Amos 3:13-15 - Homiletics

The residue of Israel's woe.

Those who had been called to witness the sin of Israel are now summoned to hear and report her sentence. In connection with this we see that—

I. EVEN HEATHENS CAN TESTIFY AGAINST APOSTATE ISRAEL IN THE JUDGMENT . To testify is not merely to convey intelligence; it contains in it the idea of protest, i.e. testifying against.

1 . The heathen had a natural sense of right and wrong. Paul says they "show the work of the law written in their hearts," and "are a law unto themselves." A rule of duty is included in the constitution of their nature. They know right from wrong, arid are governed by a sense of obligation. They could, therefore, judge the conduct of Israel. They could see and testify that it did not come up to even their own imperfect standard of right.

2 . They had been truer to their standard of right than Israel had. Paul tells us that the heathen had not been true to their light ( Romans 1:21-28 ), and that the punishment of that was diminished light. But they had been truer, on the whole, than Israel had been to hers. Their morality was not so far below Israel's as their inferior light would lead us to expect. Hence the assumption that they would be shocked at Israel's manifold corruptions. Moral deterioration is measured, not so much by the absolute amount and kind of wrong doing as by the extent to which it falls below the known standard of right. Other things being equal, he is relatively the best man who most closely follows his light ( John 3:19 ; Romans 2:14 ).

2 . They would learn something for themselves from this bearing. Discrimination would see that Israel's sin was not a result, but the contradiction, of the national religion; that it was an evil result of heathen influence, and involving the heathen more or less in its guilt; that Israel's God was a God that judgeth righteously, and taketh vengeance on evil doers; and that judgment, beginning at God's chosen people, would not miss his open enemies. The very act of testifying against Israel, moreover, would involve such an exercise of the moral sense, in reference to their sin, as could not fail to be beneficial.

II. SIN IS PUNISHED BY BEING RETURNED ON THE SINNER 'S HEAD . "When I visit Israel's transgression upon him." The sin not only leads to the punishment, but as it were re-embodies itself in it.

1 . The memory of it haunts him. When sin is done it is not done with. Like the dead bird around the Ancient Mariner's neck, an avenging Providence ties the memory of it to our soul. Like the crime of Eugene Aram, it becomes an evil haunting memory, to dog our steps forever.

"And still no peace for the restless clay

Will wave or mould allow;

The horrid thing pursues my soul—

It stands before me now."

(Hood.)

2. The permanent evil consequences of it keep it before the memory. The sins of youth are the sowing of which the sufferings of manhood and age are the harvest—a harvest too constantly and painfully reaped to allow the harvester to forget. The sins of one man are the fruitful source of the sins and sorrows of many, and find in each of these a mentor who makes it impossible to forget. In addition to tile sinner and the sinned against, wrong doing injures those whose well being depends on either. It is thus a poison tree that forks and branches in the bearing of its deadly fruit. While the evil consequences of his wrong doing are around him, and propagating themselves in ever-widening circles, the sinner apart from conscience cannot get his iniquities out of sight.

3 . Not seldom the punishment is a resurrection of the sin itself. Laban's trick on Jacob was a repetition of Jacob's trick on Isaac ( Genesis 29:25 ; Genesis 27:15-27 ). The deaths of Haman and Jezebel were similarly adjusted punishments. So with the cutting off the thumbs and great toes of the arch-mutilator Adoni-bezek ( 1:6 , 1:7 ). In such cases the sin is palpably returned in retribution on the sinner's head.

III. IDOL WORSHIP IS A SIMULATION OF THE WORSHIP OF GOD . "The altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar." Both in the use of an altar and in the form of the altar used the idol worship set up by Jeroboam was a plagiarism from the worship of Jehovah.

1 . Man cannot create in religion, but he can adapt. He can form no idea of spiritual things apart from Divine revelation ( 1 Corinthians 2:9 ). At the same time, God's revelation of spiritual things is too pure for his taste. The result is that he compromises the matter by adopting ready-made ordinances, and loading them with his own corrupt spirit and meaning.

