Amos 3:3

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

Agreement with God

Order is the first law of heaven’s empire. In the material world God has secured it by absolute power. In the world of mind His authority has enjoined it. And in the next state of human existence His omnipotent justice will enforce it. In the present world God has simply enjoined order; and if we obey not the great laws of moral harmony, we make our own happiness impossible. If two are not agreed, they cannot walk together. The enjoyments of friendship demand a harmony of sentiment; the classifications of political parties, and all efficient party movements, whether good or bad, demand it. What efficiency can there be in that commercial house whose partners are agreed about no one of the great principles of trade? The text is part of a solemn reproof addressed to the Israelites. They thought that because they had been taken into covenant with God, and had been careful in observing the ceremonials of the Jewish ritual, God walked with them, approved of them, and blessed them. But the prophet here presents this great principle: “You must agree with Me, and then I will walk with you; the union between us must be a moral union.” Man, as unconverted, has no moral union with God. Between God and these His creatures there is no common taste, there are no common principles, no common ends nor plans. Observe God and man in the exercise of love in its two branches, complacency and benevolence. God loves all excellence. Humility, faith, penitence, the spirit of prayer,--these are the features of character of greatest price in God s sight. But it is not so with the world. The selection of our companions, and the ground of that selection, if we would examine it closely, would perfectly expose to us our character as it is in the eyes of God. If we choose the pious, we have, so far, an evidence of our reconciliation to God. In the exercise of their benevolence men do not choose as God chooses. It is often said that no man can love his enemies. Then no man can dwell with God, no man can wear God’s moral image. We may test the condition of our affections by another object--the law of God. If its” requirements please us not, if its threatenings seem too severe, then with us God is not agreed. Another object tests the heart; the Son of God manifested in human nature. Does your heart exalt Him? If your heart, in all these points, has no sympathy with God, how can He delight in you? Communion of soul, to be intimate and delightful, must be intelligent and cordial on those points which both parties deem of the highest moment. If you have no such fellowship with God here, what will you do in heaven? (E. N. Kirk, A. M.)

The conditions of intercourse and union with God

The terms on which man can have converse with God, intercourse with His love, and experience of His mercy, are unchangeably the same in every age of the world. Without coincidence in sentiment, judgment, and disposition, there can be no cordial union or harmony between the Creator and the creature. “He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit.”

1. In order that God and man should walk together in all the endearments of the Christian covenant, there must be a harmony of judgment concerning the Scripture plan of salvation. Man must acquiesce in what God has so solemnly declared and imposed.

2. There must be a correspondence of sentiment upon the rule by which redeemed creatures are to be governed, and the duties they must fulfil towards God and towards man. The moral law is still authoritative as a rule of life.

3. Man and God cannot walk together, unless the mind of both have reference to the same end. That which the Most High contemplated, when He redeemed you on the Cross of His Son, was the advancing of His own honour, and the salvation of your souls. What then is your aim? (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)

A pair of friends

They do not need to be agreed about everything. The two whom the prophet would fain see walking together are God and Israel. Two may walk together, but they have to be agreed thus far, at any rate, that both shall wish to be together, and both be going the same road.

I. that blessed companionship that may cheer a life. “Walking with God” means ordering the daily life under the continual sense that we are ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye. “Walking after God” means conforming the will and active efforts to the rule that He has laid down. High above these conceptions of a devout life is the idea of “walking with God.” For to walk before Him may have in it some tremor, and may be undertaken in the spirit of a slave. And walking after Him may be a painful effort to keep His distant figure in sight. But to walk with Him implies a constant quiet sense of the Divine presence, which forbids that we should ever feel lonely. As the companions pace along side by side, words may be spoken by either, or blessed silence may be eloquent of perfect trust and rest. Such a life of friendship with God is possible for every one of us. If we are so walking, it is no piece of fanaticism to say that there will be mutual communications. The two may walk together. That is the end of all religion. All culminates in this true, constant fellowship between men and God. Get side by side with God. Fellowship with Him is the climax of all religion. It is also the secret of all blessedness, the only thing that will make a life absolutely sovereign over sorrow, and fixedly imperturbed by all tempests, and invulnerable to all “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Hold fast by God, and you have an amulet against every evil, and a shield against every foe, and a mighty power that will calm and satisfy your whole being.

