Amos 4:6-11

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities.

Afflictions providential

There is a material difference between what may be called permissive and active providences; and between such as are disciplinary, and such as are strictly punitive. The afflictions enumerated here were sent by the direct visitation of God for disciplinary purposes. Hence the people were responsible to God for the moral effect of His providential visitations upon them. Just so with every man under God’s government. A thousand evils may come on me, and I may be personally innocent in relation to them; but God will judge me as to the uses I make of these visitations--the moral effects they produce upon me in the way of chastening and reformation.

1. Consider, then, that God’s hand or purpose is in every providential visitation.

2. That God has a specific moral end in every visitation that He lays upon us.

3. That these providences are sure to accomplish their mission upon us, namely, to chasten, soften, reclaim, or else to harden, render obdurate, and ripen for final destruction, as in the case of Pharaoh, ancient Israel, and a multitude of others.

4. Afflictions of every kind should humble us, awaken us to serious reflection and earnest inquiry as to their meaning. They are never sent in vain. A gracious purpose is behind them, or a fatherly rebuke is in them, or the dark cloud is ominous of coming wrath if we haste not to repent. (J. M. Sherwood.)

God’s government of the world a chastising government

In these verses the Almighty describes the various corrective measures which He had employed for effecting a moral reformation in the character of the Israelites.

I. The chastisements are often overwhelmingly terrific.

1. He sometimes employs blind nature, famine, drought, blight, pestilence, sword.

2. He sometimes employs human wickedness.

II. They are designed for moral restoration.

1. Men are alienated from God.

2. Their alienation is the cause of all their misery. See the benevolence of all these chastisements. They are to restore souls.

III. The chastisements often fail in their grand design. “Yet have ye not returned unto Me.” This shows--

1. The force of human depravity.

2. The force of human freedom. Almighty goodness does not force us into goodness. He treats us as free agents and responsible beings. (Homilist.)

Chastisement--its purpose and failure

I. The character of the chastisement.

1. It touched them in their temporal comfort, Nothing else would reach such obstinate sinners. To a good man the Divine love and favour is the highest of all blessings: Israel could only be reached by loss of temporal comfort.

2. The chastisement took various forms in order to reach them all.

3. Stroke after stroke fell upon them, that if their hearts were at all softened by the troubles they had just known, the new trouble might lead them to true repentance; and so that every class of the community might be reached and won for God. A glance at the five forms which the visitation took will show how it reached every circle.

II. The purpose of their sorrows. God wanted to bring them home to Himself.

III. The failure of this chastisement. God had done all that even He could do to make it impressive. Chastisement may fail. “Many meet the gods, but few salute them.” Sorrows which might purify are lost upon us because they do not make us acknowledge Him. God can do nothing more, He must leave men to their sin till the blow fall and the ruin irretrievable has come. (J. Telford, B. A.)

Unavailing chastisements

I. The design of God, in all his dispensations, is to bring men from their wanderings back again to himself. No truth can be clearer than that we have departed from Him. Being anxious for our restoration, God is pleased to chastise us. He does not afflict willingly, as is evident from--

1. His nature. He is a Being of boundless compassion.

2. The patience He exercises.

3. The warnings He gives.

II. That these dispensations frequently fail to answer the end for which they were intended. Happily it is not so in all cases. It is in very many. They are chastised in vain, and the complaint from heaven is heard. “Yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord.” In the visitations here referred to, three things appear.

1. They are fearful in their character. Some light stroke might be unheeded.

2. Frequent in their infliction. If a single trial is unavailing, surely one coming after another would bring them to consider their ways, and turn to Him that smote them.

3. Marked by certain features which showed the hand of God in the clearest manner. “Rained on one city, and not on another.”

III. When such dispensations are disregarded the most disastrous consequences are likely to ensue. “Therefore, thus will I do unto thee.” (Expository Outlines.)

God varies His instruments of punishment

One day, seeing some men in a field, I went up to them, and found they were cutting up the trunk of an old tree. I said, “That is slow work, why not spilt it asunder with the beetle and wedges?” “Ah, this wood is so cross-grained and stubborn that it requires something sharper than wedges to get it to pieces.” “Yes,” I replied, “and that is the way God is obliged to deal with obstinate, cross-grained sinners; if they will not yield to one of His instruments, you may depend on it He will make use of another.” (G. Grigg.)