Amos 4
In this second address the
prophet:
·
reproves the voluptuous women of
(vs. 1-3);
·
with bitter irony he describes the people’s devotion to idolatry (vs.
4-5):
·
he shows how incorrigible they have proved themselves under God’s
chastisements
(vs. 6-11);
will
learn to fear the Lord (vs. 12-13).
1 “Hear
this word, ye kine of Bashan,
that are in the
which oppress the poor, which crush the
needy, which say to their masters,
Bring, and let us drink.” The very women are
leaders in dissoluteness and
oppression. Ye kine of
nobles of
licentious. This is possible; but such grandees would be
called rather “bulls
of
these women’s husbands than
the kings. The genders in the sentence
are
interchanged. “Hear ye,”
“your Lord,” “upon you,” “they shall
take you,” being masculine; “that oppress,” “that crush,” “that say,” “your
posterity,” “ye shall
go out,” “each before her,” “ye shall cast,”
feminine.
Evidently the prophet addresses his reproaches to the
luxurious of both
sexes, though he begins with the women. The
from Hermon to the Jabbok, including Gaulonitis, Auronitis, Batauea, and
Trachonitis. It was always famous for its pasturage, cattle, and
oaks.
note on ch. 3:9). Oppress the poor. This they did in ministering,
or getting their
husbands to minister, to their luxury and debauchery.
Apparently they
urged their husbands to violence and fraud in order to
obtain means to
satisfy their extravagance. A bad woman is thoroughly unscrupulous (see
the case of Ahab and Naboth, (I
Kings 21:7-16). Their masters; their
lords; i.e. husbands
(compare Genesis 18:12; I Peter 3:6). Bring,
and
let us drink. They invite their
husbands to supply the means of debauchery
and to join in their revels.
2 “The
Lord GOD hath sworn by His holiness, that, lo, the days shall
come upon you, that He will take you away
with hooks, and your
posterity with fishhooks.” By His holiness. God swears by His holiness,
which cannot tolerate iniquity, and which they had profaned (ch.2:7;
compare
ch. 6:8). That he will take you away. “That
one, or they, shall take
you away;” the enemy, the instrument of God’s vengeance, is
meant. With
hooks; tsinnoth; Septuagint, ἐν ὅπλοις - en hoplois – implement; untensil;
tool; weapon; armor; instrument - Vulgate, in contis. The
translation,
“with hooks,” is correct, the idea being that the people shall be
utterly helpless
and taken for destruction, like fish caught with hooks
(Jeremiah 16:16;
Habakkuk 1:15). Your
posterity; acharith (ch. 9:1); better, your residue, those
who have not been
destroyed previously. The Septuagint and
the Vulgate give
quite a different notion to the passage. The former
(according to the
manuscript) has, Καὶ τοὺς
μεθ ὑμῶν εἰς λέβητας
ὑποκαιομένους
ἐμβαλοῦσιν
ἔμπυροι
λοιμοί - Kai tous meth
humon eis lebaetas hupokaiomenous embalousin empuroi
loimoi - “And fiery destroyers shall cast those with you into
boiling caldrons;”
the latter, Et levabunt vos in contis, et reliquias vestras in ollis ferventibus.
(For the explanation of these
versions, which arise from mistakes in the meanings
of ambiguous words, see Schegg and Kuabenbauer.)
3 “And ye
shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is
before her; and ye shall cast them into the
palace, saith the LORD.”
At the breaches made in the city
walls, as cattle hurry through
gaps in a fence. Thus they should go forth when
cow at that which is before her; better, each straight before
her, just
where the opening offered itself (compare Joshua 6:5,20).
The Septuagint
inserts γυμναί - gumnai
- “naked.” And ye shall cast them into the
palace;
Septuagint, Καὶ ἀποῥῤιφήσεσθε
εἰς τὸ
ὄρος τὸ
Ῥομμάν
- Kai aporriphaesesthe
eis to oros to Romman, “And ye shall be
cast forth into
the mountain Romman; Vulgate, et
projiciemini in Armon. The
Syriac and
Arabic Versions, and Aquila, render,
“unto
paraphrast, “far beyond the mountains of
haharmonah occurs nowhere
else. Our version takes it in the sense of armon,
“a palace,” intending probably a palace or citadel
of the enemy, which certainly
ought to have been expressed. Kimchi
renders, “Ye shall cast yourselves into the
palace of the king.” The passage is probably corrupt. If
the verb is taken as
passive, the unusual word must be considered to denote the
place of
banishment. Thus, “Ye shall be cast forth into Harmon.”
Whether Harmon
means
determined. Various opinions may be seen in Keil, Schegg, Trochon,
and
others; but the simplest explanation is that of Orelli and Ewald, viz. that
each fugitive shall fling away her idol Rimmona
(the wife of the god
Rimmon II Kings 5:18), in order to be more free for flight
(compare Isaiah
2:20-21).
The Woes of the Women at Ease (vs. 1-3)
By a contemptuous and striking figure, the women of
the “kine of
of the future, their attention limited to the present, and
living in it only the
life of sense. They were as
overfed, indulged, and pampered, and therefore waxed voluptuous
and
wanton. In
explanation of the special reference to them, observe:
LESS RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS SINS. This appears from the fact that:
Ø
They reflect the national character. Soft, and easily
receptive of
influence, whether good or bad,
the female character is, to a greater
extent than the male, a
compound tincture of the prevailing qualities
of the land and time. It is
natural that, as reflecting the national sin,
the women will be obnoxious
to national punishment.
Ø
They form the national character. They have earliest, most
constant, and most
affectionate access to the young. They influence
character at its softest
and most pliant stage, and they approach it,
moreover, on its softest
side. Reflecting national character so truly,
and impressing this so
inevitably on the rising generation, it is through
them chiefly that good or
evil becomes hereditary in society.
“O
woman, nature made thee
To temper man.”
(Thomas
Otway)
The “tempering” is oftener
for good than ill, converting into porcelain the
common clay, purifying and
ennobling all she comes near.
“Woman’s
empire, holier, more refined,
Molds,
moves, and sways the fallen yet God-breathed mind.”
But if she reigns as the
devil’s vicegerent, if the influences that go
Forth from her tend
to the enthronement of corruption and
wrong,
she must be deposed as a matter of policy, and
punished as a matter
of justice (Isaiah 3:16-24; 32:9-13).
GOD AS A COURSE THAT INFLICTS IT. The evil a woman does
outside her family circle is
largely indirect. Of the women of
appears that:
Ø
They were self-indulgent at the necessary expense of the
poor.
“Which oppress the humble, which crush the needy.” This would
sometimes be done directly,
but generally through the agency of the
men. A luxurious mistress
often makes a hard and oppressive master.
Her extravagant demands
must be met by an increased income, and
that is only too likely to
be sought in exactions from the dependent
poor. Let it be in
overcharged dues or in underpaid work, in every
case the luxury that forces
on the demand is responsible for the evils
of the enforced supply.
“Those at ease often know not that their luxuries
are continually watered by the
tears of the poor… but God counts willful
ignorance no excuse. Hood’s
stanza, addressed to men, is doubly
pertinent to women:
“O
men with sisters dear!
O men with mothers and wives!
It is not
linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives.”
The self-indulgence of the
women of
the poor, out of whose
poverty “their lords” were; driven to wring the
means of carrying on their
shameful excesses.
Ø
They encouraged their husbands in self-indulgence. “Bring, and
let us drink.” This
was a doubling of the evil. They not only did wrong,
but tempted others to do it. They wasted much, and procured the
wasting
of more. They were at pains to increase the number of harpies who
would
gorge themselves on the hard
earnings of the poor.
Ø
This was not an isolated act, but a habit. “Oppress” is
equivalent to
“are continually
oppressing.” Luxury had settled into a chronic social evil.
The demand for fuel to feed
the fire of indulgence was constant. It was A
CANCER EATING OUT
THE WELL BEING OF SOCIETY
CONTINUALLY and devouring,
generation after generation, the
inheritance of the poor.
The evil of it smelled rank to Heaven, and
the guilt of it
clamored for punishment.
THE SINNER’S PUNISHMENT.
“The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by His
holiness.” The
occasions of God’s action are often supplied by men, but
the grounds of it are in Himself
— in the perfections of His character and
the purposes of His will.
Ø
Holiness is God’s
characteristic quality. There is a universal
ascription of it to Him in
Scripture (Exodus 15:11; Isaiah 6:1-3; 57:15;
Habakkuk 1:13). Absolutely His “name is holy;”
relatively He is the
“Holy One of
is morally impure. It
characterizes all His other perfections, and is, in this
aspect, not so much a
distinct attribute as THE BLENDING
TOGETHER OF THEM
ALL. Administratively, HE
SWEARS
BY HIS HOLINESS,
AND SITS UPON THE THRONE OF
HIS HOLINESS (Psalm 89:35; 47:8); believers are the people of
His holiness, and heaven the
habitation of His holiness (Isaiah 63:15,
18); whilst a synonym for the
consecrated life is “holiness to the
Lord.”
Ø
God’s holiness was the quality specially profaned. (ch.2:7.) It
was to profane His holy
Name that they had sinned. The perfection
specially sinned against is
naturally the one to be vindicated. “He pledges
His own holiness that He
will avenge their unholiness. Jealous of all
His perfections, the one
our conduct tends to obscure or hurt is the one
God will most emphatically
illustrate and glorify.
Ø
Holiness is the quality
that makes punishment of sin inevitable.
It is the recoil of God’s
infinitely pure nature from moral evil. It is the
Expression and sum of an
essential and external antagonism to it. It is
Incompatible with impurity
as light is with darkness, and its necessary
and natural action toward
it is destructive. Fundamentally it
is because
God is holy that HE PUNISHES AND
MUST PUNISH SIN!
MATCH AND SQUARE WITH HIS SIN. (vs. 2-3.) Here the
dovetailing of RETRIBUTION with CRIME is very complete.
There would be:
Ø
Deportation from luxurious scenes. “I will take you away.”
The
indulgences becoming habitual
would be violently interrupted. The
luxurious and vicious
tastes, developed into tremendous strength by
long continued
sensuality, would be deprived of their
gratification.
Instead of the high living,
become by long enjoyment a thing of course,
and a necessity of their
life, they would have the coarse and scanty fare
of slaves. To visit with
want and bondage, when habits of rule and
luxury have become a second
nature, is a judgment bitterly felt.
(One that will be felt in
“materialism” comes down – instead of “it’s the economy
Stupid, it will
be, it is THE
FISCAL CLIFF STUPID –
Mankind cannot sin and be
economically blessed! - CY – 2013).
Ø
This in a violent and painful manner. “With hooks.” The
figure
is drawn from fishing. The
drawing out of the fish by means of a hook
is always painful, and is rendered doubly so by its resistance. So
with the soft and
delicately nurtured women of
of a rough and brutal
soldiery. They would suffer as a fish transfixed
by a barbed hook, and their
former luxury would be in a sense its
own avenger.
Ø
This to the last one. “And your last one with fish hooks.” Not
one should escape. God’s judgments are particular. He does not
visit people in the mass, but
individuals. Not a cow but would feel
the cut of the drover’s
whip, and experience the famine pangs of
the scanty pasture.
Ø
This in connections with their own lusts as auxiliaries. The hook
that draws out the fish has
been baited for it, and voluntarily swallowed,
though under a wrong
impression. In heathen luxury and dissolution the
Hebrew women found a bait
which they swallowed greedily. Now they
should find that, with the
bait, they had swallowed also a cruel hook,
which would draw them away
to suffer evils worse than they had
themselves inflicted. “And be cast away to Harman” (Authorized
Version, “into the palace”), i.e. probably
to minister to heathenish
luxury and lust, they would be victims in the
matter in which they had
been so long the victimizers of others. There
is a nameless
cruelty in debauchery, WHICH ONLY THE
VICTIMS OF IT KNOW! This,
with the added burden of
heathen horrors, the
delicate and pampered Israelitish women
would now suffer. Their
punishment would rise upon them in
familiar shape, the resurrection of their own sin.
