Judgments threatened to Israel and to Amaziah.

1 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.

2 And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. 3 The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD. 4 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.

5 Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. 6 The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GOD.

7 Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

8 And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:

10 Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

11 For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

12 Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

13 But prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's

court.

14 Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit :

15 And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

16 Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

17 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land. LECTURE 1413.

9 And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

That God rules all with unerring justice.

Two desolating judgments are here made to pass in review before the mind of the prophet, under inspiration of the Lord.

And on his deprecating these visitations in behalf of helpless Israel, it is stated, in each instance, that "The Lord repented for this: It shall not be, saith the Lord." It is good for us then sometimes to consider what God could do, and might do justly, by way of punishing man's iniquity. It is good for us to intercede in behalf of a wicked world, lest He send a blight on our produce, or a consuming fire on our earth, and bring us to nothing in his wrath. But though the blight of devouring insects, and the consuming fire, were stayed by the prophet's prayer, it was not so with the plumbline which next he saw applied as an emblem of God's dealings with his people. This probably signifies, that whereas the blight and the fire would destroy all alike, there should be a more exact administration of justice in the judgment actually inflicted; the most guilty being most severely punished, and the faithful, if any such were left, and doubtless there were some, having a way made for their escape, in the general desolation of their country. This certainly is the principle of God's dealings with mankind, not to destroy the righteous with the wicked. And if in some instances his judgments seem to us general and indiscriminate, this is for want of our knowing who are righteous and who wicked, or for want of our duly considering how much it may hereafter redound to the gain of the best amongst mankind, to have fared here for a short time as ill or worse than the worst.

We have in this very chapter an instance in point, to shew us how little we are able to form a judgment beforehand. Amaziah the priest of Bethel, the idolatrous priest of the golden calves, brings a plausible accusation against Amos, and recommends him to flee from the wrath of the king, and to suppress the voice of prophetic truth in the precincts of the king's court. Amos owns he was no prophet by birth or training, until called from an humble avocation to prophesy to the Lord's people. Here we have on one side power and authority used for an unjust purpose, with every apparent probability that it will prosper and prevail. On the other hand the prophet appears to have no recognized office to plead, and no resource but to take refuge as advised in the land of Judah. But as we read on, the veil is lifted up. Prophecy discloses events that no one could surmise. The Lord is applying the plumbline of justice to the persecuting priest of Bethel. And the result is thus expressed by the mouth of the persecuted prophet: "Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land." Let us then judge nothing before the time; except so far as to hold this for certain, that God deals with all his people, and rules over all the world, by a line of impartial justice, by a rule of unerring truth.

The ripeness of Israel for judgment is proclaimed.

1 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.

2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.

4 Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, 5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it

shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.

9 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:

10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:

12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.

14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer-sheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

LECTURE 1414.

The peril of not using God's word when we have it. The basket of summer fruit, shewn to Amos in vision, was an emblem signifying, that the people were ripe for punishment: "I will not again pass by them any more. We hang as fruit upon a tree, with One watching our progress, and many times passing by, when conscience might make us feel that we are ripe for judgment, and perhaps taking us at last when we least expect

it. Oh may we be found, whensoever we are taken, meet for our heavenly Owner's use, ripe not for perdition but for glory, not for the silence of death, or the wailings of torment, but for joining in the songs of heaven to all eternity!

We may learn here what are some of the sins which canker the fruit in the garden of the Lord, and draw down his wrath upon his people. Oppression of the poor, often dwelt on by this prophet, is here once more very forcibly pointed out. It must have been a very crying sin in Israel at that time. It is a sin very offensive unto God at all times. And it concerns every one of us, when we find it so fearfully denounced, to examine whether we do our duty fully by our poorer brethren, in the spirit of brotherly kindness. A distaste for sabbaths and other holy days is another sin here dwelt upon; such distaste as arises from anxiety to pursue the gains of a worldly calling by means ever so dishonest. This too is a sin which we all have need to watch against, whether we are engaged in trade or not, and however fairly we may design to deal. Are we glad or sorry when the Lord's day comes round? Are we vexed to be hindered in our worldly callings, or glad to be summoned to the work of heaven and to the house of prayer? And do we really hallow the day by abstaining from all such work as properly belongs to the other days of the week? Or are we even worse than these Israelites, as some Christians are in this respect that they are in no haste for the sabbath to be gone, because it makes no difference in their occupations, they never hallowing it at all?

Of all these threatened judgments, and the signs and fearful portents by which they were to be accompanied, no one is so appalling as the famine here described, "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." Miserable indeed must God's people be, when in such a case; to have enjoyed the use of his Scriptures, to have heard the voice of his prophets, but to be cut off from this chiefest of comforts in trouble, that which alone holds up the light of hope in the lowest depths of distress! Wretched indeed are they that are in such a case! How much more wretched and wicked too, they who might enjoy these benefits, and will not; who starve, by their own folly, in the midst of plenty! Better to run to and fro, and seek without finding, than to refuse to hear, when sought out and spoken to. Better, in the case of God's word, to hunger and thirst, and not to have, than to have, and not care to use. may God, who has given us of his blessed word abundantly, also give us the disposition to use it, and to profit by it, to enjoy it, to be thankful for it, and to prove our thankfulness, by believing as He herein teaches us, and doing as He herein commands us!

Oh

Israel's desolation denounced. 1 I saw the Lord standing upon the altar and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered.

2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: