Amos 4:4-5 Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning… I. THE SCENES OF THIS IDOLATRY. "Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression." Idolatry was flourishing in the seats of their most hallowed memories. "Come," he says, "to Bethel." Here, where everything spoke of God's mercy, they were to transgress. At Bethel the founder of their race, fresh from his home in Haran, had "builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord " (Genesis 12:8). Here, on his return from Egypt, he had received the promise that all the land on which he looked should be given to him and his seed for ever (Genesis 13.). There was no spot in the land so rich in memories of God's great goodness as Bethel, yet here they transgressed. Think of a man calling the Duke of Wellington a coward at Waterloo, or forgetting Nelson in Trafalgar Bay. Even this is a faint picture of the insults which Israel offered to God in the place of His richest mercy to the nation. At Gilgal too they multiplied transgressions. Hosea (Hosea 9:15) even says "all their wickedness is in Gilgal." It was the spot where Joshua, just installed as leader after the death of Moses, placed the twelve stones which they had taken out of Jordan (Joshua 4:24). Strange and sad is the story of human sin! In Gilgal they were despising their Champion and Deliverer. The city had another memory which might have saved them. They kept their first passover in the land in Gilgal (Joshua 5:10-12). Sin has a short memory. It tries hard to escape from the remembrance of God's mercy, and can transgress without remorse in the places where heaven has multiplied blessings. Learn, if you would escape the misery of grieving God, to recall His mercies. Every step of life's journey is rich in proofs of His mercy. Barrow says in one of his sermons, that as men choose the fairest places in great cities for monuments of national deliverance, so we should erect in our hearts "lively representations of, and lasting memorials, unto the Divine bounty." II. THE SPIRIT OF THEIR IDOLATRY. For once they were whole-hearted in worship. They seem to have been prompt to do everything for their idols, though they refused to do anything for God. Sacrifices every day; tithes of their substance every three years; thank-offerings, even freewill offerings, were readily presented at Bethel and Gilgal. Nothing seems to have been too much for them to do. They withdrew from business and pleasure that they might offer their morning sacrifices, etc. To whom? To the idol calf of Bethel, which was soon to be carried — a curiosity of the plundered land — as a present to king Jareb (Hosea 10:6). For God they would do nothing. Their whole strength and wealth were devoted to idols that were powerless to help them, and to priests who were blinding them to the doom which was near at hand. It is a true picture of many still. They will do nothing for God, they are ready to do anything for sin. III. REASON FOR THIS DETERMINED TRANSGRESSION. "This liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord." Their hearts were wrong, therefore they multiplied transgression. There was no call to think in this false worship. The idol priests sought to drown the voice of conscience and to silence any faithful reproof which might have led to reformation of life. Men came from their houses of ivory, which had been built up with oppression, from the palaces where "robbery and violence" were stored up, and there was no Baptist voice to cry as they entered into the idol temple, "Bring forth fruits meet for repentance." The reason for the alacrity which men show in sin is written here: "this liketh you." But let every man of reason consider! Are we children that "like" should rule? (J. Telford, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years: |
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