Ø The bovine
stolidity of their prosperous days would make them
helpless as driven cattle in the day of calamity. “In the wall ye
shall go out every one before her,” i.e. as a herd of cows go one
after another through a gap in
the fence (Having been raised on a
dairy farm, I can vouch for this
– CY – 2013). THE LEVEL OF
INTELLIGENCE GOES
DOWN WITH THE LEVEL OF
MORALITY – SOMETHING THAT THE PROGRESSIVES
IN
but I see it! – CY – 2013). The penalty of living the brutes’ life
of sense is a weakening of THE HEAVENLY GIFT OF
REASON, by which we are distinguished from them.
(“But these, as natural brute beasts, made to
be taken and
destroyed, speak evil of the things that
they understand
not; and shall utterly perish in their own
corruption;
And shall receive the reward of
unrighteousness…” –
II Peter 2:12-13a)
4 “Come to
and bring your sacrifices every morning,
and your tithes after three
years:”
The prophet now turns to
their zeal for idolatry, and thus increase their guilt.
of idol worship (ch. 3:14). At Gilgal; rather,
to Gilgal, “come
ye”
being repeated in thought. Gilgal
was a strong position in the plain of
circles erected for purposes of worship in very early
times. Joshua
(Joshua 5:9) gave a new meaning to the old name. There is a
large pool
of water in this neighborhood called Jil-julieh,
about four miles from the
seems to have been regarded as a holy place in Samuel’s
days or even
before (see Judges 3:19; I Samuel 7:16; 10:8; 11:14; 13:8);
and later
was appropriated to false worship, though we have no
information as to
the date of this declension. Gilgal
and
idolatrous worship (ch. 5:5 and
in Hosea 4:15; 9:15; 12:11). Bring
your
sacrifices every
morning. They were careful to maintain the outward semblance
of the regular Levitical worship,
even beyond the letter of the Law in some
respects, though their service
was ALL THE TIME IDOLATRY. As this and
the following clause are still ironical, Amos is speaking,
not of the daily-prescribed
sacrifice (olah, Numbers
28:3), but of the offerings (zebach) of
individual
Israelites which were not required to be presented every
day. Your tithes after
three years; literally, on the three of days; lishlosheth yamim;
Vulgate, tribus
diebus; Septuagint, εἰς τριημερίαν– eis taen
triaemerian - “every third day.”
Revised Version, “every three days.” The prophet bids them bring their tithes,
not as the Law ordered, every year (Leviticus 27:30), or,
as in the case of the
second tithe, every three years (Deuteronomy 14:28; 26:12),
but, by an ironical
exaggeration, “every three days.” Dr. Pusey
defends the English Version on
the ground of the idiomatic use of “days” for one circle of
days, i.e. a year
(Leviticus 25:29; Judges 17:10; I Samuel 27:7). But this
loses the irony which
is so marked in the whole passage. Keil,
“If ye would offer slain sacrifices
every morning, and tithe every three days, ye would only
thereby increase
your apostasy from the living God.”
5 “And
offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim
and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of
more definitely,
offer by burning a thank offering of that
which is leavened.
This is an alteration of the prescribed ritual in two particulars. The
Law
forbade leaven in any meat offering consumed by fire (Leviticus
2:11; 7:12);
and if it allowed cakes of leavened bread to be offered on
one occasion,
these were not to be placed on the altar and burned, but
one was to be
assigned to the officiating priest, and the rest eaten at
the sacrificial meal
(Leviticus 7:13-14). The ironical charge to the Israelites
is that in their
unlicensed zeal they should not only burn on the altar that
which was
leavened, but, with the idea of being more bountiful, they
should also offer
.by fire that which was to be set apart for other uses. The
Septuagint
Version can only be explained by considering the
translators to have had a
different reading, καὶ ἀνέγνωσαν ἔγω νόμον
– kai anegnosan exo
nomon –
“and they read the Law without.” Proclaim… publish. Make public
proclamation that free will offerings are to be made, or else, like the Pharisees
(Matthew 6:2), announce with ostentation that you are about
to offer. The
essence of such offerings was that they should be
voluntary, not of command or
compulsion (Leviticus 22:18, etc.; Deuteronomy 12:6).
Septuagint,
καὶ ἐπεκαλέσαντο
ὁμολογίας
- kai epekalesanto homologies “and called
for public professions” (Ibid. vs.17-18). This liketh you;
this ye love;
Septuagint, “Proclaim ye that
the children of
WHOLE HEART WAS SET ON THIS WILL WORSHIP.
Corruption and Religiosity in Unholy
Here the prophet turns from the women of
at large. His language is that of strong irony. What he
bids the people do is
the thing he knows they have been doing and will go on
doing,
notwithstanding the imminence of the punishment he
predicts. He means,
by a sarcastic coordination of their acts of hollow worship
with those of
their sin-stained
lives, to bring them to see themselves as God and others
saw them.
·
MORAL CORRUPTION AND A ZEAL FOR RELIGIOUS FORMS
MAY EXIST TOGETHER.
(v. 4.) Here it would seem as if the
multiplication of transgressions
and of observances went pari passu
(side by side) together.
Ø The observance
if religious forms involves nothing in the way of
spirituality. Taste is wanted, and
feeling and judgment, but that is all.
Enjoyment in the formal acts of worship may be an aestheticism which is
altogether apart from spirituality.
The sensuous delight in music, oratory,
attitudinizing, millinery,
upholstery, and other ecclesiastical impedimenta
is just as abundant and as much
at home in the theatre as in the church,
and is the same non-spiritual
thing wherever found.
Ø Worship may
even be made so sensuous as to become the minister of
luxury. Other things being equal, the largest congregations gather
where
the adjuncts of worship are most
elaborate and most gorgeous. Many
confessedly attend the house of
God exclusively for the music and
singing, never waiting to hear
the gospel preached, or consenting to do
so only for appearance’ sake.
And the thing is perfectly intelligible. A
musical and ornate service is
more decent than a music hall, and more
plesant than their own room, and makes an agreeable break in their
idle
Sunday afternoon. So far from
such an observance involving or tending
to produce spirituality of
feeling, it leaves this out in the cold, and
makes its appeal entirely to sense. It has no more bearing on the
religious life than theatre
going, or club going, or race going, or any
other mode of raising the
sensational wind.
Ø External
religious observance quiets the conscience, and so smooths
the path of the self-indulgent. Even after the sinful
life has far advanced,
his conscience gives the sinner
trouble. Failing to prevent the sin, it
suggests the performance of some compensatory work. To sin, and
then do penance, is easier than
to crucify the flesh and be separate from
sin. And one of the commonest
salves for an accusing conscience is
diligence in the externals of
religious observance. It looks and feels
like worship, and it makes no
demands on the religious faculty. Rather,
by substituting an emotional
exercise for one of the conscience and heart,
it deadens the moral sense, and lulls the transgressor
into a dangerous
complacency.
·
MEN WHO REST IN FORMS ARE PRONE TO MULTIPLY
THEM. This is a
logical necessity. If the form be everything, then the more
of it the better. Besides, the sensation produced by observing it gets
stale
after a time,
and, in order to keep it at its first strength and freshness, there
must be a
continual increase of the dose.
two degrees.
Ø
They were particular about ceremonial obsevances. They offered the
slain sacrifices, the praise
offerings, the free offerings, and the tithes at
their appointed times. In
addition to the annual tithe they also gave a
second tithe every three years
(Deuteronomy 14:28; 26:12). This was
keeping up to the very letter of
the Law. A Pharisee in later times could
not have given more
circumstantial obedience to it than they did. When
the opus operatum (the work wroughtg) is made the whole of
a religious
ordinance, it is sure to be
circumstantially observed; and the rule is that
the more completely the spirit
is lost sight of, the more elaborately is
the letter observed. To the
exhaustive observance of ordinances by
according to our text, there was
one significant exception. This was the
omission of the sin offering and
the trespass offering. They had no
consciousness of sin. They deported themselves as men who had praise
to offer and gifts to bestow, but no sin to be atoned or to confess. To
the formalist an adequate idea
of sin is impossible, and in his worship
the question is not raised.
Ø
They went beyond the letter 9f Divine requirement. In addition to the
morning sacrifice required by
the Law, they offered slain sacrifices
(so the Hebrew) every day. Then,
not content with burning unleavened
cakes on the altar as a praise
offering, they burned also the leavened
cakes which were to be eaten at
the sacrificial meal. As to the free
offerings, they carried the
provision for having them made beyond the
command by having them fried.
Thus, so far as forms went, the idol
loving, corrupt, rebellious
people were almost exemplary worshippers —
went further, indeed, than true
worshippers had always felt called upon
to go. “It is a characteristic
of idolatry and schism to profess
extraordinary zeal for God’s
worship, and go beyond the letter and spirit
of His Law by arbitrary will
worship and self-idolizing fanaticism”
(Lange). To compensate for the
utter absence of the spirit, the letter is
made to do double and vicarious
duty.
·
TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO THE EXTERNAL FORM OF AN
ORDINANCE TENDS TO THE VIOLATION OF THE SPIRIT OF IT.
On the one hand, the spirit gets
lost sight of through inattention, and on the
other hand, the inventive faculty
introduces practices inconsistent with it.
Ø In their anxiety
to offer more than was required
that was forbidden.
To “kindle praise offerings of that which
is
leavened” was contrary to Levitical law. The leavened bread of the
praise offering, which they
burned along with the unleavened cakes
and oil, was not to be burned,
but eaten (Leviticus 2:11; 7:12-14). The
human mind cannot add to a
Divine ordinance anything in character.
The addendum will either obscure
or traverse the religious rite to which
it is attached. God’s ordinances,
like His oracles, can only be added
to under a heavy
penalty — the
penalty of mistaken action arising out
of erroneous thought.
Ø They destroyed
the essentially spontaneous character of the free will
offerings by endeavoring to make them practically
compulsory. These
offerings must be made of the offerer’s free will (Leviticus 22:19).
Made under compulsion, moral or
otherwise, they lost their spontaneous
character, and might as well not
have been made at all. And what but
compulsion was it to “proclaim
and publish,” or literally to “call out”
for them? God’s ordinance can be
safely and rightly observed only
in God’s way. In such a matter
human invention, if it interferes, is sure
to err. Hence the so emphatic and frequent warnings
in Scripture
against “the commandments and ordinances
of men.”
Ø This amateur
tinkering of Divine institutions is very agreeable to
human nature.
“For so ye love it.” Unspiritual men love the forms of
religion if they serve as a means of escape from its
realities. They
love them more still if, by
observing them, they can seem to accomplish
a salvation by
works. They love them most of all when
they are partially
of their own invention. Almost all human
ordinances in religion are
the expression of man’s love of his own intellectual
progeny.
·
THE MULTIPLICATION OF ACTS OF WILL WORSHIP IS
ONLY THE MULTIPLICATION OF SIN. The close association of the
words “transgression” and “sacrifice” would indicate that the sacrifice
itself was sinful.
Ø It was not meant to please God, being an act of pure self-will. That
which will please God must be
meant to please Him. A formal religious
act, if done for our own
pleasure, and not as an act of service to God, is
valueless (Colossians 2:20-23). Will worship is SELF WORSHIP. It is
only an subtile
way of “satisfying the flesh.” It is a thing by which God
is not honored, but dethroned,
and by which man is prejudiced with God
and not commended (Isaiah 2:11).
Ø It was not
fitted to please Him, being observed in a manner
contrary to
His will. God’s ordinances
had been altered. The alteration of form
in
every case had been a violation
of the spirit. The ordinances were no
longer God’s, but something
different from and inconsistent with the
thing He had appointed: The
observance of them was not service, but
disobedience and rebellion. For
the Nadabs and Abihus
(Leviticus 10)
who offer strange fire before
the Lord there is reserved the fire of His
wrath and not the light of His
favor.
