HOMILETICS
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amos 8:11. Famine] The light and comfort of God’s word shall fail; they despise now what they shall look for in vain then.
Amos 8:12. Wander] Lit. reel, like drunken men. Seek] under pressure of calamity.
Amos 8:13.] Hunger and thirst so great that the strongest give way and faint, how much more the weak (Isaiah 40:30).
Amos 8:14. Sin] The calves by which Samaria sins. God] The other golden calf at Dan (1 Kings 12:26-30). Liveth] Formula of the oath. Swearing by these objects shows that young men and maidens journeyed to Beersheba and worshipped idols. The ground of all their misery was forsaking God, who commands all appeals to be made to Himself as the Creator and Governor of all things (Deuteronomy 6:13; Deuteronomy 10:20).
A FAMINE OF THE WORD.—Amos 8:11-14
The prophet now predicts far greater evils than temporal judgments. A famine of the word, one of the saddest events that could happen a Divinely taught people. This is the last and sorest of all calamities. When God will not speak to men by his servants and word it is a sign that he will punish and reject them.
I. The word of God is the true nourishment of man. Every kind of life requires nutriment. Man has a higher life than appetite and sensation. His spiritual nature is sustained by the word of God alone. A real communication from God is essential to life. Man has ever longed for this. Speak, Lord! has always been the cry of humanity. God has spoken. His word satisfies the cravings of the heart and solves the problems of life. Here is wisdom for the ignorant and righteousness for the guilty; comfort for the sorrowful and redemption for the lost; milk for babes and strong meat for mature age. It is meat indeed and drink indeed. “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” “Thy words were found and I did eat them.”
II. Contempt of the word of God may bring a famine of the word. “I will send a famine.” God had raised up and sent prophets to the people; but they despised religious instruction, profaned God’s sanctuary, and persecuted his servants. God can withhold religious privileges and leave people in darkness according to his good pleasure. But when they despise the word he will withdraw it. He will cease to give when his gifts are scorned; to love, when his love is contemned.
1. With individuals there is often a famine of the word. A person for a long time enjoys gospel light and hears the Scriptures explained and enforced. He trifles with these advantages and heeds not the word. Circumstances change, business calls elsewhere, and in foreign lands or distant colonies he finds no provision. He is not fed with the bread of life. Many a sick chamber has been embittered and many a dying hour darkened by the remembrance of warnings despised. “They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof” (Proverbs 1:24-31).
2. In the sanctuary there is often a famine of the word. When the gospel is rejected and ministers silenced; when the temple is profaned by worldly influences, and religious worship becomes a wearisome toil; God will take his blessings away, and men shall know the price by seeking them and shall not find them. The seven Churches of Asia Minor and the desolate shore of Northern Africa are solemn examples of this.
3. In the nation God can send a famine of the word. Unto the Jews were committed the oracles of God. They were highly exalted and Divinely instructed. But ungodliness crept into the temple, corruption tainted the king, and violence filled the land. Direction from God was a part of their blessedness. The want of that direction has now left them a wandering, helpless people. In their distress they cry as of old, “We see not our tokens, there is not one prophet more, not one is there among us that understandeth any more.”
III. A famine of the word is the sorest judgment upon any nation. It is a miserable state to cry for bread and have none.
1. A famine of the word is a greater evil than a famine of bread. The soul is superior to the body, and knowledge, love, and truth are more necessary than bread. Man does not live by bread alone. The mind requires food and cannot feed upon husks. If hunger and thirst be painful, how much more lack of spiritual sustenance! Men have hunger, though not always conscious of it. Appetite will be quickened in trouble, and like Saul they will be sore distressed. “God is departed from me and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams.”
2. A famine of the word will cause the strongest to succumb. “The fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst. The beauty of the virgin and the vigour of youth decay without knowledge.” All flesh is grass, and the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field. But God’s word abides in its blessed nature and permanent results. Our choicest privileges and fairest sex, our education and wealth, are vain things. The withdrawment of God will cause them to wither away. Physical suffering will follow spiritual famine. “Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed; yea, poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction.”
3. A famine of the word will leave a nation in a deplorable condition.
(1) In a weak condition. When men faint and thirst they are helpless. Hungry within and scorched with the wrath of God without, who can stand? The wicked faint and sink under their burdens, and have not a shower of rain to quench their burning thirst (Ezekiel 22:24).
