Amos 8
Vs. 1-14 - In the fourth vision, the basket of
summer fruit, the
Lord shows
that the people is ripe for judgment. Explaining this
revelation,
Amos denounces the oppression and greed of the chieftains
(vs. 4-10),
and
warns them that those who despise the Word of God shall some day
suffer from a famine of the Word (vs. 11-14).
1 “Thus
hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket
of
summer fruit.” A basket of summer
fruit; Septuagint, ἄγγος ἰξευτοῦ - aggos
ixeutou - a fowler’s vessel;
Vulgate, uncinus pomorum,
which Jerome explains,”
Sicut uncino rami
arborum detrahuntur ad poma carpenda, ita ego
proximum captivitatis tempus attraxi.” The word chelub
is taken to mean
“a basket of wickerwork;” it is
used for “a cage” in Jeremiah 5:27, but
is
found nowhere else. The
gathering of fruit was the last harvest of the
year, and thus fitly typified
the final punishment of
by the play on the word in the next verse.
Ripeness in
Iniquity.(v. 1)
The figure here employed by Amos comes very naturally from
him who
had been a gatherer of the fruit of the sycamore tree. But
at the same time,
it is somewhat of a shock to the reader of this prophecy to
find such a
similitude employed for such a purpose. Our associations
with “a
basket of
summer fruit” are
all agreeable; but here the ripeness is
in iniquity, and is
unto condemnation and destruction.
·
A PAST PROCESS OF MATURITY IN SIN IS IMPLIED. As the fruit
has been ripened during months
of growth unto maturity, so the nation of
lamented and censured by the
prophet of the Lord.
1. Past privileges have been misused. No nation had been so favored as
the descendants of Jacob; the
greater the privileges, the greater the guilt of
neglect and abuse.
2. Past warnings have been despised. If the people could not, in the
exercise of their own faculties,
foresee the end of all their misdeeds, they
had no excuse, for prophet
after prophet had arisen to rebuke them for
unfaithfulness, and to warn them of
impending judgment.
3. Past invitations
have been unheeded. Often had the messengers of God
mingled promises with threats,
invitations with censure. BUT IN VAIN!
The voice of the charmer had
been disregarded; the tenderness
of Divine
compassion had been despised.
Hence THE PROCESS OF
DETERIORATION HAD GONE ON. And circumstances which should
have ripened the
national character into heroic virtue, into saintly piety,
had only served to mature irreligiousness and rebellion. Thus the sun and
the showers which ripen the corn and the wholesome fruit bring
also every
poisonous growth to perfection.
·
A SPEEDY PROSPECT OF CONSEQUENT DESTRUCTION IS
REVEALED. The ripe
fruit speaks not only of the sunshine of the bygone
days, but of the consumption
which awaits it. In this passage the figurative
language of the prophet is to be
interpreted as foreboding approaching
ruin. “He
that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall
suddenly be
destroyed, and
that without remedy.” (Proverbs 29:1)
1. Perseverance in irreligiousness issues in deterioration
of character. The
very years, the very privileges, which make the good man
better, make the
bad man worse.
It was so with
same law may be traced in human
society today.
2. Perseverance in
irreligiousness will, under the Divine government,
involve chastisement and punishment. The captivity foretold was to be
accompanied by the desolation of
the capital and the cessation, or at least
the interruption, of national life. “The end is come,” saith God, “to my
people
must be brought to a disgraceful close.
2 “And He
said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of
summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me,
The end is come upon
my people of
The end (kets).
This is very like the word for “fruit” (kaits).
Pass by (see note on ch. 7:8).
“My People” (v. 2)
The occurrence
of this expression in such a connection as this is very
amazing and
very encouraging. Even when, by the mouth
of His prophet,
the Lord is uttering language of regretful denunciation,
the prediction of
sore chastisement, He still calls
higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our
thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8)
·
THIS LANGUAGE IN A REMINISCENCE OF PAST ELECTION.
God called
nations of the earth, to be
the depositary of His truth, the recipients of His
Law, the instrument of His
purposes among men. As early associations are
strong amongst men, as we always
retain a tender interest in those whom
we have watched over,
befriended, and benefited from their childhood, so
the Lord represents Himself as cherishing kindness for the
people whom
He had called as it were in their childhood, and nursed into
maturity.
(Isaiah 66:12-13; Jeremiah
2:2-3)
He did not forget the days “when
(Hosea 11:1)
·
THIS LANGUAGE IS PROOF OF PRESENT KINDNESS. tie does
not say, “Ye were my
people;” for
they are His people still.
Mine is an
unchanging love,
Higher
than the heights above;
Deeper
than the depths beneath;
Free and
faithful, strong as death.”
Even in carrying out His threats
of punishment, Jehovah does not act in
anger and vindictiveness. He is the Father chastening the child whom He
loveth. He does not abandon the disobedient; He subjects them
to discipline
which may restore them to submission and to filial love.
·
THIS LANGUAGE IS PREDICTIVE OF FUTURE RECONCILIATION.
As long as God says, “My
people,” there is hope for the future. He has not
abandoned; he will not abandon.
The city may be razed, but it shall be built
again. There shall be captivity;
but He deviseth means whereby his banished
ones shall return. (II Samuel 14:14) Wounds shall be
healed. The
grave shall give up her dead.
The wanderer shall return, and shall be
clasped to the Father’s patient,
yearning, rejoicing heart. “My people” are
mine forever.
·
APPLICATION. God in the midst of wrath remembers mercy.
(Habakkuk
3:2) When sin is recognized and realized as such,
when
chastening has answered its purpose, when the disobedient
are penitent
and the rebellious are submissive, THEN THERE IS
HOPE! Not in any
excellence connected with man’s
repentance, but in the grace of the Father’s
heart, in the faithfulness of the Father’s promises. Not
MANKIND AT LARGE are designated by
the Eternal “my people.”
Therefore He who sent His Son to
seek and to save
that which is lost is
described as “the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.”
(I Timothy
4:10)
3 “And the
songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the
Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies
in every place; they
shall cast them forth with silence.” The songs of the temple - Septuagint,
τὰ φατνώματα
τοῦ ναοῦ
- ta phatnomata
tou naou - the panels of the temple;
Vulgate, cardines templi. These versions point to a different reading. It
is better
rendered, “the songs
of the palace,” referring to the songs of the revelers mentioned
already (ch. 6:5). These shall be changed into “howlings” of lamentation for
the dead which lie
around (compare v. 10) - “there
shall be many dead
bodies.” The Hebrew is
more forcible: “Many the corpses: in
every place he
hath cast them forth. Hush!” The Lord is represented as casting dead
bodies to the ground, so that death is everywhere; and the
interjection
“hush!” (compare ch. 6:10) is an
admonition to bend beneath the hand
of an avenging God (compare Zephaniah 1:7). Orelli takes it as an
expression of the
apathy that accompanies severe and irremediable
suffering — suffering too deep for
words. The Greek and Latin versions
take this onomatopoetic word (a word whose sound suggests
the sense) has!
“hush!” as a substantive. Thus the Septuagint, ἐπιῥῤίψω σιωπήν - epirripso
siopaen - I will cast upon
them silence; Vulgate, projicietur silentium —
an expressive rendering, but one not supported by
grammatical considerations.
A Nation Ripe for Ruin
(vs. 1-3)
While immunity lasts iniquity will go on. Men only love it
less than they
fear suffering. In the actual presence of the penalty the
hand of the
transgressor is stayed. The murderer will not strike the
death blow under a
policeman’s eye. The blasphemer will not move a lip when
the thunderbolt
is crashing through his roof. But by so little does the one
feeling master the
other that if punishment be not both certain and at hand,
the fear of it will
fail to deter from sin. “My lord delayeth
his coming.” Let escape be out of
the question, yet even the chance of respite will turn the
scale in favor of
doing the forbidden thing.
*
*
Perhaps
bay. Here God tries the experiment.
·
THERE IS A TIME WHEN THE VINE OF
FRUIT. Sin has its
day. It disturbs the harmony of things, and when
derangement reaches a climax a
catastrophe comes, and arrests the process
with a “thus far and no further.”
critical point.
1. Idolatry, the archetypal sin against the first table, had
practically
superseded the worship of God. It was the religion
of the king, and court
and people. It was established and endowed, by the state. Its rites were
observed at
worship at
part of the royal policy. Short
of this the national apostasy could go no
further. Interference, if it
would be in time to save anything, must take
place at once.
2. Oppression, the
archetypal sin against the second table, had reduced
society to dissolution. The safeguards of
property, liberty, and life were
alike removed (ch. 3:9-10; 5:7, 12; 6:3). The order of society had
been converted into chaos. Incapable of using liberty without
perverting it
into license, it was high time to deprive
As slaves they would be under a regime
of the strong arm, which was the
only one that suited them in
present circumstances. There are chains
forging somewhere for the man who can neither consider others
nor rule
himself.
·
SUCH RIPENING FOREBODES AN EARLY GATHERING. (v. 2.
“The end is come upon my people of
soon as the harvest is ripe. No
practical husbandry could delay the
operation longer.
1. The crop has
then reached the limits of its growth. Like the corn ripe
unto harvest, or the grape
purple and mellow, the natural life of
fully developed itself. Tastes
were matured, habits acquired, and characters
settled into crystalline form.
Things generally
had put on an aspect of
finality, and the
sickle of judgment that follows the ripening of character
need no longer wait. Let the
ripe sinner beware the scythe. The fruits of
unrighteousness
full grown are suggestive of the harvesters on their way.
2. It is then ready to serve its natural purpose. Green
grapes are useless in
the vat, and green faggots would
only put out the fire. It is in the harvest,
when both are mature, that the
wheat and the tares alike are sent to their
ultimate destination. One
purpose, a high and noble one,
proved their unfitness to serve; their exclusive fitness for another purpose
had only now by the same events
become apparent. Reward and
punishment alike take typical
form only when they have reference to lives
and characters which have
assumed an aspect of finality. The hard grain
and the dry faggot are waiting
respectively for the mill and for the fire.
3. After this it
will be in the way of the next crop. When the reaper goes
the ploughman comes. If the
harvesting were neglected the ploughing must
be postponed. Israel had failed
utterly to accomplish its Divine mission,
and, left longer alone, would only prevent its accomplishment by other
agency. “Take
the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents.”
(Matthew 25:40) The unfruitful become in a little while
cumberers of the
ground, and a necessary measure
of practical husbandry is then to cut them off.
4. At this
stage it will begin naturally to decay. Overripe fruit will
“go bad
“at once. If not used or
preserved when ripe, it will be lost altogether.
National decline waits on the development of national
corruption.
become utterly dissolute would
go to pieces according to a natural law,
even if the Assyrian never came.
Indeed, it was in the degeneracy already
apparent that the invader saw
his opportunity and found the occasion of his
coming. The disease
that stops the career of the sensualist means God’s
judgment on one
side, and the natural breakdown of his
constitution on the
other.
·
THE DUNGHILL IS THE DESTINATION OF ALL TAINTED
PRODUCE. (v. 3.) The
incorrigible wrong doer is involved at last in
overwhelming calamity. God’s
judgments must fall, His mercy
notwithstanding. Indeed, they
are an aspect of it. “A God all mercy is
a
God unjust.” He is
leaving the lion to prey on the lamb. The most merciful
course is that which offers most
effective opposition to the wicked doings
of wicked men.
their intolerable abuse of
freedom they showed their fitness only to be
slaves. And according to
character and capacity they must be treated. What
is bad for the table may be good
for the dunghill. The life of many had
become a curse, and it only remained to stop that, and make their death
a
warning. That is one crop which even the sluggard’s garden cannot
refuse
to bear (Proverbs 24:30-32).
·
THE OCCASION OF SUCH A HARVEST HOME IS TOO
DEPLORABLE FOR WORDS.
(. 3, “Hush!”) When judgment is
overwhelming, silence is
fitting.
1. As opposed to songs. These had resounded from the
palace. They spoke
of mirth and revelry. But they would be
turned into yells ere long. In
awestruck anticipation of the
utterance of pain and horror, the prophet bids
the revelers be silent.
2. As opposed to
lamentations. You cannot always “give sorrow words.”
There is a grief that “speaks
not” — the grief of the overwrought heart. “I
was dumb, opening not the mouth, because this stroke was thine.” Such
grief would befit a time like this. Words, however strong, must be beneath
the occasion. Let them then
remain unspoken, and let the eloquence of
silence meet the
overwhelming severity of the visitation.
3. As opposed to reproaches.
and therefore of expostulation.
Its “great transgression” was
committed, its
course unchangeably
chosen, its doom sealed. The condemned
and
sentenced murderer is removed to
his cell in silence. In sterner measures
than abuse of words must his
crime be expiated. His very life is to be
exacted, and windy
denunciation may well be spared. “Let him alone” is of
all measures the most sternly
significant. It is the preternatural hush of the
elemental world, presaging the
thunder crash that shall make the very earth
to reel.
Ripeness for
Judgment (vs. 1-3)
“Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me: and behold a basket
of summer
fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest
thou? And I said, A basket of summer
fruit,” etc. The text
suggests three general truths.
·
WICKED NATIONS GROW RIPE FOR JUDGMENT. The “basket of
summer fruit,” now
presented in vision to Amos, was intended to
symbolize that his country was
ripe for ruin. This symbol suggests:
1. That
fruit in that basket did not spring forth at once; it took many
months to
produce. It came about by a slow and gradual process. Men do not
become
great sinners at once. The character of a people does not reach
its last
degree of vileness in a few years; it takes time. The first seed
of evil is to be
quickened, then it grows, ripens, and multiplies until there is a
crop ready
for the sickle.
2. That
fruit in that basket had reached a stage in which improvement
was
impossible. The bloom was passing away, and rottenness was setting
in.
Nations become incorrigible. The time comes when it may be said — The
harvest is past, all cultivation is impossible. (One of the saddest bit of
Scripture to me is “The
harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are
not saved.” Jeremiah 8:20 - CY - 2022) What
good is your sowing seed
under the burning sun of July or August? The fructifying forces
of nature
will not cooperate with you.
3. That
summer fruit” but
rottenness. Its decomposition was working, and would
soon reduce it to putrescent filth. So it was with
·
TRUE PROPHETS ARE MADE SENSIBLE OF THIS RIPENESS.
God gives Amos a vision for the
purpose. “Thus hath the Lord God
showed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. And He said,
Amos,
what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer frail Then said the Lord
unto me, The end is come upon my people of
true ministers a clear vision of the subjects
of their discourse. This
clearness of vision is in truth their call and
qualification for their Divine
mission. Men,
alas! often assume the work of the ministry whose
mental
vision is so dim that they are unable to see anything with vivid
clearness;
hence they always move in a haze, and their language is
circumlocutory
(wordiness)
and ambiguous. Amongst the vulgar, those who should be
condemned for their dullness get credit for their depth To every
true teacher
God says at the outset, “What
seest thou?” Hast thou a clear vision of this
basket of summer fruit? Hast thou a clear idea of this subject on
which
thou art about to discourse? Thus he dealt with Moses, Elijah,
Daniel,
Paul, John.
·
ALMIGHTY GOD MAKES HIS
PROPHETS SENSIBLE OF THE
RIPENESS OF A PEOPLE’S CORRUPTION IN ORDER THAT THEY
MAY SOUND THE ALARM. Why was Amos thus divinely impressed
with the wretched moral condition of the people of
might be more earnest and emphatical
in sounding the alarm. “The end is
come upon my people of Jsrael; I will
not again pass by them any more.”
And the songs of
the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord
God: there shall
be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cut them
forth with silence.”
What was the calamity he was to proclaim?
1. Universal mourning. “The songs of the
temple shall be howlings.”
Where the shouts of mirth and
the songs of joy had been heard, there
should be nothing but the howlings of
distress. The inevitable tendency of
sin is to turn songs of gladness into howlings
of distress.
2. Universal death. “And
there shall be many dead bodies in every place;
and they shall cast them forth with silence.” (v. 3)The reference is to sword,
pestilence, and famine multiplying the dead so rapidly as to render
impossible the ordinary decencies and ceremonies at funerals.
“Cast them
forth with silence.”
·
CONCLUSION. How stands our country?
Is not its moral depravity
ripening in every direction? Is
it not filling up its measure of iniquities,
TREASURING UP
WRATH AGAINST THE LAST DAY? Does it
not
become all true teachers to sound the alarm? The time seems past
for crying,
“Peace and
safety.” Destruction is at hand; the fields are white for harvest.
(I Thessalonians
5:3; John 4:35)
4 “Hear
this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor
of the land to fail,” The prophet, by admonishing the grandees of their iniquities,
which they will not cast away, shows how ripe they are for
judgment. That
swallow up; better, that pant
after (ch. 2:6-7), like a beast after its
prey, eager to
devour. Even
to make the poor of the land to fail; and
cause the meek of the land to fail. They grasp at the property of the
unresisting poor, adding field to field, and
impoverishing them in various
ways, to root them out of the land.
5 “Saying,
When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn?
and the sabbath,
that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah
small, and the shekel great, and falsifying
the balances by deceit?”
When? expresses impatience
and desire, as in the hymn —
“Thy
joys when shall
I see?”
The new moon. The first day of the month was a holiday, on which all
trade was suspended. It is not mentioned in Exodus,
Leviticus, or
Deuteronomy; but its observance is enjoined in Numbers
28:11, and
various notices of this occur in later Scriptures; e.g. 1
Samuel 20:5;
II Kings 4:23; Hosea 2:11; Colossians 2:16. These greedy
sinners kept the festivals, indeed, but they grudged the time given to them,
and considered it as wasted. The sabbath. Compare the difficulties with
which Nehemiah had to contend in upholding the sanctity of
the sabbath
(Nehemiah 10:31; 13:15-22). May set forth; literally, open; so
Septuagint, καὶ ἀνοίξομεν θησαυρόν - kai anoixomen
thasauron - open
up the treasures. The word expresses the opening of the granaries and
storehouses.
The ephah, by which corn was measured (see note on Micah 6:10). This they made
small, and so gave lees than was paid for. The shekel. The
weight by which money
was weighed. This they made
great, and thus gained too high a price for the
quantity of corn. Coined
money of determined value seems not to have been
used before the return from Captivity, all payments of fixed amount
previous
to that period being made by weighing (compare Genesis 23:16; 33:19;
43:21;
Exodus 30:13; Isaiah 46:6). Falsifying the balances by deceit;
better, as in the Revised Version, dealing falsely with balances of deceit.
To increase their
gains they falsified their scales or used fraudulent weights
(see Leviticus 19:36). Thus they cheated the poor probably
in three ways:
Ø
by small measure,
Ø
exorbitant price, and
Ø
light weight.
6 “That we may buy the poor for silver, and the
needy for a pair of
shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the
wheat?” Buy the poor for silver
(compare ch. 2:6). The probable meaning is
that they so reduced the poor man
by their exactions and injustice, that he was compelled to pay
his debt by
selling himself into slavery (Leviticus 25:39; Deuteronomy
15:12). For a pair
of shoes. For the smallest debt they would deal in this harsh manner.
The
refuse; literally, that which fell through the sieve;
Septuagint, Ἀπὸ παντὸς
γεννήματος ἐμπορευσόμεθα
-
“We will trade in every kind of produce;” Vulgate, Quisquilias frumenti
vendamus, “Let us sell the
refuse of corn.”
The Covetous
Man’s Way (vs. 4-6)
Punishment, however stern, is proportioned rigidly to sin.
They answer to
each other as face to face. From the contemplation of
fate we turn to the horrors of her crime. And they
are dark beyond
exaggerating. To idolatry, dethroning God and robbing Him
of His glory, is
added covetousness defrauding and destroying men. Indeed,
the one is but
a department of the other. The worst type of mammon
worshipper, the
covetous, is an
idolater in a very real sense. (Colossians 3:5) And
covetousness, detached as it was from all religious
restraints, and operating in a
purely heathen connection, was of the most aggravated and
repulsive kind. Acting
in character, observe that:
·
IT SELECTS AN EASY PREY.
(v. 4, “the poor; the meek.”)
1. The poor cannot defend themselves. Their poverty makes
them helpless,
and the weakness which ought to
commend them to protection commends
them to plunder. Covetousness,
the meanest of the vices in any
circumstances, goes down to the
nadir of paltriness when it wrings its gold
“from the hard hands” of the
poor.
2. The meek will not resist. Their position and
disposition are both against
it. They would “rather
suffer wrong.” And they get enough of it to suffer.
Weak on one hand, and
unresisting on the other, they are a doubly
tempting prey to the pitiless
vulture’s beak.
·
IT HAS MURDER IS ITS HEART. “Gape to destroy,” as the beast of
prey its victim at hand. There
is a covetousness that puts its own paltriest
gain above another’s life. It will have men’s money although their life
should pay the forfeit. This is
the very spirit of murder. To make money, at
the necessary cost of human life, is to break the sixth commandment as
well as the eighth.
·
IT HANKERS AFTER SUNDAY TRADING. (v. 5, “When is the
new moon over,” etc.?) These people retained the form of sabbath
observance, but the reality had
been altogether abandoned. They occupied
its sacred hours
with wishes that they were over.
“Sabbath days and
sabbath work are a burden to carnal hearts” (Henry). The hours
drag
heavily. Time-killing devices
are exhausted. “Behold, what a weariness it
is!” (Malachi 1:13) is the verdict on God’s day,
given weekly through all
their years. “When
shall I come add appear before God?” a question that
the spiritually minded ask, is one which the carnally minded cannot even
understand. They are making markets mentally in the very house of God,
and,
with the words of worship on
their lips, “their heart goes after covetousness.”
From Sunday devising to
Sunday transacting of business the step is but a
small one — too small not
to be taken when opportunity and temptation meet.
·
IT PRACTICES UNFAIR DEALING. (vs. 5-6.) As they fear not
God, neither do they regard man.
When religion is abandoned, morality is
undermined. Given greed present,
and religious restraint absent, and
dishonest dealing is inevitable.
1. “One
device is the use of a false balance. “Make the ephah small, and the
shekel great,” i.e. give thirteen pounds to the stone, and charge
twenty-one
shillings to the pound. They
perpetrate thus a double swindle, robbing
“with both hands earnestly.”
Such fraud is too unscientific and direct for
any but the coarser cheats. There are more delicate ways of fraudulent
dealing, which the more refined rogues
affect. Such a method is:
2. Selling an adulterated or inferior article. “The refuse of the
corn we
will sell” (v. 6). This is probably the commonest form of commercial
fraud. There are few
who possess the strength of moral fiber to avoid it
entirely. We might arrange it on
a graduated scale. At one end is the man
who bluntly sells one thing
under the name of another. At the other end is
the man who, in selling,
insinuates the impression that the thing is of better
quality than it really is.
Between these two are dishonest artifices of all
varieties and shades. All,
however, originate in covetousness, eventuate
in
injustice, and deserve the generic name of fraud.
·
IT TRAFFICS IN HUMAN LIFE, AND THAT FOR A
CONTEMPTIBLE PRICE.
(v. 6.) The law, compelling the poor to sell
themselves to their creditors to
work for what they owed, was enforced in
the case of the paltriest debts,
and the needy might be brought into
bondage for want of the price of
even a pair of shoes. To work such
hardship on such trifling
occasion argues inhumanity too gross to be long
endured. The worker has inverted
the natural order, has lost out the sense
of reverence, is blind to the
dignity of human nature, and has conclusively
shown that he is an eyesore, and
his life a curse, to the society in
which he
lives. His selfishness puts the least interest of his own above
the most
essential interest of others.
His greed of gain has so intensified that he is
blind at last to all other
considerations. He has fallen altogether beneath the
human level, and when a man has
done this, the chances are that he has
lived his day. Well may we
pray, “Incline my heart to thy
testimonies, and
not to covetousness.”
Covetousness (vs.
4-6)
It was not for
heterodoxy in theology, it was not for remissness in ritual,
that Amos chiefly reproached the Israelites. It was for injustice, violence,
and
robbery; it was for seeking their own wealth and luxury at the expense
of
the sufferings of the poor. Avarice, or undue love of
worldly
possessions, is a serious vice; covetousness, or the desiring to
enrich self at
the
cost of neighbors, is something very near a crime, for to crime it too
often leads.
·
THE MORAL DISEASE OF COVETOUSNESS. The symptoms may
differ in different states of society; and there are details in
the text which
apply rather to the state of society in
today. But the malady is the same, deep-rooted in the moral
constitution of
sinful men. This sin is:
1. Injurious to the
person who commits it. He who sets his affection upon
this world’s good, who carries his selfishness so far as to
deprive, or even
to wish to deprive, his neighbor of what is his — far more he
who uses
fraud or violence to gratify this desire — is working his own ruin. He is
subverting the standard of value, by setting the material above the
spiritual.
He is dragging his aspirations
down from the stars above his head to the
dust beneath his feet.
2. Mischievous to
society. If all men follow the example of the covetous,
and long for the possessions of others, then human society
becomes a den
of wild beasts bent upon devouring one another, and earth
becomes a very
hell. Instead of being
members one of another, in the case supposed, every
man sees an enemy in his neighbor, and seeks his harm. The
bonds of
society are strained, or even broken.
3. Displeasing to
God. In the ten commandments a place was found for
the
prohibition of this spiritual offence: “Thou shalt
not covet.” This fact is
sufficient to show how hateful is this sin in the eyes of the great
Lord and
Ruler of all.
·
THE DIVINE REMEDY FOR COVETOUSNESS.
1. The recognition of the benevolence and bounty of God. From Him
cometh down “every good gift and every perfect boon.” (James 1:17)
He is the Giver of all, who openeth His hands, and supplieth the
need of
every living thing. (Psalm 145:16) He who would share the Divine nature
must cherish an ungrudging and liberal spirit.
2. The remembrance of the “unspeakable Gift,” and of the incomparable
sacrifice of the Redeemer. Our Saviour’s whole aim was to impart to men
the highest blessings, and in the quest of this aim He gave
His life for us. His
constraining love alone is able to extirpate that selfishness
which in human
nature is the very root of covetousness.
3. The adoption of the counsels and the submission to the
spirit of Christ.
It was His saying, “It is more
blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts
20:35)
7 “The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will
never forget any of their works.” Such crimes as
these, which sap the very
foundations of social life, shall meet with vengeance. The Excellency of Jacob.
This is a title of God Himself, as in Hosea 5:5; 7:10, where it is rendered “pride.”
Thus the Lord is said to swear by His holiness (ch. 4:2), by His soul
(ch. 6:8; compare 1 Samuel 15:29). So here He swears by Himself,
who is the Glory and Pride of
The Vulgate treats the sentence differently, Juravit in superbium
Jacob,
i.e. “The Lord hath
sworn against the pride of Jacob,” against the
arrogancy with which they treat the poor, and trust in their riches,
and
deem themselves secure. So the Septuagint, Ὀμνύει Κύριος κατὰ
τῆς ὑπερηφανίας
Ἰακώβ -
Omnuei Kurios
kata taes huperaephanias ‘Iakob - Yahweh hath sworn
by the pride of Jacob - I will never forget, so as to
leave unpunished.
Literally, if I forget, equivalent to a most decided
denial, as Hebrews
4:3, 5, etc. “Nec mirum est, si
Deus jurare dicatur; quum dormientibus
dormiat et vigilantibus vigilet; hisque qui sibi thesaurizaverunt iram in die
irae dicatur irasci
“ (
Confirming
by an Oath (v. 7)
God’s judgments sometimes take, and will continue to take,
the wicked by
surprise (Matthew 24:36-39). But this
need not be, and should not be,
and can be only
where blindness, or heedlessness, or incredulity make
warning useless. God always warns before He strikes. Sometimes He warns
by divers methods at once. Often He warns again and again. Invariably He
warns with a
solemnity that makes disbelief A
CRIME and STUPID.
