Amos 3
Chapters 3-6 relate three addresses
particularizing the sins of
their imminent judgment.
Chapter 3 gives the first
address: the
prophet begins by showing
ingratitude for past mercies (vs. 1-2), and his
own commission to announce the
coming judgment (vs. 3-8). They
have drawn this upon themselves by iniquities
which astonish even heathen
nations; and they shall be punished by the overthrow
of the kingdom and the
destruction of their city (vs. 9-15).
1 “Hear this word that the LORD hath
spoken against you, O children of
Israel, against the whole family which I
brought up from the land of Egypt,
saying,”
- The peculiar favor which God has shown
the Israelites enhances the
guilt of their ingratitude and increases their punishment. Hear this word. Each address
(ch 4:1; 5:1) begins with this
solemn call. O children of
addressed to the twelve tribes, as the following words prove; but the succeeding
denunciation is confined to
expect a similar fate unless
she turns in time. I brought up from
the
This is mentioned
as the crowning act of God’s favor (ch. 2:10).
2 “You
only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I
will punish you for all your
iniquities.” Have I known; i.e. loved,
acknowledged,
chosen. So in
Hosea 13:5 God says. “I knew thee in the wilderness;” and Paul
(II Timothy 2:19), “The
Lord knoweth them that are His” (compare Nahum 1:7).
The peculiar relation in which God allowed
upon (see Deuteronomy 4:8,20; 14:2; II Samuel 7:23; I
Chronicles 17:21).
Therefore I will
punish you; literally, visit upon you. They must not presume
upon their privileges; the
retention of God’s favor depended upon obedience to
His Word (Exodus
19:5): the nearer they were brought to God, the greater their
guilt if they fell from Him. Unlike the nations denounced
in the former chapters,
her must be heavier (compare Ezekiel 9:6; Luke 12:47; I
Peter 4:17).
The Judgment of Apostates a Foregone
Conclusion (vs. 1-2)
This chapter, like chapters 5 and 6, opens with a call to
attention. God is going
to speak, and His voice is worth listening to. He is going
to speak a word,
moreover, the issues of which are capital offenses. To
attend to His communication
is as vitally important as dutiful.
SPEAKS TO
of the doom to which they were
going down. Their first intimation of the
tempest of Divine wrath was
likely the falling of the first drops. Their
chance of repentance and escape
was in this way minimized. Left in
ignorance of the danger of
advance, there was little likelihood of their
turning back of their own
accord. But
never lied the guilt of her sin,
and its inevitable end. This putting of
“prophecy between
his secret and its execution” is a special
favor on
God’s side (v.7), and a corresponding advantage on her side, whilst, like
all advantage, it involves a
proportionate responsibility.
ITSELF IN PECULIAR FAVORS.
Ø
He had constituted them a family by themselves. Other nations
in their rise had been left
to circumstances and the play of natural
affinities.
nation by itself, furnished
with a national organization and policy,
and set consciously to work
out an exalted destiny. This was fitted
to awake a lofty national
aspiration, and give direction and dignity
to the national life. The choosing of God’s people out of the world
is the beginning
of His favors.
Ø
He had brought them out of
power, an instance of
Divine championship, an expression of Divine
distinguishing favor, and a
beginning of Divine help, which
contained
in it the promise of more to come. Conversion, following
on
election (Acts 13:48), is another privilege of God’s people, and
another
spur to grateful service.
Ø
He had taken them into intimate personal relations. “Known.”
This is practically
equivalent to electing, including both the
motive and result of
election. God took special notice of them,
set them in a gracious
relation to Himself, acknowledged them
to be His people, and
brought to Bear on them the influences that
are ever coming forth on
those in covenant with him.
RECEIVED IN VAIN. “Therefore
will I visit,” - (v. 2). Mercy
extended is made here the ground
of judgment denounced. Each gift
bestowed in the past is a count
in the present indictment.
Ø
It is inevitable as punishment. Sin by God’s professing
people is
specially heinous. It involves ingratitude to a special Benefactor,
insensibility to His love,
contempt of His gifts, and disregard of
special claims on their
allegiance. The guilt is in every aspect
extreme, and so the
punishment is sure.
Ø
It is inevitable as testimony. God’s honor is
closely identified with
His people’s
conduct, which must therefore be
closely looked after.
Any sin in it must be
rigidly punished if God would vindicate His
purity and impartiality,
hating sin as such, and wherever it appears.
“It is necessary that God
should vindicate His own honor by making
it appear that He
hates sin, and hates it most in
those that are nearest
Him” (Matthew Henry).
Ø
It is inevitable as discipline. Judgments are
corrective as well as
punative, In this aspect they are sure, and will be severe in
proportion
to the love and mercy
despised. Whom God leaves without correction
He bastardizes (Hebrews
12:8), but He expresses fatherly interest in
the application of the rod.
Judgment with
corrective treatment. Mercy had failed,
and now love would try
another way, that nothing might be left undone to separate
from sin. This is why judgment
begins at the house of God.
(I Peter 4:17)
The Inevitable
Punishment of Christian Sin (v. 2)
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth,
therefore I will
punish you for all your iniquities.” These words are at once an accusation,
a condemnation, and a sentence. What God had done for
a ground and the measure of what He now must do against
them. Blessing
abused is but the faggot feeding the fire of merited curse. They
had given
themselves up to wickedness, and the fire tongue of a lofty
privilege sits
above every sin, revealing its demon face.
·
THERE IS A GRACIOUS SENSE IN WHICH GOD KNOWS MEN.
“I know my sheep” (John 10:27); “I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:23)
These sentences mean salvation
and condemnation respectively. For God to
know men is with them a
question of life and death. This knowledge may
be:
Ø
National. It was so with
that God loved them (Deuteronomy
10:15), chose them (ibid. 7:6),
formally acknowledged them as
his people (ibid. 14:2), and gave
them privileges — not
necessarily saving in every case - of light
(Psalm 147:19; Romans 3:2), and
help (Psalm 136:10-24), and
fellowship (Exodus 20:24;
Numbers 14:14; Deuteronomy 4:7),
and promise (Romans 9:4-5),
answering to this visible relation.
This knowledge may also be:
Ø
Personal. Then it means, in
addition to what has been mentioned, the
forth-putting of Divine energy in them, making them new
creatures
m Christ, and so “partakers
of the Divine nature” (Galatians 6:15;
II Peter 1:4). God brings them into His family (Galatians
3:26) by this
spiritual birth (John 1:13),
calls them sons (1 John 3:1), makes them
coheirs with Christ (Romans
8:17), and gives them all family privileges
and graces, chiefest
of these the spirit of adoption, by which we cry,
“Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6). Man, in fact, is by nature an alien
and a stranger, and for God to
know him is to substitute a gracious
for his natural relation.
·
THIS KNOWLEDGE IS A SPECIAL, NOT A GENERAL,
AFFECTION. “You
only.” There are gifts of God that are indiscriminate
(Job 25:3; Matthew 5:45). Man gets them as
man, and irrespective
of personal character. But
spiritual gifts are necessarily confined to the
spiritual circle.
It is evident as regards God’s gracious knowledge of men.
Ø
That it rests on a minority of the race.
nations of the earth. In
comparison with the Chaldeae, Medo-Persian,
Greek, or Roman empires, it was
scarcely worthy of being named; and a
dozen peoples bordered
the natural course, would have
wiped it off the earth. Yet, passing by the
many and the mighty, God says to
single, feeble
known of all the
families of the earth” (Deuteronomy
4:32-38). And
this action is of a piece with
other Divine action for similar purposes. The
saints are now, and have always
been, a “little flock.” It is the few who
go in at the “strait
gate” of the kingdom. Even the nominally Christian
people sare
less than a third of the population of the earth. If out of the
number of these were taken the
actual Christians, the true believers in
Christ, the saintly company
would assume smaller dimensions still. This
state of matters will no doubt
be reversed before the dispensation ends.
Christ “in all things shall have the pre-eminence,”
(Colossians 1:18)
and the minority which His
followers compose will, during the
millennial era, be converted
into a vast majority (Isaiah 11:9).
Meantime God looks on a small
circle of transfigured souls, and says,
“You only have I
known.”
Ø
It does not follow human probabilities. If any single nation
was to be
made the repository of revealed
truth, and the teacher of the other nations,
we should have expected one or
other of the four universal empires to be
chosen for the purpose, rather
than a second or third rate power, located
in a circumscribed and excentric spot. Then the typical Jew was, like
his ancestor Jacob, a sordid
fellow, deficient in the more heroic qualities,
and, from the standpoint of the
natural, decidedly inferior to his brother
the Edomite,
or almost any neighbor you would select. The greater
readiness with which the
Gentiles received the gospel, when it came
to them, would seem, moreover,
to indicate that they would have
responded more worthily to the
Divine Old Testament culture than
individuals. Not only does God
pass by the rich and great for the
humble poor (James 2:5; 1
Corinthians 1:26-28), but He passes by
the wise and prudent, and gives
the light of His salvation to babes
(Matthew 11:25). It is not the
great geniuses of society, but the
commonplace average men, who
form the circle of the saints.
The reasons for this are
adequate, but God keeps them to himself.
Obvious to reason in many cases,
they are not revealed, because in
many others they would be above
it, and God acts without reasons
given, that “no
flesh may glory in His presence.” (I
Corinthians 1:29)
·
IT DOES NOT INEVITABLY PREVENT SIN IN THE OBJECT
OF IT. The life of the
Hebrews was as a whole above the moral level of the
heathen life around them. But
still it was far from pure. If we subtracted
from Jewish history all that
arises out of sin, and the punishment of it,
comparatively little would
remain. So little congenial to human nature is
God’s service, and so congenial
the service of sin, that
perpetually turning aside after
the idols of the heathen, whilst in no instance
did the heathen ever turn from
their idols to God (Jeremiah 2:11). And
not only does outward religious
privilege fail to put an end to the sinful
life, it is to some extent the
same with inward religious principle. The saint
remains a sinner all his days.
Grace, like the house of David, is getting
stronger with him, and
corruption, like the house of Saul, is getting weaker
through life. But it is still
with him as with the apostle, striving after
perfection, yet burdened with a
feeling of the surviving power of sin
(Philippians 3:12; Romans 7:24).
·
IT DOES MAKE THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN ON EARTH
CERTAIN. “Therefore
will I punish you.” Sin inside the kingdom
necessitates punishment, and
will be visited with it promptly.
Ø
Because it is guiltiest as against God. More has been done to
prevent it
than in other cases. It is sin
against light (James 4:17; Luke 12:47-48),
against love (II Corinthians
5:14), against favors (Psalm 103:2), against
restraining grace (1 John 3:9).
In proportion to the strength and number
of deterrent influences against
which sin is committed must be the
strength of our sinful bent, and
so the guilt of our wrong doing.
Ø
Because it is most hurtful as against His cause. The sin of the wicked
is
natural. It is to be expected
from one who consults lust and serves the
devil. It is done, moreover, from the standpoint of opposition to
God,
and responsibility
for it is thus kept outside the spiritual circle. God
and His cause are not
dishonored in the eyes of men by what is formally
done against them. It is sin by the professedly righteous that
brings
righteousness into disrepute.
Religion is charged with all the evil that is
done in its name. The more closely identified wrong doing is with the
Christian name, the more hurtful is it
to the Christian cause. Therefore
Christian sin, in addition to the general
reasons, involves punishment
for reasons peculiar to itself.
If God
would have His Church a tree for
the healing of the nations, He
must lop
off every unsound and rotten
branch.
Ø Because it is
most incompatible with the destiny of the person sinning.
The sin of the wicked need not
necessarily be punished here. It will be
amply visited on him throughout
eternity. It is quite in the line of the
man’s life course that he should suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
But the sin of the righteous
presents a different aspect. Its commission
is the contradiction of his
gracious nature, and its future punishment
would be the contradiction of
his exalted destiny. It is
vital to his well
being that the judgment, inevitable somewhere, should fall here
(Psalm 89:30-33). Only thus can
his happy immortality be safeguarded.
