Good evening, everyone. I was going to start with rugby as well. I was going to say, if you felt a bit down after rugby this afternoon, I'm going to really depress you over the next half hour or so, as usual, John find the more positive message than I did.
But we're in Amos, we're in the difficult part of Amos in that the message is one of judgment, it's one of God's holiness, and yet I'm sure we've got lots that we can learn from it together this evening.
So let's read together Amos chapter 4.
Amos chapter 4, we'll read the whole chapter, it's not that long, and it says,
Hear this word, 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.
The sovereign Lord has sworn by his holiness. The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fish hooks.
You will each go straight out through breaks in the wall, and you will be cast out towards Harman, declares the Lord.
Go to Bethel and sin. Go to Gilgal and sin yet more.
Bring your sacrifices every morning.
Your tithes every three years.
That's probably every three days, actually, for better translation.
Burn leavened bread as a thank offering,
and brag about your freewill offerings.
Boast about them, your Israelites,
for this is what you love to do,
declares the sovereign Lord.
I give you empty stomachs in every city
and lack of bread in every town.
Yet you have not returned to me,
declares the Lord.
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,
the other 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.
Many times I struck your gardens
and vineyards,
I struck them with blight and milled you.
Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees.
Yet you have not returned to me,
declares the Lord.
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 camp.
Yet you have not returned to me,
declares the Lord.
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.
Therefore, this is what I will do to you, Israel.
And because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel.
He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man.
He who turns dawn to darkness
and treads the high places of the earth.
The Lord God Almighty
is his name.
I'm sure God will be with us
as we try to make some sense
of this chapter this evening.
If you ever watch soaps on television,
not recommending you do,
but if you ever do watch soaps on television,
there's one sure sign
that things are about to go wrong.
You have two people talking together
and they say,
we've been through really difficult times,
it's been tough for the last little while,
but things are going fine now,
nothing can go wrong in the future.
And that's immediately followed by a murder
or a big fire
or a confession of adultery
or something
that just blows everything up again.
It's when people think things are going okay,
when they become a bit complacent,
that then they start to go badly wrong.
I think if you can get that picture in your mind,
you've essentially got what Amos 4 is all about.
You can imagine the people in Israel saying,
we've had pretty tough times.
We've had famines.
We've had droughts.
We've had locusts come and devour all our crops.
We've had wars.
But that's all behind us now.
We're doing well.
We're wealthy.
We're having a religious revival.
We've never had so many sacrifices on the altars.
God must be really pleased with us.
And God says to them,
and not in a good way,
prepare to meet your God.
It was when they felt things were going well,
when they had become complacent
in their religion,
in their society,
that God comes and says,
you are about to be faced with judgment.
One of the things that's come across
very powerfully to me
as I've been studying Amos
and particularly chapter 4
is the danger that we can become complacent
in that kind of way.
We can look at a chapter like this
and say,
well, this is about people a long time ago.
It's about a godless people.
It's about a people
who were under God's judgment.
We're not under judgment.
We're under grace.
It doesn't really apply to us.
And I hope this evening
we can see that a lot of this
really does apply to us.
Not the ultimate judgment of God.
If we are believing in the Lord Jesus
and we have the grace of God in our lives,
then we can have confidence
that when we meet God
that we will be declared righteous
through the blood of the Lord Jesus.
But some of the practicalities
of the way that the Israelites were acting
and were thinking
can be very relevant indeed to us.
Before we get into the chapter,
let's just orientate ourselves.
A reminder for those
who've been here the last couple of weeks
or if you haven't,
just a brief introduction to Amos.
So Amos is a preacher, a prophet
who came from the southern kingdom of Judah.
He was a shepherd
and God sent him to be prophet
in the northern kingdom of Israel.
And John presented to us very clearly
two weeks ago
that the code for understanding Amos
is 8351.
If you remember 8351,
then you're starting to begin
to understand what it's about.
It starts with eight oracles of judgment.
There are then three sermons of rebuke.
There are then five visions of judgment.
And right at the end,
there's one oracle of salvation.
And in 08351,
we're halfway through three.
So we had the eight oracles of judgment
a couple of weeks ago from John.
We had the first sermon of rebuke
from Mike last week.
We're on the second sermon of rebuke this week.
And then John will be back next week
to give us the third one.