Ø It was
reeking with the wickedness with which it was deliberately
mixed up. “Multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices.”
The “obedience” to Hmself which “is better than sacrifice” was
entirely wanting. The “mercy” to men which He will have “and
not sacrifice” had been in vain. With
one hand they piled high the
offering, and with the other
piled higher still the
trespass. And in
so doing they piled the mountain
of a moral impossibility
between
them and acceptance. The form of
worship, in combination with
the
reality of sin, is a spiritual monstrosity which, as an offering to God,
may not be so much as named. God
will take no gift from a sin-stained
hand (Isaiah 1:15). “If
we regard iniquity in our heart, the
Lord will not hear
us” (Psalm 66:18). If we lift up
unclean hands in
worship, He will not accept (1
Timothy 2:8). Let us “wash our hands in
innocence” (Psalm 26:6) when we go to the “holy altar.” With clouds
of sin hovering over our
sanctuary service no dews of Divine favor
can ever fall.
Hypocrisy
(vs. 4-5)
The rhetorical fervor of the prophet leads him in this
passage to address
himself to the guilty nobles of
descendants of
Abraham should have forsaken Jehovah, should have set up
altars to a golden
calf, or to deities of their heathen neighbors, — this cuts
the prophet to the
heart. But that, even whilst acting thus, they
should
retain some of their ancient observances, should profess
any reverence for
the precepts of the Law of God, — this is the most cruel
wound. Hence
this language of irony, the severity of which is apparent
to every reader.
·
IT IS HYPOCRISY OUTWARDLY TO REVERENCE THE
ORDINANCES OF GOD WHILST REALLY SERVING GOD’S
ENEMIES. Sacrifices,
tithes, leaven, offerings — all of which are
mentioned in this passage — were
prescribed in the Mosaic Law. The sin
of the Israelites lay here. All the time that they were attending to these
observances, they were
worshipping idols, and breaking the first and
second commandments of the ten.
Virtually, all men who profess
Christianity, and yet love the
sinful practices and pleasures of the world,
are guilty of this sin. It is
hypocrisy, which is worse than an open defiance
of the Divine authority.
·
HYPOCRISY SEEMS TO MEET A NEED OF DEPRAVED AND
SINFUL NATURES. “This
liketh you;” “So ye love to have it;” — such is
the reflection of Amos upon this
evil conduct. Men do not “like” to break
off the associations of the past;
they do not “like” to turn their back upon
the principles they have
formerly professed; they do not “like” to forfeit the
apparent advantages of
conformity to the requirements of religion. Yet, at
the same time, they are not willing to forsake the pleasures
of sin, to deny
self, to take up the cross.
·
HYPOCRISY MAY DECEIVE SOCIETY, AND MAY EVEN
DECEIVE THE HYPOCRITE, BUT
IT CANNOT DECEIVE GOD. The
conscious aim of the
hypocritical is often to impress their companions with
the belief of their goodness. But in many cases men actually persuade
themselves of their own piety, whilst
their life is in flagrant contradiction to
the assumption. Let it never be forgotten
that God “searcheth the heart,
and trieth the reins of the children of men;” that His scrutinizing gaze
cannot be averted, nor His
righteous judgment avoided. Those who
multiply insincere observances
really “multiply transgression.”
And
multiplied transgressions surely
involve multiplied penalties.
·
hypocrisy has been practiced.
The question of all importance for every
professed worshipper to put to
himself is this — Is there harmony between
the language which I use in
devotion and the thoughts and desires of my
heart, the actions and habits of
my life?
Worship Abounding with
Abounding Sin (vs. 4-5)
“Come to
bring your sacrifices every morning,” etc. “ keenest irony. The “The
language of these verses,” says
addicted to the worship of the golden calf, and to that
of idols, whereby
they contracted guilt before Jehovah, and exposed
themselves to His
judgments; at the same time, they hypocritically
professed to keep up the
observance of certain feasts which had been appointed by
Moses.” The
subject that the text teaches is — abounding worship with abounding sin.
The sins of
referred to in the preceding chapters. Crimes ran riot
amongst them at this
period; and yet how religious they seemed to be! “Amos has
described how
zealously the people of
diligence they offered sacrifice and paid tithes; how they
would rather do
too much than too little, so that they even burnt upon the
altar a portion of
the leavened loaves of the praise offering, which were only
intended for the
sacrificial meals, although none but unleavened bread was
allowed to be
offered; and, lastly, how in their pure zeal for
multiplying the works of
piety, they so completely mistook their nature as to summon
by a public
proclamation to the presentation of free will offerings,
the very peculiarity
of which consisted in the fact that they had no other
prompting than the
will of the offerer” (Delitzsch). We offer two remarks on this subject.
·
ABOUNDING WORSHIP OFTEN
IMPLIES ABOUNDING SIN. This is
the case when the worship is:
1. Selfish. More than half the worship of
crowd churches, attend to
religious ceremonies, and contribute to religious
institutions purely with the
idea of avoiding hell and getting to a happier
world than this. They do not
serve God for naught. Selfishness, which is
bad everywhere, is never worse
than when engaged in religion.
2. Formal. When religion is attended to as a matter of form, when
sentiments are expressed without
conviction, services rendered without
self-sacrifice, the insincerity is an insult to Omniscience. “God
is a Spirit,
and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
(John 4:24) Abounding worship is no proof of abounding
virtue and
abounding godliness. Often,
alas! the more worship in a community, the more
corruption.
·
ABOUNDING WORSHIP OFTEN SPRINGS
FROM ABOUNDING SIN.
It
may spring from:
1. A desire to conceal sin. Sin is an ugly thing;
it is hideous to the eye of
conscience. Hence efforts on all
hands to conceal it. Nations endeavor to
conceal the terrible
abominations of infernal wars by employing the
ministers of religion in
connection with their fiendish work. The greatest
villains have often sought to
conceal their villanies by worship.
2. A desire to compensate
for evils. Great brewers build churches and
endow religious institutions in
order to compensate in some measure for
the enormous evil connected with
their damning trade.
3. A desire to appear
good. The more corrupt a man is, the stronger his
desire to appear otherwise; the more devil in a man, the more anxious he is
to look like an
angel.
·
CONCLUSION. Do not judge the character of a nation by the number of
its churches, the multitude of
its worshippers, or the amount of its
contributions, or efforts to
proselytize men to its faith.
6 “And I
also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and
want of bread in all your places: yet have
ye not returned unto me,
saith the LORD.”
In this and the five following verses God
sets forth instances
of the judgments which He had sent at various times to correct
famine, drought, blight, pestilence, earthquake; but all
had been in vain.
Five times recurs the sad refrain, “Yet have ye not
returned unto me, saith
the
Lord.” God’s unwearied love had not conquered their REBELLION!
Cleanness of
teeth; Septuagint,
γομφιασμὸν ὀδόντων,– gomphiasmon
Odonton - dullness of teeth;
Vulgate, stuporem dentium.
It is not “toothache”
that is meant, but famine, as is seen by the parallel term,
want of bread; as
Corn. a Lapide says, “Cum enim in fame et penuria dentes non habent quod
mordeant et mandant, innocentes
sunt et mundi.” This is the
first chastisement
mentioned. It was threatened in the Law as a consequence of
backsliding
(see Leviticus 26.; Deuteronomy 28:48, 57). The famines to
which
Amos alludes are not recorded. Plainly they were not
fortuitous, but were
providential inflictions, in accordance with previous
warnings Yet have ye
not returned unto
me. Pusey notes that
the words imply, not that they
returned not at all, but that they did after a fashion
return, but not so as to
reach God, their repentance being a half-repentance and their
worship a
half-worship,
and therefore unacceptable.
Stubborness
Reproached (v. 6)
There is a mingling of severity and pathos in this language
of Jehovah
addressed to
and solemnity. As one calamity after another is described,
and as all are
represented as chastisements inflicted by Divine
righteousness, the
touching words are added, “Yet have ye not returned unto
me, saith the
Lord.”
·
THE WANDERINGS IMPLIED.
In order that there may be a return to
God, there must first have been
a departure from God. Such had certainly
been the case with
wickedly in departing from their covenant God. They had mingled with the
worship of Jehovah practices
superstitious and idolatrous. They had broken
the Divine laws of morality, and
that in a flagrant and shameful manner.
·
THE SUMMONS AND INVITATION TO RETURN WHICH HAD
BEEN ADDRESSED BY GOD TO
benevolent God has not been content
simply to reveal truth and to
inculcate holiness. He has ever
addressed the children of men as those who
have disregarded the truth and
disobeyed the Law. Revelation is full of
declarations of Divine mercy and promises of Divine
forgiveness.
·
THE CHASTISEMENTS
WHICH WERE INTENDED TO
PRODUCE REPENTANCE
AND REFORMATION. Words proving
insufficient, they were followed
by acts. It is dangerous for us confidently
to interpret the plans of Divine
providence. Yet God most high is the
supreme Ruler of the nations,
and in
His own Word His “dealings” with the
nations are interpreted with
unerring justice and truth. The several disasters
recounted in this passage as
having befallen
been of the nature of chastisements designed to awaken refection and to
call to penitence
and to newness of life. “The
voice of the rod” is a voice
sometimes effectual, and always
morally authoritative.
·
THE INATTENTION OF
THE CHASTISEMENTS. It
is amazing to learn that not only the
messages of prophets and
authorized heralds, but even the “judgments” of
the righteous Ruler, failed to
produce the intended effect. Yet so it was,
and those who had been often
reproved hardened their neck. (Proverb s
29:1) In this
discovered in all ages and in all communities. The power of man to
resist the appeals
and the entreaties, the commands and the
chastisements,
of a righteous God,
is one of the most surprising and awful facts
of the
moral universe.
·
THE PATHETIC REPROACH.
He whose power could smite and
destroy the rebellious speaks as
if Himself wounded and distressed by the
perseverance in rebellion of
those He governs. It seems as if Omniscience
were astonished and
appalled at human obstinacy and obduracy.
Hence the
expostulation, the reproach
addressed to the impenitent and rebellious,
“Yet have ye not
returned unto me.”
7 “And
also I have withholden the rain from you, when there
were yet
three months to the harvest: and I caused
it to rain upon one city,
and caused it not to rain upon another
city: one piece was rained upon,
and the piece whereupon it rained not
withered.” The second punishment
is drought, as predicted (Leviticus 26:19, etc.;
Deuteronomy 28:23-24).
When there were
yet three months to the harvest, and when rain was most
necessary to swell the grain. The season meant is in February and March, when
what was called “the latter rain”
fell. In the south of
at the end of April, but
in the northern parts it was some weeks later, so that it might be
said in round numbers that it took place three months after
the latter rain. I caused it
to rain upon one
city. That they might
not attribute this drought to
the blind
laws of nature, God
caused it to be of a partial character, giving rain to one
city while He withheld it from another. One piece. The portion of
ground
belonging to an individual is so called (Deuteronomy 33:21; Ruth 2:3;
4:3).
8 “So two
or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but
they were not satisfied: yet have ye not
returned unto me, saith the
LORD.” This
want of rain produced great dearth of water to drink, and
persons had to go long distances to procure supplies. Wandered; literally
trembled, staggered,
as spent and exhausted by thirst. The word is used in
Psalm 59:15; 109:10. The supply thus used was soon
exhausted, and
brought no permanent relief. (Two verses of Scripture come to me when
I think along the lines of this verse.
then how canst
thou contend with horses? And if in the
land
of peace, wherein
thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how
wilt thou do in the
swelling of the
power was given unto him to scorch men with
fire. And men
were scorched with great heat, and
blasphemed the name of
God, which hath power over these
plagues: and they
repented not to give Him glory. And the fifth angel poured
out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and
his kingdom was
full of darkness; AND
THEY GNAWED THEIR TONGUES
FOR PAIN. And blasphemed the God of heaven
because of
their
pains and their sores, AND REPENTED NOT OF
THEIR DEEDS!” Revelation
16:9-11 – CY – 2013)
9 “I have
smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your
vineyards and your fig trees and your olive
trees increased, the palmerworm
devoured them: yet have ye not returned
unto me, saith the LORD.”