The present destruction of his
flesh conditions the saving of his spirit
in the day of the Lord Jesus (1
Corinthians 5:5).
Sin against
Light and Love (vs. 1-2)
This language of reproach and threatening was addressed to
guilty of similar insensibility, ingratitude, and apostasy,
are subject to the
condemnation and the penalty pronounced upon the favored
but sinful
descendants of
·
UNPARALLELED FAVORS ARE
RECOUNTED. As a matter of
history,
However we may explain the fact,
a fact it is which is here recalled to the
memory of the too oblivions
Hebrews.
Ø
cared for, provided for, and
protected His peculiar family, the children
whom He had adopted.
Ø
deliverance and interposition
recorded by Moses, to the equally
marvelous guidance and guardianship
experienced in the wilderness of
wandering, the sacred writers
frequently refer. This is not surprising;
for never was a more signal
instance of Divine compassion than that
afforded in the earlier passages
of the national life of the chosen people.
Ø
understand (for the language is
accommodated to our human weakness)
that God had regarded and
selected
a certain purpose, viz. in order
by
mankind at large. A peculiar
honor was conferred upon the Hebrew
nation, not, however, for any
excellence or worthiness in them, but for
reasons larger and higher than
any which were generally apprehended.
·
UNPARALLELED INIQUITIES ARE IMPUTED. Idolatry was
charged upon those who had been
distinguished as the recipients of the
revelation of the Divine unity. Immorality of
various kinds was rife
amongst those who enjoyed the advantage of the purest moral code known
amongst the nations of mankind. The just principle was applied, “To whom
much is given of
him will be much required.” And the
application of this
principle made manifest the
peculiar guilt of
by His prophet was therefore
righteously severe; other nations were guilty
of equal enormities, but the
privileges of
more reprehensible.
·
UNPARALLELED CHASTISEMENT IS THREATENED. All the
iniquities of
of his prophecies Amos enlarges
upon this theme. Whether we consider the
captivities and humiliations
undergone by the favored nation in the period
immediately succeeding, or the
history of subsequent centuries, we see the
truth of this prediction. Much more apparent is it when we look at the
national life of
the rejection of
the Messiah, recognize in the present
dispersion of. the
tribes the fulfillment of a
Divine purpose and the inculcation of a Divine
lesson.
Before announcing more particularly the coming judgment,
Amos, by a series
of little parables or comparisons, establishes his right to
prophesy, and intimates
the necessity laid upon him to deliver his message. He illustrates the truths that
all effects have causes, and that from the cause you can
infer the effect.
3 “Can two
walk together, except they be agreed?” - or, except
they have agreed? The “two” are God’s judgment and the
prophet’s word.
These do, not coincide by mere chance, no more than two
persons pursue
in company the same end without previous agreement. The
prophet
announces God’s judgment because God has commissioned him;
the
prophet is of one mind with God, therefore the Lord is with
him, and
confirms his words. The application of the parables is seen
in vs. 7-8.
The Septuagint, reading differently, has, “except they know one another.”
A
Specially Blest People (vs. 2-3)
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth:
therefore I will
punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together,
except they be
agreed?” “You only have I known,” says God, “of all the families of the
earth.” What does
this mean? It does not mean that he was ignorant of all
other people. God knows everything connected with
each individual of all
generations. Nor does
it mean that He had not been kind to other people.
“His tender mercies are over all the works of his hands.” But by the
expression, “I have known,” He means, “I have
bestowed on you privileges
which I have bestowed on no other people” (see Romans
9:4-5). Now,
it is a fact that some men are far more highly favored by
Heaven than
others. Some have more health, some more riches, some more
intellect,
some more friendships, some more means of spiritual improvement.
We
offer three remarks about specially favored people.
·
THEY ARE OFTENTIMES THE GREATEST SINNERS. Who of all
the people on the face of the
earth were greater sinners than the Israelites?
Yet they were specially favored
of Heaven. There was not a crime they
did not commit; and they filled
up the measure
of their iniquity BY
CRUCIFYING THE SON
OF GOD.
but where is there more moral
corruption? The fountain of moral
iniquity
is as deep, as full, as noxious, as
active, here as in the darkest and most
corrupt parts of the earth. It is true that civilization has so decorated it that its
loathsomeness is to some extent
concealed; but here it is. The corpse is
painted, but it is still a putrid mass.
·
THEY ARE EXPOSED TO SPECIAL PUNISHMENT. “Therefore
will I punish you
for all your iniquities.” Men are not
to be envied simply
because they are endowed with
special favors. Those very endowments,
unless they are faithfully used,
only augment responsibility, deepen guilt,
and ensure a more terrible
retribution. Where much has been given, much
will be required. “It
will be more tolerable for
day of judgment” (Mark 6:11) “Therefore will I punish you.” I who
know
all your sins, I who abhor all
your sins, I who have power to punish you,
will execute vengeance.
·
THEY SHOULD, LIKE ALL PEOPLE, PLACE THEMSELVES IN
HARMONY WITH GOD. “Can
two walk together, except they be
agreed?”
Ø Agreement
with God is essential to the well being of all intelligent
existences. No spirit in the universe can be happy without thorough
harmony with the
will and mind of God. Heaven is happy
because of
this harmony; hell is miserable because of antagonism to
the
Divine mind.
Ø The condition
of all sinners is that of hostility to the will of God.
Indeed, enmity to God is
the essence of sin. What, then, is the
conclusion? Reconciliation. “We beseech you on behalf of Christ,
be
ye reconciled unto God” (II
Corinthians 5:20).
Communion and
“Do two walk together unless they have agreed?” The special reference of
this general question is not apparent. But the scope of the
context suggests
two points on either or both of which it would throw light.
Between his
words and
their works there was utter
incompatibility. Those
must be wrong if these were right, and vice versa.
And the axiom quoted supplies
a decisive test. Amos walked with God — there could be no
denying that; took
His side and sought His glory amidst prevailing
defection and disobedience.
Must it not be argued from this that he was at one with
God, and so in all his
utterances spoke agreeably to God’s will?
not agreed with God, for they were red handed in rebellion
against Him.
Was not the inference from this resistless that they could
not walk with Him,
here by faith or hereafter by sight? Consider here:
·
WALKING WITH GOD
IS THE IDEAL OF HUMAN LIFE! “Enoch
walked with God” (Genesis 5:24).
That is a short biography. But there is
more in it, more important in its character and
more adequately expressed
than in many an octavo volume. “They shall walk with me in white:
for they are
worthy” (Revelation 3:4) is A SUMMARY OF THE JOY
AND GLORY OF REDEEMED SPIRITS ON HIGH!
And life below
is ideal in proportion as it approximates the life above. TO WALK
WITH GOD implies:
Ø That we walk with the same purpose as God. The raison d’etre
of
things is GOD’S GLORY FIRST (Romans 11:36; Colossians 1:16), the
good
of His people next (II
Corinthians 4:15; Romans 8:28), then
the
happiness of the race (I
Timothy 4:10; Galatians 6:10), and
ULTIMATELY
THE WELL BEING OF THE PLANET AS A
WHOLE
( a much superior existence than THE GREEN EARTH
POLICY
and GUN CONTROL or A HYPOCRITICAL
EXCITEMENT
OVER GLOBAL WARMING of the
POLITICALLY
CORRECT TODAY
– MAN’S IMMORALITY will
bring about the
destruction
of the earth far quicker than abuse
of its resources!
See what Revelation
11:18 has to say about them which “destroy
the
earth” – CY – 2013) (Psalm 36:6; Romans 8:20-21). The attainment
of these
objects in this order is
God’s purpose as
revealed in Scripture. With
this
purpose it is the design
and nature of
religion to make man at one.
God’s ultimate
purpose is to bring everything into one, both celestial and
terrestrial - Ephesians 1:10 – CY – 2013) By creating man in God’s image
he
is endowed with a spiritual nature which exalts God (I Corinthians
10:31),
loves the brethren (I John 3:14), consults the interests of others
(Philippians
2:4), and regards the life even of the beasts (Proverbs
12:10). In
proportion as the godly endorse and homologate the Divine
purpose
thus are they in the image of Christ (John 12:28; 13:1)
and do
they walk with God.
Ø That we walk like God. “The Christian,” says Joseph Cook, “is a
man
who has
changed eyes with God.” Subtle affinities have arisen involving a
marvelous
unity of thought and aim. The end of our walking is God’s end,
and
naturally HIS WAY becomes our way. “The secret of the Lord is
with
them that fear Him”
(Psalm 25:14). In
Christ, “the Image of
the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) it became an open secret to
all who
believe. He
has left “us an example,” and there are no
relations in life to
which it
does not apply. We
“follow His steps” (I Peter
2:21), and
by
consequence
walk like God, being “imitators
of Him as dear children.”
(Ephesians 5:1)
Ø That we walk in company with God. The ungodly are far from God, and
of set
purpose keep their distance. But faith brings near and keeps near His
side. The
humble, contrite heart, which is the home of faith, is also the
welcome
and feast (Revelation 3:20). The
believer LIVES IN GOD’S
PRESENCE! He walks by faith, holding on as it were by the Divine hand.
It is the
promise and the thought of God’s presence with him that makes the
journey
light (Isaiah 43:2), whilst the reality of it is the guarantee of
safety and
ease. GOD WITH US, we have:
Ø unfailing provision,
Ø unerring guidance, and
Ø an
invincible escort.
No marvel
if they who thus travel “go
from strength to strength.”
(Psalm 84:7)
·
THE AGREEMENT WITH GOD THAT IS THE CONDITION OF
WALKING WITH HIM Walking with God
is not an occasional act,
BUT A HABIT OF LIFE and must arise out
of AN ESTABLISHED
RELATIONSHIP!
Ø
The parties must both be willing. Men are naturally at enmity with God,
and so averse to His company.
They know not and desire not to know
His ways. and the expression of
this feeling is the “Depart from us;
for we desire not
the knowledge of thy ways!” (Job
21:14).
By which they decline the
establishment of spiritual relations with God.
THE OPERATION OF
GRACE, however, is one “to will and to
do
of God’s good pleasure,” (Philippians 2:13) and the result is “a willing
people in the
day of God’s power.” (Psalm
110:3) They choose God
(Joshua 24:15), desire His
fellowship, and adopt the course that will
best consist with its enjoyment.
Ø
They must have arranged it. “Unless they have
agreed.” Spiritual
relations are not accidental
relations, nor such as men may drift into
unconsciously. There are
understood objects to be intelligently adopted.
There are explicit terms: “If any man will come afer
me, let him deny
himself, and take
up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew
16:24) They
are to be deliberately accepted. There
is a distinct transaction in which
God and His way are adopted, and
made our life King and life program
respectively - “Take
with you words, and turn to the Lord:
Say unto
Him, Take away all
iniquity, and receive us graciously” -
(Hosea 14:2).
If it be a question:
o
of faith, we say, “Lord,
I believe.”
o
of penitence, we say, “I
abhor myself, and repent.”
o
of allegiance, we
declare, “I will be for the Lord.”
o
of fellowship, we vow,
“I
will walk before the Lord in the
land of the
living.”
Our walking with
God is not only with consent, but by arrangement,
duly and
solemnly subscribed.
Ø
They must be congenial spirits. Like draws to like. Companionship with
God bases itself in conformity
to Him. If there be no affinity there will
be no association. If this fails,
association will be broken off. Duty
must be our choice, or it will never be begun; and our joy, or it will
never be continued. Walking with God
implies a previous coming to
Him, and both are conditioned by a
spiritual change creating us in
the Divine image. Hearts have begun to beat in unison when hands
are clasped for life.
