CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amos 5:16. Therefore] if ye seek not God, there will be lamentation not only by professional mourners, but in the streets of the city, in all towns of the kingdom, and in places where joy is expected.
Amos 5:17. Pass through] as in Egypt (Exodus 12:12; Nahum 1:12), taking vengeance and creating death wail.
Amos 5:18. Woe] to the confident who deceive themselves with false hopes. Desire] Deriding the prediction of the prophet (Jeremiah 17:15; Ezekiel 12:22). “It was an impious daring of God to do his worst” [Elzas].
Amos 5:19.] Two figures from pastoral life illustrate the false hope of escape. Fleeing from a lion to meet a bear means that whoever escapes one danger will fall into another. The bear spares none, and the serpent’s bite in the hand is fatal. “In that day every place is full of danger and death; neither in-doors nor out-of-doors is any one safe; for out-of-doors lions and bears prowl about and in-doors snakes lie hidden, even in the holes of the walls” [Corn, a Lap.].
Amos 5:20. Bright.] i.e. to those who do not turn from evil.
HOMILETICS
THE DAY OF THE LORD.—Amos 5:16-20
Amos 5:16. “Therefore.” God foreseeing that they will not forsake sin continues the threatening (Amos 5:13). Israel misapplied the words of Joel (Joel 2:31; Joel 3:4), thought that the day of the Lord would be deliverance to them and destruction to their enemies. The prophet warns them of false security. In blind infatuation they long for its approach, but it would be a day of unmitigated evil.
I. The day of the Lord described. A day of universal darkness and distress. The judgments were extensive as the manifold guilt.
1. A day of Divine displeasure. God would be with them not in the way they expected and boasted; in judgment, not mercy. “I will pass through thee.” There would be a repetition of the events in Egypt. He would not pass over them in forgiving love, as the angel passed by the blood-stained doors; but through them in punishment severe and exact. Some as stubble or wood are ripe for Divine judgments (Nahum 1:10; James 3:5). God may have passed by them, but soon will pass through them. Nations may escape at one time and fearfully suffer at another. “For there was not a house where there was not one dead” (Exodus 12:12; Exodus 12:30).
2. A day of universal mourning. “Wailing shall be in all the streets.” (a) Mourning in all places. In the streets of the city, the vineyards of the fields, and the highways of the country; in centres of business and scenes of joy, would be lamentation and wailing. The hum of men and the mirth of children were turned into grief. There was “a vintage not of wine, but of woe.” God’s displeasure turns joy into mourning and robes all things with darkness and death. (b) Mourning by all persons. “The skilful” the professionals of lamentation, and the real mourners, the husbandmen called from the country, blended their cries together. Alas! Alas! The punishment was unequalled and the grief beyond expression. Sorrow will find all that are guilty, and none can escape. “Take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled!”
3. A day of darkness without light (Amos 5:18-20). Calamities darken the brightest day. The day of present trouble is often without light. But no day so gloomy to impenitent sinners as the day of judgment. The word of God and the voice of conscience darken the prospects of the wicked. Unless they flee to Christ the future will be “even very dark, and no brightness in it.”
4. A day of calamity without escape. Two comparisons illustrate this. (a) No escape by flight. To flee from the lion would only be to meet a bear. To escape from one danger was only to fall into another (cf. Jeremiah 48:44; Isaiah 24:18). “He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.” (b) No escape by shelter. If a man rushed into a house and leaned in confidence upon the wall a serpent would bite him. Men often meet with destruction where they expect safety. “Evil shall hunt the wicked man to overthrow him.” If men escape present they cannot the future judgment. It is vain to expect mercy at that day if we despise it now. Come to God instead of fleeing from him. “Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?”
II. The day of the Lord threatened. “The Lord saith thus”—
1. Though long delayed it will come. To prove his love and give time for repentance God delays his promise. But he is not slack and forgetful. Threatening may not suddenly be executed, for “he is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish.” Remember the nature of God and his determination to punish. “Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
2. Though apparently far off it will come. All things continue as they were, but may unexpectedly change. The flood interrupted the order of nature. If we realize the past, it will help us to believe the future. “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.”
3. Though ridiculed by ungodly men it will come. “Scoffers walking after their own lusts” cry, “Where is the promise of his coming?” Join not their ranks. Heed not their ridicule. The promise is uttered and cannot be retracted. The coming is gradual, certain, and will soon be felt. Atheists should beware and presumptuous sinners should fear. The primeval world has changed, the deluge of Noah swept the earth, and a terrible day awaits impenitent sinners. “A little while, and he that shall come will come and will not tarry.”
III. The day of the Lord desired. “You that desire the day of the Lord.” Their previous history would lead them to desire this time, and their subsequent life proved the spirit in which they did so.
1. The day may be desired in a wrong spirit. Israel applied the glowing descriptions of future times in a carnal sense. They expected a temporal Messiah, and knew neither their own character nor the nature of the day coming. They were not prepared for it, and what should have been a blessing turned out to be a woe to the nation. “Darkness and not light.” Men desire the day—(a) In a spirit of contempt. The Israelites sarcastically might wish for the day (Isaiah 5:19; Jeremiah 17:15). Who cares for the day? let it come. (b) In a spirit of delusion. They desired some change, and thought the next would be for the better. The prophet seeks to undeceive them. Self-deluded sinners will find out their mistake at last. (c) In a spirit of folly. “To what end is it for you?” What will it profit you? Are you ready for it? Many would be glad to leave this world who are not fit for the next. They have but little reason to desire what will be darkness and not light to them.
