Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and Yahweh hasn’t done it?
Parallel Translations
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Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and Yahweh hasn’t done it?
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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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Shall the horn be blown in a city, and the people not tremble? Shall evil befall a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Amos 3:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.
- Isaiah 14:24-27 Yahweh of Armies has sworn, saying, “Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders. This is the plan that is determined for the whole earth. This is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For Yahweh of Armies has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”
- Zephaniah 1:16 a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities, and against the high battlements.
- Genesis 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive, as is happening today.
- 2 Corinthians 5:11 Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are revealed to God, and I hope that we are revealed also in your consciences.
- Jeremiah 10:7 Who shouldn’t fear you, King of the nations? For it belongs to you. Because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is no one like you.
- Jeremiah 4:5 Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let’s go into the fortified cities!’
- Jeremiah 6:1 “Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem, for evil looks out from the north with a great destruction.
- Acts 2:23 him, being delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by the hand of lawless men, crucified and killed;
- Jeremiah 5:22 Don’t you fear me?’ says Yahweh ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? Though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail. Though they roar, they still can’t pass over it.’
- Ezekiel 33:3 if, when he sees the sword come on the land, he blows the trumpet, and warns the people;
- Acts 4:28 to do whatever your hand and your council foreordained to happen.
- Hosea 5:8 “Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain He adds, in the last place, Shall a trumpet…
He adds, in the last place, Shall a trumpet sound and the people tremble not? Here he reprehends, as I have said, the torpidity of the people, to whom all threatening were a sport: “When a trumpet sounds,” he says, “all tremble; for it is a signal of danger. All then either fly for aid or stand amazed, when the trumpet sounds. God himself cries, his voice deserves much more attention than the trumpet which fills men’s minds with dread; and yet it is a sound uttered to the deaf. What then does this prove, but that madness possesses the minds of men? Are they not destitute of all judgment and of every power of reason?” We hence see that the Prophet in these words intended to show, that the Israelites were in a manner fascinated by the devil, for they had no thought of evils; and though they knew that God sounded the trumpet and denounced ruin, they yet remained heedless, and were no more moved than if all things were in a quiet state. What remains I cannot now finish.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Shall the Prophets threaten God’s judgments and the people…
Shall the Prophets threaten God’s judgments and the people not be afraid?
Doth any adversity come without God’s appointment? Isa. 45:7.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Amo 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the…
Amo 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 hath not done [it]?
Ver. 6. Shall a trumpet be blown] sc. out of a watch-tower in time of war, to sound an alarm, and to say, Hannibal ad portas, the enemy is at hand, the Philistines are upon you.
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And the people not be afraid] Or run together to make resistance? Will ye not then tremble at my threats, saith the Lord? "Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob," Jer 5:22 Psa 114:7. Fear is an affection of the soul, shrinking in itself from some eminent evil. God is the proper object of it, whence he is called fear in the abstract, Psa 76:11, and those that come on his errand should be received with reverence, yea, "with fear and trembling," as was Titus, 2Co 7:15, and before him Samuel, by those elders of Bethlehem, 1Sa 16:4, as suspecting it was the purpose of some judgment that brought him thither. Comest thou peaceably? said they. It is a good thing to stand in awe of God’s messengers, and to tremble at his judgments, while they yet hang in the threatenings. It appeareth by this prophet that carnal security was grown epidemical, and had overspread the land, Amo 6:2-3. Some there were that said, God had not sent the prophets to denounce those evils, but that they had done it of their own volition, as we say. Others doubted the certainty of those evils denounced, Amo 6:3, against whom he here disputeth by these foregoing similitudes; and in the next words plainly asserteth the Divine providence, and the authority of the prophets, God’s privy councillors.
Shall there be evil in a city] Understand it of the evil of punishment. See Lam 3:37 Isa 45:7 Mic 1:12 Ecc 7:14 1Ki 9:9; 1Ki 21:29. See my treatise called God’s love-tokens.
And the Lord hath not done it?] Although God doth it not but only as it is bonum iustitim, good in order to his glory. That which we are here advertised is that it is not luck and fortune that doth toss and tumble things here below; but that God sits at the stern, and steers the affairs of the world. The Gentiles, indeed, held Fortune as a goddess; representing her by a woman sitting upon a ball, as if the whole world were at her command; having with her a razor, as if she could at her pleasure cut off and end man’s happiness; bearing in her right hand the stern of a ship, as if she could turn about all things at her pleasure, and in her left hand the horn of abundance, as though all plenty came from her. This was abominable idolatry, to be shunned by Christians; yea, the very name of luck or fortune is to be spit out of their mouths with utmost detestation. It repented Austin that ever he had used that wicked word, Fortuna , Chance (Aug. Retract.).
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Shall a trumpet be blown, when an alarm is…
Shall a trumpet be blown, when an alarm is sounded, by which notice is given of danger approaching, of an enemy invading the land, in the city, any city, but particularly in a frontier city, in which were watchmen on the walls and towers to give notice of an enemy, Isa 52:8; Eze 3:17; 33:7,
and the people not be afraid; affected with the danger, to weigh how great it is, how near it is; whether it be best to prepare to resist it, or to flee from it? Such-like affections doth the alarm of war work in the minds of men ordinarily, and there is good reason for it: but though God hath sounded the alarm, yet brutish, stupid, and sinful Israel fear not, neither consult what is the best course to prevent the danger.
