Plowing Rock
(No. 2977)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1906.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 12, 1876.
"Shall horses run upon the rocks? Will oneplow there with oxen?" Amos
6:12.
THESE two questions are evidently Oriental proverbial expressions.
Proverbs have always been used by the wisest of men. Solomon not only
spoke and wrote a great many, but he also made a considerable
collection of those uttered by others. We find in the writings of such
notable thinkers as Socrates, Pliny and Aristotle, an abundance of
short, pithy sentences, many of which can be used as proverbs. Proverbs
have great force in them, because they are condensed wisdom. They are
generally most convincing–it is hardly ever possible to answer or
controvert them. They carry truth home as an arrow has often been known
to carry death to the person aimed at, for they strike, they stick,
they penetrate, they wound. Our Lord Jesus very frequently made use of
proverbs, nor was He singular in doing so. The Prophets of old
constantly employed them and here, in our text, we see Amos–who, from
his occupation as a herdsman and gatherer of sycamore fruit, was
probably more familiar with their use than some others of the Prophets
were–puts together two proverbs which were commonly used to signify
that men do not, as a rule, continue to labor in vain and spend their
strength for nothing. Wise men do not send their horses to run upon the
rocks and they do not send their oxen to plow where all their toil
would be wasted–"Shall horses run upon the rocks?" "Will one plow
rocks with oxen?" The answer implied is, "Certainly not," and it means
that if a thing cannot be done, or is not worth doing if it can, it
will be well for us not to attempt to do it. Our text may have two
bearings–first, upon men and, secondly, upon God.
I. First, WITH REGARD TO MEN. They are not usually so foolish as to try
to plow a rock, yet many are as foolish as that in moral and spiritual
matters!
I want to give you three or four illustrations of this fact. The first
is that many persons have tried to find the way of safety and pleasure
in the way of sin. Many a man has sought to get rich by injustice.
Possibly he has succeeded to a certain extent, but, as a general rule,
it is notorious that ill-gotten riches are generally ill-spent and
bring a curse upon their possessors. Some have thought that if they
indulged their passions, they would have great enjoyment. Although
their fathers warned them that such a sin would be like
self-destruction and would make their whole life sad, they have not
believed it would be so and they have tried to plow this hard rock of
sin and to find lasting pleasure therein. There are hundreds and
thousands of men who are pursuing the way which is not good–and they
know it is not good–yet they foolishly continue in it because they
conceive it to be the path of pleasure, nor can you beat that false
notion out of their heart, do what you may! On the contrary, they turn
upon you and call you a "Puritan" because you object to their style of
living. Possibly they revile you as a hypocrite because you point out
the evils of the way in which they are walking. Yet if they would but
think at all seriously, they must perceive that the way of sin cannot
lead to happiness. It is absolutely inconceivable that God, who made
the whole universe, should have arranged that the terminus of sin
should be Heaven, or should have made the path of evil lead to joy and
peace! The Judge of all the earth cannot have put a premium upon
wickedness! In the long run, it will be proved that sin brings forth
sorrow and that the path of right is the path of peace. Yet many will
not see that it must be so and they continue, even to the bitter end of
life, to plow that rock, breaking the plowshare, wearing out the ox,
and themselves dying a death of miserable disappointment, which, if
they had not been arrant fools, they would never have had to endure,
for they would never have attempted so hopeless a task as that of
trying to find any real pleasure in the ways of sin! As well might you
sow the sea with salt and expect to reap from it a harvest of golden
sheaves! As well might you scatter firebrands and expect to gather from
them the cooling
streams that flow from the mountain spring, as live in sin and expect
to receive happiness as the result of doing so! Cease, O sons of
men–such an act of madness as the plowing of this rock must always be!
