THREATENED EVIL ESCAPED BY RETURN TO GOD.—Amos 4:12
“When he has said, ‘This will I do to thee,’ he is silent as to what he will do, in order that whilst Israel is left in uncertainty as to the particular kind of punishment (which is all the more terrible because all kinds of things are imagined), it may repent of its sins, and so avert the things which God threatens here” [Jerome]. The words indicate—
I. An expression of anger. “Therefore,” since ye persist in rebellion, regardless of former judgments and respites, “thus will I do.” Judgment must follow judgment until there is a full end. God’s hand is still lifted up, and the threat is the more severe, because nothing is mentioned. If a smitten people continue impenitent, and will not be corrected nor reclaimed, God will prosecute his work and inflict more plagues. His judgments are sadder or lighter according to our conduct under them, and terrible are those strokes which follow inflicted chastisement. “Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained” (Lamentations 2:22).
II. An exhortation to repentance. When God is about to strike he waits to be prevented. Though hardened in sin, and insensible under Divine correction, men may repent, and are exhorted to return to God. Repentance is not impossible. Set about it, prepare to meet God, and he will pardon you. “If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant.”
III. A motive to reconciliation. God can still be met—though punishment is threatened, God’s design and feelings may be seen in it. He chastens to restore. Sins may abound, but “His mercy endureth for ever.” He is willing to be thy God. He waits to be gracious and to be reconciled to thee. “Noah, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” Josiah endeavoured to ward off the threatened judgment by humiliation before God. But some foresee impending evil and escape not (Proverbs 22:3). There is a hiding-place in Christ. Let chastisements awaken you from slumber, and urge you to lay hold of the hope set before you. “We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”
PREPARATION TO MEET GOD
I. The solemn event. Not an ordinary event, not the meeting of man with man, but of man with his Maker. We have to meet God on earth, and especially at the judgment-day, when the atheist and the scorner, the righteous and the wicked, each one will see him for himself and not for another.
II. The needful preparation. If in judgment, prepare, for how can we contend against him? If in penitence, prepare, for he will meet us in forgiveness. A preparation of heart and life are necessary. The sinner must be reconciled; the soul must be renewed and the life be holy. “Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”
III. The motives to enforce the preparation.
1. The greatness of God. If he be such as here described, what folly to oppose him, and what an argument to make our peace with him.
2. The providence of God. “Because I will do this, therefore prepare;” that is, God’s providential dealings with us are a motive to urge preparation to meet him. God comes near in judgments and great events. We should consider our ways. The doctrines of the gospel and the providences of life often fail to rouse attention. Men sleep unconscious of the presence of God and the impending danger. If we do not meet him as a Friend we shall have to meet him as a Judge. “Prepare to meet thy God.”
PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD.—Amos 4:12-13
Man forgets God. Scripture denounces this, and the great aim of its precepts, history, threatenings, and promises, is to produce and cherish the habit of remembering God. The text calls to remember God, is often applied exclusively to the meeting of God in another world; but from the context it applies to what goes on in this world also. Consider, therefore, how to meet God as he comes near.
I. During our time of probation on earth. It is common for those who dispute the reality of God’s coming to assert that he is too highly exalted to notice insignificant creatures. But in Scripture God’s greatness and man’s littleness often combine to illustrate this truth.
1. In the way of repentance. A sinful course is turning back from God, fleeing from a God of mercy to a God of anger. He calls the careless and impenitent to meet him.
(1) Quickly. Now a day of grace in which outward calls combine with inward connections. This time is precious, and will be succeeded by “a night wherein no man can work.”
(2) Carefully. “Let us search and try our ways.” Rush not carelessly and without thought to the throne of God. “Take with you words.”
(3) Decidedly. With the firm conviction that in no other way can peace and salvation be found.
2. In the way of temporal blessings. It may please him to let our life pass peaceably on—to keep off apprehended danger—to make the cup of sorrow pass from us, that we drink it not. Awful accidents and fearful calamities may have plunged others into misery, but we go on from day to day in security and peace. Meet God in a spirit of gratitude and praise.
3. In the way of temporal sorrow.
(1) Endeavour to turn judgment aside by humble prayer (Amos 7:2-6).
(2) To hear it as coming from God. We do not meet God if we look to second causes; nor profit if we do not see his hand and will
4. In the use of the means of grace God meets his people. There is no peradventure like Balaam’s in the believing use of means. Special blessings rest upon family worship, social and public worship, and when we obey the injunction “this do in remembrance of me.” But we lose much from not preparing to meet God in ordinances. Prepare with reverence and godly fear, and with earnest expectation.
5. We meet God in the works of righteousness (Isaiah 64:5). Thus we see it our duty to meet God during the time of probation. In Christ we meet him in repentance, and find him reconciled—in prosperity he calls for gratitude and praise—in judgment we bow with submission and endeavour to turn it aside—in the means of grace we should meet him with glad reverence, and earnest expectation of good things from his Fatherly bounty.
II. Prepare to meet him after the time of trial is over.
1. Very solemn and awakening is the thought of meeting God then. Here we meet him in his works and ways, there we shall meet God himself. Remember this in the engrossing concerns of uncertain life. Eternity, and not time, is the stage of our existence.
