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This verse is taken from:
Amos 5. 21-27
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“search the scriptures” John 5:39
It is important to remember that on every occasion when God moves in judgement, it has its source in the intrinsic righteousness of His own character. Since God is essentially holy, and ‘every transgression and disobedience’ must inevitably ‘receive a just recompense of reward’, Heb. 2. 2, we are not surprised to hear the impassioned voice of Amos as he pleads with the people to hear and respond to the word of the Lord.
In chapter 5 the Lord is first heard appealing to the nation, ‘Seek ye me, and ye shall live’, v. 4. Amos takes up the entreaty from verse 6, ‘Seek the Lord … seek him … seek good and not evil’, vv. 6-14. Even at this late stage, if Israel would ‘hate the evil, and love the good and establish judgment in the gate’, the possibility of a stay of sentence is given, ‘it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious’, v. 15.
With the far-sighted view that characterized his prophetic calling, Amos sees the impending judgement as a foreshadowing of the coming day of the Lord, a day of ‘darkness, and not light’, v. 18; but still the nation refused to turn from their self-centred way of life. The ritual of their formal religion no longer brought any pleasure to God. Feast days were empty ceremonies, sacrifices had no meaning and their singing is dismissed as just ‘noise’, vv. 22, 23. Amos could quite easily have been describing much that takes place under the banner of Christendom in our day!
The response from heaven is seen in verse 24. The righteousness of God - that ultimate moral integrity which issues forth from the throne and courses through the ages as an inexorable torrent - demands that He must act. It was that flood which poured into the fathomless depths of Calvary when the Saviour cried, ‘All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me’, Ps. 42. 7, that sacred place where righteousness met the Righteous One and a firm foundation was laid for God’s dealings with men in perfect justice.
In Amos’ day none could accuse God of injustice when He decreed, ‘Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity’, v. 27.
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