(2) In afallen condition. “They shall fall.” Fall into danger and the darkness of idolatry and superstition. Men who forsake God will eventually, like Saul, consult wrong sources of comfort and shall not find it.
(3) In a hopeless condition. “Never rise up again.” Without the word we are without bread and without strength; without comfort and without hope. When the word goes, God himself departs, and there is none to deliver us. “God hath forsaken him; persecute and take him.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amos 8:11-12. The judgment.
1. Its Author. “I will send.”
2. Its certainty. “Thus saith the Lord.”
3. Its period. “The days come,” suddenly and presently.
4. Its consequences. (a) Hunger and thirst. (b) Exile and anxiety. (c) Unsuccessful search. 5. Its importance. “Behold,” calling attention to its direful and dreadful nature. “Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,” &c.
Amos 8:13. Natural strength falls far short of the strength God gives to his weak people (Isaiah 40:29-31); it cannot endure nor carry us through calamities and judgments for sin. Young men shall faint, and those whose condition pleads for pity and respect shall not be spared. “In this hopelessness as to all relief, those too shall fail and sink under their sufferings, in whom life is freshest and strongest, and hope most buoyant. Hope mitigates any sufferings. When hope is gone, the powers of life which it sustains give way” [Pusey].
1. The calamity. “They shall fall and never rise again.” Though a man fall, if he has hope of rising again, it brings a certain degree of comfort and strength: but Israel fell into captivity and were not restored. If gentle means cure not, God will make a final end.
2. The reason of the calamity. Idolatry in the form of oaths and ascriptions of powers of life to the golden calves. They sware—
1. By the sin of Samaria.
2. By the god of Daniel
3. By the manner of Beersheba. By strange gods which they had set up in these places. The whole land was infected by a popular, degrading system which they had set up, and which was the cause of their final overthrow.
The judgment of men and the judgment of God differ much. That which man calls here by way of honour a god, that God calls by way of dishonour and detestation a sin and abominable (Jeremiah 16:18; Jeremiah 44:4). Thus the world calls riches substance, goods happiness (Psalms 4:6), but the Holy Ghost calls them vanities, thorns, husks, unrighteous mammon. That which is highly esteemed in the sight of carnal, superstitious men is an abomination in the sight of God [Hall].
Fall fatally, irrecoverably, as old Eli did when his neck was broken, but first his heart. The ten tribes for their idolatry and contempt of the word never returned out of captivity. From the famine foretold what could follow but irreparable ruin, though for a time things might flourish (Proverbs 29:1)? Of that spiritual famine let us be most impatient, and say as Luther did, I would not live in paradise without the word; but with it I could make a shift to live in hell [Trapp].
Two subjects in this chap. attract our notice.
1. God’s ordinances slighted. Let those who turn the Sabbath into a day of trade, and rob their fellow-men of their comforts by their extortions, as they rob God of his honour by their heartless worship, see their own portraits in the address of the prophet; blush for shame, and tremble at the destiny of those who continue in such a state.
2. Religious instruction withdrawn. It may not be now exactly with them as with Israel. They may not be wholly excluded from the warning voice of the prophets of God; but the time approaches when repentance will no more be preached to, or be available for, them. When no deliverer will be exhibited to their view, as exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins, their souls will die of an eternal famine. No “bread of life” shall be presented to them for food! No water of life shall quench the flame which guilt shall enkindle in their consciences [Cobbin].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8
Amos 8:11-14. When Divine judgments come upon a race which has forgotten and forsaken God, the once despised and hated word is appreciated again. Men “hunger and thirst” for it, but often at first not in the right way. They desire as speedily as possible to hear of promises and consolations, and to these every ear is open. But it is in vain. We now need expect no new revelation from God. We have “his word” in the Scripture. But when this is a long time despised, it follows at last that there is no one to preach it, and without a living preacher it is finally lost. Or if it is preached it has no power to console, and men fail to find what they seek. Thus ensues a longing which is not satisfied. The result is otherwise only when men bow in penitence under the Divine threatening as deserved, and under the Divine Spirit inwardly blame themselves for previous apostasy. But who knows whether man will find room for repentance? Before he reaches that point, while he is in the midst of his vain longing for comfort, he may be snatched away [Lange].
“There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.”