Prepared to Meet God
(No. 2965)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 8, 1875.
"Therefore thus will I do unto you, O Israel: and because I will do
this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel." Amos 4:12.
THERE is a peculiar solemnity about the language of our text because,
albeit that the whole of Scripture is the Word of God, yet very much of
it is given to us by the Prophets, Apostles and other Inspired writers.
But here, it is God Himself who is speaking and out of Heaven He
addresses His erring people and says to them, "Because I will do this
unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel." If ever every mortal ear
should be earnestly attentive, it is when God's voice is heard. Shall
not the creature listen to its Creator? Shall not man give heed to the
voice of the God of the whole earth? O Lord, give to us hearing ears
and let not your words merely reach our ears, but may the inward
meaning of them penetrate our souls through the effectual working of
Your almighty Spirit!
I am going to use the closing words of the text–"Prepare to meet your
God, O Israel," as AN ADDRESS TO ALL WHO ARE NOW PRESENT.
You have come here, but for what purpose have you come? If you have
come rightly, you have come to meet your God. The Israelites often came
together to bow down before their engraved images, or professing to
worship God with rites of their own inventing. They forgot that all
true worship must be spiritual and though they did not and could not
meet with God in such a way as that, yet they went back to their homes
perfectly satisfied with what they had done. They had performed the
external rites of their religion. They had gone through all its
ceremonies correctly and they were content. But now God calls upon them
to prepare to meet HIM–no longer to be satisfied with the visible and
the external, but to get to the Invisible and the Eternal–and that is
the call of God to everyone who is now here present.
"What did you go out to see?" What did you come here to hear? Too many
attend even the House of God with the notion of merely going to listen
to the preacher. He is a thoughtful man, profound, philosophic. Or he
is an eloquent man, oratorical and fluent. Is it for this reason that
you go to your churches and your chapels, simply to be charmed by the
voice of man? If so, let me remind you that God abhors this mockery of
worship! As for myself, I have long ago despised the tricks of oratory
and the gaudy displays of eloquence. I would sooner be dumb than merely
speak so as to exhibit my own powers. If you have come here aright, you
have come that God may meet with you and that you may meet with
God–that your consciences may be awakened and that the Truth of God
may enter your hearts.
O my Hearers, have you come with any such design? Are there not some of
you who have almost come out to meet God as Michal went out to meet
David–that she might scoff at him? Have not some of you come almost as
Goliath went to defy Israel–that you may fight against God and contend
against the Truth? Or, possibly, to despise it in your hearts and to
mock at it? God speaks to all such persons and says to them, "Cease you
from your evil ways and prepare your heart to meet ME." Oh, if we
always went up to the assemblies of God's people with prepared hearts,
we would not go there in vain! If sinners came up to hear the Gospel
with their hearts breaking all the way, and crying from their very
souls, "Oh, that we might find Christ!"–if they came up with earnest,
believing prayer–if they gathered together with a sacred expectation
of blessing–what meetings there would be between God and them! There
would be for them no more wasted Sabbaths, no more sham profession, no
more formal religion without any effect upon the conscience and the
life! Then would our solemn services be streams of blessing–water
would again leap out of the rock and the thirsty
congregation would indeed be refreshed! O God, will You not touch men's
hearts so that when they gather together in Your House, they will come
prepared to meet You there and to worship You in spirit and in truth?
II. A second application of the text which I shall make, without
insisting upon its being the one designed, is this–it may be looked
upon as AN ADDRESS TO GOD'S OWN PEOPLE.
Sometimes the Lord's people get out of the way of communion and
fellowship with Him. It was so with Israel in the day of Amos, yet here
the Lord avows Himself to still be their God, for He says, "Prepare to
meet your God, O Israel." As for you who are His people, He is still
your God and though you may have fallen into a cold condition of heart,
and are now walking in darkness and seeing no light, yet He calls you
to meet Him, for He desires to have your company! He has been
chastening you, again and again, because you would not walk near to
Him, and He is prepared to chasten you yet more. But He will stay His
hand if you will now come near to Him. Remember what Eliphaz said to
Job and obey the injunction, "Acquaint yourself now with Him, and be at
peace: thereby good shall come unto you." Child of God, permit me to
point to you with my finger and say to you, "Prepare to meet your God!"