The third chastisement is occasioned by blight and
palmerworm (Deuteronomy
28:22,39,42). Blasting; the scorching east wind spoken of by Isaiah (Isaiah 27:8)
and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 17:10). Vulgate, in vento urente; Septuagint, ἐν πυρώσει
–
en purosei - “with parching.” Mildew; a blight, under the
influence of which the
ears of corn turned yellow and became unfruitful. “Blasting and mildew” are
mentioned together in Moses’ curse (Deuteronomy 28:22) and
in Solomon’s
dedication prayer (I Kings 8:37; compare Haggai 2:17). The
Septuagint
has ἐν ἰκτέρῳ - en iktero - with jaundice. When
your gardens…
increased. It is better to take
this sentence as the English margin, “The
multitude of your gardens… hath the palmerworm devoured.”
So the
Vulgate, Multitudinem hortorum tuorum… comedit eruca. Gardens
included orchards, herbaries, and
pleasure grounds. The palmerworm;
gazam; Septuagint, κάμπη:– kampae - Vulgate, eruca. The word occurs in Joel
1:4; 2:25, and is taken by many commentators to mean some
kind of
locust; but it is more probable that the Greek and Latin
translators are right
in regarding it as “a caterpillar” . Amos seems to be
referring to the visitation in
Joel’s time, if we take gazam
(“biter”) to be a kind of locust.
10 “I have
sent among you the pestilence after the manner of
your young men have I slain with the sword,
and have taken away
your horses; and I have made the stink of
your camps to come up
unto your nostrils: yet have ye not
returned unto me, saith the
LORD.”
The fourth visitation is pestilence and
the sword (Leviticus 26:25;
Deuteronomy 28:60). After
the manner of
IN WHICH
Ezekiel 20:30).
There is here no reference to the plague of Exodus 9:3,
etc.,
or 12:29.
The allusion is to the plague which was reckoned to be epidemic in
notorious (see Deuteronomy 7:15; 28:27, 60) Sir G.
Wilkinson notes
that the plague used to occur about every ten years
(‘Handbook,’ p. 7).
Your young men
have I slain with the sword. Pestilence and war are
allied scourges in Leviticus 26:25. A reference may here be
made to the
wars with the Syrians, wherein the Israelites suffered
heavy losses (II Kings
6:25; 8:12; 13:3, 7, 22). And have taken away your horses; rather,
together with your captive horses, still under the regimen of “I
have slain.”
The destruction of men and horses is mentioned in II Kings
13:7. The
stink of your
camps. These
unburied caresses caused pestilence in the
district. Septuagint, Καὶ ἀνήγαγον ἐν πυρὶ τὰς παρεμβολὰς
ἐν τῇ
ὀργῇ ὑμῶν –
Kai anaegagon en puritas parembolas en tae humon - or, according to the
Alexandrian manuscript, παρεμβολὰς ὑμῶν ἐν
τῇ ὀργῇ
μου – parembolas
humon en tae orgae mou - “In my wrath against you I set fire to your camps.”
11 “I have
overthrown some of you, as God overthrew
yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.” The fifth
visitation
is the earthquake (Deuteronomy 29:23). I have overthrown. This is the word
used to describe the destruction of
Jeremiah 20:16), and it seems better to refer the occurrence mentioned
to some
such convulsions
of nature which caused widespread
destruction. We do not
know anything about the particular earthquake to which the
prophet alludes.
As God overthrew. The substitution of
the name of God for the personal pronoun,
when the Lord Himself is speaking, is not uncommon in
Hebrew. Here it
rather takes the form of a quotation from Genesis. Ye were as a firebrand
plucked out of the
burning (Zechariah 3:2, where see note) — a
phrase which implies, not only
a NARROW ESCAPE but an escape
accompanied WITH LOSS!
The “brand”
not wholly consumed is yet
blackened and diminished by the burning.
National Calamities are Divine
Chastisements (vs. 6-11)
Graphic and
morally impressive is the catalogue of Divine judgments which
the inspired
prophet here draws up and puts upon record
for the
admonition of future ages.
·
OF WHAT THESE CALAMITIES CONSIST. They are thus
enumerated in the several
verses.
1. Famine.
2. Drought.
3. Blight.
4. Pestilence.
5. War.
6. Destruction.
Alas! from the beginnings of
human history such have been the sad and
weary experiences of the
nations. Some of these ills appear to be beyond
human control; others of them
are more or less attributable to human
ignorance, to human neglect, to unbridled lust and passion. The peculiarity
of their treatment in the books
of Scripture is not in their description, but in
the connection shown
to exist between them and the moral life and
probation of man, and the righteous government of God.
·
FOR WHAT INTENT THESE CALAMITIES WERE INFLICTED.
They are not here regarded
simply as events; even the philosophical
historian does not regard them
thus.
1. They convince the observant and pious mind of the concern
of God in
human affairs, and of God’s
indignation with human sin. Certain
philosophers imagined the great
rulers of the universe to be indifferent to
all the affairs of men. The
Scriptures teach us that:
a.
nothing escapes Divine observation, and
b.
nothing eludes Divine justice, God’s censure, or approval.
2. They induce, in the case of the right minded, repentance
and
reformation. When God’s
judgments are abroad, the inhabitants of the
earth will learn righteousness.
If events teach men that “the way of
transgressors is
hard” (Proverb s 13:15), they may also
teach them that
“whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every child
whom He receiveth.” (Hebrews
12:6) “Before I was afflicted,”
said
the psalmist, “I
went astray; but now have I kept thy Word.”
(Psalm 119:67)
·
IN WHAT SPIRIT THESE CALAMITIES ARE RECEIVED.
1. There can be no question that, in many instances, they are the occasion
of hardening of
the heart. As in the case of Pharaoh
King of
afflictions may increase insensibility and
rebelliousness.
2. There are cases in which chastisements of the kind here
described
produce national
humiliation and repentance. Such was
the case with
people repented even
before the calamity came, and so averted it. And
there were instances in the
history of stiff-necked
led to general abasement and
repentance.
3. There are cases in which calamity fails to produce a
general reformation,
but is nevertheless
the means of effecting in individuals a genuine
repentance and a sincere conversion unto God.
God’s Government of the World a Chastising Government
(vs. 6-11)
“And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your
cities, and want of
bread in all your places” etc. In these verses the Almighty describes the
various corrective measures which He had employed for
effecting a moral
reformation in the character of the Israelites. At the end
of each chastising
measure which He describes, He marks their obstinate
impenitence with the
expression, “Yet have ye not returned unto me.” As
if He had said, “The
grand end of all my dealings is to bring you in sympathy,
heart, and life
back to me.” The subject of the verses is this — God’s
government of the
world is a chastening government; and three remarks are
here suggested.
·
THE CHASTISEMENTS EMPLOYED ARE OFTEN
OVERWHELMINGLY TERRIFIC.
1. He sometimes
employs blind nature. Here is famine. “I also have given
you cleanness of teeth
in all your cities, and want of bread in all your
places.” The transgressors under the Law God had threatened with
famine
(Deuteronomy 28:48). The Divine
government has often employed
famine as a ruthless and
resistless messenger to chasten mankind. In the
days of Elisha
the demon wielded his black scepter for seven long years
(II Kings 8:1). The second is drought. “I have withholden the rain from
you, when there
were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to
rain upon one city,
and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece
was rained upon,
and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So two
or three cities
wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not
satisfied.” Rain — indispensable to
the life of the world — comes not by
accident or mere necessity, BUT BY THE DIVINE WILL!
“He watereth the
hills from His
chambers.” (Psalm 104:13)
To show that the rain is entirely
at the disposal of the Almighty,
it came upon one field and one city, and not
upon another. Hence
the inhabitants of the places where it rained not had to
go great distances for water, and
yet “were
not satisfied.” This is a terrible
chastisement. The third is blight. “I have smitten
you with blasting and
mildew: when your
gardens, and your vineyards, and your fig trees, and
your olive tress
increased, the palmerworm devoured them.” A
malignant
atmosphere combined with devouring reptiles to destroy the
produce of
the land. The fourth is pestilence
and the sword. “I have sent among you
the
pestilence after
the manner of
sword, and have
taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your
camps to come up
unto your nostrils.” The allusion,
perhaps, is to the
pestilence with which God
visited
God’s destroying angel. Thus by blind nature God has often chastised
mankind. He makes the stars in
their courses fight against Sisera. Nature is
a rod in His chastening hand;
and what a rod it is! At His pleasure, by a
touch, He can wake tempests that
shall shake the globe, earthquakes that
shall engulf cities, etc. Yes,
whatever materialistic scientists may say,
nature is nothing
more than a rod in the hand of its Maker.
The fifth is fire. “I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew
and
2. He sometimes
employs human wickedness. The sword is mentioned
here. “Your young men have I slain with
the sword.” War, unlike famine,
drought, pestilence, and fire, is human, devilish. It is
the work of free
agents, under the influence of infernal evil. But God employs it;
a.
He does not
originate it,
b.
He does not
sanction it,
c.
He does not
inspire it;
d.
but He permits it and controls it for purposes
of chastisement.
Thus all things are at
the use of His chastising government — matter and
mind, angels and fiends,
heaven and hell.
·
THE CHASTISEMENTS EMPLOYED ARE EVER DESIGNED FOR
MORAL RESTORATION.
After each judgment described we have the
words,
Ø
“Yet have ye not returned
unto me, saith the Lord.”
Ø
“Yet have ye not
returned unto
me, saith the Lord.”
Ø
“Yet have ye not
returned unto me, saith the Lord.”
This is the burden and design of
the whole. Note:
1. Men are alienated from the lord. They are estranged
in thought,
sympathy, and
purpose. Like the prodigal, they are
in a far country, away
from their Father.
2. Their alienation is the cause of all their misery. Estrangement from God
means distance, not only from virtue, but from freedom, light, progress,
dignity, blessedness. Hence
the benevolence of all these chastisements.
They are to restore souls. “Lo all these things worketh God oftentimes
with man, to bring him back from the pit, that he may be
enlightened with
the light of the living” (Job 33:29-30). To every unconverted man God
can say, “I have
chastised you in this way and in that way, on this occasion
and on that, but
‘yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.’”
·
THE CHASTISEMENTS EMPLOYED OFTEN FAIL IN THEIR GRAND
DESIGN. “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith
the Lord.” This shows
(1) the ce of human depravity, and
(2) the force of human freedom.
Almighty goodness
does not force us into goodness. Almighty love does
not coerce us into goodness. He
treats us as free agents and responsible
beings.
Burning, Yet not Turning (v. 11)
From Moses to Amos was about seven hundred years. It is a
long time
with men and the works of men. But it is little in the two
eternities through
which the purposes of God extend. There were prophecies
which it had
taken all this period to mature; courses of treatment for
the cure of sin
pursued through all the interval, and whose last measure
had not yet been
taken. One of these finds record here. A new event looks
out at us in the
guise of an ancient prophecy (Deuteronomy 29:22-25). What
seven
centuries before had been conceived in the womb of time is
here “delivered
upon the mellowing of occasion.”
commentary on this figure is the
association by Isaiah of “the spirit of
judgment” and “the spirit of burning” (Isaiah
4:4). Like a fire:
Ø
Judgments are painful. The sensation of
burning is about the
most painful we know. Too
severe for capital punishment, too
cruel even for prisoners of
war, death by burning has been generally
reserved for the martyred
saints. This intensest form of physical pain is
a fitting symbol of the
effects of God’s inflictions. What He sends is the
greatest of its kind. If it
be pleasure it is ideal — a pleasure at His right
hand forevermore (Psalm
16:11). If it be pain it is phenomenal — a
torment whose smoke
ascendeth up forever and ever.