So what we're looking at this evening
is very much a continuation
of what we looked at last Sunday with Mike
and it will be continued next Sunday with John.
And this chapter, I think,
divides into three main sections.
So section one,
it goes from verse one to verse three.
And I've given that the title,
Uncaring Comfort.
You'll see why hopefully in a minute.
The second section goes from verse four to verse five.
And I've called that unworthy worship.
And then the third section goes from verse six
to the end of the chapter.
And I've called that unrecognized rebuke.
And then at the end,
there is God's message of judgment on the people.
So with that in mind,
let's get ahead into the chapter.
The first thing we've called Uncaring Comfort.
And Amos, having talked largely to the men
in chapter three,
or God three,
Amos having talked largely to men in chapter three,
he concentrates to begin with on the woman
at the start of chapter four.
And he describes them as cows of Bashan.
Now, in our culture,
to describe a woman as a cow
is about as bad an insult
as you could ever get.
But this wasn't in itself an insult.
In that culture,
cows were very important.
They were a very important part of society.
And to describe someone or a woman as a cow
was not the insight we'd be today.
To describe them as a cow of Bashan
might even be treated as a bit of a compliment.
The cows of Bashan lived in a part of the country
or exist in a part of the country
where there was lush grass,
where there was lots of feeding for the cows,
where they could go brig and fat.
And the Bashan cows would have been,
I suppose,
a bit like the Aberdeen Angus in our day.
They were the best of the best.
And they were the cows that people would want,
the beef that they ate it,
that the people would want to have.
And so it's not in itself
describing them as cows of Bashan
an insult.
But what God takes from it
is certainly a condemnation
of the woman here.
Because he says,
your comparison to the cows of Bashan
isn't because you're the best of the best,
you're the ones everyone would want.
Rather it's because the cows of Bashan
have this lovely pasture,
they have these great fields
full of grass and flowers and everything else,
and they just tramp around,
they take whatever they want,
and they don't care what they leave behind.
And he says,
you're a bit like that.
You oppress the poor and crush the needy
and say to your husband,
bring us some drinks.
He says to the woman
that they're,
what they are thinking of,
what they want to remember,
their luxury,
their luxury is important to them,
but they want to forget
the poor and the downtrodden.
Now when it says,
they said to her husband,
bring us some drinks,
I don't think the picture is
of sitting beside the pool,
sipping pina coladas and saying,
hey husband,
come and give me another drink.
I think rather it's saying to her husband,
you go out
and you make sure my lifestyle is funded.
So I can live a life of comfort
and of ease,
you go and do that,
and I don't really care
what you do to achieve it.
The women probably weren't
directly oppressing the poor,
but they were encouraging their husbands
to exploit others,
and so God says,
you are oppressing the poor
and crushing the needy.
You who think you're the cream of society,
who think that God has really blessed you,
and you've got everything you need.
Actually,
you're getting it
only through your own greed
and only through exploiting others.
And so God says,
there's a judgment coming on you.
Verse two,
very strong,
the sovereign Lord
has sworn by his holiness.
So we have to say,
well,
God has said you will be judged,
but it actually says,
the sovereign Lord
has sworn by his holiness.
The holy God has looked on them,
and he has said,
I am a God of justice,
I am a God of holiness,
and because of that,
I must do something about it.
And then you get the picture,
and we're in quite difficult territory
in terms of the translations here,
but I think the NIV
has probably got it about right here,
and the picture is of
the woman being led away.
If you imagine a cow being led,
it'll often have something
through its nose,
a hook through its nose,
and is led by that.
And God's saying to the woman,
it will be the same for you.
Now we know from contemporary history,
and from pictures that we see,
that the Assyrians,
who would ultimately conquer the Israelites,
quite often they led their captives away
with a hook through their nose,
or through their mouths.
So perhaps quite literally,
what God is saying here,
would come true.
That these women who thought
they were in great comfort,
that they were secure,
that they had everything they needed.
Ultimately,
what would happen to them
would be led away in disgrace,
into exile,
or into slavery.
And they wouldn't even be led
through the gates of the city.
That's what verse 4,
verse 3 is about.
They would go through breaches
in the wall.
In other words,
a conquering eye would come in,
it would destroy the walls of the city,
and as part of the humiliation
of the residents of the city,
it would drag them out of it
through the holes
that had been made in the wall.