Others are attempting another equally absurd task. They are hoping to
find real joy in pursuits which are laudable in themselves, but which
are entirely of this world. Did you ever read the book called The
Mirage of Life It is a book which is well worth everyone's reading. The
author gives, in sets of pictures, the life of the man of pleasure, the
life of the courtier, the life of the philosopher, the life of the
statesman, the life of the warrior and so on with a very fair selection
of facts from the lives of such men, with the objective of showing
that, although each one of them was eminent in his own line of
things–and apparently successful in that line–yet they all failed to
find the precious jewel of solid satisfaction. Most of them lived in a
sort of perpetual weariness and when, at last, they died, and their
eyes were opened, they found that their pretty dreams had all vanished
and that the reality, when they beheld it, was dreary indeed. There
have been men–perhaps some of you have known them–who have had more
wealth than you and I would care to count, yet they have thought
themselves poor–and so they really were, for they were incapable of
enjoying the riches which they had amassed! There have been men who
have been crowned with laurel who have had all sorts of honors heaped
upon them, yet, when a friend has wished them a happy new year, they
have said, "Then it had need be a very different year from any that we
have ever yet experienced." The high places of the world, like the
mountaintops, are glassy with icy dangers and they are cold with
discontent. Many try to clamber up to them–and a few reach the summit,
but others perish in the crevasses. Yet those who reach the summit
often envy those who are in the valley below, and those in the valley
envy those on the heights, for, beneath yon moon, there is no
contentment to be found in earthly things either in the peasant's hut
or the monarch's palace! The man whose arm is not long enough to grasp
that which lies in the land beyond the stars will have to live and die
without attaining to perfect satisfaction. Man, it is not here below
that God has placed that which you need! The bread for your souls must
come from Heaven! That which can satisfy your immortal spirit must be
Divine, like the Creator who made you! God alone can satisfy the
cravings of your soul. Cease, then, to toil, and tug, and fret, and
fume, and waste your time and strength in seeking happiness in these
bubbles of earth. "Seek you first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you"–insofar
as you need them–but as for seeking them first, plow that rock no
longer, for it will yield you no return for all your toil!
Men of another sort are satisfied that the things of this world are not
sufficient to render a man perfectly happy, so they have religious
thoughts of a certain form. They believe that they are very good,
excellent and they mean to make themselves still better and so to get
perfect peace by feeling that they are what they ought to be, and have
done what they ought to have done! I remember when I plowed that hard
rock and entertained the hope of getting a very fine crop off it–but I
woke, one morning, to discover that the rock would not yield even the
moss or lichen of comfort to me–there was nothing on its surface that
could bring me any contentment. Self-righteousness is a great cheat.
The man who gets most comfort out of it simply gets that comfort
because he is ignorant! If he knew himself and knew God's Law, and knew
the demands of inflexible Justice, he would fling upon the nearest
dunghill that self-righteousness of his which looks like fair white
linen, but which really is, in God's sight, nothing but filthy rags! O
Sinner, you cannot find your way to Heaven by your own works, for the
only way to Heaven by works is to keep perfectly the Law of God–and
you have already broken that Law! You must present this matchless vase,
flawless and entire, at the gates of Glory if you would be saved by
works–but you have already shattered it in a thousand pieces–how can
you hope to mend it? That is impossible! The hope of salvation by a
perfect life is over and you must, each one, feel that your life has
already been imperfect.
Some hope that they will get perfect peace by the way of ceremonies.
Many people tell us that we are living in a very enlightened age, but I
am inclined to think that Carlyle was uncommonly near the mark when he
said that "the United Kingdom contains about thirty millions of people,
mostly fools," for it does seem as if people, nowadays, are fools to a
very large extent. For instance, a man says that if we will come and
confess our sins to him, he can forgive us in the name of God–and that
he can, by sprinkling a few drops of water upon a child, and uttering
certain words, transform an heir of wrath into an inheritor of the
Kingdom of Heaven! He also says that if we come to what he calls an
altar, he will give us the very body and blood of Christ to eat and
drink! Well, when I was young, I thought that anybody who talked like
that ought to be served like the gypsies who were put in prison for
taking sixpences from silly servants and pretending to tell their
fortunes! And, in later years, I have been sometimes surprised that the
law has not been put in motion against
these gentlemen, for certainly the imposture which they seek to foist
upon us is a far more terrible one than that of the fortune-telling
gypsies! The so-called "priest" has no power to forgive sins, or to
change the nature of the child he sprinkles, or to offer the sacrifice
of the "mass." There is nothing more in him than there is in anybody
else–and let him talk as loudly as he may, his pretensions are utterly
vain and worthless! If you trust to him, the result to you will be the
same as it has been to tens of thousands before you, for you will find
that all the ceremonies which men have invented, yes, and all the rites
that God Himself has given, cannot bring healing to a diseased soul, or
hush the tumult of an awakened conscience, or bring the soul into a
state of conscious reconciliation with the Most High! O Sirs, you may
be sprinkled, and confirmed, and immersed, and go to the Communion
Table, and do I know not what besides–yes, you may travel along seven
thousand leagues of ceremonialism, but you will be just as uneasy at
the end as you were at the beginning! That is not the way of peace,
neither will God make it to be so! It is plowing a rock–and no harvest
can possibly come of it.
