Run With It: Seek Good and Not Evil

Monday, January 8, 2024

Seek Good and Not Evil

I am reading in Amos 5. God’s people had fallen due to their idolatries and their other sins, and so God was giving them counsel to seek him, and that they would live. But they were not to seek other avenues to rescue them. They were to seek the Lord and live, lest the Lord bring judgment upon them. For they were those who turned justice to wormwood (bitterness) and who cast down righteousness to the earth. And it says here that they hated him who reproves in the gate, and they abhorred him who speaks the truth.

But it wasn’t just their sins that was the issue, but that they thought they were still righteous in the eyes of the Lord. They thought their salvation and their eternal life with God were secure, that God would not judge them. And they were convinced that God would protect them physically, too. For they were full of pride in thinking that they were untouchable. So Amos was mourning over their spiritual condition. And following is an exhortation to them to repent, for the Lord rejected their hypocritical service to him.

“For I know how many are your transgressions
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
and turn aside the needy in the gate.
Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time,
for it is an evil time.” (Amos 5:12-13 ESV)

And you know what? This could be written today to the church at large here in America, though not to apply to all, but definitely to the majority, it would appear. For so many professing Christians in America have bought into a diluted and altered version of our Lord’s gospel and of his covenant promises to his people, just like so many Jews today are still holding on to the covenant God made with Abraham, which also has the condition of obedience to our Lord’s commands. For all God’s promises have conditions!

Yet so many who profess faith in Jesus Christ today are in the same spiritual situation as were God’s chosen people of old who Amos was addressing. Although they profess Christ as Lord and as Savior of their lives, they are still walking in deliberate and habitual sin against the Lord, and they are not walking in obedience to his commands in holy living. They are liars, thieves, adulterers, the sexually immoral, unfaithful, prideful, gossips, slanderers, malicious, hateful, spiteful, et al, and they do not submit to Christ as Lord.

And if truth be told, it is mostly not ignorance of the truth that is leading so many of them to wander from the truth, but it is the rejection of the truth of God’s word and their sinful hearts’ desire to follow the lies, instead, because they want to continue in their sins but while still holding on to the promise of heaven when they die. So they hate (reject) those who tell them the truth of what the Scriptures teach, for the truth lets them know that if they walk in sin and not in obedience to God, they will not have eternal life with God.

"Seek good, and not evil,
that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
as you have said.
Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” (Amos 5:14-15 ESV)

So, here was the counsel to them at that time, and God is still giving us the same counsel today. First of all, we must know that what is being presented as the gospel today is largely not the gospel that Jesus and his NT apostles taught. It is a diluted and altered and half-truth gospel which appeals to human flesh and which is approved by and acceptable to the ungodly. For it promises them forgiveness of all sins and heaven as their eternal destiny regardless of how they live, and on the basis of lip service only to the Lord.

But Jesus taught that if we are to come after him that we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin) and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to our old lives of living in sin and for self, we will lose them for eternity. But if for Jesus’ sake we deny self, die daily to sin, and follow our Lord in obedience, then we have the promise and hope of eternal life. For Jesus also said that not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING God’s will.

For if we want to be saved from our sins and have the hope of eternal life with God we must be crucified and buried with Christ in death to sin and raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, no longer as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. So we are no longer to let sin reign in our mortal bodies to where we obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it will lead to death, but if obedience is what we obey, its end is eternal life.

[Matthew 7:21-23; Luke 9:23-26; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:15; Galatians 5:16-21; Galatians 6:7-8; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Hebrews 10:23-31; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

So, the counsel here is for all of us to seek good, and not evil, that we may live, for lip service only will not get us into heaven. And we are to hate evil and love good (as God defines good), and we are to establish justice in the gate. And here I see the gate as that door (entrance) into eternal life, and justice is also righteousness. So we must establish righteousness at that door to salvation from sin and to eternal life with God, i.e. we must teach that we must die to sin and obey our Lord if we want eternal life with God.

The Battle for Truth

An Original Work / May 18, 2013

Based off Malachi 1-4