“THE Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” Such were the words wrung from the heart of Amos, the prophet, who stood between the people of Israel and their God — the messenger of the latter to convey the solemn announcement of divine judgments about to fall upon the former.
“Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:77Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)); and if it was so in the time of Israel’s declension and failure of old, it is so now that the days of Christendom’s judgment are at hand. Oh, how plainly do the Scriptures foretell the awful doom of Christendom!
It is a solemn thing to have to do with God, for of this we may be sure, that He will by no means clear the guilty; and if this be so, which of us would be able to stand should He enter into judgment with us? for every mouth is stopped, and all the world is guilty before Him (Rom. 3:1919Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)).
And yet, is it not true that the day of judgment approaches, yes, steadily approaches? Let us ring out once more the prophetic warning addressed to Israel of old, “Prepare to meet thy God” (Amos 4:1212Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. (Amos 4:12)). Oh, how marvelous are the patience and long-suffering of God! Well might He long since have poured forth on the professing Church all the vials of His wrath!
But what is there amiss? the reader may exclaim. When Amos lifted up his voice, the people of Israel had fallen into terrible idolatry, and the necessity for judgment can in their case be easily understood. Have we not churches and chapels in abundance? and are they not thronged with worshippers? Are not these things acceptable in the sight of God?
Solemnly do we believe that much, very much, of the religious profession around, is not only not acceptable, but perfectly abhorrent to a God who loveth truth in the inward parts. “This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth... but their heart is far from me” (Matt. 15:88This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. (Matthew 15:8)), may be said with as great truth today as when our Lord uttered the words in solemn protest against the empty, formal, and ceremonial religiousness of the Pharisees. “But in vain they do worship Me.”
“Full house tonight!” said a churchwarden lately, a lay-reader to boot, addressing the preacher of the evening; “at least I look upon it as a matter of business, the plates were very full.” “The music was beautiful,” chimed in another.
And this is all that multitudes of people today think of who flock to a place of worship, as they call it, on a Sunday, as thoughtlessly as they did to the ball-room on Saturday night, and as they will to the theater on Monday!
“A telegram has just come from London to say that Mr. — is prevented from coming tonight,” said a deacon of the chapel to one of the members as he entered the building, adding, with a look of consternation on his face, “I do hope the collections will not suffer.”
A heavy debt was lying on the chapel, and the services of this eloquent preacher had been secured as a draw to get the people, not that they might hear words whereby they might be saved eternally, but that a good sum might be raised!
“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer Me burnt-offerings and your meat-offerings, I will not accept them” (Amos 5:21, 2221I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. 22Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. (Amos 5:21‑22)). And oh, how hateful is all this empty, Christless profession of our own days! God looks for reality, reader. He wants the heart, and not the lips merely, — though sure indeed are we that where Christ fills the heart this will find expression in the life and on the lips.
There is a growing dislike at the present time to all that style of preaching which would awaken the conscience and arouse the soul to consider its true state before God.
“What is the matter with you? You look perfectly miserable,” said one young lady to her friend, a teacher in the Sunday-school, but whose heart was, and is still, alas! more set on the world than on Christ.
“And so I am,” was the reply; “I feel wretched. I’ve been to hear that man preach. I wish I hadn’t gone, it’s made me feel quite sick. Take my advice, and you won’t go and hear him; I shan’t again.” And she kept her word.
But oh, what folly! “Ye that put far away the evil day,” remember that the evil day of judgment is coming. Soon you must face realities; why put off, and risk an eternity of woe for a few short days of unsatisfying pleasure? Are you ready to meet God? He knows “your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins” (Amos 5:1212For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. (Amos 5:12)). Have they been blotted out by the precious blood of Christ? or are you staggering on to eternity under the heavy load? Oh, awake, awake, before it be too late! Soon will “judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream” (vs. 24); and then what “wailing shall be in all streets!” (vs. 16.)
“Woe to them that are at ease in Zion!” (Amos 6:11Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came! (Amos 6:1).) How many there are who are at ease today. Regular church-goers, they fear no evil to come; and yet they have never come as poor, lost, guilty sinners to the feet of Jesus. They have never felt the burden of their sins, nor the terrors of the judgment and eternity that lies before them. No, they are “at ease,” yes, at ease, and care not to be aroused or warned of their danger. But, “woe to them!”
They may “lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches”; they may “chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music”; they may “drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments”; “but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph” (Amos 6:1-61Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came! 2Pass 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? 3Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; 4That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; 5That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David; 6That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. (Amos 6:1‑6)).
How descriptive is all this of much that we see around us today! The ease of luxury and wealth, the fascinations of science and music, the lust for self-indulgence of various kinds, and all this coupled with a form of religion, but an absolute indifference to Christ!
But these words of our prophet are striking in the extreme. Who amongst those that he addressed had had aught to do with the affliction of Joseph? Nearly one thousand years had rolled by since all those deep afflictions of Joseph had taken place, which were the type and shadow of the deeper sufferings of Christ upon the cross.
“And what hand had we,” the reader may exclaim, “in the sufferings of Christ? We did not nail Him to the cruel tree, we did not plait the crown of thorns and place it on His brow, we did not stand by and mock when He hung dying on the cross, we did not spear His side nor give Him the vinegar to drink.”
But have you ever realized that it was your sins that made His death necessary? Have you ever grieved over His sufferings, and sorrowed for His afflictions?
You may adorn yourself with a golden cross, set with diamonds, and pearls, and costly jewels; you may flit across the stage of life, flattered, admired, and adored; but have you ever dropped a tear of contrition for your sins, or shed a tear of gratitude for the love, that led the precious Saviour to suffer for our sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God?
You may go to church on Sunday. Yes, but do your lips ever speak forth the praise of Him who died for you, from Monday morning to Saturday night?
“Mother,” said an artless child one day, “have you asked Jesus to your ‘At home’ today?” And the question went like an arrow of conviction to the mother’s heart. Friends had been invited, and the afternoon was to have been spent, or wasted, in empty chit-chat and talk about nothings, but Jesus had been left out.
It is not religion we want, — of that we have enough, — but oh! for more of Christ, a living Christ in heaven, to fill the heart down here on earth; and the love of Christ, a Christ who died that we might be saved, to flood the soul with sunshine, and cause it to overflow with praise!
“I do not want a human creed to believe in,” writes one who had been for long and vainly string to obtain peace with God by means of the wearisome routine of Ritualism, its early celebrations (so-called), its fastings, its confessional, and its penances. “What I wanted, and what I have, thank God, found, is a Living Person to love, honor, and obey. I could not get on at all. I tried all sorts of work to get me to the cross, and that was why I failed. I started wrong; it was from the cross I should have started. I felt no better, but rather worse, when a so-called priest told me I was clean because he had pronounced absolution. I knew I was not. I wanted a Higher Priest to say it, and let the sweet echo of His words bring peace to my aching, troubled heart. He began and finished the work all those years ago on Calvary, and so I take my pardon straight from His own dear hands, because He says it. I know now better how unworthy I am; but His work is perfect, so absolutely perfect; and having this pardon in myself through His own precious blood, I must make a stand for Him,” &c.
May every anxious reader of these pages possess the same pardon, and share the same peace, by trusting in the same precious blood and resting on the same perfect work!
“It is finished!” “Peace unto you.” These are the words of Jesus, the Son of God.
A. H. B.