Some are trying the equally impossible task of being saved by Jesus
Christ when they shall have prepared themselves for Him. In other
words, they talk about being saved by Christ, but, in their heart of
hearts, they do not think that Christ can save them till they have
reached a certain standard of excellence. Now we know, from the
Scriptures, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save His people
from their sins and He will do it from first to last, or not at all. He
will be the Alpha and the Omega–the A and the Z of salvation's
alphabet, or else He will have nothing to do with it! Yet thousands of
hearers of the Gospel are constantly saying, "We will believe in Jesus
when we feel our sins more–when we feel more repentance–when we have
done this and told that, and experienced the other." Ah, Sirs, this
plan of bringing Christ in at the end of the work–after you have
accomplished the first part of it yourselves–is a most foolish
mistake, and a fatal one, too! It is like setting oxen to plow a rock.
Let me ask you–Are you any better than you used to be? You have been
trying, for a long while, to make yourselves ready for Christ–are you
any more ready than you were at the first? Has it never struck you that
Hart's lines are true?–
"If you tarry till you're better, You will never come at all"?
Thus I have shown you how the text can be applied with regard to men.
II. Now, secondly, I want to show you how these Proverbs can be applied
WITH REGARD TO GOD. "Shall horses run upon the rocks? Will one plow
there with oxen?"
God does not always continue to do that which, after a certain period,
turns out to be unprofitable. Dear Friends, there are some of you–I
pray God to grant that there may not be any of you of whom this will
remain true–but it is at present true that there are some of you to
whom the Gospel has come in vain. Up till now, so far as you are
concerned, the Gospel plow has only gone across a rock–the Truth of
God preached in your hearing has not gained an entrance into your
heart. Oh, how many come and hear us preach merely that they may
compare us with other preachers! They pass certain criticisms upon our
mode, manner and matter. We do not know, and we do not care what they
say, but the point that really concerns us is that we cannot get the
Gospel plow into them–we cannot make them feel, and repent, and
believe! A great master of the art of preaching once said, when his
congregation complimented him on having delivered a fine discourse,
"There is another sermon lost." He did not want his hearers to praise
his discourse–he wanted them to feel the power of the Truth of God
which he had preached to them! And so do we. But there are some hearers
into whom we do not know how to get the Truth of God. We may put it,
first in one way, and then in another way–sometimes pathetically and,
at other times, we may make use of a little humor. We may denounce or
allure, but we are equally foiled in whatever way we attempt to reach
them. We cannot get the plow in where we want it to go and if ever the
share does seem to make a little impression, it only produces a slight
surface scratch. Some of you have had a good many of those scratches.
You have thought, "When I get out of this place, I will go home and
pray," but you have not done so. Or, if you have prayed, your
seriousness has soon vanished and the impression made upon you in the
service has expended itself in that prayer!
What is worst of all, in some of you, God's dealing with you, in the
preaching of the Gospel, has developed the hardness of your hearts. It
has made others realize how hard they are and, truth to tell, it has
really hardened them. Plowing does not harden rocks–but preaching does
harden sinners if the Gospel does not reach their hearts and, of all
hardhearted men, the hardest are those who have been hardened in the
fire of the Gospel! If you want to find a heart that
is as hard as steel, you must look for one that has passed through the
furnace of Divine Love and has been made aware of the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus, but has rejected the Truths of God that has been
made known to it.
