I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day. Sermons
I. THE BITTER DAY OF ISRAEL CONTRASTS WITH BYGONE DAYS OF SWEETNESS. Festivals and songs are mentioned in the context as distinctive of the religious life of the chosen people. And in times of national plenty and prosperity there had never been wanting abundance and even luxury, mirth and music, festivity and joy. These things have vanished into the past now that the "bitter day" has dawned. II. THE BITTER DAY OF ISRAEL IS MARKED BY CIRCUMSTANCES OF TERRIBLE DISTRESS. The sun goes down, the land is darkened, mourning and lamentation are heard, sackcloth is worn, the hair is shaved off the heads lately anointed for the banquet and wreathed with flowers; the signs are those of "mourning for an only son." The fallen and wretched condition of the nation could not be depicted more graphically. The prophet artist is skilful to heighten the dark colours which are expressive of Israel's woe. III. THE BITTER DAY OF ISRAEL IS THE RESULT OF ISRAEL'S SINS. What is called misfortune and calamity is often really punishment. There was nothing accidental in what befell this nation. On the contrary, Israel brought disaster upon itself by unfaithfulness, disobedience, rebellion. As the people had sown, so they were to reap. Under the government of a just God it cannot be otherwise. The fruit of sin cannot be otherwise than bitter. IV. THE BITTER DAY OF ISRAEL IS SUGGESTIVE OF LESSONS OF WISDOM TO EVERY NATION. The rule of a righteous God is a fact not to be disputed. The retributive consequences of that rule are not to be evaded. Let not the people imagine a vain thing, or the rulers take counsel together against the Lord. - T.
A basket of summer fruit. : — As God set before Amos a basket of summer fruit, as a sign or parable concerning Israel; so, at harvest-tide God sets before us a basket of summer fruit, to teach us lessons to our soul's health.1. In preparing the earth for a harvest crop, and our lives for a crop of holiness, we must expect hard labour, and often sorrow. Whether we cultivate the fields or our souls, we must do it in the sweat of our face, with hard labour. Both the ground and our nature need cultivation, and that implies labour, and frequently sorrow. After the great fire of London, a flower called the Golden Rocket appeared, and beautified places wasted by the flame, though it had never been seen in that district before. The seeds were lying in the ground, but it needed the fire to make them live and grow. Some times we need the fire of affliction to bring out the good in us. It is God's love, not anger, which sends the fire. Our life needs clearing, purging, that it may bring forth new and better fruit. Some of us can only be saved "as by fire." 2. We must plough deep. The man who wants a good crop will not just scratch the surface of the earth, he will drive in the ploughshare deep. So we must drive down the ploughshare of self-examination, we must break up the hard ground of pride and self-righteousness, where no good thing can grow. 3. There must be sowing of seed. What we sow we reap. Our good deeds and our evil deeds bear their fruit here. Your words, your acts, your thoughts are seed; you may cast them forth carelessly, but like seed thoughtlessly dropped in the ground, they will grow, and if it be bad seed, you will be terrified at your harvest. Remember this, — You may not have sown bad seed, but if you have sown nothing for God, you will reap nothing from God. If you have no loving fellowship with God here, you will have none hereafter. Neglect of duty is a great sin. If we neglect our souls they degenerate, our spiritual natures grow weak. Let us learn to thank God, not only for bread which strengthens man's heart, but also for the better bread of holy teaching which the harvest provides, bread to strengthen man's soul. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.) (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.) I. FRUIT IS THE END AND REWARD OF LABOUR. Fruit-bearing is the end contemplated in the seed-sowing and cultivation of the husbandman. Jesus said, "My Father is the husbandman." We are thus led to think of God working in us and for us by His grace with a constancy and care like that of the owner of a vineyard. And the end contemplated by that gracious work of God is that we should bear fruit, and thus minister to His delight and glory. We are not left ignorant as to the nature of the fruit that God looks for in man. St. Paul says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance." These are the results that God works for and waits to see exhibited by those who call themselves by the name of Christ. When our lives bring forth these "fruits of the Spirit," we become, in very truth, gardens of the Lord. II. WHEN THE FRUIT FAILS THERE IS DISAPPOINTMENT AND LOSS. Many things are necessary to bring the work of the garden to a successful issue — good seed and stock, congenial soil and situation, favourable climate and intelligent cultivation. Yet when all has been attended to that wisdom and experience command, there are occasional failures that disappoint and perplex the gardener. Young trees that put forth healthy shoots and vigorous branches, and gave great promise at first, when they have grown are found to be barren and unfruitful. Some trees never blossom at all, some have blossom that never comes to fruit. Whole crops of fruit are sometimes destroyed by the pests of the garden, and are at times stolen by thieves. Over these losses the husbandman sorrows because he has laboured in vain. See the parable