Amos’ mission to the northern kingdom seemed to be a failure.  He had come up from his sheep tending, in his home in Tekoa, in Judah, because he felt burning within him a message for his people.  But he soon went home.  The chief priest at Bethel drove him out.  And apparently the people did not care.  No doubt even the poor people in whose cause Amos had so eloquently spoken were shocked by his words.  “What, are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah?  Would he have us stop offering up burnt-offerings?  That is almost blasphemous.”

=Bread upon the waters.=—­Yet there were some who listened.  And the proof is found in the existence of the book of Amos in the Bible.  Some one cared enough to preserve and copy the first manuscript of Amos’ sermons and to make still other copies.  Another proof is the fact that within that same century three other supremely great religious teachers caught up his great idea of a new kind of religion and repeated it in new and wonderfully convincing ways.  Of these other prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow.

STUDY TOPICS

1.  Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter part of Exodus, and the book of Numbers.  How important did the Hebrews evidently consider the carrying out of sacrifices?

2.  Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II and Amos.  Find out more (1) about the times in which Amos lived and (2) about his personal history and character.

3.  Read as much as you can in the book of Amos:  chapters 1 and 2 and 7 and 8 are most important for our study.

4.  Are religious ceremonies ever substituted to-day for the religion of justice and right?  If so, explain how.

CHAPTER XVI

A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP

Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere formalities which distracted men’s attention from the thing of real importance, namely, just and righteous dealing between man and his neighbor.

There was another prophet who lived a little later than Amos.  Perhaps as a youth he heard Amos speak.  This was Hosea, who probably came from Gilead east of the Jordan.  This man saw even deeper into the truth of religion than Amos, and his messages wonderfully completed and rounded out the great true words which the older prophet had so bravely spoken.

THE GOOD AND THE EVIL IN THE OLD SACRIFICES

The old religion of sacrifices was by no means wholly evil.  When a family in those days sat down to a happy feast and gave some of everything in gratitude to Jehovah, God really was there, not in the sacred rock, but in their love for one another and for him.  When they poured out libations and burned fat on the altar, God was indeed glad, not because of the smell of the smoke or because he enjoyed drinking the blood, but because his children were grateful.