Every day, in fact. Amos 4.12
Amos 4 (5)
Pray Psalm 81.11, 12.
“But My people would not heed My voice,
And Israel would have none of Me.
So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart,
To walk in their own counsels.”
Sing Psalm 81.11, 12, 8.
(St. Petersburg: My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less)
“My people would not listen to Me, but hardened their hearts most hideously;
I cursed them for their hard-hearted ways to wander in darkness all of their days:
Refrain (v. 8)
“O Israel, hear, admonished now be; My people, repent, return to Me!”
Read and meditate on Amos 4.1-12; meditate on verse 12.
Preparation
1. What was God going to do?
2. For what should Israel prepare?
Meditation
What “thus” did God intend to do to Israel?
We might be inclined to review the previous several warnings and what God had done then—famine, drought, warfare, destruction, blight, and so forth. But God had already done those things, and still the people refused to return to Him.
Why would He just do more of the same? No, I’m inclined to think that God had something far worse in mind for Israel, something more just and horrible even than what they had known before. The people had not returned to God, despite His many efforts to bring them to repentance. “Thus” He would likewise do to them: He would not return to them. For generations the people of Israel had neglected His Law, refused His standards for worship, panted after pagan idols and ways, and given themselves up to every lascivious, oppressive, and bloodthirsty practice—all in the name of their “gods”—all the while refusing to return to the LORD.
“I get that,” saith the LORD. They wanted nothing to do with Him, so He would no longer have anything to do with them. The Assyrians and Egyptians would carry the people of Israel away into captivity, causing them to intermarry with pagan peoples and transplanting other nations into the former tribal lands of Israel, to become the Samaritans of New Testament times. And “thus” God would have nothing more to do with those ten tribes; He would not return to them.
Except: A day was coming when even the hated Samaritans would turn to the Lord. For they would hear the voice of Jesus and stream out to Him (Jn. 4), and the voice of His apostles and be converted to Him by the thousands (Acts 8), as God made of this ruined nation a new people in Christ Jesus. For they were not all Israel who were Israel (Rom. 9.6-9). Israel gave up on God, but God never gave up on His chosen people.
And He never will.
Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
For many of a certain age, along with the Burma-Shave billboards, we also remember those equally large signs along the highway that read, “Prepare to Meet Your God”.
Did someone think we were especially bad drivers; or were they trying to get across a spiritual message? Maybe both.
Either way, this is exactly what God was saying to the Israelites: “Your behaviors are reprehensible. I have warned you over and over, yet you have not listened or returned to Me. So, this is it: prepare to meet Me.”
Whether this “meeting” was their earthly end, or their beginning of an eternal separation, it was going to be bad. No doubt about it.
They had in their memory banks God’s plague-action against the Egyptians; assuredly they must have remembered His final act— “And it came to pass at midnight that the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead” (Ex. 12.29, 30).
The people of Amos’ day had already experienced the plagues; so they must’ve had some inkling as to the possibilities of what could follow. And yet. They did not change their ways or hearts.
Jesus spoke of the same possibility to the people of His day: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10.28).
“Thus I will do to you…because I will do this to you…prepare to meet your God” (Amos 4.12)
“‘Do you not fear Me?’ says the LORD. ‘Will you not tremble at My Presence…?’” (Jer. 5.22).
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matt. 23.37).
And yet: There is hope in returning and repentance. “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength” (Is. 30.15).
“Behold, I make all things new…
I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son” (Rev. 21.5-7).
Prepare to meet your God in this way; not the other.
Reflection
1. How do you prepare to meet with God every day? What comes out of those meetings?
2. What does it mean to fear God (Matt. 10.28)? How does fearing God relate to loving Him?
3. Drifting from the Lord is the result of neglect of our salvation (Heb. 2.1). How can you know when you are beginning to drift? What should you do then?
What does this particle כה, ke, thus, mean? Some think that God here denounces on the Israelites the punishments they had before experienced: but the Prophet, I doubt not, means something much more grievous. John Calvin (1509-1564), Commentary on Amos 4.12
Pray Psalm 81.13-16, 8.
Pray that God would revive His Church, everywhere in the world, and that His people would repent of their sins, be renewed in their souls, and recommit themselves to following Jesus in everything they do.
Sing Psalm 81.13-16, 8.
(St. Petersburg: My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less)
Now let us all abandon our ways and listen to God, and offer Him praise!
Our foes He will so quickly subdue, extending His hand to save and renew.
Refrain (v. 8)
“O Israel, hear, admonished now be; My people, repent, return to Me!”
Then even those despising the LORD would falsely obey and follow His Word;
in vain they seem to follow His way, yet judgment awaits on God’s chosen day.
Refrain
The finest foods for us He will buy, and furnish us an abundant supply.
How sweet our lives can be in the LORD, when only we heed His glorious Word.
Refrain
T. M. and Susie Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.
