Amos 8:9 And it shall come to pass in that day, said the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon… Though the heavens are full of the glory of the Lord, yet they rarely engage our devout attention, or make their voice so to be heard as that we notice it and listen. The sight and the music are so constantly repeated, and become so common, that they cease to impress us. It is well, then, that God has so wisely ordered the universe that ever and anon the monotony of these ordinary phenomena should be broken by those that are more startling and extraordinary, — such as the visitations of eclipses, comets, and earthquakes, that so men might be compelled to see their Maker's hand and hear their Author's voice, and know that there is indeed a God that created and that governeth the earth. 1. Such a phenomenon as the eclipse is calculated powerfully to impress upon us a lesson of gratitude for the inestimable blessing of sunlight. Like some of our greatest mercies, it is a common one, and therefore it is unappreciated. From how few hearts arise the morning orison of thankfulness, and the noonday hymn of praise. Of this, like most of God's blessings, we need to be now and then deprived, in order to teach us how great it is. If suddenly at midday God were now and then to place the shadow of His hand before the sun, we should then feel to the full the horror of the deprivation and the great blessing of the gift. We read of those, like the Persians, who worship the Sun, and pay to it the homage that is due to its Creator. And far nobler it is to worship the sun than to walk day by day in his light with a heart thankless for the blessing. 2. A more solemn truth, of which this phenomenon may remind us, is the effect of sin on the soul of man. The darkness of eclipse will be caused by a large and opaque body coming between us and the sun. The moon will come between us and the sun. Were it not for some intervening object, God's light would be ever shining down upon us. The eclipse will not be caused by the sun's withdrawing his shining. God never changes. If there is darkness in the soul of man, it is to be accounted for by the fact that something or other has come between his soul and God, and eclipsed the light. Scripture teaches us that this object is sin. "Your iniquities have separated between you and God." Every soul who is under the dominion of sin may see in the eclipse a faint image, in the natural world of the position of his soul in relation to God. It is cut off from God, and so abideth in darkness. 3. This eclipse may bring to remembrance the awful death of Him through whose work alone those sins can be removed. During His supreme agony upon the Cross there occurred a preternatural eclipse of the sun. "The sun was darkened." It was truly a time for both nature and man to mourn. 4. The eclipse should enable us in some sort to realise the great day of the wrath of the Lord. Then "there shall be signs in the sun"; "the sun shall withdraw his shining." That appalling eclipse will not only be total but final, and to no man who is not then found to be a child of God, and a servant of Christ, will light evermore return. (Richard Glover.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: |
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