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Shall there be evil, of affliction and sorrow, such as plague, famine, &c., in a city, or any where else, and the Lord, the eternal, holy, and righteous Governor of all in heaven and on earth, hath not done it, either immediately by his own hand, or mediately by the hands of those he employs? the evil of punishment he will execute and bring upon Israel; he will by the hands of the Assyrians in due time execute it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Surely the Lord God will do nothing,.... In the…
Surely the Lord God will do nothing,.... In the world, in a nation or city; no remarkable event has happened, or shall happen, to the sons of men:
but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets; what he willed and determined to do, which was a secret in his own breast, till revealed; and this generally, and for the most part, he makes known to those that fear and serve him; and especially to whom he employs in public service, as his prophets and ministers, previous to his accomplishment of it: thus he revealed to Noah the drowning of the old world by the flood; to Abraham the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah; and to the same servant and friend of his the affliction of his posterity four hundred years in a strange land, and then to be brought out with great substance; to Abijah the Shilonite the rending of ten tribes from the house of David; to Jeremiah the seventy years' captivity of the Jews in Babylon; to Isaiah their deliverance from thence, through Cyrus by name; to Daniel the four monarchies, the nature, rise, and fall of them; and to John, the disciple of Christ, all the material things that should come to pass, relating to the church and world, from the first times of the Gospel to the second coming of Christ; which that book is a revelation of that bears that name; see Gen 18:17; and so that grand affair, which God has brought about in the world, the salvation of his people by his Son, which was a secret hid in his heart before the world began, this he revealed to his servants before it was effected; not only the scheme of it, but the author of it, whom he very early gave notice of; and who was spoken of by the mouth of all the prophets, from the beginning of the world; declaring who and what he was, the Son of God; that he should be incarnate, and born of a virgin; when he should appear, and where, and in what part of the world; also in what way and manner he should obtain salvation, by his obedience and sufferings; and all the circumstances relating thereunto are most minutely and exactly declared by him. Yea, God reveals unto his saints in common the secret of his purposes, respecting their election, redemption, and regeneration, which is made known in the effectual calling; and of the blessings of his grace in the covenant, and also of his providences; and of his love, grace, and mercy; and of his Gospel, and the mysteries of it; thus he deals with them as his friends, rather than as his servants; see Psa 25:14.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Afraid - Affected with the danger. Evil - Such…
Afraid - Affected with the danger. Evil - Such as plague or famine. Done it - Either immediately by his own hand, or by the hands of those he employs. Whoever are the instruments, God is the principal agent. Out of his mouth both good and evil proceed.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. Shall a trumpet be blown] The sign…
Verse 6. Shall a trumpet be blown] The sign of alarm and invasion.
And the people not be afraid?] Not take the alarm, and provide for their defence and safety?
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Shall there be evil in a city] Shall there be any public calamity on the wicked, that is not an effect of my displeasure? The word does not mean moral evil, but punishment for sin; calamities falling on the workers of iniquity. Natural evil is the punishment of moral evil: God sends the former when the latter is persisted in.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Is there evil in the city and the Lord…
Is there evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it? - Evil is of two sorts, evil of sin, and evil of punishment. There is no other; for evil of nature, or evil of fortune, are evils, by God’s Providence, punishing the evil of sin. Augustine, c. Adim. 26: “Evil, which is sin, the Lord hath not done; evil, which is punishment for sin, the Lord bringeth.” The Providence of God governing and controlling all things, man doth ill which he wills, so as to suffer ill which he wills not. Only, evil which is by God’s Providence the punishment of sin is in this life remedial and through final impenitence alone becomes purely judicial.
Rib.: “Refer not, the prophet would say, the ills which ye suffer and will suffer, to any other causes, as people are accustomed to do. God, in His displeasure, sends them upon you. And that ye may know this the more certainly, whatever He shall send He will first reveal to the prophets and by them ye shall be forewarned. See then that ye despise not my words, or the words of the other prophets. People ascribe their sufferings to fortune, accident, any cause, rather than the displeasure of God. The intemperate will think anything the cause of their illness rather than their intemperance. People love the things of the world and cannot and will not be persuaded that so many evils are brought on them by the things which they love. So then God explains through the prophets the punishment which He purposes to bring on people.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Afraid. Yet you can hear these terrible truths without…
Afraid. Yet you can hear these terrible truths without consternation! Will you therefore escape? (Calmet) --- Evil. He speaks of the evil of sin, of which God is not the author. (Challoner) --- All evil of punishment is sent by God, either to reclaim sinners or to be the beginning of sorrows, if they die impenitent. (Worthington) --- You know that He rewards or punishes. If, therefore, what I foretell come to pass, do not blame me.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain When the sound of alarm is trumpeted by the…
When the sound of alarm is trumpeted by the watchman in the city, the people are sure to run to and fro in alarm (Hebrew, literally). Yet Israel is not alarmed, though God threatens judgments.
shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?--This is the explanation of the preceding similes: God is the Author of all the calamities which come upon you, and which are foretold by His prophets. The evil of sin is from ourselves; the evil of trouble is from God, whoever be the instruments.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. Is a horn (Amo_2:2) blown in a city,…
6. Is a horn (Amo_2:2) blown in a city, and are the people not in alarm?] Of course they are: for they know it to be the signal of approaching danger. The horn was blown as a summons to repel an invader, &c. (Hos_5:8; Jer_6:1; Eze_33:3 f.; 1Co_14:8).
will evil happen in (R.V. befall) a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?] Will evil—i.e. calamity, misfortune, as 1Sa_6:9—happen in a city without having its sufficient cause in Jehovah’s purpose? The Hebrews often took no account of what we term ‘secondary causes’; and a calamity, such as famine or pestilence, which might be the natural consequence of some physical antecedent, is thus referred here directly to Jehovah’s operation.