We don't know what cast out towards Harmon,
and mean,
Alec Matier says,
it's one of the great unsolved mysteries of Amos.
Let's not try and solve it this evening,
but I guess it wasn't a good place
for them to be going.
This was a message of God
against the luxury of people,
people who depended on luxury,
and saying,
because you've got your luxury
through exploiting others,
then you are going to be judged for it.
What's the relevance of that for us today?
Well, we live in a society
that in many ways
has been built on exploitation,
on people in positions of power
and authority
and exploiting others.
Now, whether it's in our own country,
or whether it's the way our country
in some ways has treated other countries,
certainly in the past,
and taking advantage of them
in a way which is not fair.
So whether it's the sweatshops in China,
whether it's the banana planters in Africa,
or whatever it is,
in our society,
we have been quite happy
to see others exploited.
But actually, most of us,
I say we're happy to see them exploited,
we're actually quite happy
not to see them exploited.
We'd like to turn a blind eye
to the fact that there is injustice
in our world,
and it makes us more comfortable,
then almost so be it.
Now, we wouldn't express it
in that kind of way,
but that actually is probably
how our society has acted.
And I've seen things,
certainly in the past,
perhaps changing slightly now.
And so there is a message here for us.
God has prospered us
as a society,
as a country.
But has he prospered us,
has our prosperity,
to some extent,
come through taking advantage
through exploiting others?
Do we have a real concern
as Christians
for those who are being downtrodden
in our world?
I struck this morning
when John was praying
for other churches,
when he mentioned P's and G's,
he talked about their passion
for social justice.
That's a passion
that all of us should have.
And I'm not saying
we go out with placards
on the streets
and demonstrate
and that kind of things,
but we shouldn't be willing
to see injustice
or to ignore injustice
and to let it happen.
Now, hopefully,
none of us would directly exploit.
Others Christians do sometimes.
Hopefully,
none of us would do that.
But perhaps,
in some of the actions we take,
even the things we go out and buy,
in the way we treat others,
in the way we look at situations
like what's happening,
in the Middle East at the moment,
can we look at them
with the eye that says,
how would God view this?
And is our society,
in some ways,
going against God's way
and exploiting others?
Christians and I,
early in the year,
were in Miami Beach.
And when we were in Miami Beach,
there was only really one church
that was very easy to go to,
which was the community church there.
Now, it wasn't,
by any stretch of the imagination,
evangelical.
We went to the service on Sunday
and the minister sent quite a long time
trying to defend himself
against charges
that he didn't teach the gospel.
And as far as I gathered,
the gospel,
where he was concerned,
was God accepts everybody
and we should too.
So it wasn't the kind of sermon
we'd expect here.
It might be quite time
to send him Graham's sermon
from this morning,
to teach what the gospel
really is about.
But the slogan of the Miami
community,
Miami Beach Community Church
was,
we do justice.
And they do.
We went to a soup kitchen
while they were there,
inviting the many poor
and homeless in Miami Beach
to come in
and to see something
of real love.
If you look on their website,
there are lots and lots
of things that they do
that make it clear
that they see justice
as being a key element
of Christian faith.
Now, very easy for us
to think,
well, we do gospel.
And we do.
And quite rightly so.
At first,
it doesn't preach the gospel.
It is dreadfully failing
the world round about us.
But as we do gospel,
it is really important also
that we do justice.
If our lives really
are being transformed
by the grace of the Lord Jesus,
which is our vision
as a church,
part of that transformation
is being able to look
with the eyes of God
and to see what's wrong
in the world round about us
and to do whatever we can
to make things better
for the poor
and for the downtrodden.
Remember the words of God
in Hosea,
I desire mercy,
not sacrifice.
And it's great for us
to come and to enjoy
as church
and being together,
studying God's word,
preaching the gospel,
inviting others
to come to know
the Lord Jesus.
But alongside that,
we have to have
the concern
that God has
for those
who are not in such
a privileged position
as us.
The Lord Jesus,
remember,
came to preach
good news
to the poor.
And while the proclamation
of the gospel
is our key thing
as a church,
we need also
to have that passion
for social justice
and desire
to see real justice
in our world.
And not to say,
I'm all right,
I'm comfortable,
so I'm not going to bother
about anything else
or where things come from
or how I came
to be comfortable.
We need to have
that passion
for justice
that God has
that Amos displays here.