2. The day may be desired in a right spirit. Some are ready for the day, delighting themselves in God and his service. They are preparing for death and waiting for the coming of Christ. In the common events and mysterious providences of life they pray not in scorn, “Let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it.” Woe to him who desires when he should dread the day of the Lord! “Blessed is that servant” who is ready and waiting, “and whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.”
DEATH NOT ALWAYS DESIRABLE.—Amos 5:18
We may apply this to the day of death. Often in trouble and disappointment men express a wish that God would take away their life, supposing that it is better for them to die than to live. We cannot be sure of the sincerity of their desire; and they may not be sure of it themselves. Under the pressure of present feeling, they imagine death would be welcome, and perhaps if it actually came they would decline its aid. If they would not they ought. For their fleeing from trouble is as if a man did flee from a lion and a boar met him, &c. Let me beg these sons of sorrow to inquire—Whether the event they long for will be a real remedy for their complaints. Are they sure that death will be annihilation? perfectly sure that there is nothing beyond the grave? Can they prove that there is no future? or that in this state there is only happiness and no misery? Judas hanged himself, went to his own place, which was worse than his former condition, with all the horrors of its remorse. If Scripture be true all are not happy at death; none are then happy without a title to heaven and a meetness for it. Have you this title? this meetness? Do you love holiness? Without this could you be happy in a holy place? in a holy state? in holy employments, &c.? Is the Redeemer precious to your souls? Nothing can make us happy but what relieves our wants, fulfils our desires, and satisfies our hope. Without holiness no man can see the Lord.
How absurd, then, to wish to leave this world for another, before you are sure the exchange will be for your advantage. For advantage it cannot be if you die unpardoned and unrenewed. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Out of him, out of refuge, and the avenger of blood is upon you. Out of him, you are out of the Ark and exposed to the Deluge. The day of your death is not better than the day of your birth. Your privations and distresses here are only the beginnings of sorrow, a drop to the ocean compared with hell. And once gone from time, no return. Therefore instead of wishing this important period ended, be thankful that it is prolonged, even in a vale of tears; account that the long-suffering of God is your salvation, for he is not willing that any should perish.
Remember also that disappointment and sorrow, which make you impatient, may prove the greatest blessing; the valley of Achor a door of hope. God does not afflict willingly. He renders earth desolate to induce you to seek a better country. Away, then, with every thought of desperation. Arise and go unto your Father, waiting to receive graciously and love freely. If tempted to despair, cry, “Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.” “Come unto me, all ye that labour,” &c. The Athenian said, “I should have been lost, if I had not been lost.” In affliction Manasseh found his father’s God, We often pity those who have seen better days. But if they forgot God in prosperity, and in their adversity have thrown themselves into his arms—these are the best days they ever saw. This will be your case, suffering friend, if you seek God and commit your cause to him. He will turn the shadow of death into the morning, and you shall join the multitude who say—It is good for me that I have been afflicted [Jay].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amos 5:16. It costs men nothing to own God as a Creator, the Cause of causes, the Orderer of all things by certain fixed laws. It satisfies certain intellects so to own him. What man, a sinner, shrinks from, is that God is Lord, the absolute disposer and master of his sinful self [Pusey].
Woe, woe, going up from every street of a metropolis, in one unmitigated, unchanging, ever-repeated monotony of grief. Such were the present fruits of sin. Yet what a mere shadow of the inward grief is its outward utterance [Ib.].
Amos 5:17. If there were joy in any place it would be in the vineyards; vineyards are places of mirth and refreshing, grapes make the wine, which makes glad the heart of man. Therefore when he threatens, that in all vineyards there shall be wailing, it is as much as if he said, There shall be sorrow in those places where usually the greatest joy is found, or there shall be sorrow in every place. Joy shall dislodge and give place to sorrow, for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord [Caryl].
Amos 5:17-18. I. The certainty of the day. Saith the Lord.” II. The method of its approach. “I will pass through.” III. The consequences of its arrival. “Darkness and not light.”
Amos 5:18. To what end is it for you? Self-examination would teach—that they would gain nothing in the day—that it should be delayed, rather than desired, if not prepared for it—that the evil spirit in which it is longed for should be eradicated, and that men should seriously consider their ways and submit to God.
Amos 5:19. The path of light would prove a path of increased danger—the place of confidence, expected shelter and repose, would become the place of pain and wounding unto death [Ryan]. From both lion and bear there might be escape by flight. When the man had leaned his hand trustfully on the wall of his own house, and the serpent bit him, there was no escape. He had fled from death to death, from peril to destruction [Pusey].
Amos 5:20. Shall not? He appeals to their own consciences, “Is it not so, as I have said?” Men’s consciences are truer than their intellects. However they may employ the subtlety of their intellect to dull their conscience, they feel, in their heart of hearts, that there is a Judge, that guilt is punished, that they are guilty. The soul is a witness to its own deathlessness, its own accountableness, and its own punishableness [Pusey].
The godly will have some light in trouble (though temptation hide it from them, Isaiah 50:10), and may sometimes attain to some measure of allowance (Psalms 112:4); and may certainly expect that there will be a clear and comfortable issue from their troubles (Micah 7:8); yet it is terrible to think how dreadful a day of vengeance will be to the wicked, how grieving and perplexing their miseries will be, and how destitute of present comfort and future hope they are [Hutcheson].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Amos 5:16-20. Ill-gotten gains are a dangerous and uncertain possession. God can easily take them away, and turn our joy into mourning. “That which is dyed with many dippings is in the grain, and can very hardly be washed out” [Jer. Taylor]. Men do not love to be brought into contact with realities, or be reminded of coming “days of darkness.” There is an unwelcome message to the conscience, Art thou ready to meet this solemn—this hastening season? If you regard death as a friend, prepare to entertain it; if an enemy, prepare to overcome it.