Here is a case in point.
·
THE OATH THAT CANNOT BE BROKEN. “God is not a man, that
He should lie.” (Numbers
23:19) To do so would be a natural
impossibility,
a contradiction of Himself. For
the same reason His truthfulness can have no
degrees; His slightest word is
absolutely inviolable. Yet to human
apprehension an oath is
peculiarly convincing, and, accommodating Himself
to men’s weakness, God
condescends, on peculiarly, solemn occasions, not
merely to say, but swear. Here
He swears:
1. By Himself. “The Pride of Jacob” is
Jehovah Himself. Elsewhere
explicitly God swears:
a.
by “Himself”
(Jeremiah 51:14),
b.
by His “great
Name” (ibid. ch. 44:26),
c.
by His “holiness”
(here ch. 4:2),
d.
by His “life” (Ezekiel 33:11).
This is of necessity. Men “swear
by the greater.” God,
“because He can
swear by no greater, swears by Himself”
(Hebrews
6:17-18). In this form of
oath the greatest Being is invoked, and so the
maximum of solemnity is reached, whether it is God who
swears or man.
2. By Himself in His ideal relation to
alas! did not “glory
in the Lord.” They gloried in their idols. “These be thy
gods, which
brought thee out of the
said, in their blind fatuity, of
the molten calf. God had been forgotten and His
wonders ignored before they were
many days accomplished, and in
this
forgetfulness they had
persistently gone on. Yet was He none the less their
Glory still,
a.
the Strength of
b.
their Light and Life,
c.
the Founder, Builder,
Sustainer, of their kingdom,
d.
the one Source and Spring of all that made them great,
This fundamental
relation He emphasizes here in vowing vengeance on their
sin. By this character, as their Life and Strength and
Excellence, He swears
He will
now degrade and destroy them utterly. The nearer God’s tie to the
rebels, the greater outrage is
their rebellion, and the more embittered
the
after relations. It is on the ruins of violated friendship that the most
irreconcilable enmity arises.
Not even the heathen is as hateful, or doomed
to a fate as direful, as the
apostate.
·
THE RECORD THAT CANNOT BE ERASED. “I will not forget and
forever.” To forget is to forgive, put out of sight, treat as
non-existent. “I
will remember
their iniquities no more.” Sin unatoned for cannot be
forgiven. God must
be just in His justifying, and justice demands
satisfaction. From the provided satisfaction the unbelieving sinner has
turned away, and so
from the grace of his own salvation. Neither can sin
unforsaken. The sinner is in actual conflict with God, and the rebel
may not
be forgiven with arms in his
hands. Neither can sin unrepented of. Still
loving sin, the impenitent is
not in a moral condition to appreciate pardon,
and the gift of God is not to be
thrown away. By such a threefold cord was
·
THE WORKS THAT CANNOT BE FORGOTTEN. There are sins
more heinous, and for the
authors of which it will be less tolerable in the
judgment than for others
(Matthew 11:22).
1. Such are the sins committed against the poor
and needy. “God hath
chosen the poor of
this world” (James 2:5)
Their poverty presents the
minimum of resistance to His
grace. Their hardships excite His special pity.
Their helplessness commends them
to His special protection. He gives them
the most prominent place in His
religion. He champions them against their
enemies. He requires His people
to do the same. He identifies Himself with
them in the judgment, and He
deals with men then in terms of their relation
to the duties they owe the needy
(Matthew 25:35-45). While God is
“the Avenger of
all such” (I Thessalonians 4:6), oppression of the poor
shall not go unpunished.
2. Such especially
are the sins committed against the poor by those who
bear His Name. The clement of beneficence bulked large in Judaism.
Besides the general injunctions
to regard the poor (Deuteronomy 15:7-11),
there were special enactments
allocating to them a poor tithe
(ibid. ch. 14:28-29), the spontaneous
produce of the soil
(Leviticus 25:5), the droppings
from the sheaves, and the produce of
the corners of the fields (ibid. ch.
19:9-10; 23:22), also sheaves
accidentally dropped
(Deuteronomy 24:19), as much from vineyard or
field as the hungry wayfarer
required to eat on the spot (Deuteronomy
23:24-25), and periodical
entertainments at the tables of the rich
(ibid. ch. 16:10-11). Thus nothing
could be more utterly
antagonistic to the genius of the Jewish religion than to
rob or oppress the
poor. The Israelite
guilty of it sinned against Scripture, against custom,
against education, against every
deterrent powerful with men and
increasing guilt
before God. Christianity, too, is
essentially benevolent. To
“love one
another,” and “do good unto
all,” is
the very spirit and essence
of the religion
of Christ. Injustice or oppression
under Christian auspices is
sin in its most abominable and heinous form.
The Mercy of
God (v. 7)
This language is actual truth, although it is based upon
and accords with
the
experience of created intelligences. Memory is one of the primitive
endowments of intellect, admitted to be such even by philosophers, who
are
very loath to admit that the mind of man can possess any such
endowments. A man who should never forget would indeed be a marvel, a
miracle. But it would be inconsistent with our highest conceptions of
God
to suppose it
possible for anything to escape His memory. In
His mind there
is,
of course, neither past nor future, for time is a limitation and condition
of
finite intelligence. To the Eternal all is present; all events to Him are
ONE ETERNAL
NOW!
·
A GENERAL TRUTH CONCERNING THE DIVINE NATURE AND
GOVERNMENT. Nothing
is unobserved by God, and nothing is forgotten
by Him. All men’s actions as they are performed photograph
themselves
indelibly upon the very nature of the Omniscient and Eternal.
Nothing
needs to be revived, for nothing ever becomes dim.
·
A SOLEMN TRUTH CONCERNING THE CONDUCT AND
PROSPECTS OF THE SINFUL. Parents forget the wrong doing of their
children, and rulers those of their subjects. Hence many evil deeds
escape
the recompense which is their due. But Jehovah, who “remembered”
(to
use the expression necessarily accommodated to our infirmity)
all the acts
of rebellion of which the chosen people had been guilty, does
not lose the
record of any of the offences committed by men. On the contrary, they are
written “in a Book of remembrance” —
a book one day to be unrolled
before the eyes of the righteous Judge. (Malachi 3:16)
·
A PRECIOUS ASSURANCE CONCERNING THE GOOD
PURPOSES AND ACTIONS WHICH GOD DISCERNS AND
REMARKS IN HIS PEOPLE. Thus we find saintly men of old in their
prayers beseeching the Lord to remember them: “Remember me, O Lord,
for good” “Remember me
with the favor thou showest unto thy people.”
(Psalm
106:4) He who said, “I know thy works”
(Revelation 2:9); who said,
“I will never
forget any of their works” (v.8); is a Being to whom we may
safely commend ourselves and all that is ours which He Himself
creates and
which He approves.
·
APPLICATION.
1. In our confessions let us be frank and open with God, who
searcheth the
heart, and who forgetteth nothing. It would be folly
to suppose that He
forgets our sins; it would be wickedness to strive to forget them
ourselves.
“If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive.”
(I John 1:9)
2. In our prayers for pardon let us bear in mind that there
is a sense in
which He will “remember no more” the offences of
His penitent and
believing people. He will treat us as if He had forgotten all our
rebellion,
and as if He remembered only our purposes and vows of
loyalty.
8 “Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that
dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a
flood; and it shall
be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of
Shall not the land
tremble for this? “This” is the coming
judgment, or the oath with which God announced it in the previous
verse
and the prophet asks, “Shall not the land tremble as with
an earthquake
when the Lord comes to judgement?”
The Septuagint, rendering ἐπὶ τούτοις -
epi touotois - in other words - takes the reference to be to the “works” or sins of
the people (v. 7); but the thought in these two verses is the
punishment of the
transgressions, not the transgressors themselves. And it shall rise up wholly as a flood
(ch. 9:5). The Septuagint, pointing
differently, renders, Καὶ ἀναβήσεται
ὡς ποταμὸς
συντέλεια
- Kai anabaesetai
hos potamos sunteleia - “And destruction
shall come
up as a river;” the Vulgate, Et ascendet quasi fluvius universus; it is
best, however,
to refer both clauses to the
land shall heave and swell like the waters of the
And it shall be
cast out and drowned, as by the flood of
it shall be tossed up and sink again, like the
picturesque comparison, which would allude to a phenomenon
well known
to the Israelites. It is
as though the whole earth were turned into a sea,
tossing and labouring under a
tempestuous wind (compare Isaiah 24:4).
9 “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I
will cause the sun to go down at noon, and
I will darken the earth
in the clear day:” I will cause the
sun to go down at noon. This is probably to
be taken metaphorically of a sudden calamity occurring in
the very height
of seeming prosperity, such as the fate of
Pekah’s own murder (II Kings 15:29-30; see also ibid. ch.17:1-6).
A like metaphor is common enough; e.g. Joel 2:2:
3:15;
Job 5:14; Isaiah 13:10; Jeremiah 15:9. Hind calculates that
there
were two solar eclipses visible in
B.C. 763, and February 9, B.C. 784. Some have suggested
that the prophet
here predicts the latter in the year of Jeroboam’s death;
but this, it is
discovered, would have been so partial as hardly to be
noticeable at
with God’s moral government, should be the subject of the
prophet’s
prediction (Pusey). Doubtless a
sudden reverse is signified (compare
Matthew 24:29, etc.), expressed in terms rendered
particularly
appropriate by some late and well remembered eclipse. The
Fathers note
here how the earth was darkened at the Passion of our Lord.
A Sunset at
Noon (v. 9)
This language is at once prophetic and figurative. It predicts
an event in the
moral world under the figure of an analogous event in the
physical world.
The symbolical event is not an eclipse of the sun, which
the language does
not suit, but his going down at midday; and the event
symbolized is clearly
death in the midst of young life.
To all outward
seeming she was just in the meridian of her life. But her sun
would never reach
the west. Her end would be
premature, sudden, and
tragic. As if the sun dropped in an instant beneath the horizon
from midday
and the radiance of noon gave place in that instant to the
darkness of
night; SO
of death fall in a sky all lit with the golden glow of
noon.
·
THERE IS TO MEN A NATURAL TERM OF EXISTENCE, WHICH
IS THEIR DAY. There is
a natural life term to all earthly creatures. This
varies endlessly for each,
between limits so far apart as a millennium and a
day. There are cheloniae (turtles) that lengthen out their slow existence
to
centuries, and there are insects
that sport out their little life in an afternoon.
Intermediate between these
widely distant limits is man with his three score
years and ten (Psalm 90:10). This period is
his day. Beyond it few may
hope, and none expect, to live.
To reach it even there must be normal
conditions of life within and
around. This is not a long time at best, Let the
utmost diligence be used, and
the work that can be done in it is not much.
Take from it the two childhoods,
infancy and infirm age, and it becomes
greatly shorter still. Not more
than fifty active years enter into the longest
life. On the most sanguine
assumption these are the working hours of our
day of life. What we do for God and men is done while they pass. They
may not be so many, but they can
scarcely be more, and if they are all given
us we may thankfully reckon that
we have lived our time.
·
THERE ARE EXCEPTIONAL OASES IN WHICH THIS PERIOD
IS CUT SHORT. The
normal life term is not the actual one. The
overwhelming majority never see
it. When the septuagenarian has his
birthday feast, the friends of
his youth are not one in ten among the guests.
From childhood
till that hour they have been dropping off, and now
nine-tenths and more are gone.
1. A moiety of the
race die in childhood. Infant mortality is an obscure
subject. (Especially when
Abortion on Demand is considered) Whether
from the standpoint of equity or
economy, there is much in it we cannot
explain. Their death before they
have transgressed brings up
the solemn mystery of original
sin, and the suffering of one for the sin of
another (Romans 5:14). Then
their death before activity begins or
consciousness dawns, and so
apparently before they have been used, raises
the almost equally perplexing
question — Is there, so far as this life goes, a
single human being made in vain?
2. Many more die
before or at maturity. They are healthy till growth is
almost complete. The body has
acquired the strength and hardness needed
for the burden of life’s work. The mind has
received the training which fits
it to solve the problems of existence, and govern and use
the body in
accomplishing the highest purposes of both. Yet just now, when the tool
has been formed and tempered and
finished, it is broken before it has once
been used at its best in the
more serious work of life. Here we are face to
face not only with an apparently
purposeless creation, but also with what
seems an unproductive training.
3. Many also die with their work to all appearance
unfinished, or only
well begun. Their capacity is growing; their field is widening; their
influence is increasing. They
are in the full swing of activity and usefulness.
Yet at the very moment when the
richest fruit of their life work is
beginning to form, they are cut
down — cut down, too, where their death
leaves a permanent blank, and no one is available to take
up their work.
Their mysterious character and
solemn interest prepare a field for faith in
the fact that —
·
THESE SUNSETS AT NOON ARE DIVINELY ORDERED. “I will
cause,” etc. To kill and to make alive are Divine prerogatives. Let the
sun
set where he will, the event is
God’s doing. And, in the light of Scripture
and observation, a philosophy of
such events is not altogether impossible
to conceive.
1. Take noon
sunsets in sin. These are often untimely and far from
unaccountable.
a. Sin is war against God;
and while He is omnipotent and righteous and
the Disposer of life, it cannot
conduce to length of days. The
wickedness
of men is a continual provocation of His just judgment, and
therefore
an inevitable shortener of life.
b. Sin is also
war against the species. The wicked are hateful and hating
one another. The essential
selfishness of the corrupt heart is misanthropy
(a dislike of humankind) in
another aspect. Misanthropy, again, is murder
in its earlier stage (1 John
3:15), leading on to the other stages of it
(James 4:1-2); and a dispensation
of universal murder must mean many
a life cut short and many a sun untimely set. (Gangs - warnings of
Proverbs 1:10-31)
c. Sin does violence to our own nature. The normal life of the body is a
pure one; the direction of
appetites only to their legitimate objects,
and to these in the strictest
moderation. This is obviously the royal road
to health and length of days.
