Amos 4:12

Therefore thus will I do unto thee - I will continue my judgments, I will fight against you; and, because I am thus determined: - Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel - This is a military phrase, and is to be understood as a challenge to come out to battle. As if the Lord had said, I will attack you immediately. Throw yourselves into a posture of defense, summon your idols to your help: and try how far your strength, and that of your gods, will avail you against the unconquerable arm of the Lord of hosts!

Therefore--as all chastisements have failed to make thee "return unto Me." thus will I do unto thee--as I have threatened (Am 4:2, 3). prepare to meet thy God--God is about to inflict the last and worst judgment on thee, the extinction of thy nationality; consider then what preparation thou canst make for encountering Him as thy foe (Jer 46:14;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

GOD had, in the days of Amos, by different ways rebuked the sin of His people Israel. He had wasted them with famine and sword. He had withheld the rain. He had sent forth the pestilence after the manner of Egypt. He had smitten their fields and gardens with blast and mildew, and He had overthrown some of them, as Sodom and Gomorrah.

GOD had, in the days of Amos, by different ways rebuked the sin of His people Israel. He had wasted them with famine and sword. He had withheld the rain. He had sent forth the pestilence after the manner of Egypt. He had smitten their fields and gardens with blast and mildew, and He had overthrown some of them, as Sodom and Gomorrah. But they still persevered in their rebellion, and therefore He declares that He will send them no more of His messengers, and shoot no more of His far-reaching arrows, but will come Himself, in His own Person, to deal with them. God's way of dealing with rebellious humanity, is, at first to upbraid and persuade with words—soft, gentle, tender words. These He repeats many times, accompanying them with tokens of tenderness and Grace. By-and-by He exchanges these words of tenderness for words of mingled threat—He begins to expostulate with them—why will they drive Him to this? Why will they die? Why will they bring ruin upon themselves? Then, if words are of no effect upon them, He turns to blows—but His strokes fall softly at first. Yet if these avail not, His strokes gather strength, till at last He smites them with the blows of a cruel one, and wounds them sorely. If after this the sinners remain obstinate, the Lord's longsuffering turns to wrath, and He says, "Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more. Already your whole head is sick and your whole heart faint. What shall I do unto you? What shall I do unto you?" Things have come to a dreadful pass when at last the Lord puts aside the rod, when He puts aside afflictions which He has sent as chastisements, and comes forth Himself to end the strife, crying, "Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries, and avenge Me of My enemies." Such was the position of Israel in the text.

THERE is a peculiar solemnity about the language of our text because, albeit that the whole of Scripture is the Word of God, yet very much of it is given to us by the Prophets, Apostles and other Inspired writers. But here, it is God Himself who is speaking and out of Heaven He addresses His erring people and says to them, "Because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel." If ever every mortal ear should be earnestly attentive, it is when God's voice is heard. Shall not the creature listen to its Creator?

THERE is a peculiar solemnity about the language of our text because, albeit that the whole of Scripture is the Word of God, yet very much of it is given to us by the Prophets, Apostles and other Inspired writers. But here, it is God Himself who is speaking and out of Heaven He addresses His erring people and says to them, "Because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel." If ever every mortal ear should be earnestly attentive, it is when God's voice is heard. Shall not the creature listen to its Creator? Shall not man give heed to the voice of the God of the whole earth? O Lord, give to us hearing ears and let not your words merely reach our ears, but may the inward meaning of them penetrate our souls through the effectual working of Your almighty Spirit! I am going to use the closing words of the text—"Prepare to meet your God, O Israel," as AN ADDRESS TO ALL WHO ARE NOW PRESENT. You have come here, but for what purpose have you come? If you have come rightly, you have come to meet your God. The Israelites often came together to bow down before their engraved images, or professing to worship God with rites of their own inventing. They forgot that all true worship must be spiritual and though they did not and could not meet with God in such a way as that, yet they went back to their homes perfectly satisfied with what they had done. They had performed the external rites of their religion. They had gone through all its ceremonies correctly and they were content. But now God calls upon them to prepare to meet HIM—no longer to be satisfied with the visible and the external, but to get to the Invisible and the Eternal—and that is the call of God to everyone who is now here present. "What did you go out to see?" What did you come here to hear? Too many attend even the House of God with the notion of merely going to listen to the preacher.

Therefore thus will I do unto thee - God says more by His silence. He had enumerated successive scourges. Now, with His hand uplifted to strike, He mentions none, but says, “thus.” Rib.: “So men too, loth to name evils, which they fear and detest, say, “God do so to me, and more also.” God using the language of people” Jerome, “having said, ‘thus will I do unto thee,’ is silent as to what He will do; that so, Israel hanging in suspense, as having before him each sort of punishment (which are the more terrible, because he imagines them one by one), may indeed repent, that God inflict not what He threatens.” Prepare to meet thy God - In judgment, face to face, final to them. All the judgments which had been sent hitherto were but heralds, forerunners of the judgment to come. He Himself was not in them. In them, He passed no sentence upon Israel. They were medicinal, corrective; they were not His final sentence. Now, having tried all ways of recovering them in vain, God summons them before His tribunal. But although the judgment of the ten tribes, as a whole, was final, to individuals there was place for repentance. God never, in this life, bids people or individuals “prepare to meet Him,” without a purpose of good to those who do prepare to receive His sentence aright. […]