Amos 4 - Prepare to Meet God

Good morning Journey, I hope that you are doing well and that this past week you saw God move on your behalf in big ways, small ways, and even in the unknown ways for you. After all he is sovereign, he reigns and rules over all, nothing on this earth doesn’t happen without his say so. Today we will be in Amos 4 open your bibles to it, some of today is going to sound like a repeat of last week, that’s intended. I think often times spiritual growth isn’t hearing new things, its applying the things you’ve already heard. Lets be honest is Jesus followers in this day and age would apply what they have already been taught by God revival would be everywhere and his return would be emanate. I believe todays message is a timely one for the hour in which we are living and I believe that it will re-construct proper biblical theology around God Sovereignty in the world and in your life. And it will challenge the view of God that you have in your mind. So with that lets get to the text Amos 4 says this.

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!” 2 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 fishhooks. 3 You will each go straight out through breaches in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon, declares the Lord. 4 “Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. 5 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. 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. 7 “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.8 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. 9 “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. 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. 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. 12 “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God.”13 “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.

I want you to understand again that the Prophets job was to warn the people about the coming judgment of God, that Israel would heed this warning and confess and repent from their sin and return to their covenant with God and trust Him. Amos was a shepherd from Tekoa a town 6 miles south of Bethlehem in Judea. NOT ISRAEL. And Yet God is using an unlikely person to be called as a prophet of God. When I lived in North Carolina in the 6 blessed weeks before Covid, people would hear me talk and they would say…”You’re not from around here are you?” And I bet Amos heard that a lot as he was preaching to Israel. Last Sunday I talked about how God through Amos is being very forthright about Israel’s sins and why? Friends because they are destroying themselves by their own disobedience to God. And if you have ever seen someone destroy themselves from their own disobedience, drugs, porn, eating addiction and gluttony, etc. You understand the passionate words of Amos.

Our text today gets right at the heart of this message and a thundering declaration at the very end of Amos 4. Prepare to Meet Your God. Let me ask you a question real quick, how many of you are planners in the room? Right your my people, planning makes the world right and going with the flow seeing what happens is worst way to live in my humble yet correct opinion. How many of you made plans in 2020 that didn’t go as planned? We like to prepare, I like to prepare, I prepared this sermon on what God wants our church to hear, you make business plans, blueprint plans, strategic plans, family plans, school plans. We like to prepare, we like to plan. Yet unfortunately, most people on the planet, and most people in north Peoria are underprepared to meet God. That’s astounding because it’s the most important thing you can prepare for.

Friend Amos 4 ends with the big idea in verse 12. Prepare to Meet Your God. And that’s the point in today’s message. How God leads up to that command is what we will discover together as we breakdown this texts, and 5 specific things we see in this prophecy. The Lord through the Prophet Amos accomplishes 5 specific things. The first of those is he calls out the Self-centeredness of the Women of Israel. I want you to look at verse 1 in your bibles, we see that Amos is getting specific about sins of Israel. It’s important because as sinners we can’t repent from sin in bulk. This isn’t Costco. We can’t just say “I Repent from all my sin.” No, we said last week its specific. Its not vague, as Christians we must specifically call out our specific sin and specifically repent.

And Verse 1 by the way isn’t a cheap shot, at the women of Israel, though it might sound like it is wasn’t so before you send your emails to me you can send it directly to God who made Amos prophecy. This is what he says, Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria Now I know not to call people cows, but Amos is not making a fat joke here he is not being mean, he is a Shephard, a farmer so he’s using a metaphor that makes sense. So he accurately comparing the elite women of Israel to Cattle that lived the best life, they would graze and graze live a great life and then become Japanese Wagyu a5 steaks! Pause, if anyone is planning on cooking that type of steak anytime soon, find me after the service and I’ll give you my number. Unpause, these cows would live it up. Yet all the while the cattle were complete unaware of the slaughter that was ahead of them. And as these women were living it up, they had no idea Judgment was coming. They were creating injustice in Israel.

God people were in blessing, God gave them blessing, so that they might serve not exploit other people. Hear me friends, when God blesses us financially he does so, so that we might serve other people. And these women were not doing that. That was true then and now, most people find the value in people on how they can use them to further their agenda, instead of seeing other people as valuable because they were created in the image of God! Journey we should be people who stand up and stand out when it comes to seeing other people as image bearers of God. People are not resources for me to use, people are not resources for you to use, people are not resources for the church to use. People matter, listen to me, all people matter because they are created in the image of God.

