, when they went after Him (Jer. 2:2); and when they were far from Him, He chastened them in His faithfulness to bring them back. “Yet,” five times He says in one chapter, “have ye not returned unto ME” (see Amos 4:6, 8-11). All was in view of that, as He reiterated again and again. “Seek ye ME, and ye shall live,” said the Lord; “but seek not Bethel” (the house of God); seek HIM who made the seven stars and Orion, the Lord is His Name (5:5-8). In our Lord Jesus Christ He is now made known to us. He is fully revealed now; as He said, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father”; and in Him, raised from among the dead, we have redemption through His blood, and are brought to God in the One who makes Him known. It is therefore our privilege to rejoice in Him. Well may we worship and adore.

In Amos 5 is the third call to hear with a lamentation over the ruin of the virgin of Israel. The prophet only speaks of the present government of God: in no way does he deny an after raising up of Israel, but that their unbelief precluded any means now of staying the evil that had set in. The city that went out (that is, to war) [by] a thousand shall retain a hundred, and that which went out [by] a hundred shall retain ten for the house of Israel. Then Jehovah appeals solemnly to Israel to seek Him and live, not to seek Beth-el, nor to enter into Gilgal, nor to pass to Beer-sheba; "for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought." When idolatrous superstition turns names and places invested with religious associations against the truth, faith must look simply and solely to God Himself. Here again it is said, "Seek Jehovah, and live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth." It was but vanity or worse to cry up the sacred character of spots where God had once spoken, now alas! openly turned to the purposes of idolatry, not consecrated to God, but by the will-worship of His people. "Seek him that makes the seven stars [the Pleiades, which consist of seven greater stars, but of many more lesser] and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth: Jehovah is his name: that strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. They hate him that rebukes in the gate, and they abhor him that speaks uprightly. Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time."

In verses 14-17 the appeal is more moral, but in conformity with the call to seek Jehovah. "Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so Jehovah, the God of hosts, shall be with you as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that Jehovah the God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. Therefore Jehovah, the God of hosts, the Lord, says thus: Wailing shall be in all streets: and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing. And in all the vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, says Jehovah."

Still there was hope, for the Lord is merciful and slow to anger. Judgment is His strange work. Therefore once more we hear His pleadings, "Seek good and not evil that ye may live, and so the LORD God of hosts shall be with you, as ye have spoken." "Hate evil and love good!"

Thus we see how the sacred antiquity of the above places would act as a snare to the heart of an Israelite, and tend to draw him away from God. Indeed, it was the fact of their being associated with so many hallowed recollections, with so much that was really of God, that would constitute them such dangerous snares. The devil does not present to the Christian things flagrantly evil and unsound; he knows that such would at once be rejected; but he works by the instrumentality of things which have an appearance of truth and godliness about them; yea, and things too which, it may be, had once the divine sanction, but which after all, will not bear the searching light of the Word. It would not do for an Israelite to have rested satisfied with the old institutions of Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba; he might be most diligent in seeking after these, and yet stand much in need of the exhortation, "Seek ye ME"

What, then, is the moral we are invited to draw from the above train of thought? Simply this, Communion with God, and Communion with divine institutions, are very different things; we may often lose the former, in our zeal for the latter. How often have we displayed much zeal in contending for some Christian institutions, while, perhaps, our souls were barren and void of personal communion with Christ Himself. How often, too, like the disciples going to Emmaus, have we talked much about the things connected with Christ, when, if He Himself were to draw near, we should not know Him. At such times, it might very reasonably have been said to us, "Seek not to institutions — seek not to ordinances — seek not merely the things which are connected with Christ, but seek Himself — His own blessed Person — the divine reality of personal fellowship with the risen Son of God, without which the fairest institutions are powerless — and the most solemn ordinances cold and lifeless." Nor is it only to merely human ordinances that all this would apply, but even to that which is of divine authority; for example, the Lord's Supper — the ministry of the Word — Christian fellowship, &c., all of which are, as it were, folds of the drapery which may have Christ beneath for a soul that really seeks Him therein, but which may only tend to conceal Him from the view of those who are engaged and attracted by outward form rather than by truth, and spirit, and life.