·
THE BEARING OF THIS MAXIM ON THE CASE IN HAND. The
two whose walking together is in
question are Jehovah and the prophet,
according to some; Jehovah and
the nation, according to others. But as it is
a general maxim, it may be
legitimately applied to both, and every other
case on which it can throw
light.
Ø The words of a
teacher who walks with God will be on the whole
agreeable to His will. The authenticity of
Amos’s message was called in
question by many. But he was on
God’s side in this controversy with
truth of his deliverance was
therefore a foregone conclusion. With every
religious
teacher the same principle holds. Communion with God gives
insight
into truth ATTAINABLE IN NO OTHER WAY! It conditions
that
“unction from the Holy One” by which “we know all things.”
(I John 2:20). The best guarantee is TO BE SPIRITUALLY
MINDED! “The anointing” by Christ in the work of grace, among
other benefits, “teacheth of all things, and is
truth”
(I John 2:27).
Let a man read the Bible, so to
speak, over God’s shoulder, and the
thing he will read out of it will be TRUTH!
Ø
A life of rebellion cannot possibly be a walk with God. The prophet
foretold to
prophecy was along the lines of
natural fitness. The parties were already
alienated in heart
and sympathy, and in the nature of
things formal
separation must follow. To walk with God whilst fighting
with Him was
an unworkable arrangement. The men who try it
are men whose
religious life is failure. When hearts go apart their owners go after
them; and the soul, loveless today,
will be GODLESS TOMORROW!
Alienation leads to apostasy,
and
the apostate is ipso
facto (by
the
very
fact) AN OUTLAW!
Are our
affections given to Christ
in
self-surrender
and love and happy trust?
It is the one condition of
walking with Him to any purpose of spiritual
effect. Is the dedication made
maintained in unswerving true allegiance?
See to that, for the beginning
of estrangement is as the letting out of
water, and what is deflection
now will be defection in the next stage.
Harmonious
Fellowship (v. 3)
These words have passed into a proverb, which fact is in
itself a proof that
they accord with human experience.
·
HARMONY OF SENTIMENT AND PURPOSE ALONE CAN
ENSURE AGREEMENT IN LIFE. The spiritual is a key to the outward
life. And this holds not only
with regard to the individual, but with regard
to society. Because people live
together in a house, they are not necessarily
a true family; because they meet
together in an ecclesiastical building, they
are not therefore a true
congregation; because they occupy the same
territory, they are not
therefore a true nation. There must be inner accord
in order that fellowship may be real.
·
LACK OF HARMONY OF HEART WILL SURELY MANIFEST
ITSELF IN LIFE. This
is the other side of the same law. The strife of
society are an indication of
conflicting principles. Even Christ came to
send, not peace, but a sword.
Where there is no agreement, one will walk
in this road and another in
that. External uniformity is of little value. In
fact, manifest discord may be of
service in revealing the want of spiritual
unity, and so leading to
repentance.
·
IN THE RELATION BETWEEN GOD AND MAN AGREEMENT
IS ONLY TO BE ATTAINED BY THE CONFORMITY OF MAN’S
MIND AND WILL TO GOD’S. (Romans 12:2)
It
is not to be expected,
it is not to be desired, that God’s purpose should bend
to man’s. The human
ignorance must accept the Divine wisdom, and the human error and sin must
embrace the Divine grace and holiness. Such is the teaching of revelation, of
the Law, and of the gospel.
·
WHERE THERE IS WANT OF HARMONY BETWEEN (GOD
AND MAN, IT IS FOR MAN TO SEEK THE RECONCILIATION AND
UNITY WHICH ALONE CAN BRING ABOUT MAN’S WELFARE. If
these blessings were not
offered, there would be room to doubt their
accessibility. But the
revelation of God’s counsels in Scripture assures us
that our heavenly Father desires that His
children should be at one with Him.
4 “Will a lion roar in the forest, when
he hath no prey? will a young
lion cry out of his den, if he have taken
nothing?” Will a lion roar, etc.?
The lion roars when he has his pray in sight, and
is about to spring upon it.
So God makes the prophet utter His voice
because He is ready to execute
vengeance. The second clause expresses the same fact in different
terms.
The young lion (kephir) is
not a whelp, but one able to provide for itself.
He growls over the prey which he has in his lair. So
the words of God’s threatenings
strike upon him.
5 “Can a
bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him?
shall one take up a snare from the earth,
and have taken nothing at
all?” The thought
here is that the punishment is deserved as well as
certain. A bird is not caught unless a trap is set for it.
The trap which the
sinner sets for himself is sin. Can a bird fall in a snare (pach) upon
the
earth, where no
gin (moqesh) is
for him? i.e. is set for him? The “gin” is
a net with a stick for a spring, which flew up when
touched, carrying part
of the net with it, and thus the bird was enclosed and
caught. The
Septuagint probably
read yoqesh, as they translate, ἄνευ ἐξευτοῦ
-
aneu exeutou - - “without a fowler.”
So the Vulgate, absque
aucupe. The second clause
should be, Shall a snare (pach) spring
up from
the ground without taking anything? The snare, or trap stick, would not
rise if it had not caught something. The sin is there, and the sinners shall
surely not escape.
When God appoints retributive punishments for the
guilty, and announces the same by His prophets, THEY
MAY BE
EXPECTED WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY!
6 “Shall a
trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?
shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD
hath not done it?”
The prophet must needs speak: shall not his denunciation
arouse
alarm among the people, as the trumpet suddenly heard in a
city excites the
terror of the inhabitants (compare Ezekiel 33:2-5)? Shall
there be evil in a
city, and the Lord hath not done it? The “evil” is
affliction, calamity,
malum poenae. As states have no future, all temporal calamities in their
case may rightly be regarded as the punishment of sin. Thus
the ruin
impending, on
now approaching. All phenomena are ascribed in the Bible to
Divine
operation, no second causes being allowed to interfere with
this
appropriation (see Job 1.; I Samuel 18:10; I Kings
22:19-23; Isaiah 45:7).
The verb “do” is
often used absolutely, the context defining the result.
Retribution
(vs. 4-6)
“Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey?” etc. These verses
suggest certain remarks on retribution.
·
RETRIBUTION SPRINGS OUT OF THE NATURE OF THINGS.
The lion roars in the forest for
prey; the young lion cries in his den from an
instinct of nature. They are
hungry, and they roar; they crave for food, and
they cry; this is natural. The
lion is quiet till he sees his prey, but roars at
the sight of it, and thereby
inspires it with such terror that it is deprived of
the power of escape. In like
manner the young lion which has been weaned
and is just beginning to hunt
for prey, will lie silent in the den till it is
brought near, when the smell of
it will rouse him from his quiet. Poiset, in
his travels, states that the
lion has two different modes of hunting his prey.
When not very hungry, he
contents himself with watching behind a bush
for the animal which is the
object of his attack, till it approaches; when by a
sudden leap he springs at it,
and seldom misses his aim. But if he is
famished he does not proceed so
quietly; but, impatient and full of rage, he
leaves his den and fills with
his terrific roar the echoing forest. His voice
inspires all beings with terror;
no creature deems itself safe in its retreat; all
flee they know not whither, and
by this means some fall into his fangs. The
naturalness of punishment,
perhaps, is the point at which the prophet aims
in the similitude. It is so with
moral retribution. It arises from the
constitution of things. Punishment grows out of vice. Misery follows
iniquity. Every sin
carries with it its own penalty. It does not require the
Almighty to inflict any positive
suffering on the sinner. He has only to leave
him alone, and his sins will find him out.
·
RETRIBUTION IS NOT ACCIDENTAL, BUT ARRANGED. “Can a
bird fall in a
snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take
up a snare from
the earth, and have taken nothing at all?” The bird is not
taken in a snare by chance. The
fowler has been there and made
preparation for its entanglement
and death. Every sinner is a bird that must
be caught; the snare is laid in
the constitution of things. Instruments were
prepared by the providence of
God for the capture of the Israelites, which
would certainly do their work.
·
RETRIBUTION ALWAYS SOUNDS A TIMELY ALARM. “Shall a
trumpet be blown
in the city, and the people not be afraid?” Heaven
does
not punish without warnings. Nature
warns, providence warns, conscience
warns; there is no sinful
soul in which the trumpet of alarm does not sound.
·
RETRIBUTION, HOWEVER IT COMES, IS ALWAYS DIVINE.
“Shall there be
evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” GOD
IS ALL IN ALL! He has established
the connection between sin and
suffering. He has planned and
laid the snare. The
everlasting destruction
with which the sinner is punished comes from the presence of the Lord
and the glory of His power.
Calamity One of the Works of God (v. 6)
It is not sin, but suffering, that is here meant. We are to
regard temporal
calamities as the warning voice of God, a manifestation of
His character,
and a corrective
expression of His displeasure. God
maintains His
controversy with
unimpeachable equity, ill-requited kindness, and injured
honor. On every
ground the threatened punishment was merited, and only in
mercy had it
been suspended so long. There is
a natural atheism in the human heart, a
constantly prevailing tendency to forgot God. This tendency is
most
powerful in prosperity, and must often be
counterworked by a
dispensation
of adversity. Not that Divine judgments,
acting on human
corruption, necessarily
lead to repentance. But in God’s hand they have often
been overruled
to this effect, and it is in this reclaiming and reforming capacity
that they are alluded to in this text.
“Chance” is a word much used,
and little understood. When we say that an
event has happened by chance, we
mean either that it had no cause, which
is atheism, or that we do not
know the cause, which is an abuse of
language. CHANCE in fact, is nothing but a term of human ignorance.
Yet
the use of the word implies
either atheism, denying the Divine existence, or
naturalism, denying His
superintending agency; the two coming to the same
thing, for we might as well have no God as no providence. The sentiment
of our text is the refutation of
both, and as such is but the echo of all
Scripture. “ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD” (II Corinthians 5:18).
Not creation only, but
continuous
creation. Not great events only, but the very least, without
any one of which
the whole machinery would be incapable of A
SINGLE
REVOLUTION. How beautifully yet
powerfully is this
brought out by Christ in his
illustration from the sparrows (Matthew
10:29-31)! If a sparrow cannot
fall to the ground without our Father, much
less can a whole city. When evil
is in a city, it is not a visitation of chance,
but of the hand of God, under
which it has come.
OF IDOLS. Something to
worship is a necessity of human nature. Hence
men, when they
forsake the true God, SET UP A FALSE ONE IN
HIS PLACE! (For the
MATERIALISM –
CY – 2013) The
existence and power of this idol
they believe without proof, and
even against presumption. Unconquerable
incredulity in reference to the
true God becomes irrational credulity in
reference to the false once.
Thus ATHEISM IS A QUESTION MORE
OF THE HEART
THAN THE HEAD! Men do not like to
retain God in their
knowledge (Romans 1:23, 28), and so
discard Him
for gods of their own devising.
This fact shows polytheism a term of
atheism. And it was demonstrably
so with the Jews. The obverse of
apostasy with them was always
idolatry; and this text affirms that Jehovah,
whom they had forsaken, not any
senseless idol which they had chosen,
dominated history and sent good
and evil to men (see Isaiah 41:21-24;
Jeremiah 10:3-16, especially
God, …..hath stretched out the heavens
by His discretion……and bringeth for the wind out of His treasures.
vs. 12-13 – think of the
implication with Hurricanes Katrina and
Luke 21:25 - just don’t take
them out of the context of this homily – CY –
2013). We think we are in no
danger of making their mistake. But the world,
in its ambition, avarice, or
pleasure, may take away our hearts from God,
and become their idol, climbing
to his throne. And we give it credit often for
what God does and alone can do
(for instance, referring to Mother Nature –
CY – 2013), and to that extent
misread the providential events in which
God is dealing with us.
AGENCY OF SECOND CAUSES.
