You Can Run But You Cannot Hide
Lessons Learned from the Prophet Amos
Amos 5:18-20 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? ESV
Amos 9:1-4, 8-10 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: "Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape. 2 "If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. 3 If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. 4 And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good." . . . 8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob," declares the Lord. 9 "For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. 10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, 'Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.' ESV
Introduction
It is a common charge from atheists that religious people tend to create and worship a god that is much like themselves. That is, atheists often state that they believe that man created the concept of god to fill an ideal within his mind and so that is why there are so many gods and religious beliefs in the world. In the area of false gods, the atheist has a point – the scriptures record that those who create idols carve them out to be as they want them to be and then eventually they become as the idols are.[1] It should not be like that with those who claim to serve the God of the Bible but unfortunately sometimes it is. Sometimes people who serve the God of the Bible fall into the trap of the idolaters in that they recreate in their mind and belief system a mental image of how the one, true, living God is that is yet far from how He actually is. Sometimes people want God to be a certain way and so they convince themselves that He is like that and forget about other characteristics that are so plainly spelled out in the scriptures. And the result of creating a false view of God is always sin, degradation, and – if not corrected – certain judgment.
All of Israel’s sin and faults and moral failures were a byproduct of the fact that Israel had a false view of who God really is and what He is like. They wanted a God who winked at their sins and their unrighteous lifestyles and who turned a blind eye to the way that they treated each other. They wanted to live fully fulfilling their own personal agendas and oppressing the poor and yet have God smile and come and continue to bless them. Until the prophet Amos arrived on the scene, they had largely convinced themselves that this portrait of God’s dealing with them was true; they only paid and heeded preachers who would tell them that what they already believed was right and they took their financial success as a sign that they were being blessed of God. When Amos came preaching the need to repent or else the sure judgment of God was about to fall, they were shocked and really didn’t believe him. They had imagined for so long that God was as they wanted Him to be, that they had a hard time grasping how He really was.
Our texts highlight two of the chief causes of Israel’s misguided and false notions of God. As we ponder them, it is not hard to see that as Israel of old did in the time of Amos, so are many Christians doing today in modern times. It is good for us to take these ancient lessons and apply them to our lives so that we do not reap the judgment that they reaped; certainly, Amos is still speaking to this generation! We must also take extreme care that our notion and views of God are formed from the full descriptions of the Bible and that we do not make the mistake of changing our idea of God to fit our lifestyle – rather, we should change our lifestyle and belief system to match the true identity of God! Even if you are convinced that God is different than He really is, that does not change God, one iota: He is forever the same, therefore this example of ancient Israel should be greatly heeded!
The Forgotten Fact of God’s Omnipresence
Israel of Amos’ day had first conveniently convinced themselves that God was not truly omnipresent. “Omnipresent” is a fancy word meaning that God is everywhere at one time and that He sees all and witnesses everything about a person’s life. The natural byproduct of such an error is the belief that what is done in secret is okay and will never be called into question by God. If they did something where nobody else really knew what they were doing, they had convinced themselves that God didn’t see it, either. And, boy, were they wrong in that belief!
Has anybody besides me been a little perturbed by the fact that if something happens that is newsworthy, somehow they always manage to have a video shot of it for the news? Remember that plane that had to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River a few weeks ago? I commend the pilot for tremendous skills in landing it safely, but what was lost in all of the reporting was the fact that they had a video clip of the plane touching down in the river. This was an unplanned event and something that they did not know was coming, yet by searching all the surveillance cameras along the river, they found several that captured the landing. That bothers me a bit: is there any place that we can go and not be seen by an unseen eye, anymore? There’s a video camera mounted in every hallway, at every doorway, and in every street nowadays. If something random happens, chances are they have it on camera and that just makes me feel a little strange.
Even those video surveillance cameras pale in comparison to what the police have available to them nowadays. One police department boats that its McDonnell Douglas helicopter is equipped with a thirty-million candlepower searchlight capable of illuminating an entire city block at one time. A Canadian police department also claims that they have fifteen to twenty calls per shift of a criminal fleeing a scene and that they have over several years never lost a suspect. From 500 feet away, the infrared camera on the helicopter can pick up the thief’s footprints and they appear as heat sources in the snow. It has not been unusual for the helicopter crew to radio the guys on the ground, “he’s a little bit to your left and about ten feet in front of you, get him!” In the big cities, there is nowhere to hide for the evildoer and no place that they can go where the law cannot find them.
