eat you to go and search the Scriptures for yourselves; for in them
ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of the
Lord, of that Eternal Son of whom the second Psalm speaks, in words which
mobs and tyrants, the atheist and the superstitious, are alike willing to
forget.

In the time of Amos, the rich tyrants of Israel seem to have meant by the
day of the Lord some vague hope that, in those dark and threatening
times, God would interfere to save them, if they were attacked by foreign
armies. But woe to you that desire the day of the Lord, says Amos the
herdsman. What do you want with it? You will find it very different
from what you expect. There is a day of the Lord coming, he says,
therefore prepare to meet your God. But you are unprepared, and you will
find the day of the Lord very different from what you expect. It will be
a day in which you will learn the righteousness of God. Because He is
righteous He will not suffer your unrighteousness. Because He is good,
He will not permit you to be bad. The day of the Lord to you will be
darkness and not light, not as you dream deliverance from the invaders,
but ruin by the invaders, from which will be no escape. "As if a man did
flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned
his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him." There will be no escape
for those wicked men. Though they dug into hell, God's hand would take
them; though they climbed up into heaven, God would fetch them down;
though they hid in the bottom of the sea, God would command the serpent,
and it should bite them. He would sift the house of Israel among all
nations like corn in a sieve, and not a grain should fall to the earth.
And all the sinners among God's people should die by the sword, who say,
"The evil shall not overtake us."

This was Amos's notion of the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
These Israelites would not obey the laws of God's kingdom, and be
righteous and good. But Amos told them, they could not get rid of God's
kingdom. The Lord was King, in spite of them, and they would find it out
to their sorrow. If they would not seek His kingdom and His government,
His government would seek them and find them, and find their evil-doings
out. If they would not seek God's righteousness, His righteousness would
seek them, and execute righteous judgment on them. No wonder that the
Israelites thought Amos