The Day of the Lord
Amos 5:18–20
Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? Amos 5:20
Consider what Amos teaches about this coming day of judgment. When Amos says that the Day of the Lord is going to be a day of darkness, he especially means that God’s blessing will be withdrawn and men and women will be without the Light of life.
The second characteristic of the Day of the Lord is isolation. While we have light, we see one another and feel we are with one another, even though space separates us physically. In the dark, we cannot see. We feel isolated. That is what it means to be in the dark spiritually. It is to be alone without Christ.
The third characteristic of the day of God’s judgment is that it is inescapable. This is what Amos suggests in verse 19, in his picture of a man trying to escape a fierce lion. In the context of his prophecy, the lion is the Lion of Judah. He is the God-lion. This is God in the day of his wrath on the ungodly. God is inescapable.
The final characteristic of the Day of the Lord is utter hopelessness. There will be no glimmers of light in that day, says Amos. The state of the lost will be one of utter hopelessness, as it always is for those who set themselves against God.
There is only one bright point in this portrait of the coming great darkness: the Day of the Lord has not come yet. There is hope for those who will turn to Christ.
If judgment is inevitable, then the only logical thing is to flee to the place where it has already been poured out, that is, to the cross of Calvary. Only there may a guilty sinner find shelter. Augustus Toplady knew this hope. Toplady lived in England in the 1700s. He was in a field when suddenly a storm swept down out of the sky. He was far from a village and had no shelter, but he saw a large rock ahead of him and thought there he might escape some of the storm’s violence. When he got to the rock, he saw that it had been split open. There was a crack into which he could fit. He went in and was sheltered from the storm. While waiting there, he thought of God’s coming judgment and of the fact that Jesus, the Rock of Ages, was broken by God so that sinners like ourselves, who hide in him, might be safe. Struck by this thought, he found a playing card that had been lying at his feet and wrote, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.”
Are you hiding in that Rock? There is no other shelter. It is only there where you can safely meet God.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.