God’s criticism of the morality and spirituality of Israel in Amos 4:1-5 is very relevant to modern Australia. Many of us live according to our own standards, where the overriding concern is to accumulate wealth, possessions and experiences for ourselves, with very little regard for how it impacts others. On top of this general approach to life and morality, we think we’re doing well spiritually if we do anything that seems to acknowledge God or a ‘bigger’ spiritual reality. If you do some spiritual practice that helps you ‘be mindful’, or you give to a charity or help with a local community program - good for you! Whether you worship Jesus is not the important thing, but whether you keep certain key social rules. But as the explore reading guide for today points out, ‘the people of Israel are giving themselves a pat on the back for religious activity which is itself breaking God’s law… they have decided for themselves how to worship God in his land…’. So many of our friends and family have decided for themselves, not only how they will live, but how they will worship God. And God is not impressed by this. We don’t want to fall into the same thinking, and we need to recognise it if we have.

 

In verses 6-11 God describes how he has sent various difficulties over and over again upon the people of Israel to grab their attention and to call them to repentance. They should have recognised the various forms of disaster and trouble as punishments and warnings for unfaithfulness to the covenant (Deut. 28:22). And yet they did not return to the Lord. And so now, God warns: "prepare to meet your God!” The LORD God is their Creator and Sovereign Lord. They have trivialised him (sound familiar?), and one day soon they will realise that was a big mistake. The beauty for us is that when God did finally turn up - really turn up, in the flesh and all - he came to offer mercy and yet another chance to ‘return to him’. As we’ve seen in Mark’s gospel on Sundays over the past month or so, Jesus’ comes first and foremost to prepare us for God’s kingdom so that we might repent - we might turn back to God - and belong to it and enjoy it rather than suffer the judgement of the King. But Jesus will return. Just as he came to help us return to God he will come to bring salvation to those who have, and judgement to those who haven’t. Now is the time to listen and respond. And now is the time to help people prepare to meet their God.

 

Anyone else read Amos 4 this morning? What stood out to you?