II. The sadly incomplete reality, in much Christian experience, which contrasts with this possibility. Perhaps few so-called Christians habitually feel, as they might do, the depth and blessedness of this communion. And only a very small percentage of us have anything like the continuity of companionship which the text suggests as possible. There may be, and therefore there should be, running unbroken through a Christian life, one long bright line of communion with God, and happy inspiration from the sense of His presence with us. Is it a line in my life, or is there but a dot here and a dot there, and long breaks between?

III. An explanation of the failure to realise this continual presence. The explanation is that the two are not agreed. That is why they are not walking together. The consciousness of God’s presence with us is a very delicate thing. At bottom, there is only one thing that separates a soul from God, and that is sin of some sort. Remember that very little divergence will, if the two paths are prolonged far enough, part their other ends by a world. There may be scarcely any conscious ness of parting company at the beginning. Take care of little divergencies that are habitual. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

”--This points to an essential condition of union between the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who really are His. Fellowship with the Lord is obviously the highest privilege of the creature. In every age this has been regarded as the highest favour that could possibly be given to man. All the most distinguished worthies of ancient Scripture history have this, above everything else, as their distinguishing glory and their privilege--to live in the society of the invisible God. And it is the privilege of every true Christian to receive the Lord Jesus Christ into his heart, and to live in constant fellowship, through Him, with the unseen God. They that live most in the society of the everlasting God must, more or less, be partakers of His own Divine attributes. And what joy belongs to such a life as this! Before we can really know Him there must be a substantial agreement between ourselves and Him. There are only too many Christians who are living out of fellowship with God. And it is only too possible to fail from fellowship with Him. Then the highest privilege in our life is gone. We must have permitted some cause of disagreement to arise between ourselves and Him. The relationship in which we stand is of such a character that the superior Being must be supreme. God’s way being the way of absolute perfection, any attempt on our part to assert our own desire, as in opposition to the Divine will, must be an offence against our own nature and our own interest, just as surely as it is an offence against His Divine pleasure. There must be a complete and continual yielding up, a concession of our natural inclinations to His Divine will, if we are to rise to that which He desires we should attain to, and possess the blessedness which we may, even here, experience. This is our life-work--to bring our human wills into conformity with Him; to watch every little cause of disagreement, and to eliminate it as fast as it makes its appearance. Our blessed Lord is our example in this respect. Our Lord had a human will, though it was not a Sinful will. Contemplate Adam unfallen, and put beside him the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will find that they both have the same tastes and proclivities, naturally, because they are both specimens of genuine humanity. What was our Lord’s course of conduct, starting from this point? He lays it down as the first law of His human life, that He has come into the world, “not to do His own will, but the will of Him who had sent Him.” Having accepted this as the great taw of His conduct, lower considerations, considerations connected with pleasure and pain, take a completely subordinate position. There was the complete devotion of the human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Divine will. The result was that God and He were walking together in holy union. No doubt at times our Lord felt strangely solitary. But there was one thing that stayed Him in the midst of all His trials, and cheered Him in the midst of all His sorrows,--“He that hath sent Me is with Me.” The life of Jesus was a constant rendering up of pleasure to God. It was lived out, not as under an iron law, but with a feeling of filial delight in doing what pleased the Father; and the result of this was an unbroken harmony between the two wills, and the continuous presence within His own nature of the Father, for whom, and by whom He lived. The will of man, yielding to the will of God, became the will of God. That will always be the effect of the surrender of our will to Him. The more our human will is yielded over to Him, the more complete does the fellowship of our nature with His become, and the two are able so closely to “walk together” that they become united in an indissoluble union. It is our highest privilege, and our deepest and truest wisdom, to follow the example of our blessed Lord and Master in the maintenance of the continuous attitude of agreement towards God, who claims the lordship of our nature. Agree with Him in little things. Anything like a life of fellowship with God is altogether impossible until the first act of agreement has taken place. There are many who are always trying to rise into a life of fellowship with God without taking the primary step towards it. If you have not come into fellowship with God, you are disagreed with respect to your nature. There is a property quarrel between you. He lays His hand upon that nature of yours, and says, “It is Mine.” God is a Sovereign, He has laid down certain laws. Where is the man or woman who has kept them? Moreover, God and the unrenewed sinner are in a state of disagreement with respect to the position which the sinner has to take. It is one of helplessness. Let me come closer. The disagreement is a personal one. There is something that has slipped in between thee and thy God. And the disagreement has arisen with thee, rebellious sinner. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)

The condition essential to a walk with God

Unless there be congeniality of character, there may be outward alliance, but there cannot be that intimate communion which the alliance itself is supposed to imply. And a sameness of tendency or pursuit appears evidently to form an immediate link between parties who would otherwise have had little in common. Men of science seem attracted towards each other, though they may be strangers by birth and even by country. Our text, though it may with great justice be applied to human associations, furnishing a rule which ought to guide us in forming them, was originally intended, and originally delivered, to refer to intercourse between man and God. The Israelites flattered themselves that they should still enjoy the favour of God, that the relation which made Him specially their guardian might still be maintained, while they lived in wickedness. “Not so,” says God, “the thing is impossible; two cannot walk together, except they be agree.

