PReparing to meet god
Amos
Main Idea: We prepare to meet God through whole-hearted, whole-life worship.
I. The Sovereignty of God (4:6-11)
In response to the injustice happening throughout N. Israel (cf. 2:6-7; 4:1; 5:11-12; 8:5), the Lord sovereignly sent judgment upon their land in the form of:
Famine (4:6)
Drought (4:7-8)
Destruction of Vegetation (4:9)
Plagues & Pestilence (4:10)
Overthrow & Defeat (4:11)
Despite God’s sovereign intervention in these dramatic ways, the people failed to respond appropriately to the Lord’s discipline (cf. 3:1-2; Ps. 94:12; Heb. 12:5ff): “yet you did not return to me” (5x).
Five times in Amos 4 God says that he had done specific things in the lives of his people to turn them back to himself. And five times it says, ‘Yet you did not return to me.’ Each of these things God had done to get their attention could be explained as natural events with no divine cause. But God holds Israel accountable to listen and respond… In not hearing the voice of God, or seeing the hand of God, Israel failed to prepare to meet him. That is what we must not do. We must wake up and stop looking at our lives like secular, scientific, western naturalists. God is doing things in your life which are gracious providential messages to return to him and trust him.”
~ John Piper, “Prepare to Meet Your God”
II. The Sureness of Judgment (4:12-13; 5:18-20)
Because of Israel’s gross injustice and their failure to repent, the Lord will bring an inevitable judgment as a consequence of their sin. This judgment is multifaceted:
A. The Visitation of the Lord (4:12-13)
Israel is urged to prepare for the arrival of the Lord himself, to whom they must give an account. Amos reminds the people through a ‘creation hymn’ (4:13, 5:8, 9:5-6) that the Lord they will meet is the creator of all, omniscient in his discernment, and omnipotent in his reign.
B. The Day of the Lord (5:18-20)
The inevitability of judgment is described in a parable; a man escapes a sudden encounter with a lion (cf. 1:2) and a bear, only to be bitten by a snake while thinking he is safe in his own home. All of this was meant to stir up awe, reverence, and fear within God’s people (cf. Heb. 10:31).
The day of the Lord is the advent of God into the world in judgment and salvation to usher in his kingdom.
~ Craig G. Bartholomew and Heath A. Thomas, The Minor Prophets: A Theological Introduction
III. The Substance of Worship (5:21-24)
The haunting irony of Israel’s situation is that they assumed God’s favor and approval due to their religious fervor and practice (cf. 4:4-5). However, their worship had become an end to itself, and they were unaware of the fact that God had left them a long time ago.
The Lord indicts Israel for “honoring me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me” (Isa. 29:13; Matt. 15:8-9a). They treated their religious assemblies, feasts, and offerings as a “den” of protection from the rest of their lives which were marked by iniquity and injustice (Jer. 7:11; Matt. 21:13).
Israel had failed to give attention to the “weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (5:24; Mt. 23:23). Repentance would mean replacing their outward, hypocritical, compartmentalized religiosity with true and proper worship that would permeate all of society and all of life as an ever-flowing stream.
The marks of true, substantive worship:
True worship is about God
True worship is in spirit and in truth (Jn. 4:23-24)
True worship is whole-hearted and whole-life (Rom. 12:1; Heb. 12:28)
You may have very sweet voices, but God does not regard your voice, he hears your heart, and if your heart does not sing you have not sung at all. When we stand up to pray it may be that the preacher’s words may happen to be suitable to your case, but it is not prayer so far as you are concerned … unless you join in it. Recollect that if you do not put your hearts into the worship of God, you might for that matter as well be at home as here; you are better here than at home for other reasons, because you are in the way where good may come to you; but for worship’s sake you might as well have been in bed as here… It is not your worshipping God by words in hymns and prayers, or sitting in a certain place, or covering your faces at certain times that is acceptable to him; true worship lies in your heart paying reverence to him, your soul obeying him, and your inner nature coming into conformity to his own nature, by the work of his Spirit in your soul.
~ Charles Spurgeon, “An Axe at the Root”