So no uncaring comfort
for us.
Let's move on, though.
Verses 4 and 5,
Amos moves on
to the people's religion.
And so I've called this
unworthy worship.
Now what you need
to understand
with these verses
is that God
is being very,
very sarcastic
in what he says.
that he is making
the point
by mimicking
what would be
a call to worship.
So the call
to go to Bethel
or to Gilgal.
That would have been
a call that would have
been legitimately used
for people to come
and to worship God
at his altars.
But God is saying,
you only do that
because you are there
to sin.
Go to Bethel
and sin,
go to Gilgal
and sin yet more.
Now this would have come
as a real shock
to the people.
Because the people
of Amos' day
thought that they were
okay from a religious
viewpoint.
Bethel and Gilgal
had been shrines
to false gods
since the day
of Jeroboam.
But there's no suggestion
here that they're going
to sacrifice
to false gods.
The suggestion
appears to be
they're going
to sacrifice
to the true God,
the God of Israel.
And as the people go,
they say,
we are really going
to show our devotion
to God.
So the normal thing
would have been
to bring a sacrifice
once a year
to God.
People say,
we don't just do it
once a year,
we do it every single day.
Now,
probably some exaggeration
here for effect,
but they're saying
not once a year,
every morning.
Normal thing,
again,
would have been
to bring your tithes
to God
every third year.
And I think
with the right translation
which the ESV
and others use,
the people are saying,
actually,
we bring our tithes
to God
every three days,
not every three years.
The significance
of the leavened bread
is slightly less clear cut.
It might be
that the leavened bread
was a kind of voluntary extra
in the thank offering.
So you brought
your animal sacrifice,
you brought
your leavened bread,
and if you're really,
really spiritual,
you brought your
unleavened bread as well.
Or perhaps it was the fact
that it was burnt,
that the offerings normally
would be given
and would be taken
by the priest.
This was totally devoted
to God.
Or perhaps in this context,
it was simply the fact
that unleavened bread
would be a bit more obvious
than leavened bread
because the yeast
had made it rise.
And so people could
very clearly see,
oh yes,
you've brought
a really good sacrifice
to God
and you might then
get credit for it.
But the point in what
Amos is saying here
is these people
weren't coming to God
with real worship.
They were coming to God
from their lives
of injustice,
of oppression,
of others,
and they were doing
what they saw
as their religious duty
and they thought,
well,
that will be okay for me.
And I'll just do
a bit of extra
in my religious duty
to particularly please God
and everything
will be all right.
And when they looked
at their worship,
the first thing
they wanted
was that it would
look good.
So that's in
verse 5.
Brag about your
freewill offerings,
boast about them,
you Israelites,
for this is what
you love to do.
They were coming
to God,
coming ostensibly
to worship God.
Actually,
what they were doing
was they were looking
around and saying,
everyone should be
really impressed
with me
and with how often
I worship
and with all the things
that I bring
to the altar.
They really weren't
coming to worship
God at all,
they were coming
to look good
to others.
They also think,
I think,
coming to feel good.
If you think
you've come
and you've done
your religious duty
and you say,
God has prospered me
and I'm giving back
to God,
I'm making these
sacrifices,
you're thinking,
well,
I'm all right.
God's going to really
think I'm a great
believer in him
and follower of him.
I feel good
about my worship
of God.
But perhaps what
Amos is saying,
what God is saying
through Amos,
it's no good
looking good,
it's no good
feeling good
if you're not
actually doing
good.
if your worship
isn't genuine,
if your lives
deny what you
would attempt
to portray
to others,
then your worship
is absolutely
worthless.
Looking good,
feeling good,
may make you
think you're good,
but actually
it's the way you act,
it's the difference
that God in your life
makes in your
everyday living
that really
matters.
remember the
parable of the
Lord Jesus,
of the traditionally
called the Pharisee
and the publican,
and this guy
goes into the
temple and says,
really thankful
God that I'm not
like other people,
I do my fasting,
I do my tithing,
and I do my
religious duty,
unlike this guy
in the corner,
and it's the one
in the corner
who is so repentant
and so broken
that God hears
and God forgives.
Well, the people
were like the
Pharisee.
How should we
come to God?
Psalm 24,
Who shall ascend
the hill of the
Lord?
Who shall stand
in his holy place?
He who has
clean hands
and a pure
heart.
