Amos 6:13 - Homiletics

Joy in the unreal always precarious.

It is quite unaccountable. It is almost incredible. But it is unquestionably true. Men reject the staff, and lean upon the broken reed. Whatever is worthy of trust they doubt, whatever is utterly unreliable they confide in. This was the way of Israel, and it is the way of humanity. They do not see the reality of things. They attribute to them qualities they do not possess, qualities sometimes the very opposite of the actual ones. Then they act on their theory of things, and rejoice in a figment, the creation of their own fancy, whilst repudiating or disregarding real and reliable objects of trust.

I. THE THINGS THAT ARE " THINGS OF NOUGHT ." The arm of flesh, or human help, as against God's strength, is the "non-thing" or nonentity referred to primarily. But the expression is capable of wider application. Among the nonentities are:

1 . All things sinful. This is an extreme case. Sin is an ephemera, offering only what fleets away. It is a negation, the privation of all good. It is a phantasm, having an appearance of good with no reality below it. It is a deception, having a lie at the bottom of it. It is a non-thing in a unique sense.

2 . All things material. The positivist only believes in material phenomena, as those of which alone he has positive knowledge. But these are really the most uncertain phenomena there are. The bodily sense that notes them is more certain, and the thinking mind that has cognizance of the bodily sense is more certain than either, and the ultimate test of the existence of both. What we know most surely and directly is spirit. Observation may be incorrect, and lead us astray, but consciousness speaks only truth. If there are things which "are not as they seem," they are physical, as distinguished from psychical things.

3 . All things temporal. These are evanescent in their nature. "The world passeth away." They are still more evanescent in their form: "The fashion of this world passeth away." They are doubly evanescent in their character as a means of happiness; for not alone the world, but the "lust thereof," passeth away. This evanescence means unreality. The thing that perishes in the using is conspicuously a thing of nought. Such a thing is human nature, and each of its temporal blessings and relations—in other words, human life. It is a vapour on the hill, a bubble on the stream, a ripple on the wave, a meteor in the sky, an unsubstantial thing that passes and leaves no trace.

4 . All things created . God, the "I Am," is essential Existence. He alone hath immortality, exists of himself and from himself. The existence of creatures is derived, an existence from God and in him. It is not, therefore, real as God's is. We are phantoms, he is reality. We are shadows, he is substance. Creation as contrasted with the Creator is a "non-thing," a thing of nought.

II. THE CHARACTER THAT FINDS ITS JOY IN UNREALITY . This character is one with a wide geographical range. It might almost be said to belong to sinful man as such. As to its qualities, it is:

1 . Blind . Such a man "cannot see afar off." He does not see things through and through. He does not see things as they are. He sees things through coloured glasses. He dwells in the superficies of things. He is deceived by appearances. He confounds the qualities of things. He cannot, in fact, be said to "know anything as he ought." The blindness of our heart is a universal infirmity. Sin blinds, and prejudice blinds, and infirmity blinds us all; and the most convincing proof of the fact is that we choose the worst and poorest in the universe, and often and long reject the true riches.

2 . Prejudiced. The blindness that permits us to rejoice in the flesh must have prejudice behind it. It involves a wrong condition of heart. "The carnal mind is enmity against God" is a maxim which explains the rejection of him by the sinner. "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh" is one which explains his choice of sin. In the spiritual, as in other departments, things follow their affinities.

3 . Prowl. Well says the poet—

"What the weak head with strangest bias rules

Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools."

It misreads altogether the proportions of things. It has an overweening estimate of self. "Thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think," and "thinking God to be altogether such a one as ourselves," the transfer of trust from heaven to earth, is not alone natural, but inevitable.

III. THE JOY WHAT FLAMES WITHOUT FUEL . That there should be such joy at all is an abnormal thing. A priori it is not what we should expect. And we are prepared to find something anomalous about a joy that could exist in such circumstances. This we do.

1 . It is a passing joy. It cannot last. The meteor irradiating the sky, the thorns crackling under the pot, both blaze and both burn quickly out. The fire has too little to feed on. It is only a puff, and done with. So with joy in the earthly. It has an unsubstantial and unenduring basis. The thing it rests on perishes, and it cannot itself endure.

2 . It is an unreal joy. It is not alone that it has reference to an ephemeral thing, but to an unsubstantial thing. It is a mere figment of the mind; an appearance rather than an existence; not a fire in the proper sense, but a phosphorescence.

3 . Its unreality is the parent of real woe . To rejoice in a nonentity is a course on which disappointment clearly waits. It also involves distrust, and so incurs the wrath of God. No man can deceive himself with impunity. The line of action into which his false notion wilt lead him mast end in calamity. Mistaken opinion associates itself with unfitting action, and this in turn with undesired results. He who follows the fen fire lands in the fen.

4 . Of all who rejoice in a thing of nought the most hopelessly deceived are the self-righteous. With others the trust is something apart from religion, and adopted in preference to it. But with the self-righteous it masquerades in the name of religion itself. There is an idea, either that nothing is wrong, or that the man can help himself. In either case Divine help is despised. God's right is spurned. The one only way is refused. And on the moral impossibility of escaping if they neglect so great salvation, the self-deluded soul makes shipwreck. "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire," etc.