Can you recall a time in history when the world faced so many different calamities – volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, devastating tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, mass shootings, and wars in various regions?
In the past, when any one of these events occurred, people would gather together and pray. Today, we express “thoughts and prayers,” but don’t gather as nations for repentance and an appeal for God’s mercy.
Amos encountered a situation similar to ours, where the nation, blinded by its prosperity, failed to recognize God’s message in the events unfolding in their lives.
To each devastating event in the experience of Israel, God declared:
“Yet you did not return to me,
says the Lord.” (Amos 4.6, 8, 9, 10, 11)
How is it possible that the world undergoes such turmoil, as we are witnessing in the 21st century, without turning to God to ask, “Lord, what is wrong?”
Isaiah’s Answer
Isaiah, a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah, received a dramatic calling from God to prophesy to the nation. God warned him that his prophecy would not be accepted by the people.
What God told Isaiah is one of the reasons why people don’t return to God in the face of troubling times.
And he said, “Go and say to this people:
‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.’
Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes,
So that they may not look with their eyes
and listen with their ears
and comprehend with their minds
and turn and be healed.” (Isaiah 6.9-10)
Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos all declare that people fail to know and understand God’s will because we reject it. We resist listening to what He communicates through His prophets.
Consequently, our eyes become blind, our ears unhearing, and our hearts hardened.
Immanuel – God with Us
During the Christmas season, we sing about the coming of Immanuel, God with us. We have warm thoughts when we sing hymns to the presence of God who comes to us as a baby in a manger.
The presence of God is not always “sweet little Jesus, meek and mild.” Amos and Isaiah describe God’s presence not as a source of comfort, but rather as a judgment upon those who refuse to follow His will.
Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!
For the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind,
reveals his thoughts to mortals,
makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name! (Amos 4.12-13)
Isaiah spoke of the Assyrians as being like a flooding and destructive river.
“It will sweep on into Judah as a flood and, pouring over, will reach up to the neck, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel” (Isaiah 8.8).
The destruction of the Assyrians was part of the God-with-us (Immanuel) judgment on an unrepentant nation.
The good news is that God shows mercy to those who repent. In the book of Deuteronomy, we find God’s prediction of troubled times and people reaching rock bottom, but also the promise of healing for those who repent.
Deuteronomy’s Message
(1) When people’s hearts are hardened and they turn from the Lord to serve idols of their own making, they can expect judgment.
The Lord will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you will be left among the nations where the Lord will lead you.
There you will serve gods made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell (Deuteronomy 4.27-28).
(2) Repentance is not a casual affair but involves sincere attitudes and actions that aim to align with God’s will.
From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul.
In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him (Deuteronomy 4.29-30).
(3) When we meet with the Lord in repentance, we will find that He is present with us as a merciful and loving Savior.
Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them (Deuteronomy 4.31).
The choice lies with us. We can either observe the cataclysmic events occurring on Earth and choose to hide under the covers, closing our ears and eyes, hoping they disappear.
On the other hand, we can confront these events and ask, “God, what can I do to align my life with your desires?”
YouTube Video
Rudy Ross and I discuss this passage on YouTube today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
Real Voices 