This hardening of heart is not the fault of the plowshares which have
been used and, with some of you, God has used a great many. There is a
man here who used to be plowed by God when he was a child, and the
plowshares employed then were his mother's tears. He cannot forget
them! Even now, as I bring them to his memory, he feels as if he must
weep as he did when he was a child. Ah, my Friend, that mother of yours
is in Heaven, now, but if she could look down upon her son, and tears
could be shed in Heaven, what cause she would have to weep over you!
She prayed for you when you were nestling in her bosom and she took you
to the House of God from your very early days. You can remember her
very look when she used to speak to you about Jesus when you were quite
a little child! And perhaps you remember her dying request that you
would follow her to Heaven. But that plowshare–one of God's best–has
never yet cut into your rocky heart and you still remain as hard as you
ever were!
Since that time God has tried you with the plowshare of personal
sickness. You have not always been such a strong man as you are today.
Time was when you lay very near the gates of death and you trembled at
the prospect before you! Do you remember when the fever seized you, or
when you thought the cholera had claimed you as its victim? You
trembled then and you made many vows which all proved to be lies! And
you even made a profession of repentance, but it was mere
profession–and though you appeared, just for a little while, to be
touched–and those who were around you, who had prayed for you, hoped
that at last the plowshare had entered into you–they found that you
rose up from that bed of sickness worse than you were before!
Since then, God has used another sharp plowshare upon you–the
conversion of some of those who are very near and dear to you. You were
not at all pleased when your wife came home a converted woman, but you
could not help feeling it. And when your sister wrote and told you that
she was rejoicing in Christ as her Savior, you could not pour ridicule
upon the letter and, as you read it, it brought tears to your eyes. You
quickly wiped them away and said that you were not such a fool as to
trouble about so absurd a matter, yet it was not easy for you to forget
the emotion which the news had caused. Possibly your own dear child,
whom you love very much, has made a profession of faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, yet you do not know anything, experimentally, about such
faith as that. This is a very sharp plowshare and none can think
lightly of it but those who are unaware of its operation. To have your
relatives and friends converted and to be yourself left out of the
happy circle of blessing ought to make you think seriously about this
matter!
Another plowshare has gone across your rocky heart from the fact that
some of your old companions are dead. One was buried this week, was he
not? You used to drink and smoke with him, but there will be no more
pipes and beer on a Sunday night for you two! You know right well that
he died without the fear of God in his heart and you also know that you
are living in the same sad and perilous condition. It gave you quite a
shock when someone said to you, "Old Tom is dead." You have also seen
several of your business friends die. There was that clerk who was in
the office with you a little while ago–he is gone and you have been
called to occupy his place. Death has come awfully near you again and
again. You have been like a soldier on the field of battle who saw the
ranks on every side of him mown down, yet he still lived on. God's plow
has been at work with you–He has been trying, by these striking
Providential dealings, to touch your hard heart–but it has not yet
yielded. Do you think that God means to keep on plowing you to no
effect? If you do, you are wonderfully mistaken, for the oxen will not
always plow upon this rock–and when it comes to this–that neither can
love melt you, nor terrors subdue you–God will say, "Ephraim is joined
to idols: let him alone." And when God says that, your doom will be
sealed! May God grant that He may never have to say that concerning any
whom I am now addressing!
I have thus shown you that you have been like a piece of granite rock,
untouched by all the different plowshares which have been tried upon
you. There is another thought that you must not forget and that is, you
have wearied the workers. I pity the poor oxen that have to plow a
rock–they plod on and on and all their toil is wasted. The hardest
form of labor is that which produces no result. I remember being in a
military prison where they punish the men by making them carry cannon
balls from one end of the yard to another, and bring them back again–a
very senseless practice. The sergeant who accompanied me said, "When we
let the men carry the balls from this end of the yard, to make them
into a pyramid at the other end, there was some kind of amusement in
the task, so the rule was made that the man must carry the ball from
this end of the yard and bring it back again, and his toil seems to be
so altogether fruitless that
it becomes a double punishment to him." It is certainly a very great
trial for a man to have to work for nothing and to feel that all he is
doing will result in nothing. There are some of us who have had to do
so with you unconverted folk. And sometimes some of us have been very
harshly used–we oxen that have to plow such hard rock's as you are!
