The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 90

are the righteous. Not the heathen who had seduced them, not the remnant of apostate Israel that might escape, but tbe prophet of God, who bad kept himself unspotted in the midst of national corruption, was the tearful mourner by the ruine<l nation's grave. The wicked are too selfish to care for any sorrows but their own. They are as the wolves, which would make a prey of the dead one's remains, rather than any mourning for bis fall. God and the God-like alone truly mourn when the wicked perish. 3. ..d prophetic sight of his own epif,a,ph ought to stay the hand of the BUicide. Men supposed to be dead have lived to read their own obituary notice. It has enabled them to see themselves for once as others see them. And it ought to have a practical influence for good. Israel, reading beforehand the inscription on their own tomb, might have been warned away, if anything could have warned them, from the course in which they were rushing on. It showed them what was coming, and how it was being brought on, and how it looked, whether as a morality or a policy, in enlightened eyes. An adequate idea of sin must include its end and issues and place in history, and this it was in Israel's power to learn from Amos's prophetic wail. III. AN INBPmED COMMENT.A.BY. An act of God is an expression of bis way. The way of God is a revelation of his purpose. All three are along the lines of the just and fitting. Now: 1. Adequate punishment means practical extermination. Sin is an infinite crime, merits an infinite punishment,and failing this will receive a punishment exhaustive of the criminal's good. The proverbial question, " Wherefore doth a living man complain?" (Lam. iii. 39), is an understatement of the case. While a field, or a blessing. or a living man remained, Israel had not been punished as it deserved. When body and soul have been both destroyed, there will still be no more than justice done. If our sin have not its punishment in Christ, then that punishment must be utter destruction. 2. When wrath smites many, mercy spares a remnant. Nine-tenths were to be destroyed. The thousand should become a hundred, and the hundred ten. Neither the strength of the great nor the insignificance of the small should avail them for escape. With perfect impartiality, all should be made to suffer proportionally. Yet decimation was to stop short of utter extinction. A tenth part (see Isa. i. 9; vi. 13) should be spared. This less guilty remnant, taught and chastened by the jud,,crments which swept away the bulk of the nation, might form the nucleus of a new and better Israel. When judgment has destroyed the "bread to the eater," mercy often steps in and saves a "seed to the sower." There is seldom a deluge wit.bout its ark and its Noah family, the conditions and materials of a fresh start for the reduced. 3. Israel, decimated is Israel still. The remnant would retain the national name, and with it the covenant relation and privileges to which the name referred (Gen. xxxii. 28). Toward the Gentile Church, for its sin "cast down but not destroyed," the same gracious policy was announced (Isa. liv. 7-10). While a Mephibosheth remains the royal line of God's anointed is not extinct. Chastisement makes a chaos only to bring out of it the young world of a new life and a new hope (Ps. lxxxix. 30-33). Vera. 4-6.-7Vie seeking that is life. This passage contains at once a vindication of the coming destruction on Israel, and a last offer of escape. A.11 past evil had been justly incurred by departure from God. A.11 coming evil might yet be avoided by return to him. " Seek ye me" was the direction on their treatment of which the whole issue turned. I. EVEN TBE FOREDOOMED ABE NOT ABANDONED OF GoD. The antediluvians were preached to for a century after their destruction was denounceu. So Jerusalem got a Pentecost, and the ordinances of a Christian Church for forty years after Christ had pronounced her doom (Matt. xxiii. 37-39). 1. God's threatenings are in a certain sense conditional on men's conduct. They are addressed to men in their character or circumstances at the time they are uttered. If and when the character or circum- stances cease to exist, the threatenings cease to apply. It was so in the case of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii. 1, 6), and also of Nineveh (Jonah iii. 4, 10). God in such cases does not change, but the circumstances do, and his modes of treatment change accordingly. 2. They are designed to turn men, not to plunge them in despair. A.11 life is disciplinary. Each event and experience is fitted, and me~nt, to exercise a moral influence. Bein"', moreover, controlled by a holy God, the moral influence of each must be in the directi;n of right. It is so wi~h blessings and the promise of them (Rom. ii. 90 THE BOOK OF AMOS. [orr. v. 1-27.