Amos 5:18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! To what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.
It is easy to be indignant today. It is easy to be self-righteous. It is easy to look at the news and think how wicked the world is and how we wish God would come clean up house. Now, beyond the fact that God is God and we are not, and that God knows what He is doing and has the big picture and we do not, here is a word of caution from the book of Amos: we should be careful what we wish for.
God’s people were unique. They belonged to God alone. There were other nations that were living in pagan idolatry, and Israel very self-righteously looked at these wicked nations without taking up a lament for herself. That’s why in Amos 5 it says, “Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.” The funeral dirge, the lament, was not for the pagans. The pagans were doing what pagans do. It was against Israel. God was lamenting Israel.
God says, “Seek ye me, and ye shall live: but seek not Bethel.” God is saying, “Seek Me, and don’t seek Bethel where you have put up your own version of Me, your calves, your gods.” In verse 6 He says, “Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.” He is saying, “You are God’s people. It is not like you are a pagan nation and if I judge you, you can appeal to Israel. You are Israel.”
“Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion,” God says, “The LORD is his name.” They were to seek God, but instead they were seeking God’s judgment on others and thinking it would be good. Verse 14 says, “Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good.”
He goes on to tell them that what God wanted from them was not their feast days. In fact, God despised that. Their offerings God would not accept, nor would God hear their music. What God wanted was a change of heart. God wanted them to change what they were and who they were by yielding to Him. I think that is most poignantly brought forward in verse 18 where it says, “Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness and not light.”
The “day of the LORD” means the coming of God’s judgment. They were praying, wishing, and hoping for God’s judgment as they went in emptiness to their religious rituals and had no heart for God. The point is that the day of the Lord was going to be against them as well as it was going to be against anyone. It is pointless to seek God’s intervention in this world if we are not first willing to do what is right when it puts us in the minority.
For so many people who belong to God it is easy to condemn the world, to wring our hands about the world, and to hope that God will come back soon, and not take a moment to think if we really want God to come back soon. Are you aware that God is here now in the person of the Holy Spirit? Are you yielded to Him now? We don’t need to dread the day of the Lord and we should not think that it is going to solve everything intrinsically without first taking heed to our own hearts condition.