Worship

One thing God makes clear in His Holy Word, He will not tolerate people dreaming up how they think He should be worshiped and served and simply tossing that in His direction and expecting Him to receive it gratefully. We learn this already with the worship of Cain in Genesis 4. Much of the Torah, the first five books of Moses, are concerned with precise details of worship He prescribes and also include stark warnings against innovation. Think what befell the sons of Aaron who offered unauthorized fire before the Lord (see Leviticus 10). Or the rebellion of Korah recorded in Numbers 16. Or even of poor Uzzah for merely reaching out a hand to steady the Ark in 2 Samuel 6, and how he was immediately struck dead for his error.

If you put the whole thing together, I can think of no better way to express this than dealing with God is not safe for sinful human beings except in the very precise manner of worship which He Himself prescribes. That worship allows sinful mankind to actually have access to Him in such a way that His presence is wrapped in grace. But anything human beings dream up on their own, by very definition, falls under His condemnation, exactly as we hear Him say in the prophet Isaiah 29:13. "Their fear (worship) is merely a human construct," not His divine gift. You must remember the very foundation of the Northern Kingdom; that is actually what happened. You can read the description from 1 Kings 12. This is what the Lord abominates through Amos in this passage; this cult that still called on the name of Yahweh but was devised from his (Jeroboam's) own heart, not from the heart of the Lord Himself.

-Pr. Will Weedon