The Idols You Carry Text: Amos 5:25-27
Introduction: The Heart's Caravan
We come now to a passage where the Lord, through His prophet Amos, peels back the layers of Israel's religious hypocrisy. He is not just looking at their behavior in the present, in the days of Jeroboam II, with all their affluence and oppression. He is a God who sees the whole story. He traces the crooked line of their rebellion all the way back to its source, back to the very beginning of their national life in the wilderness. And what He finds there is the same thing He finds in the present: a divided heart, a double-minded worship, and a syncretistic mess that He utterly despises.
Modern Christians are often tempted to think of idolatry as a primitive problem, something involving crude statues in dusty corners of the ancient world. But idolatry is a problem of the heart, and the heart is a factory of idols, as Calvin said. The idols we manufacture today may be more sophisticated, they may be ideologies or comforts or political saviors, but the principle is precisely the same. We are always tempted to carry other gods along with the true God. We want Yahweh's blessing, but we also want to keep our little household gods, our lucky charms, our preferred sins, our sacred cows. We want to be known as the people of God, but we also want to carry along the portable shrines of the gods of this age.
Amos is here to tell Israel, and by extension to tell us, that God will not be trifled with. He will not be part of a pantheon. He will not be one god among many in the caravan of your heart. He is Yahweh, the God of hosts, and He demands exclusive allegiance. When His people refuse to give it, when they try to have it both ways, He doesn't just reject their worship; He rejects them. The consequence for persistent, high-handed, syncretistic idolatry is not a stern lecture. It is exile. It is removal from the land, from His presence. God is essentially saying, "You want to worship the gods of other nations? Fine. Go live with them."
This passage is a divine cross-examination. God is putting Israel on the witness stand and questioning the integrity of their entire history of worship. And the verdict He reaches is damning. It is a verdict that Stephen will later pick up and drive home with lethal force right before he is martyred. This is not a marginal issue; it is central to understanding the covenant relationship between God and His people.
The Text
"Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel? You also carried along Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves. Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus," says Yahweh, whose name is the God of hosts.
(Amos 5:25-27 LSB)
A Rhetorical Indictment (v. 25)
The Lord begins with a sharp, rhetorical question that cuts to the very heart of their history.
"Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?" (Amos 5:25)
Now, on the surface, this question seems perplexing. Didn't they? We have the book of Leviticus. We know that sacrifices were commanded and offered. But the question is not about the bare external action. God is not asking for a fact-check of their historical records. This is a question about the heart. It is a question of fidelity. The implied answer is a resounding "No!"
What God is saying is this: "Were those sacrifices you brought truly for Me, and for Me alone?" The answer is that from the very beginning, their worship was corrupted. Think of the golden calf. This happened at the foot of Sinai, while the smoke was still on the mountain, while the memory of the plagues in Egypt was still fresh. Aaron, the high priest, fashioned a golden calf and declared, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" (Ex. 32:4). They then held a "feast to Yahweh." This wasn't an outright rejection of Yahweh in their minds; it was an attempt to worship Him through an image, to mix His worship with the bull-cult idolatry they had learned in Egypt. It was syncretism from the starting gate.
So when God asks this question, He is saying that their entire sacrificial system, from its inception, was tainted with this idolatrous impulse. The sacrifices were offered, yes, but they were not offered to Him with a pure heart. They were offered by a people whose loyalties were divided, whose hearts were already running after other gods. An unfaithful wife can go through the motions of serving her husband dinner, but if her heart is with another man, is she truly serving him? God is saying that their worship in the wilderness was, in a fundamental sense, not directed at Him because it was not directed at Him alone.
This is a permanent warning to the church. We can have all the external forms of worship correct. We can have the right liturgy, the right songs, the right theology on paper. But if our hearts are secretly carrying other idols, if we are serving God and Mammon, then God looks at our worship and asks the same question: "Are those songs and prayers really for Me?"
The Idolatrous Caravan (v. 26)
In verse 26, God names the specific contraband they were smuggling in their hearts.
"You also carried along Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves." (Amos 5:26 LSB)
Here the charge becomes explicit. While they were supposedly marching under the banner of Yahweh, they were also carrying a secret, parallel worship service. They had portable shrines, little idols they had packed up from Egypt. "Sikkuth" and "Kiyyun" are names for Assyrian and Babylonian deities, likely related to the planet Saturn. The phrase "the star of your gods" points directly to astral worship, a very common form of idolatry in the ancient Near East, where people worshipped the sun, moon, and stars as divine beings.