The deification of nature is a common
practice. Conventionally, nature is a kind of mystical
personification of
some unknown
existence, and to which the omnipotence denied to God
is freely attributed. If
“nature” does a thing, it is assumed that God has no
hand in it, and that it wants no
explanation further. “Nature is that created
realm of being or substance
which has an acting, a going on or process
from within itself, under and by
its own laws” (Bushnell). But these laws
are just “the
actuating power of God.” They are not powers in
themselves, but only THE RULES BY WHICH HIS POWER
OPERATES! We have
various kinds
of seasons which we trace to
various causes in nature. But
these are second
causes, and under the
sovereign control of the First
Cause. “Can the heavens give showers?
art not thou he, O
Lord our God?... for thou hast made all these
things” (Jeremiah 14:22). Air, earth, and sea, and all that they
contain,
are subject to Him (Psalm
104:14; 148:8). From the natural cause of this
or that we must rise to Him who makes
it what and puts
it where it is,
and gives it a commission to
work. “All things are of God.”
“This
truth philosophy, though eagle-eyed
In
nature’s tendencies, oft o’erlooks;
And
having found His instrument, forgets
Or
disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
Denies
the Power that wields it.”
The same principle rules events in which men are agents. “Men are in
God’s hand” as
well as matter. The King of Assyria was simply
the rod
with which God struck
evils to God’s
sovereign control of things, distinguish between sovereignty
and caprice. For what
God does He could assign the best of reasons.
He
exercises His sovereignty in declining to do so. But He
tells us that the great
general cause of suffering is sin. Evil does not come on us as
creatures, but
as sinners. The infliction of it has not to do with SOVEREIGNTY
but with
EQUITY. All good is from God, all evil from the sinner. All good is
gratuitous, all evil is deserved. All evil is righteous
retribution, all good is
free and sovereign love. Nor is suffering destitute of a
large benevolent
element. On the contrary, it often serves a merciful
purpose, and would
always do so WERE IT PROPERLY RECEIVED! When
the sun of
prosperity fails to soften, God casts men into the furnace
of trial, if perchance
the stronger method may prevail. If there be evil in your
city, then consider who
sends it, on what account, and for what purpose; so, it may
be, you will “turn to
him that smiteth you,” as he means you should. (From a sermon by Ralph
Wardlaw, D.D., supplemented and condensed.)
Warning
Notes (v. 6)
There is something in this interrogatory style that arrests
the attention and
excites inquiry. Combined as it is with bold figures of
speech, it gives both
vivacity and impressiveness to the prophecies of the
herdsman of Tekoah.
·
THE PRESENCE OF CALAMITY. The phrase, “evil in a city,”
is
certainly vague, but how much it
may imply! How many forms of misery
may be suggested by the
expression! — e.g. famine, pestilence, war, riot,
and faction, all are evils, and
evils which do not always come singly to a
community.
·
THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CALAMITY. The suggestion of
the prophet is that “the
Lord hath done it.” We are not warranted in
applying the test of our
opinions to events permitted by Divine providence.
It is foolish to profess
ourselves able to interpret all the events, and
especially all the calamities,
that occur; to see God’s “judgments” in all
human distresses. Yet no devout mind
can question that there is a very
important sense in which, when
evil happens to a city or a country, the
Lord hath done it. The world is
governed by moral laws; but the Governor
is the supreme Creator of all things, the supreme Disposer
of all events.
Disobedience to His authority
and ordinances entails suffering, privation,
disaster. Men reap as they
sow.
·
THE PROPHETIC WARNING OF COMING CALAMITY. The
prophet was a watchman, as
Ezekiel so vigorously shows us, whose office
it is to recognize the approach of ill, and to give the people timely
and
faithful warning. The same office is
still fulfilled by those who being dead
yet speak, whose declarations
concerning Divine government remain for
the instruction of all generations. The Bible abounds with admonitions to
which cities and nations will do
well to give heed. And all ministers of
religion are bound to explain to
the people the principles of moral rule and
law, of moral retribution, of
repentance and reformation.
·
THE PROPER EFFECT OF CALAMITY. The immediate result is
that described in the text — fear, trembling, alarm. But the remote result,
that chiefly to be desired, is the turning of
men’s hearts unto the Lord, and
their consequent acceptance and forgiveness.
7 “Surely
the Lord GOD will do nothing, but He revealeth His
secret
unto His servants the prophets.” This and the following verse apply the
foregoing, parables All the evils announced come from the Lord;
but He brings
none of them on the people without first warning by his
prophets (compare
John 13:19; 14:29). His secret
(sod); unrevealed till then. Septuagint,
παιδείαν – paideian - instruction.
The
Revelation of Secrets (v. 7)
That there must be assumed to be some limitation to this
broad statement is
manifest. It is not intended to declare that God made His
prophets
acquainted with all His counsels and intentions, but
rather that revelation
and inspiration are realities, and that prophecy is a
Divine ordinance.
·
THE ACTIONS OF GOD ARE THE RESULT OF DELIBERATE
COUNSEL AND PURPOSE.
This way of representing the conduct of
Divine affairs is out of harmony
with much current teaching of our time.
We are often told that it is
childish to conceive of God as personal, as
thinking, feeling, and acting.
But so far from such representations being
derogatory to the Divine
dignity, they do, in fact, enhance our conceptions
of Him. Reason and
will are the lofty attributes of mind; and whilst the
Eternal is not bound by the
limitations which circumscribe our faculties,
these faculties are the finite reflection of what is infinite in Him. It is the
glory of our Scriptures that
they reveal to us a God who commands, not a
blind awe, but an intelligent
veneration, and elicits an appreciative and
grateful love.
·
THE COUNSELS AND PURPOSES OF GOD ARE REVEALED TO
THE SYMPATHETIC MINDS OF HIS SERVANTS THE PROPHETS.
The mode of this communication
is concealed from us; it may have been
but partially understood even by
the prophets themselves. There is nothing
unreasonable in the fellowship
of mind between the Creator and created
spirits. The human consciousness
is above all vehicles surely the fittest
medium for the intercourse
between the Divine and the finite. God has His
own servants employed in His household,
His husbandry; and He chooses His
own agents for the several works
He has for them to do. Among His
servants are the prophets — men selected and qualified to
speak forth his
mind and will to their fellow men. Perhaps we are too
restricted in the view
we commonly take of the
prophetic office. We know that there were
schools of prophets among the
Hebrews, and that there was an order of
prophets in the primitive
Church. There were oases in which by the agency
of prophets new truth was
revealed, but there were also cases in which
prophets were inspired to apprehend and
republish TRUTH
already familiar!
Prophets in this second sense
there certainly are among us to this day.
·
THE COUNSELS AND PURPOSES OF GOD COMMUNICATED
BY THE PROPHETS DEMAND OUR REFERENTIAL ATTENTION
AND CHEERFUL OBEDIENCE. When the Omniscient declares His mind,
when the Omnipotent unfolds His
purpose, by the agency He has chosen,
the revelation is first made by the Spirit to the human
minister, and then by
the human minister to his fellow men. The holiness of the Divine character
and the righteousness of the Divine government are thus brought
effectively before the minds of
the intelligent and responsible sons of men.
The secret is revealed, not
simply to excite wonder, but to guide conduct.
The appropriate attitude of
those privileged with a revelation so precious is
that expressed in the
resolution, “All the words which the Lord hath
spoken
will we do.” (Exodus 24:3)
The Hounds that Bay
before They Bite (v. 7)
The prophet speaks here as if he were announcing axiomatic
truth. And it
is nothing less. It might be argued from reason; it is
historic fact; and it is a
prominent Scripture doctrine.
the destruction of
are cases in point. Sometimes
judgment has taken people unawares
(Matthew 24:39), but this is because the warning has been disregarded
(Genesis 19:14; 6:3). When there
has been no warning the judgment
has been provoked, not by a
course of wickedness, but by A SINGLE
FLAGRANT
TRANSGRESSION in connection with which warning was
out of the question (Exodus
32:27-28; Numbers 26:10; Acts 12:23).
The warning of coming judgment
is:
Ø
A disclosure of sin. To allow men to sin
unheeded, and to find it
satisfactory, would be to
give amnesty to evil doing and practically
to encourage it. To erect
the gallows of impending judgment, on the
other hand, brings into
sight the fact of sin, and emphasizes its demerit.
Next to execution, the
sentence of death is A REVELATION TO
THE CRIMINAL OF THE
ENORMITY OF HIS CRIME!
It is a mental association
of guilt with penalty, and so measuring of
its moral proportions. It
is also:
Ø
A deterrent from sin. Judgment executed without
warning loses half
its value. The fear of the rod
is a wholesome restraint on the folly of
the child (Modern secularism and progressivism has
made a great
error and miscalculation in removing fear as a deterrent – i.e. –
removing the paddle from schools, their opposition to the death
penalty; legalizing marijuana and drugs; removing taboos from sex;
facilitating abortions for convenience, ad nauseum – CY – 2013);
greater often than the actual blow, because it operates
through a longer
period. God’s moral government in its relation to sin aims at
CURE RATHER THAN PUNISHMENT, at PREVENTION
RATHER THAN
EITHER! His
blows fall only after His threats
have failed to move
(Proverbs 1:24; Jeremiah 6:10-11). Accordingly:
Ø
To denounce judgment sometimes makes it unnecessary to
inflict it.
A notable instance was that
of
were more common, her
escape would be more common also (Matthew
12:41). God frights with
the thunder of his threats, that he may not be
compelled to smite with the lightning of His judgments. He makes
a display of His resistless
forces that the rebels may yield without going
into action. “Turn ye, turn ye: why will ye die?” (Ezekiel 33:11)
That is the message of His
open preparations to destroy.
On His way to the establishment
of personal relations (It is wonderful that
God is a
ONE-ON-ONE GOD! – CY -2013), God always treats
with men through mediators.
Covenants are made with representatives,
such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, and
Christ. Justifying righteousness is
negotiated typically through a
priesthood, and anti-typically THROUGH
JESUS
CHRIST! So saving knowledge is negotiated THROUGH
THE HOLY GHOST and by the
instrumentality of inspired men.
Ø This was the only feasible way. Not every man is fit to receive a
revelation
direct from God. To do so implies mental and moral conditions
that are
realized in but a small percentage of men. His revelation must
reach many
through a third party in any case. If the worse qualified must be
spoken to
through the better qualified, it is only carrying out the principle
to speak to
both through the best qualified of all, i.e. the prophet selected
by God Himself.
The Scripture is God’s revelation, and adequate to man’s
need (II Timothy 3:15-17). The
attempt to substitute for it an “inner
light” or
any other device, is to
substitute our own nonentity for God’s
reality.
Ø
It tends to call faith into action. GOD WANTS
HIS WORD BELIEVED!
And He wants it believed in a
certain way and on certain grounds.
To believe what we see is not
the faith He wants (John 20:29), nor
properly faith at all. “Blessed are
they who
have not seen, and yet
have believed.” Only such believing is intelligent or voluntary, and
therefore possessed of moral
qualities. If God revealed His will directly
to each
individual, bearing it in resistlessly on his consciousness, the moral
discipline
involved in faith would be lost to men.
Ø It secures a record of God’s message for universal use. A revelation
given to men
individually would be only for the individual, and for the time
then being, It
would neither be common property nor permanent property.
And it is worth
being made both. God’s way is one in all ages. He is in the
same mind about
sin, and deals with it on the same principles always. The
record of what
He has done is the prophecy of what in similar
circumstances
He will do. The prophet wrote so much of his message as
had permanent
interest, and the aggregate of such inspired deliverances is
the Scripture,
which is “a light in a dark
place until the day dawn.”
(II Peter
1:19) It is not a revelation for an
individual merely. Having served
its turn with
one, it is no less available for others in endless succession.
·
GOD’S PROPHETS ARE FIRST OF ALL HIS SERVANTS. “His
servants the
prophets.” The explanatory words, “His
servants,” widen
greatly the sentiment of the
clause.