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6–8. Similarly the horn is a signal of danger; calamity is a sign that Jehovah has willed it; and the appearance of a prophet is an indication that Jehovah has sent him.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (6, 7) Surely the Lord . . .—In this,…
(6, 7) Surely the Lord . . .—In this, and the preceding verse, the future tense should be replaced by a present. Render doeth nothing, and in Amo_3:6 is a trumpet sounded . . . are not afraid . . . is there evil; for the prophet intends to express a continually-recurring fact. The word translated “evil” is commonly, but not universally, used for moral evil. (See Gen_19:19; Gen_44:34; Exo_32:14.) “Evil which is sin the Lord hath not done, evil which is punishment for evil the Lord bringeth.” (Augustine.) Compare, as illustrations of the truth of Amo_3:7, the revelation of the Divine purpose to Noah with reference to the Deluge, to Abraham with respect to Sodom, to Joseph about the famine in Egypt, and to Moses concerning Pharaoh. The prophets of the Lord have given full warning of the judgment of God upon all sin.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The prophet must needs speak: shall not his denunciation…
The prophet must needs speak: shall not his denunciation arouse alarm among the people, as the trumpet suddenly heard in a city excites the terror of the inhabitants? (comp. Eze_33:2-5) Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? The "evil" is affliction, calamity, malum poenae. As states have no future, all temporal calamities in their case may rightly be regarded as the punishment of sin. Thus the ruin impending, on Israel was sent by the Lord, whose agent was the enemy now approaching. All phenomena are ascribed in the Bible to Divine operation, no second causes being allowed to interfere with this appropriation. (see Job 1; 1Sa_18:10; 1Ki_22:19, etc.; Isa_45:7) The verb "do" is often used absolutely, the context defining the result. (see note on Hag_2:4)
Calamity one of the works of God.
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It is not sin, but suffering, that is here meant. We are to regard temporal calamities as the warning voice of God, a manifestation of his character, and a corrective expression of his displeasure. God maintains his controversy with Israel. The verses before contain language of unimpeachable equity, ill-requited kindness, and injured honour. On every ground the threatened punishment was merited, and only in mercy had it been suspended so long. There is a natural atheism in the human heart, a constantly prevailing tendency to forgot God. This tendency is most powerful in prosperity, and must often be counterworked by a dispensation of adversity. Not that Divine judgments, acting on human corruption, necessarily lead to repentance. But in God"s hand they have often been overruled to this effect, and it is in this reclaiming and reforming capacity that they are alluded to in this text.
I WE DISTINGUISH THE AGENCY OF JEHOVAH FROM CHANCE. "Chance" is a word much used, and little understood. When we say that an event has happened by chance, we mean either that it had no cause, which is atheism, or that we do not know the cause, which is an abuse of language. Chance, in fact, is nothing but a term of human ignorance. Yet the use of the word implies either atheism, denying the Divine existence, or naturalism, denying his superintending agency; the two coming to the same thing, for we might as well have no God as no providence. The sentiment of our text is the refutation of both, and as such is but the echo of all Scripture. "All things are of God." Not creation only, but providence, which is as wonderful as a continuous creation. Not great events only, but the very least, without any one of which the whole machinery would be incapable of a single revolution. How beautifully yet powerfully is this brought out by Christ in his illustration from the sparrows! (Mat_10:29-31) If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Father, much less can a whole city. When evil is in a city, it is not a visitation of chance, but of the hand of God, under which it has come.
II THE DIVINE AGENCY IS HERB DISTINGUISHED FROM THAT OF IDOLS. Something to worship is a necessity of human nature. Hence men, when they forsake the true God, set up a false one in his place. The existence and power of this idol they believe without proof, and even against presumption. Unconquerable incredulity in reference to the true God becomes irrational credulity in reference to the false once. Thus atheism is more a question of the heart than of the head. Men do not like to retain God in their knowledge, (Rom_1:23, Rom_1:28) and so discard him for gods of their own devising. This fact shows polytheism a term of atheism. And it was demonstrably so with the Jews. The obverse of apostasy with them was always idolatry; and this text affirms that Jehovah, whom they had forsaken, not any senseless idol which they had chosen, dominated history and sent good and evil to men. (see Isa_41:21-24; Jer_10:3-16) We think we are in no danger of making their mistake. But the world, in its ambition, avarice, or pleasure, may take away our hearts from God, and become their idol, climbing to his throne. And we give it credit often for what God does and alone can do, and to that extent misread the providential events in which God is dealing with us.
III DIVINE AGENCY IS TO BE DISTINGUISHED FROM THE AGENCY OF SECOND CAUSES. The deification of nature is a common practice. Conventionally, nature is a kind of mystical personification of some unknown existence, and to which the omnipotence denied to God is freely attributed. If "nature" does a thing, it is assumed that God has no hand in it, and that it wants no explanation further. "Nature is that created realm of being or substance which has an acting, a going on or process from within itself, under and by its own laws" (Bushnell). But these laws are just "the actuating power of God." They are not powers in themselves, but only the rules according to which his power operates. We have various kinds of seasons which we trace to various causes in nature. But these are second causes, and under the sovereign control of the First Cause. "Can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O Lord our God?... for thou hast made all these things". (Jer_14:22) Air, earth, and sea, and allthat they contain, are subject to him. (Psa_104:4 Psa_148:8) From the natural cause of this or that we must rise to him who makes it what and puts it where it is, and gives it a commission to work. "All things are of God.
This truth philosophy, though eagle-eyed In nature"s tendencies, oft o"erlooks; And having found his instrument, forgets Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, Denies the Power that wields it.