Notice the possessive pronouns: "your king," "your images," "your gods." God is disowning these things entirely. But the most damning phrase is the last one: "which you made for yourselves." This is the essence of all idolatry. Man cannot stand being a creature, so he attempts a role-reversal. He creates a god in his own image, a god he can control, a god who makes demands that are convenient for him. A god you make for yourself is a god who will never challenge your sin. He is a projection of your own fallen desires. This is why idolatry and immorality are always linked in Scripture. The gods you make will always approve of the sins you love.
Stephen quotes this very passage in his sermon before the Sanhedrin in Acts 7. He says, "Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness... [But] they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands... As it is written in the book of the prophets: 'IT WAS NOT TO ME THAT YOU OFFERED VICTIMS AND SACRIFICES FOR FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS, WAS IT, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL? YOU ALSO TOOK ALONG THE TABERNACLE OF MOLOCH AND THE STAR OF THE GOD ROMPHA, THE IMAGES WHICH YOU MADE TO WORSHIP.'" (Acts 7:41-43). Stephen, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, identifies Sikkuth with Moloch, the god to whom they sacrificed their children, and Kiyyun with Rompha, or Remphan, another star god. The point is the same. Their worship was a polluted mixture from the start.
They had the true Tabernacle of Yahweh in the center of the camp, but in their own tents, they had these little shrines to false gods. This is a picture of a divided life. Publicly for Yahweh, privately for Moloch. This duplicity is something God cannot stomach.
The Inevitable Consequence: Exile (v. 27)
The verdict follows logically and inexorably from the crime. The sentence fits the sin perfectly.
"Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus," says Yahweh, whose name is the God of hosts." (Amos 5:27 LSB)
The "therefore" is crucial. Exile is not an arbitrary punishment. It is the direct consequence of their spiritual adultery. They lusted after the gods of the nations around them, so God is going to send them to live among those nations. Damascus was the capital of Aram (Syria), a major enemy of Israel. But the exile will go "beyond Damascus," deep into the heart of the Assyrian empire. This was a terrifying prospect. It meant the loss of everything: the land, the temple, their national identity, and the visible presence of God's covenant blessings.
But it was a just sentence. The land was a covenant gift, and the condition for remaining in the land was covenant faithfulness. By embracing the gods of other lands, they forfeited their right to God's land. God is, in effect, ratifying their choice. If they prefer the gods of Assyria, they can go and see how those gods treat them. They will learn through bitter experience that the idols they made with their own hands are powerless to save them from the armies of Assyria.
The verse concludes with a powerful signature: "says Yahweh, whose name is the God of hosts." This is not just any god speaking. This is Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Israel. But He is also the "God of hosts," the commander of the armies of heaven. This name asserts His absolute sovereignty over all nations and all armies. The Assyrians who will carry them into exile are not an independent power; they are God's rod of judgment. He is the Lord of history, and He will use the pagan nations to chastise His unfaithful people. This is both a terror and a comfort. It is a terror because His judgment is inescapable. It is a comfort because even in judgment, He is still in control. He is the one sending them into exile, which means He is also the only one who can bring them back.
Conclusion: Check Your Baggage
The message of Amos lands in our midst with the same force it had for ancient Israel. The fundamental temptation of the human heart has not changed. We are still tempted to hedge our bets, to try and serve two masters. We want the security of Christ, but we also want the approval of the world. We want the blessings of the covenant, but we also want to keep carrying our little portable shrines to the gods of comfort, success, power, and sexual autonomy.
This passage calls us to a radical examination of our own hearts. What are the idols we are carrying along in our caravan? What are the secret loyalties that pollute our worship? We may come to church on Sunday and sing praises to Yahweh, the God of hosts, but what about Monday morning? What about our private thoughts, our entertainment choices, our financial dealings? Are we carrying along Sikkuth and Kiyyun in the privacy of our own tents?
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only solution to this divided heart. The judgment of exile that Israel faced, Christ took upon Himself. On the cross, He was cast out, sent "beyond Damascus" into the outer darkness of God's wrath, so that we who trust in Him would never have to be. He endured the ultimate exile so that we could be brought home to the Father.
But the grace of the gospel does not give us a license to continue our flirtations with other gods. Rather, it empowers us to destroy them. Because Christ has set us free, we are now able to throw off the works of our own hands and cling to Him alone. He demands, and deserves, our undivided allegiance. Therefore, let us heed the warning of Amos. Let us examine our hearts, confess our hidden idolatries, and by the grace of God, smash the portable shrines we have made for ourselves. For our God is a jealous God, and He will not share His glory with another.