Prepare to meet your God

Text Amos 4 Time 30 01 22 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

We've begun to look at the Book of Amos. So far we've looked at the first three chapters. In Chapters 1 and 2 Amos prophesies to the various nations around about - Damascus, The Philistines, Tyre, etc but includes first Judah and then, in more detail, Israel itself, the land to which Amos had been sent to prophesy, from Tekoa in Judah, in the eighth century BC.

Last week we began to look at Chapters 3-5 which focus on Israel and her sins and the coming judgement. Chapter 3 begins with a series of questions for those who profess to be God's chosen people, urging them to see that things happen for a reason. Life is not random. So when God is at work, we ought to be awake to the fact. We should realise that he is active. God always announces his judgements to sinners through his prophets, as he does here through Amos. For the people of Israel at this time the threat was in the form of invasion by the Assyrians but we are all in danger of judgement if we go on in our sins, temporal judgements and eternal judgement. A good parent will warn first, before punishing, Here are God's warnings of coming judgement. Do you not see where it will lead, if you refuse to repent? This is the lesson then - to turn from sin and find forgiveness in Jesus Christ before the great day of judgement arrives when God will judge this world in his wrath.

Now in Chapter 4 we have more of the same sort of thing. Chapter 4 contains (in verse 12) the most famous phrase in the whole book, one of the most famous phrases in the Bible, Prepare to meet your God.

Traditionally it is the text that those men with sandwich boards that you used to see in cartoons would use. In Bath there is a Baptist church called Widcombe. For years they have had four texts painted on the chapel roof that can be seen from miles around. This is one of them - Prepare to meet your God. In context, verses 12 and 13 are the last verses of the chapter and they say

Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God. God is then defined as He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth - the LORD God Almighty is his name.

So the message tonight is to prepare to meet your God - the God who made you and all things, the God who speaks in the Bible, the great and powerful God who turns darkness to light. But why is that needed? Because of what God is going to do. And what is he going to do? To know that, we need to look at the first 11 verses of the chapter. So three things this evening

1. Listen, you proud sinners, see that your religion won't save you; you are going to be judged

Amos speaks first, focusing on the women of Israel. He is not very diplomatic. Hear this word, he says (we are in the court room again) you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, "Bring us some drinks!" As we have said, this was a period of peace and prosperity for Israel and so the people had grown rich and complacent. That included the women. These women, says Amos, are like fat cows on the rich pasture of Bashan to the east of Galilee and in Samaria. They were guilty of oppress(ing) the poor and crush(ing) the needy. You can picture them on their sun loungers by the pool, or whatever was the equivalent in those days, and telling their husbands to bring them more martinis to drink. Meanwhile they didn't care what was happening to their servants or the poor of their communities.

They need to know that (2) The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness: (what a contrast with them) "The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. You will each go straight out through breaches in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon," declares the LORD. We are not sure what Harmon refers to but again this is the warning that the Assyrians are going to come and carry the people off into exile. Having called the women cows, Amos says that hooks will be put in their noses to take them away and the tiddlers will be caught with fish hooks. They will go out through the breaks in the city walls that the Assyrians have destroyed.

The people of Israel did not think of themselves as sinners. Indeed they were very religious and so Amos says, full of irony, that you sometimes get from the prophets (4, 5) Go to Bethel where they had set up an altar and sin; go to Gilgal where they also had altars it would seem and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings - boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do, declares the Sovereign LORD. Yes, they were very proud of their religious activities but it was all doing nothing to prevent the judgement that was surely going to come.

So let's apply it to ourselves today. In world terms we are all very affluent. We each have a roof over our head, plenty to eat and drink, luxuries too, to some extent. Are such things dulling us to the fact of sin in our lives? Are we well fed while others go hungry? Are we forgetting about those in need? Think of the persecution many Christians in the world are suffering in our day. Do we not realise that a day of judgement is coming?

And don't hide behind your religion. "Look, I'm here Sunday evening and I pray and read the Bible at home too." Good, but let's not assume that will save us. And is our religion as pure as it should be, anyway? Are you sure that false motives are not creeping in here and there? Is all your thinking about God what it should be? Yes, we may largely escape temporal judgements but even if you have the easiest life imaginable there is still a judgement to face at the end of time. You will have to stand before God to be judged by him. Never forget that.