Ø
To prophesy under Divine
direction is itself an act of service. There is
a wide sense in which all are
God’s servants who carry out any of His
purposes. Thus Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar (Isaiah 45:1; Jeremiah 25:9)
are styled respectively the “anointed”
and the “servant” of God,
because they were designated to
and did a work for Him. This was a
purely external relation, but it
was real. All the prophets, even the
wicked Balaam, were God’s
servants in this sense. They represented
His interest. They went His
errand. They carried His message. They
labored to accomplish His purpose.
Their exercise of the prophetic
office was service.
Ø
Official relations have their basis in personal relations. Shepherds and
sheep alike come into the fold
by the Door, Jesus Christ (John 10:1-14).
All come in to the effect of
their own salvation first, and then fall
into rank as gatherers-in of
others. First faith, and then works, is thus the
spiritual order; faith
establishing personal relations with Christ,
and
work, among other things, trying
to get others to do likewise. Hence
Church officers are to be chosen
out of the number of Church members.
The conditions of spiritual work
are spiritual gifts, and the condition
of spiritual gifts is to be in
the spiritual connection “I am the way,
the truth and the
life.” (John 14:6;>Ephesians
2:18).
8 “The
lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath
spoken, who can but prophesy?” As the lion’s roar forces every one to
fear, so the Divine call of the prophet forces him to speak
(Jeremiah 20:9;
Ezekiel 2:8; I Corinthians 9:16). St. Gregory, moralizing,
takes the lion
in a spiritual
sense: “After the power of his Creator has been
made known to
him, the strength of his adversary ought not to be concealed from
him, in order
that he might submit himself the more humbly to his defender,
the more
accurately he had learned the wickedness of his enemy, and
might more
ardently seek his Creator, the more terrible he found the
enemy to be
whom he had to avoid. For it is certain that he who less
understands the
danger he has escaped, loves his deliverer less; and that
he who considers
the strength of his adversary to be feeble, regards the
solace of his defender
as worthless” (‘Moral.,’ 32:14). Of course, this exposition
does not regard
the context.
No Smoke Without Fire (vs. 3-8)
God cannot utter empty threats. His every declaration is bona
fide. When
He roars HE IS ABOUT TO REND.. Let, then, THE DOOMED SINNER
TREMBLE! For all his
insensibility he is no better than a dead man.
two walk together,”
etc.? This deep principle involves that:
Ø
Israel, quarrelling with God, cannot reckon on His
company.
For so far God had
associated with them. In
in
rebellious attitude against
Him, approaching as it was a climax of
irreconcilableness, must make a continuance of intimate relations
impossible.
Ø The prophet,
walking as he did with God, must be regarded as in
agreement with Him, and so expressing His will. Amos spoke as
God’s servant and
mouthpiece. He looked at
standpoint. In reference to
it he was as emphatically associated with
God as he was dissociated
from them. Underlying this formal association
it must be believed there
was real agreement. “He whom God
hath
sent speaketh the words of God.” (John 3:34)
THE LIGHTNING OF HIS JUDGMENTS IS IMMINENT. That peril
is sure and near is taught in a
series of similes of a graphic kind.
Ø When God
utters His war cry it is evident that He is just about
to strike His enemy. (v. 4.) The lion
roars when he has marked his
prey, and is about
to spring. God sees the sinful nation ripe for judgment.
He sees that the
time for sending it has come. His roar out of
(ch.1:2) is, therefore, the
prelude to striking His prey forthwith. “The
threatenings of the Word and providence of God are not bugbears to
frighten children and fools, but are certain inferences from the sin of
man and certain presages of the judgments of God” (Matthew Henry).
Ø When God reaches forth His hand there is something to take,
and
within His reach (v. 5.). It is the
lighting of the bird on the trap that
snaps it. If there
were no trap laid no bird would be caught. If there
were no bird in the
trap it would not rise from the ground.
bird, and God is the Fowler,
and His judgment is the snare, and the
lesson of all is that she
is already in God’s destroying grasp.
When some are already alarmed it shows that DANGER TO
ALL IS REAL AND CLOSE (v. 6, “Is a trumpet
blown …
and the people not be afraid?”) The prophet, who knew what
was coming, was alarmed,
and those like minded with him. The note
of alarm was already
ringing over the land. Signs of evil will not show
themselves until the evil
is comparatively at hand. So surely as the
smoke rises the fire is
kindling.
Ø
When misfortune falls it is a proof that God has been at
work.
“Does misfortune happen in the city,” etc.? (v. 6). “All things are
of God” (I
Corinthians 5:18), is an axiom that in one sense or other
covers all events, whether good or bad. The qualification of it is that
the sin of any of them is
exclusively of man. God “creates evil”
(Isaiah 45:7) — the evil of
suffering — whilst the evil of sin He allows
us to create, that He may bring out of it GREATER GOOD!
(v. 7.) The prophet is a negotiator,
hearing the truth from God, and
handing it on to men. God does not destroy men unwarned, nor warn them
but through His accredited
messengers. The history of His judgments
illustrates this. Through Noah
He revealed the coming deluge, through
the destruction of
Moses the Egyptian plagues,
through Jonah the sentence on
through Christ and His apostles
the destruction of
has ever warned
the world of coming judgments in order that it may
not involve
THEM/YOU/ME! “He foretelleth
the evil to come that He may
not be compelled to
inflict it.
MESSAGE. (v.
8.) (“For we cannot but speak the
things which we
have seen and heard”
Acts 4:20). It is His will that
they should prophesy.
He tells them His purposes
mainly with a view to this. To prophesy is their
function and duty, and is made
their business. They are moved at
the sight
of coming evil. They are in
sympathy with the Divine compassion,
GIVING A LAST CHANCE
TO THE DOOMED and so, like the
apostles, they “cannot but speak
the things they have seen and heard”
(I Corinthians 9:16-17; Acts
4:19-20). Moses was not excused though
slow of speech (Exodus 4:10),
nor Isaiah though of polluted lips (Isaiah
6:5), nor Jeremiah because he
was a child (Jeremiah 1:6-9). Ezekiel was
bidden ‘be not rebellious like that rebellious house’ (Ezekiel 2:8);
and when Jeremiah would keep
silence he saith, ‘His Word
was in mine
heart as a burning
fire, shut up in my bones, and I was weary with
forbearing, and I could not stay’” (Jeremiah 20:9). Taken
in connection,
vs. 7-8 reveal a perfect
arrangement for making known God’s purpose in
reference to sin. God anticipates
action by a communication
to His prophets,
and the prophets execute orders,
and hand the
communication on.
Having vindicated his own commission, Amos proclaims in vs.
9-15,
what God purposes to do unto
should bring about the overthrow of the kingdom, the
destruction of the
city with its altars and palaces, and the exile of the
people.
The passage is a summons to the nations to appear as
witnesses of
and her dreadful punishment. There are many articles in her
predicted woe. Not
least of these is condemnation by the heathen, who for less
heinous sins
were to be themselves destroyed. When a professed follower
of God
apostatizes in such a fashion that even God’s enemies cry
shame, and
endures a corresponding punishment in their sight, THE
CUP OF HIS
INIQUITY AND OF HIS RETRIBUTION ARE BOTH FULL!
The Irrepressibility of
Moral Truth (vs. 7-8)
“Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His
servants the prophets,” etc. These words mean that although punishment
for the guilty Israelites was natural, arranged, and withal
Divine, yet it
would come according to a warning made to them through the
prophets,
and which these would feel compelled to deliver. The words
suggest two
remarks.
·
GOD HAS MADE A SPECIAL REVELATION TO HIS SERVANTS.
“He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.” In all ages God
has selected men to whom He has
made communications of Himself. In
times past He spake unto the fathers by the prophets. In truth, He makes
special revelations of Himself
to all true men. “Shall I hide from Abraham
the thing that I
do?” (Genesis 18:17) “The
secrets of the Lord are with them
that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.” (Psalm 25:14) God
has given to all men a general revelation. In nature
without and within, in
the material domain, and in the spiritual.
But He makes a special revelation
to some. The Bible is indeed
a special revelation.
Ø
Special in its occasion. It is made on account of the abnormal moral
condition into which man has
fallen — made in consequence of human
sin and its dire
consequences. Had there been no sin, in all probability
we should have had no written
revelation. The great book of nature
would have sufficed.
Ø
Special in its doctrines The grand
characteristic truth is this —
that God so loved men as sinners
that He gave His only begotten
Son for their redemption. (John 3:16) This is the epitome of
the gospel,
·
THAT THE RIGHT RECEPTION OF THIS SPECIAL
REVELATION NECESSITATES PREACHING. “The lion hath
roared,
who will not fear?
the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” The
idea is that the men who have
rightly taken the truth into them can no more
conceal it than men can avoid
terror at the roar of the lion. There are some
truths which men may receive and
feel no disposition to communicate, such
as the truths of abstract
science, which have no relation to the social heart.
But gospel truths have
such a relation to the tenderest and profoundest
affections of the
spirit, that their genuine recipients find them to be
irrepressible. They feel like Jeremiah, that they have fire shut up in
their
bones; like the apostles before
the Sanhedrin, “We cannot but speak the
things that we have seen and
heard;” like Paul, “Necessity is laid upon me
to preach the
gospel.” “Who can but prophesy?” None
but those who have
received the truth.
9 “Publish
in the palaces at
Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon
the mountains of
Samaria, and behold the great tumults in
the midst thereof, and the
oppressed in the midst thereof.”
(publish ye) summon the
inhabitants of the palaces of Philistia (of which
is the representative) and
people, and in their sight had mighty works been wrought
for
they could appreciate her iniquity and ingratitude. Some,
translating al
“upon,” say that the prophets are bidden publish their
message upon the
flat roofs of the palaces, that it may be heard far and
near (compare II Samuel
16:22; Matthew 10:27). Keil
thinks that not all the inhabitants of the town are
summoned, but only those who live in the palaces, who alone
“could pronounce
a correct sentence as to the mode of life commonly adopted
in the palaces of
upon the mountains of
which stands alone in
the valley or basin, but it is surrounded by higher mountains,
from whence, though at some distance, spectators could look
down into its streets,
and, as from the seats in an amphitheater, behold the
iniquities transacted there.
Their implacable enemies, the Philistines, and those they
were then courting,
the Egyptians (Hosea 7:11; 12:1), are alike called to
witness this spectacle.
Tumult; the disorder, where might makes right.- Septuagint, θαυμαστὰ πολλὰ, -
thaumasta
polla - many marvels - as if the sight
were a surprise
even to the heathen. The
oppressed (ashuqim); better, the
oppressions,
i.e. of the weak at
the hands of the powerful (compare 2:6; 4:1). It was
to the eternal
disgrace of
which the very heathen would condemn.
10 “For
they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store
up
violence and robbery in their palaces.” They know not how to do right.
The Samaritans have lost all sense of justice, the foundation of
social life
(Jeremiah 4:22). The Septuagint - Οὐκ ἔγνις
α} ἔσται ἐναντίον αὐτῆς -
Ouk egnis a estai
enantion autaes - She knew not what things shall be
before her. Store up
violence; i.e. the fruits of violence and robbery
(ταλαιπωρίαν,– talaiporian – misery - Septuagint), what they had wrung
from the poor by oppression and rapine.
The Corruption of
Conscience (v. 10)
The conception of Amos is remarkable for grandeur. He sees
in prophetic
vision the approaching siege of
kingdom, and poetically summons the Egyptians and
Philistines to gather
themselves together upon the surrounding hills, and to
witness the tumults
within the city, the assaults from without, and the
impending ruin. But the
moral significance of history, in the prophet’s mind,
transcends the pictorial
interest; and in this verse he gives utterance to a profound and awful truth
with regard to human nature. Wrongdoing corrupts the conscience and
interferes with a correct
perception of right and goodness.
