Amos 3:1-8 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel… We enjoy great and peculiar privileges as a people. Religious light; civil liberty; public credit; individual exertions; private wealth; national power; commercial prosperity. Let us not forget that privilege involves responsibility. The very adoption of sons carries with it the certainty of fatherly correction; for what son is there whom the father chasteneth not? We must be prepared to expect that, as there are occasions where a father's love is manifested in the correction of his child, and the affection that he feels is expressed by the chastisement he applies, so there are times when the same necessity may compel God to adopt a different mode of treatment from that which He generally employs, and to prove the love that He feels for His children by the judgments that He brings upon them. Nothing seems more natural, nothing more probable, than that a period of great scientific advancement, and of great commercial prosperity, should be a season of great forgetfulness of God. There are multitudes who habitually forget their dependence on God; who form their plans, pursue their inquiries, calculate their gains, without reference to Him. If punishment is to begin, where can it begin so appropriately as in noticing that forgetfulness of God which seems to be the sin that doth most, easily beset us; and in teaching us the humbling but unwelcome truth of our entire dependence on God? In time of national distress, let us pray, as Elijah prayed; and as his prayers prevailed for the people, when the people had avowed their allegiance to God, so let us hope that the prayer of faith shall still maintain its character, and that to an humbled, penitent, and believing people the blessing will never be refused. (Henry Raikes, 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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