The first part of my text asks, "Shall horses run upon the rock?" I
remember going over a smooth, rocky place in the Alps which is called
Hell-Place because it is so very slippery. Well, horses could not be
expected to run over rocks like those, and it is not surprising that
they sometimes trip! And if the preacher occasionally trips, it is
little wonder when he has such rocks as those to go over. George
Herbert says that the sins of hearers sometimes make the preacher trip,
and so it is. There is often, in the hearer, that which makes the
preacher speak amiss. I remember pleading one night here with all my
soul, and I said, "If some of you who are listening to me, never mean
to accept Christ as your Savior, do not continue to sit in this place
and hear the Gospel, but go away and let somebody who will accept Him,
occupy your seat." I did not think that one of my hearers would take me
at my word, but there was one, over whom I have never ceased to lament,
and for whom I still pray, who says that he will never come here again
because he is one of those who will never receive Christ and, though he
would still like to hear me preach, he will never occupy another
person's place. It was a mistake on my part to say what I did, but I do
not think I would have tripped like that if the rock had not been so
hard and smooth!
It is hard for a horse to have to run upon such a rock as that and it
is hard for the oxen to keep on plowing there. I have had over 20 years
of this kind of plowing upon some of you–and I have made nothing of
you yet. Thank God, there are not many of your sort, but there is still
a remnant left of the old Park-Streeters who were "almost persuaded"
then, and they are still "almost persuaded." And I am "almost
persuaded" that I shall never be able to do them any good. It seems to
me that there is nothing which I can say that will ever reach their
hearts, or else, surely, it would have reached them before now! I am
always glad when I hear that some other preacher attracts them and that
they are listening to him with interest, for, as long as they get
saved, I do not mind how it is done. Still, it is hard lines for us to
have to preach for 20 years to some of you and to have all that labor
for nothing. If anybody could teach me how to preach better, I would
gladly go to school, again, and learn how to get at some of your
hearts. If they would teach me how to speak in such a vulgar style that
I would lose my reputation, but be blessed to the saving of your souls,
I would willingly fling my reputation to the winds! Or if I could learn
the art of oratory, I would go and sit at the feet of Cicero or
Demosthenes, if I could but get at your superfine hearts that need such
fine words before they will be touched! But I fear that it is the
oxen's fate to go on plowing, and plowing, and plowing–and to get
weary with the labor, and yet to see no result of it all.
One other thing that I want you to remember–you who remain unconverted
after all this effort–and that is if the same labor which has been
lost upon you, has been used elsewhere, it might have been profitable.
Christ said, concerning Bethsaida and Chorazin, a very amazing thing
which I do not fully understand, but which I absolutely believe–"If
the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and
Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." It is
a very extraordinary thing that God would send the Gospel to men who do
not get any good out of it, and not send it to people who would have
got good out of it! There are people, possibly, even in London,
certainly, in other parts of the earth, who would have been converted
if they had heard the Gospel as much as you have–yet you have heard it
and have not been converted! That same digging about and fertilizing
that would have made other trees bring forth much fruit, has been used
in vain upon you, for you have brought forth no fruit. And you have
stood there and occupied a plot of ground which a better tree might
have occupied. You have cumbered the ground–do you think that God will
always allow you to do that? Have you–who live in the country and have
a large orchard–have you a tree that has borne no fruit for many
years? I am sure that, if so, you mean to have it cut down before
long–and God means to have some of you cut down–and that, it may be,
before long! I tremble even as I speak to you thus, for I may be a
Prophet foretelling the destruction of your soul! May God, in His
infinite mercy, grant that you may repent before His axe of Judgment
falls upon you!
Any man in his senses, when he finds that the rock will not break,
gives up plowing it. The ancient proverb says, "Will one plow there
with oxen?" and God, though infinitely merciful, is equally wise. And
if, after the use of means which are blessed elsewhere, any heart still
remains hard, He may fairly say, "I have done with it. I give it up to
its natural rockiness and so let it continue forever." That is the end
of the matter and a terrible end it is! And I do not know anything more
that I can say about it. I have preached the Gospel thousands of times
and I have nothing to preach but the Gospel–but these people will not
have it, so what more can I say to them? A man came to me the other day
and asked me to pray for him. He was one to whom I had many times
explained the Gospel and after I had again done so, he said to me,
"Will you pray for me, Sir?" I said, "No, I will not." He asked, "Why
not?" and I replied, "Do you want me to ask God to save you apart from
the Gospel? I have told you the Gospel again and again–will you accept
it? If you will not, I shall not ask God to save you. How can I do so?
