Amos 3:1-8

You only have I known of all the families of the earth.

Sin in the highly-favoured

This is shameful ingratitude. The honour and blessing conferred on the Israelites gave the stain of ingratitude to every act of transgression of which they were guilty. It is direct rebellion. “You only have I known,” so as to reveal to you My will. Iniquity in you is disobedience to express commands, revolt against My authority. It is a dishonour offered to God. The privilege of being called after the name of God brings with it the danger of profaning that name by transgression. The nearer in privilege, the nearer we are to judgment. Distinguished blessings are leading to distinguished reward, or to distinguished punishment.

1. We are taught here that the providence of God prepares good and evil for man. View what are called common mercies in their origin, and “understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.” Evil is also prepared for the sinner, in the sense of calamity, judgment.

2. We are taught by the prophet’s vindication of the doctrine of a special providence to be very earnest when affliction comes in, working together with God, that it may do us good. Remember that God intended that sorrow to come as it did come, and when it did come.

3. When the trumpet of God’s Word is sounded by His ministers, let us give heed to the note of warning or exhortation.

4. When there is evil in the land, let us with reverence acknowledge the hand of God.

5. The Lord revealeth His secret to His servants the prophets.

(1) He does this by giving them spiritual apprehension of the truths of His Holy Word, causes them to see terror in the threatenings thereof, sweetness in its promises, duty in its precepts.

(2) Nothing is coming upon man that has not been revealed.

(3) The Holy Spirit directs the thoughts and words of His ministering servants, so as best to suit the particular need of those whom they address. At all times the sincere preaching of the Word may be expected to give offence. See how dangerous is the conduct of those who despise, oppose, revile, and persecute men of God for telling them plain truth with faithfulness and honesty. See where the true strength of a faithful dispenser of God’s Word lies. The strength of the servant lies in his conviction that he is doing his Master’s will. (Vincent W. Ryan, M. A.)

Elected for what?

