Amos 6:1-6

Society Challenged

Amos 6:1-6 .

This cowherd keeps on his way well. He is not all subdued up to this moment. We saw how he began in a high, clear, resonant voice of judgment and criticism. Not one tone has yet been softened. The voice is as clear as ever; the judgment has never faltered. Amos has never trifled with the standard; he began with righteousness, and he has never been tempted to change the court of appeal.

"Woe to them that are at ease in Zion" ( Amo 6:1 ).

But is not ease a sign of contentment? Is not ease indicative of satisfaction? Is not repose the highest aspect of power? What is there, then, to condemn in the spirit and attitude of ease? To find out the prophet's meaning we must go back to the language the prophet himself used; then the reading will be, Woe to them that are recklessly at ease in Zion Woe to them that care not; who say, It is nothing to us. "Recklessly at ease" is the literal translation of the prophet's word. This is not mere indifference, not a studied withdrawment from tumult, not some early Cowper sighing for "a lodge in some vast wilderness, some boundless contiguity of shade," because he is weary of this world's story of tumult and worry; this is studied carelessness as to the condition and fate of men. The Bible will never tolerate that hostile view of providence, human education, and human destiny; the Bible insists that we are to be careful about all these things all the time. Where is my brother? What is he doing? How can I help him? Can I lend a hand at carrying the burden which is too much for him? There are those who have hidden themselves away from the calamities of their brethren, have wrapped themselves round with a garment of reckless ease; and the cowherd comes, sends a blasting denunciation after them; he takes the roof off their house, and blows upon them with a whirlwind of righteous indignation. When did the Bible cease to care for men? When did the Bible ever lose itself in ideal contemplation, and withdraw itself from the line of human want, and sorrow, and pain, and wound, and helplessness? This is the one book in the library that sits up all night with us, that goes the whole road of life step for step with us, and that is tenderest when we are sorest, mightiest when we most realise our own helplessness.

The prophet, speaking representatively, says:

"Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye 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?" ( Amo 6:2 ).

Here he is reproving another kind of discontentment. He is rebuking those who think they have given up a good deal for God. There are persons who say that if they had only been anything but Christians they would have been millionaires. There are even preachers who say that if they had not in some mysterious hour sacrificed themselves in the interests of the pulpit they might have been driving in a carriage. There are those who say that if they had not given up all for Christ they might have been in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords! The Bible will not have it so. Peter once said to his Lord, "We have forsaken all and followed thee," and the Lord turned round about him and said, "Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." Where is your little "all" in that boundless ocean of recompense and reward? The prophet, however, will have concrete evidence. He is not content with saying, Your state is as good as it would otherwise have been; he says, Go to Calneh, to Hamath, to Gath; reckon up all the Philistines have, total the sum of benefit accruing to heathenism, paganism, worldliness: cast up the account well, and now tell me how the totals run. Where has the Christian been left short? Where has the good man been at a disadvantage? If in the hand, not in the heart; if in visible and tangible substance, not in the mind, that wondrous sanctuary of the imagination, by which a man lays hold of all the worlds, and by which he appropriates the whole universe of God, to his spiritual nutriment, his moral satisfaction, and the establishment and consolidation of his truest usefulness. Thus the Lord admits the principle of competitive criticism and judgment. He submits himself to be so judged. He says, Produce your gods: where are they? What are their names? what are their histories? what have they done? Are these your gods that are nailed up? Are these your divinities whose faces are freshly painted? Are these your trusts, worlds that are far away, and which you worship only on account of their distance and their magnitude? Where are your gods? So he descends to another level and says, Where are your advantages? What has the bad man got that is denied to the good man that is really of true substance, true value, and lasting quality? We cannot lay God under obligation; we cannot approach him and say, We have done great honour to the Cross, and but for our largeness and liberality, our faithfulness and constant endeavour, the cause of Christ would have gone down in the world. Never. No cause that is of Christ can go down, except to rise again. Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. There are moments of recession, moments even of putrefaction; but the chemistry of nature is operating, and the laws of nature never cease, and the upshot shall be that where there was a seedtime there shall be a harvest. No good word is lost, no true speech is blown away in the heedless wind; every word that has in it life and music and gospel and hope goes from thee to come back again a thousandfold in music and in strength and in blessedness. The Lord thus drives us out to Calneh, to Hamath, to Gath; to New York, to Paris, to St. Petersburg, to London; and he says, Take with you your books; write down all you see; cast up the account well; only be exact, be spiritual, be penetrating, omit nothing; even the dust is gold; reckon it, and when thou hast totalled all, tell me, saith the Lord, how stands the account.