Perversion of appetite on the one hand,
and excessive indulgence of it
on the other, do violence to the natural
order. If the life is
impure, in fact, and as it is impure, it is unnatural,
and therefore likely
to be short. There is no
“fleshly
lust” which does
not “war against the life” (1 Peter 2:11)
of soul and body both. Of course,
the operation of second causes, such as the laws of
reciprocity and health,
is not something distinct from the Divine agency, but the
instrumentality
it employs. The laws of
nature are simply God’s executive, the hands
and fingers which weave the threads of His purpose into
the web of
His work.
2. Take noon sunsets
in grace. These also are not unknown. The good die
young. Sometimes
they die through the sin of others, sometimes in
consequence of sin
of their own. These, however, are the
occasions only of
their removal. The reason of it
lies deep in the purposes of God.
a.
Some are taken away from the evil to come. (Isaiah 57:1.) The
young Ahijah,
“because
in him was found some good thing toward the
Lord God of
to his rest before the failing
of the provoked disaster (1 Kings 14:10-14).
The good King Josiah also, because
he the previous removal of some
gentle spirit from their circle
becomes intelligible as a merciful folding
of the tender lamb before the
crash of the nearing storm.
b.
Some are taken away because their work, although
apparently only
beginning, is really done. Not every man’s life
work can be identified,
during its progress, by either
his cotemporaries or himself. Sometimes
it is incidental, aside from his
line of effort, and altogether unconscious.
A child lives to awake by its
endearing ways a parent’s sleeping heart.
A youth lives by the tokens of
early grace to bring brothers and sisters
to look at the unseen, and the
life for God. A man lives to carry some
movement over its crisis, which,
in its after stages, will require a
different hand. If we only knew “the end of the Lord” (James 5:11),
we should see that it is always
attained before the means are discontinued;
that He never breaks a tool till
its work is done.
c.
Some can only do their work by dying. The errand of Bathsheba’s first
child into the
world was by its death to bring David to his knees and a
right mind (II Samuel 12:18-23). And how many an early death in a
careless family has been
that family’s salvation! Even the minister
cut down in his early prime,
with a life of usefulness opening out,
as it seems, before him, may preach a
sermon by his death more
potent for good than all he
could have
said alive. Untimely death
may even in certain cases anticipate the loss of influence for good.
We know men of influence in the
Church who in their
erratic age are
undoing the good they were
honored to do in their earlier years.
Such men have only lived too long. If their sun had set at
noon their life work would have
been far greater, humanly speaking,
than it will now be. Looking as we
do at the surface of things, and
blind to their deeper relations and far-reaching issues,
we are not
in a position to criticize THE PROVIDENTAL ARRANGEMENTS
OF GOD! To believe that there is order in the seeming tangle, and
ultimate and wider good behind
the present partial evil, is the
attitude
of that enlightened faith which argues that
INFINITE
WISDOM
omnipotent on the
one hand and benevolent on the other, being at
the helm of things, will steer in character.
10 “And I
will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into
lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth
upon all loins, and
baldness upon every head; and I will make
it as the mourning of an
only son, and the end thereof as a bitter
day.” I will turn your feasts into
mourning, etc. (compare v. 3: ch. 5:16-17; Lamentations 5:15; Hosea 2:11;
Tobit 2:6). Sackcloth. A token of mourning (1 Kings 20:31; Isaiah 15:3;
Joel 1:8, 13). Baldness.
On shaving the head as a sign of mourning, see
note on Micah 1:16; and compare Job 1:20; Isaiah 3:24;
Jeremiah 16:6; 47:5;
Ezekiel 7:18). I
will make it; Ponam eam (Vulgate); sc. terram.
But it is better
to take it to refer to the whole state of things mentioned
before. The
mourning
for an only son was
proverbially severe, like that of the
widow of Nain (Luke 7:12,
compare Jeremiah 6:26; Zechariah 12:10). And the end thereof as a bitter
day. The calamity should
not wear itself out; it should be bitter unto the
end. Septuagint, Θήσομαι... τοὺς μέτ
αὐτοῦ ὡς
ἡμέραν ὀδύνης - Thaesomai..tous
met autou
hos haemeran odunaes - “I will make…
those with him as a day of anguish.”
Avarice
(vs. 4-10)
“Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make
the poor of the
land. to fail,” etc. The prophet here resumes his denunciatory discourse
to
the
avaricious oppressors of the people. The verses may be taken as God’s
homily to greedy men. “Hear this.” Hush! pay attention to what I am going
to
say. Listen, “ye
that swallow up the needy.” The
words suggest three
remarks concerning avarice.
·
IT IS APPALLING IN ITS SPIRIT.
1. It is sacrilegious.
“When
will the new moon be gone, that we may sell
corn? and the sabbath,
that we may set forth wheat?” Bad as
still kept up the outward observances of religion (something
that secularism
in
as commercial inconveniences. In their hearts they wished
them away, when they seemed
to obstruct their greedy plans. With
sacrilegious spirit, they treated religious institutions as worthless
in
comparison with sordid gain. Avarice
in heart has no reverence for
religion.
2. It is dishonest. “Making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and
falsifying the balances by deceit.” It is always overreaching, always
cheating; it generally
victimizes the poor; it makes its fortunes out of the
brain and muscles, the sweat and life, of the needy.
3. It is cruel.
“Ye
that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the
land to fail That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy
for a pair of
shoes.” Avarice deadens
all social affections, steels the heart, and makes its
subject utterly indifferent to all interests but its own; it will swallow up, or
as some render it, gape after, the needy just as the wild
beast pants after its
prey. “Greedy men are a generation whose teeth are as swords,
and their
jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth,
and the needy
from amongst men” (Proverbs 30:14).
·
IT IS ABHORRENT TO JEHOVAH. “The Lord hath sworn by the
Excellency of
Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.” Some
render the “Excellency of Jacob” the “Pride of Jacob,” and
suppose the
expression to mean that
therefore it is by Himself that God swears, for He can swear by no
one
greater. God observes all the cruelties which avarice inflicts
upon the poor.
Nothing is more abhorrent to His
benevolent nature than covetousness. One
of the leading principles in his moral code is, “Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor’s wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
anything
that is thy neighbor’s.”
(Exodus 20:17) Against no sin did His blessed
Son preach more earnestly. “Take heed, beware of covetousness,”
said He,
“for a man’s life consisteth not in
the abundance of things which he
possesses.”’ (Luke 12:15).
He closes the gates of heaven against covetousness.
“The covetous
shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven”
(1 Corinthians 6:10).
1. It is repugnant
to His nature. His love is disinterested, unbounded love,
working ever for the good of the universe. Greed is a hideous
antagonist to
this.
2. It is hostile
to universal happiness. He created the universe in order to
diffuse happiness; but greed is
against it.
a. It is against the
happiness of its possessor. The soul under the influence
of
covetousness can neither grow in power nor be gratified in desire.
Avarice is an element of hell. It is in
truth one of the fiery furies of
the soul.
b. It is against the
happiness of society. It prompts
men to appropriate
more of the
common good than belongs to them, and thus to diminish the
required
supplies of the multitude. It is the creator of monopoly, and
monopoly is
the devil of social life.
·
IT IS A CURSE TO SOCIETY.
See what punishment comes on the
land through this! “Shall not the land tremble for
this,” etc.? Observe:
1. How God makes nature an avenging angel He makes “the
land tremble.”
He “toucheth
the hills, and they smoke” (Psalm 104:32), pours out waters as
a flood. He can make the world of waters deluge the earth as
the overflowing
Nile at times inundates the
back the sun. “I will cause the sun to go down at noon.”
2. How God makes a multitude to suffer on account of the
iniquities of the
few. “And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into
lamentations; and I will bring up sackcloth,” etc.
·
CONCLUSION. Avoid
covetousness. It is the chief of the
principalities
and powers of darkness. It may be considered the great fountain whence
all
the streams of crime and misery flow forth. It is eternally
opposed to the
virtue and happiness of the universe. The fable of Midas in Grecian
mythology is strikingly illustrative of this tremendous evil.
Bacchus once
offered Midas his choice of gifts. He asked that whatever he might
touch
should be changed into gold. Bacchus consented, though sorry that
he had
not made a better choice. Midas went his way rejoicing in his
newly
acquired power which he hastened to put to the test. He could
scarcely
believe his eyes when he found a twig of an oak, which he had
plucked,
become gold in his hand. He took up a stone, and it changed to
gold. He
touched a sod; it did the same. He took an apple from a tree; you
would
have thought he had robbed the garden of the Hesperides. His joy knew no
bounds; and when he got home he ordered the servants to set a
splendid
repast on the table. Then he found to his dismay that whether he
touched
bread, it hardened in his hand, or put a morsel to his lips, it
defied his teeth.
He took a glass of wine, but it
flowed down his throat like melted gold. In
utter terror, fearing starvation, be held up his arms shining
with gold to
Bacchus, and besought him to
take back his gift. Bacchus said, “Go to the
river Pactolus: trace the stream to
its fountainhead; there plunge your head
and body in, and wash away your fault and its punishment.”
Hence Midas
learned to hate wealth and splendor.
Carried Away
as with a Flood (vs. 8-10)
A man in earnest is always graphic. If he be also inspired
he can afford to
be explicit. In this passage Amos is both. The words were
spoken before
the convulsions they foretell, and written after some of
them had occurred.
But the descriptions of events, transpired between the
speaking and the
writing, have no flavor of an ex post facto deliverance.
There is a bare
record of the original verbal utterance without the attempt
to write into any
part of it details of what meantime had become
history. Such an apologetic
device, suicidal in any case, is a thing to which a man who
is God’s
mouthpiece could not and needs not stoop.
·
THE EARTH TREMBLING WHEN GOD SWEARS. “For this” (v. 8),
i.e. the oath of God, and its purport. That oath means a catastrophe on
the way in the shock of which the earth would tremble. The very utterance
of it was a cause of trembling. “He
uttered His voice, the earth melted.”
(Psalm 46:6) His word is a word of power. It operates in
the physical forces,
and shakes the whole frame of
nature. In the poetic language of the psalmist,
“the voice of the
Lord breaketh the cedars;” “shaketh
the
wilderness;” (“divideth the
flames
of fire.” (Psalm 29:5, 7-8); In
the
world of matter, as in the world
of spirit, the great ultimate
force is the
Word of God.
·
THE CREATION SUFFERING IN THE SUFFERINGS OF MEN.
Man sins, and the earth is
smitten. It was so at first with the ground. It was
so at the Deluge with the lower
animals and plants. It is so here. The
universe is one
throughout, and all its parts are in closest connection and
interdependence. “Not a leaf rotting
on the highway but is an indissoluble
part of solar and stellar
worlds” (Carlyle). Our life, our animal spirits, our
reason itself, have fundamental
and probably undiscovered relations with
the sun and moon and stars.
Relations so intimate may be assumed to be
mutual, and we need not be
surprised if we find casualties meant primarily
for either extending to both.
·
GOD’S JUDGMENTS, LONG THREATENED, TAKE THE
INCREDULOUS BY SURPRISE AT LAST. (v. 9.) The antediluvians
were no better prepared for the
Flood by their hundred and twenty years’
warning. They absorbed themselves in their work and pleasure, and
knew
not till the
Flood came (Matthew 24:38-39). So with the Sodomites,
warned by Lot (Genesis 19:14);
and the inhabitants of
capture, warned by Christ
(Matthew 24:33). Warning is thrown away
on UNBELIEF and its end is always A
SURPRISE! In this case the sun
would set at noon. The end would
come untimely. In the midst of days and
prosperity
the Stock Market and materialism in our day! CY - 2022) There
would be
no anticipation, no
fear, no suspicion even, of such an event.
So with the
ungodly at last. The judgment will surprise them and look UNTIMELY but
only because their incredulity
they make irremediable.
·
RETRIBUTION CLOSELY ADJUSTED TO THE
CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CRIMINAL. (v. 10.)
Ø Sinners are smitten in their joys.
Ø The covetous in their possessions,
Ø the luxurious in their
luxuries,
Ø the revelers in their revelries.
When sackcloth and ashes are substituted for “ivory couches,” and baldness
for hair fragrant with the chief ointments, when howls rend the throats till
lately melodious in song, the stroke is identified as that of One who never
“beats the air.” The fly of judgment, selecting infallibly the sore spot of
the sufferer, reveals its mission
as from God himself. The joys in which
the sinner is smitten are, moreover, those most closely connected with
his sins. God’s stroke is as obviously
righteous as appropriate. Falling on
the sins that provoke them, God’s judgments are self-interpreting.
luxurious appliances were simply plunder, the wages of iniquity, sometimes
even the price of blood. Hence
God singles them out for special attack, and
will plague
·
THE FINALITY OF GOD’S RETRIBUTIVE ACT. The rule is that
judgment is more severe in proportion as it is long delayed.
1. It makes an end.
The sun goes down, and ends the day of life. After that
nothing can come but night — the
night of death. Destruction for sinners
of
Divine provision. When the last
measure of retribution is executed, the last
shred of the sinner’s good has
been torn away.
2. That end unspeakably bitter. The wine cup of God’s
fury is necessarily a
bitter draught. There is wounded
dignity in it, and wasted mercy, and
outraged love, and all ingredients which are gall and wormwood in the
mouth. They are digging for
themselves Marah pools no branch can
sweeten, who “heap
up wrath against the day of wrath,” etc.
