CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amos 4:6. Teeth] Famine, as threatened in the law (Deuteronomy 28:48; Deuteronomy 28:57; cf. 2 Kings 8:1).
Amos 4:7. Yet three] The latter rain, which fell in latter part of February and beginning of March, when most required (1 Kings 17:1). One city] Distress so great that people from one place had to go a great distance for supply, yet could not get enough to satisfy.
Amos 4:8. Wandered] Heb. indicates the trembling, unsteady gait of those exhausted in quest of food (Psalms 59:15; Psalms 109:10; Jeremiah 14:1-6).
Amos 4:9. Blasting] Lit. an exceeding scorching. Mildew] Heb. intensive. The mention of these would remind them of other judgments (Deuteronomy 28:22).
Amos 4:10. Manner] i.e. the way in which God punished Egypt (Exodus 9:3). “Palestine was by nature healthy. Hence on account of the terribleness of the scourge, God often speaks of it as of his own special sending” [Pusey].
Amos 4:11. Firebrand] Proverbial for escape from imminent danger. Yet] after all corrective measures, obstinately impenitent, and determined to persist in wicked courses!
THE CORRECTIVE MEASURES OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE.—Amos 4:6-11
In these verses God describes the different corrective measures which he employed for the purpose of effecting a change in the Israelites, and at the close of each mentioned in the series, the obstinate impenitence, under the influence of which they persisted in their wicked courses, is emphatically marked by the declaration, Yet ye have not returned unto me, saith the Lord; such repetition gives great force to the reprehension [Elzas]. The verses naturally suggest the divisions of the outline.
I. Famine. Cleanness of teeth and want of bread indicate scarcity of flesh and dearth of corn. The famine was everywhere, “in all your places.” This was no accidental failure of crops, nor owing to a combination of second causes. It was the work of God himself, who gives daily bread. “Man’s life,” says Calvin, “is not shut up in bread, but hangs on the sovereign will and good pleasure of God.”
II. Dearth and scarcity of water. They would remember times of plenty, when they had water “every man from his own well and from his own cistern.” How minute the circumstances of the calamity.
1. The time is specified. “Three months to the harvest.” A time when most needed to ripen corn and grain. This is utterly ruinous to the hopes of the farmer. A little earlier or a little later would not be so fatal, but drought three months before harvest is entirely destructive” [The Land and the Book].
2. The inequality is given. In one city and not in another; upon one field to fertilize it; not upon another, which remained unproductive. Thus were they urged to reflect upon God. In sovereign mercy he holds the key of the clouds, to open and shut at pleasure. Every drop of rain is measured and sent by Divine direction to its destination. He gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons (Acts 14:17).
3. The distress is noticed. Inhabitants in some places were frustrated in their hopes; necessitated to go far away to seek for water, and found only a scanty and insufficient supply. Water, free to all now, was withheld from them. In trembling fear, and weak through toil, they begged from city to city. God can wither our harvests, withhold Divine influence from our schools and churches, and create natural and spiritual distress throughout the nation. “Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.
III. Blasting and mildew. Blight would follow from scarcity of rain.
1. Vegetation suffered. The gardens which they cultivated in neglect of God, the fruit which was appearing to reward their toil, and the olive trees which they watched with care, were smitten by the blast.
2. Insects abounded. “The palmer-worm” and putrefaction devoured the fruits of the ground. Malignant air and voracious animals destroyed fruitful fields and prosperous vineyards. “The Lord shall smite thee … with blasting and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish (Deuteronomy 28:22).
IV. Pestilence and sword. Pestilence such as visited Egypt fell upon them. Young men, the hope of the country, were slain in war. Horses on which they depended were taken from them by a victorious foe. The mighty hosts which they assembled in pride were like sheep for the slaughter. The stench of men and horses, unburied on the field, poisoned the air and polluted the land. Yet this did not humble nor reclaim them. “He made a way to his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence” (Psalms 78:50).
V. Total overthrow by earthquake. They seemed insensible, but the solid ground beneath them trembled with unwonted motion. The houses above their heads fell in utter confusion. Some of the inhabitants were buried in the ruins or smitten by the lightning. Others who narrowly escaped were like brands plucked out of the fire. Some were overthrown like the people in Sodom; but few, like Lot, were rescued from the danger. Yet notwithstanding these terrible judgments and displays of Divine anger Israel did not return to God. These last chastisements, which typify more than anything else the great judgment day, have failed. Therefore they must prepare to meet God as the Judge and Ruler of the Universe.
