Amos 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD has not done it? The principal scope and design of the prophecy of Amos is this, — Though the Jews had by their sins provoked God to send many heavy judgments upon them, yet were they still so stupid and senseless as neither to be prevailed on by them to amend their lives, nor so much as once consider whence those judgments came. If God sent fire, plague, or famine, they regarded them as accidents, ill-will of enemies, or misfortunes. And so all God's judgments lost their designs. Even God's prophets, who were sent to correct these false notions, were despised. When God saw the disease grown desperate, and the patient not so much as enduring the sight of the physician, He awoke as a giant refreshed with wine, and to make His power known, inspired one of the herdmen of Tekoah with such knowledge as was wonderful for him, and sent him to assure them all that their sufferings were from heaven, that they were God's visitation for their sins, and that nothing but speedy repentance could prevent their ruin. As if he had said, There is the such thing as chance or fate in all your sufferings. They are all the effect of God's overruling providence, without whose knowledge and appointment not one hair falls from your head. But some, by reason of the doubtful signification of the Hebrew word evil, have made God the author of their sins. I. First, then, WE MUST CLEAR THESE WORDS FROM THIS BLASPHEMOUS ABUSE OF THEM. When Adam sinned, he found this excuse for himself, to lay the fault upon God (Genesis 3:12). And some of his unhappy offspring have gone yet further, "and thought God altogether such an one as themselves" (Psalm 50:21). To prevent this dangerous and fundamental error, God has taken care, throughout all the Scriptures, to work in us true and proper notions of Himself, His justice, holiness, and mercy, and make us such a discovery of His own perfections as might work us up to the highest degree of holiness and virtue. To make God the author of sin is to make Him act contrary to Himself and to His own nature. Let not any one persuade you, therefore, that God is the author of evil in this sense, and by His unutterable decrees compels mankind to that which He Himself detests and hates. This indeed cannot be the meaning of Amos in this text, unless he contradicts himself, and the whole design of his prophecy. He is sent to reprove the Israelites for their sins, and to assure them that all the miseries they suffered were God's visitation. II. Let us now consider the words of the text in their genuine and natural sense, namely, THAT THERE IS NO EVIL, NO CALAMITY OR MISERY IN A CITY OR COUNTRY WHICH GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF. Therefore, in all the judgments that befall us, we should learn to see God's hand, and humble ourselves under His visitation. For a more distinct and methodical consideration of the judgments and calamities that befall a kingdom for their sins, see — 1. That when God first made the world, He so ordered the connection and dependence of causes and effects in the whole course of it as that very many sins naturally produce mischief and sorrow to the authors of them. In open and visible judgments this is true also. Luxury and drunkenness tend to impair our health and our estates, and either hurry us untimely to our graves, or else continue us here in beggary and want, unpitied and unrelieved. Sloth and idleness clothe a man with rags (Proverbs 23. 21). All this, though the usual consequence of the order of nature, is properly ascribed to God as the author of it. The man of lusts sins against his own body. A quarrelsome temper brings a man continually into broils and dangers. The old liar gets this reward, that nobody believes in him. He that soweth discord among others must not expect to live at home in peace. And envy is the rottenness of the bones. In all these cases the punishment is the natural effect and consequence of the sin. 2. When this doth not happen, and sins are great and daring, God sometimes breaks through all the course of nature and disturbs the order of the world to make His power and His justice known, to vindicate the honour of His providence, and cast vengeance upon the sinner. Not that God hath any delight to hurry the world into confusion and destroy His own creatures; but it is sometimes necessary for God to make Himself known by the judgments which He executeth. Illustrate by cases of Flood, Sodom, Korah, Sennacherib, Belshazzar, Jerusalem, Babylon, etc. Because, in these proceedings, the Almighty is forced to break through the harmony and goodness which Him self saw in His own creation, He never makes use of them but upon great and pressing occasions, when sinners become daring and impudent, and defy God and His providence. 3. God oftentimes by His wisdom so directs and manages the natural effects of second causes, and which are produced by a heap of circum stances that seem only casual and incidental to other special ends and designs of His providence, and makes them become the executioners of His wrath against sinners. Those things which seem casual to us, cannot be so to God the author of them. God orders the common accidents of the world to proper ends and designs of His providence; and many of those evils which seem the effects only of chance are really designed by God as punishment for our sins. In the following eases God's hand more visibly appears to us. (1) When judgments are national and public. (2) When the calamities bear a particular relation to, and often times the very stamp and character of the sin.Then if the Lord hath at this time drawn a sword against us, let us also proclaim war against the sins which caused them; always remembering that as there is no evil in a city but from the Lord, so there is no deliverance but from Him also. Let us turn unto the Lord with all our hearts, and He will have mercy on us. Let us resolve to be religious in good earnest, and by the holiness of our lives call louder to heaven for mercies than ever our sins have done for judgments. Let God's righteousness go before us in all our actions, then shall His glory he our reward. (John Willes, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it? |
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