Amos - The God Of Justice - Preach The Word

THE GOD OF JUSTICE
David Legge
able to sidestep the bear and get in your back door, and you lean on your wall and
take a puff of breath, a snake bites you on the wall!'. You're crying out for the day of
the Lord, but you don't realise that the day of the Lord, it's going to be for you from
the frying pan into the fire - as we would say. You're saying: 'Our enemies are going
to be judged', but you don't realise that you will meet your God! We saw it last night:
'Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!'.
I believe - and it's only my belief - that the day of the Lord is still a future time when
the nation of Israel will be tested and purified, and God will still fulfil His word in all
these prophets, major and minor. But applying this to Christians today, many
Christians - and I'm one of them - who long for the fulfilment of prophetic Scripture,
many of them are not ready to meet their Lord! Are you one of them? Many Christians
view the Lord's return as an escape to heaven, as judgement on the wicked nations,
all the saints living happily together for ever after - and there's no doubt about it, the
New Testament presents the truth of the second coming of Jesus as a cause for
Christian hope, 1 Thessalonians 4, 'Comfort one another with these words'. I don't
want to take anything away from that, but all I will say to you tonight is: make sure
your personal hopes on that day are not false hopes! Make sure you're not making the
mistake, first of all, of not being genuinely born-again. Make sure, if you are saved,
that you're prepared and ready to meet the Lord - because what Amos teaches us,
and what the whole of the New Testament teaches us is that judgement begins at the
house of God! And even when God takes us to heaven, and the trumpet sounds, and
Jesus takes us home, I believe the sequence is that there will be this 'bema'
judgement, and we will have to answer to God as to how we have lived our lives.
Even the layout of the book of Revelation - and I'm not going to fall out with anybody
if you have a different understanding than me, that's not the point. The point is this:
even the layout of Revelation testifies to this, that He starts off, this Judge-Priest
Jesus Christ, walking among the candlesticks - before He judges this world and pours
wrath, vials of wrath, upon it, He deals with the church first! I love prophecy, I really
do, and I'm not ashamed of it either. I think there's a neglect of preaching and
teaching on the second coming of Jesus, probably because there are so many views -
but it was never ever intended to be a form of escapism for the children of God. It
was never intended that we should use prophecy as a confidence in a spurious
security to get us out of what God requires of us today.
The key verse in this whole book is verse 24 of chapter 5: 'But let justice run down
like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream'. When you pray: 'Our Father who
art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come' - do you understand what
you're praying when you say 'Thy kingdom come'? If the Lord should return today,
what would it mean for you? Would it upset your plans? How would He find you? Do
you know the New Testament teaches that some Christians will be ashamed when the
Lord Jesus returns again? First John 2: 'Now, little children, abide in Him, that when
He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming'.
I rejoice in the second coming of Jesus, the joyful anticipation, but it's not meant to
be a cause for apathy! It's meant to be a great motivation for holy living. John said it
again in his little epistle: 'Everyone who has this hope in Him' - capital 'H' - 'purifies
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