Amos 3

Because of the provoking of his sons and daughters. The sins of others pierce Christ's side, these wound his heart: therefore is not God just in all the evils that befall them (Amos 3:2)? You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for you…

The sins of God's children go nearer to his heart than the sins of others (Deuteronomy 32:19): When the Lord saw it he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and daughters. The sins of the wicked anger God, the sins of his own people grieve him; he will be sure to p…

So that sin is worse than affliction, it being the cause of it — the cause is more than the effect. 2. God is the author of affliction (Amos 3:6): Is there any evil in a city and the Lord has not done it? It is meant of the evil of affliction.

And as he is called a Serpent for his cunning reasonings, wiles, and craftiness, so likewise a Lion — of all beasts the strongest. A roaring Lion, of all beasts the most terrible, and most terrible in his roaring, whose roaring is therefore often in Scripture put to express drea…

And so when the Sodomites lived in wanton carelessness, and put far from them the evil day, then Abraham knew from God their destruction was at hand. And as in that, for is it generally true in all his great works: that the Lord God will do nothing, but he reveals his secrets to…

And Christ cannot lose one of them (John 17:9). Indeed he can [illegible] of them, neither soul nor body, neither a [illegible] nor a piece of an ear of his sheep, as he speaks (Amos 3). So Christ speaks (John 6:39); indeed, (1 Corinthians 15:23) every man shall be raised in his…

If you turn, you shall stand before me (Jeremiah 15:19). God reveals his secrets to the prophets his servants (Amos 3:7). Lastly, fearful judgments of God belong to ministers of wicked lives.

As touching God himself, albeit his foreknowledge be hid, and that it be a bottomless depth, yet is it manifest enough to those whom he has chosen: so as they may discern him from the troop of false gods. Not that he foretold all things by his Prophets, for men's curiosity in th…

If these things be meerly casual, How is it that they square and agree so exactly with the Scriptures in all particulars? We read, Amos 3. 3: Can two walk together except they be agreed? If two men travel in one road, it's like they are agreed to go to the same place.

He says, the Lord has taken, because none could take but by the will of God, and he was satisfied, that God willed that in righteousness and in judgment, which they acted with so much cruelty and injustice. Is there any evil in the city, and the Lord has not done it? (Amos 3:6).…

The Lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy? (Amos 3:6, 8) When the Pharisees spoke to our Saviour to rebuke his disciples for their loud praises of the Lord with Hosannas, he tells them, if they should hold their peace, the stones would…

2. Those whose houses have fallen by the fire, the Lord could, and confident I am, the Lord has made them greater gainers another way, they have lost it may be much in temporal things, but they are or may be, if they be not wanting to themselves, gainers in spiritual things, whi…

God has diversity of workmen also in the churches, whom he sends forth to labor in his spiritual fields (Ephesians 4:12): He gave some apostles, some prophets, and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. Amo…

First, agreement. The prophet tells us that two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, Amos 3:3. Until agreement is made there is no communion, no walking together.

Men in such a condition have neither Christ, nor hope, nor God in the world, Ephesians 2:12, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, Ephesians 4:18. Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, Amos 3:3. Whilst there is this distance betwe…

When the word was come to them, it was as a fire within them, that must be delivered, or it would consume them. Psalm 39:3. Jeremiah 20:9. Amos 3:8. Chapter 7:15, 16. So Jonah found his attempt to hide the Word that he had received, to be altogether vain.

But this foreknowledge here is peculiar to the elect. Verba sensus in sacra scriptura connotant affectus, as the Rabbins remark, so in man (Psalm 66), if I see iniquity, and in God (Psalm 1; Amos 3:2), and in that speech of our Saviour, relating it as the terrible doom of reprob…

God is ruler of all the world, but particularly of his church, therefore here called his house, wherein he has a special residence and presence. And therefore most suitable, that there he be specially observed and obeyed, and if disobeyed that he take notice of it and punish it,…

Whoever be the instruments, or whatever be the means, the wise God has the whole ordering of it. He is the first cause, He is to be sought to, He is to be appeased, if we would stop evil at the fountain head: for all creatures willingly or unwillingly obey him, and are subject t…

Man was once the object of his love and delight; when man came into the world in the likeness of God, God looked on him with delight, and was enamored of this his Image; but sin (alas) has made him the object of his wrath: Oh injurious sin! 4 Sin has separated man from communion…

These four evils that I have named are terrible indeed, and from all which every one is ready to say, Good Lord deliver us; yet none of these are, all of these are not so bad as sin, and therefore our prayers should be more to be delivered from sin; and if God hear no prayer els…

Or, secondly, there is also the internal operation of the Holy Spirit, in which only the sufficiency of saving calling is accomplished. Now many thousand thousands there be that never communicated in any of these — either the external, or [reconstructed: internal]: [reconstructe…

Now to be in the state of condemnation, and acceptation together; in the state of life and death; to have the wrath of God abiding, and the good pleasure of God resting upon a party at the [illegible] time, [illegible] a perfect contradiction, and so impossibilities in reason. W…

But this evil of affliction he vouchs for his own act, Against this family do I devise an evil, Micah 3:2. yea more, he impropriates it so to himself, as that he will not have us think any can do us evil beside himself. 'Tis the Prerogative he glories in, that there is no evil i…

(Deuteronomy 10:15) He chose their seed after them, even you, above all people, not above all houses. (Amos 3:2) You only have I known of all the families of the earth. So the external Church Covenant and Church right to the means of grace is given to a society and made with nat…

And there may be running and no sending of God to Nations (Jeremiah 23:21), and (Psalm 147:19-20) when he denies, he declared his judgments and his statutes to any Nation, by sent Prophets, as he did to Jacob, if the Gospel then was of itself preachable to all Nations, Prophets…

Know God in his attributes and promises; strangers do not walk together. 3 Get all differences removed, Amos 3. 3. Can two walk together except they are agreed?

God will punish severely those which he has known. Amos 3:2. It is therefore certainly our Duty to search diligently, that nothing be found resting in us, against which God is declaring his Displeasure.

It is true, Papists hold, that when God forgives sin in David, he forgives not the punishment; for David is punished with the sword on his house for that same sin; but it is known that this doctrine is a toefall and pillar to underprop the chamber in hell, which they call Purgat…

Implying that when a Christian takes occasion of most liberty, then he is most apt to let his heart loose; but now faith keeps the heart in a holy fear of God all that time, it keeps us watchful and attentive, and so keeps alive the grace of God in our hearts, and makes us fit t…

Therefore the Apostle uses that for a strong argument, why rich men should not trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, and should be rich in good works, that so, he says, they may lay up in store a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on ete…