Lord' is more moving by reason of the dimness which wraps it. The
contact of divine power with human rebellion can only end in one way,
and that is too terrible for speech. Conscience can translate 'thus.'
The thunder-cloud is all the more dreadful for the vagueness of its
outline, where its livid hues melt into formless black. What bolts lurk
in its gloom?

The certainty of judgment is the basis of a call to repentance, which
may avert it. The meeting with God for which Israel is besought to
prepare, was, of course, not judgment after death, but the impending
destruction of the Northern Kingdom. But Amos's prophetic call is not
misapplied when directed to that final day of the Lord. Common-sense
teaches preparation for a certain future, and Amos's trumpet-note is
deepened and re-echoed by Jesus: 'Be ye ready also, for ... the Son of
man cometh.' Note, too, that Israel's peculiar relation to God is the
very ground of the certainty of its punishment, and of the appeal for
repentance. Just because He is 'thy God,' will He assuredly come to
judge, and you may assuredly prepare, by repentance, to meet Him. The
conditions of meeting the Judge, and being 'found of Him in peace,' are
that we should be 'without spot, and blameless'; and the conditions of
being so spotless and uncensurable are, what they were in Amos's day,
repentance and trust. Only we have Jesus as the brightness of the
Father's glory to trust in, and His all-sufficient work to trust to, for
pardon and purifying.

The magnificent proclamation of the name of the Lord which closes the
passage, is meant as at once a guarantee of His judgment and an
enforcement of the call to be ready to meet Him. He in creation forms
the solid, changeless mountains and the viewless, passing wind. The most
stable and the most mobile are His work. He reads men's hearts, and can
tell them their thoughts afar off. He is the Author of all changes, both
in the physical and the moral world, bringing the daily wonder of
sunrise and the nightly shroud of darkness, and with like alternation
blending joy and sorrow in men's lives. He treads 'on the high places of
the earth,' making all created elevations the path of His feet, and
crushing down whatever exalts itself. Thus, in creation almighty, in
knowledge omniscient, in providence changing all things and Himself the
same, subjugating all, and levelling a path for His purposes across
every opposition, He manifests His name, as the living