2 . Idolatrous worship seems less of an apostasy in proportion as it retains the forms of true worship. The devil lets man down into idolatry as into other sin by easy stages. First he parts with the spirit of true worship, whilst retaining the form. Then he parts with the object of it, corrupting the form. Then he adopts a new object, and adapts to its worship the already corrupted form. And so with all sin, which is spiritual idolatry. Man does not first abandon the forms of godliness, and then the practice of it. He gives up the substance of it as a matter of taste, and tries to salve his conscience for this by adhering to its forms ( 2 Timothy 3:5 ).

3 . This also makes it more plausible and insidious. The worship set up in Dan and Bethel by Jeroboam was not idol worship pure and simple. It was the worship of God by means of idols, and in forms which mimicked the worship at Jerusalem. Heresy at the outset always masquerades in the guise of truth. By adopting the sheep's clothing the wolf gets easy access to the fold. It is only after he has entered, and the danger of eviction is over, that his true character is assumed.

IV. ONE IDOL BREEDS MANY . "The altars of Bethel." There was but one sacrificial altar in connection with the worship of Jehovah, but when many gods were invented, many altars were provided to correspond to them. This multiplication of idols is accounted for by the fact that:

1 . Evil naturally spreads. One sin leads to more. Covetousness leads to theft, drunkenness to uncleanness, all three often to murder, and almost every sin to deceit and lying. No man can set up one sinful idol and say he will have no more. It will bring others with it whether he will or no. It is the first swallow of the summer of evil doing, and heralds a coming flock.

2 . Idolatry must become polytheism in the attempt to meet the spiritual wants of men . God is an infinite Being, and so can meet our human necessity all round. But an idol is the creation of a finite mind, and so a finite thing. It is to meet one need of our nature, the need that was uppermost in the consciousness of the inventor. But a different need will be uppermost in another worshipper, and a different idol will be wanted to meet his case. Accordingly, in the mythology were many gods, who distributed among them the various functions necessary to complete the circle of human good. It was, in fact, an attempt, by multiplying deities indefinitely, to provide a substitute for the infinite God of revelation.

3 . A worship that is all error is more logical than one that is half truth. Everything has its own proper form. You do not find an eagle in the form of a dove, nor an apple in the form of a plum, nor an evil principle in the form of a good one. If such a form is artificially put round it, the result is a palpable misfit. Polytheism is the nearest approach to logical idolatry, and in proportion as it is self-consistent is dangerous, and wins its way.

V. THE FIRST THING JUDGMENT DOES AGAINST THE IDOLATER IS TO DEPRIVE HIM OF HIS GODS . "The horns of the altar shall be cut off," etc. This would put an effectual stop to the idol worship. We thus see that:

1 . God wants his judgments to be recognized . He never punishes men incognito. When he puts forth his power he wants men to see that it is his ( Exodus 7:5 ; 1 Kings 20:28 ; Ezekiel 6:7 ), and striking the very seat of sin inflicts a stroke at once significant and effectual, a revelation at once of the Divine hand and power.

2 . He wants them to be effective. The moral effect of a judgment depends very much on our knowing whence it comes. If we recognize it as sent by God, it is tenfold more impressive. Now, to exercise the maximum of beneficial influence with the minimum of afflictive visitation is ever God's way ( Lamentations 3:32 , Lamentations 3:33 ). He does not strike an aimless or a needless blow. Each stroke is meant to tell, and the medicine of affliction is stopped the moment the patient is cured.

3 . Idolatry is at the root of all other sin. It is the complement of atheism, which is radically the heart departing from God. It is a sublimated self-worship, making an idol of our own mental creation. A god dethroned, and a self enthroned, is a state of things which "contains the promise and potency" of all evil. To strike at Israel's idolatry was to lay the axe to the root of the national evil. The idols abolished, and God restored to the national heart, its life would be again a consecrated one.

VI. MAN 'S SELF - INDULGENCE , THE DEAREST IDOL HE HAS , WILL BE TAKEN FROM HIM ALONG WITH THE REST . ( Amos 3:15 , "And I will smite," etc.) Luxuries long enjoyed become necessities of life, and no judgment would be thorough that left them untouched. Self-indulgence, if it were left, would soon invent a new idolatry for its own accommodation. It is only by making a clean sweep of the idols already in possession that God can get his place in the sinner's heart.