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… : — It is not the increase of the outer man and his surroundings and possessions, but the renewal of the inner life and spirit which makes the net profit and abiding wealth. It is the inner life of a nation that determines all things, not the visible, but the more or less invisible, not what can be arrayed in figures and statistics, but what no figures can express — not the show and splendour of prosperous times, the glare of wealth, the blaze of knowledge, the surfeit of luxuries, the pomp of pride, the flaunting of power, but the hidden qualities of patience, faith, self-mastery, courage, righteousness, and purity which lie underneath all this external display. It is the soul of a nation that makes a nation, not its body. If the soul is not sound, the body soon becomes a mass of weakness and decay. France is wealthier than it ever was before. It has more splendid cities, larger armies, greater intellectual resources and material resources than ever before; the outward man was never so fair and strong as now. What of all that if the heart has ceased to beat with honest purpose, if its ideals are lost, if the inner life has become diseased, defiled, corrupt? The outward show slowly rots away, when the inspiring force within degenerates and disappears. It is the continued renewal of the inner man that saves all. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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! |
    |