The prophet now hurls another denunciation. "Ye that put far away the evil day," the day of judgment, the day cf the Lord, the day of inquest. They could not destroy that day, but they could postpone it. Is this an accusation limited to people who lived three thousand years ago? Is there no action of postponement now? Do we not cause things to be transferred until tomorrow and the day following? Do we not draw a visor over our faces that in momentary blindness we may do things we never should have done if our eyes were open, and were receiving the noonday light? This is the practical sophism of life; this is how men throw themselves away. So it is that judgment is put down, and the voice of conscience is silenced, and all the monitions of the better life are stifled. We say, Well tomorrow; we do not deny the importance of these things. The preacher talks well; in his sentences there are many words that are very valuable; but just now urgency, pressure of another kind is upon us: when we have a more convenient season we will hear this man, he shall unroll his revelations, and tell us what he wants to be and to do. There are men who do not deny the day of judgment, but they have put it off a long way. Nor have they done so merely in an arithmetical sense, for in the language used by Amos there is a tone which indicates that the postponement has been accomplished because the men who accomplish it viewed the day of the Lord with aversion. If we omit the element of aversion we miss the true criticism of the text. To avert is to turn the shoulder upon, to turn away from, to express displeasure, impatience, disgust, fear; never to express joy, welcome, gladness, thankfulness. Bad men have nothing to hope for from the day of the Lord.

"... And cause the seat of violence to come near" ( Amo 6:3 ), even in the very act of apparently postponing it. The people here charged postponed the day of the Lord, and in doing so hastened the day of the Assyrian. Men do not take in the double aspect of life; they see only one point in the great circle; they think that if they have postponed the day of judgment they have made all things quiet and smooth, and henceforth all things will run easily, forgetting that no man can put off the Lord without inviting the enemy. They "cause the seat of violence to come near" the session of violence, the sitting of violence; so that whilst the people were so dealing with God, putting off his day to a long date, the Assyrian was preparing to come down. When we have dismissed God we have opened the door to the invader. He who keeps the door of the nation is God; he who puts a roof over the head of the nation to save his people from desolating winds and rains is God. If we have dismissed the altar we have dismissed providence along with worship. This is the teaching of history, this is the tone of the prophets; and if it were the tone of the prophets only we might say this is ancient poetry, a fine idealism; but there is a grip upon us that says, The hand of the Lord is as the iron of almightiness. No man ever postponed a prayer without losing a bargain; or if he made his bargain for the moment, and took home his bag of gold, when he opened it there was nothing in that bag but darkness. It is on this basis of life we proceed. History is our evidence, consciousness is our witness; and for any man to break down this witness he must first break down by irrefragable evidence our personal character.

Again the cowherd comes to the charge. He scourges those

"That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches" ( Amo 6:4 ).

Literally: Pour out themselves like a libation upon their couches, enjoy luxury to the full; and then he adds,

"That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David" ( Amo 6:5 ).