And so what God is doing is calling out the these women in their self-centeredness because b. Because of their acts of oppression and excess. you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!” As we have talked, we have seen issue of injustice In Israel and their desire to see Justice is a problem. The bible clearly bans showing practicality in favor of or against the poor. Exodus 23 and Leviticus 19 make that clear. But at the same time the bible makes it clear that voluntarily helping the poor is an act of justice. Some Proverbs and Psalms make that point. But why, why does the bible advocate that Gods people should help the poor. That’s because the poor are more vulnerable to injustice than most people are. So Gods people are to pay attention to that and respond to it. We do that here with our ministry partners like, The Hope Effect, Voice of the martyr, IJM and others like it we see a need and are meeting a need. There is more to say on this topic but I heard about a book this week if your interested more in it, its called, “Social Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and the Gospel.” I read it this week, and its phenomenal find me after service and I’ll email you this week. It’s a great view on biblical justice and not social justice.

The first thing God does is he calls out the self-centeredness of the women. The second thing he does 2: He Makes a Divine Promise of Judgement. When God makes a promise, he will keep it because its based on his holiness, and perfection. See that in verse 2 “The Sovereign Lord has sworn by his holiness” Gods track record is perfect, and if God didn’t punish sin, he would reject his promise making him unperfect. He cannot do that because of who he is. God can delay punishment, he can divert punishment, but he cannot revoke it. The Holy God makes a sworn statement about what? B. The capture of Assyria. “The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks.

Not only will the invading Assyrians treat Gods people like cattle, but they had a practice of hooking the noses of their captives and stringing them together to lead them off to slavery. And out of a dismasted city, and that is exactly what happened about 40 years later. God is clear to his people that there are consequences to their action. And Friends it’s a great time to remind you that sin never provides what it promises. And what it delivers is always worse. In numbers 32:23 it says, “be sure your sin will find you out.” Israel was messing around, and they are about to find out.

Even considering all of that is it about a promise one about the future. The fact that God warns first shows his patience’s and his grace as well. If you read your bible God never sends judgment without a warning. Even in the worst of times, He sent warning to Sodom and Gomorrah, he sent warning to Egypt he sent waring to the people in Noah’s time. This pronouncement in Amos is his grace telling the people to turn from their sin and back to him. Third thing we see 3: He speaks with Holy Sarcasm. I have been told that I can be sarcastic. In fact it’s a spiritual gift at times. Sarcasm is neutral, it can be sinful, but it can be helpful. Jesus used sarcasm, every time he said to the religious leaders “Have you not read?” He was using sarcasm because they would have read it, but they didn’t understand what it meant. Amos used it for two things, A: To point out their hypocrisy in worship” Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. These are two major sites for the Jewish people, Bethel was where the chief sanctuary was, and Gilgal was where the Israelites camped with Joshua when they entered the promised land. These places were now being used to worship pagan idols and God at the same time.

That would be like me seeing you at target and inviting you to come to church and sin…and stay for the second service so you and sin even more. At this time Israel loved religious activity without loving the God they were in a covenant with. God loves them enough to point out their hypocrisy in worship and how offensive this type of worship as to him. God was laying on this sarcasm to B: Reveal their boastful pride“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. They were proud of their pride because they thought they were getting away with their sin. And they thought God was ok with how they were living. But there were still doing religious activity…but their hearts were far from him. And maybe that’s you today, In Matthew 15:8 Jesus quotes Isaiah when he says “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

Number 4: God reminds Israel of his past patience in the face of their stubbornness. In verse 6-11 what God does here is he pulls out the receipts of Israel’s past. Like the IRS knocking at your door, they know what you did. He is reminding them about how patient he has been for them. I said it at the beginning, and I’ll say it again now, what God says in these next 5 verses will make some of you uncomfortable because the God you have created in your mind isn’t the same as the God of the bible. The book of Amos makes us wrestle with God sovereignty in unpleasant things. We love to give God credit for the good, but we feel like its God if we view something as bad. Let me burst your spiritual bubble in Amos 3 God takes credit for destroying a city. He has a sovereign rule over the good things and what we would say…bad.

So in reminding them of his patience, God declares his sovereignty over famine. “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. God has brought a famine to his people in the past to chastise and discipline them to untimely bring them back to himself. Weather we understand it or not, under the sovereign rule of God his people experienced a famine. This is not a simple thing to understand, and I won’t pretend I know all the answers but there is mystery between the sovereignty of God and the suffering of people. But here God declares his sovereignty over famine and invites his people back to him.

B: God Declares his sovereignty over drought “I also withheld rain from you” reading that verse reminded me of what I was in High School and I read “The Grapes of Wrath” if you know it was a fictitious book about a real event that in the 1930’s 50 million acers of farm land were impacted by drought called the “Dust Bowl” impacting millions. What was God doing? We can’t be sure, but we know he is sovereign. Verse 7 continues “ I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another Okay so what we think are random acts of mother nature are not random acts, and there is no mother nature. But we want to use that term because we are not comfortable with the reality of Gods control to destroy things. We want a happy God, a grace filled God, a God of love, yes and amen, but again, God is the ultimate bringer of justice and righteousness. He declares his sovereignty and calls his people to return to him.

