The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 48

desire his fellowship, and adopt the course that will best consist with its enjoyment. 2. They must have arranged it. "Unless they have agreed," Spiritual relations are not accidental relations, nor such as men may drift ioto unconsciously. There are understood objects to be intelligently adopted. There are explicit terms (Matt. xvi, 24) to be deliberately accepted. There is a. distinct transaction in which God and his way are adopted, and made our life-King and life-programme respectively (Hos. xiv. 2). If it be a. question of faith, we say," Lord, I believe." If it be a question of penitence, we say," I abhor myself, and repent." If it be a question of allegiance, we declare, "I will be for the Lord." If it be a. question of fellowship, we vow," I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." Our walking with God is not only with consent, but by arrangement, duly and solemnly subscribed. 3. They must be congenial spirits. Like draws to like. Companionship with God bases itself in conformity to him. If there be no affinity there will be no association. If this faifa, association will be broken off. Duty must be our choice, or it will never be begnn; and our joy, or it will never be continued. Walking with God implies a previous coming to him, and both are conditioned by a. spiritual change creating us in the Divine image. Hearts have begun to beat in unison when hands are clasped for life. III. THE BEARING OF THIS MAXIM ON THE CASE IN HAND. The two whose walk- ing together is in question are Jehovah and the prophet, according to some; Jehovah and the nation, according to others. But as it is a general maxim, it may be legiti- mately a.pplied to both, and every other case on which it can throw light. 1. The words of a teacher who walks with God wi"ll be on the whole agreeable to his will. The authenticity of Amos's message was called in question by many. But he was on God's side in this controversy with Israel. He spoke as it were out of the arms of the Divine fellowship. The truth of his deliverance was therefore a foregone conclusion. With every religious teacher the so.me principle holds. Communion with God gives insight into truth attainable in no other way. It conditions that" unction from the Holy One" by which "we know all thing~." The best guarantee of orthodoxy is to be spiri- tually minded. "The anointing" by Christ in the work of grace, among other benefits, " teacheth of all things, and is truth " (1 John ii. 27). Let a man read the Bible, so to speak, over God's shoulder, and the thing he will read out of it will be truth. 2. .A lifa of rebellion cannot possibly be a walk with God. The prophet foretold to Israel a final rupture of visible covenant relations. And the prophecy was along the lines of natural fitness. The parties were already alienated in heart and sympathy, ann in the nature of things formal separation must follow. To walk with God whilst fighting with him was an unworkable arrangement. The men who try it are men whose religious life is failure. When hearts go ape.rt their owners go after them ; and the soul, loveless to-day, will be godless to-morrow. Sinful man will have it so, and a holy God can ha.ve it no otherwise. Alienation leads to apostasy, and the apostate is ipso facto an outlaw. Are our affections given to Christ in self-surrender and love and happy trust? It is the one condition of walking with him to any purpose of spiritual effect. Is the dedication made maintained in unswerving true allegiance? See to that, for the beginning of estra.ngement is as the letting out of water, and what is deflection now will be defection in the next stage.