(Revelation 14:11)
Ø
They are consuming. What fire feeds on it
destroys. Where the flames
have passed no organic
matter remains. So with God’s judgments. They
are the mills of God which
“grind exceeding small.” That on which they
must fall “they destroy and
consume unto the end.” They are nothing if
not adequate to their
purpose.
Ø
They are purifying. By burning out what is inflammable they leave what
is incombustible behind,
unmixed and pure. This idea of refining is often
associated with the fires
of judgment (Zechariah 13:9; Malachi 3:2-3).
They seize on the dross of
evil, and burn it out of the mass. When their
work is done there
is only the fine gold of a pure nature in the
crucible.
Ø
They are irresistible. Fuel, in contact with fire, can do nothing but burn.
If the flame is to be
quenched it must be done by some extra agency. To
be as “tow” or “stubble”
in the flames (Isaiah 1:31, Malachi 4:1) is
the strongest
possible figure for helplessness under
the avenging
stroke of God. Men cannot prevent it, cannot avoid it, cannot arrest it,
cannot in any degree reduce
its force. When He works “who shall let it”?
When His day burns as an
oven, who shall withstand the fire
(Isaiah 43:13; Malachi
4:1)?
a firebrand.” There
are certain steps which lead up to burning, whether
literal or figurative. The brand
was:
Ø
Withered. It is not on the sappy growing branch that the fire seizes.
Before, in the natural
course, it reaches the flames, a preliminary
process has been finished.
Its leaf yellows and falls, its bark shrivels,
its sap dries up. Then it
is mere tinder, and fit for nothing but the fire.
So SIN WITHERS AND KILLS the branches of the tree of
human character. It dries up the sap of spiritual life, and so
turns sere the leaf of
profession, and destroys the fruit of well doing.
In a little no function of
life is possible, and all its uses are lost. To
cut it down is all the
husbandman can do, and to burn it follows in
the natural course.
Ø
Brought to the flames. There are no prairie
fires in God’s domain. What
is burned is first
prepared, and then bound in bundles (Matthew 13:30)
and then set fire to. There
is no accident anywhere. The man by his ill
doing makes himself tinder,
and God in His providence uses him for the
only purpose he suits.
Ø
Combustible. Fire seeks out and feeds on what is most inflammable.
There is an affinity
between the two things that does not fail to bring
them together. So with
God’s avenging fires and the fuel they consume.
The vultures of His
judgments spy out, and alight upon the carrion of
the sinner’s
lusts. Every transgression of the
written Law is a
transgression also of the
unwritten law of the nature of things, and brings
punishment on and through
the instrument of the sin.
“Plucked out of the burning.” This language implies:
Ø
A narrow escape.
The brand had been in the fire, and
actually alight.
A little while and it would
have been inextinguishable. The fires of
judgment had been around
If she had been
in them but a little longer she could not have
come out alive. The narrowness of her escape was a fact charged
with the double influence
of fear as to what
might have been, and
gratitude for what actually
was. This is directly opposite of the
saying:
“Of all the words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are
these, What might have been.”
{John Greenleaf
Whittier}
Ø
An escape with a certain amount of injury. The brand that has
been alight has suffered.
Its fair surface has been scathed and charred.
It can never be its
original self again. Such a thing was
“Once it had been green,
fresh, fragrant, with leaf or flower; now
scorched, charred, blackened,
all but consumed. In itself it was fit
for nothing but to be cast
back into the fire whence it had been
rescued. Man would so deal
with it, a recreation alone could restore it.
Slight emblem of A SOUL WHOSE FRESHNESS SIN HAD
WITHERED, THEN GOD’S SEVER JUDGMENT HAD
HALF CONSUMED, in itself meet only for the everlasting
fire,
FROM WHICH GOD
YET WITHDRAWS IT!
Ø
An escape managed for an important purpose. God tries all means
before going to
extremities. He threatens, menaces, sets fire to, and
scorches, yet after all
delays to consume.
o This gives the
sinner A FINAL
reconsidering his relation to sin. It is possible that A
LAST CHANCE OF REFORMATION may be
embraced for the very reason that it is the last one. THE
PROSPECT OF DEATH
IS A NEW FACTOR in
the
problem of a man’s relation
to the Prince of life, and is likely
to modify the solution.
o
It gives him a chance of viewing sin in the light of its
effects.
The charred brand knows the
taste of the fire. The ultimate like
the immediate punishment of
sin is burning (Mark 9:43-44). The
plagued sinner
has tasted THE FIRST-FRUITS OF HIS
TERRIBLE
RETRIBUTION! He can argue from it
what
the harvest will be. THIS IS ALL IN FAVOR
of his profiting
under the dispensation.
Rescued from the flame in UNSPEAKABLE MERCY for a season,
the brand WOULD HAVE TO BE THRUST IN AGAIN AND
BURNED! This unconquerable hardness was that:
Ø
Of a nature that had strayed. The hardest sinner is
the apostate.
He sins against light,
against blessings received, against experience
enjoyed, against gracious
influences felt. To have beaten down, and
sinned in spite of all
these deterrents, argues a hardness and
determination that the
stranger to gracious influences has not had an
opportunity of acquiring.
Paul tells us that those who have so sinned
cannot be “renewed
to repentance” (Hebrews 6:4-6).
Ø
Of a nature that had been hardened by punishment. There is a
degree of induration in the back that has experienced the lash. The
brand put into the fire and
taken out again is hardened by the process.
The criminal often leaves
the prison more callous than he entered it.
So with the subjects of
Divine judgment. If they are not melted by it
they are indurated. Hatred to God and love to the sin are intensified,
rebelliousness is stirred
up, self-will is put on its mettle, and so
MORAL INSENSIBILITY is increased by the process of resistance.
Ø
Of a nature in which sin is supreme. In most natures there
is a
struggle between good and
evil. It is largely a question of circumstances,
which will preponderate at
any given time. Temptation is resisted
sometimes, and sometimes
yielded to, according to our mood and the
manner in which it is
brought to bear, This indicates a STATE OF
WAR between the law in the members and the law in
the mind,
victory inclining to
upheld. But when a man sins
invariably, under whatever pressure of
temptation, and when there
is no temptation at all — sins in spite of all
conceivable deterrent
circumstances — the case is different.
He says to evil:
“Be thou my good.”
(
His moral nature is
inverted. He will not mold into a vessel of mercy
now. He is “a vessel of wrath and fitted for
destruction.”
(Romans
9:22)
The Brand Snatched from
the Burning (v. 11)
Amongst the methods employed by the Divine Ruler to bring
repentance was some calamity, some “judgment,” which
overtook certain
of the cities of the land. It may be doubtful whether we
are to understand
that those cities were, like
consumed by fire from heaven; or were attacked and given to
the flames by
an invading, hostile force; or were overtaken by some
disaster figuratively
described in this pictorial language. In any case, the
circumstances are
naturally suggestive of reflections upon the methods and
purposes of
GOD’S TREATMENT
OF SINFUL MEN.
·
A STRIKING PICTURE OF PUNISHMENT FOR SIN. Like a city
given to the flames, like a
brand flung upon the blazing fire, is the man, the
community, that, on account of
disobedience and rebelliousness, is
abandoned for a time and for a purpose to the ravages of affliction and
calamity. How often has a sinful,
proud, luxurious, oppressive nation been
consigned to this baptism of fire! How often has the willful and obdurate
nature been made to endure the
keen and purifying flames! The connection
between sin and suffering does
indeed abound in mysteries; yet it is a
reality not to be denied.
·
A STRIKING PICTURE OF THE DANGER OF DESTRUCTION
TO WHICH THE IMPENITENT AND SINFUL ARE EXPOSED. Fire
may purify the gold from dross,
but it may consume and utterly destroy the
chaff. Some nations
exposed to the flames of war and calamity have
perished and disappeared.
Some
individual lives seem, at all events, to
have vanished in the flames of Divine judgment. The peril is imminent and
undeniable.
·
A STRIKING PICTURE OF DIVINE DELIVERANCE. As the
brand is plucked, snatched from
the burning, so that, although bearing the
traces of fire upon it, it is not
consumed, even so did it happen to
that Divine mercy saved, if not
the community, yet many individuals, from
destruction. Where, indeed, is
the soul, saved from spiritual death, of
which it may not be said, “Here
is a brand plucked from the burning”? And
there are instances of salvation in which the similitude
is peculiarly
appropriate. There
are those whose sins have, by reason of enormity and
repetition, deserved and
received no ordinary punishment in this life. And
amongst such there are not a few whom the pity, the wisdom, and the
power of our Saviour-God have
preserved from destruction, and who
abide living witnesses to his delivering might and grace.
APPLICATION. Here is encouragement for those who labor for the
conversion and salvation of the
degraded and debased. Even such, though
nigh unto burning, may be
plucked by Divine mercy from the flames of
judgment. —
12 “Therefore
thus will I do unto thee, O
this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O
previous judgments have been in vain, therefore will I
send upon them
SOMETHING MORE
TERRIBLE STILL! Thus. God says not how;
He leaves the nature of the coming chastisement in mysterious
uncertainty, that
the very suspense may work fear and repentance. Because I will do this
(pointing back to the mysterious “thus” above) unto thee;
because I AM
READY TO BRING UPON THEE EVEN MORE SEVERE
PUNISHMENT! Prepare to meet thy God; Septuagint,
Ἐτοιμάζου τοῦ
ἐπικαλεῖσθαι τὸν Θεόν
σου –
etoimazou tou epikaleisthai ton Theon sou –
“Prepare to call upon
thy God.” Make ready to meet thy God in judgment,
turning to Him with changed heart, if perchance He may
forgive thee and withdraw
His heavy hand.
Prepare to
Meet thy God (v. 12)
Forbearance has its limits, and probation is not forever.
Discipline itself is
temporary, and, when the purposes of God concerning men are
fulfilled,
will come to an end. There is a time for preparation, and then after that
comes the time for
reckoning and for recompense.
·
THE PERSONS DIRECTED TO PREPARE FOR THIS MEETING.
1. Especially the disobedient, the threatened, the chastened. The previous
verses make it evident that it
was to these that the admonition was
particularly addressed. The
people of
God, and had been censured and
chastened by God. It seems to have been
in consequence of their
impenitence and obduracy that they were addressed
in the solemn language of the
text.
2. Yet the appeal has surely reference to such as were
learning the lessons
so powerfully though so
painfully inculcated by Divine providence. There
were individuals disposed to profit by the awful
dispensations that were
befalling the nation, and by the faithful admonitions
addressed by inspired
prophets.
·
THE EVENT IS DESCRIBED AS A MEETING WITH GOD.
1. It is not to be supposed that there is ever a time when
God is not in
immediate contact with His
creatures. We meet Him at every turn, we meet
Him at every moment. His eye is
ever upon us, His hand is ever over us.
“Whither shall we
flee from His presence?” To the pious
soul this thought is
grateful, congenial, welcome. To the irreligious
soul this thought should be
productive of sincere
humiliation and penitence.
2. There are, however, occasions appointed by the providence
of God
upon which the sons of men are
constrained, manifestly and unmistakably,
to meet their God. Nations meet God in national
crises, in solemn
conjunctures of incident, of probation, of destiny. Individuals meet God in
critical events in human life, in remarkable experiences
of the inevitable
incidence of the moral law of God.
3. All Scripture declares that there is a future judgment, when all the
intelligent and accountable
shall be summoned into the Divine presence and
before the Divine tribunal.
“After death the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27);
“Then shall every
man give account of himself to God.”
(Romans 14:12)
We are directed to keep this day of account before our view, and to live in
prospect of it.
·
THE PREPARATION HERE ENJOINED.
1. In character it must be thorough and sincere. Nothing
hypocritical or
superficial can suffice. For the meeting
anticipated is with Him who is the
Searcher of all hearts.
2. In nature it must consist of true repentance and true
faith. A turning of
the heart from evil, and a
turning unto God, — these are essential.