The same principle rules events in which men are agents. "Men are in God"s hand" as well as matter. The King of Assyria was simply the rod with which God struck Israel. (Isa_10:5-16) In attributing temporal evils to Gods sovereign control of things, distinguish between sovereignty and caprice. What God does he could assign the best of reasons for. He exercises his sovereignty in declining to do so. But he tells us that the great general cause of suffering is sin. Evil does not come on us as creatures, but as sinners. The infliction of it has not to do with sovereignty, but with equity. All good is from God, all evil from the sinner. All good is gratuitous, all evil is deserved. All evil is righteous retribution, all good is free and sovereign love. Nor is suffering destitute of a large benevolent element. On the contrary, it often serves a merciful purpose, and would always do so were it properly received. When the sun of prosperity fails to soften, God casts men into the furnace of trial, if perchance the stronger method may prevail. If there be evil in your city, then consider who sends it, on what account, and for what purpose; so, it may be, you will "turn to him that smiteth you," as he means you should. (From a sermon by Ralph Wardlaw, D.D., supplemented and condensed.)
Warning notes.
There is something in this interrogatory style that arrests the attention and excites inquiry. Combined as it is with bold figures of speech, it gives both vivacity and impressiveness to the prophecies of the herdsman of Tekoah.
I THE PRESENCE OF CALAMITY. The phrase, "evil in a city," is certainly vague, but how much it may imply! How many forms of misery may be suggested by the expression!e.g. famine, pestilence, war, riot, and faction, all are evils, and evils which do not always come singly to a community.
II THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CALAMITY. The suggestion of the prophet is that "the Lord hath done it." We are not warranted in applying the test of our opinions to events permitted by Divine providence. It is foolish to profess ourselves able to interpret all the events, and especially all the calamities, that occur; to see God"s "judgments" in all human distresses. Yet no devout mind can question that there is a very important sense in which, when evil happens to a city or a country, the Lord hath done it. The world is governed by moral laws; but the Governor is the supreme Creator of all things, the supreme Disposer of all events.
Disobedience to his authority and ordinances entails suffering, privation, disaster. Men reap as they sow.
III THE PROPHETIC WARNING OF COMING CALAMITY. The prophet was a watchman, as Ezekiel so vigorously shows us, whose office it is to recognize the approach of ill, and to give the people timely and faithful warning. The same office is still fulfilled by those who being dead yet speak, whose declarations concerning Divine government remain for the instruction of all generations. The Bible abounds with admonitions to which cities and nations will do well to give heed. And all ministers of religion are bound to explain to the people the principles of moral rule and law, of moral retribution, of repentance and reformation.
IV THE PROPER EFFECT OF CALAMITY. The immediate result is that described in the text fear, trembling, alarm. But the remote result, that chiefly to be desired, is the turning of men"s hearts unto the Lord, and their consequent acceptance and forgiveness. T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Shall there be evil in a city, and the…
Amo_3:6
Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?
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God as the author of evil
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 Gods judgments lost their designs. Even Gods 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 Gods 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 Gods 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 (Gen_3:12). And some of his unhappy offspring have gone yet further, and thought God altogether such an one as themselves (Psa_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 Gods 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 Gods 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 (Pro_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 Gods 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 Gods righteousness go before us in all our actions, then shall His glory he our reward. (John Willes, D. D.)
The Christians view of public calamity
The well-instructed Christian will refer all events to the overruling providence of God. The text, in referring to evil, does not mean natural evil, such as blindness, disease, and death; nor moral evil, or the contrariety of mens actions. It refers particularly to social evil, social calamity.
1. Moral evil Divinely overruled. Nothing can take place without Gods knowledge. But we must remember that He never suggests an unholy thought or purpose. While God leaves sinners to take such a course as their own evil hearts desire, He overrules or controls their sin for the accomplishment of His own will. Illustrate cases of Joseph, and the crucifixion of our blessed Lord.
2. But we refer to social evil Divinely inflicted, sometimes by human instruments, sometimes without. Of calamities in the community the text speaks. It is too customary to overlook the hand of God in these things, and to confine our attention to second causes. God could keep back the ambitious desires, and curb the evil passions of sinful men, but He allows them to take the direction upon which their own wicked hearts are bent, and uses them as instruments of His wrath. This subject gives--
(1) To worldly men a solemn warning.
(2) To the afflicted believer this subject affords abundant consolation. (J. G. Breay, B. A.)
The Christians duty in public calamity
By evil here we understand calamities. Men may have been concerned in bringing them on; but God overrules all things for the accomplishment of His own purposes. The truth is clearly established, that the sorrows of a nation may be traced to the sins of a nation. The improvement to be made from this subject is--
I. The duty of intercession with god for the removal of national calamity. We need go no further than this prophet for a proof of the efficacy of prayer (Amo_7:1-6).
II. Labour among men for the promotion of national holiness. Enumerate some national sins. The advances of popery. Sabbath breaking. Infidelity, especially in literature.
III. Confide in the protection of god in the midst of national danger. If you are in Christ, you have no cause for fear. The consciousness of sinfulness will lead you to submit to personal trial as Job did. The Lord frequently makes a distinction in times of calamity between those who are His people and those who are not. Observe how Ezekiel (Eze_9:4-6) describes the Lords people. They sigh and.cry for the sins of others. If you can see iniquity unmoved, if you see men going to destruction and the laws of God and man set at defiance, without grief, and without doing all that is in your power to stem the torrent, you see that you have not the mark of Gods people, and you must perish with a careless and ungodly world.
Application.
1. Acknowledge Gods hand in every judgment.
2. Do all in your power to spread the knowledge of Gods will. (J. G. Breay, B. A.)
The mission of evil
I. The fact that all evil comes from the Lord. By evil understand the evil of punishment. God cannot be the author of evil as sin. He may permit it and overrule it. Every calamity we suffer is from the hand of God. This is universally acknowledged when by calamities are meant earthquakes, tempests, hurricanes, diseases, etc. Other evils are plainly traceable to our own agency, and so the agency of God is easily ignored. Such are the diseases and poverty and wretchedness brought on by intemperance or idleness. But while we admit human agency and human guilt in many of the calamities which we suffer, we ought, at the same time, to acknowledge the hand of God in them all. They all come with His knowledge; they all come by His permission; they all come by His appointment. As all these calamities, of a public character, which come immediately from the hands of men, are to be traced to the hand of God, so also may those calamities which come upon families and individuals. The rod which corrects you may be sharp and heavy, and the evil agency of men may be seen in every blow which you receive, but the rod is still in the hand of God, and He regulates both the number and the severity and the duration of your chastisements.