How we shelter ourselves behind great names "like David," yet not at all David-like. David invented or devised instruments of music that upon them he might discourse to the praise and glory of the all-giving and all-directing God. They prostituted what David devised and consecrated. How often we say, Like the Puritans; like the Reformers; like the Revolutionists; like the Prophets; like David, when we are prostituting what they consecrated or devoted to the service of God. A man may make a lyre, and on it he may play to the devil; a man may paint a picture, and to him it may represent the beauty that fascinates the heart with other than spiritual loveliness, a singular mystery of appeal that in its very silence subtly affects the imagination and subtly wears down the finest quality of the soul. "Like David": we may have David's harp without playing upon it with David's spirit; we may read David's psalms and find no music in them. There are those who could parody David; there are irreverent creatures who could mimic the altar; there is a degeneracy of reverence that finds no God in blooming flower or in singing bird or in radiant morning. We could not fashion our lives after that sort. We could do so, we could play the beast as well as they. Have they tongues? So have we. Are they gifted in speech? We are not wanting in skill of utterance; we could talk profanity, we could curse society and blast the universe, and show the riches of our vocabulary of blasphemy, but we would not do so; we could be irreverent in the sanctuary, and make a kind of spurious fame by our want of veneration; we prefer silence, solemnity, and the spirit of adoration. These men made musical instruments, and said they were following the example of David. They lied, they dishonoured the immortal dead.

"That drink wine in bowls" that drink bowls full of wine. The ordinary goblet was too small; the little crystal glass excited but their contempt; their souls were on fire for accursed drink, and they must gulp it out of the bowl. Was that all? Far from it. The bowls that were here used, according to the best criticism, were bowls out of which the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled. See the priest with his bowl, filled with the blood of sacrifice; see him dipping his fingers, and sprinkling and so consecrating the objects that were specified for such chrism; then see these hell-hounds, their throats all fire, using the very bowls, filling them with poison-wine, and drinking that they might forget their misery. To such degradation men have come. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. No man may boast against another herein. There are giants in the dust, there are mighty men registered among the lost. A haughty spirit goeth before a fall; pride goeth before destruction. If a man shall boast himself of his personal security, what wonder if his very boastfulness become a temptation and a snare? We are safe in humility, we are secured by self-distrust; for then we go to the munition of rocks, and cry mightily with the tenderness of prayer, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe."

What came of all this outstretching upon beds of ivory, and this pouring out upon couches and divans of luxury? What came of all this eating of the deer, the hart, the roebuck, the fallow deer, and the fat fowls of the poultry-yard? What came of all this drinking out of bowls and anointing with chief ointments? This came: "They are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph." "Joseph" here is the name that stands for the tribe of Ephraim. All luxury tends to moral insensibility, to social carelessness, to the recklessness of ease which the prophet began by condemning. There are two ways of treating the afflictions of society, and we are well practised in them. The first plan is to regard them as so little that poor people and others can manage the whole administration of the case themselves; we say, These are but skin-wounds; in a day or two they will be healed; these are little questions of momentary irritation and dislocation; in a little while by the poor taking care of themselves all this will be rectified. Drink more! bigger bowls! That is one way. Then the other way, the more philosophical and statesmanlike way, is to say that these evils are so gigantic and overwhelming that it is simply useless to talk about them drink! more drink! larger bowls! This is what it comes to, not always in the same broad form, not always with the same openness and visibleness of manifestation; but a man cannot overfeed his body without going down in the quality of his soul; a man cannot go down in the quality of his soul without ceasing to care for the souls of other people. A man cannot have his eyes filled with fatness and his whole nature surfeited with plentifulness of luxury without losing spiritual vision, spiritual sensitivity, spiritual bloom and quality; and now speak to him about the young and the poor and the sick and the helpless, and he says, I cannot attend to it now: I leave that to others: I can no longer take interest in public and social controversy drink! Bring in more wine, more luxury, more fatness from the jungle, the forest, and the vineyard. Shall it come to this? or shall we return to the grand old rule of simple living and high thinking? Not a monastic treatment of the body, but such an elevation of the soul as will make all other things low, poor, insignificant, comparatively worthless? Shall we use the world as not abusing it, or shall we allow the world to overweigh us and crush us and destroy us? To a great question there should be a solemn answer.