Prepare to Meet Your God! (Part Two)

The basis of God’s accusation and judgment against the people of Israel is their special relationship. God says, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). From the beginning of His dealings with them, God has stressed their higher responsibility because of their knowledge of Him (Deuteronomy 4:5-10).

As used in Amos 3:2, known can be cognitive, involving the thinking process, or relational, indicating experience with someone else. Genesis 4:1 uses the word in this latter sense: “Adam knew Eve his wife.” He had an intimate, caring relationship with her. And so it was with God and Israel. Of all the world’s nations, He had been intimate only with Israel, watching over and caring for her in a highly personal way (Ezekiel 16:1-14). Israel was so dear to Him that He called her “the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10)!

Yet, whether they realized it or not, the people God cared for so much came to devalue their calling, their special status (Deuteronomy 7:6). As time passed, they perverted it into a doctrine of divine favoritism. We can see this in two historical examples:

» In Jeremiah’s day (c. 600 BC), the Jews took great pride and security from the fact that they lived in the presence of the Temple (Jeremiah 7:1-15).

» Centuries later, during Jesus’ lifetime, the Jews believed that their physical descent from Abraham procured God’s favor (John 8:31-40).

In practice, this attitude caused the Israelites to live as if they were not accountable for their individual actions.

“Are we not God’s people?” they said in justification. As such, were they not protected from their enemies and subsidized into prosperity? God had fought for them before, and they assumed He always would. They forgot that with privilege comes responsibility. They forgot that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34; see James 2:1-13). He would judge them against the same righteous standards by which He denounces the Gentiles in Amos 1:3-15 and 2:1-3.

Though guilty of things similar to the Gentiles, they would be held more responsible because of their unique relationship with God. In fact, as the covenant people with a responsibility to be a light to the nations around them (Deuteronomy 28:9-10), they faced an even stricter judgment than their neighbors to whom the eternal God had never revealed Himself.

An Intimate Relationship

At first, Amos addresses Judah and Israel separately. However, Amos 3:1-2 ties them together by accusing “the whole family” of iniquities. Israel, the name given to Jacob in Genesis 32:28, covers all the people who made a covenant with God at Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:1-8). Israel and Judah are often both meant by the single name Israel.

But Israel is more than the name of a nation. Like a code name, it is the name of God’s true church, which Paul called “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). The church, too, is a body of people who made a covenant with God. Though the events Amos describes took place in physical Israel, the warning is also very much addressed to the church today.

Like the children of Israel, God has an intimate relationship with those He has spiritually brought forth. We can see He had an intimate relationship with the patriarchs, such as Abraham and Jacob, and with the prophets—in fact, with Jeremiah even before he was born! “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).

This closeness is not metaphorical. God desires an intimate, family relationship with each one of us. He asks to be called “our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). His firstborn Son is our Elder Brother (Matthew 12:50), and we are God’s sons and daughters (II Corinthians 6:18). As close as relationships are within a family, so are the relationships between God and His children.

So, what can we learn from ancient Israel’s example as His chosen people? Privilege brings peril. Amos’ message conveys that the closer we are to God, the closer the scrutiny and the stricter the judgment. Judgment starts with those who make a covenant with Him: As the apostle Peter writes, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (I Peter 4:17). Ezekiel 9:3-6 and Revelation 11:1-2 illustrate this principle. As the people and Temple of God, we are evaluated first and most closely to determine if we measure up to the standards of righteousness God has revealed to us.

Refusing the Revelation

Unlike the judgments of the Gentiles (Amos 1:3-15; 2:1-3), Amos indicts Judah for breaking His commandments, specifically lying.

Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept His commandments. Their lies lead them astray, lies after which their fathers walked. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.” (Amos 2:4-5)

Judah’s despising of God’s law and Israel’s commanding the prophets to stop preaching His Word (Amos 2:12) reflect the exact same moral condition: Both refused the voice of God as spoken through His prophets. What God intended to be their privilege through the revelation of Himself and His law had turned out to be their central peril. It is another way of saying, “To whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48).

Physical Israel today—the Anglo-Saxon nations of America, the British Commonwealth, and northwestern Europe—is rejecting God’s way of life just as ancient Israel did. It is this proud attitude that spiritual Israel, God’s church, is fighting. God will not accept any excuse for failing to live His way of life (Hebrews 6:4-6) because when He reveals it, He also provides the power to live it.

God promises He will never give us a trial that is too great and will always provide a way of escape (I Corinthians 10:13). He wants to see if we love His truth and follow His instructions. And if we need help to do what He has revealed to us to be His way, He will endow us with the ability to fulfill it (II Corinthians 3:4-6).