II. If all evil comes from the hand of God, why does He send such evils? We cannot suppose that He is changeable, and capricious, and unjust, and cruel; that He inflicts willingly, that He has pleasure in the miseries of mankind. It may, therefore, be stated generally, that national Calamities are the punishment of national sins. Among the Israelites idolatry was a great and prevailing sin, and many of the calamities which came upon them came because they gave Gods glory unto other gods, and His praise unto graven images. The truth applies to individuals. There is a strange perverseness in multitudes which leads them to imagine that they are suffering for the sins of others. They can see guilt in others, but none in themselves. No man ever really suffered for the sins of others. Others may have been the agents in inflicting, the sin was his own.
III. How should we act when God sends such evils?
1. It becomes us to acknowledge that all the evils we suffer come from God.
2. It becomes us to acknowledge that all the calamities we feel or fear are most just. There cannot be unrighteousness with God.
3. We should bewail and forsake those sins which have provoked God to send such evils upon us.
4. Stand in awe, and sin not, lest a worse thing befall you. God has been visiting you in anger, but we trust it has also been in loving-kindness.
5. Be much engaged in prayer. There are two things for which you should pray.
(1) That God would remove the evils which you are suffering.
(2) That God would sanctify to your use the calamities which you have suffered. (W. S. Smart.)
Lessonsof the cholera
There is no doubt that in all ages there has been as much evil done, and as much good prevented, during epidemics, by certain theological theories on what are rightly called Gods judgments, as there has been good done and evil overcome by the self-denying devotion of those who hold these theories. In fact, the good they do is less than the evil. Devotion to the sick relieves a few individuals; a superstitious idea leads astray all the souls of a nation for centuries, and retards the salutary work of science. It is very hard on scientific men that their conscientious obstructors in every age have been those religious men who, from want of faith in a God of order and truth, and from blind cleaving to blind opinions, have opposed instead of assisting those whose objects were the welfare of the race through the discovery of truth. It is almost too strange to think that the spirit of the inquisitors who condemned Galileo has not yet died out. Cholera as a judgment. The home of this dreadful disease is in India. But we have no real knowledge of how it originates, of the cause of its curious periodicity, of the means whereby it is propagated. Nor have we any knowledge how to cure it. The disease is singularly capricious. Put yourself back into old Athenian times, what would be the result of such a new phenomenon, which they could refer to no law? It could not be the work of any of their common gods. At once they leaped to the conclusion that it was the doing of some unknown god, whom, in soma way or other, they had offended. Hence they strove to propitiate him by sacrifice and prayer. The story goes that, at least once, they let loose some sheep from the Areopagus, and wherever the wandering animals lay down, built an altar to the unknown deity, and sacrificed them to appease his wrath. One thing they did not do. They did not try to investigate the causes of the disease; they did not collect facts about it. They assumed it was supernatural, instead of assuming it was natural. We, who know God as the Unalterable, the Uncapricious, whose unchangeable love constitutes unchangeable law, we do not impute this plague, of which we know nothing, and the strangeness of which seems to separate it from other diseases, to a caprice on the part of God which He will remove on our imploring Him to let us off. Yet a part of our religious world is guilty, with regard to the cholera, of grosser superstition than the Athenians. We talk, and pray, and teach, as if it had no natural cause, obeyed no natural laws. We call it, theologically, not religiously, a judgment of God, and we use the term with a supernatural meaning attached to it. What are the results of this superstition? According to this theory, the cholera is supernatural. Nothing will stop it but prayer. So all energy is diminished, all effort against the evil is crushed. Fortunately, though the supernatural theory is taught, it is not generally acted upon. It is good for exciting fear for hiding from mens eyes the real evils which the cholera points out to us as deserving of Gods anger. It is good for nothing else. It creates a miserable fear and terror. God is regarded as a foe who is to be bought off, or coaxed by prayer, to give up His wrath. Is there no truth then in the phrase, a judgment of God? Yes, plenty of truth. These things--famine, pestilence, revolution war--are judgments of the Ruler of the world. A Ruler who rules in an orderly manner. Each judgment is connected with its proper cause, and is the result of a violation of a particular law, or set of laws. God says, Find out My laws, and accord with them your action, and My judgment will become to you not punishment but blessing. Sometimes the scientific man, enamoured of his laws and his results, says so-called judgments are nothing but natural laws working out their results. The Christian believes judgment to be much more. These natural laws, these series of causes and effects are ordered by a Divine intelligence and a moral will. Their violation is a transgression, but the moment man becomes aware that evil follows on their violation, it is not only a transgression but a sin. Moral guilt attends the nation which refuses to take measures for the extinguishing of disease. We find ourselves not only in the presence of mere law, we are brought into the presence of God. These judgments are Gods judgments. He is displaying His justice in punishment, but the very punishment itself is a proof of His love. For the disease does not only punish evils, it points them out, it discloses to us the evils we were ignorant of, in order that we may remedy them. This is Gods love in judgment. Apply these principles to the cholera. The conditions in which it develops itself are national sins. It laid its finger on the disgrace of England, the canker which eats into the heart of a nation--the neglected state of the poor. Again, it has been proved that want of a continual supply of pure water is the fruitful cause, not only of cholera, but of half the diseases that decimate the poor. Cholera can be diminished, as smallpox has been, by destroying the conditions when it becomes deadly to life. In Cheshire, years ago, some new plants, quite unknown beforehand in the country, sprang up beside the canals by Which the salt was carried and in the pools around the salt works. At last some one recognised the plants as those which haunt the ledges of the rocks just above the flow of the tide, but within the wash of the spray. The germs of the plants had been carried inland, by wind or bird, for years, but the conditions under which they could grow had only recently arisen. So with cholera. The poison-germ may be in the air, but everything depends on conditions of development, and these, in measure, are in our control. (S. A. Brooke, M. A.)