C: God declares his sovereignty over crop failure: “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. Again, God is the cause of this and we don’t like it because we have be so indoctrinated in believing in a naturalist way that there must be natural cause to this. But who the creator and sustainer of the natural world? God. And he is not trying to hide what he was done. He has put his people in the past in situation they cannot control and cannot possibly handle themselves. Anyone experience a situation that the lord that placed you in that you cannot possibly handle by yourself? What does God do in those moments, he declares his sovereignty and invites us to return and trust to him.

D: God declares sovereignty over disease and war. I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt.. God said “I sent a plague” so God sent a disease a virus to people…yeah he does that. We can blame China all we want but listen friends God knows about it and sees it. Doesn’t mean he sent it, don’t hear that, but he has sent plagues in the past upon people. Which means again he is sovereign over all diseases and viruses. So his people should be not scared or shut down when it happens.

Verse 10 is a tough one I wont lie, 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 Audi Murphy once said “no solider ever survives a war” War is a difficult thing, many of you know more than I ever will about war. So if the bible saying that war is under the sovereignty of God? Yes. For Israel God used an army to kill their young men in battle. With war it involves people making decisions to go or not to go, to send troop to one place or the next. Yet God oversees all of it and he uses it to draw people to himself.

E: God declares sovereignty over catastrophe I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. We are not sure exactly what God is taking about, but whatever it was it must have been real bad to compare it to that, go read Genesis 19 later see the level of damage done on that city.

We have Famine, drought, sickness and war, and in each of those cases what was God doing? He was declaring his sovereignty and calling his people to return and to him. In the past God had given Israel a glimpse of his judgment and now he is reminding them how patient God had been, and in each of these sovereign acts that Gods says his people did not repent. You notice that, he said after each one of those passages, “Yet you have not returned to me” And for some of you, you might think, well yeah I wouldn’t want to return back to that God either and you know why we are tempted to think that way? Because we don’t fear God. We don’t fear him because we don’t understand the weight of the consequences of our own sin. We think we deserve better, we think we should have a mostly trouble free life, and we get upset at God when it doesn’t go as planned. Let me ask you a question. What do sinners deserve? Hell. That’s what sinners deserve to be separated from God for all eternity. Anything short of that is because of a holy and righteous God who extends his grace and mercy to us even through we deserve noting.

Salvation, eternal life, heaven, those things are a gift made possible by God because of the greatest tragic, awful event in all of human history. And that event of Jesus on the cross is worse than any famine, any catastrophe, any virus, any disaster, any war. It is the single worst event that has ever happened on earth. It was the brutal execution of the perfect son of God Jesus Christ. It was that awful event under the sovereign hand of God that can take pluck sinners out of the path of Gods judgement.

That’s what he did with Israel, time and time again, and that’s why he said in verse 11 that he plucked Israel out of the fire before destruction. Just like God has done with many of us because of Jesus. May we be thankful in the patience of God in the face of our stubbornness. Lastly, 5: He Announces his Judgment is near. It’s the roar of the lion that is loud because the judgment is near. In verse 12 God summarizes what he says Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God.”

This is where the Gospel gets most clear in this text. The statement Prepare to meet your God points us to the Gospel because here and now there is only one way to prepare to meet God and that’s Jesus. In John 14 Jesus is about to go to the cross and he wants to help his disciples to not be afraid and he says, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me” Friends today I want to ask you the question, are you prepared to meet God?

Every single one of us will face death, YEAH BUT THAT’S FAR DOWN THE ROAD. You don’t know that. And I don’t either. We will all meet God, and are you prepared. And the only way to prepare for death is to be connected to the only one God has provided for sinners like us and that Jesus. Jesus is the only way to escape the wrath and judgment of God. That’s the point of this p

2700 years ago the lion roared at Israel pronouncing his judgment, and he shows exactly how powerful he is by speaking in verse 13 of his might and power. 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 today, I want you to look back at your life and ask yourself, what moments in your life has God been calling you back? What moments did God in his sovereignty allow you to go through the hardest parts in life to call you back to him? God does this because of his grace and mercy after all Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. So in Christ God is using your hardest situations in life for your good, for his purpose and to call you back to him.

God who controls it all, is commanding you and me everyone we know to prepare to meet him. As people who stand up and stand out, we are to be prepared, and help others be prepared also. And the only way to be prepared is to be return by faith to Jesus Christ. May it be true here in Journey, and in North Peoria.

Pray.