If There's No Bad News... There's No Need for Good News.

I finished reading the book of Amos today.  Amos was a simple herdsman in the 8^th century B.C. who one day was called by God to take a message of judgment to the nation of Israel.  Israel was a nation that God had blessed in many ways but they had grown cold to God and their fellow man.  They were pretty good at maintaining a ritualistic religion but they had no love for God in their hearts.  Along with their apathy towards God was a continual focus on their selves, so much so that they were neglecting the poor around them.  It was to this nation that Amos took one of the most severe messages of judgment we find in the Scriptures.  Amos speaks about a day that God will judge the earth because the people who dwell here have rejected the law of the LORD (2:4).  This day of judgment will be a day that no man can stand, in fact, he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day (2:16). 

One of the most devastating realities about the book of Amos is that it is written to the nation of Israel.  Israel is a people loved and blessed by God and yet they have turned their back on him.  “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (3:2).  Israel was very good at external religion, they brought their tithes and sacrifices regularly (4:4), but they did so with wicked and rebellious hearts.  In light of their lack of repentance this is their message, “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel” (4:12)!  God despises their festivals and feasts that are done on a surface level, and in fact if songs are not sung from a heart of love and righteousness he can’t stand to hear the sound of them (5:23).

Amos points out that the people to whom judgment is coming are a people who do not think that judgment will ever come.  They put far away the day of disaster (6:3).  These people do not want to hear this message of judgment and in fact tell Amos to leave and do his work elsewhere (7:12). 

In light of this absolute rebellion of not even listening to the final warning of God, the day of judgment is described in vivid detail.  “So many dead bodies!  They are thrown everywhere!  Silence!  Hear this you who trample on the needy…  on that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.  I will send a famine on the land – not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD… they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it” (8:3-12). 

There will be no hiding from the Lord on this day.  “If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven from there I will bring them down… and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good” (9:2-4).

There is a message of restoration at the end of the book.  It is explained in 5 verses.  God will restore after this day of judgment, and all who have repented of their sin and trusted in Christ's death on the cross will experience that restoration.  But how will we ever come to that place of repentance if we don’t bend our ears to hear this message of the wrath that is coming.  We must see the holiness of God and his demand that we be perfect.  Then we must see the reality that we are much less than perfect and therefore in no way can we be right with God.  Then we must see the perfectness of Christ, and the fact that he was crushed on the cross not for any sin of his own, but for mine.  There is a day of judgment coming, but I will not be a direct recipient of it because Christ has already experienced my day of judgment on the cross.  I tremble at the thought.  I despise my sin that still remains in this body of death but at the same time I rejoice in my Savior Jesus Christ who has purchased me by his blood.  He has suffered the wrath of God on my account and there is now no condemnation for me.

Yesterday I was sitting at Starbucks looking out of the big glass windows.  I could see out very clearly into an open area where there were many people walking by shopping, and sitting outside talking around a large fountain.  A storm came rolling in, and it was a big one.  The lightening began to crash so close that the thunder was shaking the windows.  I was amazed by how the people were unaffected.  Granted some smiled and looked up to the sky at this wonder in the clouds, but the majority of people did not even bat an eye.  As the rain was coming down many people seemed to feel very safe and comfortable sitting underneath of an overhang as the lightening flashed all around.  Children were playing in the rain and even young teenagers were walking out to the fountain in the midst of the storm. 

I felt that this was a picture of our culture today.  Everyone feels very safe.  We are a people who feel very secure.  Those outside of the church no longer even hear of the wrath of God, and those inside the church have neglected it to the point where we have diminished saving grace to a toy in a McDonalds happy meal.  Yet whether we acknowledge it or not the truth remains, and this day steadily approaches.  I pray that we would see the reality of this day while there is still time to run to Jesus.  There is amazing grace in him if you would but come.

“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria… 

O you who put far away the day of disaster.”  - Amos 6:1,3