I. What is it for man to walk with God? Two walking together denotes their having the same object, or pursuing the same end. In scriptural phrase it not only marks a man out as pious, but as eminently pious. A man who habitually “walked with God” would be one who had a constant sense of the Divine presence, and a thorough fixing of the affections on things above.

1. A man who walks with God must have a constant sense of the Divine presence. He lives in the full consciousness that the eye of his Maker is ever upon him, so that he cannot take a single unobserved step, or do the least thing which escapes Divine notice.

2. The expression indicates a thorough fixing of the affections on things above. It is the description of a man who, whilst yet in the flesh, may be said to have both his head and his heart in heaven. To “walk with God” implies a state of concord and co-operation: a state in fact, on man’s part, of what we commonly under stand by religion, the human will having become harmonious with the Divine, and the creature proposing the same object as the Creator.

II. The absolute necessity of agreement between man and God in order to their “walking together.” The “agreement” is clearly given as indispensable to the “walking together.” Some process of reconciliation is necessary ere there can be friendly intercourse between a human being and the Divine. And how may God and man “walk together” when they are agreed? Whatever the moral change which may pass upon man, it is certain that he remains to the last a being of corrupt passions and unholy tendencies. We must take heed not to narrow or circumscribe the results of Christ’s work of redemption. The process of agree ment, as undertaken and completed by Christ, had respect to continuance as well as to commencement. It was not a process for merely bringing God and man into friendship; it was a process for keeping them in friendship. But the “walking together” could not last if it were not that the Mediator ever lives as an Intercessor: it could not last, if it were not that the work of the Son procured for us the influences of the Spirit. Another point of view is that to question whether “two can walk together except they be agreed,” is really to assert an impossibility. Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed. Consider this impossibility with reference to a future state. And we have no right to think that this agreement between God and man is ever affected, unless at least commenced on this side the grave. Time is for beginnings, eternity is for completions. (Henry Melvill, B. D.)

The law and the conscience--their quarrel made up

There must be a reason why questions are put in the Bible and not answered there. It is intended that each learner should sit down, and, by the analogy of faith applied to his own experience, work out an answer for himself. The question in the text arises out of a particular ease in the experience of Israel; but it is expressed in a general form, and contains a rule of universal application. We apply to God’s law and man’s conscience.

I. The disagreement.

1. The fact that there is alienation. God’s law is His manifested, will for the government of His creatures. It is holy, just, and good; it is perfect as its Author. Observe the steadfastness of God’s laws as applied to material things. His moral law, ruling spirits, is as inexorable as His physical law, ruling matter. It has no softness for indulged sins. It never changes and never repents. The law never saved a sinner; if it did, it would no longer be a law. The law, by its very nature, can have no partialities and no compunctions. It never saves those who transgress, and never weeps for those who perish. The conscience in man is that part of his wonderful frame that comes into closest contact with God’s law--the part of the man that lies next to the fiery law, and feels its burning. When first the conscience is informed and awakened it discovers itself guilty and the law angry. There is not peace between the two, and, by the constitution of both, they are neighbours. There is need of peace in so close a union, and there is not peace. The conscience is pierced by the law, the sharp arrow of the Lord, and the convicted feels himself a lost, a dead man. Where there is mutual hatred distance may diminish its intensity; but where the antagonists are forced into contact, the nearness exasperates the hate.

2. The consequence of this disagreement between the two is, they cannot walk together. Emnity tends to produce distance. The law, indeed, remains what it was, and where it was; but the offending and fearing conscience seeks, and in one sense obtains, a separation. The conscience cannot bear the burning contact of a condemning law, and forcibly pushes it away. But distance is disobedience. To walk with the law is to live righteously; not to live with the law, is to live in sin. There are certain special features of the disagreement in this case that aggravate the breach and increase its effects,

(1) The party who has injured another hates that other most heartily, and cannot afford to forgive. The injurer must foment the quarrel; it is his only source of relief. The wrong-doer is miserable when he whom he has injured is near.