“Not thou, O Lord, from us, but we
Withdraw ourselves from thee” [French].
CHASTISEMENTS WITHOUT REFORMATION.—Amos 4:11
“Yet have ye not returned unto me,” is the cry full of grief and tenderness repeatedly uttered. God designed to bring them to repentance, but they were incorrigible and chastised in vain.
I. Man is distant from God. This is not a natural fact merely. Estrangement from God is a state of mind. The miser loving gold, the worldling drinking pleasure, and the atheist denying God—each has a specific state of mind characterized by the distinct evil. In the heart is fixed opposition to God. The will and the word of God are distasteful to the sinner. The lower sentiments and nobler faculties are influenced by his apostasy. The mind is ingrossed with things like our nature. Men talk of fancied reverence and adoration for God; but spiritually they live “having no hope, and without God in the world.”
II. God seeks to bring man to himself. The Scriptures abound with facts and figures to illustrate this truth. God seeks to recover the fallen and save the lost.
1. By mercy. Mercies given in Christ and multiplied day by day. Good beyond desert and degree to bring to God. “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.”
2. By judgment. Judgments national and personal, severe, many and long-continued. God chastens in body and mind, in social and family circumstances, that we may not go astray. “Man’s wisdom consists in observing God’s unalterable appointments and suiting himself to them,” says Scott. “In the day of adversity consider.”
III. Man is often chastised without returning to God. The innumerable judgments of Israel begot no repentance. Nothing external will make us wise without due improvement of it. Sensibility to bodily pain is one thing, sorrow of heart another. “I will at this time send all my plagues upon thy heart.” God visits us in many ways, sends bereavement in the family and disappointment in business. And perhaps there is room for repetition day by day. The same judgments have continue I and new ones been inflicted, but we have not returned to God. This proves—
1. Great guilt.
2. Great provocation.
3. Great danger. The voice resounds still in Scripture and providence. “Yet ye have not returned unto me.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amos 4:1-11. The three charges. I. Oppression of the poor (Amos 4:1-3). II. Corruption of worship (Amos 4:4-5). III. Incorrigibleness under Divine judgments (Amos 4:6-11). Learn—
1. That God has various judgments to exercise a sinful nation.
2. That judgments are changed, not removed, until a return to God.
3. That God is earnest in bringing men to repentance. “A course of sin will not prove a thriving way in the end to any, but especially to the Church, which the Lord will either make a theatre of mercy, or a field of blood, and he hath many rods for that end; for as they liked their way of sin (Amos 4:5), so he also chooseth their judgments and pours out a quiver-full of them upon them” [Hutcheson].
Amos 4:7. Withered. So will it ever be in the Church, which is God’s vineyard, if ministers give no doctrine and God no blessing, fitly resembled to rain on regard,
1. of cooling heat;
2. quenching thirst;
3. cleansing the air;
4. allaying the winds;
5. mollifying and mellowing the parched earth;
6. causing all things to grow and fructify. This rain of righteousness goes sometimes by coasts as here; God withholding showers, though clouds be full and likely enough to drop down in abundance (see Ezekiel 3:26; Hosea 9:7; Proverbs 16:1) [Trapp].
Amos 4:10. After the manner of Egypt.
1. Slaughter of young men.
2. The land filled with pestilence and locusts.
3. Harassed in this defenceless condition by the incursions from Assyria.
Amos 4:11. A firebrand plucked.
1. A scene of danger—“burning.”
2. An act of mercy—“plucked.”
3. A present uncertainty. Once in danger, now rescued. Will you continue where you are, or escape entirely to refuge?
The words will apply—
1. Temporally. “They may recall a striking deliverance in God’s providence, when others were taken and they were left. A shipwreck—a battle—an awful accident involving loss of human life—a sickness from which many others around them died” [Ryan].
2. Spiritually. Every sinner saved is a firebrand plucked from the burning. This should prompt—
1. To gratitude.
2. To earnestness in rescuing others from “the wrath of God,” which “is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”
HOMILETICS
THE FIREMEN OF GOD, OR THE STRANGE PARALLEL BETWEEN FIRE AND SIN.
