The God of Amos: Amos 9:5-10
When God sets a course of action, what can we do to stop it? How can any of us stop God’s will? Who among us has the power to withstand God’s omnipotence?
The last of the judgment passages are finished in Amos. Quite elegantly, God said His piece against the elite. There can be little doubt regarding God’s perspective.
Amos has two more messages to bring. Today’s message is about the character and nature of God. We leave the guilt of the Hebrew elite for a reminder of who is angry with the Hebrew elite. It is not the gods of their own making who comes against the Hebrew people; it is the God who made the universe who comes to uphold judgment on Israel.
The God behind the prophetic claims of Amos is the same God who shaped the world. God’s touch can move – or even melt – mountains. God’s command can raise the level of the Nile or make the Nile dry up. God makes His home in the heavens, where we cannot reach. The earth – the mere surface of the planet where we spend the entirety of our whole lives – is but the foundation of His lowest vaults! That’s perspective.
This incredible God is the divine being who focused His wrath upon the Hebrew elite. There is no place to hide He cannot find. There is no place to go He cannot pursue. There is no building to build He cannot crumble. There is no geography in which to dwell He cannot command. When the Hebrew people walked away from God’s ways, they angered the greatest power in the universe.
God brought the Hebrew people out of Egypt. God brought the Philistines out of Caphtor, which could be a reference to Crete or some other coastal area of the Mediterranean. God brought the Syrians out of Kir, which may be a reference to a place in Mesopotamia. Everyone upon the planet is a sojourner in a land they found and in which they laid their stake.
Are not we all sojourners in a foreign land? How many of us can claim ownership here? Did any of us make this earth and cause it to come into being? Or did we find ourselves here in an already formed world and set about transforming what was given to us? Sure, we lay stake to territory and resources. We take portions of the earth and transform it into something else. That doesn’t make us owners of the earth, it makes us manipulators of the earth. Only the being who made the earth can claim ownership of it.
As the famous song says, “This is My Father’s world.” As William Shakespeare says, “We are but merely actors.” We can convince ourselves that we are powerful beings, but a final analysis mandates we are nothing compared to the being who brought this planet into existence. When God sets a course of action, what can we do to stop it?