(2) There is not only the memory of a past grudge, but also the purpose of a future injury.

II. The reconciliation.

1. The nature of the reconciliation, and the means of attaining it. The agreement between the law and the conscience is a part of the great reconciliation between God and man, which is effected in and by Jesus Christ. He is our peace. Peace of conscience follows in the train of justification. Peace is accomplished not by persuading the law to take less, but by giving it all that it demands. The law s demands are satisfied by the Lord Jesus Christ, the substitute of sinners. He has already accomplished the work. My conscience begins to love God’s law when God’s law ceases to condemn me; and God’s law ceases to condemn me when I am in Christ Jesus.

2. The effect of the agreement is obedience to the law--that is, the whole Word of God. The Word still condemns the sins that linger in you; but this does not renew the quarrel. You are on the side of the law, and against your own besetting sins. Practical application to sinners and to saints. (W. Arnot.)

We must be in harmony with God

When the battle was fought between the Monitor and the Cumberland, you remember that the Cumberland was sunk in water so shallow that her topgallants remained above the waves. A friend of mine, who was in Governor Andrew’s cabinet, had a friend in the hold of the Cumberland as she went down. He was the surgeon, and was so absorbed in his attention to the wounded that he didn’t escape from the hold of the vessel, and came near death by the rushing in of the howling brine. But, being a bold man, he kept in view” the light which streamed through the hatchways, and, aiding himself by the rigging, at last, almost dead, reached the surface, and was taken into a boat and saved. Now, the insidious and almost unseen expectation that works in human nature is, that when we go down in the sea of death and eternity we shall in some way escape out of ourselves, and swim away from our own personalities, and thus leave the Cumberland at the bottom of the sea. The trouble with that theory is, that we are the Cumberland, and the Cumberland cannot swim away from the Cumberland, can it? You will not get away from yourself and the laws that are implied in the structure of that nature. How can you walk with yourself unless you are agreed with yourself--that is, with the plan of your soul? And I hold a man’s soul is made to be conscious and be in harmony with God, just as assuredly as the hand is made to shut toward the front and not toward the back. You will not get away from that plan of your individualities. You drop your body, but that is not you. How do I know but there are many empty sleeves of soldiers of the Union here? They may have left all their limbs at Gettysburg, and have been trundled here to-night, yet we should have said they are here. Thoreau said he had no interest in cemeteries, because he had no friends there. The body is not you. Your dropping the body is not the dropping of your personality. You are going as a personality into the unseen holy with your consciousness, your reason, your whole mental nature, social and moral. Your intellectual perceptions, perhaps all that is moral in you, may be quickened in activity when the flesh is dropped. That seems more probable than the reverse; and now, “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?” The plan of your nature is not likely to be changed to-morrow, or the day after; unless you come into harmony with it always, the dissonance of your nature with itself will be its own great and lasting punishment. The Cumberland cannot swim out of the Cumberland. (Joseph Cook.)

Matrimonial harmony or discord

Our subject is the mutual duties of husbands and wives. As individuals we are fragments. God makes the race in parts, and then He gradually puts us together. What I lack you make up; what you lack I make up. I have no more right to blame a man for being different from me than a driving wheel has a right to blame the iron shaft that holds it to the centre. John Wesley balances Calvin’s “Institutes.” The difficulty is that we are not satisfied with the work that God has given us to do. For more compactness, and that we may be more useful, we are gathered in still smaller circles in the home group. And there you have the same varieties again. If the husband be all impulse, the wife must be all prudence. If one sister be sanguine in her temperament, the other must be lymphatic. Mary and Martha are necessities. The institution of marriage has been defamed in our day. Attempt bus been made to turn marriage into a mere commercial enterprise.

1. My first counsel to you who are setting up homes for yourselves is,--Have Jesus in your new home; let Him who was a guest at Bethany be in your household. Let the Divine blessing drop upon your every hope and expectation.

2. Exercise to the very last possibility of your nature the law of forbearance. Never be ashamed to apologise when you have done wrong in domestic affairs.

3. Do not carry the fire of your temper too near the gunpowder.

4. Make your chief pleasure circle round your home.

5. Cultivate sympathy of occupation.

6. Let love preside in your home. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)