As God destroyed the Egyptians and Amorites to deliver Israel (Amos 2:9-10), He will also deliver us no matter the odds against us. We cannot overcome human nature, Satan, and this evil world without the help of God. We must seek God and ask for the gifts we need to overcome, grow, and produce the fruit of a godly way of life (Luke 11:9-13; James 1:5).

A Warning to the Individual

Despising truth is an inward attitude that outwardly reveals itself in immorality, and this is the condition God found in ancient Israel. The people had become complacent about His revelation to them. They zealously sought after knowledge—even religious knowledge—but they did not really love the truth (Romans 10:2-3). Their ambivalence to the truth was reflected in their immorality; if they truly loved God’s truth, they would have lived it, and God would have had no cause for judgment.

In this Information Age, we accumulate mounds of data—regarding ethics, solutions to social ills, and the like—yet our morals decline. Intelligent, educated individuals have written many Bible commentaries, but they still refuse to keep the Sabbath or holy days. They write that Christmas and Easter have pagan origins and are not commanded in the Bible, but they still observe them. They do not love God’s truth enough to change. Such was Israel’s problem, and it could be ours if we are not careful.

Because God has revealed His truth to us, each Christian is responsible for conforming to it and growing. A greater diversity of distractions competes for our time and attention than at any other time in the history of mankind. If we are not extremely careful and lose our sense of urgency, we will gradually lose our understanding of what is true and what is not. Our ability to distinguish between right and wrong will become blurred. We must ensure that God, His Word, and His way are always first in our lives.

Christ said that if we keep the truth, the truth, in turn, will keep us free (John 8:31-36). If we live it, the revealed truth of God will protect us from sinking back into slavery to sin. But first, we must love the truth God has given us. Humanly, we pursue what we love. God wants a father-child or teacher-student relationship with us. If we do not love truth, and if we do not pursue it and God Himself, we will seriously undermine our relationship with Him, and He could interpret our attitude as despising His truth.

Love of the truth comes from God through His Holy Spirit and must be nourished through our response to it. We must not only learn it but also apply it in our lives. Doing so will make the difference between being saved and perishing (II Thessalonians 2:9-12).

Rejecting God

Law in Amos 2:4 refers to instruction, not legislation and its enforcement. From a Hebrew verb that means “to throw,” its root describes casting lots or throwing dice. When lots or dice were cast, God revealed His will in the way they landed (Proverbs 16:33; see Leviticus 16:8-10; Acts 1:26). At times, lots were used in making judgments in criminal cases in which judges needed to ascertain God’s will (Joshua 7:13-25). Thus, by setting a legal precedent, the casting of lots provided instruction in other cases involving the same basic principles of behavior. God’s will—His law—was taught to His people through casting lots.

This instruction process implies a teacher-student relationship. When the Israelites rejected God’s instruction contained in His law, they rejected the Instructor as well. Their relationship with Him quickly deteriorated.

The Hebrew word underlying commandment means “to engrave or cut into stone,” suggesting its permanence and immutability in contrast to temporary and changeable lies. The law comes from an unchangeable, righteous, and pure God in contrast to fickle and iniquitous men.

Judah’s despising of God’s law and revelation of Himself was internal—from the heart (Psalm 78:37; 81:11-12; Jeremiah 5:23). The personal and social failures Amos records provide evidence that the people had rejected the truth. So it is with us: God wants to change our hearts so He can change our actions and turn around our lives.

In every area of life, Israel perverted the truth of God to accommodate human ideas. In the final tally, they loved lies rather than the revelation of God (II Thessalonians 2:11-12). Thus, Amos says that God’s people despised His law. They made the mistake of devaluing their calling and considered it common. Believing they were God’s elect, they thought they were irrevocably saved. With this attitude, it was only a matter of time before spiritual and moral complacency set in. As the church of God, we cannot allow ourselves to slip into this attitude because we, too, would fall into immorality.

If that occurs, God must pass judgment because His justice is the same for everybody (Colossians 3:25; I Peter 1:17). God’s laws govern the people on the outside as well as the people on the inside. No matter what makes Israel or the church distinctly different, His judgment is always righteous. When God could not change Israel’s immorality through His prophets, He had to punish them. So will He punish an apostate church.

It is easy to see why this book was written for the end-time church. The people of America and the British Commonwealth are already in the moral and spiritual condition of the people of Israel and Judah in the time of Amos. Members of God’s church come out of such a world. Just as Israel’s privileged position became a curse, so will it be for the Christian who ultimately rejects his calling (Hebrews 6:4).