What does that
mean for us?
I think it means
when we come
on a Sunday
or at other times,
when we come
to do our
obvious acts
of worship
for God,
that we don't
come with the
attitude,
either I'm here
so that I can
look good to
others,
or I'm here
so that I can
feel good
before God.
We must come
with the attitude
of the publican,
the attitude of
the one who can
say,
I'm not worthy
to be in God's
presence,
and yet by the
grace of God,
by the marvellous
things that he's
done in my life,
I am able
to be here.
And we must
also come looking
back at our
lives,
looking back
and saying,
in the past
week,
has my life,
has my testimony
as a Christian
been consistent
with how I am
portraying myself
today?
Or am I
actually as
hypocritical as
these Israelites
here,
that I come
to present
apparently to
God and to
engage fully
in worship,
and yet the
real worship,
the worship
that is in
my transformed
life before
God,
that is just
not there.
The fact that
I come to
three services
on a Sunday,
however many I
do,
the fact that
I'm enthusiastic
in my worship,
the fact perhaps
I lead worship
or lead services
or preach,
or whatever I
do,
these things
are all
worthless,
unless I come
before God
in sincerity
and with a
desire that
he is glorified
and not
that I
am glorified.
It is so
important that
when we come
before God,
we come to
give our
thanks,
our praise,
our worship
to him,
and that we
come with our
sins confessed,
and that we
come with lives
where we are
trying to follow
him and to
live for him
and to be
obedient servants
of the Lord
Jesus.
So easy to be
guilty of
unworthy
worship.
Finally,
unrecognised
rebuke.
Now I'm
going to have
to turn around
because I
can't read
that on
the back
screen.
The words
of C.S.
Lewis,
very well
known,
God
whispers to
us in
our
pleasures,
speaks to
us in
our
conscience,
but shouts
in our
pains.
It is
his megaphone
to rouse
a deaf
world.
In other
words,
very often
the way in
which God
tries to
gain our
attention
and to
point out
what's wrong
in our
life can
be through
the bad
things that
happen to
us.
And that's
what the
rest of
this chapter
is all
about.
Five times
God describes
bad things
that happened
to the nation
of Israel.
And five
times he
says,
despite that
you have
not returned
to me.
The megaphone
was on at
full blast.
It should
have been
obvious to
the people
that God
was trying
to say
something to
them.
And yet
they totally
ignored it.
They didn't
realise that
God was
speaking to
them through
the pains
they were
suffering.
So I have
to look
briefly at
these five
things.
Verse six,
I've called it
clean teeth and
empty stomachs.
NIV talks
about empty
stomachs.
The literal
translation with
some other
versions use
is clean
teeth.
Now the
idea is if
you've got
clean teeth
it suggests
you've not
been eating
so it has
the same
idea as
empty
stomachs but
it's just
a slightly
different
idiom.
So in
other words
God says
in the
past I've
sent famine
to you.
You've had
times when
you couldn't
eat when
there wasn't
enough when
I was trying
to speak
to you
through that
famine and
yet you
ignored me.
When things
got better,
when you got
the food,
you forgot
about it
and my
message to
you wasn't
received.
He then
said you
had parched
fields and
dry mouths.
So with a
picture of
God withholding
rain and
the quite
strong imagery
of there'd
be rain in
one place and
everyone would
rush to that
place, find the
rain had gone
there and
rush somewhere
else and
it'd be going
all over the
place trying
to get water,
trying to get
something to
drink and
hoping that
somewhere the
crops would
have come at
the time of
harvest.
God says
to them,
you had
this as a
second warning.
You had
these droughts
that should have
spoken to you
and help you
to recognise
that I was
judging you
and you
ignored them,
you still
didn't return
to me.
Third thing
that God
sent was
blighted
plants and
devoured
fruits.
Verse 9,
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.
So plants
were diseased,
became
unfruitful,
inedible because
of that,
or when there
was fruit,
the locusts
came along
and they
took it all
so the people
had nothing,
again a time
of a shortage
of what the
people needed,
a time when
they should have
looked and
said,
what is
God saying
to us?
But they
didn't,
they ignored
him.
Number 4,
called diseased
bodies and
rocked
corpses.
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.
Comparison
of Israel
and Egypt.
