Preparing For God (part 2 of 2)

Continuing our correlation of the Levitical/Deuteronomic cursings (and Israel’s understanding of themselves and their plight alongside that comprehension, while also recognizing that it is possible that neither Leviticus nor Deuteronomy had taken their final written forms before the composition of Amos, but Amos’ apparent heavy reliance on the understanding of covenant curses implies knowledge of them) with the fourth chapter of Amos, we also find that “The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until He has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.  The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heart, and with drought and with blight and with mildew” (Deuteronomy 28:21-22a).  Also, “The Lord will make the rain of your land powder.  From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed” (28:24). 

Apparently, God takes very seriously the fulfillment of His plans and purposes through the people of His covenant, as He continues and says “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies…  And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth…The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed” (28:25a, 26a, 27).  Going on, we find that “You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it.  You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them” (28:38-39).  “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and statutes that He commanded you” (28:45). 

All of these things can be intimately connected to health and wealth.  These curses are a destruction of that which represents the wealth of a people.  In Deuteronomy 8:18, we read “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth.”  Why does God give His people the power to get wealth?  He does so in order “that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers” (8:18b).  What was that covenant?  To find that, we return to the book of Genesis, and to chapter twelve, when God says to Abraham, as He announces a covenant that will be continued through Isaac and Jacob, to the nation of Israel, and on to those that are the children of Abraham by faith (post-Christ), that “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (12:2-3).  God blesses His people so that they can properly respond to His blessing in gratitude, as the world’s great patron, that they may extend the cycle and circle of grace and be a blessing to all the earth.  He also promised that whoever dishonored Abraham would be cursed.  Truly, it must be said that the nation of Israel itself dishonored Abraham, in forsaking the faith that had been granted to him and becoming unfaithful, and so they were cursed. 

Israel, whom God had chosen to perpetuate the covenant, had failed to perform according to that covenant given to Abraham, but because Israel had failed, that did not mean God had failed.  He is the faithful God that would keep His covenant of blessing.  He would set things right.  How would He do that in light of the fact that His covenant people had failed?  We find the answer in our text, where the Lord said, “prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (Amos 4:12b).  Though at first glance, it does appear to be an ominous statement, as we consider it we find that it is actually a statement of God’s profound blessing, as God continues to work to bring about His covenant promises, in spite of the failure of the people that He had appointed to the task of representing Him in His world.  Yes, in spite of everything, God looks forward and says, “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel” (4:12a).  In conjunction with this looking forward, God references the curses of the fourth chapter and says, “because I will do this to you” (4:12a). 

Because in His supreme faithfulness to His promises, He would do and had done all of these things to His people; so likewise, in supreme faithfulness, a Messiah would be born, would suffer, die, and rise again.  While there are many facets and implications to the Christ event, part of what was accomplished through it was the Creator God’s gathering together and uniting a new covenant people, in Christ, in recognition of the realization of the hope of the Resurrection, bringing the life of the age to come into the present in union with Christ (belief in Jesus and allegiance to His kingship), and by which the Creator God of Israel would bless the whole of the creation, including all of the peoples of the world (not just national Israel).  Jesus would be set forth as Israel’s king and God.  Though executed as a challenger to Caesar, and charged with being “King of the Jews,” He would go largely unrecognized in these roles, even though Israel had been repeatedly told to be prepared to meet their God.