A visitation from God
I. God exercises a constant and minute superintendence over men. Objections--
1. The magnitude of the universe.
2. The dignity of the Divine Governor.
3. The extreme regularity of every process.
II. God punishes nations as such.
1. Nations are morally responsible as such.
2. They are capable of joint operations, as--
(1) In flaming laws;
(2) In the administration of laws;
(3)In their public institutions;
(4) In their procedure towards others;
(5) In their general manners.
3. Sacred history teaches national responsibility. Sodom, Egypt, Canaanites, Nineveh, Babylon, Jewish history, Israels dispersion.
4. Nations can be dealt with only in time.
III. With what feelings Gods dealings with nations should be regarded.
1. Consideration.
(1) Forsaking ordinances.
(2) Violating the Sabbath.
(3) Drunkenness.
(4) Perjury.
(5) Oppression.
2. Repentance. Including--
(1) Humility.
(2) Reformation. (J. Stewart.)
Is God the author of moral evil?
This text is very liable to a wrong interpretation. It strongly asserts by its question that God is the author of evil. But of what evil?
I. Not of moral evil, which is sin, but of natural evil, which is calamity. And why of that? Many have not scrupled, directly or indirectly, to charge God with being the author of evil as sin. What is moral evil? It is the evil of what is done or thought or said by a moral agent, contrary to the rule of moral conduct laid down for him by God, his moral Governor. The brutes, without understanding of moral good or evil, are incapable of committing moral evil. Man chose to act contrary to the rule laid down for him by God. Sin is the transgression of the law. Then God cannot in any way, directly or indirectly, be the author of sin. To Him it is the abominable thing. No circumstances can justify a sin. God gave us appetites and passions, but not to be abused. He expressly forbids their abuse. One of the most subtle modes of charging God with abetting wickedness is by abusing the doctrines of grace. God must give faith in Christ, and change the heart. He has not done this for me. Therefore I am justified in following the devices and desires of my own heart. Wherever there is moral evil, one thing is clear and sure, The Lord hath not done it; it was the sinners own doing. Our most conclusive proof that God cannot be the author of moral evil, which should settle the matter for ever is, His gift of His Son, to become man and to die, as the one only and sufficient atonement for sin. This shows sin to be infinitely evil in His sight; it proves His solemn detestation of all iniquity.
II. God does send natural evil or calamity; and why? The distinction between natural and moral evil is easy to be observed. A child may learn it. Moral evil is what is contrary to moral duty, committed by a moral agent. Natural evil is that which, occurring contrary to the usual course and order of things, disturbs the being so interfered with. Not a calamity can befall a city, not a trouble light upon an individual, without the hand of God permitting and directing it. Guard against hard thoughts of God. God deals thus in the way of punishment and correction. In the case of a city or a country sinning against God, the connection is often more evident between the sin and the punishment than in the case of individuals. It is good to read history with a Christian eye. We should seriously mistake if, wherever we saw calamity or trouble, we inferred that there had been peculiar sin. Though God is not the author of moral evil, He is the author of deliverance from it, through His Son Jesus Christ. Through Christ we may be fully pardoned and fully justified, and in due time fully sanctified; and then what will become of natural evils? For Christ is the Saviour from all evils. (John Hambleton, M. A.)
National calamities the consequence of national sin
The evil here dealt with is not moral evil, it is the suffering of evil or calamity. The text does not attribute to God the production of sin, but the infliction of that penal or corrective evil which God may lay on a city or nation, to punish it duly for sin, and to correct it, and bring it back to God. The world is composed of good and evil. Of good, which was in it as it came from God; of evil, that entered into it when it became infected with sin. In this world, while we have much that is real good and that is imaginary good, we have both real and imaginary good commingled with what is evil; and it becomes a problem of no easy solution to tell whether the one or the other doth generally predominate. When we enjoy uninterrupted and unmingled good we are disposed to attribute all the good we enjoy to ourselves. We easily forget God. The moment that evil is inflicted on us, our pride is alarmed by the injury to our feelings. We begin to look beyond self, and search for some cause to which we can attribute the evil we endure. Some attribute to chance. Others to a general law of nature. The particular actings of these general laws they take entirely out of the hands of God, and only look to this second instrumentality by which, according to their ideas, the general laws impressed on the creation of God are found to operate. The consequence of this will be that good will be enjoyed and self will be honoured; or if, perchance, nature, or the God of nature, be acknowledged, yet the secondary cause will be their own skill, or industry, or application, or some other such cause that still leaves God out of His temple and sets up humanity. Or, on the other hand, if evil be endured, it will be attributed to any cause but to God. Here it is that the Spirit of God comes in as our instructor. Wherever there is evil, in the sense of calamity, the Lord hath done it.
I. The evil in the city.
1. The commercial distress of the times. Men are ready to attribute such evil to any cause whatever but to the true cause--sin in the heart of man, and God putting His hand on that sin to punish it, or reform those who are the subjects of it.
2. The extended want of employment where employment was abundantly enjoyed. Why is there want of employment? Attribute it to the stagnation of trade--what is the cause of that? The sin of the people and the judgment of God. Attribute it to an overflowing population--what is the reason that employment does not hold pace with population? It is simply because the population are not educated in the knowledge of God, not educated in the principles of morality.