Were not those blessed times when the sound of His feet made music in
your ears? Have you forgotten the Hermonites and the Hill Mizar where
the Lord appeared to you and said, "I have loved you with an
everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you"? Oh,
blessed were those days when we retired to a private corner and
communed with God! Hallowed was that study, that kitchen, that bedroom,
that hay-loft, or that ditch under the hedge where we were accustomed
to meet with the Beloved of our souls and to talk with Him as one talks
with his friends. We have had many blessed occasion when Heaven's gate
has seemed to be set wide open–and if we did not pass right through,
yet we did sit down as upon the doorstep of Glory and Jesus showed
Himself to us–and we poured out our heart before Him! There have been
times when we have received those kisses of His lips of which we love
to speak even now, when the company is select, and there have been
love-tokens between our soul and our Savior which have made us feel
that, whether in the body or out of the body, we could hardly
tell–only God knew! Then, by all your sweet recollections of the past,
come, you children of the living God, and prepare to meet Him again!
If you ask, "What shall we do in order to get ready to meet Him?" I
answer–Cast out the idols from your hearts! Let them all go! Love no
one else and nothing else as you love Him, but give Him your whole
body, soul and spirit! Humble yourself before Him at the very thought
that you should ever have wandered away from Him and played the wanton
towards your Best-Beloved! Come, also, with a firm reliance upon His
unchanging mercy, believing that though you have often forsaken Him, He
has never forsaken you. Believe in that gracious declaration of His
which says, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions
and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed you."
Look again to the precious blood of Jesus–which is the only way of
access to the Father–and come sprinkled with it even now. Why should
you not come to Him at once? God has most delightful ways of blessing
His people on a sudden. "Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the
chariots of Amminadib." Personally, I know what it is to rise from the
deeps of despair, right away from the place where I was distracted with
a thousand cares, sorrows and sins and to soar straight away into the
serene ether of perfect reconciliation with God and conscious
fellowship with Him!
"Behold," says the risen and glorified Jesus, "I stand at the door and
knock." It is at the door of Laodicea, the door of that Church which
was lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, and it is at your door, O lukewarm
Christian, that Christ is now knocking! What is the cure for your
lukewarmness? It is Christ's standing at the door and knocking, and
saying to you, "If any man hears My voice, and opens the door, I will
come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me." This will lift
you up out of your lukewarmness and, instead of Christ spewing you out
of His mouth, as it looks as if He must do, He will come and feast with
you–and you shall feast with Him! Open your hearts to Him, now,
Brothers and Sisters among us who profess to love Him! How can we keep
our hearts closed against Him? "Come in, you blessed of the Lord," we
cry to our Beloved and, as we gaze upon Him and see that His head is
wet with dew, and His locks with the drops of the night, our hearts
yearn towards Him and with heartfelt love we pray to Him, "Abide with
us, O blessed Savior, and go no more out forever, but let our
fellowship with You be perpetual!"
III. I should have liked, if I had had time–but I have not–to have
applied this text to any professors here who have gone beyond the
negative loss of communion with God–who have backslidden into sin.
This is THE LORD'S ADDRESS TO BACKSLIDERS– "Prepare to meet your God."
Prepare to come back into His loving arms and to be reconciled to Him
again! There are some of you, perhaps, who were not only members of
this Church, but who were also
members of the class so long presided over by that godly woman for whom
we have hung up these memorials of our grief. [Mrs. Bartlett. She had
been "called Home" during the week preceding the delivery of this
sermon. (See Sermon #1249, Volume 21–Saints in Heaven and Earth One
Family)] She wept over you when you turned aside. And, among the many
things which have made it hard work for you to sin is this one–that
you knew you were grieving her gracious and gentle spirit. Hear her
voice calling to you from the grave! No, more than that, listen as she
speaks to you out of the excellent Glory, saying, "My Beloved Sister,
come back to your Lord!"
You have had to suffer already for your backsliding. God has sent you,
as the Lord says He sent to idolatrous Israel, "blasting and mildew."
