The Day You Asked For Text: Amos 5:18-20
Introduction: The Folly of Presumption
There is a peculiar kind of spiritual blindness that afflicts those who are closest to the things of God. It is a malady that thrives in the pews, in the seminaries, and in the hearts of those who can recite the catechism backwards but whose hearts are far from God. It is the disease of presumption. It is the damnable notion that because we are on the home team, because we wear the right jersey and know the team fight song, the final outcome must necessarily be in our favor, regardless of how we have played the game.
The people of Israel in the time of Amos were suffering from an advanced case of this very disease. They were God's chosen people, the recipients of the covenant, the nation of the exodus and Sinai. And they were eagerly, earnestly, longing for the "day of Yahweh." In their minds, this was the great day of cosmic vindication. It was the day when God would finally show up, smite all their enemies, and elevate them to their rightful place of glory. They saw it as the ultimate nationalistic triumph, a day of light and victory and blessing for them, simply because they were them. They were God's people, after all.
But Amos the prophet, a rough-hewn shepherd from Tekoa, is sent by God to crash their party. He comes as a divine wrecking ball to their self-assured theology. He tells them that they have fundamentally misunderstood not only the day of the Lord, but the Lord of that day. They were longing for a day of judgment, not realizing that they themselves were first in line for it. They were like turkeys in November, eagerly anticipating Christmas. Their desire for the day of the Lord was a suicidal wish, born of covenantal amnesia and rank hypocrisy. They wanted God to judge the world according to His righteous standards, but they refused to apply those same standards to themselves. And so Amos delivers this woe, this funeral dirge, for their foolish hopes.
This warning is not just for ancient Israel. It echoes down through the centuries and lands squarely in our laps. How many in the church today treat the second coming of Christ as a get-out-of-jail-free card? How many assume that because they were baptized, or because they believe the right things, that the Lord's return will be nothing but light and gladness for them, even while they live like the devil? This passage from Amos is a bucket of ice water for all such lazy and presumptuous faith.
The Text
Woe, you who are longing for the day of Yahweh,
For what purpose will the day of Yahweh be to you?
It will be darkness and not light;
As when a man flees from a lion
And a bear meets him;
Or he goes home, leans his hand against the wall,
And a snake bites him.
Will not the day of Yahweh be darkness instead of light,
Even thick darkness with no brightness in it?
(Amos 5:18-20 LSB)
A Suicidal Wish (v. 18)
Amos begins with a thunderous woe, a cry of lament usually reserved for the dead.
"Woe, you who are longing for the day of Yahweh, For what purpose will the day of Yahweh be to you? It will be darkness and not light;" (Amos 5:18)
A "woe" in Scripture is the opposite of a "blessing." It is a declaration of impending doom. And who is this doom for? Not for the pagan Assyrians. Not for the Moabites or the Edomites. It is for the covenant people, the ones who are "longing" for God's day. Their very piety is the target of the curse. They desire the day of the Lord, but their desire is ignorant and self-serving.
Amos asks a devastatingly simple question: "For what purpose will the day of Yahweh be to you?" Or, as we might put it, "What good do you think this day is going to do you?" They had a completely external, ethnic, and political understanding of God's covenant. They thought, "We are Israel, therefore God is for us." They failed to understand that the covenant has stipulations. Privilege brings responsibility. To whom much is given, much is required. God's judgment, when it comes, always begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). The very thing they were wishing for was the instrument of their own destruction.
He tells them plainly what this day will be for them: "darkness and not light." They were expecting a sunrise; Amos promises them a total eclipse. They were expecting a day of vindication; he promises them a day of utter gloom. The day of the Lord is indeed a day of light, but it is a holy light. And a holy light does not flatter or coddle sin; it exposes it and consumes it. For those who are walking in rebellion, the coming of a holy God is not good news. It is terrifying news. They wanted the benefits of the covenant without the obligations of the covenant, and God calls this what it is: a spiritual fraud.
From the Frying Pan into the Fire (v. 19)
To illustrate the inescapable nature of this coming judgment, Amos uses a series of vivid, terrifying images.