Unfeigned repentance and cordial
faith are indispensable.
3. In manifestation it
must be in conformity with Divine requirements. If
thou wouldst meet God with holy
confidence, then must thou “do justly,
love
mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.”
(Micah 6:8)
13 “For,
lo, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and
declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning
darkness, and treadeth
upon the high places of the earth, The LORD,
The God of hosts, is His name.” The prophet
enforces his threats by declaring
GOD’S POWER and
OMNISCIENCE! He that formeth
the mountain;
The mountains are mentioned as the
most solid and everlasting of God’s works;
the wind, as the subtlest and most immaterial of created things. Declareth
unto man what is
his thought; i.e. man’s thought; reveals man to
himself shows
that God knows man’s
thought BEFORE HE PUTS IT INTO WORDS!
(“thou
understandest my thought afar off” - Psalm 139:2). This He does
sometimes by the stings of conscience, sometimes by
inspiring His prophets to
declare men’s secret motives and the real state of their heart (see Jeremiah 17:9-l0;
and compare I John 3:20). Many of the Fathers have seen here a prophesy of the
Messiah. That maketh the morning darkness. Keil,
after Calvin, takes these
words as asyndeton for “the morning dawn and darkness.” So the Septuagint,
ποιῶν ὅρθρον καὶ
ὁμίχλην – poion hopthron kai
homichlaen - “making
morning and gloom” - a further instance of GOD’S CREATIVE POWER!
The Vulgate gives, faciens
matutinam
nebulam; and it seems probable
(compare 5:8; 8:9) that the clause means that the Lord turns the dawn into darkness.
This may refer to the
action of clouds or an eclipse; or it may be said metaphorically
of prosperity
and adversity. Treadeth upon the high places of the earth. An
anthropomorphic representation of THE MIGHT AND MAJESTY OF GOD
who governs all
things, and has the loftiest in perfect subjection (compare
Deuteronomy 32:13; 33:29; Job 9:8; Micah 1:3). The Lord, JEHOVAH,
THE ETERNAL, SELF-EXISTENT, COVENANT GOD, is He who
in these things manifests Himself, and therefore His
threats are not to be despised
(ch.5:8). The laws and powers of nature have their scope in
EXECUTING GOD’S
COMMANDS!
Prepare to Meet Thy God
(v. 12)
The threats which precede this summons are very indefinite.
Designedly so;
for the prophet wished to arouse a general foreboding of
retribution
amongst the careless people, which would have its fulfillment
in national
disasters, but its final consummation in
another world. Such indefiniteness
also makes it possible to apply his words to men of every
age and country.
All responsible beings must at last meet their God, and may
wisely be
urged to “prepare.” From the time of
man’s fall the all-merciful Father has
been calling men to
return from their evil ways.
* Adam was encouraged to hope in His mercy.
* The antediluvians were faithfully warned through Noah, the
preacher of
righteousness.
*
* John the Baptist had as the burden of his preaching this same
word “prepare;”
and
* It has come ringing down the centuries to make itself heard
among us also.
·
THE JUDGMENT FORETOLD.
It is clear that the reference is to a
summons to the tribunal of God,
the Judge of quick and dead. There is a
sense in which we may meet God
in the study of His wonderful works in
nature; in the strange and
sometimes startling events of His providence; in
the pages of His Word; in
earnest supplication at His footstool. But another
special and more solemn occasion
is alluded to in our text — even that day
when the great white throne will be set, and every man will
have to give
an account of all the deeds done in the body, whether good or
bad.
1. That judgment is certain to come. Even nature seems to
point onward to
some crisis in the future of our
race.
Conscience warns us that sin cannot
always go unpunished, for the world is governed by a God of
righteousness. Scripture constantly affirms that He has appointed a day
in
the which He will judge the world by that Man whom He has
ordained.
(Acts 17:31)
2. It is quite uncertain when it
will, come. “Of that day and of that hour
knoweth no man.” (Matthew
24:36) It will come suddenly and
unexpectedly,
as a thief in the night. Death will end our time of probation, and no one
knows where and when
it may meet him. Therefore “prepare
to meet thy
God.”
3. When it comes
the trial will be thorough and final. All actions, together
with their motives, are under
the Divine cognizance. None will escape His
notice. No false excuses will
avail; and, on the other hand, no mere errors
will be condemned as if they
were willful sins. The good will be severed
from the evil, as our Lord
teaches us in the parables of the dragnet and the
tares of the field. (Matthew ch. 13)
·
THE PREPARATION NEEDED.
We should not be urged to
“prepare” unless by nature we
were unprepared. It is merciful of our Judge
to give us warning, counsel, and opportunity. He willeth not the death of a
sinner, but would rather that he should repent end live. Had it not been
possible for us to make ready,
had He wished us only to hurry onward to a
certain doom, we should not have
heard this exhortation. But He gives us
forewarning in many ways, and at
certain seasons with peculiar force; e.g.
when death enters our family, or
some accident befalls ourselves.
1. We need
self-examination. “Know thyself” was the advice of a heathen
philosopher; but it is worth
heeding by us all. We want the
illumination of
God’s Spirit and
the instruction of God’s Word to aid us.
“The candle of
the Lord” must throw its rays
into the recesses of our hearts.
2. We need confession and repentance. “If we confess our
sins, he is
faithful and just
to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” (I
John 1:9)
3. We need faith in the atonement of Jesus. It is said of all
sinners who
safely pass the great tribunal
and enter into the heavenly world, “They have
washed their
robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
(Revelation 7:14)
·
THE REASONS URGED.
These appear in the next verse.
1. God is omnipotent. “He formeth the mountains.” The mightiest cannot
resist Him; the most subtle will not escape Him.
2. God is omniscient. “He declareth unto man what is his thought.” He is
the Searcher of hearts (Psalm
139:2; Jeremiah 17:10). Nothing
eludes His notice. There is
warning in this thought for the wicked; and there
is comfort for the righteous,
because these may reflect that their unspoken
prayers, and their secret
self-denials, and their unfulfilled purposes, are all
recognized by Him. They are
represented by our Lord (Matthew 25:37-40)
as being surprised at reward
coming for acts which they thought little
of or had quite forgotten. “God
is not unfaithful to forget your work of
faith and labour of love.” (Hebrews 6:10) Apply the words of the
exhortation to the careless.
Preparation for Meeting God (vs. 12-13)
“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O
unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O
been employed to reform the Israelites having proved
ineffectual, they are
here SUMMONED TO PREPARE FOR THE FINAL JUDGMENT,
which was TO PUT AN END
TO THEIR NATIONAL EXISTENCE.
To this judgment
reference is emphatically made in the terms jk, ‘thus;’
and jaz, ‘this.’ There is a brief resumption of the sentence
delivered in vs. 2-3.
We raise three observations from these words.
“Prepare to meet
thy God.” “I shall see God,” says
Job: “whom
I shall
see for myself, ……and not another.” (Job
19:26-27) Yes, we shall all
see God. All men ought ever and
everywhere to see Him, for He is the great
Object in the horizon, nearer to
them infinitely than aught besides. But they
do not. Their
spiritual eye is so closed that they see him not
(I Corinthians 2:14); they are utterly
unconscious of His presence.
But see Him they must one
day. All must be brought into conscious contact
with Him, and in His presence
they will feel the greatest things in the universe
melt into nothing. The atheist who denies
His existence shall see God; the
worldling who ignores His
existence shall see God; the theologian
who
misrepresents His
existence shall see God. WE MUST
ALL SEE
GOD AND BE BROUGHT
BEFORE HIM. (II Corinthians 5:10)
PART PREPARATION.
Ø
To meet Him; reconciliation
is
needed. Practically we are at enmity
with Him. How shall an enemy
stand in his presence? Who does not
feel uneasy and even
distressed when he confronts a man he hates,
although the man may have
no disposition and no power whatever to
injure him? How will the soul with enmity in its heart then
confront GOD? “I beseech you then in Christ’s stead, BE
YE RECONCILED TO GOD.” (II Corinthians 5:20)
Ø
To meet Him, moral purity
is
necessary. How will a consciously
corrupt soul feel in the presence of ABSOLUTE HOLINESS?
How are the flames of hell kindled?
By the rays of Divine holiness
falling on corrupt spirits.
“Eternal
Light, eternal Light,
How pure the soul must be,
When,
placed within thy searching sight,
It
shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live and look on thee!”
PREPARATION.
Ø
His procedure is terribly
judicial “Therefore thus will I do unto
thee, O
to meet thy God, O
judgment, moving towards
him
judicially. He was coming towards
the Israelites as AN AVENGER. And so He is ever coming
towards wicked men. PREPARE, THEREFORE, TO MEET
HIM! He is coming
as A JUDGE — slowly it may be, but surely
and terribly.
Ø
His procedure is overwhelming
grand. “Lo, he that formeth the
mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth
unto man what is
his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth
upon
the high places of the
earth, THE LORD, THE GOD OF
HOSTS, IS HIS
NAME.” This magnificent
description of
Jehovah is given
in order to URGE THE CALL TO
PREPARATION!
The one mighty, loud, unceasing
voice of
God to man through all nature,
history, and special revelation is,
“PREPARE TO MEET THY
GOD!”
Judgment the Divine Retort to Human Sin (vs.
6-13)
This is the sad history of God’s vain contending with AN INCORRIGIBLE
NATION! In ch. 3 is an account of the mercies by which He at
first had tried
to draw them. All that had failed utterly. They met privilege
with unappreciation,
friendship with rebuff, and favor with INCREDIBLE DISREGARD!
Then He had changed His tactics. They would not
be drawn, perhaps they
might be driven. The
experiment was worth the making, and the record of
it is in these verses.
one gift which he could bestow,
one only out of the rich storehouse of his
mercies, since all besides were
abused — chastisement. This He
sent:
Ø
In diverse forms.
He reduced them by famine, which often acts
as a
moral depletive, by cutting
off its supply from, lust. He plagued them with
pestilence — a visitation that strikes terror into the boldest hearts.
He
slew them with the sword
of their enemies — a fate which has terrors
peculiarly its own. He
swallowed them up in earthquakes — the most
portentous and awful of
earthly phenomena. (In our day He is
using
tsunamis for whatever good it is doing; hurricanes in the form of
Katrina and Sandy, and if
these don’t work, read the book of
Ezekiel where it will tell
you sixty-two [62] times that “and they
shall know that I
am the Lord.” – See Ezekiel – The Study
of God’s Use of the Word Know – this web site – CY – 2013)
Ø
In increasing severity. Famine is direful, but it is directed primarily
against the means of life. Pestilence is
ghastlier, for it is directed against
the life itself. The sword is more
terrible than either, for it takes the life
with circumstances of
cruelty, which are an added horror. The
earthquake is the most terror-moving of all, for it summons the
overwhelming forces of
nature to our destruction. (The TV
show “Cops” has a catchy
tune it plays throughout – the words
repeated are “Bad Boys, Bad Boys, whatcha
goin do, whatcha
goin do, when they come for you” – I ask the same question –
[San Andreas] – where I am sitting typing this, is another
–
[New
was this gigantic earthquake, which fortunately, was in an
area
thinly populated – not so now – time is ticking –
profusely – our leaders have no clue, or if they
do, they have a satanic
agenda to lead us down the wrong path – overspending;
gun control
based on lying
propaganda; abortion, a sacred cow; Al Jeezera
getting a
foothold in the American television market; Second Baptist
Church being
taken off the air by Time-Warner; a deceptive
national media
sold out to purposes directly opposite of a
Judeao-Christian culture; etc. ad nauseum
– back to the
task at hand – American
citizen, saint or sinner, ARE YOU READY
FOR THE BIG
ONE? WOULD A REARRANGEMENT OF
THE MISSISSIPPI
RIVER AND
GET YOUR
ATTENTION? Worse still,
as v.12 says, ARE YOU
PREPARED TO MEET THE
GOD OF THE UNIVERSE WHEN
HE COMES AGAIN? If you don’t know now, when it happens, you
will know then, Perhaps
too late. TO DAY IS THE DAY OF
SALVATION! I highly recommend How to Be Saved – #5 – this
web site – CY – 2013)
Ø
With differentiating circumstances in different cases. There was
nothing humdrum in the
visitations, no pitching them on the dead level of
hackneyism or prescription.
o
The DROUGHT came three months before harvest. This
was a most unseasonable and
fatal time. It was in February, just
when the latter rain was
due. (
agricultural county in
seedtime and harvest, for
there to be farmers working on the
Lord’s day, as if they cannot
have a crop based on the promises
of God and must needs take
the situation into their own hands –
2012 was not a good crop
year in
II Chronicles 7:14 - CY –
2013) The seed would be braided,
or just in the stage in
which rain was the one thing absolutely
essential to life and
growth. Drought at this season “is utterly
ruinous to the hopes of the
farmer. A little earlier or a little later
would not be so fatal, but
drought three months before harvest
is entirely destructive.
o
It came on one place and not on another. Ordinarily the
showers fall impartially on
everyone. They water the fields of the
just and the unjust alike
(Matthew 5:45). They refresh the
wilderness where no man is,
as abundantly as the cultivated land,
with its teeming population
(Job 38:26). When they become
eclectic, falling on one
city or field and not on another, this
feature reveals MIRACULOUS INTERVENTION!