God’s Verdict

“Behold, I am weighed down by you, as a cart that is weighed down that is full of sheaves. Therefore flight shall perish from the swift, the strong shall not strengthen his power, nor shall the mighty deliver himself; he shall not stand who handles the bow, the swift of foot shall not deliver himself, nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself. The most courageous men of might shall flee naked in that day,” says the LORD. (Amos 2:13-16)

The wording of verse 13 provides two possibilities. The first is that God, in exasperation, refuses to carry His people any longer, as one might put down a burden that is too heavy. The second possibility pictures a heavily loaded cart with a broken wheel that carves deep ruts in the road and throws its occupants into ditches. The context implies that the heavy load is the crushing burden of sins that impede Israel from staying on “the straight and narrow” (Matthew 7:14).

This second meaning seems to fit better since He proceeds to foretell Israel’s destruction. Israel had reached the end of her most significant period of prosperity since Solomon’s time. The nation was rich, powerful, and well-armed, proud of her might, abilities, wisdom, wealth, strategic advantages, and courage. Who could stand against Israel? But God thunders the warning that all the nation’s natural abilities (Amos 2:14), acquired skills (verse 15), and outstanding qualities (verse 16) would not help her.

Men see the strength of a nation in its wealth, population, armaments, technology, and knowledge. But where does God look? “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). The Bible reveals that the cause of the rise and fall of nations is moral and spiritual. As Amos shows, no nation can rely on its strength, power, and wealth to save it from the devastating effects of moral decay. Moral, ethical, and spiritual problems cannot be resolved by money, strength of arms, technology, government projects, social programs, intelligence, or humanitarian goodwill.

Since Israel had forfeited her privileged status, God promised to destroy her as He destroyed the Egyptians and the Amorites (Amos 2:9-10; 4:10, 12). The people of Israel had gone so far that God expected no repentance from them. Like Ecclesiastes 3, Amos shows there is a time of opportunity and a time when opportunity vanishes. Evidently, Israel’s opportunity to repent had faded away. It was too late!

As He had fought their battles for them in the past, now God would fight against them. Whatever their courage or expertise, nothing would occur in their favor. The things that had formerly given Israel strength in war would be turned against them.

A Ray of Hope

Notice, however, that a ray of hope still exists:

And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of My covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy . . . . But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 26:25, 45)

God will remember His covenant because He is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5). Because He does not want His name profaned in any way, He is highly concerned about those who bear it (Exodus 20:7). The covenant people, Israel, had profaned His name by their conduct among the other nations. Because God is holy and righteous, what He proclaimed to do against the heathen in the first chapter of Amos, He will also do to Israel—a people who had forsaken their covenant with Him.

Isaiah writes that Jerusalem, symbolizing all the tribes of Israel, will receive double for her sins because of her privileged position under the covenant (Isaiah 40:2). God will punish Israel for her failure to live up to her responsibilities within the covenant.

God’s punishment, though, is never an end in itself, nor does He punish in wild anger or frustration. Instead, He punishes in the best way and at the best time to bring individuals to repentance. He has not forgotten His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but He will correct their descendants so that He can eventually save His people and give them the promises. The process will be painful but effective: Israel will repent (Romans 11:25-29).

Reflecting on the history of the British Commonwealth and America in the last two hundred years or so, we see two nations quickly rising to prominence along with unparalleled accomplishments. The British produced a great empire far out of proportion to their population, native wealth, and abilities. Through her commercial power, the United States became the single richest nation that has ever existed. American influence has since exceeded even that of Britain, making English the universal language of business and politics.

Thousands of academic, scientific, and engineering breakthroughs and inventions have sprung from British and American individuals, discoveries that greatly affected the world. Such power and influence have made both nations feel they have an unlimited reservoir of natural ability and wealth. They even feel a kind of invincibility.

However, Amos warns ancient Israel and her modern descendants that no nation is so great that it can stand without or against God. He makes and unmakes nations (II Chronicles 20:6; Daniel 4:17; Acts 17:26). Their rise or fall largely depends upon His purpose for them and their significance in prophecy (e.g., Jeremiah 12:14-17; 25:15-32). If their moral and ethical foundation has eroded, the natural process of strong nations displacing weaker ones will take place (Leviticus 18:28; 20:22). It is this process that God often uses to punish His people for apostasy and immorality.

But though God punishes, there is always the hope of repentance and restitution:

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God. (Amos 9:13-15)

Loving and living the truth of God is central to both the punishment and the restitution. Those who have made a covenant with Him, whether the Old or the New Covenant, are responsible for loving and living the truth. It is our part of the deal—a small part, really, but a difficult one that must be kept (Matthew 7:13-14). If we do not keep it, God must correct us.

But if we keep our part of the agreement, we will reap the benefits of God keeping His. He promises good health (Exodus 15:26), prosperity (Malachi 3:8-12), children (Psalm 127:3-5), security (Psalm 46), and many other blessings besides His greatest gift, eternal life in His Kingdom (John 17:1-3; Romans 6:23)!