I cannot expect Him to save you if you will not have the Gospel. If you
will have it, that will save you. If you will not have it, you will be
lost and it is no use for me to pray for you."
There I had to leave the matter so far as that man was concerned, but
let me say this much to God's people–You see that we cannot do
anything with this rock. The oxen are quite tired out with their
useless labor, so let us pray to God to turn that rock into good soil.
It needs a miracle to be worked and only God can work it. Let us unite
our prayers and cry to God, "O Lord, You did change our rocky hearts
into good soil, where the Good Seed could enter, germinate and grow.
Change these rocks, we beseech You!" Here is the reason for our Prayer
Meetings and for our private intercession. We can do nothing with these
rocky hearts, so let us turn to God who can do everything! Then I may
add that if you will pray God to change these rocky hearts, I will go
on preaching to them! The weary ox will go on plowing again, hard as it
has found the work for these 20 years and more. If you will pray, I
will preach! If you pray God to make the rock brittle and break it up,
I will plow it again, and I should not wonder if the plowshare gets
into some of them at last, so that there may yet be a golden harvest to
God's honor and Glory!
Let me put the plow in one minute more. The greatest rock-breaking plow
that I know of is the one that broke me up. If that will not do it, I
do not know of any other that will. When Christ died upon the Cross,
among other wonderful things that happened, we read that "the rocks
rent, and the graves were opened." Ah, it was a dying Christ that rent
the rocks! Sinner, listen once more to–
"The old, old story Of Jesus and His love."
You have offended and grieved your God and my God is just–and must
punish you for your wrongdoing. But, in order that He may not punish
you, He has taken upon Himself your nature and come into this world to
suffer in the sinner's place and borne what was due to human sin in His
own body on the Cross! Out of pure love to those who were His enemies,
out of love to those hearts that are so hard that they will not love
Him, out of love to those who have, perhaps, for 50 years rejected and
despised Him–for love, for the sake of love, alone, He died upon the
Cross, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." And
now, if you will trust Him, you shall at once have the pardon of all
your sins! If you will trust Him, you shall be–
"To the great Father's bosom pressed,
Once for all a child confessed!" You shall be cleansed in a moment and
accepted and saved forever if you do trust the Incarnate, dying, risen,
glorified Redeemer! God grant that this plowshare of the Cross may
touch you! Law and terrors, I know full well, do not affect some men,
but Almighty Love–will that not affect them? God grant that it may,
and unto Him shall be glory forever and ever! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: AMOS 6:1-8; 7:1-6.
Amos was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. His words are
rugged, but sometimes he rises to sublimity. His expressions are
somewhat dark and not readily understood, but when we learn the meaning
of them, we perceive that they are full of deep, earnest, solemn
warning and instruction.
Amos 6:1. Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the
mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the
house of Israel came!It was a time of great sin and also of great
judgment, yet there were some in Zion who were quite at ease under all
that was happening. No sense of sin grieved them, no thought of coming
judgment alarmed them. What did they care if the nation went to rack
and ruin? What did it mean to them that God was angry with His people?
They were atheists or, at least, they acted as if they were! Whatever
might happen, they would run the
risk of it. "Woe," says God, to all such people as these–and when the
Lord says, "Woe," to anyone, it is indeed woe, for He never speaks thus
without cause.
2. Pass you unto Calneh, and see; and from there go you to Hamath the
great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than
these kingdoms? Or their border greater than your border? The Lord
points to other cities which had been destroyed–to Calneh, and Hamath,
and Gath which He had smitten because of the sin of the people who had
lived there, and He says, "You that dwell at Jerusalem, and you that
live at Samaria, do not imagine that you will escape the consequences
of your sin. I was able to reach the inhabitants of these proud cities,
despite their strong fortifications and their powerful armies–and I
can also reach you." So, when we look back upon the judgments of God
upon guilty men, we may conclude that no sinner has any right to think
that he shall escape. The proudest and mightiest have been brought down
by God and so will men who dare to resist the Most High continue to be
humbled, even to the world's end.
