1 B. H. Hutton, Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, i. 234.
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officers of justice for some crime against the law ready to start at every knock which comes to the door of the house where he is staying ? Why does a criminal in prison dread the bar, and the judge, and the assize-day? To all these questions the answer is the same. Sin leads in fear. It is this that makes us shrink from meeting the eye of God.
^f A Hungarian king, being sad one day, was asked by his brother the reason of his heaviness of heart. "I have been a great sinner," said he, "and know not how to die, and appear before God in the judgment." His brother laughed at him. It was the custom in that country for the executioner to sound a trumpet before the door of the man who was to be executed. At midnight the trumpet sounded at the door of the king's brother. He arose and came in great haste to the king, and inquired in what he had offended. The king replied, " You have not offended me, but if the sight of my executioner be so dreadful, then shall I not, who have greatly offended, fear to stand in judgment before Christ?"1
3. Amos's prophetic call is accordingly not misapplied when directed to the final day of the Lord. Common sense teaches preparation for a certain future, and Amos's trumpet-note is deepened and re-echoed by Jesus. " Be ye ready also, for . . . the Son of man cometh." The conditions of meeting the Judge, and being "found of him in peace," are that we should be " without spot, and blameless " ; and the conditions of being so spotless and uncensurable are what they were in Amos's day — repentance and trust. The words of the text bid us detach desire from unworthy and unsatisfying objects while yet we may. They bid us attach desire to the One Object which can ever- lastingly satisfy it ; to the Being who made us, revealed in His Adorable Son. They bid us, while we may, wed desire to under- standing; to that true understanding of the real meaning and conditions of our existence which God gives to those who would keep His law with their whole heart. Desire and understanding are the parents of will ; will is but intelligent desire. And will is, or should be, the monarch among the faculties of the regenerate soul ; shaping life in accordance with an apprehension of its true purpose; overcoming the obstacles which oppose themselves to
1 C. W, Bibb, Sharpened Arrows and Polished Stones, 273.
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the attainment of that purpose; bringing circumstances, habits, passions, even reasons, into harmonious co-operation for the attainment of the true end of man. "Prepare to meet thy God ! " Yes ! where will is supreme in a regenerate soul, soon "the crooked places are made straight, and the rough places plain," as of old across the desert for the passage of God. Every- thing is welcome, because everything, either as an assistance or as a discipline, must further our purpose — that of reaching the supreme object of desire, the Vision of God.
TJ It is not improper to explain the words of Amos in this sense — that though the people were almost past hope, he yet exhorted them to anticipate God's wrath. Prepare then thyself to meet thy God, as though he said, " However worthy thou art of being destroyed, and though the Lord seems to have closed up the door of mercy, and despair meets thee on every side, thou canst yet mitigate God's wrath, provided thou preparest to meet Him." But this preparation includes real renovation of the heart : it then takes place when men are displeased with them- selves, when with a changed mind they submit to God, and humbly pray for forgiveness. There is then an important mean- ing in the Prophet's words, " Prepare thyself." With regard to meeting God, we know what Paul says in 1 Cor. ix., " If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged by the Lord." How comes it, then, that God deals severely with us, except that we spare our- selves ? Hence this indulgence, with which we flatter ourselves, provokes God's wrath against us. We cannot then meet God, except we become our own judges, and condemn our sins and feel real sorrow.1
Tf Eepentance is not merely a change of conduct, but a change of conduct based upon a change of feeling and mind. It is a repudiation of what is now felt to be sinful. It is not enough to leave off doing wrong and begin to do right; there must be a sense of guilt, joined with sorrow for having done wrong in the past, and for being still tainted by inward evil. And in order that the repentance may be good, the motive for sorrow must be found not solely in the sinner's hopes or fears for himself, nor even in the thought of the injury he has inflicted upon his fellow- men ; but in the knowledge that he has grieved and offended God. The determination to make what amends may be possible, and the readiness to acknowledge to God and (where advisable) to man the whole extent of the wrong done, must be the outcome of a loving and unselfish grief, which bears the name of contrition.