Egypt for
the Israelites
was the
place where
there had
been slavery,
it had
been a
place of
wickedness
where God
had judged
the people
of Egypt
to force
the Pharaoh
to let
the Israelites
go.
And Amos
says,
God says
to Amos,
I sent
the kind
of things
on you
that I
sent on
Egypt
and even
then you
didn't
recognize it
and didn't
return to
me.
And
then the
final one
I've
called
destroyed
cities
and
scarred
survivors,
not quite
so clear
exactly
what's
in mind
here,
but it
appears to
be again
that there
was some
kind of
distraction.
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.
If
Egypt
was bad,
Sodom and
Gomorrah
was much
worse.
Sodom and
Gomorrah
would speak
of the
utter
depravity
of man,
the cities
which were
so wicked
that God
had to
destroy them
completely.
And God
says to
Amos,
you were
like that.
I came
and visited
you,
and we don't
know what
it was,
it might
be the
earth
grace,
it might
be something
like that,
but something
happened that
God could
say it was
a bit like
my judgment
of Sodom and
Gomorrah,
but in my
mercy I
spared you
like a
burning
stick
snatched
from the
fire,
so you
just about
got away,
and yet
still you
didn't
return
to me.
And so
says God,
now is
the time
to prepare
to meet
your
God.
You've
had all
the warnings,
you've
had all
the opportunities
to turn
back to
me.
It's too
late now,
and this
isn't a
gospel message
that Amos
is preaching
or God
is preaching
through Amos,
this is a
message that
says you
are going
to be
judged
because you
have ignored
me,
prepare for
that time
of judgment.
Look in a
minute at
verse 13,
but let's
just apply
this a
little bit
just now.
God
speaks to
us as
C.S.
Lewis
says,
he shouts
at us
through our
pain.
And I
wonder how
often when
things happen
to us,
when things
go wrong
and are not
the way that
we would
want them
to be,
how often
do we
look and
say,
well,
what is
God saying
to us
through it?
We might
pray that
God will
take us
out of
it.
We might
pray that
God will
send healing
or restoration
or whatever
it is.
We will
pray to
God for
his help
in the
situation.
How often
do we
examine
ourselves
and say,
what is
it that
God is
saying to
me
through
this?
Sometimes
God sends
bad things
or allows
bad things
to happen
so that
he will
be glorified.
Not always
remember
John 9
and the
blind man
disciples say,
well,
who's in
this man
or his
mother
or his
parents?
And the
Lord says
it's so
that God
will be
glorified
that he's
in this
condition.
So sometimes
it is
God
sending
things for
his glory
and through
the way
that we
are able
to trust
in God
and be
a witness
to his
grace
in our
lives.
That can
be a
powerful
thing
that he
uses.
I think
we also
need to
recognize
that those
whom God
loves,
he disciplines
and God
does send
things,
sometimes
allow things
to happen
to us
because there
is something
in our
lives that
needs to
be put
right and
we need
to be
willing to
listen to
God's
voice in
these
circumstances.
Five times
he's spoken
to the
Israelites,
five times
he's spoken
very powerfully
to things
that happened
to them,
five times
they ignored
him.
We need
to make
sure that
we don't
ignore
God when
he comes
with warnings
to us.
But then
there is
the message
of judgment.
By the
grace of
the Lord
Jesus
through his
death
for us,
we don't
need to
be concerned
about the
fact that
when the
Lord returns
or when we
go to be
with him,
if our
trust is
in him,
then we
are secure,
not because
of any
good in
us,
but by
the blood
of the
Lord Jesus
and by
his wonderful
grace to
us.
And yet
there is a
world round
about that
doesn't know
him.
There is a
world round
about of
people who
are going
towards an
eternal
destiny which
is separate
from God
where they
will face
the full
wrath of
God.
And we
can still
go out to
them and
we can
say,
perhaps not
in these
words,
perhaps in
these
words,
we can
say,
prepare to
meet your
God,
but we
can go
with a
message that
is not
hopeless,
this is not
a saying
that judgment
for you is
inevitable.
We can go
with a message
of hope that
says if you
do prepare,
if you do
trust in the
Lord Jesus,
then you
can have
forgiveness,
you can be
ready to
meet your
God.
What a
motivation it
should be to
us.
There are
people around
about who
are going not
knowing anything
about the
Lord Jesus,
not knowing
the message
of the
gospel,
heading towards
judgment.