"As when a man flees from a lion And a bear meets him; Or he goes home, leans his hand against the wall, And a snake bites him." (Amos 5:19 LSB)
This is a picture of relentless, sequential disaster. There is no escape. A man sees a lion charging and, with a burst of adrenaline, he manages to get away. He sprints through the woods, heart pounding, gasping for air, and just as he thinks he is safe, he runs straight into a bear. The terror is compounded. The relief is snatched away and replaced by a new and perhaps even greater threat.
The second image brings the terror home. Imagine this man somehow escapes the bear as well. He makes it back to his own house, the one place he should feel secure. He slams the door, bolts it, and leans against the wall to catch his breath, his whole body trembling. He is finally safe. But as he puts his hand against the cool stone of the wall, a venomous snake, hidden in a crack, strikes him. The place of refuge becomes the place of death.
This is what the day of the Lord will be like for the hypocrite. There will be no clever maneuvering, no strategic retreat, no safe house. God's judgment is not something you can outrun or outsmart. Many people think they can play games with God. They think they can sin over here, and then run to the sanctuary over there for safety. They think they can oppress the poor during the week and then lean on the wall of the church building on Sunday and be fine. Amos says that this is a fatal miscalculation. The very place you run for refuge will be the place where judgment finds you. The wall you lean on will have a serpent in it.
No Silver Lining (v. 20)
Amos concludes this section by restating his main point, removing any possible ambiguity, any glimmer of false hope.
"Will not the day of Yahweh be darkness instead of light, Even thick darkness with no brightness in it?" (Amos 5:20 LSB)
He puts it in the form of a rhetorical question, the answer to which is a resounding "Yes!" He piles up the synonyms for darkness. It is not just dark; it is "thick darkness." It is a gloom with "no brightness in it." There is no dawn coming. There is no star on the horizon. For the unrepentant within the covenant, the day of the Lord is the end of the line. It is unmitigated disaster.
This is a direct assault on their cheap optimism. They believed in a God who was on their side no matter what. Amos presents them with the God who is holy, holy, holy, and who will by no means clear the guilty, especially not the guilty who should have known better. Their covenant membership did not grant them immunity from judgment; it made them more accountable and their judgment more severe.
Conclusion: The True Light Has Come
So what are we to do with such a terrifying passage? First, we must take the warning to heart. The American church is filled to the rafters with people who are longing for the day of the Lord. They want Jesus to come back and fix everything, to vindicate them and judge their political and cultural enemies. But many are doing so with the same presumptuous heart as ancient Israel. They resent the world for its sin, but coddle the same kinds of sin in their own hearts and churches. They want God to be a lion to their enemies, but a housecat to them. Amos reminds us that God is not a respecter of persons. He is a respecter of righteousness. If you are longing for the day of judgment, you had better be sure you are ready to be judged.
But second, and most importantly, we must see that the true day of the Lord has already come, and it was a day of the thickest darkness. On a hill outside Jerusalem, the sky went black at noon. The Son of God, the true Israel, hung on a cross, and the day of Yahweh in all its fury fell upon Him. He fled the lion of the Sanhedrin only to be met by the bear of Roman power. He was taken to a place of refuge, a tomb, and was struck by the serpent of death itself. All the darkness, all the woe, all the inescapable judgment that we deserved was poured out onto Him.
Because of this, the day of the Lord can now be a day of light for us. Because He endured the ultimate darkness, we who are in Him can look forward to a day of ultimate light. The Apostle Paul tells us that we are "all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness" (1 Thess. 5:5). The day of the Lord is no longer a terror for those who have fled to Christ for refuge.
But the warning of Amos remains. You cannot flee to Christ for refuge from the judgment of God while simultaneously refusing to submit to Christ as Lord. To do so is to try to lean against the wall of the house while ignoring the snake. The only true safety is found in genuine repentance and faith. We must not be those who long for the day of the Lord in order to see our enemies judged. We must be those who long for the day of the Lord because we long for the Lord Himself. We must seek Him, not just His vindication. For those who seek Him, the day of the Lord is not darkness, but the dawning of a light that will never, ever fade.