Let us, then, seek to realize the person of Christ. Let us endeavour to find Him, in the breaking of bread — in the ministry of the Word — in the fellowship of Christians — in the offering up of prayer and praise — in a word, in everything in which He has told us He will be found; but let us not mistake happiness in these things for happiness in God, lest we be found, in our sphere, and according to our measure, helping on, in the peculiar evil of the last days, A FORM OF GODLINESS WITHOUT THE POWER.

In a word, all these things had become mere form without power, and the Lord might, even in Elijah's time, have to speak to the house of Israel concerning them in the following impressive words: "Thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, Seek ye Me, and ye shall live: but seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live." (Amos 5:4-6) Here is an important truth for all those whose hearts are prone to cling to ancient forms.

Amos 5. After having deplored the ruin of Israel, He contrasts the places of their false worship with Jehovah, the Creator, and exhorts them to come unto Him and live. But Israel put off the thought of the evil day. Evil had the upper hand. The wise man kept silence, for it was an evil day. Nevertheless the Spirit calls to repentance. It might be that Jehovah would have compassion on the affliction of Joseph. Yet there were those in the midst of all this iniquity who professed to desire the day of Jehovah. The prophet tells them that it should be a day of terror and of judgment, of darkness and not of light. They should fall from one disaster into another. Jehovah took no pleasure in their offerings and sacrifices; He could not bear with their solemn feasts; He desired judgment and righteousness. But the people had been the same from the beginning: it was not Himself that they worshipped in the wilderness, but their Moloch and their Remphan, which they had made to themselves; and they should be carried away captive, beyond even the land that was now the object of their dread. This last appeal of the prophet involves deeply important instruction. The evil principle which was their ruin had been amongst them from the beginning: the interposition of God's power had checked it, and had turned aside its effect; but there it was, and with the decline of faith and godliness, when human interests no longer restrained it, the same evil had reappeared. The calves of Dan and Bethel were but a renewal of the calf they made in the wilderness. The people of Israel shewed themselves in their true character, notwithstanding all the longsuffering of God; and the judgment dates from the first act that displayed what they had in their heart. Here again we see all Israel looked at morally as one, when the ten tribes are spoken of. But this is made evident in a clear and striking manner by the whole prophecy.

Amos 5. Israel is still denounced, but is exhorted to seek the Lord. Some desired the day of the Lord, but that will be very dark and with judgement. Such was their wickedness that God hated and despised their assemblies and their offerings: indeed they had turned to Idolatry.

Amos 5

Israel is still denounced, but is exhorted to seek the Lord. Some desired the day of the Lord, but that will be very dark and with judgement. Such was their wickedness that God hated and despised their assemblies and their offerings: indeed they had turned to Idolatry.

But the sons of Israel were in a very different spirit. They were superstitious and withal, as usual in such a case, distrustful of God. They talked piety, but there was no substance, no reality, in them; and therefore the prophet can but warn what that day must be to such. "Shall not the day of Jehovah be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it." That day ends all fond conceits, and will admit of no lightness of heart; that day will not deal gently with sins or dishonour to the Lord. That day may well call for sackcloth and ashes, for repentance and humiliation of heart; as this day is one of rebuke and blasphemy. Happy is he who is now in the secret of the Lord and in communion with His feeling as to both. So Jehovah says, "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." The pretence of honouring Him in sacrifice and feast-day, in song or harp, was odious, joined as all was with self-will and departure from His word, and the setting up of idols. Then He reminds them that this departure from God was no new thing in Israel. "Have ye offered to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says Jehovah, whose name is the God of hosts." When the Lord judges, He always goes back to the first sin. This is much to be noticed. It is not otherwise when grace works in our souls. Suppose a Christian, for instance, to have been walking practically at a distance from God. To begin merely with what he was doing today or yesterday is not enough: we must go back to the beginning. The Lord will have him to look well and judge, and see what was the root of fruits so evidently bad. Thus even a fall is used by grace as the means of rousing the conscience by the Spirit of God. One is thus made to feel the low point to which one may have come. But the object of God in permitting it is to lead to a retracing of the steps to the first point of departure from Himself.