of the barren fig-tree. May not some of our lives he equally disappointing to God? He has surrounded us with privileges, opportunities, and helps to the attainment of a holy life, yet the spiritual results may be nowhere visible. There are the leaves of a cold morality, but no blossoms of grace; the flowers of a shallow profession, but none of the fruits of a consistent life. How long shall we continue thus to abuse the blessings of God, and try His patience as cumberers on His holy ground? III. THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN IS CARRIED AWAY IN THE FRUIT BASKET. The garden has a spent and dreary look after its beauty and treasure have been gathered. But this dreariness is only temporary. The husbandman knows well how to repair the waste. Some of us have a like experience. We can think of a time when duty demanded a great sacrifice, or when duty had to be done in the face of great danger and temptation. But then we were spent in the great effort, almost broken by the severe strain. Then God came and called us to come apart and rest a while. In delightful fellowship with Him strength and inspiration gradually returned, and we were even more ready than before when the next call of duty came. (James Menzies.) Homilist. God teaches the world in two ways; by symbols and sayings. By this "basket of summer fruit" He taught Amos that Israel was ripe for judgment. These summer fruits remind us of —I. THE BENEFICENCE OF GOD. In the summer fruit He gives us the useful and the beautiful. In these fruits of the earth pro visions are made for our physical wants. They are beautiful as well as useful. How beautiful are these fruits of the earth! Their exquisite forms, in bound less variety; their lovely tints, their bloom and gorgeous hues, how beautiful! Deep within us all is the love for the beautiful. The God who planted within us the sentiment ministers abundantly to it in these baskets of fruit. God's beneficence in these fruits of the earth is shown to be — (1) (2) (3) II. THE MATURING FORCES OF DIVINE GOVERNMENT. This "basket of summer fruit " is the outcome of a very long and complicate process. Snow and ice, showers and dews, clouds and sunshine, storm and calm, bleak winds of winter, genial airs of spring, and the hot breath of summer, the constant care and toil of the labourers in the fields and orchards, have all co-operated in bringing out this result. Antecedently, this result would not have been expected. Suppose a man in the depths of winter being told for the first time that those leafless fruit trees, shivering in the winds, and hung with icicles, should, in a few months, be loaded with clusters of apples, and plums, and pears, and grapes, would he have believed it? The thing to him would have been incredible. Things will ever be occurring in God's universe upon which antecedently no finite being could calculate. Therefore do not argue (1) (2) III. THE DESTINED DECADENCE OF ALL ORGANIC LIFE. In that " basket of summer fruit " there is death. In a few short days it will be reduced to utter corruption. So it is with all material life: no sooner is perfection reached than decay begins. (Homilist.) 1. In the first place we may say that there goes into the basket of summer fruits an innocent joyousness of heart. God does not intend that we should live to be happy, but He does desire that we should be happy while we live. Joy is a Christian grace. If any one has the right to be joyful it is the believer, with countless spiritual blessings at his service in this world, and all the bright, brave, beautiful things of the world to come before him. "Rejoice evermore!" is a whole Decalogue in itself. And it seems easier to rejoice in the summer time, when all things take on their brightest look, each day seems a gala day, and nature dons her loveliest garments. And we are then out of doors more, which is a condition conducing to greater health and happiness. All this now is natural and right, if the joy be drawn from the right sources and based upon the right things. 2. Very like in nature to this summer fruit of joyousness is that of gratefulness. For who makes it possible for us to be reasonably happy, innocently gleeful? It is God, who is Himself the source and fount of joy. 3. The summer is a good time to cultivate the grace of worship. The spirit of worship is for the whole year. And at no period of the year should the regular services of the sanctuary be neglected, as the manner of many is. 4. Again, there is the summer fruit of generosity, which certainly it would seem should thrive in the expansive. out-of-door life of that season. When the restrictions of indoor life have given way to the freedom of the fields, the woods, and the hills, a broadening of the sympathies should certainly be experienced. If we breathe a fresher air and more of it our pulses should quicken at the same time with a more abundant fellow-feeling for mankind about us. 5. The basket of summer fruit also makes room for the grace of good humour. Summer is the "cross" season, many think, which will excuse bad temper in themselves and perhaps in others when the thermometer goes up into the nineties. The hot weather certainly tries people's tempers, of what sort they are: and the curious thing is that the individuals who have lost their temper most often seem to have the most temper left. But the summer months should be marked by many little sufferances and patiences, which will come most surely of numerous small prayers and pleadings at the throne of grace. Let us try to be good-humoured and amiable even when circumstances might seem to excuse petulance. 