·
IT IS A LAW OF HUMAN NATURE THAT CONDUCT REACTS
UPON CHARACTER. No
doubt actions are the expression of the moral
nature, the moral habits, of
men. But, on the other hand, those who
persevere in a certain course of
conduct are by that very fact molded and
fashioned and even transformed.
Thus it is that those who
submit to
circumstances and who yield to influences are affected even in their inmost
moral nature by
the experience they pass through.
·
PASSION AND INTEREST WARP THE MORAL JUDGMENT.
Nations which, like
pillage their neighbors’ goods,
and wage unlawful war, involving
widespread calamity, thereby blunt their
sensibilities to right and wrong.
They habituate themselves to regard all questions in the
light of their own
ambition, or their own aggrandizement and enrichment. As a
consequence
they are tempted to call evil good, and good evil.
Especially are they liable
to term a false judgment upon their own conduct. (in my opinion
this
defines the so-called
Progressive movement today. CY - 2022)
·
THUS WRONG DOING HAS A TENDENCY TO PERPETUATE
ITSELF. They who by
reason of abandoning themselves to evil courses
have silenced the voice of
conscience, lose the moral power to do better.
Because they “know
not to do right,” they continue to do
wrong. They
reap as they have sown. They
advance upon the road of sin by the
momentum derived from past
iniquity.
11 “Therefore
thus saith the Lord GOD; An adversary there shall be
even round about the land; and he shall
bring down thy strength
from thee, and thy palaces shall be
spoiled.” An adversary. The Hebrew
is forcible, the Lord speaking as though He
saw the foe present: “an enemy
and around the land.” The adversary meant is Shalmaneser,
who attacked
claims to have reduced the city and removed the inhabitants
(II Kings 17 and
18:9-12. Thy strength. All wherein
thou trusted shall be brought down to the
ground (Obadiah
1:3). Palaces, in which were stored the fruits of
injustice and
rapine (v. 10).
Rectitude
(vs. 10-11)
“For they know not to do right, saith
the Lord, who store up violence and
robbery in their palaces,” etc. We derive from this passage three general
remarks.
·
THAT THERE IS AN ETERNAL LAW OF “RIGHT” THAT
SHOULD GOVERN MAN IN ALL HIS RELATIONS. Right, as a
sentiment, is one of the
deepest, most ineradicable, and operative
sentiments in humanity. All men feel that there is such a thing as
right.
What the right is, is a subject
on which there has been and is a variety of
opinion. Right implies a
standard, and men differ about the standard. Some
say the law of your country is
the standard; some say public sentiment is
the standard; some say temporal
expediency is the standard. All these are
fearfully mistaken. The Bible teach
that there is but one
standard — that is THE WILL OF THE CREATOR!
That will He reveals
in many ways:
o
in nature,
o
in history,
o
in conscience,
o
in Christ, THE
LIVING WORD,
o
in the written Word
Conformity to that will is right.
Ø
The law of right
should govern man in his relations with God. That law
says — Thank the kindest Being
most, love the best Being most,
reverence the greatest Being most.
“Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and
with all thy
strength:” (Mark 12:30)
Ø The law of
right should govern man in his relation to his fellow men.
“Whatsoever ye
would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
them.” (Matthew 7:12)
This
law of right is immutable. It admits of no
modification. It is universal. It is binding alike
on all moral beings in
the universe. It is benevolent. It seeks
the happiness of all. Earth
will
be
·
THAT A PRACTICAL DISREGARD OF THIS LAW LEADS TO
FRAUD AND VIOLENCE. “For
they know not to do right, saith the
Lord, who store up
violence and robbery in their palaces.”
The
magnates
of
violence and robbery in their
palaces.” FRAUD and VIOLENCE are the
two great primary crimes in all social life. By the former men are deceived,
befooled, rifled of their rights, and disappointed of their hopes and
expectations. Never was fraud stronger
in
literature, commerce, religion,
legislation. By the latter, men are disabled,
wounded, crushed, murdered. Can
the history of the world furnish more
terrible manifeststions
of violence than we have had in the wars of
Christendom in this age? Why
this fraud and violence? Why are these
devils let loose to fill the world with lamentation and
woe? The answer is in
the text, “Men know not to do right”
That is, they do not practice the right.
·
THAT FRAUD AND VIOLENCE MUST ULTIMATELY MEET
WITH CONDIGN PUNISHMENT.
“Therefore
thus saith the Lord God;
An adversary there
shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring
down thy strength
from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled.” How was
this realized? “Against
him came up Shalmaneser King of
Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents .... In the
ninth year of
Hoshea the King of Assyria took
Assyria, and
placed them in Halah and in Habor
by the river of Gozan, and
in the cities of the
Medes” (II Kings 3-6; 18:9-11). The cheats and.
murderers of mankind will, as sure as there is justice in the
world, meet
with a terrible doom. “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for
your
miseries that
shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your
garments are moth
eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of
them shall be a
witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.
Ye have heaped
treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the
laborers who have
reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by
fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered
into the
ears of the Lord
of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth,
and
been wanton; ye
have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye
have condemned and
killed the just; and he doth not resist you” (James
5:1-6). “Punishment is the
recoil of crime; and the strength of the back
stroke is in proportion to the
original blow.”
12 “Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh
out of the mouth of
the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so
shall the children of
taken out that dwell in
in a couch.” The
prophet shows that the chastisement is inevitable, and that
only the smallest remnant, the most worthless among the
inhabitants, and
they with much difficulty, can escape. The illustration
from a common
incident in a shepherd’s life is very natural in Amos. Taketh; better,
rescueth. So below, shall
be taken out; shall be rescued. The usual
explanation is that a shepherd attacks the lion which has
seized one of his
sheep (compare I Samuel 17:34-37), and rescues from it the
most
worthless parts — “a couple of shank bones or a bit, or
tip, of an ear.” But
as an attack on a lion would be an abnormal act of courage
on the part of a
shepherd, and the comparison is with things likely and
usual, it is probable
that the meaning is that the
shepherd finds only these poor remnants after
the lion has left his prey. So such a poor remnant shall be rescued from the
ten tribes of
at ease, lounging in the coziest corner of the divan, an image of indolent
ease and careless security IN THE FACE OF JUDGMENT. And
in
agree in considering the word “
modern rendering takes it to mean the material which
we call “damask,” or
something similar. Hence our Revised Version gives,
“on the silken cushions
of a bed;” and others, “on the damask of a couch.”
Dr. Pusey retains the old
rendering, on the grounds that there is no evidence
to prove that the manufactures
for which
being then wine and white wool (Ezekiel 27:18), and that
the Arabic
word dimakso (which
critics have cited as connected with the term
“damask”) has nothing to do with
manufactured, “silk.” He translates, “in
this to mean that
14:28), “was a canopied couch to them, in which they stayed
themselves.”
This agrees with the ancient Jewish interpretation, which
explains the clause
to mean that the Israelites would some day depend for help
on the Syrians
represented by
makes the words to mean, “on a couch of
of a costly and luxurious nature. This comes to the same as
the modern rendering
given, above and seems to be the easiest explanation of the
expression. The
difficulty depends chiefly on the punctuation of the word Ëçmd;
or there may
be some corruption in the text. What the Septuagint meant
by their rendering is
problematical, Κατέναντι τῆς φυλῆς
καὶ ἐν
Δαμασκῷ- Katenanti
tae phulaes kai
en Damasko - The children of
The Prophet gets His Heavy
Commission (vs. 9-12)
It is Jehovah that speaks. He addresses the prophets (Keil), or the heathen
(Lange), or the heathen through the prophets. The passage
is a summons
to the nations to appear as witnesses of
dreadful punishment. There are many articles in her
predicted woe. Not
least of these is condemnation by the heathen, who for less
heinous sins
were to be themselves destroyed. When a professed
follower of God
apostatizes in such a fashion that even God’s enemies cry shame, and
endures a
corresponding punishment in their sight, the cup of his iniquity
and of his
retribution are both full.
·
THE CRIME CHARGED.
There are many counts in this grave
indictment.
Ø The confusion of sordid money seeking. “See the great confusions in the
midst
thereof.” The
restlessness of greed, the fever of speculation, the
wrangling of
barter, and the tumult of audacious extortion are all included
here. The
mingling of excitement, disorder, and noise in a struggle for
money, suggest
a scene in which little is left to fancy with one who has
been “on
‘Change.”
Ø The oppression of power without principle. “And
the oppressed in the
heart thereof.” From fraud to oppression is but a single step,
and a short
one. It is
simply a question of power. The swindler would steal if he could.
The thief would
rob with violence if he dare. When dishonesty, moreover,
prevails in private life, a system of
public plunder is only a question of
opportunity.
Ø Wrong doing till the way to do right had been
forgotten. “They
know
not
to do right.” “In the
nature of things every sin against light draws blood
on the
spiritual retina” (Joseph Cook). Men are both hardened and
blinded
by
a course of sin. Evil actions
repeated become habits, and evil habits
indulged in
work themselves into the very texture of the soul. The wrong
of ill-doing
soon ceases to be felt, which naturally leads to its ceasing to be
seen (Jeremiah
4:22; compare Romans 16:19). When we can sin without
conscience, we are very near to sinning
without consciousness, The
way to
preserve a good conscience, a conscience
that knows evil and condemns it,
is
to respect its least dictate. “Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a
habit, and you
reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”
The
chains of habit are too light to be felt
until
they are too strong to be broken. (Samuel Johnson)
Ø Putting by plunder in store. “Who store up violence and devastation in
their
palaces.” Plunder has
not even the poor excuse of need. It is practiced
gratuitously,
as without limit. The poor were fleeced and impoverished,
that the sordid
rich might heap up enormous and superfluous stores. And
by the terms
there was stored up not only the spoil of violence, but
violence
itself, Pari passu (equal footing), with the
accumulation of
ill-gotten gain
was the heaping up of the sin of their unrighteous getting,
whilst in
heaping up sin they were necessarily treasuring up wrath
(Romans 2:5).
·
THE WITNESSES SUMMONED.
“Assemble
upon the mountains,” -
A reference to the topography of
of the language here. The city
was built on a hill, surrounded and overlooked
by mountains higher than itself,
and from the tops of which the nations could
look down into the very streets,
and observe the daily doings of the inhabitants.
(What is your concept of
God? Certainly, if man has the ability,
today, to
cover as news anything in the
world and it be shared simultaneously, then
you and I should be able to conceive of
God judging and explaining the
lives and actions of every person and every generation, AT ONCE, to where
every eye and every heart could see and understand HIS JUDGMENT! –
Perhaps we can understand in the
backdrop of a scene like the Super Bowl,
magnified a million times - CY –
2013) Notice:
:
Ø
Abandonment in sin is a sight for a man’s worst enemy to see. The
certainty, severity, and
nearness of avenging judgment makes sin, from
even the low utilitarian
standpoint, the greatest possible evil. The enemy,
who rejoices in our ill,
can find no such occasion of malignant joy as our
giving ourselves up to sin.
After the fact that it offends God, the strongest
argument against sin is the
fact, the obverse of the other, that it pleases
the devil and wicked men.