He has also withheld from you the rain in a spiritual sense, so that
you are near unto famishing. And there is something even worse coming
upon you. God does not tell you what it is, even as He did not tell the
guilty Israelites all that He would do to them–it is something so
terrible that He seems to hesitate to describe it! But He says,
"Because I will do this unto you." I know not what it is, nor can you
guess, but it is something that will destroy all your joys and lay you
prostrate in the dust of sorrow. Because He threatens to do this to
you, return to Him, return to Him now! "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little." I
wish I could come round to each one of you backsliders and beseech you
to remember that we have not ceased to love you, nor to pray for you,
nor to hope that you may yet be led to prepare to meet your God!
IV. Now, coming to my principal objective on this occasion, I want to
take the text and use it as A MESSAGE TO THE UNCONVERTED. O Spirit of
God, apply it to them with Your almighty power!
I think the text may be applied to the unsaved in three ways. First, as
a challenge–"Prepare to meet your God." Secondly, as an
invitation–"Prepare to meet your God." And, thirdly, as a summons–and
it will, one day, come in that form to everyone of us–"Prepare to meet
your God."
First, this sentence comes to the ungodly as a challenge. At the time
referred to in the text, God had been punishing the idolatrous
Israelites again and again, and again, and again, with the view of
bringing them to repentance. But none of His chastisements had, so far,
moved them to yield to Him. The more God smote them, the harder they
became, so He seemed to say to them, "Well, then, since you will not
submit to Me. Since nothing appears to make you bow down at My feet, I
will now put on my armor of wrath and come out against you with sword
and buckler! And I throw down this challenge to you–prepare to meet
Me." Now, my dear Hearers, you who have long heard the Gospel but who,
until now, have rejected it, I ask you–Do you hope to be able to
withstand God when He comes forth against you in the majesty of His
righteous wrath? Already, when He has but touched you, He has made
every bone and nerve in your body to tremble. You know how near to the
gate of death He has brought you–do you imagine that when He comes out
against you in His might, you will be a match for Him?
There are three things you may try to do and I will ask you whether you
are prepared to meet God in reference to them. The first will be to
justify yourself for remaining His enemy. Are you prepared to do that?
When the Lord God says to you, "I created you, I have kept you in
being, I have fed you and cared for you until now–why have you not
obeyed Me?" When the Lord Jesus Christ says to you, "I loved sinners so
much that I died for them–why will you not believe in Me?" And when
the Spirit of God says, "I strove with men. Why did you resist Me?"
What answer will you give? Will you be able to make it clear that you
were perfectly justified in choosing the pleasures of this world rather
than yield obedience to God? Will you be able, with all your logic, to
make it seem right for you to have lived a wrong life, right to have
despised the Law of God and right to have rejected the Gospel of
Christ? Come, Man, Woman–set your wits to work and see whether you can
expect, in the Great Assize which will soon be held, to be able to
justify yourself before the bar of God! Prepare, in that way, to meet
your God.
Or, secondly, do you expect to be able to resist Him? Come, you brave
men, gird on your armor and come out to battle against the Lord God
Almighty! Better let the thorns contend against the fire which licks
them up with its flaming tongue! Better let the wax contend against the
furnace heat which makes it run like water than let the sinner try to
contend against the Omnipotent God! His faintest breath would suffice
to scatter the ungodly and drive them like chaff before the wind. Can
you stand up against the Most High, O you that despise and forget Him?
Did Pharaoh triumph over Jehovah at the Red Sea? Did Sennacherib
overthrow the God of Israel on that dreadful night when his vast host
was cast into a deep sleep from which there was no awakening? No–and
you cannot successfully stand up against God! But if you mean to fight
with Him, count the cost, understand what it means and so prepare to
meet your God.