6. And then no basket of summer fruit would be complete without the grace of Christian hopefulness. Hope, we may say, is the joy of the future — that is, the joy which we obtain even now from the anticipation of delights to come. Like faith, it is the "substance," or assured impression, of things that are yet to be. And the summer time may be really a continuous jubilee, one prolonged brightsome poem — a lyric of flowers and fruits and spiritual feasting and trustful uplift of heart, as the soul, like a plant touched by a sun in the heavens and blown upon by breezes from off the eternal hills, opens out constantly into the fuller, freer life of God, and grows toward the ideals of saintly living which shall be realised at last somewhere beyond the skies and stars. We may always have summer in our hearts. There are those who have no summer, to whom it is always arctic night, chilling and drear; but the child of God has the spring-tide in his heart now, and looks hopefully forward to entrance sometime into a land where cold blasts never blow and storms never beat, but where all things are surrounded by an atmosphere of genial godliness, of beatific beauty, and perfect love. (C. A. S. Dwight.) 1. That Israel's present moral corruption was no hasty production. The ripe fruit in that basket did not spring forth at once, it took many months to produce. Men do not become great sinners at once. The character of a people does not reach its last degree of vileness in a few years, it takes time. The first seed of evil is to be germinated, then it grows, ripens, and multiplies until there is a crop ready for the sickle. 2. That Israel's season for improvement was past and gone. The ripened fruit in that basket had reached a stage in which improvement was impossible. The bloom was passing away, and rottenness was setting in. Nations become incorrigible. 3. That Israel's utter ruin was inevitable. Nothing awaited that " basket of summer fruit" but rottenness. Its decomposition was working, and would soon reduce it to putrescent filth. So it was with Israel. II. TRUE PROPHETS ARE MADE SENSIBLE OF THIS RIPENESS. God gives Amos a vision for the purpose. To every true teacher God says at the outset, "What seest thou?" Hast thou a clear vision of this basket of summer fruit? Hast thou a clear idea of this subject on which thou art about to discourse? Thus He dealt with Moses, Elijah, Daniel, Paul, John. III. ALMIGHTY GOD MAKES HIS PROPHETS SENSIBLE OF THE RIPENESS OF A PEOPLE'S CORRUPTION IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY SOUND THE ALARM. Why was Amos thus Divinely impressed with the wretched moral condition of the people of Israel? Simply that he may be more earnest and emphatical in sounding the alarm. What was the calamity he was to proclaim? I. Universal mourning. "The songs of the temple shall be howlings." The inevitable tendency of sin is to turn songs of gladness into howlings of distress. 2. Universal death. "And there shall be many dead bodies in every place, and they shall cast them forth with silence." (Homilist.) 2. The close connection between evil imaginations respecting God's service, and unjust dealings towards men (vers. 4-6). Contempt for and abuse of God's ordinances is here shown to be closely connected with doing wrong to the poor. He who forgets his duty towards his Maker, is sure to be wanting in his duty towards those who bear his Maker's image. The best friends of the poor are those who earnestly contend for the rights of God. 3. The universality of Divine knowledge, on the one hand, and the effects of Divine judgments on the other (vers. 7-10). Man, in his hurry to become rich, often does many things unrighteously. But all things are at all times naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. No lapse of time, nor change of scene, nor combination of circumstances, nor crowding together of different pursuits, veils for one moment the acts of ungodliness and wrong which men have done. Iniquity is never forgotten till it is forgiven. 4. A crowning judgment, which implied the absence of God, the children's food taken from them (vers. 11-14). Among the Jews the absence of prophetical teaching would be a famine of the Word of the Lord. Direction from Him was a part of their peculiar blessedness. The want of that direction left them in a very helpless condition. In a Christian land, where the Word of God is freely circulated, we have the law, the testimony, and direction in all the duties of life. The precepts of the Gospel are so full, and its principles so clear, that we need never be at a loss. And where there is a scriptural ministry, the public mind may be kept as clearly instructed in the will of God as ever the Jews were by the teaching of the prophets. Christian communities, however, have been visited with a famine of the Word of God. Often, in the case of individuals, a famine of the Word of God comes upon the soul. (Vincent W. Ryan, M. A.) 3. The crimes that ripened men for this terrible harvest are next set forth in verses 4 to 6. The catalogue of sins is left incomplete, as if holy indignation turned for relief to the thought of the certain juugment. Amos heaps image on image to deepen the impression of terror and confusion. Everything is turned to its opposite. these threats were fulfilled in the fall of the kingdom of Israel. But that "day of the Lord" was, in principle, a miniature foreshadowing of the great final judgment. The last section (vers. 11-14) specifies one feature of judgment, the deprivation of the despised Word of the Lord. The truth implied is universal in its application. God's message neglected is withdrawn. Conscience stops if continually unheeded. The Gospel may still sound in a man's ears, but have long ceased to reach further. There comes a time when men shall wish wasted opportunities back, and find that they can no more return than last summer's heat. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) (D. F. Estes.) 1. God is just. No man ever felt this truth more deeply than Amos. He betrays its hold upon him by the way in which he constructs his prophecies. He could not endure that they should have the slightest excuse for charging God with injustice. They, however, were not concerned about God s justice, though they might pretend to question it. To them, therefore, his habit of speech must have been extremely annoying. He was like a bad conscience. No wonder that they wanted to get rid of him. The passage before us contains an excellent illustration of the point in question. He shows that the question is not, How could God destroy Israel? but, How could He prevent their destruction? A community of self-seekers is an impossibility. 2. The greater part of this passage is predictive. This is not the most essential part of prophecy. A prediction is a picture of the future. Amos saw the kingdom of Israel over thrown by the Assyrians. Probably he did not expect his conventional details would ever be fulfilled. His claim to inspiration is sufficiently vindicated by the fact that the kingdom of Israel was actually overthrown, and the people carried into captivity by a power which, when Amos prophesied, seemed on the verge of extinction. (Hinckly G. Mitchell.) 2. The beauty and perfection of summer suggest to us some interesting spiritual analogies.(1) They are the result of growth. So is character. As the nature of the fruit is dependent upon the nature of the seed, so does our character depend upon our principles.(2) They are the product of culture. And our nature has need of spiritual culture.(3) The beauty of summer is an emblem of that spiritual transformation which is accomplished in the soul by the grace of God. The same Spirit who renews the face of the earth is able to renew the soul of man.(4) The perfection of summer reminds us of approaching change. The moment the fruits of summer are ripened, they begin to decay. And the greater portion of our lives is gone. Whatever length of days may await you, the most vigorous and active years are spent — years that can never be recalled. Whatever work you have to do must be done at once — whoever talks of delay, you cannot. Finally, remember that all things here are transitory and uncertain. Life's changes admonish us to set our affection on things above. There is a covenant that abides — a Saviour who changes not — a world where death never enters. Have we laid hold on that covenant? have we faith in that Saviour? (H. J. Gamble.) I. GOD'S PURPOSES MAY HAVE A RIPENESS: God always times His decrees. Many men are wise too late. God proves His wisdom, not only by what He doeth, but by the time when He doeth it. Notice two of God's greatest acts. The First Advent, and the Second Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apply this great truth of the ripeness of God's purposes to your own personal affairs. All God's acts are well-timed. II. NATIONS HAVE THEIR RIPENESS, AND WHEN THEY COME TO THEIR RIPENESS THEY MUST BE DESTROYED. We may see in this basket of summer fruit a picture of them. It was necessary to eat that ripe fruit at once. And there is need when a nation has become ripe in sin that it should be given up to destruction. There are such things as national sins, and there are consequently such things as national punishments. III. HERE IS THE PICTURE OF WHAT SOME OF US ARE, AND ALL OF US MUST BE. 1. With the righteous man there is a time of ripening. The Christian when converted is, as it were, but a bud upon the tree. There is need that he grow unto perfection, and that fruit should become ripe fruit. Believers are ripened by every providence which passes over them. We are daily ripening in knowledge. In spirituality. As he ripens in spirituality, he ripens in savour. 2. There is a ripeness with which the sinful and ungodly are ripening. You are being ripened from within; the depravity of your own heart is developing itself every hour. And Satan is daily busy with you, to try and make you grow in vice. Sinners ripen in knowledge of sin, in love to sin, and in that hardness of heart which enables them to commit sin with impunity. With some sin has attained such a ripeness that they dare to blaspheme God. They have grown so rotten ripe that they will even dare to say there is no God, or think that He is blind, or ignorant, and will not see and punish sin in the sinner. It is an awful sign of nearness to hell when a man begins to think that he can doubt the existence of God. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) (Joseph Parker, D. D.) 5128 baldness Thoughts Upon Worldly Riches. Sect. I. Jesus Raises the Widow's Son. The Second Coming of Christ. Scriptural Predictions of an Apostasy. A Serious Persuasive to Such a Method of Spending Our Days as is Represented in the Former Chapter. The Evening Light Second Great Group of Parables. The Figurative Language of Scripture. Concerning Christian Liberty Concerning Christian Liberty The Eighth Commandment This Doctrine Confirmed by Proofs from Scripture. Of the Incapacity of an Unregenerate Person for Relishing the Enjoyments of the Heavenly World. |
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