Sermon on Amos 4:12

Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel

Amos 4:12

Each of us will be making our own personal review of 2001, but there is one event by which this year will be marked in our history: the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11th. One newspaper stated that this was "the year that changed the world forever". And certainly it is the case that at the year's end our attention is drawn to the world's political scene, fraught as it is with uncertainty and danger, more than ever before.

Other events, equally tragic and significant, marked this year: the foot and mouth crisis, the Selby train disaster, the racist issue in Glasgow, political scandals, the collapse of the peace process in Ireland -- but the attack on the World Trade Centre overshadows them all. This will be remembered as the year of the America's darkest hour.

Amos lived through something similar. He was from Tekoa, an insignificant village some ten miles from Jerusalem; and his occupation was to look after cattle and sycamore trees. Yet he was also a man whom God called to preach his word to Israel during the time that King Uzziah reigned over Judah, and Jeroboam reigned over Israel. And, interestingly, he dates his prophecy in 1:1 as "two years before the earthquake".

No details are given to us about this earthquake; it is difficulty even to date it with precision. But it was clearly significant, because Zechariah also refers to it, in 14:5 of his prophecy: "you shall flee, like you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and the Lord my God shall come and all the saints with you". Everyone remembered the year of the earthquake, when the nation was shaken by the convulsion of the creation, and nature was God's mouthpiece to his people.

Yet these were prosperous times: the reigns of Jeroboam II in the north and Uzziah in the south were marked by material prosperity and scientific advance. There was material enrichment, advancement and success. But the earthquake sent a ripple throughout the land: it was a reminder of how quickly success can turn into loss, and of how the wealth of a nation is no guarantee against the mighty forces of nature. The year of the earthquake was as significant to the people of Amos's day as the year of the Twin Towers will be in the history of the Western free world.

Well, two years before that earthquake, Amos had begun his ministry. He had begun to preach the word, in response to the call of 7:15 -- "Go preach to my people Israel". So Amos had crossed the border into the northern kingdom, and had begun to deliver God's word at the religious shrines of Israel, places like Bethel and Gilgal. Bethel was where Jacob had received the vision from God and the renewal of the covenant. There he had set up the stone pillar, in the place where God had met him.

But Jeroboam had set up a golden calf there, and had turned it into a religious shrine. It had become a place of superstition and of sin. So Amos says sarcastically in 4:4 -- "come to Bethel and sin". There was religion, but no worship of Jehovah; there was thanksgiving offering and freewill offering, but no sin offering. Gilgal had also been a place of covenant renewal, when Israel crossed into Canaan to take possession of the promised land. The God of Gilgal was the God of promise; but the religion of Gilgal was a sham, and God's judgement was set against Gilgal (5:5).

Indeed, it is sobering to see how much of Amos' prophecy is directed against religion. There was no shortage of religion; but in all their religious observance the people had forgotten God. Throughout this chapter, God constantly reminds the people of the means he used to call them back to himself. He had visited them with famine (v6), with drought (v7), with crop failure (v9), with the destruction of animals (v10), and even with the destruction of their cities (v10), and yet the refrain is constant: "yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord".

Do you see how relevant this little book is to us? We have no shortage of religion and of religious observance in our nation. Our multi-race, multi-faith society panders to every type of religious worship. God has been calling us as a nation: he struck our cattle, allowed nations to be at war, toppled governments, brought America to its knees; yet well might he say to us tonight "Yet you have not returned to me, saith the Lord.".

People may wish to distance God from the attack on the Twin Towers, yet Amos reminds us that we cannot do that: "shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord has not done it?" (3:6). God's judgements are in the earth; they have been in our experience over the year that has gone by. Have we returned to the Lord? Have we done so individually? As a church? As a nation?

Just as the wealth of the nation did not keep back the earthquake, the religion of the nation will not keep back the judgement. God's word to his people, sheltering behind a façade of religious respectability, was: "prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"

Let's ask three questions in the light of this awesome prospect.

First, who is this God?

Who is the God which Israel is to meet? Listen to the description of him in verse 13. He is the God who forms the mountains and creates the wind. The trace of his fingers is in all the creation. He stamped the insignia of his glory upon the phenomena of our world. Nature speaks of him. The mountains testify to his greatness. The strength of hills is his, and the spacious sea belongs to him. The gales are his breath and the snowflakes his design. The world says "There is no God": all this is the product of chance. The Bible says that it is the fool who refuses to acknowledge God in his mighty creative power. The God of the Bible is the God of the universe, who set the foundation of the world in its place and regulates the seasons.

He is also the God who declares his thoughts. The world reveals him to us; but particularly the Bible reveals him to us. He has given us his word, revealed to us the purposes of his grace, kindness and love. He reveals himself specially to us in the Old and New Testament. People say we must not take this Bible literally; we need to approach it critically, recognising that much of it is myth, scientifically absurd and historically inaccurate. But this is the Word of God, the anvil that has worn away many hammers. It is the place where we can find out God's thoughts toward us. Creation can tell us what God is doing; the Bible can tell us what God is thinking. The God of the Bible is the God who calls Israel to repent.

