Amos 9:1-4 - Homiletics

A quest which none may elude.

We have here a vivid picture of a dreadful subject. The prophet makes a new departure in his mode of figuration. In other visions we saw the judgments of Heaven painted in terror-moving forms; the mighty forces of nature let loose and working destruction on sinners of men. Here we see, not judgments merely, but the Judge himself, active for destruction, fulminating his thunders, brandishing his two-edged sword, and spreading devastation where his anger rests. It is true all natural forces are his instruments, and their results his work. But they do not so reveal themselves to our sense. It is Scripture that shows us an omnipotent God in the forces of nature, and in every disaster they work a judgment from his hand.

I. THE GOD OF ISRAEL STANDING ON AN IDOL ALTAR . Not the altar of God at Jerusalem, but the altar for calf worship at Bethel, is probably here referred to. God ' s standing on the idol altar is not for purposes of fellowship. That would be a moral impossibility. "What concord hath Christ with Belial? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" Not light and darkness are less compatible, not fire and water more inherently antagonistic, than the great God, who "is all in all," and the idol which is "nothing in the world." Neither is it in token of tolerance. Between the two can be no peace, no truce, no parley. "God is a jealous God," and can have no rival. His sovereignty and supreme greatness make him necessarily intolerant here. There can be no Dagons on any terms where the ark rests . It is for purposes of destruction only. "There, where, in counterfeit of the sacrifices which Cod had appointed, they offered would-be-atoning sacrifices and sinned in them, God appeared standing, to behold, to judge, to condemn" (Pusey). When God approaches sin, it is only to destroy it. Sometimes be destroys it in saving the sinner; sometimes the sin and the sinner, hopelessly wedded, are destroyed together.

II. IDOLATERS ' JUDGMENT BEGINNING AT THEIR IDOL SHRINE . "Smite the lintel," etc. This is the natural course. The lightnings of judgment strike the head of the highest sin, and strike it in the provision made for its commission. And there is a fitness in this Divine order. 1. It stops the worship. With the appliances destroyed, the observances could not go on. The interruption of sin is an intelligible and appropriate object of Divine judgment. The most effectual punishment of criminal indulgence is a visitation that stops it perforce. If not cured, at least the evil is stayed. 2. It regals the Divine hand. Two plagues had passed on Egypt without any very deep impression having been made. But when Moses smote the dust, and it became lice on man and beast, the magicians said unto Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." The miracle stopped at once the entire ceremonial of their national worship by making all the priests unclean. The idols were confounded, and Jehovah's power revealed. When a man finds his sufferings in the seat of his sins, he has materials for identifying them as the visitation of God.

III. THIS JUDGMENT FOLLOWING THEM INTO ALL THEIR RETREATS . ( Amos 9:2 , Amos 9:3 .) Driven in terror from their idol shrines, men seek escape in diverse ways, according to their diverse characters and surroundings. but it is a vain quest. The God who is omnipresent to infallible saving effect in the case of his saints ( Psalms 139:8-12 ) is so also to the inevitable destruction of the ungodly. One climbs the heaven of proud defiance, to be brought ignominiously down ( Jeremiah 49:16 ; Obadiah 1:4 ). Another "breaks through into the hell" of abject fear and self-abasement, to be dragged forth into the intolerable light. The Carmel of philosophic nescience presents no cave or grove impenetrable by the hounds of righteous judgment. Even the sea of deeper sinful indulgence has a serpent of avenging providence in its depths, from whose bite there is no escape.

IV. THIS JUDGMENT REACHING THEM THROUGH THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF ALL NATURAL CAUSES . The "sword," as representing human agency, and the "serpent," as representing the agency of natural causes, are both set in motion by God's command. The causes of nature are to God as the bodily organs to the brain, viz. servants to do his bidding. He "acts himself into them." Human wills are accessible to the will of the Supreme, and move with it as the tides with the circling moon. The Assyrian warring against Israel for his own reasons is, nevertheless, the rod of his anger in the band of Israel's God. This fact gives moral significance to many events that seem purely natural. The drunkard's bloated body, the sensualist's shattered health, the spendthrift's ruined fortunes, are results of natural laws, it is true, but of these directed and combined by supernatural power, and accomplishing Divine moral ends. The evil that comes through nature comes from its God.