The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 166

house of Jeroboam," was carried peacefully to his rest before the falling of tho provoked disaster (1 Kings xiv. 10-14). The good King Josiah also, because lie repudiated and mourned the sin of J 11dab, " was gathered to his grave in pe11.cc, that his eyes did not sec all the evil which God brought upon Jerusalem" (2 Kings xxii. 19, 20). In m&ny a family, on whose survivors the shock of a great calamity falls, the pre'l'ious removal of some gentle spirit from their circle becomes intelligible as a mercirul folding of the tender lamb before the crash of the nearing storm. (2) So'1116 are taken away because their work, although apparently only beginning, is really done. Not every man's life-work can be identified, during it:.s progress, by either his cotempora.ries or himself. Sometimes it is incidental, aside from his line of effort, and altogether unconscious. A child lives to awake by its endearing ways a parent's sleeping heart. A youth lives by the tokens of early grace to bring brothers and sisters to look at the unseen, and the life for God. A man lives to carry some movement over its crisis, which, in its after-stages, will require a different hand. If we only knew "the end of the Lord" (Ja.s. v. 11), we should see that it is always attained before the means are discontinued; that he never breaks a tool till its work is done. (3) Some can only do their work by dying. The errand of Bathsheba's first child into the world was by its death to bring David to his knees and a right mind (2 Sam. xii. 13-23). And how many an early death in a careless family has been that family's salvation! Even the minister cut down in his early prime, with a life of usefulness opening out, as it seems, before hlm, may preach a sermon by his death more potent for good than all he could have said alive. Untimely death may even in certain cases anticipate the loss of influence for good. We know men of influence in the Church who in their erratic age are undoing the good they were honoured to do in their earlier years. Such men have only lived too long. If their sun had set at noon their life-work would have been far greater, humanly speaking, than it will now be. Looking as we do at the surface of things, and blind to their deeper relations and far- reaching issues, we are not in a position to criticize the providential arrangements of God; To believe that there is order in the seeming tangle, and ultimate and wider good behind the present partial evil, is the attitude of that enlightened faith which ar1,'11.es that Infinite Wisdom, omnipotent on the one hand and benevolent on the othe1·, being at the helm of things, will steer in character. Vers. 11-14.-The scarcity that swallows tluJ residue of good. To waste is to want, in things temporal and spiritual alike. Abuse is inevitably followed by deprivation, and the prodigal is one who is purveying for himself a suit of rags. God cape our "will not" with his "shall not," and the rude hand of change soon spills the cup of good we have refused to taste. Under the operation of this law the nation of Isrnel would now come. They had wasted the Word of God, neglecting it, despising it, and at last forbidding it to be spoken. Now they should " want" it as a penal result. It would be taken from them in anger, and that at a time when even their inappreciation would long for it as for life itself. Observe here- L THE woBBT OF ALL FA.MINES. "Not a hungering for bread, nor a thirst for water, but to hear the words of Jehovah." This is a new form of disaster, and one that is specially severe. This follows from the fact that : 1. It is in the spirit11,Q,l sphere. "Fear not them which kill the body." It is the least part of us. Whether it live or die, enjoy or suffer, is a question involving trivial interests, and these during a limited period. The soul is the man, and its well-being, next to God's glory, the great interest. For its injury there is no compensation, for its loss no parallel. When it suffers, the worst has happened. 2. It is due to tluJ loss of a necessary of spiritual life. The deepest need of humanity is a communication from God. "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God," etc. Hence the Word which God speaks is the Word of life. Apart from it spiritu.l life is impossible. (l) It is tluJ revelation of spirit'IJ,Q,l things. Gud and bis will and way; the soul, its duty and destiny,-are subjects on which it alune throws adequate light. The light of nature makes known the existence of God, and some features of his character. But its twilight, whilst touching here and there 11 muuntain-top, leaves all the valleys in darkness. After trying !our thousand years, " the world by wisdom knew not God," and did not because 1t could not. In all se.ving relations Christ is the Revelation of the Father (Heh. i. 1; John i, 18), and OIi, VIII. 1-14,] THE BOOK OF AMOS. 167