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? 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 God's glory unto other gods, and His praise unto graven images. The truth applies to individuals. There is a strange perverseness in multitudes which lead's 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.) 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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