Hate the evil and love the good.

“Hate evil.”
Amo_5:14-27
Our present lesson consists of another portion of the prophecies of Amos.
Amo_5:14
You boast of his being with you, but if you wish him to be really so, you must seek him and follow his ways. To boast of our religious privileges, as though God was certainly with us because we go to a place of worship is mere vain glory; God dwells only with the contrite in heart.
Amo_5:15
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgement in the gate where courts of justice were held
Amo_5:15
If men have only a may be, they ought to be earnest in seeking salvation; how much more should we be eager for eternal life when we have sure promises and divine shalls and wills.
Amo_5:16
The husbandman shall be so disappointed in his harvest that he shall lament as those do who bury the dead. Harvest home shall be mournful as a funeral.
Amo_5:17
In the place where joy was most manifest shall be most sorrow.
Amo_5:18
Bitterly will they lament that they said, “Where is the promise of his coming?” They will find the day of which they spoke so jestingly to be overwhelmingly terrible to them.
Amo_5:19
It shall be to the wicked a going from bad to worse, from danger to destruction.
Amo_5:20
No gleams of mercy shall light up the day of visitation; justice shall reign alone, and spread un-mingled terror through the ranks of the rebellious.
Amo_5:21
Formal worship where sin is loved is detestable to God; he is insulted by the outward homage of those who love the wages of iniquity.
Amo_5:23
Costly offerings and the charms of melody are not the things which God desires: holiness is his music, and a broken heart his chosen sacrifice.
Amo_5:24
This he demands, and this he will have; and all short of this is a mockery of him.
Amo_5:25
Even at the first they were idolaters: at the outset they could not hold on in the right way for a single generation: idolatry was rooted in them, nothing could wean them from it.
Amo_5:26
Even Moloch, the most bloody of the idols, they adored; no worship was too vile for them.
Amo_5:27
Idolatry, injustice, and uncleanness provoke the Lord, and he will not suffer such evils to go unpunished. O Lord God of hosts, wash us in the blood of Jesus; renew us by thy Spirit, and keep us true to thee all our days.

Alone upon the means of grace
Our souls must not depend;
Theirs simply is the handmaid’s place
Of means unto an end.

Nor must we only for a while
Put off the sins we mourn,
To flatter conscience, and beguile
The hours till they return;

But low in penitence must lie,
In deed as well as word;
And then must turn to Calvary,
And trust our bleeding Lord