3. That bitterness the bitterness of utter desolation. “And make it like
mourning for an
only one.” That is bitter mourning
indeed. The loss of an
only one is total loss,
including our all. It is irreparable loss, for the dead
cannot come back. It is loss not
physical merely, nor sentimental merely,
but loss wringing the heart
strings, and leaving us with the very jewel of
life torn from its
setting. Such
is the mourning in which unforgiven sin is
expiated at last. It is heart
agony, unrelieved, unmitigated, and never to
end:
Ø
“Son,
remember;” (Luke 16:25)
Ø
“There shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth;” (Matthew
13:42)
Ø
“Their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.” (Isaiah
66:24; Mark 9:44,46)
A Bitter Day (v. 10)
There is something incongruous in this language. Day is the
bright and
beauteous gift of God, and its sunlight and all the glory it reveals
may justly
be
taken as the emblem of happiness and prosperity. The light is sweet; the
day
is joyous. Yet here there is depicted a bitter day! The context makes it
evident that this is attributable
to sin, which makes all sweet things bitter,
and all bright
things dim.
·
THE BITTER DAY OF
DAYS OF SWEETNESS. Festivals and songs are mentioned in the
context as distinctive of the religious life of the chosen people.
And in
times of national plenty and prosperity there had never been
wanting
abundance and even luxury, mirth
and music, festivity and joy. These
things have vanished into the past now that the “bitter
day” has dawned.
·
THE BITTER DAY OF
CIRCUMSTANCES OF TERRIBLE DISTRESS. The sun goes down, the
land is darkened, mourning and lamentation are heard, sackcloth
is worn,
the hair is shaved off the heads lately anointed for the
banquet and
wreathed with flowers; the signs are those of “mourning for an only son.”
The fallen and wretched
condition of the nation could not be depicted more
graphically. The prophet artist is skilful to heighten the dark colors
which
are expressive of
·
THE
BITTER DAY OF
SINS. What is called misfortune and calamity is
often really punishment.
There was nothing accidental in
what befell this nation. On the contrary,
Israel brought
disaster upon itself by unfaithfulness, disobedience,
rebellion. As the people had
sown, so they were to reap. Under the
government of a just God it cannot be otherwise. The fruit of sin cannot be
otherwise than bitter.
·
THE BITTER DAY OF
OF WISDOM TO EVERY NATION. The rule of a righteous God is a fact
not to be disputed. The retributive consequences of that rule
are not to be
evaded. Let not the people imagine a vain thing, or the rulers
take counsel
together against the Lord.
11 “Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a
famine in the land, not a famine of bread,
nor a thirst for water, but
of hearing the words of the LORD:” This shall be the bitterness at the end;
they had rejected the warnings of the prophets (ch.7:12,
etc.); now the Word of God
and the light of His teaching should fail them. Famine. When the light of God’s
revelation is withdrawn, their longing for the Word,
however sore and
great, shall remain unsatisfied, like that of Saul (1
Samuel 28:6-8 ). They
may grieve like the psalmist, “We see not our signs; there is no
more any
prophet; neither is there among us any that knoweth how long”
(Psalm
74:9); but it will be in vain (see a similar punishment
threatened,
Lamentations 2:9; Ezekiel 7:26; Micah
3:7).
Famine of the Word of God (v.
11)
There are many blessings which are not suitably valued
until they are
withdrawn and missed. It is so with bodily health, with political
liberty,
with domestic happiness. And the prophet assumes that it will be found the
same with the Word of God. When it is possessed — when the Scriptures
are
read and the Gospel is heard — it is too often the case that the
privilege is unappreciated. But what must it be to be shut off from
all
communication with Heaven! And such, it was foretold, was to be the lot
of
overtake
·
THE WORDS OF GOD ARE TO THE SOUL AS BREAD AND
WATER TO THE BODY. Man’s bodily constitution is such that food and
drink are a necessity to health and even to life; to be even
partially starved
is to be disabled and to be rendered wretched. Even so, the
truth, the
righteousness, the love of God, are the necessary aliment
of the spiritual
nature. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)
Fellowship with God
by His Word is indispensably necessary in order that a high,
holy, and
acceptable service may be rendered.
·
A FAMINE OF THE WORD OF GOD IS TO BE DREADED AS
DETRIMENTAL TO SPIRITUAL LIFE AND WELL BEING.
1. If the knowledge of God Himself be withheld, there is for
man no
solution of all the mysteries of the universe, or the mysteries of
His being.
2. If the Law of God be concealed, there is no sufficient guide through
human life.
3. If the gospel of Christ be withheld, there is no peace
for the conscience,
no sufficient inspiration for duty, no assurance of immortality.
4. If revelation be
denied, there is no power, no principle sufficient to guide
and to govern human society. (Vide ‘The Eclipse of Faith,’ by the late
Henry Rogers, where a chapter
“The Blank Bible,” sets forth the
consequences which may be supposed to follow upon the disappearance of
the Holy Scriptures.)
(See it in its entirety below)
·
THOSE WHO POSSES THE WORD OF GOD SHOULD BY
THESE CONSIDERATIONS BE INDUCED TO STUDY IT AND TO
USE IT ARIGHT.
Neglect of the Divine Word may not in our case entail
the actual deprivation foretold in the text. But it certainly will
entail an
indifference and insensibility to the truth, which will be equally injurious
and disastrous. Now the Word is ours; let us listen to it with reverence and
faith; let us obey it
with alacrity and diligence. “Walk in the light while ye
have the light, lest darkness come upon you.” (John
12:35)
12 “And they shall wander from sea to sea, and
from the north even to
the east, they shall run to and fro to seek
the word of the LORD,
and shall not find it.” They shall wander; literally, they shall reel. The
verse
implies the eagerness of their
unsatisfied desire, which seeks everywhere for the
revelation which for their sin is
denied them. From sea to sea. This
expression is taken, by Keil and
others, to mean here “all the world over,”
as Psalm 72:8; Micah 7:12; Zechariah 9:10; but it is probably
used by the prophet in a more restricted sense, as it would
not be natural
for him to refer in the first place to the seeking of the
words of God
beyond the limits of the
from the Sea of Galilee or the Dead Sea to the
the north even to
the east — from the north round again to the east, the
south not being
mentioned, because there alone was the true worship of
God to be found,
and they
refused to seek it there (Pusey). Of course,
according to the wide scope taken by prophecy, which is not
exhausted by
one fulfillment, we may see here the fate of the
Jews to the present time
hopelessly seeking Messiah and the Word of God, never finding THAT WHICH
THEY ONCE
RECKLESSLY REJECTED! By some error the Septuagint render,
Σαλευθήσονται ὕδατα ἀπὸ
τῆς θαλάσσης
κ.τ.λ. - Saleuthaesontai hudata
apo taes
thlassaes k. t. l. - they shall be shaked
as water from sea north to east - etc. - unless
they mean,“They shall be tossed
as waters,” etc.
13 “In that day shall the fair virgins and young
men faint for thirst.”
This verse is parallel to the preceding. The thirst,
spiritual and
physical, shall affect the fair virgins and young men — those
in all the
freshness, beauty, and vigor of youth. Shall faint; literally,
shall be
veiled, covered,
expressive of the feeling of faintness, when the sight grows
dim and a mantle of darkness drops over one (Jonah 4:8). If the
strongest thus
fail, much more will the rest succumb to
the threatened
calamity.
Soul Famine
(vs. 11-13)
“Behold, the days come, saith the
Lord God, that I will send a famine in
the land,
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the
words of the Lord,” The
Israelites now despised the message of the
prophets, and by a just retribution, in addition to all their other calamities,
they should experience
a total withdrawal of all prophetic communications.
In whatever direction they might proceed, and whatever
efforts they might
make to obtain information relative to the issue of their trouble, they
should meet with nothing
but disappointment. The subject of these words
is
soul famine, and they suggest three general remarks.
·
THAT THE PROFOUNDEST WANT OF HUMAN NATURE IS A
COMMUNICATION FROM THE
ETERNAL MIND. This is implied in
the Divine menace of sending a worse famine than the mere want
of bread
and water. They were special communications from Himself,
not the
ordinary communications of nature, that Jehovah here refers to. And
man
has no greater necessity than this; it is the one urgent and
imperial need.
Two great questions are
everlastingly rising from the depths of the human
soul
1. How does the Eternal feel in
relation to me as a sinner? Nature tells me
how He feels in relation to me as a creature; but nature was
written before I
fell.
2. How am I to get my moral nature restored? I have a sense of
guilt that is
sometimes intolerable; the elements of my nature are in eternal
conflict; I
have sadly terrible forebodings of the future. Now, the special Word
of
God can alone answer these
questions. These are the problems of men
the
world over. God’s Word is
to the human soul what food is to the body, that
which alone can strengthen, sustain, and satisfy. But as THE SOUL IS OF
INFINITELY MORE IMPORTANCE THAN THE BODY! THE
DIVINE WORD IS MORE NEEDED THAN MATERIAL FOOD!
·
THAT THE GREATEST DISEASE OF HUMAN NATURE IS A
LACK OF APPETITE FOR THIS COMMUNICATION. Which is the
greater want of the body — the want of food, or the want of
appetite for
food? The latter, I think, for the latter implies disease. It
is so with the soul.
The vast majority of souls have lost the appetite for the
Divine Word. They
are perishing, shrivelling up, for the lack
of it. The desire is gone! They
die,
not for the want of the food, but for the want of appetite. As a rule, the
starvation of souls is not for the lack of food, but for the lack of
appetite.
The worst of this disease is:
(1) men are not
conscious of it;
(2) it works the
worst ruin.
·
THAT THE GREATEST MISERY OF HUMAN NATURE IS A
RAVENOUS APPETITE AND NO SUPPLIES. “They shall wander from
sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run
to and fro to
seek the Word of the Lord, and shall not find it.”
1. The appetite
will be quickened sooner or later. Sometimes — would it
were ever so! — it is quickened here, where supplies abound. Hear Job’s
cry, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him!”
(Job 23:3) And hear Saul’s
cry at Endor, “Bring me up Samuel.” (I
Samuel 28:11) Oh for one word from
His lips, one loving sentence from the mouth of the
great Father! “Bring me
up Samuel” (The
reason being: “And when Saul inquired of the
Lord, the
Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim,
nor by prophets.”
ibid. v. 6 - CY -
2022)
2. When the appetite is quickened and there is no supply, it is an
inexpressible calamity. SUCH A PERIOD WILL
COME! “The days
shall come,” says Christ, “when ye shall desire to see one of the days
of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it” (Luke 17:22). And again,
“Ye shall seek me,
and not find me: for where I am, thither ye cannot come”
(John 7:34). (Contrast this with the opportunities that we
have in life to
seek Him. Consider
Jeremiah 29:10-23, especially v. 14, “And ye shall
seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your
heart.
And I will be
found of you, saith the Lord....” CY - 2022)
Oh miserable state of immortal souls, to be crying to the
heavens, and
those heavens to be as hard as brass!
14
“They that swear by the sin of
liveth; and, The manner of
and never rise up again. They who trusted in idols shall find no help in them.
They who swear by. Those who reverence
and worship, as Deuteronomy 6:13;
10:20. The sin of
Hosea 8:5-6). Septuagint, κατὰ τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ Σαμαρείας - kata tou ilasmou
Samareias -
by the
propitiation of
life of thy god. This was the other calf erected at
Dan, near the source of the
in the extreme north (1 Kings 12:29). The manner of
Ζῆ ὁ θεός
σου βηρσαβεέ
- Zae ho theos
sou Baersabee - “Thy god,
O Beersheba,
lives.” Some commentators, ancient and modem, think
that the actual road which
led to
liveth,” “By the life of the way to
pilgrimage to
sense of “way,” as ὁδὸς -
hodus is used in Acts (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23) for mode of
worship, or form of religion, the ritual, or use of the
service there. (For
hundred and forty-four miles. They shall fall, etc. This was partially
fulfilled by the destruction of the kingdom of Israel and
the deportation of
its inhabitants; and its truth to this day is demonstrated by the fate of the
Jews who will not receive Jesus as the promised Messiah.
The
Scarcity that Swallows the Residue of Good
(vs. 11-14)
To waste is to want, in things temporal and spiritual
alike. Abuse is
inevitably followed by deprivation, and the prodigal is one
who is
purveying for himself a suit of rags. God caps our “will
not” with His “shall
not,” and the rude hand of change soon spills the cup of good we
have
refused to taste. Under the operation of this law the
nation of Israel would
now come. They had wasted the Word of God, neglecting it, despising it,
and at last
forbidding it to be spoken. Now they should “want” it as a penal
result. It would, be taken from them in anger, and that at a time
when even
their inappreciation would long
for it as for life itself. Observe here:
·
THE WORST OF ALL
FAMINES. “Not a hungering for bread, nor a
thirst for water,
but to hear the words of Jehovah.” This is a new form
of
disaster, and one that is specially severe. This follows from the fact that:
1. It is in the spiritual sphere. “Fear not them
which kill the body.”
(Matthew 10:28) IT IS THE LEAST PART OF US!
Whether it live or die,
enjoy or suffer, is a
question involving trivial interests, and these during a
limited period. THE SOUL IS THE
MAN and its well being, next to
God’s glory, the great interest. For its injury there is no compensation,
for its loss no parallel. When
it suffers, the worst has happened.
2. It is due to the loss of a necessary of spiritual life. The deepest need of
humanity is a communication from God. “This is life
eternal, to know thee
the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)
Hence the Word which God speaks is the Word of life. Apart from it
spiritual life is
impossible.
(To illustrate this I recommend the introduction to the following sermon
by Charles H. Spurgeon - If you are interested, you can Google it to read,
but if you prefer, you can listen to it in audio form at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de-cHGkD8Ts CY - 2022)
LIVING
ON THE WORD.
DELIVERED
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
ON
THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 15, 1883.
“Man doth not live by bread only, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of the LORD doth man live.” —
Deuteronomy 8:3.
THE main thing for every one of us is life. What would it
profit a man, if
he should gain the whole world, and lose his own life? Of
what avail would
riches be if life were gone? What is the value of broad
acres to a dead man,
or the applause of nations to one who lies in his
sepulcher? The first thing,
therefore, that a man is to look to, is life. There are
some persons who take
this truth in a wrong sense, and so make mischief of it.