Here was this desert prophet, with keen, prayer-washed eyes, piercing through the shows of things to the unclean realities behind. He disinterred the moral corruption that lurked behind their whited professions. What answer did the people make to this rude child of the desert? He stood there, rude in speech and in dress, despised by the official priest, a mere field-preacher, proclaiming to the grandees of the metropolis that the moral corruption of the people was eating away the vital elements of the national strength and that in galloping consumption they were hastening on to a terrible and fatal retribution. What answer did they make? They fell back upon their belief in God. Their reply to the herdman was found in their doctrine of providence. What was that doctrine? It was this: Their nation was the favourite of the Lord. They were hedged about with peculiar sanctities. “We only are known unto the Lord. Only between us and the Lord is there the intercourse which implies security. Thy threats, O Amos, are as noisy nothings. They are meaningless and terrorless.” Such was the refuge in which the people found their security. “We are the children of privilege. Privilege implies favour. Favour guarantees security.” Such was their doctrine of election, and I am not altogether sure that their doctrine is banished from the minds of all men to-day. Now let us mark the answer of the Lord through the mouth of His prophet. We have heard the false doctrine of election; now let us hear the true doctrine which is enshrined in the words of our text. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore”--note the swift, piercing logic--“therefore I will punish you.” The false doctrine ran thus--“You only have I known: therefore I will indulge you.” The true doctrine culminates in fire--“You only have I known: therefore I will punish you.” “You only have I known”--I marked you out for special office. I appointed you to discharge a special function. I elected you to special service. But the office has been prostituted. The function has been ignored. The service has been despised. “Therefore I will punish you.” I singled you out from among men, that all men through you might be blessed. But ye have defiled your mission, and, instead of being a centre of saving health, ye have become a noisome pestilence. That is the expression of a Divine method of government which prevails in all time. Election does not mean security. Security is dependent upon the discharge of the duty which election creates. There is an aristocracy of the election, a chosen few, and these are they who have fulfilled the obligations of their election, and are therefore qualified to enter into the peace and joy of their Lord. Election therefore does not, in the first place, create security. It creates responsibility, and my security or insecurity depends upon the manner in which that responsibility is regarded. There is nothing which can ensure the protecting presence of the Most High God except moral agreement. “Can two walk together. . .?” cries the prophet in the verse which follows my text. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” If there is to be helpful and intimate companionship between two people, there must be profound agreement, and if I am to enjoy the companionship of the great God, with all that that companionship means of consoling and sheltering grace, if God and I are to walk together, we must be agreed, and my part of the agreement must be faithful and unconditional obedience to all His revealed will. Election; the prophet declared that it could only be found in the fact of obedience. They had been elected to duty; not in the election, but in the duty would they find the defences which are as invulnerable ramparts against their foes. Election means selection to service. The Lord’s specialities are for the sake of generalities. An individual is elected that he may serve a nation. A nation is elected that she may serve a race. A call is not a self-securing privilege; it is the entrustment of an office. To evade my responsibility is to destroy my defences, and to bring down swift retribution from God. “ You only have I known: therefore I will punish you.” Election, then, means selection for special service. This doctrine of election is here applied to nations. Certain nations are specially known by God. He whispers to them peculiar secrets, that they may proclaim them upon the house-tops to the nations of the world. Greece was specially known by God. The warm breath of the Lord came upon her people, and endowed her with that exquisite sense of the beautiful which has made her distinguished among all the nations of time. She revelled in the joy of perception, and exulted in the creation of lovely forms. God opened her eyes to the holiness of beauty, and gave her a mission to the race. And “the Gentiles have come to her light.” All the nations go to Greece to school. We go to the treasury of her graces for our own adornments. The Lord God elected her by special endowment, that by her election she might serve a race. Rome was specially known by God. She was His own handiwork. He fashioned her into special aptitude, giving her the endowment of a peculiar passion for order, a genius for polity, government, and empire. He breathed into her life the instinct of law, and by the speciality of her election He determined the speciality of her mission. “And the Gentiles have come to her light.” The foundations of modern jurisprudence are laid in ancient Rome. She has been the schoolmistress to all the nations. Israel was specially known by God. He breathed into her life a special genius for religion, a rare instinct for the Unseen and Eternal. To her He whispered the sublime truth of the unity of God and the august verities of the moral law. “And the Gentiles have come to her light.” Just as beauty is of the Greeks, and law of the Romans, so salvation is of the Jews! Israel was exalted, as a city set upon a hill, that the light of revelation might shine out upon the nation, yea, even upon them that were afar off. May it not be that the Lord has held secret communion with every nation, and whispered to her some peculiar message which makes her life distinctive and unique? It is along this line that I can travel with the least trembling when I contemplate the appalling divisions which distract the race. I gain some assurance from a broad application of this doctrine of election. Each nation has been specially elected. All nations are dependent upon each; each is dependent upon all. Because of the Divine distribution of gifts absolute severance is impossible. “The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee: nor, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” Each nation is specially known of God, specially elected to unique and individual service. In this doctrine of the election of nations, which is an election to mutual service, and which entails mutual dependence, I base my hope of the ultimate practical comity of nations, and the realised brotherhood of the race. But now let us apply the prophet’s doctrine to the life of the individual, as we have applied it to the life of the nation. The prophet’s doctrine is this--election is not election to security, except through the discharge of obligation. Election is election to the service of o hers. How many of us, then, have been elected? Are there any exempt from the election? We are all known, all elected, all called--for the election is a call to individual faithfulness, and our response will determine whether the election shall issue in sunshine or in fire. Each life has its own peculiar mission. God appoints for each a special and individual task. My mission is my election. I may not know what my mission is. That matters not. God knows. My part is to discharge the duty that lies nearest, and then the next, and the next, and the next, and God will guide and control the connected purpose and mission. How can I turn the election into a glad consciousness of protecting providence and eternal security? By a spirit of obedience. By faithfulness in that which is least. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)

Humiliation under God’s chastisement

We enjoy great and peculiar privileges as a people. Religious light; civil liberty; public credit; individual exertions; private wealth; national power; commercial prosperity. Let us not forget that privilege involves responsibility. The very adoption of sons carries with it the certainty of fatherly correction; for what son is there whom the father chasteneth not? We must be prepared to expect that, as there are occasions where a father’s love is manifested in the correction of his child, and the affection that he feels is expressed by the chastisement he applies, so there are times when the same necessity may compel God to adopt a different mode of treatment from that which He generally employs, and to prove the love that He feels for His children by the judgments that He brings upon them. Nothing seems more natural, nothing more probable, than that a period of great scientific advancement, and of great commercial prosperity, should be a season of great forgetfulness of God. There are multitudes who habitually forget their dependence on God; who form their plans, pursue their inquiries, calculate their gains, without reference to Him. If punishment is to begin, where can it begin so appropriately as in noticing that forgetfulness of God which seems to be the sin that doth most, easily beset us; and in teaching us the humbling but unwelcome truth of our entire dependence on God? In time of national distress, let us pray, as Elijah prayed; and as his prayers prevailed for the people, when the people had avowed their allegiance to God, so let us hope that the prayer of faith shall still maintain its character, and that to an humbled, penitent, and believing people the blessing will never be refused. (Henry Raikes, M. A.)

God’s alarm to Great Britain

In this chapter we have a denunciation of judgments against Israel, together with the grounds and reasons of it. Notice--

1. The special regard God had to His people. It is as if He should say, “My heart has been set upon you, My thoughts of kindness have been peculiarly towards and concerning you.

