According to a survey from Ligonier ministries at www.thestateoftheology.com, evangelicals believe the following: 31% say science disproves the Bible 33% say gender is a choice 38% say Jesus was not God 62% say God accepts all religions 66% say people are good by nature 75% say God first created Jesus • The first Woe Oracle is related to Israel’s misguided interpretation of the Day of Yahweh (the Day of the Lord). The second Woe Oracle is related to Israel’s misdirected sense of material security. Like a Roaring Lion Amos 5:18-27 1) Be careful what you desire (5:18-20). • The word desire demonstrates their intense anticipation. In other places the word is used to describe sharp hunger or thirst. Several times in Proverbs (11:23; 13:4; 21:25-26) this desire is denounced and compared to covetousness. The verb demonstrates how much the people longed for God’s deliverance. • So Amos asks “Why would you have the day of the LORD?” • And Amos illustrates in verse 19 the idea, as one writer noted, “of security fraught with fresh danger.” • If Jesus would return this week, how many in our city, our state, our nation, and our world, will not be ready? Be careful what you desire. 2) Be careful what your worship reflects (5:21-24). • We can sing theologically-precise songs with great fervor but if the songs on our lips don’t translate into actions from our heart, we’re missing the point. • Maybe, just maybe, what matters most is how a song makes us feel about others and what a song causes us to do for others. Be careful what you desire. Be careful what your worship reflects. 3) Be careful who, what, and how you worship (5:25-27). Charles H. Spurgeon - “If Christ is anything, he must be everything!” God’s people tried to mix their faith with the pagan faiths of others. “Worship was empty; justice had dried up. All that they had been brought to the land to accomplish was marked by abject failure. Exile was God’s obvious response. Land abused will be land lost.” --David Allen Hubbard