They say, “We must
live;” whereas, in the sense in which they mean it, there
is no such necessity
at all. That we must continue to live here, is not at all
clear; it were better
far for us to die than to live by sinning. Martyrs have
preferred to suffer
most fearful deaths rather than, even by a word, to bring
disgrace upon the
name of Christ; and every true Christian would prefer
immediate death
rather than dishonor his great Lord. and Master.
Now, brethren, according to our common notion, if we must
live, we must
eat; we must eat bread, which is the staff of life; and,
sometimes, when
bread is scarce, and hunger sets up its sharp pangs, men
have been driven
to put forth their hand unto iniquity to provide themselves
with necessary
food. You remember how our Divine Lord, who is our perfect
Exemplar in
all things, acted when he was in this case. When he had
fasted in the
wilderness forty days and forty nights, he hungered, and
then the evil one
came to him, and said, “If thou be the Son of God, command
that these
stones be made bread.” This was, in effect, saying, “Leave
off trusting in
your Heavenly Father. He has evidently deserted you; he has
left you in the
wilderness among the wild beasts; and though he feeds them,
he has not
fed you. He has left you to starve; therefore, help
yourself; exercise your
own power. Though you have put it under God’s keeping, and,
being here
on earth, you have become your Father’s servant, yet steal
a little of your
service from your Father, and use it on your own behalf.
Take some of that
power which you have devoted to his great work, and employ
it for your
own comfort. Leave off trusting in your Father; command those
stones to
be made bread.” At once this text flashed forth, as the
Master drew it out,
like a sword from its scabbard: “It is written, khan shall
not live by broad
alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God.” It was
only by the use of this “sword of the Spirit, which is the
Word of God,”
that the arch-enemy was driven off from Christ; and I want
to use that
weapon now. I may say of it what DAVID said of the sword of
Goliath,
“There is none like, that; give it me.” That sword, with
which Christ won
the victory, is the best one for his servants to employ.
This answer of our Lord. to the tempter teaches us that the
sustenance of
our life, although naturally, and according to the ordinary
appearance of
things, it depends upon bread, yet really depends upon God.
It is God who
gives the bread the power to nourish the man. To me, it
seems a great
mystery that bread, or any other kind of food, should do
this. I can
understand how, being matter in a certain form, it tends to
build up the
material structure of the body, albeit that the process is
a very wonderful
one by which bread turns into flesh, and blood, and bone,
and muscle, and
hair, and all sorts of things, by a perpetual working of
the power of God.
But it is more remarkable still that this material should
seem, at any rate, to
some extent, to nourish man’s heart, so that the very soul
and the living
principle within him should be dependent upon its being
sustained by the
food of the body. Can any of us to tell how it is that the
inner spirit sots in
motion the muscles of the hand, and the nerves that
communicate with the
brain? How is it that the impalpable spirit thing which you
cannot see or
hear, which is not itself at all material, — yet possesses
powers by which it
controls the materialism of this outward body? And how is
it that the
material substance in bread somehow works to the keeping of
our spirit in
connection with this flesh and blood? I cannot explain this
mystery, but I
believe it to be a continual miracle wrought by God. I am
frequently told
that miracles have ceased. It seems to me that miracles are
the rule of
God’s working, and that, everywhere, things of marvel and
of wonder are
to be perceived if we will look below the outward
appearance. Dig for a
while beneath the mere surface, and we shall see —
“A
world of wonders: I can say no less.”
According to our text, we are called upon to observe that
the power which
keeps us alive is not in the bread itself, but in God, who
chooses to make
use of the bread as his agent in nourishing our frame. I do
not infer from
this truth that therefore I ought never to eat, but to live
by faith, because
God can make me live without bread. Some people seem to me
to be very
unwise widen they infer that, because Goal can heal me,
therefore I am
never to take fit and proper medicine for a disease,
because I am to trust in
Got, I do trust in God, but I trust in God in God’s own
way; and his way
of procedure is this, if I wish to satisfy hunger, I must
ordinarily eat bread;
if I wish to be cured of any malady, I must take the remedy
he has
provided. That is his general rule of working; but, still,
it would be an
equally grievous error, and would show another form of
folly, if we were
to say that it is the bread or the medicine that does the
work. It is the bread
that feeds, it is the medicine that heals; but it is God
who works by these
means; or, if he pleases, who works without them. If it
were necessary that
his child should live, and he did not choose to put ravens
into commission
to bring him bread and meat, or if he did not command a
widow woman to
sustain his servant, yet he could support him without any
means, for “man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God.” When the Lord speaks, and bids him live, he
lives. God
spoke the world into existence; his Word still keeps the
whole fabric of the
universe upon its pillars; and, surely, that Word is able
to sustain our soul
in life even without the use of outward means, or by means
as long as God
pleases.
That, I think, is the meaning of the text. God took his
people into the
wilderness, where there was no sowing, no reaping, no
making bread, and
they seemed as if they must be famished there; but, then,
God made the
manna drop from heaven, to show that, if not by one means,
yet by another
he could sustain them. He took them where there were no
rippling brooks
or gentle purling streams of water, but his servant struck
the flinty rock,
and the water came forth to show that God could give men
drink, not only
from the fountains of the deep below, or by rain from the
clouds above, but
from the solid rocks if so he pleased. God can give you
bread to eat, my
friend. Though not perhaps in the way you hope, it may come
in a fashion
of which you have never even dreamed. I have read of one
who was
condemned to be starved to death; and, as the judge
pronounced the
sentence, he said to him, “And what can your God do for you
now?” The
man replied, “My God can do this for me, — if he pleases,
he can feed me
from your table.” And so it happened, though the judge
never knew it, for
his own wife sent food to the poor man, and kept him in
life till at last he
regained his liberty. God has a way of using most unlikely
instruments to
effect his purpose. He can, if he pleases, make the waters
stand upright as a
heap, until the chosen nation has passed through the midst
of the sea; or he
can permit the fire to blaze around his people, and yet
keep them from
being burned, as Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego came forth unharmed
from Nebuchadnezzar’s burning
fiery furnace, and not even the smell of
fire had passed upon them.
I now come to the more spiritual meaning of the text; and I
pray God to
make it to be rich food for your souls. I ask you to
notice, first, the Word:
“every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of the Lord.” Secondly,
consider the use we are to make of the Word; we are
to live upon it; and
then, thirdly, note the adaptation of that Word to our
use, — every word
of it, for, according
to the text, we do not live upon some words that come
out of God’s mouth: “but by every word that proeeedeth out of the mouth
of the Lord doth man live.” (I recommend the whole sermon which can be
found at the above address:
CY - 2022)
(I reiterate the point above here to pick up where we left
off: CY - 2022)
2. It is due to the loss of a necessary of spiritual life. The deepest need of
humanity is a communication from God. “This is life
eternal, to know thee
the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)
Hence the Word which God speaks is the Word of life. Apart from it
spiritual
life is impossible
(1) It is the
revelation of spiritual things. God and His will and way; the
soul, its duty and destiny, —
are subjects on which it alone throws
adequate light. The light of nature makes known the existence of God, and
some features of His character. But its twilight, whilst
touching here and
there a mountain
top, leaves
all the valleys in darkness. After
trying four
thousand years, “the
world by wisdom knew not God” (I
Corinthains 1:21),
and did not because it could
not. In
all saving relations Christ is
the
Revelation of the Father (Hebrews 1:1; John 1:18), and Scripture
alone reveals Christ
(ibid. ch.
5:39), and the way of life through Him.
(2) It is the
vehicle of spiritual power. “The power of God unto salvation”
(Romans 1:16) is Paul’s synonym for
the gospel. Spiritual energy, no doubt,
inheres (exists essentially or permanently) in the Holy Spirit,
but He operates
only through or with the truth It carries the power:
a. by which life is
given (1 Peter 1:23),
b. by which life functions are discharged (Romans 10:17),
c. by which the life principle is sustained (Jeremiah 15:16),
d. by which growth is promoted (1 Peter 2:2).
In fine, the “engrafted
Word,” received with meekness, “is able to save our
souls James 1:21). ” The power:
a. that begins,
b. that sustains,
c. that develops,
d. that matures religious life
is a
power linked inseparably to the Word.
That any saving
grace is attainable in the
absence of it is a thing
impossible of proof,
and which all
Scripture testimony bears against.
(3) It is the
assurance of spiritual good. “We
are saved by hope,” and it is
through patience and comfort of
the Scriptures that this heavenly candle is
lighted in the soul (Romans
8:24; 15:4). The Scriptures reveal the
heavenly blessings in store, and
thus supply the warp and woof (essential
foundation) out of which the web
of comfort is woven. What we shall have,
and that we shall have it, is the burden of the Word of
promise, which,
making the rich future sure, makes thus the
present glad and strong.
Poor indeed would man be if
there were no such word to twine the heart’s
ease when his brow is
wrung in anguish and distress. To
penitent, God elsewhere, allotting the bread of adversity, promises, “Thine
eyes shall see thy teachers,” etc. (Isaiah 30:20-21). This
is calamity, but with
compensation. “Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
cometh out of the
mouth of God;” and with God, their
Guide and
Counselor, no scarcity of bread could make them altogether wretched.
But, vice versa, the
proposition will not hold. For the loss of the
Word
there is no offset possible. The impoverishment is central and radical, and
all hedging is out of the
question.
3. This loss at a time when it would be most keenly felt. “The Word of the
Lord was precious
in those days; there was no open vision.” (I Samuel 3:1)
The mere fact of the sudden
withdrawal of the Word would create an
immediate demand for
it. In this case the demand would rest
on a practical
necessity. “Crushed by oppressors, hearing only of gods more cruel than
those who make them, HOQ WILL THEY HUNGER AND
THIRST FOR
ANY TIDINGS of One who cares for the weary and heavy laden?”
(Maurice).
(See Matthew 11:28-30) (CY)
(To illustrate this I am attaching below
THE BLANK BIBLE.
By
Henry Rogers
A curious
and entertaining paper here reprinted is taken from a
little book called The Eclipse of
Faith which, first published in 1852,
by the year I86o had reached a ninth
edition, but has now been long
out of print. The author of the book was Henry Rogers, a
theologian
and scholar of great repute and
influence in his day. Rogers (I8o6-
I877)
who was a Congregational minister and a voluminous author and
editor, held in succession various academic
offices, among them the
Professorship of
English language and literature at
piety. As a Christian apologist he followed the tradition of Bishop
of scepticism prevalent in his day. It called
forth a reply from Francis
W. Newman, brother
of the Cardinal, which was followed by a rejoinder,
The Defense of the Eclipse of Faith, in 1860. There is a good account of
W.G.J.
I thought I was
at home, and that on taking up my Greek
Testament
one morning to read (as is my wont) a
chapter, I found, to my
surprise, that what seemed to be the old familiar
book, was a total blank ;
not a character was inscribed in it or
upon it. I supposed that some
book like it had, by some accident, got
into its place ; and without
stopping to hunt for it, took down a large
quarto volume which contained
both the Old and New Testaments. To my
surprise, however,
this also
was a blank from beginning to end. With that facility of
accommodation to any absurdities which is proper
to dreams, I did
not think very much of the coincidence
of two blank volumes having
been substituted
for two copies of the Scriptures in two different
places, and therefore quietly reached down a
copy of the Hebrew
Bible,
in which I could just manage to make out a chapter. To my
increased surprise, and even something like
terror, I found that this
also was a
perfect blank. While I was musing on this unaccountable
phenomenon, my servant entered the room, and said
that thieves had
been in the house during the night, for
that her large Bible, which she
had left on the kitchen table, had been removed, and another volume
left by mistake in its place, of just the
same size, but made of nothing
but white paper. She added,
with a laugh, that it must have been a
very queer kind of thief to steal a Bible
at all
; and that he should have
left another book instead, made it the
more odd. I asked her if anything
else had been missed, and if there were any signs of people having
entered the house. She answered in the
negative to both these questions;
and I began to be strangely perplexed.
On going out into
the street, I met a friend, who, almost before
we had exchanged greetings, told me
that a most unaccountable robbery
had been committed at his house during
the night, for that every copy
of the Bible had been removed, and a
volume of exactly the same size,
but of pure white paper, left in its
stead. Upon telling him that the
same accident had happened to myself, we
began to think that there
was more in it than we had at first surmised.
On proceeding
further we found every one complaining, in similar
perplexity, of the same loss ; and before night it
became evident that
a great and terrible " miracle
" had been wrought in the world ; that
in one night silently, but effectually,
that hand which had written its
terrible menace on the walls of Belshazzar's palace, had reversed the
miracle
; had sponged out
of our Bibles every syllable they contained,
and thus reclaimed the most precious
gift which heaven had bestowed,
and ungrateful man had abused.
I was curious to
watch the effects of this calamity on the varied
characters of mankind. There was universally,
however, an interest
in the Bible now it was lost, such as
had never attached to it while it was
possessed
; and he who had
been but happy enough to possess fifty
copies might have made his fortune. One
keen speculator, as soon as
the first whispers of the miracle began
to spread, hastened to the
depositories of the Bible Society and the great
book-stocks in Paternoster
Row, and offered to
buy up at a high premium any copies of the
Bible that might
be on hand ; but the worthy merchant was
informed
that there was not a single copy
remaining. Some, to whom their
Bible had been
a " blank " book for twenty years
and who would never
have known whether it
was full or empty, had not the lamentations of
their neighbours impelled them to look into it, were
not the least loud
in their expressions of sorrow at this
calamity. One old gentleman, who
had never troubled the book in his life,
said it was " confounded hard
to be deprived of his religion in his
old age " ; and then another, who
seemed to have lived as though he had
always been of Mandeville's
opinion, that " private vices were public
benefits," was all at once
alarmed for the morals of mankind. He
feared, he said, that the loss of
the Bible would have " a cursed bad
effect on the public virtue of the
country."
