Bible Commentaries
Amos 3

Verse 2

CONTEMPT OF SPIRITUAL PRIVILEGES PUNISHED

‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.’

Amos 3:2

The language in which the Old Testament is written is one possessing but few and simple words, rather than a copious, elaborate, and precise vocabulary. The word ‘know’ is used to mean a mere act of the mind on some object with which it becomes incidentally acquainted, and is employed to describe all the manifold stages of experience up to the highest and closest intimacy. Here it includes the whole special care of a watchful Providence over the nation of Israel—the great love He bore and manifested to His people, the choice He made of them out of all the nations of the earth. When man is said to ‘know’ God there is implied belief, fear, love, trust, service, worship. ‘You only have I known.’ So that here we are told of—

I. The spiritual privileges of God’s people.—By God’s knowledge of the people is implied: (1) His choice of them. If we examine the whole history of Israel as recorded in God’s Word, shall we not find that they were His select people? To them were committed ‘the oracles of God.’ Jehovah made Israel the depository and storehouse of His knowledge. So has God to-day made His Church the sacred depository of His truth, and, in a limited sense, every member of it. God has chosen us in Christ. (2) God’s care of them. God cares for the Church and every member of it. (3) God’s love of them. In proof of both these, examine the sacred records of Israel’s history.

II. The punishment of despising these privileges.—They are despised when God is neglected, and the wicked heart follows its own will. (1) This punishment is disciplinary. ‘God chastens in proportion to His love in the day of grace. Here “the most merciful Physician cutting away the cancerous flesh spareth not that He may spare; He pitieth not that He may have the more pity.” ’ As disciplinary it is in love, for ‘whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.’ (2) This punishment is finally penal. Ye would not have Me as a Father, ye shall have Me as a Judge. ‘Nearness to God is a priceless, but an awful gift’ (cf. Jude 1:6; Ezekiel 9:6; Luke 12:47-48; 1 Peter 4:17). As penal it is in judgment that God visits.

Verse 3

A PAIR OF FRIENDS

‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?’

Amos 3:3

There is instruction in the very way in which this text is introduced.

God was remonstrating with His people, and this was the line of His argument: ‘You only,’ God says to them, ‘you only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore’—because you are My people, because I know you—‘therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.’

I. The object of the grace of God is always union— union of every kind.—It makes one Christ in two hearts; and that makes two hearts one; it makes two hearts like Christ; and the resemblance leads them to draw together. They ‘walk together’ because they are ‘agreed.’

If, then, you look at man as a social being, you may conceive him in three relations. There is his relation to his fellow-man; there is his relation to angels; there is his relation to God.

With these three different beings, man has to ‘walk.’ And, in each case, God lays down one rule, that, before there can be harmony in action, there must be agreement in principle. ‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?’

It is not necessary to make union that there should be perfect similarity. God, Who has given her different tints to nature, and to flowers their various hues,—Who has cast the minds of men in so many moulds, and their temperaments in such different order,—seems to be a God Who takes glory out of the variation of lesser things, as much as He is a God taking glory out of the variation of the greater. We daily see around us the union of things in which there is the greatest contrast.

And, in the Church itself, God has, no doubt, endowed His people with various gifts—in order that there may come out of greater diversity a perfect harmony.

To take the metaphor of a ‘walk.’ They must be ‘agreed’ as to where they are going, and by what path they are travelling. They need not always exactly place step with step. But the end must be the same end; and the means must be generally the same.

II. I proceed, then, to apply this principle to those three relationships, in which we regard man, as a social being—with his fellow-man, with angels, and with God.

I suppose the case of a person who feels doubtful whether he is a child of God. I suppose him a man who always prefers religious society. I suppose that the subjects, that are talked of there, please him best. Their views he finds most congenial; and, on the whole, he is the happiest man when he is mingling with them.

Now I would bid that man take the text as a touchstone of his state.

You love to be with Christians—you love them—not for any worldly advantage, not for any natural good and lovable qualities they may have—but you love to be with them because they love God. You like to hear them talk about sacred things. You feel your sympathies drawn out when you are in their company.

‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?’

As you love Christ’s image, you may safely believe that you love Christ! and if you love Christ, Christ loves you—for we never ‘love Him,’ excepting because ‘He first loved us.’

‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?’

It is so natural a thing, that it is almost a very law of our being, that we should be seeking a friend. Have you one? Is that friend religious? Are you sure of it? If not, as regards intimacies of friendship, give that friend up. Do it kindly. Do not do it until you have endeavoured to influence his soul for God; but if you have failed, give it up. Declare the reason, and the principle upon which you are acting. Do it immediately. Remember, it is a message from God to you to-night—‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?’

There is a sense in which a wicked man ‘walks’ with God. It is the sense in which that man ‘walked,’ who was haled to the judge, and the judge delivered him to the officer, and the officer cast him into prison, till he should pay the uttermost farthing: who, if once he got into prison, should never come out. Therefore, ‘agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him.’

The first thing, then, is to be reconciled to God. Now this is a work which no man can do. ‘No man can deliver his brother.’ It cost more to redeem their souls—so that he leaves that alone.

And now, peace being established, the ‘walk’—the wonderful ‘walk’—the ‘walk’ that never ends—may begin.

But mind, we must seek the same end by the same path.

What is God’s end? Always, and invariably, His own glory. And what is the path which leads to it? Only one—holiness. The path of holiness, to the glory of God.

Are you ‘agreed’ with God in this? Are you willing entirely to relinquish your own glory—to put it utterly aside—and to seek nothing but the glory of God—and to ‘walk’ in whatever path God may appoint that leads up to that glory. The path of the Cross—the path of humiliation—the path that lies above all party—up and up to the glory of God—is that the desire of your mind?

Happy! thrice happy! You do ‘walk’ with God. You may lean on Omnipotence. You are borne on the arms of love. You are shielded in the covenant.

—Rev. Jas. Vaughan.