3. Comparative famine and the pestilence.
4. The disunion of the land. This is to be attributed to our national sin; for God in His mercy is able to take away all these disunions, and He will remedy all these evils the moment He has taught us, rich and poor, to repent of our individual sins and turn to the living God.
5. Sabbath-breaking. There is one great cause or effect of the national depravity of morals.
II. The important lesson to be drawn from the fact, the Lord hath done it. No individual, no Church, no minister is free from a share in the national sins. It is the object of God, by bringing calamity on us, to make us think of Him. The moment man thinks of God, he is compelled to think of himself, because he is Gods reflected image. So man asks, Why am I like God, and yet so unlike Him? There is not a portion of the land which is not suffering from these sins--the neglect of the education of the people and Sabbath-breaking. Whenever God sends a calamity on the land, He sends with it a voice, calling upon His own people to do all the good they can by the means of the evil He inflicts on them and on others. Two great lessons to be derived from the subject.
1. The mercy of God in the infliction of evil as Calamity.
2. There is but one remedy for the evils of the land--the Lord Jesus Christ. (Henry Cooke, D. D. , LL. D.)
National calamities
I. All the calamities which befall a great state are sent the overruling providence of God. Case of Pharaoh (Exo_9:14-16); and Tyre (Isa_23:9-11). But if the hand of God was manifested in the punishment and destruction of idolatrous individuals and nations, much more plainly do the judgments that so frequently befell Gods own people, the Jews, seem to have been the result of a judicial sentence from heaven, passed upon them for their transgressions. The evil spoken of in the text is not criminal evil, but the punishment that follows the commission of sin and all the inconveniences which accompany it. This is termed the evil of punishment or penal evil. This may be ascribed to God. The evil of sin, or moral evil, is from ourselves; it is our own doing; but the evil of trouble and suffering for sin, individual and national, is from God, is His doing, whatever be the immediate instruments by which He chooses to inflict it.
II. In addition to individual character, and the other obvious relations in life men have to sustain, God regards them in their collective capacity, and visits them with national judgments. This great truth cannot be too often insisted on. Each of us belongs to a country which has its claims upon him, in return for the benefits he receives from it. When any particular country is subject to peculiar national advantages or evils, the inhabitants of that country are benefited or injured by them. But what experience teaches us is the method that has been found necessary to be adopted for the mutual help of society, and which we find coincide with the laws of nature, Scripture teaches us is the plan upon which Gods moral government over man is conducted; namely, that God regards man in his national capacity, and rewards or punishes him accordingly.
III. Attempt to justify these important doctrines of Holy Writ.
1. The relationship which exists among men, as members of society upon earth, will have no existence in another state.
2. God rewards or punishes nations in this world that they may be led, in their national capacity, to acknowledge His authority, and to regulate their affairs according to His will, and in obedience to His commands. It was on this very account that the Almighty purposed to form the Jewish State into a theocracy. Lesson--
1. We should learn to acknowledge the hand of God in the chastening visits of His providence, and humble ourselves before Him as parts of a guilty nation.
2. We should endeavour to ascertain the cause, or causes, of afflictive dispensations, so that we may be enabled to put from us the accursed thing that is so offensive to our Maker.
3. We should be thankful to God that we have hitherto so mercifully escaped the judgments, and in gratitude to Him give liberally of our substance in aid of those on whom the judgments have fallen. (Joseph Peer, M. A.)
A city aroused
Men are always ready to overestimate the importance of the times in which they live. The ordinary appears wonderful. Our fathers felt and said about their times just as we say and feel about ours. These are not the most stirring times ever seen in our land. We need not think that all social order is going to be destroyed because sometimes our city is aroused, by sounds that are somewhat alarming, from its complacent quest of wealth, comfort, and amusement.
1. It is a very natural thing to fear approaching danger. The trumpet blown in the city is intended to cause alarm. It may tell of an approaching army. Or the danger may be from within; the trumpet-blast of some conspiracy.
2. Fear is a great preservative power. The certain consequences of any evil cause are a great preventive force. God intended they should have this effect. His Word often appeals to this faculty of fear. And we too may tell of the judgment that must be faced by individuals as by nations. We may tell of the retributions that must follow. The trumpet of warning must give no uncertain sound. It must ring in the centre of a mans soul.
3. The Divine purpose in permitted evil. It is to the same end as the trumpet-blast. Calamity calls for consideration. The cause must be found out and the evil removed. Things that are evil in some way God wills. It is for the devout student to consider calamities and inquire into the cause of moral evil. When a city has to suffer, the inhabitants should consider. Illustrate from time when the Romans attacked Jerusalem. London may not be more wicked in proportion than Paris, or Vienna, or Berlin, or Rome, or New York, or Melbourne. It is, however, the largest city in the world. Men will be compelled to inquire as to whether much physical evil is not the result of a debased moral state, arising from a neglect of Gods Word, Gods laws, Gods worship, Gods day, and Gods love. For this the Church itself may be answerable. Her pride and laziness, wealth, and sectarian bitterness may have fostered the evils, It is for Gods Church to be aroused to a lively interest in all that concerns the temporal and spiritual welfare of people around. She has something to say on social questions. Christians should be foremost in all movements for elevating men, or extending the sway of liberty and justice. They must not fold their hands and say, All will be well. They must do something to make things better. As individuals, have we listened to the warning trumpet? Have we sought to understand Gods dealing with us in the difficulties, the disappointments, the losses, the sorrows, the afflictions, the bereavements of life? (Frederick Hastings.)
