D. Scott Meadows

I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD (Amos 4.11).

Our basic fault in relation to God is hard-heartedness. Sin has its own momentum. It is a boulder rolling downhill and picking up speed; only Omnipotence can stop it. The Lord mercifully reproves us that we may repent in time, and even if we won’t, His goodness and justice will be magnified all the more in our condemnation on Judgment Day.

THE CONTEXT OF HARD-HEARTEDNESS

Hard-heartedness is particularly exposed in a situational context of severe divine judgments and temporal divine mercies. Through Amos the prophet, the Lord reminds His people Israel what He had done to them and for them. Addressing them as a nation, He rehearses His mighty deeds of punishment and deliverance.

He says, “I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” This statement presupposes many things. God speaks. God acts in this world. God causes everything that happens, including all the calamities. God rules His creation in wisdom and justice. Sometimes calamities are direct punishments for the sins of those who perish and stern warnings for the survivors. The “overthrow” (downfall caused by God) of “Sodom and Gomorrah” (Gen 19) refers to ancient cities of Canaan still known for their extreme depravity and proverbial for severe divine judgment. Clearly, Israel’s special religious status in those days did not exempt them from God’s wrath for their sins. If they lived like Sodomites, they might be punished like Sodomites. God solemnly and expressly warned them about this centuries beforehand (Deut 29.10–28). Israel had lately been decimated by pagan Assyrian armies. This is revealed as the sovereign Lord’s judicial punishment of Israel’s generationally-persistent idolatries and immoralities.

He also says to the survivors, “and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning,” using a simile of a stick which was saved from being completely burned up by someone snatching it away at the last minute. If it had not been for the Lord’s merciful preservation of them, the Israelites would have all been killed and ceased to exist as a nation. “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not” (Lam 3.22). Isaiah acknowledged, “Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah” (Isa 1.9), that is, completely consumed. The apostate survivors in Amos’ day were rescued by Providence like Lot from Sodom, though they were less righteous than he was. Their temporary escape from utter ruin was an impressive display of God’s mercy to them.

And yet, even after the Lord had done all this to and for Israel, they did not change their ways, except to grow worse and worse in their sins.

THE REPROOF OF HARD-HEARTEDNESS

The third part of this verse reads, very mournfully, “yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.” This is simultaneously a lamentation, a justification, and an admonition.

This is a lamentation uttered by the Lord Himself because He is a God of love and mercy. The God of the Bible is not capricious or sadistic. Judgment is “his strange work, . . . his strange act” (Isa 28.21). Using His own glorious Name in an oath formula to convince us, He insists, “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek 33.11). Positively, Micah assures us that our God “delighteth in mercy” (Mic 7.18), and this distinguishes Him from all the false gods worshipped by other people. God’s compassion is on full display in Jesus, who mourned apostate Israel’s hard-heartedness unforgettably. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt 23.37). Jerusalem’s hard-heartedness led to Jesus’ broken-heartedness!

This is also a justification of God’s long-delayed and cataclysmic judgment He was about to inflict upon Israel in those days. The following verse says, “Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel” (Amos 4.12). That is like saying, “Time’s up. Your probation is over. Prepare to be punished.” Our first guilt as sinners is completely sufficient to justify God in punishing us, but when we prove hard-hearted after such long divine patience, countless verbal warnings, startling catastrophes, and innumerable second-chances, so that Justice bellows for Him to measure out the heavy punishment we so richly deserve, then His brilliant glory as the Judge of judges appears most splendidly.

Finally, this is an admonition. Perhaps the primary reason the Lord sent His prophet Amos to announce to the apostates, “yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD,” was to induce their repentance by reproof. This is all the more amazing when we consider that God stood to gain absolutely nothing from them, no matter what they did. How astounding that He takes an interest in us and condescends to call us to Himself for our salvation!

The form of this call to repent is most instructive. As the essence of sin is a departure from the Lord, so our spiritual recovery is a return to Him. He explains this in another passage and also complains of stubborn hardheartedness. “For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; in returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not” (Isa 30.15). Alec Motyer comments, “Repentance means ‘returning’, not a feigned return but one that would really bring them back to rest upon him” (Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, 1999, IVP).

Are you hard-hearted in relation to God? Is the momentum of the sinful status-quo seen in your life? Do you realize that every day you persist, you are deteriorating spiritually, your hostility toward God increases, and your guilt multiplies until Judgment Day? Has not God delivered you already from countless potential catastrophes despite your sins? Have you not seen others suffer His wrath? Shouldn’t all this lead you to return to Him through Christ? Ω