Ø
When men lose the sense of sin, God appeals to THEIR SENSE OF
SHAME. It is strange that the sense of shame should survive the
sense
of sin, but so it is. We
fear men more than God. We are not ashamed to
do what we would be very
much ashamed to acknowledge. The poet’s
sarcasm is just, that in
the matter of sin our care is “not to leave undone,
but keep unknown.” THE BITTERNESS OF PUNISHMENT IS
GREATLY AGGRAVATED
BY ITS BEING INFLICTED IN THE
PRESENCE OF AN EXULTING ENEMY. (The modern example is the
media’s reaction to the fall of the likes of Jim Bakker and Jimmy
Swaggart – but in
that day there will be no glossing over of the short-
comings
of the Ted Kennedy’s, Hugh Hefner’s, Larry Flint’s and the
million wannabes of the world – IT WILL BE ON AN OPEN STAGE,
A GIGANTIC OPEN
CONCERT, ETC! – CY – 2013)
end
of feeling on which a motive could lay hold
Jehovah here appeals. They
would be a gazing stock (Like
Israel of old, the
an interesting but
tragic CASE STUDY to not only their bitterest
enemies BUT TO ALL WHO HAVE EVER LIVED AND BREATHED
THE BREATH OF LIFE! This will be along the lines of Jesus’
statement in Matthew
12:41-42 – “The men of
judgment with
this generation, and shall condemn it: because they
repented at
the preaching of Jonah…… The queen of the south shall
rise up in
the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: etc –
CY – 2013) Like the woman set in the midst amid one encircling sea
of accusing, insulting
faces, with none to pity, none to intercede, none to
show mercy to them who had
showed no mercy. Faint image of the shame
of that day when
not men’s deeds only, but the secrets of all hearts, shall
be revealed, (Luke 12:2-5) and they shall begin ‘to say to the
mountains,
Fall on us, and
to the hills, Cover us – HIDE US FROM THE FACE
OF HIM THAT SITTETH
ON THE THRONE, AND FROM THE
WRATH OF THE
LAMB! FOR THE GREAT DAY OF HIS WRATH
IS COME; AND WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND! (Revelation
6:16-17)
(The legacy of the effects of Liberalism, Progressivism and the tenets of the ACLU
in
practice is becoming ingrained in American culture [today it is called THE
36:16 - CY - 2013) The art of wrong doing advances with rapid pace as it is
handed on. The son of the “smart” trader is a swindler, the son of the swindler is the
burglar, the son of the burglar is the robber assassin. The pupil of the religious liberal
is
the rationalist, and the pupil of the rationalist is the atheist. Begin
by imitating
wicked
men, and you will end by OUTSTRIPPING
THEM IN SIN! Give the devil
a ride and he will end up wanting to drive!
Ø
The pupil in the art of ill-doing often outdoes the master. It is assumed
that even
doing of apostate
had taught them “oppression,”
and
in “violence and devastation.”
The art of wrong doing advances with rapid
strides as it is handed on. The
son of the “smart” trader is a swindler, the
son of the swindler is the
burglar, the son of the burglar is the robber
assassin. The pupil of the
religious liberal is the rationalist, and the pupil
of the rationalist is the
atheist. Begin by imitating wicked men, and you
will end by outstripping them in
sin.
·
THE SENTENCE PRONOUNCED.
This is at once heavy in its
nature and explicit in its
details. We see here that:
Ø
When God’s judgments come
against a man they surround him.
(v.11,
“An enemy, and
that round about the land.”) The
impossibility of
escaping when God attacks is
self-evident. Punishment is in such a way
interwoven with sin that they cannot be dissociated. When we sin
against God we sin against the
nature of things. Physical, mental, and
social law jump each with moral
law, are broken in the breach of it,
and so are each of them a
channel to guide to us the full flood of
retribution. “Though
hand join in hand, yet shall not the wicked go
unpunished.” (Proverbs 11:21)
Ø
When God strikes a sinner he
strikes him on the seat of his sin. “And
he shall bring
down,” etc. (v. 11); “That
dwell in
The strong had oppressed and pillaged
the weak, and God’s hand would
fall on their strength. In the
palaces the spoil of violence had been
heaped up, and the palaces
should be the special prey of the plunderer.
The beds and couches which had ministered to their sinful
indulgence
would be carried away
to the last stick. It is so always. The punishment
of drunkenness, uncleanness,
pride, theft, lying, comes in many ways,
but in every case pre-eminently
through
the lust or appetite involved.
This is according to natural laws,
but is none the less the arrangement
of God. He has put latent
in every power a mystic spark, which, if the
power be abused, becomes a retributive fire to burn the
breaker of
His Law.
Ø When sin is adequately punished the
sinner’s well being is practically
destroyed. “Delivers out of the mouth of the lion two shin bones and an ear
lappet,” etc. (ver. 12). These are paltry leavings, not worth the rescue. And
such, and so insignificant, would be the surviving good of
God’s controversy was settled. Where the scythe of God’s judgment has
passed there is little left for the gleaner. The detected thief, the broken
down sensualist through the effects of AIDS (Proverbs 5:11-13; Romans 1:27),
the besotted
drunkard, the drug addict, what is each but
A HUMAN
WRECK! The kernel of life is wasted, and only a husk remains. No wallflower
of good can ever grow to cover these
wrecks of time.
not to do right.” Every sin against light draws blood on the
spiritual retina.
Men are both HARDENED and BLINDED by a course of sin. Evil actions
repeated become habits, and evil habits indulged in work
themselves into THE
VERY TEXTURE OF THE SOUL!
The wrong of ill-doing soon ceases to be felt
(the chains of habit
are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken),
which naturally leads to its ceasing to be seen
(Jeremiah 4:22; compare Romans 16:19).
When we can sin without conscience, we are very near to SINNING
WITHOUT
CONSCIOUSNESS! The way to preserve a good conscience, a
conscience that
knows evil and condemns it, is to respect its least
dictate.
“Sow an act, and
you reap a habit;
sow a habit, and you reap a character;
sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Nations which, like
pillage their neighbors’ goods, and wage unlawful war,
involving
widespread calamity, thereby blunt
their sensibilities to right and wrong.
They habituate themselves to regard all questions in the
light of their own
ambition, or their own aggrandizement and enrichment. As a
consequence
they are tempted to call evil good, and good evil.
Especially are they liable
to term a false judgment upon their own conduct (Isaiah
5:20-21). Paul
speaks of a condition where the conscience is “seared with
a hot iron” –
(I Timothy 4:2)
abandoning themselves to evil
courses have silenced the voice of
conscience and in the
process, lose the moral power to do better.
Because they “know
not to do right,” THEY CONTINUE TO
DO WRONG! They
reap as they have sown. They advance upon
the road of sin by the MOMENTUM DERIVED FROM PAST
INIQUITY!
13 “Hear
ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord
GOD, the
God of hosts,” Hear ye; Septuagint, Ἱερεῖς ἀκούσατε - Hereis akousate –
Hear, O ye priests. The address is
to the heathen, already summoned (v.
9) to
witness the sins
of
In the house; better, against
the house of Jacob, the tribes of
God of hosts. God of the powers of heaven and earth, and therefore able
to
execute His threats. Septuagint, ὁ
Παντοκράτωρ
– ho Pantokrator –
“the Almighty.”
14 “That
in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of
him I will also visit the altars of
shall be cut off, and fall to the
ground.” That in the day, etc. This verse
is rightly joined to the preceding, as it particularizes the
threats which the heathen
are summoned to testify. Visit
upon; equivalent to “punish” (Zephaniah 1:8).
Altars of
12:29, 33), but doubtless others had been added in the
course of time. The
denunciation of Ibid. ch.13:2-3 is here repeated. The horns of the
altar. These were certain
projections at the four angles of the altar,
perhaps in the form of an ox’s horn, on which the blood of
the sin offering
was smeared, and which therefore were considered the
holiest part of the
altar (see Exodus 27:2; 29:12; Leviticus 16:18). The instruments of
idolatry or impure worship should share the destruction of the idolaters.
Sin is punished by being returned on the sinner’s
head. “When I visit
transgression upon him.” The sin not only leads to the punishment, but as it
were re-embodies itself in it.
the dead bird around the Ancient
Mariner’s neck, an avenging
ties the memory of
it to our soul. Like the crime of
Eugene Aram, it
becomes an evil haunting memory,
to dog our steps forever.
“And still
no peace for the restless clay
Will wave or mould allow;
The
horrid thing pursues my soul —
It stands before me now.”
(Hood.)
sins of youth are the sowing of
which the sufferings of manhood and age
are the harvest — a harvest too
constantly and painfully reaped to allow
the harvester to forget. The
sins of one man are the fruitful source of the
sins and sorrows of many, and
find in each of these a mentor who makes it
impossible to forget. In
addition to the sinner and the sinned against,
wrong doing injures those whose
well being depends on either. It is thus a
poison tree that forks and
branches in the bearing of its deadly fruit. While
the evil consequences of his wrong
doing are around him, and propagating
themselves in ever-widening
circles, the sinner apart from conscience
cannot get his iniquities out of
sight. (i.e. – Darwinism, Freudism,
Marxism, etc. – CY – 2013)
no idea of spiritual things
apart from Divine revelation (I Corinthians 2:9).
At the same time, God’s
revelation of spiritual things is too pure for his
taste. The result is that
he compromises the matter by adopting ready-made
ordinances, and loading them with his own corrupt spirit and meaning.
one sacrificial altar in connection with the worship of Jehovah, but when
many gods were invented, many altars were provided to correspond to
them. This multiplication of idols is accounted for by the fact that
evil naturally spreads. One sin leads to more. Covetousness leads to
theft, drunkenness to uncleanness, all three often to
murder, and almost
every sin to DECEIT and LYING. No man can set up one sinful idol
and say he will have no more. It will bring others with it whether he will
or no. It is the first swallow of the summer of evil
doing, and heralds a
coming flock.
His gods. “The horns
of the altar shall be cut off,” etc.
This would put an
effectual stop to the idol worship.
Ø
Idolatry is at the root of all other sin. It is the complement
of
atheism, which is radically
the heart departing from God. It is a
sublimated SELF-WORSHIP making an idol of our own mental
creation. A god dethroned,
and a self enthroned, is a state of things
which “contains the promise and
potency” OF ALL EVIL! To
strike at
national evil. The
idols abolished, and God restored to
the
national heart,
ONE!
15 “And I
will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the
houses of ivory shall perish, and the great
houses shall have an
end, saith the LORD.” The winter house. The luxurious habits of kings and
princes had led them to have different houses
for the various seasons of the year,
facing north or south as the case might be (compare Judges
3:20; Jeremiah 36:22).
Septuagint, τὸν οϊκον τὸν περίπτερον
– ton
oikon ton peripteron - the
turreted house, which Jerome explains, Domum
pinnatam, eo quod
ostiola habeat per fenestras,
et quasi pinnas, ad magnitudinem
frigoris
depellendam. Houses of ivory; panelled or inlaid with ivory, such as Ahab
had (I Kings 22:39). Solomon’s throne was thus decorated
(Ibid. ch.10:18;
compare Psalm 45:8). (For the Assyrian practice of
veneering in ivory, see
Rawlinson, ‘Ancient Monarchies,’ 1:463; comp. also Homer, ‘Od.,’ 4:73;
Virgil, ‘AEneid,’ 6:895.) The great houses; better, many houses; Septuagint,
ἕτεροι οϊκοι πολλοί,
- heteroi oikoi polloi - many
other houses. Not only
palaces, but many private houses, shall be destroyed (compare Isaiah 5:9,
where the same words are used).
The Residue of
Those who had been called to witness the sin of
to hear and report her sentence. In connection with this we
see that:
·
EVEN HEATHENS CAN TESTIFY AGAINST APOSTATE
IN THE JUDGMENT. To
testify is not merely to convey intelligence; it
contains in it the idea of
protest, i.e. testifying against.
Ø
The heathen had a natural sense of right and wrong. Paul says they
“show the work of
the law written in their hearts,” and “are
a law
unto themselves.” (Romans 2:14-15) A rule of duty is included in
the constitution of their nature. They know right from wrong, arid
are governed by a sense of obligation. They
could, therefore, judge
the conduct of
up to even their own imperfect
standard of right.
Ø
They had been truer to their standard of right than
us that the heathen had not been
true to their light (Romans 1:21-28),
and that the punishment of that was diminished light. But they had been
truer, on the whole, than
so far below
the assumption that they would
be shocked at
corruptions. Moral deterioration
is measured, not so much by the absolute
amount and kind of wrong doing
as by the extent to which it falls below
the known standard of right.