2. God has sent many judgements but have you ignored them and not returned to him

In verses 6-11 there is an obvious pattern. Five times the LORD speaks about temporal judgements that have come on Israel and five times Amos repeats the phrase yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD. The examples of temporal judgement he gives here are famine; drought; blight, mildew and locust plagues; plague and sword and, finally, fire of some sort. So

1. Famine. 6 I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD.

2. Drought. 7, 8 I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD.

3. Blight, mildew and locust plagues. 9, 10 Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD.

4. Plague and sword 10 I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD. The bobonic plague was the scourge of mankind for hundreds of years.

5. Fire 11 I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD. It is not entirely clear what the reference is here but to some sort of Heaven sent disaster, such as an earthquake.

The truth is that God sends disasters on people and one of the reasons he does so is to wake them up to their danger, to stop them in their tracks so that they begin to look up to him and remember to seek God. They are reminders of the final judgement that is going to come. The problem is that these judgements come and go and if we survive them then we quickly forget and move on.

Just think of the troubles that have come on this country in recent years.

• Back in the early 80s there was AIDS. Now this disease mainly affected those who engaged in homosexual activity, which is sinful, but it was passed on to others such as their wives and sometimes babies and haemophiliacs. Today worldwide some 36.7 million people are living with HIV, and 35 million have so far died from AIDS.
• Then there was what was once called mad cow disease but that we learned to call BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy).and its human from vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). In the UK since 1996, 177 people have died from vCJD, while over four million cows have been destroyed to prevent the spread of BSE.
• In 2001 there were some 2,000 cases of Foot and mouth disease in farms throughout the British countryside and more than six million sheep and cattle were killed in a successful attempt to halt the disease. Another outbreak in 2007 was even better contained.
• We more or less escaped SARS but there were cases overseas and about 200 deaths. Again Ebola was not something that affected many British people though many died in Africa.
• Norovirus has been with us for some time and still more than 50 people die in the UK each year. With 'flu it's over a thousand.
• And then, of course, this covid pandemic has killed millions worldwide and well over 150,000 people in this country.
• And now inflation is back with us and those of you who have lived through such times know what troubles that brings.

And yet has there been a general revival of interest in the things of God? Have people been repenting in the light of these various calamities? Now, I'm sure there are examples of individuals who have been led to repent because of these troubles but for the most part there has not been repentance. It is the same for the troubles that have faced people personally - cancer and heart disease, financial troubles, family tragedies and so on.

On one occasion people came to Jesus and they told him about an incident where, as Luke puts it (13:1), Pilate had mixed the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them - (another known incident at the time) do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Whenever trouble comes in any shape or form it should produce repentance in us. Repent before it is too late.

3. Therefore you need to prepare to meet the LORD God Almighty

So you see the background to what is said in verses 12 and 13. Therefore given their sins and their empty religion this is what I will do to you, Israel, says God and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God. God that is who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth - the LORD God Almighty is his name.

So how do you prepare? We know we are going to meet with God one day and so we need to be ready. But how? What should we do?

I think there are four things we can say.

1. First, remind yourself daily that there is a God and that he is the God with whom we have to do. It is very easy to fill our heads with all sorts of other things and to forget about God. We dare not o that. We must learn to (as some call it) practice the presence of God. As we go about our daily tasks we need to do it conscious that God is watching over us and is present always.

2. Then there must be faith in Jesus Christ. There is a great judgement coming and at that time we will have to bow before Jesus and confess that he is Lord. We need to do that now and trust in him for forgiveness of all our sins.

3. With faith there must be repentance, repentance from every known sin. Daily we must be turning from sin to Christ. On that day our sins will be brought before our eyes unless we have forsken them and found forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

4. Finally, think of that day. See everything in the light of that great day of judgement when it will all be out in the open. It is the day when, as Paul puts it (Romans 2:16), when God judges people's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. This is why Jesus himself says (Luke 8:16) there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.

An old story is told of a king in bygone days and his 'jester', who would sometimes say very foolish things and sometimes very wise things. One day the jester said something so foolish that the king, handing him a staff, said, 'Take this, and keep it until you find a bigger fool than yourself.'

Some years later, the king was very ill and lay on his deathbed. His courtiers were all called; his family and his servants also stood around his bedside. The king, addressed them and said, 'I am about to leave you. I am going on a very long journey, and I shall not return again to this place: so I have called you all to say "Goodbye".' Then his jester stepped forward and, addressing the king, said, 'Your Majesty, may I ask a question? When you have gone on progress visiting your people, staying with your nobles, or paying diplomatic visits to other courts, your heralds and servants have always gone before you, making preparations for you. May I ask what preparations your Majesty has made for this long journey that he is about to take?'

'Alas!' replied the king, 'I have made no preparations.'

'Then,' said the jester, 'take this staff with you, for now I have found a bigger fool than myself.'