Amos 3:1-8 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel… Here was this desert prophet, with keen, prayer-washed eyes, piercing through the shows of things to the unclean realities behind. He disinterred the moral corruption that lurked behind their whited professions. What answer did the people make to this rude child of the desert? He stood there, rude in speech and in dress, despised by the official priest, a mere field-preacher, proclaiming to the grandees of the metropolis that the moral corruption of the people was eating away the vital elements of the national strength and that in galloping consumption they were hastening on to a terrible and fatal retribution. What answer did they make? They fell back upon their belief in God. Their reply to the herdman was found in their doctrine of providence. What was that doctrine? It was this: Their nation was the favourite of the Lord. They were hedged about with peculiar sanctities. "We only are known unto the Lord. Only between us and the Lord is there the intercourse which implies security. Thy threats, O Amos, are as noisy nothings. They are meaningless and terrorless." Such was the refuge in which the people found their security. "We are the children of privilege. Privilege implies favour. Favour guarantees security." Such was their doctrine of election, and I am not altogether sure that their doctrine is banished from the minds of all men to-day. Now let us mark the answer of the Lord through the mouth of His prophet. We have heard the false doctrine of election; now let us hear the true doctrine which is enshrined in the words of our text. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore" — note the swift, piercing logic — "therefore I will punish you." The false doctrine ran thus — "You only have I known: therefore I will indulge you." The true doctrine culminates in fire — "You only have I known: therefore I will punish you." "You only have I known" — I marked you out for special office. I appointed you to discharge a special function. I elected you to special service. But the office has been prostituted. The function has been ignored. The service has been despised. "Therefore I will punish you." I singled you out from among men, that all men through you might be blessed. But ye have defiled your mission, and, instead of being a centre of saving health, ye have become a noisome pestilence. That is the expression of a Divine method of government which prevails in all time. Election does not mean security. Security is dependent upon the discharge of the duty which election creates. There is an aristocracy of the election, a chosen few, and these are they who have fulfilled the obligations of their election, and are therefore qualified to enter into the peace and joy of their Lord. Election therefore does not, in the first place, create security. It creates responsibility, and my security or insecurity depends upon the manner in which that responsibility is regarded. There is nothing which can ensure the protecting presence of the Most High God except moral agreement. "Can two walk together...?" cries the prophet in the verse which follows my text. "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" If there is to be helpful and intimate companionship between two people, there must be profound agreement, and if I am to enjoy the companionship of the great God, with all that that companionship means of consoling and sheltering grace, if God and I are to walk together, we must be agreed, and my part of the agreement must be faithful and unconditional obedience to all His revealed will. Election; the prophet declared that it could only be found in the fact of obedience. They had been elected to duty; not in the election, but in the duty would they find the defences which are as invulnerable ramparts against their foes. Election means selection to service. The Lord's specialities are for the sake of generalities. An individual is elected that he may serve a nation. A nation is elected that she may serve a race. A call is not a self-securing privilege; it is the entrustment of an office. To evade my responsibility is to destroy my defences, and to bring down swift retribution from God. " You only have I known: therefore I will punish you." Election, then, means selection for special service. This doctrine of election is here applied to nations. Certain nations are specially known by God. He whispers to them peculiar secrets, that they may proclaim them upon the house-tops to the nations of the world. Greece was specially known by God. The warm breath of the Lord came upon her people, and endowed her with that exquisite sense of the beautiful which has made her distinguished among all the nations of time. She revelled in the joy of perception, and exulted in the creation of lovely forms. God opened her eyes to the holiness of beauty, and gave her a mission to the race. And "the Gentiles have come to her light." All the nations go to Greece to school. We go to the treasury of her graces for our own adornments. The Lord God elected her by special endowment, that by her election she might serve a race. Rome was specially known by God. She was His own handiwork. He fashioned her into special aptitude, giving her the endowment of a peculiar passion for order, a genius for polity, government, and empire. He breathed into her life the instinct of law, and by the speciality of her election He determined the speciality of her mission. "And the Gentiles have come to her light." The foundations of modern jurisprudence are laid in ancient Rome. She has been the schoolmistress to all the nations. Israel was specially known by God. He breathed into her life a special genius for religion, a rare instinct for the Unseen and Eternal. To her He whispered the sublime truth of the unity of God and the august verities of the moral law. "And the Gentiles have come to her light." Just as beauty is of the Greeks, and law of the Romans, so salvation is of the Jews! Israel was exalted, as a city set upon a hill, that the light of revelation might shine out upon the nation, yea, even upon them that were afar off. May it not be that the Lord has held secret communion with every nation, and whispered to her some peculiar message which makes her life distinctive and unique? It is along this line that I can travel with the least trembling when I contemplate the appalling divisions which distract the race. I gain some assurance from a broad application of this doctrine of election. Each nation has been specially elected. All nations are dependent upon each; each is dependent upon all. Because of the Divine distribution of gifts absolute severance is impossible. "The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee: nor, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you." Each nation is specially known of God, specially elected to unique and individual service. In this doctrine of the election of nations, which is an election to mutual service, and which entails mutual dependence, I base my hope of the ultimate practical comity of nations, and the realised brotherhood of the race. But now let us apply the prophet's doctrine to the life of the individual, as we have applied it to the life of the nation. The prophet's doctrine is this — election is not election to security, except through the discharge of obligation. Election is election to the service of o hers. How many of us, then, have been elected? Are there any exempt from the election? We are all known, all elected, all called — for the election is a call to individual faithfulness, and our response will determine whether the election shall issue in sunshine or in fire. Each life has its own peculiar mission. God appoints for each a special and individual task. My mission is my election. I may not know what my mission is. That matters not. God knows. My part is to discharge the duty that lies nearest, and then the next, and the next, and the next, and God will guide and control the connected purpose and mission. How can I turn the election into a glad consciousness of protecting providence and eternal security? By a spirit of obedience. By faithfulness in that which is least. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, |
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