There is a third course open to you and that is, are you able to endure
what He can lay upon you? I have read of a prisoner insulting the judge
by whom he had been sentenced by telling him that the punishment he had
awarded was a mere trifle! Can you say this to God? O unconverted men,
will you be able to endure the terror of His ire in that day when He
comes forth against you! Oh, no! The very joints of your body shall be
loosed in that day. Your hair shall stand erect with horror! That bold
spirit of yours shall despair and all you bravado with which you said,
"There is no God," shall have departed from you and you will crouch,
tremble, weep and wail in His Presence! You say today, "There is no
Hell," but you will not say that when you get there! You defy God
today, but you will not defy Him in the day when He reveals Himself to
you, for then you will cry to the mountains to fall upon you to hide
you from His angry face! O Sirs, the challenge of the living God is
this–if you will not yield to Him, be prepared to fight the quarrel
out with Him! If you will not submit to His mercy, if you cannot
justify yourselves for your wrongdoing, then take up your arms and
contend with Him, or harden yourselves like adamant and prepare to
endure the fierceness of His wrath! But neither of these things can you
do, so let that terrible challenge bring you to your knees and cause
you to–
"Seek His Grace Whose wrath you cannot bear."
So, in the second place, I will use the text as an invitation. And the
note at once changes from the thunders of Sinai to the still small
voice of Calvary–"Prepare to meet your God." Have you heard these
tidings, ungodly men? God is coming out against you, armed with His
dreadful two-edged sword–that very sword of Infinite Justice with
which He smote His only-begotten Son in that day when He stood as the
Substitute for sinners! What can you do? Will you run away from Him? To
whom or where can you run? The utmost ends of the earth are in His
hands! Should you fly to the far-distant seas, He will arrest you
there. Should you plunge into the thickest shades of darkness, His eyes
will still behold you–
"Lord, where shall guilty souls retire, Forgotten and unknown? In Hell
they meet Your dreadful fire, In Heaven Your glorious Throne. If winged
with beams of morning light I fly beyond the West, Your hand, which
must support my flight, Would soon betray my rest If o'er my sins I
think to draw The curtains of the night, Those flaming eyes that guard
Your Law Would turn the shades to light The beams of noon, the midnight
hour, Are both alike to Thee– Oh, may I never provoke that power From
which I cannot flee!"
God is coming forth to meet you and there is no way for you to escape
from Him! Will you stay where you are? Then He will soon overtake you
and when He does, then shall come your terrible end. Your wisdom is to
give heed to the advice of the text and go meet Him! You cannot escape
if you remain where you are, so go meet Him! "How?" you say. Well, go
to meet Him thus–with humble confessions and petitions on your lips
and with ropes on your necks, adjudging yourselves worthy of death and
yielding yourselves up entirely into the Lord's hands. Confess that you
deserve any punishment that He pleases to put upon you. It is thus that
a rebellious subject should meet his King–confessing guilt, praying
for mercy, pleading for forgiveness, asking for Grace. Thus David met
his God. Read the 51st Psalm, note how he prayed and go and do
likewise. You must also go with repentance in your hearts. The sins you
have loved in the past must be hated and forsaken. You must go to God
abhorring yourselves and making a full surrender of your souls to Him.
Yield yourselves thus to Him and do it at once, seeing that since you
have rebelled against Him, His Justice can seize you at any moment–and
execute upon you His hot displeasure!
But let me tell you that you have a stern task before you if you are to
prepare yourselves in this fashion to meet your God–a task which you
will find impossible to perform in your own strength! Our rebellious
heart will not readily yield.
Our stubborn spirit will not easily bow. Our pride will not let us
confess our sin. The dumb devil within us will not permit us to pray. I
will tell you what to do. Go to God, just as you are, in the Mediator's
name, or go first to Jesus and say, "Lord Jesus, give me repentance.
Give me faith, give me hatred of sin, give me a yielding spirit, give
me a heart of flesh, give me a pliant mind." And when you have thus
yielded yourself up to Jesus, you are prepared to meet God, for the
place where God meets sinners is at the Cross of Christ and it is the
only place where it is safe for a sinner to attempt to meet his God!
If, then, you would be prepared to meet your God, go to that Jesus who
met His Father on your behalf and who, as the result of that terrible
meeting, died for your sins, if you are truly trusting Him. Go to
Christ and He will wash you in His precious blood and clothe you in His
spotless robe of righteousness! Go to Christ and He will breathe the
perfume of His merits over you and then, when you meet God, He will not
merely see in you a sinner, but a saved sinner! He will smell the
fragrant odor of the garments of His Son which will have such a sweet
savor to Him that you will be acceptable to Him for Christ's sake!
