"Let The Lion Roar: Prepare to Meet Your God” | Rev. Betty Bricker
There's a question buried in Amos 4 that most of us would rather not sit with:
What if the hard thing I'm going through isn't random — but a call?
The prophet Amos didn't sugarcoat it. Writing to a prosperous, comfortable people, he listed a string of disasters: famine, drought, blight, plagues, even something like the fall of Sodom. And after each one, the same quiet indictment: "Yet you have not returned to me." (vv. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11)
Five times. Not once, not twice. Five times God extended his hand, and five times Israel looked the other way. The chapter ends with one of the most direct sentences in the entire Old Testament:
"Prepare to meet your God, O Israel."
— Amos 4:12
This Sunday, June 14, guest speaker Rev. Betty J. Bricker opens Amos 4 for us in the second week of Let the Lion Roar. Her message — "Prepare to Meet Your God" — moves through the chapter in four movements.
The Comfort Trap (vv. 1–3)
Amos opens by addressing people who have done well for themselves. They are comfortable. And that comfort, he suggests, has made them blind — not just to others' suffering, but to their own spiritual condition. It's the picture of passengers enjoying dessert on a sinking ship, completely unaware of what's happening below.
The question Betty frames for this section is a personal one: Where has comfort made me spiritually numb?
The Performance Problem (vv. 4–5)
In one of Amos's sharpest ironies, he sarcastically invites the people to "go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more." They are bringing their offerings and tithes. The ritual is perfect. And it means nothing.
A guitar can look beautiful, be perfectly strung, and make no real music if the neck is cracked. Worship without obedience is the same — form without substance, sound without soul.
Does my worship reflect my heart?
The Discipline of Love (vv. 6–11)
This is the chapter's most surprising turn. The disasters Amos lists aren't acts of rage — they're acts of mercy. God, like a shepherd who uses a hook to pull a wandering sheep from the edge of a cliff, uses hardship to get our attention when nothing else will.
Is God using difficulty to draw me closer right now?
The Appointment You Can't Cancel (vv. 12–13)
The chapter ends with an ultimatum — and then, almost immediately, a doxology. The God who demands "prepare to meet your God" is also the One who "forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to mankind." He is not a distant judge. He is the Lord of every breath, every mountain, every morning.
The meeting is coming. The question is only whether we walk toward it — or get surprised by it.
Am I spiritually prepared to meet God today?
Four Things to Carry Into the Week
Comfort can become a spiritual sedative. Prosperity is not a sign of spiritual health.
Worship without obedience is empty. God wants the heart behind the ritual.
God disciplines to restore, not destroy. Hard seasons can be mercy in disguise.
The most important meeting of your life is still ahead. The time to return is now.
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What happens when God keeps calling and we keep not listening? This Sunday, guest speaker Rev. Betty J. Bricker walks us through Amos 4 — a chapter about the mercy hiding inside hardship and the urgency of the only meeting that truly matters.