As the fact was
universal and palpable, it was impossible that,
like other miracles, it should leave the
usual loopholes for scepticism.
Miracles in
general, in order to be miracles at all, have been singular or
very rare violations of a general law,
witnessed, by a few, on whose
testimony they are received, and in the
reception of whose testimony
consists the exercise of that faith to which
they appeal. It was evident
that, whatever the reason of this miracle,
it was not an exercise of docile
and humble faith founded on evidence no
more than just sufficient
to operate as a moral test. This was a
miracle which it could not be
denied,
looked marvellously like
a" judgment." However, there were,
in some cases, indications enough to
show how difficult it is to give
such evidence as will satisfy
the obstinacy of mankind. One old skeptical
fellow, who had been for years bed-ridden, was long
in being convinced
(if, indeed he ever was) that anything extraordinary had
occurred in
the world
; he at first attributed the reports of what he heard to the
"
impudence "
of his servants and dependents, and wondered that they
should dare to venture upon such a
joke. On finding these assertions
backed by those of his acquaintance,
he pished and pshawed, and looked
very wise, and ironically congratulated
them on this creditable conspiracy
with the insolent rascals, his
servants. On being
shown the
old Bible, of which he recognised the binding,
though he had never
seen the inside, and finding it a very
fair book of blank paper, he quietly
observed that it was very easy to substitute the one book for the
other,
though he did not pretend to divine the
motives which induced people
to attempt such a clumsy piece of
imposition ; and on their persisting
that they were not deceiving him, swore
at them as a set of knaves,
who would fain persuade him out of his
senses. On their bringing him
a pile of blank Bibles, backed by the
asseverations of other neighbours,
he was ready to burst with
indignation. " As to the volumes,"
he said,
cc it was not
difficult to procure a score or two ' of commonplace books,'
and they had doubtless done so to carry
on the cheat ; for himself, he
would sooner believe that the whole world
was leagued against him,
than credit any such nonsense." They
were angry, in their turn, at
his incredulity, and told him that he
was very much mistaken if he
thought himself of so much importance that
they would all perjure
themselves to delude him, since they saw
plainly enough that he could
do that very easily for himself,
without any help of theirs. They
really did not care one farthing whether he
believed them or not : if
he did not choose to believe the story
he might leave it alone. "Well,
well," said he, " it is all very
fine ; but unless you show me, not one
of these blank books, which could not
impose upon an owl, but one of
the very blank Bibles themselves, I will
not believe." At this curious
demand, one of his nephews who stood by (a
lively young fellow) was
so excessively tickled, that though he
had some expectations from the
skeptic, he could not help bursting out into
laughter ; but he became
grave enough when his angry uncle told him
that he would leave him
in his will nothing
but the family Bible, which he might make a ledger
of, if he pleased. Whether this resolute old
skeptic ever vanquished
his incredulity, I do not remember.
Very different
from the case of this skeptic was that of a most
excellent female relative, who had been
equally long a prisoner to her
chamber, and to whom the Bible had been, as to so
many thousands
more, her faithful companion in solitude, and
the all-sufficient solace
of her sorrows. I found her gazing
intently on the blank Bible, which
had been so recently bright to her with
the lustre of
immortal hopes.
She burst into
tears as she saw me. " And has your faith left you too,
my gentle friend ? " said
will. He
who has taken away the Bible has not taken away my memory,
and I now recall all that is most precious in that book which
has so
long been my meditation. It is a heavy
judgment upon the land ; and
surely," added this true Christian,
never thinking of the faults of others,
I, at least,
cannot complain, for I have not prized as I ought that
book which yet, of late years, I think I
can say, I loved more than any
other possession on earth. But I
know," she continued, smiling through
her tears, that the sun
shines, though clouds may veil him for a
moment
; and I am
unshaken in my faith in those truths which have
been transcribed
on my memory though they are blotted from my
book. In these hopes I have lived,
and in these hopes I will die."
I
have no consolation to offer to
you," said I, for you need none."
She quoted many of
the passages which have been, through all ages,
the chief
stay of sorrowing humanity ; and I thought the words of
Scripture had
never sounded so solemn or so sweet before. I shall
often come to see you," I
said, to hear a chapter in the Bible, for you
know it far better than I."
No sooner had I
taken my leave than I was informed that an old
lady of my acquaintance had summoned me
in haste. She said she
was much impressed by this extraordinary
calamity. As, to my certain
knowledge, she had never troubled the contents of
the book, I was
surprised that she had so taken to heart the
loss of that which had,
practically, been lost to her all her days. Sir," said she, the moment
I entered,
"the Bible, the Bible." "Yes, madam," said I, this is
a very grievous and terrible
visitation. I hope we may learn the lessons
which it is calculated to teach
us." I am sure," answered she, I
am not likely to forget it for a while for
it has been a grievous loss to
me." I told her I was very glad.
"Glad!" she rejoined. Yes,''
I said, I am glad to find that you think it so
great a loss, for that loss
may then be a gain indeed. There is, thanks be to God, enough left
in our memories to carry us
to heaven/' " Ah ! but," said
she, the
hundred pounds, and the villainy of my
maid-servant. Have you not
heard
? " This gave
me some glimpse as to the secret of her sorrow.
She told me that
she had deposited several bank-notes in the leaves of the
family Bible, thinking that, to be sure,
nobody was likely to look there
for them. No sooner,"
said she, were the Bibles made useless
by
this strange
event, than my servant peeped into every copy in the house,
and she now denies that she found anything
in my old family Bible,
except two or three blank leaves of thin
paper, which she says she
destroyed
; that if any characters were ever on them they must
have
been erased, when those of the Bible were
obliterated. But I am sure
she lies ; for who would believe that
heaven took the trouble to blot out
my precious bank-notes? They were not
God's word, I trow.''
It was
clear that she considered
the promise to pay " better by far than any
promises " which the book contained. I
should not have cared so
much about the Bible," she whined,
hypocritically, because, as you
truly observe, our memories may retain
enough to carry us to
heaven "
-a little in
that case would certainly go a great way, I thought to myself
and if not,
there are those who can supply the loss. But who is
to get my bank-notes back again ? Other
people have only lost their
Bibles." It was, indeed, a case beyond my
power of consolation.
The calamity not
only strongly stirred the feelings of men, and
upon the whole, I think, beneficially, but
it immediately stimulated
their ingenuity. It was wonderful to see
the energy with which men
discussed the subject, and the zeal, too, with
which they ultimately
exerted themselves to repair the loss. I
could even hardly regret it,
when I considered what a spectacle of
intense activity, intellectual and
moral, the visitation had occasioned. It was
very early suggested that
the whole Bible had again and
again been quoted piecemeal in one
book or other ; that it had impressed its
own image on the surface of
human literature, and had been reflected
on its course as the stars on
a stream. But alas ! on investigation
it was found as vain to
expect that
the gleam of star-light would
still remain mirrored in the water, when
the clouds had veiled the stars
themselves, as that the bright characters
of the Bible would remain reflected in
the books of men when they
had been erased from the book of God. On
inspection, it was found that
every text, every phrase which had been
quoted, not only in books of
devotion and theology, but in those of poetry
and fiction, had been
remorselessly expunged. Never before had I had any
adequate idea
of the extent to which the Bible
had moulded the
intellectual and moral
life of the last eighteen centuries, nor
how intimately it had interfused
itself with habits of thought and modes of
expression ; nor how naturally
and extensively its comprehensive
imagery and language had been
introduced into human writings, and most of all
where there had been
most of genius. A vast portion of
literature became instantly worthless,
and was transformed into so much waste
paper. It was almost impossible
to look into any book of merit, and
read ten pages together,
without coming to some provoking erasures
and mutilations, some
hiatus 'Valde deflendi, which made whole passages perfectly
unintelligible.-
Many of the
sweetest passages of Shakespeare were converted
to unmeaning nonsense, from the absence
of those words which his
own all but divine genius had
appropriated from a still diviner source.
As to
Waiter Scott's
novels were filled with perpetual lacunae. I hoped it
might be otherwise with the philosophers,
and so it was ; but even here
it was curious to see what strange ravages
the visitation had wrought.
Some of the most
beautiful and comprehensive of Bacon's Aphorisms
were reduced to enigmatical nonsense.
Those who held
large stocks of books knew not what to do. Ruin
stared them in the face ; their value fell
seventy or eighty per cent.
All branches of
theology, in particular, were a drug. One fellow said
that he should not so much have minded if
the miracle had spunged
out what was human as well as what was
divine, for in that
case he
would at least have had so many thousand
volumes of fair blank paper,
which was as much as many of them were
worth before. A wag
answered, that it was not usual, in despoiling a
house, to carry away
anything except the valuables. Meantime,
millions of blank Bibles
filled the shelves of stationers, to be
sold for day-books and ledgers so
that there seemed to be no more
employment for the paper makers in
that direction for many years to come. A
friend, who used to mourn
over the thought of palimpsest
manuscripts-of portions of Livy and
chronicler-exclaimed, as he saw a tradesman trudging off with a
handsome morocco-bound quarto for a day-book,
" only think of the
pages once filled with the poetry of
Isaiah, and the parables of Christ,
sponged clean to make way for orders for
silks and satins, muslins,
cheese, and bacon I " The old authors, of course, were left to
their
mutilation
; there was no
way in which the confusion could be remedied.
But the
living began to prepare new editions of their works, in which
they endeavoured to give a new turn to the
thoughts which had been
mutilated by erasure, and I was not a little
amused to see that many,
having stolen from writers whose
compositions were as much mutilated
as their own, could not tell the
meaning of their own pages.
It seemed at first
to be a not unnatural impression that even those
who could recall the erased texts as they perused the injured books who
could mentally fill up the
imperfect clauses-were not at liberty
to inscribe them ; they seemed to fear
that if they did so the characters
would be as if written in invisible ink, or would surely
fade away. It
was with trembling that some at length
made the attempt, and to their
unspeakable joy found the impression durable.
Day after day passed ;
still the characters remained ; and the
people at length came to the
conclusion that God left them at liberty, if they could, to reconstruct
the Bible for themselves out of their
collective remembrances of its
divine contents. This led again to some
curious results, all of them
singularly indicative of the good and ill that is in human nature. It
was with incredible joy that men came to
the conclusion that the book
might be thus recovered nearly entire, and
nearly in the very words of
the original, by the combined effort of
human memories. Some of
the obscurest of the species, who had
studied nothing else but the Bible,
but who had well studied that, came to
be objects of reverence among
Christians and booksellers ; and the various texts they quoted were
taken down with the utmost care. He who
could fill up a chasm by the
restoration of words which were only partially
remembered, or could
contribute the least text that had been
forgotten, was regarded as a
sort of public benefactor. At length, a
great public movement amongst
the divines of all denominations was
projected to collate the results of
these partial recoveries of the sacred text. It was curious again, to see
in how various ways human passions and
prejudices came into play.
It was found
that the several parties who had furnished from memory
the same portions of the sacred text,
had fallen into a great variety of
different readings ; and though most of them
were of as little importance
in themselves as the bulk of those
which are paraded in the critical
recensions of Mill, Griesbach,
or Tischendorf, they
became, from the
obstinacy and folly of the men who contended
about them, important
differences, merely because they were differences.
Two reverend men
of the
synod, I remember, had a rather tough dispute as to whether it
was twelve baskets full of fragments of the five loaves which the
five
thousand left, and seven baskets full of the seven loaves which four
thousand had left, or vice versa: as also
whether the words in John
vi. 19, were " about twenty or five and
twenty," or " about thirty or
five and thirty furlongs."
To do the assembly
justice, however, there was found an intense
general earnestness and sincerity befitting
the occasion, and an equally
intense desire to obtain, as nearly as
possible, the very words of the lost
volume; only (as was also, alas I natural) vanity in some; in others,
confidence in their strong impressions and in
the accuracy of their
memory; obstinacy, and pertinacity in many more
(all aggravated as
usual by
controversy), caused many odd embarrassments before the
final adjustment was effected.
I was particularly
struck with the varieties of reading which mere
prejudices in favour of certain systems of theology occasioned in the
several partisans of each. No doubt the
worthy men were generally
unconscious of the influence of these prejudices ; yet, somehow, the
memory was seldom so clear in relation to
those texts which told against
them as
in relation to those which told for them. A certain Quaker had
an impression that the words
instituting the Eucharist were preceded
by a qualifying expression "and
Jesus said to the twelve, Do this in
remembrance of me," while he could not
exactly recollect whether or
not the formula of baptism was expressed
in the general terms, some
maintained it was. Several Unitarians had a
clear recollection that in
several places the authority of manuscripts,
as estimated in Griesbach's
recension, was decidedly against the common reading ; while the
Trinitarians
maintained that Griesbach's recension in those instances
had left that reading
undisturbed. An Episcopalian began to have
his doubts whether the usage in favour of the interchange of
the words
"
bishop " and
'' presbyter " was so uniform as the Presbyterian and
Independent
maintained, and whether there was not a passage in which
Timothy and Titus
were expressly called "bishops." The Presbyterian
and Independent had similar biases ; and
one gentleman who was
a strenuous advocate of the system of
the latter, enforced one equivocal
remembrance by saying, he could, as it were,
distinctly see the very
spot on the page before his mind's eye.
Such tridts will imagination
play with the memory, when preconception
plays tricks with the
imagination! In like manner, it was seen that while
the Calvinist
was very distinct in his recollection of
the ninth chapter of Romans,
his memory was very faint as respects
the exact wording of some of
the verses in the Epistle of James; and
though the Arminian had
a
most vivacious impression of all those passages which spoke of the
claims of the law, he was in some doubt
whether the apostle Paul's
sentiments respecting human depravity, and
justification by faith alone
had not been a little exaggerated. In short, it very
clearly appeared
that tradition was no safe guide ; that
if, even when she was hardly a
month old, she could play such freaks with
the memories of honest
people, there was but a sorry prospect of the
secure transmission of
truth for eighteen hundred years. From
each man's memory seemed
to glide something or other which he
was not inclined to retain there,
and each
seemed to substitute in its stead something that he liked
better.