2. The awful visitation which even God’s regard to them engaged Him to bring upon them. “Therefore I will punish you.” As to Israelites indeed, though God visits their iniquities with temporal judgments, it is with a design of love and of advantage to their souls. 3: The ground and reason of this, and that was their iniquities. “I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

I. What have been Great Britain’s eminent mercies?

1. Our temporal mercies, which purely relate to the things of this life.

2. Our mercies with regard to religious concerns, and to spiritual and eternal blessings.

II. What have been our abuses of these eminent mercies? How have we rioted upon the bounties of providence! Has not our plenty been turned into means and occasions of feeding our pride and ambition, our intemperance, luxury, and debauchery? How unfruitful have we been under the means of grace. Has not the Holy Spirit, been grieved and provoked to withdraw from our solemn assemblies? And when we speak of religion, have we much more than the name?

III. What reason we have to fear that God will visit us with judgments for all these iniquities and abuses of his mercies.

1. Our provocations are exceeding great.

2. The honour of God, as the great Governor of the world, is concerned to show His righteous resentment against a professing people that are guilty of such exceeding high provocations.

3. The threatenings of God’s Word give us reason to fear His bringing judgments upon us.

4. The examples God has made of other communities, and particularly of His professing people, for their iniquities, may justly raise our fears of His doing the same by us.

5. God has already taken up a controversy with us.

IV. What course is to be taken for preventing such awful visitations? Public national sins must be followed with public national breaking them off by repentance and returning to the Lord. When dangers lie at the door of kingdoms and nations, the only method of preventing them, according to God’s ordinary rule of procedure in His government of this world, is national humiliation, fasting, and repentance for and departure from the provoking evils that have incensed His wrath against us, with earnest supplication and prayer for national forgiveness of national sins. (J. Guyse, D. D.)

National privileges

A nation’s guilt and punishment are graduated according to the scale of its privileges.

I. Our privileges. Knowledge, as it relates to God, signifies approval, love. Israel had been unto the Lord a peculiar treasure above all people. Is there not a remarkable parallel between our own position and that of ancient Israel? When we pass in review our own national history we may well stand amazed at God’s marvellous dealings with us. To us, pre eminently and emphatically, beyond all nations of the earth, has the kingdom of God, taken from the Jews for their unworthiness, been given. Truly our privileges are as incomparable as they are priceless.

II. Our penalties. Whether as a Church or a nation, we should be on our guard against unfaithfulness. We have the Word of the living God in our keeping. But are we as faithful to this trust as we ought to be? Do we not sometimes give a very halting and restricted testimony to the truth? (R. W. Forrest, M. A.)

Privilege and punishment

I. The privilege. So surpassing had been the tenderness of God, so intimate the relationship in which He had stood to them, that it appeared as if He had ignored all other nations to magnify His mercy to them. They alone had had the presence of God in their midst, with a Divinely appointed priesthood, and a law given by the mouth of God. Other nations were as worthy as they. It was only the mercy of God which had chosen them. God exalts His people now to the highest privilege. He reveals His truth and makes known His character to them.

II. The punishment. This was a necessary result of their trangression.

1. Because theirs was no common sin. The clearest light, the richest mercy, the strongest warnings, the most awful threatenings failed to deter them from wandering into forbidden paths. Punishment is proportioned to privilege. Can we wonder, then, that Divine indignation should be kindled against those who multiplied trangressions?

2. It was necessary that God should vindicate His own character. He had taught them by warning and example how deeply He hated sin. The story of Achan, the history of the spies, the fate of the whole congregation of Israel showed that the wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men.

3. To a certain extent the punishment was remedial. God hoped to awaken the people from the stupor into which sin had thrown them. (J. Telford, B. A.)

A specially blest people

Now it is a fact that some men are far more highly favoured by heaven than others. Some have more health, some more riches, some more intellect, some more friendships, some more means of spiritual improve ment.

I. They are oftentimes the greatest sinners. Who of all the people on the face of the earth were greater sinners than the Israelites? Yet they were specially favoured of heaven. England is a specially favoured land, but where is there more moral corruption? It is true that civilisation has so decorated it that its loathsomeness is to some extent concealed; but here it is. The corpse is painted, but it is still a putrid mass.

II. They are exposed to special punishment. “Therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities.” It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, etc. Therefore “I will punish you.” I who know all your sins, I who abhor all your sins, I who have power to punish you.

III. They should, like all people, place them selves in harmony with God. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed? “

1. Agreement with God is essential to the well-being of all intelligent existences. No spirit in the universe can be happy without thorough harmony with the will and mind of God.

2. The condition of all sinners is that of hostility to the will of God. (Homilist.)