Amos 5:18-20 - Homiletics

The day of the Lord the night of the impenitent.

Divine judgments will be as sharp as they are sure. Sent in wrath, proportioned to guilt, falling on the vulnerable points, they are the least desirable of all imaginable things. The very thought of them should be sobering, and the sure prospect of them overwhelming. Now, the scoffer is the worst type of sinner, and will, in the nature of the case, be the greatest sufferer when judgment comes. He is at the same time the most utterly blinded character, and therefore likely to be taken most violently by surprise. How he shall be so, and to what extent, is made in these verses to appear.

I. " THE DAY OF THE LORD ." This is a common expression in the prophets, and its meaning is well defined. It is applied:

1 . To the day of active Divine intervention on earth. ( Job 1:15 ; Job 2:1 ; Isaiah 2:12 ; Jeremiah 46:10 ; Obadiah 1:15 .) There are periods which God signalizes by special doings. Long quiescent, he becomes conspicuously active. He intervenes in human affairs with unusual emphasis. Judgments often menaced are sent. Sinners long berne with are punished. The godly, for a time imposed on, are delivered. Abuses, the growth of centuries, are dealt with on their merits, and swept away. Such a period is called "the day of the Lord" because it is the time of obvious and special Divine activity. God not only strikes, but shows his hand.

2 . To the day of final judgment. All others foreshadow, lead up to, culminate and lose themselves in this. "The day of the Lord had already become the name forevery day of judgment, leading on to the last day" (Pusey). This is the day of the Lord in a unique sense. It is unique as regards universality. It will see dealt with, not individuals merely, or nations even, but the entire race ( Matthew 25:31 ). It is unique in the matter of thoroughness. There will be inquisition as to each person, and as to every act of each ( 2 Corinthians 5:10 ). It is unique also in the matter of finality. Questions already dealt with by temporal judgments will be reopened to be settled once for all. Its sentence will be final, and its adjudication of rewards and punishments for all eternity ( Matthew 25:46 ).

II. ITS SIGNIFICANCE TO THE WICKED . This is explicitly and minutely defined as:

1 . Evil. "Darkness, and not light." It could not be otherwise. Sin means wrath, and wrath means infliction. Between a righteous God and all unrighteousness there must exist an infinite antagonism. Between his Law and such there is an essential incompatibility. Therefore his action towards them must be adverse, his judgment on them that of condemnation. It is a result of God's purity, of the majesty of law, of the needs of moral government, that "with the froward he shall show himself froward."

2 . Only evil. "And no brightness in it." The dispensation of forbearance, the time for any measure or kind of good, is over. While any hope of reformation remained, judgment was mingled with mercy. But when this is hopeless, and the question is only one of punishing the reprobate, the exercise of goodness would be an anachronism, and only severity can be meted out.

3 . Evil playing into the hands of evil. "As if a man fleeth before the lion, and the bear meets him." Divine punitive measures are various and complete. They surround us. They hem us in on every side. They form as it were a circle of fire round us. They are not to be evaded or escaped ( Jeremiah 11:11 ; Romans 2:3 ; Hebrews 2:3 ). In running away from one, we only run into the jaws of another. If it is not the lion's tooth, then in any case it will be the bear's claws. If health escape, property will suffer. If both escape, the good name will be tarnished. If all three escape, conscience will be wounded and happiness destroyed. If earthly evil consequences do not reach us, there are eternal fires kindled against which there will be no appeal.

4 . Evil in the arms of good. "And rests his hand upon the wall, and the snake bite him." The wall, a ready support for the feeble or weary to lean on, may furnish in its chinks a hiding place for the venomous snake. So with all human refuges in God's day of visitation. They will fail us. Their help will not be available, or it will not be sufficient, or it will involve some other evil as great as the one it will relieve. "The staff of bruised reed" ( Isaiah 36:6 ) is the fitting emblem of all fancied helps in the day of God's wrath. Even the likeliest will be found wanting in the very matter in which it promises most.

III. THEIR FOOLISH DESIRE FOR IT . "Woe to those who desire the day of Jehovah!" The sinner's desiring the day of vengeance on his sins may mean:

1 . Misapprehension. Israel did not realize the enormity of their sin. They did not see that the threatened judgments were for themselves and on account of it. They trusted to their position as "Israel after the flesh" to secure them the immunity that only belonged to Israel after the Spirit, And so their idea of the day of God was a time when their enemies would be destroyed, and they themselves delivered and exalted. With all the wicked, the eye for the sins of others is so much keener than the eye for their own, that coming good is unconsciously allocated to themselves and coming evil to others, and so Divine judgments desired which can only destroy them when they come.

2 . Bravado . The prophets who foretold the coming of God's day rebuked the people's sin on account of which it was to come. Put on their mettle by the rebuke, many would affect to ridicule the prophecy. Like others ( Jeremiah 17:15 ; 2 Peter 3:3 , 2 Peter 3:4 ), they would say, with an affectation of unbelief, "You are trying to frighten us with a bugbear. Let your talked of judgment fall, and then we will believe it." The delay of God's judgment, which means that when it comes it shall be the more terrible, is often taken as meaning that it is not coming at all ( Ezekiel 12:22 , Ezekiel 12:27 ).

3 . Vindictiveness. Some would deem themselves less criminal than others—their enemies, it may be, and oppressors. On these they would expect the heaviest strokes to fall, and to bring this about they would suffer more or less themselves. There are Samsons among sinners who would run the risk of perishing themselves in order to secure the destruction of others. To all three classes "the day of the Lord is darkness, and no brightness in it." Evil will come none the less surely because it is good that is expected, and it will come all the more sharply on those who to their other sin have added malice against men and mockery of God.