Though the
assembly was in the main most anxious to come to a
right decision, and really advanced an
immense way towards completing
a true and faithful copy of the lost
original, the disputes which arose,
on almost every point of theology,
promised the world an abundant crop
of new sects and schisms. Already there
had sprung up several whose
names had never been heard of in the
world, but for this calamity.
Amongst them were
two who were called the " Long Memories
"
and the " Short Memories."
Their general tendencies coincided
pretty much with those of the orthodox and
Rationalists.
It was curious
to see by what odd associations, sometimes of
contrast sometimes of resemblance, obscure
texts were recovered,
though they were verified, when once
mentioned, by the consciousness
of hundreds. One old gentleman, a
miser, contributed (and it was all
he did
contribute) a maxim of prudence, which he recollected, principally
from having systematically abused it. All
the ethical maxims,
indeed, were soon collected ; for though, as
usual, no one recollected
his own peculiar duties or infirmities,
every one, as usual, kindly
remembered those of his neighbours. Husbands remembered
what was
due from their wives, and wives what was
due from their husbands.
The unpleasant
sayings about" better to dwell on the housetop," and
the perpetual dropping on a very rainy
day," were called to mind by
thousands. Almost the whole of Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes were contributed,
in the merest fragments, in this way.
As for Solomon's
"
times for every
thing," few could remember them all, but everybody
remembered some. Undertakers said there was
a " time to mourn,"
and comedians that there was a "
time to laugh " ; young ladies innumerable
remembered there was a " time to love
" ; and people of
all kinds that there was " a
time to hate " ; everybody knew there was
a " time to speak " ; but a
worthy Quaker reminded them that there
was also a " time to keep silence."
Some dry parts of the laws of Moses were recovered by the
memory
of jurists, who seemed to have no
knowledge whatever of any other
parts of
the sacred volume ; while in like manner one or two antiquarians
supplied some very difficult genealogical and
chronological
matters, in equal ignorance of the moral and
spiritual contents of the
Scriptures.
As people became
accustomed to the phenomenon, the perverse
humours of mankind displayed themselves in a variety of ways. The
efforts of the pious assembly were
abundantly laughed at ; but I must,
in justice, add, without driving them
from their purpose. Some
profane wags suggested there was now a good
opportunity of realizing
the scheme of taking not
" out of the Commandments,
and inserting
it in the Creed. But they were
sarcastically told that the old objection
to the plan would still apply ; that
they would not sin with equal relish
if they were expressly commanded to do so, nor take such pleasure in
infidelity, if infidelity became a duty. Others said that if the world
must wait till the synod had concluded
its labours, the
prophecies of
the New Testament would not be written
till some time after their
fulfillment
; and that if all the conjectures of the learned
divines were
inserted in the new edition of the Bible, the
declaration in John would
be literally verified, and
that the world itself would not contain all
the books which would be written."
But the most
amusing thing of all, was to see, as time made man
more familiar with this strange
event, the variety of speculations which
were entertained respecting its object
and design. Many began gravely
to question whether it was the duty
of the synod to attempt the reconstruction
of a book of which God himself had so
manifestly deprived
the world, and whether it was not a
profane, nay, an atheistical,
attempt
to frustrate His will. Some, who were secretly glad to
be released from
so troublesome a book, were
particularly pious on this head, and exclaimed
bitterly against this rash attempt to
counteract and cancel the
decrees of heaven. The Papists, on their
part, were confident that the
design was to correct the exorbitancies of a rabid
Protestantism, and
show the world, by direct miracle, the
necessity of submitting to the
decision of their church and the
infallibility of the supreme Pontiff;
who, as they truly alleged, could decide all
knotty points quite as well
without the Word of God as with it.
On being reminded that the
writings of the Fathers, on which they laid
so much stress as the vouchers
of their traditions, were mutilated by
the same stroke which had demolished
the Bible (all their quotations from the
sacred volume being
erased), some of the Jesuits affirmed that many
of the Fathers were
rather improved than otherwise by the
omission, and that they found
these writings quite as intelligible and
not less edifying than before.
In this, many
Protestants very cordially agreed. On the other hand,
many of our modern infidels gave an
entirely new turn to the whole
affair, by saying that the visitation was
evidently not in judgment, but
in mercy ; that God in
compassion, and not in indignation, had taken
away a book which men had regarded with
an extravagant admiration
and idolatry, and which they had exalted
to the place of that clear
internal oracle which he had planted in the
human breast ; in a word,
that if it was a rebuke at all, it was a rebuke to a rampant "
Bibliolatry ."
As I heard all
these different versions of so simple a matter, and found
that not a few were inclined to each, I
could not help exclaiming, " In
truth the devil is a very clever fellow,
and man even a greater blockhead
than I had taken him for." But in
spite of the surprise with which I
had listened to these various
explanations of an event which seemed to
me dear as if written with a sunbeam, this last reason,
which assigned
as the cause of God's resumption of his own gift, an extravagant admiration
and veneration of it on the part of
mankind-it being so notorious
that those who professed belief in its
divine origin and authority had
(even the best of them) so grievously neglected both the
study and the
practice of it-struck me as so exquisitely
ludicrous that I broke into a
fit of laughter which awoke me. I found
that it was broad daylight,
and the morning sun was streaming in at
the window and shining in
quiet radiance upon
the open Bible which lay on my table. So strongly
had my dream impressed me, that I almost
felt as though, on inspection,
I should find the
sacred leaves a blank, and it was therefore with joy
that my eyes rested on those words, which
I read through grateful tears :
"
The gifts of God
are without repentance."
Now back to the
homily above:
·
THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT PROVOKE IT. The unique rigor of
the penalty suggests some
special circumstances in the provoking crime.
One of these would be:
1. Extreme heinousness. “There is a sin
unto death.” (I John 5:16-18)
It will never be forsaken. It
precludes the idea of penitence. It involves the
perversion, or rather inversion,
of character, which “calls evil good,
and good
evil.” (Isaiah 5:20) There is nothing for it but the extreme
penalty of being let alone. And even that will be inflicted. Saul had
provoked it when “God
answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by
Urim, nor by prophets.”
(I Samuel 28:6)
when God said to His servant, “Thou
shalt be dumb, and shalt
not be to
them a reprover” (Ezekiel
3:26; 7:26). When a man sins on principle,
he is not far off
from “a famine of hearing the words of the
Lord.”
2. Failure of other judgments to turn. “Why should ye be stricken any more?
ye will revolt
more and more.” (Isaiah 1:5)
Other judgments had
been for
reformation and had failed; this would be for
destruction — the only
alternative left. When “cure” is
out of the question, what else is to be done
but “kill”?
3. Chafing under and
rejecting the Word itself. Israel had heard more of
the words of the Lord than they
wished. They had made an effort to get rid
of them, or some of them, by
forbidding His prophets to speak His message.
More of the Word to men in that
mind would have been thrown away, and
God never wastes His gifts. If
we shut our eyes, He will take away the light.
If we close our ears, “the
voice of the charmer” will soon be silent. The
men who will not have the words of the Lord shall be treated
to A
DISPENSATION OF
SILENCE!
·
THE PERSONS IT ASSAILS.
When judgment falls upon a nation,
the righteous
often suffer with the wicked. Yet here
there are persons
against whom the shock is
specially directed. They are:
1. Those who put
their trust in idols. The idolater would naturally feel the
extreme of dislike to the Word of
God, and adopt the strongest measures
against His prophets. He was
therefore in that moral condition which
needed, and that opposing
attitude which provoked, the heaviest stroke.
God will not give His “praise
to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8) and He will
give the man who trusts in them an early opportunity of discovering
whether
they will suffice for his needs. The
more unreservedly he has chosen them,
the more entirely will he be
left to them.
2. The young and
buoyant among these. (v. 13.) Youth and hope are
hardest to overcome. There is a
buoyancy in them, and a recuperative
energy, that rises above
calamity to which the old and broken would
succumb. Yet even these would
not avail. Physical
suffering, breaking
down even youth and vigor, mental suffering, overwhelming the most
buoyant hopefulness, were among the enginery of THE WRATH OF GOD!.
·
THE EFFECTS IT PRODUCES. These are distressing as the calamity
producing them is stern (v. 12).
1. They seek the
Word in vain. It is sought as a
last resource. In the
extremity of trouble, and the
failure of other help, men turn inevitably to
God. And then the quest is
vain. It is made TOO
LATE, and from a motive
to which there is no promise
given (Proverbs 1:24-28). It is sought in an
extremity, as the
lesser evil of two; and in abject fear, in
which there is no
element of loyalty or love; and,
thus sought, cannot in the nature of things
be found. The time for God to
give it has passed, because the time has
passed in which men might have received it to any effect of
spiritual good.
2. They faint in the search. “They
shall reel from sea to sea.” The word
[reel] is used of
the reeling of drunkards, of the swaying to and fro of trees
in the wind, of the
quivering of the lips of one agitated, and then of the
unsteady seeking of
persons bewildered, looking for what they know not
where to find” (Pusey)
It is
characteristic that search is made everywhere
but in the South, where alone the true worship of God was,
and where, if
anywhere, His Word might have been found. Wrong seeking is wrong all
round, and so is of necessity in
vain. It is a less of effort, which is “a
grievous labor won.” It wearies itself out in aimless blind exertion, made
out of season,
and vitiated by the very ills that drive men to make it.
3. They fall and never rise. God
will “make
an end.” The time for it had
come. Sin had reached
a climax. Evil character had reached a final fixity.
Calamity had ceased to improve. The tardy
anxiety for a Divine
communication meant simply that every other resource was
exhausted.
“Cut it down. Why cumbereth it
the ground?” (Luke 13:7) is the one process
of husbandry for which the tree
is fitted.
(1) THERE IS A FAMINE ON
happened” to them, in that, “when Moses is read, the veil is on their
heart.”
(II Corinthians 3:15) This practically amounts to the removal of the Word.
It is a sealed book to
them — sealed by their blindness to its spiritual sense.
Not heathen ignorance is more effectually cut
off from the knowledge of the
truth than Jewish prejudice and
hate.
(2) It rests on
them for the same reason for which it came. Persistently,
blindly, bitterly, they rejected the truth of the gospel. They made it evident
that they would not have it
(Acts 13:46). And so sadly, reluctantly, but
sternly, it was taken from them.
“Lo,
we turn to the Gentiles.” When
that
Word was spoken,
CHOSEN DARKNESS THEY STILL GROPE and will till the latter-day
glory dawns. (Isaiah 66:8)
(3) It will give
place one day to a period of plenty.
“God hath not cast off
His people which
He foreknew.” (Romans 11:2) There is a
remnant to
which the promise belongs, and
with which it will be kept (ibid. 9:27;
11:5).
“When it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be
taken away.” (II Corinthians
3:16) The period, extent, and occasion of this
turning are not revealed, but
it will be the crowning triumph of the “glorious grace” of God.
Religious Sincerity
(v. 14)
“They that swear by the sin of
and, The
manner of
again.” “The sin of
they worshipped the golden calf as the chief object; but it would seem there
were other inferior idols. The god of Dan was the golden calf set up by
Jeroboam in Dan (1 Kings 12.). “The fulfillment,” says Delitzsch, “of these
threats commenced with the destruction of the
carrying away of the ten tribes into exile in
day in the case of
that portion of the Israelitish nation which is still
looking
for the Messiah,
the Prophet promised by Moses, and looking in vain
BECAUSE THEY WILL
NOT HEARKEN TO THE PREACHING OF
THE GOSPEL
CONCERNING THE MESSIAH WHO APPEARED
AS
JESUS!” The words suggest a thought or two in relation
to religious sincerity.
·
THAT RELIGIOUS SINCERITY IS NO PROOF OF THE
ACCURACY OF RELIGIOUS CREED. These Israelites seem to have
been sincere in their worship of the golden calf; “they
swore by it.” That
dumb idol to them was everything. To it they pledged the homage of their
being. (And so are you lost soul! Are you not gambling your soul on it? - CY -
2022) Yet
how blasphemously erroneous, how contrary to the expresss
mandate of Jehovah, “Thou shalt have
none other gods but me”! (Exodus
20:3) How contrary to the dictates of common sense and
all sound
reasoning! Idolatry, in every form and everywhere, is a huge falsehood.
Hence sincerity is no proof that a man has the truth. There are millions of
men in all theologies and
religions, who are so sincere in believing
lies,
that they will fight for their lies, make any sacrifice for their
lies, die
for their lies. Error,
perhaps, can number more martyrs than truth. Saul
of
to blot the name of Christ from the memory of his age. “I verily thought
with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus
of
is sincere when he is faithful to his convictions; but if his convictions are
unsound, immoral, ungodly, his
sincerity is a crime. The fact that
thousands
have died for dogmas is no proof of the truth of their dogmas.
·
THAT RELIGIOUS SINCERITY IS NO PROTECTION AGAINST
THE PUNISHMENT THAT FOLLOWS ERROR. “They shall fall, and
never rise up again.” The sincerity of the Israelites in their worship in
man is not responsible for his beliefs — that so long as he is
sincere he is a
truthful man, and all things will go well with him. In every department of
life God holds a man responsible for his beliefs. If a man takes poison
into
his system, sincerely believing that it is nutriment, will his
belief save him?
Error leads evermore to disappointment, confusion, and OFTENTIMES
TO UTTER DESTRUCTION! To follow error is to go away from reality;
(and JEHOVAH GOD IS
THE ONLY SOURCE OF REALITY - Philip
De Coursey
- September, 2022 - CY - 2022) and to leave reality
is to leave safety and peace.
·
CONCLUSION. Whilst there is no true man without sincerity, sincerity
of
itself does not make a man true. When a man’s convictions
correspond and
square with everlasting realities, then his sincerity is of incomparable
worth.
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