3. You that put far away the evil day. You who say, "There is time
enough yet. Let us see a little more of life; why need we be in a hurry
to seek salvation?" "You that put far away the evil day"–
3. And cause the seat of violence to come near For, when men try to
postpone thoughts about "the judgment" which is to follow "after
death," they are generally the more eager to indulge in sin. They say,
"There is time enough yet," because they want a longer period for yet
greater indulgence in sinful ways. The Lord cries, "Woe," to all such
people as these.
4. That lie upon beds of ivory.They were men of wealth who spent their
money upon all manner of luxuries while the poor of the land were
perishing through need.
4. And stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of
the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall.It was, as I
have said, a time of danger when war was at the gates, but the people
were so careless that they lived as if peace were established forever
and the enemy could never touch them! Their expenditure was at a high
rate for self-indulgence and only for that.
5. That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves
instrument of music, like David. But not for the same purpose as David
played and sang–his instruments of music were used for spiritual
solace and the worship of God–but these people set their wits to work
to find out how their music might inflame their lusts and be a vehicle
for the expression of their lascivious desires.
6. That drink wine in bowls. For seldom can a careless man crown the
edifice of his sin without indulging in drunkenness! He must have the
sensual delight that he finds in "the flowing bowl."
6. And anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not
grieved for the affliction of Joseph. It is not wrong for a person, to
whom God has given much of the good things of this life, to enjoy them
fitly and reasonably. The sin of these people consisted in the fact
that when others were afflicted, they took that opportunity to indulge
themselves in all the delights of the flesh. And when God's rod was
being used for chastisement, they went on with their sinful mirth to
show how little they cared about it. Probably I am addressing some who
have, at this very moment, a sore sickness in the house. Or it may be
that a beloved wife is scarcely cold in her grave, or a dear child has
only just sobbed itself into its death-sleep–yet the survivors are
running after amusements, pleasures and follies more wildly than ever,
as if to hush the voice of conscience and to forget the strokes of
God's rod! Oh, that this very solemn chapter might convey a warning
message to them!
7. Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive,
and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.
Whenever God does come forth to execute judgment upon the ungodly, He
will first pick out those who have defied Him the most. Those who have
the proudest spirit and the hardest heart shall be the first to feel
the strokes of His rod.
8. The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself, says the LORD, the God of Hosts,
I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I
deliver up the city with all that is therein.
The next chapter shows that even when God was very angry with the
wicked, there was still wonderful power in prayer.
Amos 7:1-3. Thus has the lord God showed 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 mowing. 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 You: by whom
shall Jacob arise? For he is small The Lord repented for this: it shall
not be, says the LORD. In a vision, the Prophet saw the locusts or
grasshoppers come to devour all the green things of the land–a very
terrible visitation! If you have never seen it, you cannot realize how
utterly bare everything is made after the visit of the locusts. The
Prophet put up a vehement and earnest prayer. He cried, "O Lord God,
forgive!" And no sooner was the intercession offered than the Lord
said, "It shall not be." Thus the impending judgment was turned away.
4-6. Thus has the Lord God showed unto me: and, behold, the Lord God
called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat
up a part. Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech You: by whom shall
Jacob arise? For he is small. The Lord repented for this. This also
shall not be, says the Lord God. This time the Prophet saw the fire
devouring the land–perhaps the fire of war which casts its blazing
brand upon peaceful dwellings. This fire, however, was something worse
than that, for the very deep itself seemed to be licked up by tongues
of flame and the Prophet, in hearty sympathy with the afflicted people,
cried again as he had done before, and the answer came, "This also
shall not be, says the Lord God." This ought to encourage you who are
the King's remembrancers to make use of the position in which His Grace
has placed you, and to cry earnestly to Him to turn away His wrathful
hand and have pity upon sinners! God grant that many of us may have
such an intercessory spirit as that of Amos the herdsman-Prophet!