There is no other way to God than this. How I wish that every
unconverted person here would heed this message and obey it–"Prepare
to meet your God." Go and meet Him in the way I have pointed out to
you–go and meet Him this very hour.
"Where shall I go to meet God?" asks one. Well, meet Him just where you
are. Trust Jesus and yield yourself to God and the great transaction is
done. Or get away into some quiet corner and pour out your grief before
the Lord and ask Him, for Jesus' sake, to meet with you that you may be
reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.
It is scarcely a week ago since our good Sister, Mrs. Bartlett, fell
asleep, and I do not know of anything that would so well keep her in
our memories–especially in the memories of those of you who have often
heard her loving invitations, but have not yielded to them, as for me
to speak on her behalf, as well as on my Lord's behalf, and say to you,
"Come and meet the Lord! Come and meet Him now, prepared to meet Him
through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ your Lord." Happy
day, happy day, would it be if many were led by the gracious Spirit to
meet with God now! I remember well the time when I first met Him thus.
I thought that I was a lost soul. I judged myself to be upon the brink
of Hell. I had no merit and no native goodness to bring me to God–I
was a mass of corruption and sin, but–
"I came to Jesus as I was, Weary, and worn, and sad"–
and in Jesus I met my God and, meeting God, my soul was set at liberty!
And tonight my soul does magnify the Lord and my spirit does rejoice in
God my Savior! The door that was open to me is open to you, my Friend,
so enter it, and enter it now! May the Holy Spirit graciously enable
you to come!
And, lastly, if the invitation of this text is not accepted, it will
soon be heard as a summons. I am not the officer to bring the summons
to you. I have no authority to do that. I am sent to invite you to meet
your God and I have done that. But there will come a day, my Friends,
when the authorized officer will deliver this message to you, "Prepare
to meet your God." You will be sitting at the work-table, young woman,
and you will feel a strange pain in your side and you will ask
yourself, "What is this?" It will be a message saying to you, "Get you
home to your bed, for, thus says the Lord, 'from that bed you shall
come down no more till you are carried down in your coffin.' 'Prepare
to meet your God.'" That message will come to you, also, my aged
Friend, before very long. You have almost completed the full period of
your life and, very soon, you must retire to your room and sit still
and wait, for you also must prepare to meet your God. This summons may
come to me as I stand here, or to you as you sit there–it may come to
the strongest young man or young woman among us. Even while we are at
this service, the dart of death may reach any one of us!
What a flurry some people are in when that summons comes to them,
"Prepare to meet your God!" As a rule, they have not the hardihood to
put it aside. A few do, but many say, "Send for the minister, call in
some praying friends and let us prepare to meet our God." They go about
that solemn business in quite the wrong fashion! Their harvest is past,
their summer is ended and they are not saved and, even now, they do not
go the right way to be saved–they are relying upon men! They are
relying upon prayers, for they have not yet learned to look alone to
Jesus! I do not know any more dreary work than to be called, sometimes
at dead of night, to see a dying man or woman who has lived a careless,
godless life. I often feel as if it would be better to refuse to go,
for, when one gets there, frequently the person is insensible and what
their friends imagine we, who are ministers, can do with insensible
people, is more than I can tell. Why, we cannot do much with you while
you have your senses! Even while you are sitting here, much that we say
glides off you like rain off the roof of your house. What can you hope
that we can say to you when you are either unconscious, or distracted
with
pain–with your head aching and your mind confused–and your soul
amazed by the near prospect of the world to come?
God's Grace can work miracles, I know, but I fear that this miracle is
seldom worked–that the man who has neglected all his life to prepare
to meet his God should be able to light his lamp all of a sudden–and
go forth to meet the King just when the trumpet voice is sounding
through the streets, "Behold, the Bridegroom comes! Go you out to meet
Him." For the most part, there is a piteous appeal, "Give us of your
oil, for our lamps are gone out," but that we cannot do. And, while
they go to buy for themselves, the Bridegroom comes–and when they
clamor for admittance at the closed door, the answer is, "Too late! Too
late! You cannot enter now." The old Rabbis used to say that every man
should prepare to die one day before his death-day and, since he did
not know whether he might not die tomorrow, the wisest plan was for him
to prepare today. And so it is. Through this assembly, then, let this
Truth of God run–that there will come a summons to death and that
summons will run thus, "Prepare to meet your God."