2. After death cometh the judgment, when we must “be made manifest” before the tribunal of Christ. Some will meet God in anger, and cry for rocks to fall on them; others will meet a God in mercy. No righteousness will stand them but “the righteousness of God.” Have we that righteousness? Is the thought of that day a part of your daily meditation? Give diligence to be found in him in peace and security. “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” This waiting frame of mind will be one of the greatest helps to prepare, and one of the surest signs that you are prepared to “meet your God” [Ryan].
THE DISPENSATIONS OF PROVIDENCE CARRYING OUT THE DESIGNS OF GRACE.— Amos 4:13
In true repentance we must have right views of God and his claims. The prophet here describes God in the resources of creation and the wonders of providence to induce Israel to think of him and prepare to meet him. “For” if mercy move not, let majesty. God is great, and can carry out his designs of love—
I. By his mighty power in creation. “He that formeth the mountains,” &c.
1. Power in the past. Before the mountains were brought forth God was. He created the solid parts of the earth, and reared the everlasting hills. “Which by his strength setteth fast the mountains.” They owe firmness and stability to him. The Alps and the Andes are “girded” and preserved from falling down by his power.
2. Power in the present. “And createth the wind.” The heathens believed in an inferior God, whom Jupiter appointed a store-keeper to raise and still the winds at pleasure. But God “bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries” (Jeremiah 10:12). The winds and the seas obey him. “He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.” The most solid and the most subtle, the mildest and the most terrific, agents were created by God. If we read rightly we see not only power but mind in the works of God. Men are thus encouraged to flee unto him. The salvation expected from the hills typifies deliverance from sin and protection in Christ (Psalms 89:11-12). Control over winds sets forth his dominion over minds. All creation manifests his beneficence to men.
II. By his unceasing activity in providence. “That maketh the morning darkness.” God not only created, but governs all things according to the counsel of his will. He is unceasingly active for the good of his creatures. “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”
1. Literally God makes the morning dark. He spreads the clouds and overcasts the sky. He creates light and darkness, and gives day and night.
2. Providentially God makes the morning dark. The morning of joy and prosperity is turned into the night of sorrow and distress. The sunshine of Divine favour may be followed by retributive judgments. It is folly to trust in any means of deliverance but his. Our expectations may be darkened by unlooked-for changes. Everything that is joyous and beautiful may be effaced by darkness. “Seek him that … turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night.”
“For we have also our evening and our morn.”
III. By his omniscient presence with men. “And declareth unto man what is his thought.” He can read the heart and understand the thought afar off (Psalms 139:2). We hide our sins and do not wish to know our hearts; but “God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” He reads and reveals us to ourselves and sets our sins in order before us. “The thought of God as a Creator or Preserver without,” says Pusey, “affects man but little. To man a sinner, far more impressive than all majesty of creative power, is the thought that God knows his inmost soul. God knows our thoughts more truly than we know ourselves.” There is no deceiving him in our conduct. We have to do with One who searches the heart. “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins” (Jeremiah 17:10; Psalms 7:9). The moral government of God is ever administered on the principle that man is accountable for his thoughts. The law of God weighs the purposes of men and the dispensations of God. “Give to every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
“On human hearts he bends a jealous eye.”
IV. By his supreme control in all things. “The Lord, the God of hosts, is his name.” Not only the God of Israel, but the supreme Ruler of men and Disposer of all things.
1. He is supreme in the universe. “The Lord of hosts.” Head over all principalities and powers in heaven and earth. He has being in himself, and is the fountain of being and blessedness to others. “Who is over all, God blessed for ever.”
2. He makes all things subservient to his purpose. “Treadeth upon the high places of the earth.” He walks on the sea (Job 9:8), and on the wings of the wind (Psalms 104:3). He subdues the proud and dethrones the mighty. Whatever is eminent and exalts itself against him he will put down. He reigns above all creatures, controls the highest spheres of power, and everything around him stands ready to execute his will. Thus the prophet sees in the course of nature the will of God, links the physical with the moral events, and makes the one find its loftiest end in the other. National calamities are revelations of God’s wrath. But these only endanger the material welfare of a people. A God of transcendant greatness sends them to draw us to himself. Nothing will avail before him but righteousness and truth. Prepare to meet him with joy and not with grief.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Amos 4:12-13. The Rev. Mr Madan was desired one evening, by some of his companions who were with him at a coffee-house, to go and hear Mr John Wesley, who they were told was to preach in the neighbourhood, and to return and exhibit his manners and discourse for their entertainment. Mr M., educated for the bar, went with that intention, and just as he entered the place, Wesley named his text, “Prepare to meet thy God,” with a solemnity of accent which struck him, and which inspired a seriousness that increased as the good man exhorted his hearers to repentance. Mr M. returned to the coffee-room, and was asked, “if he had taken off the old Methodist?” “No, gentlemen,” said he, “but he has taken me off;” and from that time he left their company and became a converted man [Whitecross].
Amos 4:13. “I never had a sight of my soul,” said the Emperor Aurelius, “and yet I have a great value for it, because it is discoverable by its operations; and by my constant experience of the power of God, I have a proof of his being, and a reason for my veneration” [Whitecross]. Let us incessantly bear in mind, that the only thing we have really to be afraid of, is fearing anything more than God [Book of the Fathers].