And we
have the
opportunity to
give them
that warning
and to
give them
the opportunity
to trust
in the
Lord Jesus
and to
know his
forgiveness.
Let it be
a motivation
to us as
well as
a self
examination
as we
look at
these
verses.
Let me
look briefly
at verse
13.
This is
verse 13
where the
Lord having
said,
prepare to
meet your
God,
he presents
his
credentials.
Why should
they be
concerned about
falling into
the hands
of the
living God?
Because he
is all
powerful.
He is the
one who
created,
he is the
one who
sustained,
he formed
the mountains
so the
physical
things around
about us
are his.
He created
the wind
so it's not
just the
visible,
it's the
invisible as
well.
And he
reveals his
thoughts to
mankind.
He is able
to provide
information for
us that
is vital
to life.
We live,
they tell
us,
in the
information
superhighway,
more information
available now
at the
top of a
button than
the whole
of human
history.
And yet
anything that
has been
truly revealed
to us has
been revealed
by God.
Now,
that revelation,
of course,
is in his
word.
And he is the
one who turns
on to
darkness,
night and
day,
treads the
height of
the earth,
the Lord
God Almighty
is his
name.
What a
marvellous
God it
is we
know and
we worship.
The one who
is the
creator,
the sustainer
of life,
without whom
the universe
could not
exist.
He is our
God and
he is
all-powerful.
But as he
is all-powerful,
so he is
all-just as
well.
He is the
holy God and
that is why
we have
chapters like
Amos chapter
four,
pointing out
that there
are consequences
for those
who don't
believe in
him,
who don't
follow in
his ways.
Our time's
pretty well
gone,
so let me
just finish
with three
conclusions just
to summarise
the key
points that
we've looked
at.
The first
thing is
let's examine
ourselves and
see have
we got an
attitude of
uncaring
comfort.
Thou do
my selfish
desires blunt
my desire
for justice
in this
world.
Have I
got that
consumerist
attitude that
says I
want everything
I can get
I'm not
going to
ask too
many questions
about how
it came
to be.
Second
thing is
about unworthy
worship.
When I
come to
God in
my acts
of worship
whether it's
in church
or in
other contexts
in private
as well,
is my
worship God
honouring?
Or is
it sinful?
It's going
to be one
or the
other.
There's
going to be
no middle
course on
this.
Either
when I
come to
God,
it's
honouring
to God
because I
come with
the right
motives and
with the
right
lifestyle,
or it's
dishonouring
to God,
it's sinful
because I've
come with
the wrong
motives or
with a
life that
is not
consistent
with what
I would
present in
my
worship.
Let our
worship be
worthy
before God.
And then
there's the
unrecognised
rebuke.
Do I
hear God's
voice?
Am I
willing to
listen to
what God
has to
say to
me?
And am I
willing to
put it into
practice and
to change my
life if
necessary?
And have I
got that
desire to
help others
to hear it
too?
To bring to
them the
glorious news
of the
gospel of
the Lord
Jesus,
that they
may truly
be prepared
to meet
their God
and prepare
to meet
them because
they know
the saviour,
because they
know their
sins have
been forgiven.
So a
hard passage
in many ways
in terms of
the messages
that God
would bring
to us.
But let's
take them,
let's apply
them in
our hearts
and let's
go out and
live lives
that are
worthy of
the Lord
Jesus who
died for
us and
who called
us to be
his own.
Let's pray
together.
Father,
we thank
you for
your word
to us.
We thank
you for
this prophet
Amos and
for the
way that
you,
through him,
are able
to present
your truth
to us.
We thank
you for
your passion
for justice,
that you
hate injustice,
that you
hate hypocrisy
and those
who would
present
themselves as
being religious
and upright
before you,
but actually
in their
hearts and
their actions
disprove it.
We pray
that we may
not be like
that.
That we
may have
a concern
for justice
in our
world,
that we
may have
a concern
for those
in our
world who
don't know
the Lord
Jesus and
a real
desire to
bring them
to him.
And that
when we
worship,
when we
actively come
before you
with our
songs of
thanksgiving,
with our
words of
praise,
that it
may be
done with
clean hands
and pure
hearts,
and that it
may truly be
honouring to
you.
Thank you for
our presence
this evening.
We ask
for your
blessing now
on us as
we part,
as we
give thanks
in Jesus'
name.
Amen.