But when you die, in an instant your soul will be before the bar of
God. There will be held what I may call the petty sessions before the
Last Grand Assize, but at that session your soul will stand alone and
God will bid you go to the house of detention where you must wait till
your body shall rise to be united with your soul! When the day of
Resurrection arises, louder than ten thousand thunders will ring out
the blast of the archangel's trumpet, startling Heaven and earth, and
echoing over land and sea, "Awake you dead, and come to judgment!" Then
shall the cemeteries heave and toss like seas when lashed into fury by
the tempest! Then shall the battlefields of earth grow rich with living
men as the harvest field is rich when the reaper goes forth with his
sickle! Then shall earth, from her teeming womb, yield the unnumbered
myriads that have slept within her bosom–and they shall stand,
covering earth and sea, a countless multitude like the leaves of the
forest or the sands of the seashore! Then again shall the trumpet sound
o'er all the gathered throng, "Prepare to meet your God!" And HE shall
come, the Man, Christ Jesus, whom they would not have to be their God
and King and, sitting on the Great White Throne, with all nations
before Him, "He shall separate them, one from another, as a shepherd
divides his sheep from the goats." And "the books" shall be opened and
whoever, of all our fellow creatures and of ourselves, also, shall not
be found written in the Book of Life shall be cast into the Lake of
Fire!
O Sirs, O Sirs, in the name of the living God, I ask you–Are you
prepared for that great day? Some of us can say, with humble boldness,
"Yes, we are prepared for it." I hope that many here can truthfully
say, with Count Zinzendorf–
"Jesus, Your blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress!
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who anything to my charge shall lay?
While through Your blood absolved I am
From sin's tremendous curse and shame." But if you have not been
absolved by the blood of Jesus, how can you stand there? The very light
of His Countenance would scare you into abject terror! And, if His face
alarms you, what will His voice do when He says, "Depart, you cursed"?
And what will His hand do when He grasps His rod of iron and breaks you
in pieces like a potter's wheel? Beware, you that forget God, lest you
loiter and linger and procrastinate until that last trumpet summons
sounds, "Prepare to meet your God." May He graciously grant that you
may be prepared now, instead of standing unprepared in that dread
day!–
"You sinners, seek His Grace, Whose wrath you cannot bear! Fly to the
shelter of His Cross, And find salvation there!"
Crouch at His feet! Bow down before those dear feet that were nailed to
the Cross! Look up to the hands that still bear the nail prints! Gaze
upon the face that once was stained with spittle, but now shines beyond
the light of the sun! Look upward to that brow which once was crowned
with thorns! Hide yourself in that cleft in His side where the spear
made an open way to the heart of Jesus! In a sentence, rest in His
atoning Sacrifice, for there is nothing else in which you can rest! May
the Lord enable you to do so, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: AMOS5:4-27.
Verse 4. For thus says the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek you Me,
and you shall live. And that is just the message of God to professing
Christians now–"Seek you Me." Get away from your mere ceremonies, from
trusting in your outward performances–and get to God Himself. Get
beyond your fellow worshippers and your ministers, beyond your
sanctuaries and your supposed holy places–and get in spirit and in
truth to God Himself! "Seek you Me, and you shall live."
5. But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal and pass not to
Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall
come to nothing. These were the places where the calves and other idols
were set up for the worship of God by means of visible symbols. That
was the Romanism of that day. Pure spiritual worship was ordained by
God, but that was not enough for the idolatrous Israelites. They must
set up the image of an ox, the emblem of power–not that they would
worship the ox, they said, but that they might worship the God of Power
through that symbol. And that is the plea of Papists today–"We do not
worship that cross. We do not worship that image. These things help us!