When, as probably in this case (see
Proverbs 3:33), the
watered fields or cities
are those of the
righteous, the
adjustment is eloquent of
the moral government of a God
who hates sin (Isaiah
65:13). On the artificially irrigated
gardens, where drought
would not readily tell, He sent
blasting, mildew,
and worms (v. 9). In the repertory
of nature He found an
instrument of destruction suited
to every possible case, and
in the allocation of these was
revealed His omnipotent and resourceful hand.
The overthrow of “some” when others escaped (v. 11)
was a providence burdened
with the same lesson.
o
The cause and its effect are set close together for
identification. “The piece whereupon it rained not
withered,” etc. The
nearer results are to their
causes the easier it is to
see the connection between them.
God, both in the visitation and the record of it, pointedly
ASSOCIATES THE
DROUGHT WITH THE SIN
and the withering with
the drought, and thus puts His
SIGNATURE and
ENDORSEMENT on HIS
DISIPLINARY WORK!
o
In minute correspondence to prophetic warnings. They
were plagued with pestilence “after the manner of
(v. 10). This Moses had
circumstantially announced would
be the result of disobeying
the Law revealed on Sinai
(Deuteronomy 28:27, 60), whilst IMMUNITY FROM IT
was promised in
connection with FEALTY and
OBEDIENCE (Ibid. 7:15). Then, with blood curdling
explicitness (vs. 6-7, 10),
famine, pestilence, the sword,
and desolation (Leviticus 26:23-33), blasting,
mildew, drought, and
locusts (v. 9; Deuteronomy 28:21-26,
38, 42), and, to crown all,
destruction and ruin, as of
and
Pelion, in prophetic
intimation to
a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed
forever”
(Deuteronomy 28:46). In all
this the work of
identifying
national judgments, as from
a pledge keeping and sin-avenging
Jehovah, is made easy to all BUT
THE WILFULLY
BLIND!
varieties of terror moving
severity and appositeness, and five times the
prophet, gleaning vainly after the
scythes of God for a grain of good result,
can but repeat the sadly
reproachful refrain, “Yet ye have not returned
unto me, saith the Lord.”
Ø
The sinner refuses to believe that his affliction is
punishment.
He attributes it to accident, or
bad management, or natural causes, or
the malice of others, as the
case may be. While unconscious of his sin,
he is necessarily blind to the
significance of his suffering, and until he
sees this he cannot profit by
it. If men would “hear the rod and who
hath appointed it” (Micah 6:9), they would have realized a primary
condition of improvement
under it.
Ø
Suffering is not in itself purifying. A bad man it often
makes worse.
He wants to “curse
God and die”at
Satan’s suggestion through Job’s
wife (Job 2:9; Revelation
16:9). Even if the hardening stops short
of this,
he is frequently soured and
embittered. Suffering, to be beneficial, must
not go alone. It prepares
for other measures. It makes men more
amenable to moral
influence, but if no such influence be brought to bear
in connection with it, it
is no more fitted of itself to purify the character
than plowing is to
fertilize the desert sand. “Bray
a fool in a mortar,
yet will not his folly depart from him.” (Proverbs 27:22).
Ø
The love of sin is stronger than the fear of suffering. Courses,
which all observation and experience declare to be ruinous to
health
and
happiness, are entered on DELIBERATELY by
millions.
Even the physical evil
consequences of the early steps in
sinful indulgence,
which are soon
felt, do not arrest the evil doer in his way. By the
confirmed sinner HELL
ITSELF is practically, if not consciously,
PREFERRED
TO REFORMATION. Only what weakens
the
love of sin secures
the successful application of suffering for its removal.
The operation of one or
other of these principles, or the concurrence
of them all, no doubt accounted
for
the fire.
HIMSELF. “Therefore thus will I do unto thee”. The terror of these
words is in nothing lessened by
their vagueness. It is evident rather:
Ø That the thing
menaced would in point of severity be an
advance upon all that had yet been done. Only thus would there
be any use in adopting it. After expostulation the rod,
and after the
rod a sword — that is the logical order
of corrective measures.
“Sin no more,
lest a worse thing come upon thee,” (John 5:14)
was a foreshadowing of GOD’S CONSISTENT POLICY!
Ø
It would involve being brought face to face with God. “Because
I will do this
unto thee, prepare to meet thy God” (v. 12). The
kind or occasion of the
meeting with God is not explained. It is,
therefore, to be taken to
include all modes and occasions, whether
in life, at death,
or AT THE FINAL JUDGMENT. And the
thought of it is one of terror to
the ungodly, under whatever
circumstances. They can
face His
judgments; God is not in them,
unless in figurative sense.
They can face his
prophets; God is not
in them, unless in a
spiritual sense. But TO FACE GOD
LITERALLY was, even to a pious
Jew, like facing death
(Exodus 33:20; Judges
13:22, Hebrews 12:29); whilst to the
impious it must have been
the embodiment
of all terror. It is from
the “PRESENCE OF THE LORD” that
the wicked in the
judgment call upon the hills to hide them (Revelation 6:16;
Luke 23:30; Hosea 10:8). That, of all things in the universe, is
an
ordeal they cannot face.
Ø
It is left undefined that it may seem the more terrible. We have
here the eloquence of
silence. The terror of the threat is enhanced by
its vagueness. Familiarity
breeds contempt. If a thing, however bad,
is exactly defined, we can
familiarize ourselves with the thought of it in
time, and brace our courage
up to meet it. “It doth not yet appear
what we shall be” (I John 3:2), but our idea of it, meantime, has an
element of enlargement in
its very indefiniteness. God says vaguely
“Thus,” and stops short,
that imagination may fill up the blank. His
silence is charged with
deeper meaning than any words could carry.
Ø
Look for a meeting with God. It is INEVITABLE. It is at hand.
The fact must be faced. No
good, but harm, can come out of the attempt
to escape or blink it (II
Corinthians 5:10; Psalm 139:7-12).
Ø
Prepare for it.
This is A WORD OF HOPE! Meeting with God is
inevitable; but it need not
necessarily be injurious. Preparation for it is
possible, being enjoined,
and would avail something if it were made.
God never in this
life bids people or individuals prepare to
meet Him
WITHOUT A PURPOSE OF GOOD TO THEM
THAT DO PREPARE.
Ø
Do this because of impending
judgments. “Because I will do
this
unto thee.” We might
suppose that if God was going to destroy, the
preparation to meet Him would be too late. But that does not follow.
When
but when it became penitent He spared it. (the book of Jonah)
Hezekiah, prayerless
in the particular matter, was bidden
prepare to
die; but Hezekiah, praying for
more life, was spared fifteen years
(Isaiah 38:1, 5). What God will
do to us, so far as it comes
within our cognizance, is
conditioned by what we will do
to Him.
Until the judgment has
actually fallen, the threat of it is A MESSAGE
OF MERCY! A sentence of destruction itself is a call to
repentance,
and so has woven into it a
thread of hope. “Because I will do this
unto thee, PREPARE”. (v.12)
The Great
Preparation (v. 12)
“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel,” etc. Here an important duty
fathers itself on a stupendous fact. An omnipotent God is
in judgment with
sinful
already hurled. But these measures are far from embodying
all His punitive
resources. In the failure of these to bring repentance
there are woes
unnamed, because unutterable, still in store. If
heaviest artillery of retribution kept out of action, they had need bestir
themselves in the
matter of a duty the further neglect of which must
precipitate disaster.
·
GOD AND MEN LIVING APART. The enjoyment of God’s presence
was paradise (Genesis 3:8), and
will be heaven (1 Thessalonians
4:17); that privilege lost is
death (Genesis 3:24), and will be hell
(Luke 16:26).
Ø The wicked neither have God’s presence nor desire it. “God drove out
the
man,” when he became
a sinner; and all men, as sinners, are “afar off.”
Purity and
impurity are incompatible, and there can be no fellowship
between them.
Righteousness and unrighteousness are antagonistic, and
cannot come
together without coming into collision. Man’s instinctive
consciousness
of this led him to anticipate expulsion from God’s presence
by trying to
run away (Genesis 3:8). The separation between God and
the sinner is
thus by consent, and in the nature of the case, and so
inevitable
during the status quo.
Ø
The righteous enjoy it in the imperfect
measure in which they desire it.
The need of
Divine fellowship, universal with men, becomes conscious
when they
become spiritual (Psalm 42:2). As supply everywhere meets
demand
(Philippians 4:19), and measures it, the drawing near of God is
synchronous
with the springing of desire for it (Matthew 5:6), as well
as proportioned
to its strength (Revelation 21:3). To each of us God
comes when we
desire Him, and as we desire Him. If the presence be
intermittent or
incognizable, it is because appreciation is
inadequate, and
the longing for
it irregular or weak (Isaiah 57:15; 43:22).
Ø To desire it perfectly and possess it fully is heaven. “Heaven is endless
longing
accompanied with an endless fruition” (Maclaren). In
it there is
perfection of
the faculties which commune with God. There is perfection of
opportunity for
their exercise. Accordingly, there is perfect attainment of
the normal
result. We are “with Christ,” and “know even as also we are
known.”
·
CERTAIN OCCASIONS ON WHICH THEY NEVERTHELESS
MEET. The wicked fear
God (Romans 8:15) and hate Him
(ibid. v. 7), would be miserable in His presence (Revelation 6:16),
and so do all they can to keep
away from it (Job 22:17; 21:14).
But:
Ø
They meet Him in the dispensations of providence. He is their King. He
rules their
life. All the events in it are of His disposing. He is where He
operates, and
so in each operation of which they are the subjects they meet
Him. Especially
does He come to them in His judgments, which they are
provoking every
day. Misfortune, sickness, death, — these in their order,
for a widening
circle, and at ever closer quarters, are occasions of meeting
God which none
would choose, yet none can shun.
Ø They meet Him in the influences of His grace. “No one’s salvation is so
desperate, no
one is so stained with every kind of sin, but that God cometh
to him by holy
inspirations to bring back the wanderer to himself” (Jerome,
in Pusey). The strivings of the Spirit are unnoticed often,
and resisted often
(Luke 19:44;
Acts 7:51), and so are in the end withdrawn
(Genesis 6:3);
but, so far as we know, they are universal. As truly as He
met the Prophet
Balaam in the way does God meet men in the exercise of
constraining or
restraining grace.
Ø They shall meet Him in the judgment day. “Before
Him shall be gathered
all
nations.” This meeting is sure, and will be
unutterably momentous.
All
other meetings
are preliminary and preparatory to it. It will gather up and
declare and
finally administer their cumulative results, The wicked shall be
finally banished from God’s presence, and the righteous be finally admitted
to
it; and so for each
it shall be the great meeting and the last meeting.