Third, he is the God that makes the morning darkness. He can transform our situation in an instant. We expect our mornings to be bright; we expect our lives to be trouble-free. But sometimes, in a moment, God can make our brightness dark, as he can make our darkness light. He can do it in the affairs of men and of nations.

Fourth, he is the God who walks over the earth's high places. What place was there in New York as high as the Twin Towers? Yet they now lie in ruins, and thousands of lives will never be the same again. The experiences of September 11th sent a ripple of confusion, uncertainty and despair through the corridors of power in Washington and London, just as the earthquake did in Uzziah's day. Our high places are the places on which God walks.

This is the God whom we will meet. The God of creation, the God of the Bible, the God of our experience, the God to whom the earth is a footstool. We need to have God's perspective on this world. He counts it less than nothing and vanity. We regard it as strong, powerful, and mighty. And so it is. Yet the Lord, that is on high, is more of might by far than wind, waves or billows. He is the God whose breath is devastating, and whose finger collapses the earth's highest peaks. He is the Lord, the God of hosts.

Secondly, what is this meeting?

God's word to Israel is: you will meet your God. Israel had refused to turn willingly, so the threat is that she will come face to face with God. This is not an invitation to renew covenant, nor a summons to repentance, but an announcement of a face to face confrontation. Just as the priests had called the nation to worship in the presence of God, now the prophet calls the nation before God for judgement.

It had been so easy for the people to retreat to the religious shrines and centres of Israel, to go to Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba. To put their trust in these places with their sacred associations with the past. But the reality of God's being was about to dawn: they were to be confronted with God's holiness, his anger and his hatred of sin.

This is a solemn announcement. It is something from which the Bible does not shrink. Christ preaches the final judgement: the meeting between God and his world. The One who was judged and condemned by the world will stand over the world as its judge. We, like Israel, will meet our God.

The apostles preached the same message. Paul tells us that "we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ". Peter tells us that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, in which the elements will melt with fervent heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up." The writer to the Hebrews tells us that it is appointed to man once to die, and after death the judgement. Jude tells us that the Lord will come "to execute judgement upon all". We, like Israel, will meet our God.

John saw it in the Book of Revelation. He saw the glorious, exalted Lamb in the midst of the throne, slain before the foundation of the world. Yet he saw that Lamb angry; he saw that Lamb gathering nations together and assigning to them an eternal portion, either in Heaven or in Hell. He saw the dead, small and great, before God: none was exempt, all were there. We, like Israel, will meet our God.

What have these earth-shattering events of the past year done to us? Have they opened our eyes to see the uncertainty of things here in this changing world of shadows and of vanities? Have they awakened us to the reality of God? Have we confessed our sin and sought the Lord? We, like Israel, will meet our God.

Thirdly, what is this preparation?

Amos says: "Prepare to meet God". The word is spoken in the light of the opportunities lost, the message that has been rejected. But the Gospel says to us that we can prepare to meet him in judgement, with the assurance that our meeting with him will be in peace. How can we prepare to meet our God? Only by meeting him first in the Gospel. How do we do that?

By meeting him, first, at Calvary. On the cross, Jesus carries our sins. He bears our curse. He tastes our death. He experiences our judgement. He meets God on behalf of his people, experiencing in his own person all that we deserve, and dying the death that we must die. He is made sin for us. All our shortcoming, sin and demerit he accounts for, so that sinners can be justified in his sight. Those who meet God at Calvary are prepared to meet him in judgement.

By meeting him, secondly, in the confession of their sins. If we confess our sins, John tells us, God will cleanse us. That is the one thing these men of Israel never offered -- there were no sin offerings. Sin was not a feature in their theology or in their religion. The loss of the sense of sin had devastating consequences then as it did now. We have been justly outraged by bin Laden's sin; but have we been outraged by our own? Have we confessed our sin to God? Was that not Amos's message? In 5:6 he says: "Seek the Lord, and ye shall live". Those who meet God in the confession of their sins are prepared to meet him in judgement.

By meeting him, thirdly, in the promises of his word. The judgement is inescapable: 9:1ff shows the extent of it. There is no hiding. God has touched the land. Though we dig down to hell, we must face the judge of all the earth. But his promises are sure: in 9:11ff God promises to build up the fallen tent of David, a passage that inspired the church in Acts 15 to realise that there was a Gospel here for all men. As James said to the Assembly of the church: "God has visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name". Those who meet God by faith in the promises of his word, are prepared to meet him in judgement.

I have no doubt that in the cataclysmic, defining events of 2001, God has met with us. He has spoken to us, and called to us. Have we met with him? Recognised and obeyed his voice? Or does he say to us now: "yet you have not returned to me."? Tonight he says to us that we will meet him face to face. The God against whom we have sinned will not hold us guiltless. Yet he has provided a way by which the guilty may be spared. Look to Jesus, and trust him. "Prepare to meet your God, O Israel".