Message by Bro. Matt Thornton  

Amos 4: 6-13 

"Prepare to Meet Your God"  

SERMON CHALLENGE:  How do you respond to the Lord's discipline?

Amos 4:6–13 (ESV)

6 “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 
7 “I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; 
8 so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 
9 “I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 
10 “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 
11 “I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 
12 “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” 
13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!

Hebrews 12:1–29 (ESV)

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 
4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” 
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 
8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 
9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 
10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 
11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 
13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 
14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 
15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 
16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 
17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. 
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 
19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 
20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 
21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 
23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 
24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 
25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 
26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 
27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 
29 for our God is a consuming fire.