·
THE PREPARATION NEEDED FOR SUCH ENCOUNTERS.
furnished for it. In making it we must:
Ø
Prepare a character. To meet God
satisfactorily men must be like Him.
To see Him on the one hand, or relish
Him on the other, or be capable in
any sense of holding communion
with Him, a man must be pure
Matthew 5:8; II Corinthians
6:14). He must bring to the meeting a
character in sympathy with
God’s, if he would bring a blessing away.
Ø Prepare a case. Man before God is a criminal, guilty,
condemned, and
sentenced. He wants all this reversed, and he must
be able to show reason
before it can
be done. And what are the elements essential to his case?
Clearly the
penalty he was under must have been exhaustively endured
(1 Peter 2:24);
the Law he is under must have been perfectly obeyed
(Isaiah 42:21);
both these things must have been done with the
approval and by
the appointment of God (Hebrews 5:4-5); and the man
must be
intelligently resting his case on these facts. In other words, there
must be Divine vicarious obedience and death, divinely recognized, and
rested
in by faith. Any
appearance before God apart from these must end in
confusion.
Ø
Prepare an advocate. Man cannot plead his own case. lie has no locus
standi (the right to be heard in court). He can approach God only through
a mediator (1
John 2:1). This mediator, to be admissible, must have Divine
recognition
(Isaiah 42:1; Hebrews 5:4-5); to be efficient, must have Divine
power (Psalm 89:19;
Matthew 28:18); and to be available, must have
Divine
sovereign love for men (Ephesians 5:2). These conditions meet,
and meet only, and ALWAYS MET IN JESUS CHRIST! . He is the one
Advocate of every dispensation. Access into the antitypical holiest of all
has been one
thing and by one way
always (Hebrews 9:8; 10:19-22). It
is
and
was and shall be only spiritual and through the Son of God.
Ø
Prepare at once. To
foreshadowed, and was now
overdue. It might be any time, and must be
soon. A surprise — and in like
circumstances it is the same with all —
was probable, and would be
disastrous (Revelation 3:3). TO PREPARE
IMMEDIATELY was,
therefore, a duty as urgent as it was clear
(Matthew 24:44). It is ill
beginning to dig a well when the house of life
is already on fire.
·
THE CONSIDERATIONS THAT MOVE US TO PREPARE. In the
context these are written large.
There is:
Ø An implied promise. “It has
hope in it to be bidden to prepare” (Pusey).
The person so enjoined
is not yet given up. The menaced doom is not yet
inevitable. The
way in which God shall be met, and so the result of the
meeting, is
still capable of being modified. Every call to action is an implicit
promise of the
result to which it naturally leads. There is also:
Ø An explicit threat. “Thus will I do unto thee.” There is a vagueness here
that is far
more terrible than the most explicit denunciation. A series of
woes already
sent has just been named. But there
is a woe that is
unutterable
in reserve, and already on its way. This, because words are too
weak to express
it, is left to the imagination to picture. “Thus will I do
unto
thee,” He says, and
attempts to particularize no further, where the
sentiment is
too terrible for words. And so it is with the woe in store for all
the impenitent
wicked. It cannot be literally defined, and so is suggested by
figures such as
“the
blackness of darkness for ever.” (Jude 1:13), “the
worm
that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).
But, however figuratively
represented, the woe is real, is prepared,
is being kept
in store, is incomparably great, AND SHALL FALL
AS
GOD IS TRUE!
Ø Whether we are prepared or not, THE MEETING WITH GOD MUST
COME!
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.”
(II Corinthians
5:10) There is a needs be in the case.
The purpose of God
must be fully
carded out in issuing all the matters that go down unsettled
to the grave. The
righteousness of God must conclusively be vindicated
in meting out to all rewards according to
their works. The truth
of the
Divine Word, pledged in promise and in threat, MUST BE ESTABLISHED
FOR
EVER in the
answering of event to explicit prediction. The meeting
may be a joy to
us or a shame, as we choose to have it; but it must be a fact.
Ø A feeling of unreadiness is a necessary
step to preparation.
The
measure of a
sinner’s fancied readiness to face his Maker is the measure of
his ignorance
as to what real fitness implies. The man who has been
brought to say,
“I dare not face God,” has made one step in advance. He is
disillusionized. His eyes are open and his conscience awake. Self-deception
and false
security are at an end (Revelation 3:17-18). The first step
toward grappling
with the facts has been taken when once we have fairly
faced them. Realize that you are a sinner, and the grace of God that
bringeth salvation will find appreciation and an
open door.
The God with Whom We
Have to Do (v. 13)
God always acts in character. From the thing He is may be inferred the
quality of the
thing He will do. We see Him here:
·
AS REVEALED BY HIS NAMES. Each Divine name and title is a
Divine revelation; sets forth
some one of God’s incomparable perfections.
(I recommend the book The Names of God by Nathan Stone - many
of
the chapters I have on this
website - #’s 199, 283, 320, 324, 1268,
1269, and 1358 - CY - 2022)
Ø
Jehovah. “The Being;”
“the Living One.” In contradistinction to
idols,
having real existence. In
contradistinction to created things, HAVING
ETERNAL EXISTENCE. In contradistinction
to all outside Himself,
having necessary existence. Jehovah is the true God and alone
claiming faith, the selfexistent
God and alone giving life,
the eternal God and
ALONE CONFERRING IMMORTALITY!
Ø
God. “The Adorable One.” The Sum of all excellence. The Object of all
worship. The Inspirer of all
veneration. The Being who at once deserves
Ø
Of hosts. “God of the
armies.” The
hosts are the heavenly bodies
(Genesis 2:1; Deuteronomy 4:19),
the angels (Joshua 5:14-15;
1 Kings 22:19; Psalm 103:21;
148:2), and men (Exodus 12:41).
All these He made, owns, keeps, controls, and uses. He is the universal
Sovereign, and “doeth
according to His will” everywhere, always, and
without appeal. Such a Being it is no light thing to meet. Just as it is done
will utter ruin or absolute safety result.
·
AS REVEALED BY HIS WORKS. The worker puts something of
himself into his work — the
author into his book, the painter into his
picture, the mechanic into his
machine. And so with God (Psalm 19:1).
Ø
He produces physical
phenomena. Three kinds are enumerated:
o
solid matter, “the
mountains;”
o
gaseous matter, “the
wind;”
o
ethereal matter, “dawn,
darkness.”
Matter in all forms is the creature of God. Its mutations are the
doing of His power. Its elements
are the instruments of His hand.
He does to it and by it what His
own moral excellence prompts.
And thus it reveals Him. We
“View
great Nature’s open eye,
And see
within it trembling lie
The
portrait of the Deity.”
Ø
He reveals mental phenomena. “Maketh known to man what is his
[man’s] thought.” The power of
introspection is peculiar to man of
earthly creatures. He takes cognizance of what
passes in his own mind;
reads his thoughts, and analyzes the process of thinking. This is among
the highest exercises of reason.
It is a revelation of its marvelous
powers, and so of the wisdom and
power of Him by whom the faculty
was bestowed. If a
man’s thoughts are open to himself, much more are
they to God. The mind can do all
this; WHAT
CANNOT THE MAKER
OF IT DO (Jeremiah
17:9-10)?
Ø
He rules moral
phenomena. “Goeth over the high places of
the earth.”
The “high places” are the exalted
people. All these He rules. The
highest do His bidding. From prince to
peasant ALL ARE BUT CLAY
IN THE POTTER’S
HANDS!
Who, then, shall strive with Him?
“Woe to him that striveth with his Maker!
Let the potsherd strive
with the potsherds
of the earth. Shall the clay say to him
that
fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy
work, He hath no hands.”
(Isaiah 45:9) What can avail
against His transcendent might?
All natural forces, all
creaturely existences, are but tools in His
hand, and ministers that do His
will. This is the God we must meet,
and to meet whom we may well
prepare.
The Majesty of God. (v. 13)
This and several other passages in this book of prophecy
prove to us that
Amos was a man who lived much in communion with nature and
nature’s
God. A herdsman and a gatherer of figs, he passed his
earlier years, not in
towns, in palaces, in libraries, in schools, in the temple,
but beneath the
open sky, and in the presence of the solemnity, the grandeur, the
sublimity,
of the works of
the Eternal. He had climbed the mountains of
gazed upon the rugged ranges that closed in the
desert of the south, and had delighted himself in the blue
waters of the
dawn; he had bowed his head before the tempest, and heard
the voice of
the Almighty in the thunder’s crash. He had read the scroll
which unfolds
itself to every observant eye; he had listened to the
language best heard in
solitude and seclusion. His meditations concerning God as known, not by
the book of the law, but by the book of nature, relate to;
·
GOD’S CREATIVE POWER.
This He doubtless recognized
wherever
he turned, by day and by night,
in the peaceful plain and upon the awful
hills. He here refers to two
instances of the Maker’s might, two proofs of
His incomparable
majesty. “He formeth
the mountains.” The
stability and
the immensity of the mountains
have ever possessed a charm and an
inspiration for the sensitive
and thoughtful student of nature. Little as
Amos could have known of those processes by which the enduring hills
have been fashioned, he was capable of appreciating their testimony to the
Creator, and
probably of recognizing their symbolism of Divine attributes.
The wind is a phenomenon which has always impressed the observer
of
God’s works. Its immense power and its
inscrutable mystery, its tenderness
as it breathes through the
forests at eventide, its awfulness when it roars
upon the mountains, when it
lashes into fury the mighty waves of the sea,
are suggestive of the manifold
operations of the all-comprehending Deity.
And our Lord Himself has
reminded us of its symbolical significance as
setting forth the wonderful,
varied, and inexplicable manifestations of the
presence and the working of the Divine Spirit.
·
GOD’S SPIRITUAL INSIGHT. When the prophet describes God as
“declaring unto
man what is his thought,” the language
has sometimes been
taken to refer to the Divine
thought revealed to man; but it probably is to
be interpreted of that omniscient energy by virtue of which the Eternal
penetrates the spiritual
nature of men and reads their thoughts afar off.
That the creating Spirit is thus in perpetual and intimate
contact with those
created spirits into which He has breathed the breath of
life, and which He
has fashioned in His own likeness: this is reasonable enough. Yet the
enunciation of this
unquestionable truth should have two effects upon us. It
should enhance our conception of God’s majesty, and so call forth our
adoration and our praise; and it should make us concerned as to the moral
quality of the
thoughts of our minds, which the
omniscient and holy God
must surely estimate with
justice, and by a standard infinitely lofty and
pure.
·
GOD’S PROVIDENTIAL RULE. If we take literally the language,
“That maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth
upon the high places of
the earth,” then these clauses are additional acknowledgments of the
Creator’s power and wisdom as
displayed in nature. But coming after the
preceding clause, which refers
to men’s thoughts, they seem to invite
another interpretation. God’s presence is to be recognized in the order of
the world, in the tokens
of moral government, in the workings of
retributive law — in a
word, in the facts which are justly deemed
providential.
·
GOD’S GLORIOUS NAME. To the Hebrew mind there was a very
close connection between the
nature and attributes and the Name of the
Divine Ruler and Lord. He was Jehovah, i.e. the
Self-existing and Eternal,
whose Being accounts for all being beside. He was the Lord of hosts, i.e.
supreme over all powers,
possessed of all might, ordering all natures and
all processes ACCORDING TO HIS OWN WISDOM! The angelic hosts of
unseen ministers and warriors,
the armies of
innumerable forces that obey the
Divine behests and bring to pass the
Divine purposes, — all these are beneath the cognizance and the sway of
the Eternal, all these are ever
executing His authoritative commandments
and establishing His universal and everlasting kingdom. In the
presence of a
Being so glorious, so mighty, so holy, what power attaches to the
monition
of Scripture, “Stand in awe, and sin not”! (Psalm
4:4)
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