Amos 9:11-12 - Homiletics

The rebuilding of the waste places.

"God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew," as the cumulative series of woes announced might seem to indicate. As a people they conspire, rebel, and cast him off, and as a people they are scattered, decimated, and disowned. In their corporate character they cannot longer survive, But there were individuals among them who had either remained loyal or come back to their allegiance, and these stood in a different position. Not only would they be spared, but made the nucleus of a new people, and their existence the occasion of a new dispensation. Such is the burden of these verses. The sinners are destroyed, and a new prosperity blooms for the faithful remnant that survives. The waifs of the national wreck are drawn in safety from the waves, and the desolated land is renovated for their home.

I. THE RESTORATION OF DAVID 'S HOUSE . David's house here is not merely the dynasty of David, but the kingdom of David, and this as a type of the kingdom of Christ. Its restoration, in the ultimate sense, is accomplished only in the establishment of the Messianic kingdom which it symbolized. "The raising up of the fallen hut of David commenced with the coming of Christ and the founding of the Christian Church by the apostles" (Keil). Interpreting the passage thus, the rabbis adopted "the Son of the fallen" as one of the titles of Christ.

1 . This house has degenerated into a fallen hut before its true dignity is reached. Judah shrinks into a petty province, the royal line is represented by a carpenter's wife, and the Jewish Church is a little flock with many a black sheep, ere the set time to favour Zion comes. "Strange comment on human greatness, that the royal line was not to be employed in the salvation of the worm until it was fallen. The royal palace had to become the hut of Nazareth ere the Redeemer of the worm could be born, whose glory and kingdom were not of this world" (Pusey).

2 . Its restoration will be to a state of ideal perfection. The "breaches" would be repaired, and the "ruins" rebuilt, with the effect of making it "as in the days of old;" i.e. restoring it so as to embody the original design. This restoration to an as yet unrealized ideal could be only spiritual, and the Restorer Jesus Christ. The "hut" into which the "palace" had deteriorated ( 2 Samuel 5:11 ) was transformed into a far more glorious structure when Christ sat "upon the throne of David to order it," etc. ( Isaiah 9:7 ; Luke 1:32 , Luke 1:33 ). The ideal of the Davidic kingdom is realized in the Christian Church; there fully, and there only.

3 . This restoration will be a work of Divine power. "In the days of these kingdoms shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed" ( Daniel 2:44 ). The Church, composed of Spirit-quickened men, is the creature of God as no political kingdom can be. Redeemed by Jesus Christ, quickened by the Holy Ghost, made one in the white heat of heavenly grace, it is altogether a Divine thing. Every energy it has is God-given; every grace is Spirit-wrought. In this is the special glory of the Jerusalem which is above. And when, among the ruins of a Hebrew monarchy, there rises, radiant in the beauties of holiness, the kingdom of our God, then indeed the bricks are changed to hewn stones, and the sycamores to cedars, and the palace of David is rebuilt as in the days of old.

II. THE WIDE CIRCLE OF INTERESTS TO BE ADVANCED BY THIS RESTORATION . "The restoration was not to be for themselves alone. No gifts of God end in the immediate objects of his bounty and love. They were restored in order that they, the first objects of God's mercies, might win others to God" (Pusey). Those brought in were to be:

1 . Gentiles as well as Jews . ( Amos 9:12 .) James, in his speech at the council of Jerusalem ( Acts 15:14-17 ), declares the fulfilment of this prophecy in the calling of the Gentiles. Edom, as the nation most hostile to the Jews and furthest from David's house, is put by a natural figure for the whole Gentile world. The "remnant of Edom," whether mystic or natural, are the few called in each case out of the many ( Matthew 20:16 ; Amos 1:12 ). "All the nations," etc; is a fuller and more literal statement of the ingathering of "the fulness of the Gentiles," when God brings his sons from afar, and his daughters from the ends of the earth. The gospel kingdom is to be the universal kingdom, "filling the whole earth," covering it with the knowledge of God, and making it, as the home of righteousness, a transfigured place.

2 . The Gentiles by means of the Jews . "That they may take possession," etc. It is in Abraham and his seed that the nations are blessed. In our spiritual freedom and fulness of privilege we may not forget that Christ who founded the Church, the apostles who preached the kingdom of God and organized it, and the holy men who wrote the Scriptures as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, were, almost without exception, Jews. It is thus that "out of Zion has gone forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." To those we owe to the Jews there are no earthly obligations parallel, and the time of their graffing in again is one for which by every tie we are bound to pray.

3 . Both these in virtue of a Divine appropriating act. "And all the nations upon which my Name is called;" i.e. appropriated, or marked as God's own ( Genesis 48:16 ; Deuteronomy 28:9 , Deuteronomy 28:10 ; Jeremiah 15:16 ). Those whom God saves are such as he has graciously chosen to be his own. "Whom he did foreknow them he also called." Salvation is the evolution of an external plan, which in turn is the expression of Divine electing love.

III. GOD 'S PURPOSE IN THIS MATTER POTENTIALLY A FACT . "Saith Jehovah who doeth this."

1 . The Divine energy is the efficient cause of events. Second causes are not independent of or coordinate with the First Cause, but the instruments in its bands. Behind all and in all is the Divine Omnipotent energy, the ultimate cause, direct or indirect, of whatever is.

2 . The Divine word pledges the exercise of this Divine energy. God's word is absolute truth. It cannot be broken. If it goes before, the corresponding act will follow. As well divorce the lightning from the thunder as the work from the word of God. When he says, and what he says, and as he says, he does infallibly.

3 . The Divine will constitutes the Divine energy. God wills all things into existence. His choosing that a thing shall be brings it to pass. What a source of unfailing consolation is this fact to the gracious soul! Its rich future is assured. Omnipotent power and unchanging truth have the issue in hand, and miscarriage is not to be named.