Amos 9:7-10 - Homiletics

The exalted brought low.

"Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father." And yet the blind and infatuate Israel were always saying it. They said it in view of every imminent catastrophe. They said it in abbreviation of all argument. They said it in lieu of fit and seasonable action. They made it an amulet to hang around their neck when they rushed purblind into rebellious action. They ran into it as into an intellectual joss house, where any absurdity was raised to the dignity of a god. This last support of their false security the prophet in this passage knocks away. They had acted altogether out of character, and now—

I. APOSTATE ISRAEL CAN ONLY TAKE RANK WITH THE HEATHEN IN GOD 'S ESTIMATION . National election was, no doubt, a pledge of national preservation, but only in connection with national faithfulness; for:

1 . A spiritual relation with the unspiritual is impossible . "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?" It is a moral impossibility. They are moral opposites and incompatible in the nature of things. Becoming assimilated to the heathen, Israel contracted themselves out of the covenant, and became "afar off," even as they.

2 . A relation, when it is repudiated on either side, virtually terminates . Israel had said, "We will not have this Man to rule over us;" and the relation of favour on the one side and fealty on the other could not survive the step. God must cease to be their God when they ceased to be his people. "God chose them that they might choose him. By casting him off as their Lord and God, they cast themselves off and out of his protection. By estranging themselves from God, they became as strangers in his sight" (Pusey).

3 . Acts done because of a spiritual relation existing lose their meaning when it is broken off. "Have I not brought Israel," etc.? They might think that, after bringing them out of Egypt, God Could never disown them, however unfilial and unfaithful. But had not the circumstances of their idolatry and corruption altered the ease? Theirs was not the only exodus. He had brought "the Philistines out of Caphtor, and the Syrians out of Kir;" yet these nations were aliens, and to be destroyed ( Amos 1:5 ). If Israel conformed itself to these in character and way, then Israel's exodus would lose its significance, and be no more than events of a like kind in their distant past. What the father did for the son is no binding precedent for the case of the prodigal.

II. ACCORDINGLY , ISRAEL SHALL FARE AS THE HEATHEN DO WHO FORGET GOD . Grouping Israel like to like with heathen, God's attitude must be the same to both. They shall be treated:

1 . As the objects of God ' s displeasure. He is angry with the wicked every day. He is angrier with those of them who sin against light and privilege. He is angriest with the spiritual renegades whose disaffection is guilty in proportion to the strength of the ties it sets aside.

2 . As the victims of his destroying judgments. (Verse 8.) "And I will destroy it off the face of the earth." Strange words from a God visibly in covenant. But the covenant was broken. The theoretically "holy nation" was actually a "sinful kingdom." Israel's character was not the character to which covenant promises referred. Heathenish in corruption, what but the bolts forged for their pagan kin could fall upon their heads?

3 . This in the character of defiant transgressors. (Verse 10.) "Not because they sinned aforetime, but because they persevered in sin until death" (Jerome, in Pusey). Sin may be forgiven, but impenitence never. The unpardonable sin is unforsaken sin.

III. THE JUDGMENT THAT SHALL DESTROY THE WICKED MASS SHALL LEAVE A. RIGHTEOUS REMNANT . (Verse 8.) "Except that I shall not utterly destroy the house of Jacob." God ordains no indiscriminate destruction. His bolts strike his enemies. Of his friends:

1 . Not one shall perish. "Not even a little grain falls to the ground." The Divine nature, of which the righteous are partakers, is indestructible. The life of the saint is a living Christ within him ( Galatians 2:20 ). Christ "is alive forevermore" ( Revelation 1:18 ), and says to all in whom he is as their life, "Because I live, ye shall live also." In a mixed community the righteous sometimes die for the fault of the wicked; but their death is precious in God's sight ( Psalms 116:15 ), and "not an hair of their head shall perish."

2 . They shall be sifted out of the mass. (Verse 9.) In these graphic words the righteous minority are corn, and the corrupt masses the chaff. The nations are the sieve, and the Divine judgments the shaking of it. The result is not destruction of the grain, but separation between it and the chaff. "In every quarter of the world, and in well nigh every nation in every quarter, Jews have been found. The whole earth is, as it were, one vast sieve in the hands of God, in which Israel is shaken from one end to the other.... The chaff and dust would be blown away by the air;… but no solid corn, not one grain, should fall to the earth" (Pusey). So in other cases. God's judgments winnow men, discerning clearly between clean and unclean. When the storm is over, the seaworthy vessels are easy of identification, for they alone survive.

3 . Their own sinfulness shall be sifted out of them. "What is here said of all God doth daily in each of the elect. For they are the wheat of God, which, in order to be laid up in the heavenly garner, must be pure from chaff and dust. To this end he sifts them by afflictions and troubles" (Pusey). Suffering is not purifying per se . But the suffering of the righteous is ( Hebrews 12:11 ; 1 Corinthians 4:17 ). It subdues the flesh, deepens our sense of dependence on God, spiritualizes our thoughts, and tests, and by testing strengthens, faith ( 1 Peter 1:7 ). In the night of suffering come out the stars, guiding, consoling, irradiating the soul.

"Then fear not in a world like this,

And thou shalt know ere long—

Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong."