Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Unless there be congeniality of character, there may be outward alliance, but there cannot be that intimate communion which the alliance itself is supposed to imply. And a sameness of tendency or pursuit appears evidently to form an immediate link between parties who would otherwise have had little in common. Men of science seem attracted towards each other, though they may be strangers by birth and even by country. Our text, though it may with great justice be applied to human associations, furnishing a rule which ought to guide us in forming them, was originally intended, and originally delivered, to refer to intercourse between man and God. The Israelites flattered themselves that they should still enjoy the favour of God, that the relation which made Him specially their guardian might still be maintained, while they lived in wickedness. "Not so," says God, "the thing is impossible; two cannot walk together, except they be agree. I. WHAT IS IT FOR MAN TO WALK WITH GOD? Two walking together denotes their having the same object, or pursuing the same end. In scriptural phrase it not only marks a man out as pious, but as eminently pious. A man who habitually "walked with God" would be one who had a constant sense of the Divine presence, and a thorough fixing of the affections on things above. 1. A man who walks with God must have a constant sense of the Divine presence. He lives in the full consciousness that the eye of his Maker is ever upon him, so that he cannot take a single unobserved step, or do the least thing which escapes Divine notice. 2. The expression indicates a thorough fixing of the affections on things above. It is the description of a man who, whilst yet in the flesh, may be said to have both his head and his heart in heaven. To "walk with God" implies a state of concord and co-operation: a state in fact, on man's part, of what we commonly under stand by religion, the human will having become harmonious with the Divine, and the creature proposing the same object as the Creator. II. THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN MAN AND GOD IN ORDER TO THEIR "WALKING TOGETHER." The "agreement" is clearly given as indispensable to the "walking together." Some process of reconciliation is necessary ere there can be friendly intercourse between a human being and the Divine. And how may God and man "walk together" when they are agreed? Whatever the moral change which may pass upon man, it is certain that he remains to the last a being of corrupt passions and unholy tendencies. We must take heed not to narrow or circumscribe the results of Christ's work of redemption. The process of agree ment, as undertaken and completed by Christ, had respect to continuance as well as to commencement. It was not a process for merely bringing God and man into friendship; it was a process for keeping them in friendship. But the "walking together" could not last if it were not that the Mediator ever lives as an Intercessor: it could not last, if it were not that the work of the Son procured for us the influences of the Spirit. Another point of view is that to question whether "two can walk together except they be agreed," is really to assert an impossibility. Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed. Consider this impossibility with reference to a future state. And we have no right to think that this agreement between God and man is ever affected, unless at least commenced on this side the grave. Time is for beginnings, eternity is for completions. (Henry Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Can two walk together, except they be agreed? |
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