They are emblems." But they are absolutely forbidden by God–"You shall
not make unto you any engraved image, or any likeness of anything that
is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth: you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor
serve them." The First Commandment forbids us to have any other God
than Jehovah. The Second forbids us to worship Him through any emblem
or symbol whatever.
6, 7. Seek the LORD, and you shall live, lest He break out like fire in
the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in
Beth-el. You who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness
in the earth. Here you have another great Truth of God–that in order
to seek God aright, we must turn away from sin. All the Ritualism in
the world will not save us, or be acceptable to God! There must be
purity of life and holiness of character. Justice must be done between
man and man, and we must seek to be right before the righteous and holy
God.
8. Seek Him that makes the seven stars and Orion. The Creator of the
spring-bringing Pleiades and of the winter-bringing Orion.
8, 9. And turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day
dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them
out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is His name that strengthens
the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against
the fortress. The God of the weak, the Defender of the oppressed! You
that oppress the poor and tread down the people, seek you Him and wash
your hands from the stains of your past injustice!
10. They hate him that rebukes in the gate, and they abhor him that
speaks uprightly. There is still a generation that cannot bear to be
told of its faults–and it shows its venom against everything that is
right.
11. Forasmuch, therefore, as your treading is upon the poor, and you
take from him burdens of wheat you have built houses of hewn stone but
you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but
you shall not drink wine of them. God has often shown how He can
overthrow those who oppress the poor!
12-17. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins:
they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor
in the gate from their rights. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence
in that time, for it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that you
may live: and so the LORD, the God of Hosts, shall be with you, as you
have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment
in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of Hosts will be gracious unto
the remnant of Joseph. Therefore the LORD, the God ofHosts, the Lord
says thus, Wailing shall be in all streets, and they shall say in all
the highways, Alas, alas, and they shall call the husbandman to
mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing. And in
all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through you, says the
LORD. National sins bring down national judgments and when God grows
angry against the people, He makes the places of their feasting, the
vineyards where their choicest vines grow, to become the places of
their sorrow, so that wailing and distress are heard on all sides. Oh,
that nations knew the day of their visitation and would do justly! Then
would such judgments be averted.
18. Woe unto you that desire the day ofthe LORD! To what endis it
foryou? The day ofthe LORD is darkness, and not light. "The day of the
Lord is darkness, and not light," for such as you impenitent, unjust,
graceless sinners. "The day of the Lord" will not bring blessings to
you! It will be–
19. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into
the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. From
bad to worse do they go who think to escape from present misery by
plunging into the Presence of God. The suicide is, of all fools, the
greatest, for he goes before God with his own indictments. No, with his
own sentence in his hand. He needs no trial–he has condemned himself!
20-22. Shall not the day ofthe LORD be darkness, and not light?Even
very dark, andno brightness in it Ihate, I despise your feast days, and
I do not savor your solemn assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt
offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept these: neither
will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. See how God
speaks about public worship and formal sacrifices when the heart is not
right with Him? When the moral conduct of the offerer is wrong, the
Lord will not accept his offering.
23, 24. Take you away from Me the noise of your songs; for I will not
hear the melody of your viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and
righteousness as a mighty stream. This is what God asks
for–righteousness, not sweet music! Have they not, at this very day,
turned what were once houses of prayer into music halls, set up their
idols in our parish churches and adorned their priests with every kind
of Babylonian garment which they could find at Rome, the mystical
Babylon? Are they not turning this nation back again to that accursed
Popery, the yoke of which our fathers could not bear? Therefore, the
Lord is angry with this land! There are storm clouds gathering over it
because it is not sufficiently stirred with indignation against those
idolatrous men who are again seeking to come to the front among us!
25. Have you offered unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness
forty years, O house of Israel? "Did you worship Me? Did you offer
sacrifices to Me?" "No," said God, "you did not."
26, 27. But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your
images, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves. Therefore
will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says the LORD,
whose name is The God of Hosts. Oh, for pure worship! Oh, for pure
living! Oh, for hearts that spiritually worship the Lord, for Jesus
said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him." "But
unto the wicked, God says, What have you to do to declare My statutes,
or that you should take My Covenant in your mouth?"