On the agency of God in human calamities
Evil here is not the commission of iniquity, but the pressure of distress. Consider the Lords agency in the infliction of evil, in contradistinction to--
I. chance. The truth is, chance is a mere term of human ignorance. The only rational meaning of the word is that we are in ignorance of the cause or causes of the event. There is an atheism which denies the existence of a God altogether. And there is an atheism which admits the existence, but denies all superintendence of human or created beings, and of their respective concerns. We might as well have no God as no providence. The sentiment of the text is the reverse of this. It is, that there is a God, and that He directs and governs all things. In what strong and delightful terms is the doctrine of a universal and particular providence expressed by Him who spake as never man spake (Mat_10:29-31).
II. Distinguish the agency of Jehovah from that of idols. There is a tendency in man to two opposite extremes, atheism and superstition. Superstition is the offspring of guilty fears; and the general character of the gods of the heathen, in many cases indicated by their very forms, accords with the nature of their origin. Again, there has discovered itself, wherever the knowledge of the true God has been imparted, a mournfully consistent propensity to forget Him, to overlook His superintendence, to leave Him out of our thoughts.
III. Divine agency may be regarded in contradistinction to an exclusive attention to second causes. How frequently is something called Nature deified! And second and subordinate causes are so contemplated and insisted on, as to indicate an exclusion from the mind of the great originating cause of all being, and the supreme uncontrolled Director of all events! In accounting for our calamities we are in imminent danger of this kind of atheism. All second causes are under the unceasing and sovereign control of the First. Thus it is with the elements of nature. There are laws; we forget that they are His laws. We have not done enough when we have accounted for disease from the state of the atmosphere, for the desolations of the storm from the theory of the winds, for deficient crops from blight and grub and mildew. We must go higher. We must rise to Him by whom all these, with every other power of mischief, are commissioned to work their respective effects. The same great general truth applies to men and to the events of history, in which men are the agents. Learn that the existing national evils or calamities, though inflicted by a power which we cannot resist, are not inflicted in ca rice. It is painful to hear the inconsiderate manner in which many speak of the Divine sovereignty. While God may retain in His own mind the special causes of particular visitations, He has not left us in ignorance of the great general cause of all suffering. Natural evil is the offspring of moral evil. All good is from God; all evil is from the sinner himself. All evil is of the nature of punitive, righteous retribution. (Ralph Wardlaw, D. D.)
The finger of God
The inscription which adorns the south entablature of the monument by London Bridge, and the ancient custom of this corporation remind us that we are assembled to commemorate one of the most awful calamities under which this city ever mourned, the great fire of 1666. Why are such calamities sent? Whatever agents God employs, they are only permitted to act just so fax as He has ordained, and no farther. Sometimes to punish, sometimes to reward. This principle is evident from those records of causes and effects, of predictions and fulfilments, which the revealed Word of God supplies. I know how much this Word has been despised by the world, neglected by the careless, held in disrepute by the wise, obscured by one Church, hidden by a second, and intonated into empty sound by a third; but still this, and this alone, is the written memorial of providence, the act of Gods legislature, the rule of His judgment, the cause of the acquittal, or of the condemnation of man. Trace the history of causes and effects in Gods Word. In minute circumstances man contrives, and God disposes. Man is free to act, God directs the blow. Who were the agents of the fire of 1666? Many were accused; but the London Gazette of that time wisely said, The whole was the effect of an unhappy chance: or, to speak better, the heavy hand of God upon us for our sins, showing us the terror of His judgment in thus raising the fire. Why was London thus marked for destruction? It was for our example. There was sin there--sin, perhaps, which God would not pardon. There were then great provocations against God. The moral improprieties and extravagancies of the court and of the nobility were notorious. The iniquities which reigned there were too open for concealment. And there is evil in the city still. And there are judgments of the Lord still afflicting us. But from that extremity of woe, time, the restorer of all things, raises up the fallen city. The power of providence, which brought this evil upon her, cheers her with substantial visions of future peace and plenty. And so it ever is. He who afflicts, corrects, punishes, is also the Redeemer and Restorer. (S. Reed Cattley, M. A.)
Evil, or suffering, as chastisement or condemnation:--Temptation, or testing, may be trial from God, or with evil intent from the devil or wicked persons. Glory, may mean either brightness, splendour, or goodness, loveliness of character. Evil may be either sin or suffering. The second sense of evil is to be found in the text.
I. Evil, as punishment for sins, done by God. Amos foretells suffering as merited by sin (verse 2). Yet a visitation of chastening mercy (Isa_45:7; Jer_5:9; Jer_5:12). Troubles in a city, or family, or people, may be punishing providences. They may be chastisement or condemnation.
II. National sins bring on national judgments. God has declared the responsibility of a people. Plague, invasion, dearth, may be evils sent by Him to whom it belongeth justly to punish sinners. Amos calls to repentance. Judgments are conditional God reveals that men may escape.
III. As to individuals, special sufferings may be punishment for special sins. Let us have a may be in judging others. In the case of the true believer afflictions are for purifying, for profit, and generally, for glorifying God. Be not hasty in regarding evil as a token of Gods anger towards you. Yet humbly examine and judge. Look above second causes. Receive the hand of God upon you for good. Of some special sin repented of, covered, the sorrow, the consequent evil may remain. Closing period of Davids life. Manasseh truly turned, but he could not help seeing the mischief that he had done. Faiths comfort when regarding affliction as the punishment of sin is that it comes from the Everlasting Love; not from chance or fate, but from the Father of Mercies, perfect in wisdom and justice. In the way of Thy judgments have we waited for Thee. (W. O. Purton.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 3:6 disaster . . . the Lord has planned:…
3:6 disaster . . . the Lord has planned: God sends both the good and pleasant, and the harmful and painful (Isa 45:7; Lam 3:38; see Deut 28; Job 2:10).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.