Caution

Amos 4:13 "For behold, He who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is, and makes the morning darkness, who treads the high places of the earth - the Lord God of hosts is His name."

I am going through a great Bible study with the men of our church right now. It is called "Downpour" by James MacDonald. This last week he talked about God's holiness. His main points were that holiness describes separation and holiness demands caution. God's holiness describes how totally different God is from anything or anyone else. He is totally set apart. He is so awesome and powerful and pure and righteous and true that He is far beyond anything that we can imagine. Because of this we need to approach Him with caution. We can't be flippant in our relationship with Him. We can't say things like: "When I see God I am going to give Him a piece of my mind." No. When we see God we are only going be one place: On our faces crying out "Holy, holy, holy."

Somehow the nation of Israel forgot about this. In their amnesia God did what He needed to do to bring them back. As you go through Amos chapter four you see that He started by being kind and gentle with them by making them physically healthy and providing for all of their needs. (v6 cleanness of teeth and bread in all their places). This didn't impress them and they continued to go their own way, so God took a second step. He withheld rain in one city and provided it in another city. The result was that He still provided, but He made them travel from one city to another to get water. (v7,8) They still didn't pay attention to Him so He turned the heat up a little more. He "blasted" their crops with blight, mildew and locusts. (v9) Now I am thinking that they should be thinking: "We had all we needed before and now we don't. What's the deal? Is it us? What are we doing wrong?" But no. They didn't think and they did not return to God. Here comes more heat. God impacted them physically so many of their young men died. (v10) Again, no response. Finally, God overthrew some of them like He did with Sodom and Gomorrah and yet still had compassion on some of them by plucking them from the burning. (v11) Their response? Nothing. So He said: "Prepare to meet your God." (v12) And what is God like? Holy. He is unlike anything that they could ever imagine. He formed the mountains. He creates the wind. He knows everything that we are thinking. He makes it dark in the morning. He walks on the highest places on the earth. He is the Lord God of all the armies of heaven…and He said to them and He says to us: "Caution". When they were flippant in their attitude about Him and He tried to bring them back, they ignored the caution signs…so prepare to meet your God.

I wonder how far our country is going to get before we need to meet God face to face in His holiness? This, however, does not just apply to countries, it applies to me. How do I approach the God who made it all, who rules it all, who controls it all, who knows it all?

CAUTION.