Other things being equal, he is relatively
the best man who most closely
follows his light (John 3:19; Romans 2:14).
Ø They would
learn something for themselves from this witness-bearing.
Discrimination would see that
contradiction, of the national
religion; that it was an evil result of
heathen influence, and involving the heathen more or less in its guilt;
that
vengeance on evil doers; and that judgment, beginning at God’s
chosen people, would not miss His open enemies. The very act of
testifying against
the moral sense, in reference to their sin, as could not fail to be beneficial.
·
SIN IS PUNISHED BY BEING RETURNED ON THE SINNER’S
HEAD. “When
I visit
leads to the punishment, but as
it were re-embodies itself in it.
Ø
The memory of it haunts him. When sin is done it is not done with.
Like the dead bird around the
Ancient Mariner’s neck, an avenging
“And still
no peace for the restless clay
Will wave
or mold allow;
The horrid
thing pursues my soul —
It stands
before me now.”
(Hood.)
Ø
The permanent evil consequences of it keep it before the
memory. The
sins of youth are the sowing of
which the sufferings of manhood and age
are the harvest — a harvest too
constantly and painfully reaped to allow
the harvester to forget. The sins of one man are the fruitful source of the
sins and sorrows of many, and
find in each of these a mentor who makes
it impossible to forget. In
addition to tile sinner and the sinned against,
wrong doing injures those whose
well being depends on either. It is
thus a poison tree that forks
and branches in the bearing of its deadly
fruit. While the evil
consequences of his wrong doing are around him,
and propagating themselves in
ever-widening circles, the sinner apart
from conscience cannot get his iniquities out of sight.
Ø
Not seldom the
punishment is a resurrection of the sin itself. Laban’s
trick on Jacob was a repetition of
Jacob’s trick on Isaac (Genesis
29:25; 27:15-27). The deaths of Haman and Jezebel were similarly
adjusted punishments. So with
the cutting off the thumbs and great
toes of the archmutilator
Adoni-bezek (Judges 1:6-7). In such cases
the sin is palpably returned in
retribution on the sinner’s head.
·
IDOL WORSHIP IS A SIMULATION OF THE WORSHIP OF
GOD. “The
altars of
an altar and in the form of the
altar used the idol worship set up by
Jeroboam was a plagiarism from
the worship of Jehovah.
Ø
Man cannot create in
religion, but he can adapt.
He can form no idea
of spiritual things apart from
Divine revelation (1 Corinthians 2:9). At
the same time, God’s revelation of spiritual things is too pure for
his taste. The result is that he compromises the matter by adopting
ready-made ordinances, and
loading them with his own corrupt spirit
and meaning.
Ø Idolatrous
worship seems less of an apostasy in proportion as it retains
the forms of true worship. The devil lets man
down into idolatry as into
other sin by easy stages. First he parts with the spirit of true worship,
whilst retaining the
form. Then he parts with the object of
it, corrupting
the form. Then he adopts a new
object, and adapts to its worship the
already corrupted form. And so
with all
sin, which is
spiritual idolatry.
Man does not first abandon the
forms of godliness, and then the
practice of it. He gives up the
substance of it as A MATTER OF
TASTE, and tries to salve his conscience for this by adhering
to its forms (II Timothy 3:5).
Ø
This also makes it more plausible and insidious. The worship set up in
Dan and
was the worship of God by means
of idols, and in forms which
mimicked the worship at
masquerades in the guise of truth. By adopting the
sheep’s clothing
the wolf gets easy access
to the fold. It is only after
he has entered,
and the danger of
eviction is over, that his true character is assumed.
·
ONE IDOL BREEDS MANY. “The
altars of
one sacrificial altar in
connection with the worship of Jehovah, but when
many gods were invented, many altars were provided to
correspond to
them. This multiplication of idols is accounted for by the fact
that:
Ø
Evil naturally spreads. One sin leads to
more. Covetousness leads to
theft, drunkenness to
uncleanness, all three often to murder, and almost
every sin to
deceit and lying. No man can set up
one sinful idol and say
he will have no more. It will
bring others with it whether he will or no.
It is the first
swallow of the summer of evil doing, and heralds a coming flock.
Ø Idolatry must
become polytheism in the attempt to meet the spiritual
wants of men. God is an infinite Being, and so can meet our human
necessity all round. But an idol
is the creation of a finite mind, and so a
finite thing. It is to meet one
need of our nature, the need that was
uppermost in the consciousness
of the inventor. But a different need
will be uppermost in another
worshipper, and a different idol will be
wanted to meet his case.
Accordingly, in the mythology were many
gods, who distributed among them
the various functions necessary
to complete the circle of human
good. It
was, in fact, an attempt,
by multiplying deities indefinitely, to provide a
substitute for
THE INFINITE
JEHOVAH!
A worship that is all error
is more logical than one that is half truth.
Everything has its own proper
form. You do not find an eagle in the form
of a dove, nor an apple in the
form of a plum, nor an evil principle in the
form of a good one. If such a
form is artificially put round it, the result
is A PALABLE MISFIT! Polytheism is the nearest approach to logical
idolatry, and in proportion as
it is self-consistent is dangerous, and wins
its way.
·
THE FIRST THING JUDGMENT DOES AGAINST THE
IDOLATER IS TO DEPRIVE HIM OF HIS GODS. “The horns of the
altar shall be cut off,” etc. This would put
an effectual stop to the idol
worship. We thus see that:
Ø
God wants His judgments to be recognized. He never punishes men
incognito. When He puts forth His
power He wants men to see that it is
His (Exodus 7:5; 1 Kings 20:28;
Ezekiel 6:7 - and 61 other places in
Ezekiel - see #223 - this
website - CY - 2022), and striking the very
seat of sin inflicts a stroke at
once significant and effectual, a revelation
at once of the
Divine hand and power.
Ø
He wants them to be effective. The moral effect of a judgment depends
very much on our knowing whence
it comes. If we recognize it as sent by
God, it is tenfold more
impressive. Now, to exercise the maximum of
beneficial influence with the minimum of afflictive
visitation is ever
God’s way (Lamentations
3:32-33). He does not strike an aimless or a
needless blow. Each stroke is
meant to tell, and the medicine of
affliction
is stopped the moment the
patient is cured.
Ø
Idolatry is at the root of all other sin. It is the complement
of atheism,
which is radically the
heart departing from God. It is a
sublimated
self-worship, making an idol of
our own mental creation. A god
dethroned, and a self enthroned,
is a state of things which “contains
the promise and potency” of all evil. To strike at
to lay the axe to the root of the national evil. The idols abolished, and
God restored to the national heart, its life would be
again a
consecrated one.
·
MAN’S SELF-INDULGENCE,
THE
DEAREST IDOL HE HAS,
WILL BE TAKEN FROM HIM ALONG WITH THE REST. (v. 15,
“And I will smite,” etc.) Luxuries long
enjoyed become necessities of life,
and no judgment would be thorough that left them untouched. Self-
indulgence, if it were left,
would soon invent a new idolatry for its own
accommodation. It is only by
making a clean sweep of the idols already in
possession that God can
get His place in the sinner’s heart.
Retribution upon the Altar and the
Palace (vs. 13-15)
The language of the prophet in this passage is severe in
its import and
graphic in its style. He foresees the approach of the
invaders, the
powerlessness of
their work is destined to be done. In two directions
especially the blow of
vengeance is seen to fall:
·
IDOLATRY IS PUNISHED BY THE DESTRUCTION OF IDOL
offence of
where the golden calves were
worshipped, there seem to have been other
sacred places, which were
polluted by idol service and idol sacrifice.
Heathenism was seen to encroach upon the territory consecrated to
Jehovah. Altars were reared to deities,
imaginary indeed, but endowed by
popular superstition with
characters altogether opposed to the pure and
perfect character of the Eternal
who had revealed Himself to the ancestors
of the Hebrew nation. It was
most appropriate that retribution should fall
upon the centers and the symbols
of a worship so debasing as that which
had been substituted for the
service of Jehovah. The powerlessness of the
so called “gods” to protect
their sanctuaries and their altars was made
manifest; the defeat of Baal was
the triumph of Jehovah.
·
PRIDE AND LUXURY ARE PUNISHED BY THE DESTRUCTION
OF THE MANSIONS AND PALACES OF THE GREAT. Whether we
regard these “summer
houses” as simply the upper apartments, or as
country villas erected in rural
retreats, the prophetic lesson is the same.
Their destruction, and the
destruction of the sumptuous residences
decorated with ornaments of
ivory, was a retribution upon those who
esteemed the splendor and luxuriousness of their abodes
more dear than
the practice of virtue, of benevolence, of piety. No lesson is more
frequently repeated in Scripture
than the lesson that the Judge of all the
earth delights to abase the
proud, whilst He exalts the lowly. When the
princes of
when they themselves passed into exile, how could they fail to
recognize
the hand of a righteous and indignant God?
National Judgments
(vs. 13-15)
“Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord God, the God of
hosts,” etc. The
same persons are here addressed who in the ninth verse
were summoned from Philistia and
facts of the case, that it might be seen that the
punishment inflicted upon
the inhabitants was richly deserved. The subject of the
words is NATIONAL
JUDGMENT which we are here led
to regard in three aspects.
·
IN RELATION TO THE TRUE PROPHETS. “Hear ye, and testify in
the house of
Jacob.” We may perhaps regard the
words also as spoken to
the prophets. Hear, ye prophets.
Ø The prophets were
to make themselves acquainted with the coming
judgments. They were to be watchmen who were to descry afar THE
COMING DANGER! All true ministers of religion should by earnest
study acquaint themselves with the
terrible punishment that awaits
the guilty world.
Ø
The prophets were to announce the coming, judgment. “Hear ye, and
testify.” Their work is to sound the alarm, to blow the trumpet. “So
thou,
O son of man, I
have set thee a watchman unto the house of
therefore thou
shall hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from
me” (Ezekiel 33:7). One of the chief duties of a true minister
is to
“warn every man” (Colossians 1:28).
·
IN RELATION TO ITS MORAL CAUSE. What was the cause of
these threatened judgments? Here
it is. “I shall visit the transgressions of
not roll on man like the billows
of ocean on the shore, by blind force; nor
do they come because the
Governor of the universe is malevolent, and has
pleasure in the sufferings of His
creatures. No; He is love. He “desireth not
the death of a
sinner.” They come because of sin. The sins of a nation draw
judgment after them as the moon draws after it the billows that beat upon
the shore. Let no nation hope
to escape judgments until IT GETS RID
OF SIN! Judgments are but sins ripened into a harvest, subterranean
fires
breaking into volcanoes. Eternal love requires for the order and happiness
of the universe that sins and sorrows, transgressions and troubles,
should be
inseparably linked together.
·
IN RELATION TO ITS TERRIBLE ISSUES.
Ø
There is the
deprivation of religious institutions. “I will also visit
the
altars of
the ground.” Signal vengeance was to be taken on the place whence all
the evils which spread
through the ten tribes originated. The ‘horns’
were four projecting points, in
the shape of horns, at the corners of
ancient altars. They
may be seen in the representations of those dug
up by Belzoni in
described was designed to express
the contempt in which the altar
would be held by the Assyrians.” Corrupt punishment for a nation’s
transgressions would involve the ruin of religious institutions.
Ø
There is a deprivation of all their conveniences and
luxuries. “And
I will smite the
winter house with the summer house; and the houses
of ivory shall
perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith
the Lord.” Eastern monarchs and princes, we are told, have summer
as well as winter houses.
The “ivory
houses” do not mean houses
composed of that material, but
richly ornamented dwellings. These
were to be destroyed. “The pomp or pleasantness of
men’s houses,”
says Matthew Henry,
“will be so far from fortifying them
against
God’s judgments,
that it will make them the more
grievous and
vexatious, as their
extravagance about them will be put
to the score of
their sins and follies.”
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