Fire—what is there in the moral world to which it answers? But one thing, that is, wickedness—sin against God—sin in a man’s life. Against this evil God calls all his servants to be firemen. “Put out the fires of sin,” is a nobler motto than any blazoned on the symbols of commerce and art.
I. Consider the analogy between fire and sin.
1. You cannot weigh fire in the scales. You cannot grasp it, yet it exists—you can feel and see it work. You cannot rate sin by horse power, but you feel its withering, burning influence in the soul.
2. Fire becomes sometimes almost invisible. So with sin. In the glare and noon-day of busy life some fail to see it. The dimness of religious truth to the mind is a terrible monitor of what sin is doing in the heart.
3. Sin is like fire in its attractions. A child loves to play with fire, unconscious of danger. Men toy with sin, which has indulgence for appetite, mirth to amuse, feasts for gluttons, and revelry for the reckless.
4. Sin consumes like fire. It burns down men instead of houses; the man vanishes, and only the animal, the brute, the sensualist is left.
5. Sin spreads like a fire. Wicked thoughts, evil suggestions, are the sparks that kindle the fires of sin in the soul and set communities in a blaze.
6. Sin inflicts pain like a fire. It burns, stings, and agonizes its victim. Here, in the naked conscience and despairing death, is the germ of the fire that is never quenched.
7. Sin, like fire, defaces what it touches.
8. Sin must be resisted like fire. It is an evil to be put out in heart and life.
9. Sin, like fire, if you wait too long to put it out, will render attempts useless. The soul should not be left till sin has mastery. In this world men are often beyond reasonable prospect of repentance.
II. Sin is the fire, but the sinner is the fuel. Ye were as a firebrand.
1. A firebrand is combustible, or it never would have been a firebrand. So with the sinner’s heart.
2. A firebrand has been already exposed to the fire. It is charred and blackened, and bears the marks of sin. So the sinner.
3. A firebrand has offered no effectual resistance to the flames. The sinner has not resisted sin. He is bound, and by the grace of God can resist.
4. A firebrand is ready to be kindled anew, after it has been once quenched. A spark may kindle the soul.
5. A firebrand is in the process of being consumed, and a little longer will finish it. So with the sinful heart.
6. A firebrand only needs to be let alone, and it will burn to ashes. Leave the soul to sin—the ruinous power of its own lusts—and its ruin will be complete.
7. A firebrand is a dangerous thing, if its sparks and coals come in contact with anything else. The sinner destroyeth much good.
III. But even firebrands may be saved. Sinners are sometimes plucked out of a desperate condition—Mary Magdalen, the thief on the cross, Saul of Tarsus—but the work is God’s. A converted soul is a miracle of grace. Firemen! guardians of our dwellings against a subtle and dangerous foe, be ready to rush to the scene of conflagration, when the alarm is given, night or day! The fires of sin burn all around, and perhaps within you unchecked. Be God’s firemen, and help to quench it. Nothing but the blood of Christ can put out the fires. Repent and believe, and you shall be saved. [From The Preacher’s Treasury.]
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amos 4:12. Therefore] punishments must be continued. This] not expressed, but discerned from what follows—all kinds of things imagined in the uncertainty; but the last the greatest calamity. Prepare] “When thou seest that thou hast resorted in vain to all kinds of subterfuges, since thou never wilt be able to escape from the hand of thy judge; see now at length that thou dost avert this last destruction which is hanging over thee [Calvin].
Amos 4:13] To give greater emphasis to the command, God is described as Almighty, reading the thoughts of men, creating prosperity and adversity as he changes light and darkness, subjecting all things to his control, and ruling as the Lord of Hosts. What an argument for being at peace with him.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Amos 4:6-10. We look to second causes and impute our years of dearth to wet and cold, to hot and parching seasons, to cycles of weather, to comets, and many other accidents, some real and others imaginary, and thus wilfully conceal from our view the power of God, who blesseth a land and maketh it to bring forth fruit abundantly, and who “turneth a fruitful field into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.” The acts of God’s providence are as certainly a part of his administration now as in former ages, and as directly affect each individual of the race as they did the children of Abraham. It is to those who are subdued under his rebukes that he sends his word to heal them. They who watch the ruling hand of God shall become wiser in reading his purposes and their own necessities [Duncan].