Now consider that God is greater and more powerful and has a more penetrating and discerning eye than any infrared sensor or spotlight! God sees all and knows all, whether it is done in the big city or the countryside; whether it is in an area that is greatly populated or whether a rural wilderness area; whether it happens at church or far, far away from the preacher. God sees all! Such is what He roared through the prophet Amos to remind the people of Israel in our main text. In another vision at the end of his book, Amos told us:
Amos 9:1-4 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: "Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape. 2 "If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. 3 If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. 4 And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good." ESV
Again, we see the two-edged sword of serving the real, true and living God. God’s words here are reminiscent of the Psalmist’s description of Him where it is said:
Ps 139:1-12 O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. 7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. ESV
To the Psalmist, who was faithfully serving God and living righteously, the omnipresence of God was a comforting thought. No matter how low or how high or where he went, God would be there and would protect him and keep and guide him. What is a comforting thought to the righteous doer, though, becomes a disconcerting thought to those who are trying to live a double life. Because whether you are doing right or not, God sees all, knows all, and discerns all. The people of Israel’s day were convincing themselves that because nobody else knew what they were doing in secret that they were okay and that God would come and treat them according to the fronts that they had very skillfully put up to everyone else around them. But God told them,
Amos 9:8-10 Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob," declares the Lord. 9 "For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. 10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, 'Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.' ESV
In effect, God was saying, “wherever you go to get away from justice, I will yet find you!” Things were not going to work out for them in their sin because was going to make sure that they did not work out! And God said, “Behold the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful kingdom…” God was saying, “You have believed that somehow my hand was shortened and my eyes did not see what you are doing and that you could escape the judgment for your unrighteous deeds, but I am not as you imagine!” “You can run but you cannot hide from me!”
Such truths are very valuable for us to keep in mind, even today: God still sees all, knows all, and will call all into account. The interesting paradox of ancient Israel was that they claimed to worship a living God who was greater than all of the idols of the surrounding nations and yet in their own minds then tried to convince themselves that their great, living God could not really see what they were doing and wouldn’t really mind their unrighteous deeds as He had said that He did. Such thinking, unfortunately, is a common paradox among Christians today: they rejoice at Easter and Christmas in the fact that they serve a real and living God and yet for most of the year in between live as if God doesn’t know what is really going on in their lives. They come to church and worship and sacrifice and convince themselves that their token worship and their religiosity is going to cause God to pretend that He doesn’t see all of the other. But God has never been like that and He’s not like that now – except in the misguided mental images of some people. God sees all and knows all and cares about what is done in secret. When you bow at an altar, God knows whether or not you are being truthful and fully repenting or not. God knows whether or not it is just lip service for the benefit of others or yourself because God not only sees the outside but also your heart and your most inner being! God sees whether or not your worship is truly from a heart that is longing to glorify Him or if it is a front put up so that others think you are alright. He sees through your sacrifice and knows everything about you.
All of this is good for us to remember, lest we make the same mistake Israel made: with God you can run but you cannot hide! He knows those who are sincere and He knows those who are hypocritical. He knows what moves you and knows you better than you know yourself. You can fool many people, you can fool the preacher, you can even fool yourself and justify your sin as many do, but you cannot fool God. Whatever your view of the God of the Bible, make sure you include His omnipresence: you can run but you cannot hide from the God Almighty!
A Lack of Fear of the Lord
Because they imagined that God didn’t really see or care about their secret sins and how they treated others, the Israelites of Amos’ day had lost any pretense of a genuine fear of the Lord. In many ways, these things were steps, one leading to another, in a downward spiral of degradation and a path that was heading toward sure judgment. First, Israel began to do wrongly and to treat their fellow man wrongly in order to get a little more ahead in life. Then, to justify their sins, they retooled and reformed their view of God and convinced themselves that God didn’t care about their secret actions and that God either did not see it or would not see it in their lives and that somehow they could escape His judgments on sinful actions because of their token religious worship. As they corrupted their view of God to be what they wanted Him to be rather than how He really was, the result was a complete loss of fear of the Lord. They were making a show of serving God and yet did not fear Him as they should have.