Amos 2:11-12 And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O you children of Israel?… The sin and folly of their conduct is manifest when we consider — I. THE AUTHOR OF THE APPOINTMENTS. "I raised up." The Founder of their nation. He whose mercies have been commemorated in the ninth to the eleventh verses, had originated these appointments. What more signal proof of the folly in attempting this reversal! Everything that God willed should have been accepted gratefully as their rule of life; yet they tampered with His appointments thus. (1) An abiding sense of the relations which God bears to His people is a constant safe. guard against the spirit which would east off all restraint. He is the Author of all our blessings. (2) The claim on reverence for Divine appointments is not confined to His people. God's love is boundless as the universe. II. When we consider the CHARACTER of the appointments. God was striving to preserve the national purity, to train them up in all His ways. Such was His purpose in these remarkable institutions: — the prophetic office, and the order of the Nazarites. God had raised up these workers out of the "young men" of Israel — the class which could bring the greatest energy to this arduous work, devote the longest time to it, and furnish, amid the temptations to which youth was peculiarly exposed, the strongest proof of the restraining grace of God. God still uses means to preserve men in purity. The Spirit of God is His witness; conscience is His voice; truth is His messenger; His servants, by their words, and by the example of godly lives, are our prophets and the Nazarites. How great these agencies! Seek to know them to your own salvation. III. Were frustrated by those for WHOSE BENEFIT they had been made. No regard for God, no sense of their own interest, deterred them from presuming to interfere with the counsels of God. The motive which prompted such conduct marks their degradation. The Nazarites were a standing reproof of their excess and revelry; the prophets were obnoxious because they tore away the disguises by which sin sought to hide its deformity, and warned the people of danger. If the voice of the prophet was silenced, they fancied that heaven had no means of reproving sin. They forgot that God could speak in the thunder and the earthquake. Application — Man can frustrate the purposes of God. Heaven may appoint; earth may undo the appointment. The effort is proof of degradation. Success in such effort is the worst punishment of any man. Israel reaped disaster and ruin from this attempt to reverse God's appointments. False prophets multiplied, sin increased, the nation went into captivity. (J. Telford, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD. |
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