Amos 5:16-17 - Homiletics

The track of the destroyer.

Each name of God is a guarantor of his action. It expresses a character, or relation, or operation, in which he thereby reveals himself. The multiplication of his names and titles here is a cumulative argument for the sureness of the matter revealed. He who is God of hosts or the Omnipotent One, Lord or the Absolute One, and Jehovah or the Self-existent One, is the Being with whom to decide is to act, and to will is to accomplish. Of the deliverance so emphasized observe—

I. THE MORAL CERTAINTY THAT THE WARNING TO AN APOSTATE WILL BE VAIN . The possibility of a happy end, by the grace of God, to Israel's sin and troubles is held out in the previous verse. Yet here the falling of the judgments denounced is assumed to be inevitable. Paul declares that it is impossible to restore to repentance those who might fall away from a high degree of spiritual attainment. The apostate is a hopeless case:

1 . Because he loves sin more than other men. They love it knowing nothing better, but he does so with experimental knowledge of the way of peace. He loves it under a less impulse than they, and in the face of stronger deterrents than they, and must therefore love it more than they. The fuel that kindles with the least fire, and burns in spite of most water, is clearly the most inflammable.

2 . Because he is harder than other men. The strain is proportioned to the wrench. All sin hantens, and hardens in proportion as we are active and resolute in it. Sinning against more light, and more deterrent influence than others, the apostate's sin involves a more decided act of will, and so a more violently hardening effect. The more firmly the branding-iron is applied, the more deeply it scars. The more violently the moral sense is sinned against, the more the organ is indurated and injured.

3 . Because his day of grace will be shorter than that of other men. The only chance of men's turning at all is God's striving with them. This he does with all men during a longer or shorter period. In the case of the antediluvians the striving was for a hundred and twenty years ( Genesis 6:3 ). In the case of Jerusalem it was three years ( Matthew 23:39 ). In the case of Saul, King of Israel, it was till within about seven years of his death ( 1 Samuel 18:12 ). In the case of many it is during the entire life ( Matthew 20:6-9 ). Thus each man has his day of grace, during which God strives with him to bring him to repentance. In the nature of the case the day of grace for the apostate must be far advanced. He has been more and longer striven with than other men, and so is presumably nearer the limit beyond which the process does not go.

II. A THREAT THE OBVERSE OF A CONDITIONAL PROMISE . "For I will pass through the midst of thee;" i.e. as elsewhere ( Exodus 12:12 ) in judgment. The language is a threat. God, so far from dwelling with them, as under other circumstances he was ready to do ( Amos 5:14 ), would pass through them in wrath and destroying power. Underlying the announcement of this alternative is the fact:

1 . That compromise is impossible with God. He will save or he will destroy. There is no half-way house between the good of his promise and the evil of his threat. He can yield nothing and abate nothing of either. He will come as a Friend to abide and bless unspeakably, or he will pass through as an invading Foe, making desolation in his track.

2 . That the incentive to repentance must be double-edged. There are people who must be led, and others who must be driven. "The mercies of God" are the strongest motive power with some minds, whilst "the terrors of the Lord" are most potent with others. The Divine machinery of impulsion, to be perfect in itself and for its purpose, must include both. Hence men are plied with each in turn and often with both together ( John 3:36 ) in connection with the salvation which they ultimately embrace. Israel's case would not be abandoned as hopeless until both menace and promise had made their contribution to the work of its persuasion.

III. CREATION LANGUISHING WHEN THE CREATOR FROWNS . The connection between man and the creation is very close. The judgment on Israel would mean evil:

1 . In the fields. They would not be fertile as heretofore. Their crops would fail to grow, or be blighted before they could he gathered ( Amos 4:7 ). Enemies would devastate the country and destroy the fruit of the ground. Rapacious officials would confiscate the earnings of honest industry. In each calamity, much more in all together, was enough to quench the joy of harvest, and cause the husbandman to mourn.

2 . In the vineyards. The whole food of the people, the corn, the wine together, would be swept away. The grape gathering was a proverbial occasion of joy ( Isaiah 16:10 ). But with no vintage to gather, or no chance to gather it for the lawful owner, the "vintage shouting" would cease, and for the usual singing in the vineyards would be substituted a universal wail.

3 . In the streets. "God made the country, and man made the town." And the human depends on the Divine. Trade and commerce draw from agriculture their chief materials, and so when it fails they fail with it. When the husbandman has cause to weep there can be no dry eye in the community. The wail that begins in the fields, and spreads through the vineyards, will rise to a mighty roar when it reaches the streets, where the sufferers herd and lament together.

IV. THE LAMENTATION SYMPTOMATIC OF A GREAT DISASTER .

1 . This is universal. In all "streets and vineyards; etc. The judgment affecting all classes in the community, all should mourn.

2 . It is in concert. Men would call their fellows to lamentation. Not as individuals merely, but as a community, they sinned and suffer, and so as a community they should wail

3 . It is worked up. "And lamentation to those skilled in lamenting." The mourning would not be left to take any form that happened. It would be appointed and organized, and then observed according to programme. All this implies an intelligent and vivid idea of the significance of the occasion. God's judgments, however long despised, will make themselves to be understood and respected at last. In hell there is no misappreciation of the nature and strength of Divine retribution; and on earth appreciation comes infallibly with experience.