“Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, the end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.”—Amos 8:1-2.
In reading through the prophetical books, you must have been struck at their singular variety. On looking a little more closely, you have at once perceived that every prophet has a manner and style peculiarly his own. Although God speaketh through them all, yet they lose not their individuality or originality of character. The breath which causes the music is the same, but no two of the instruments give forth precisely the same sound. It is true they all utter the words of God; but each voice has its own special cry, so that though God is pre-eminently seen, yet the man is not lost. You do not find in searching through the prophets that Jeremiah copies the language of Isaiah. The herdsman Amos writes not like the wise counsellor Daniel; nor does Jonah borrow the notes of Malachi. Every man speaks after his own order. Whatever he was when God called him to be a prophet, that he remains. God consecrates what is already there, and doth not re-cast the man into a new mould. I believe this is an excellent lesson to all the ministers of Christ in these times. How much more useful might many men be if they would speak according to their own character, after their own style. But instead thereof, the young minister attaches himself to some eminent model, and copies, not only the expressions, but the very tones, the action, nay the whims and absurdities of the master whom he venerates. But if each man, instead of seeking to be another, would be himself; if he would consecrate his powers and talents to God as they are, and bring them out in their native simplicity whether they be polished or rough, the world would be conscious that a man had arisen who was in earnest, and not a mere player, an imitator of another. God himself, I doubt not, will speak more clearly through a man who speaks out of the fullness of his heart, than he will through another who cannot let the stream of divine influence come through him naturally, but must needs seek to turn it into the artificial current of some other man’s form of eloquence. I am led to make these observations, because this is specially the case with regard to Amos. Amos was a herdsman, a keeper of cattle, and all through his book you find him continually alluding to his peasant life. He seems to have been an honest, homely countryman, and he talks to us about sheep which have been rent in pieces by the lions of the kine of Bashan, of the cart full of sheaves, of sifted corn, and plowmen and vine-dressers. He does not mount to the sublimity of Isaiah, he has no golden mouth like that Chrysostom among the prophets. He never soars to the height of Daniel, he lacks Ezekiel’s eagle wing, and the weeping eye of Jeremiah, but he dashes out before you in his first chapter like some untamed irresistible being, and begins—”The Lord will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.” And then through the first two chapters he flings firebrands about him with both his hands; he has a flame for Syria, and another for Gaza; he flashes lightning upon Tyrus in a few sentences, and pours a vial of wrath upon Edom; he darts his sacred ire on Ammon, and devours the palaces of Moab. He stabs his foes in short abrupt sentences, not aiming at eloquence, but speaking always like a herdsman. As Shamgar slew the Philistines not with the sword of Goliath, but with his own ox-goad, so does Amos come out against the sins of his times with no polished shaft taken out of the quiver of the noble, but with his own ox-goad, and right gloriously doth he lay sin dead at his feet.
And now look at my text in the light of what I have already said. It appears that Amos was a skillful man, and able to turn his hand to other useful employments. There was one occupation which was usually given to men who had delicacy of hand and skill, that was the culture of the sycamore fig-tree. You will find that Amos is called in one of the chapters of his own book, “a gatherer of sycamore fruit;” a more correct translation might be a bruiser, a trainer or preparer of sycamore fruit, the sycamore fruit being like a fig, though not quite so excellent in flavour. It was believed in the East that it would never ripen except it was a little bruised, so that some person was employed with an iron comb to scratch and wound the skin. Unwounded the fruit, even when ripe, was too bitter to be eaten, but after it had been wounded, it ripened rapidly, and became sweet, and was not an objectionable article of diet. Now the good man had been wont to be employed by his neighbors, at certain seasons of the year, in bruising their figs that they might become ripe. And now, in one of the visions which God gives to him, he sees neither the seraphim of Isaiah, nor the cherubim of Ezekiel, but he sees a basket of summer fruit, a vision suited to his capacity, and harmonising with his occupation.
There is no need for any labored disquisition; there are no hard words in a herdsman’s language, and no great mysteries in a herdsman’s vision. There is a basket of fruit which is so ripe that it has been gathered, and it is a sort of fruit—summer fruit—which will not keep, which will not lay by unto the winter, but which must be eaten at once. Amos sees at once that God’s purposes were now ripe with regard to his people Israel, and that the nation itself had become ripe in its sin, so ripe that it must be destroyed. It teaches to us in these modern times, that there is a ripeness of men as well as of summer fruit; there is a ripening in holiness till we are gathered by the hand of Jesus for heaven, and a ripening in sin till we are swept away with the rough hand of death, and are cast away into the rottenness of destruction.
I. I shall use my text then, in three different ways; the first remark being that GOD’S PURPOSES HAVE A RIPENESS.
God always times his decrees. He is never before his time, and he never is so much as a single hour behind. Many men are wise too late; God is always wise, and always proves his wisdom, not only by what he doeth, but by the time when he doeth it. Let us notice two of God’s greatest acts, and notice the ripeness of them.
There was the first advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. God had promised to our forefather Adam in the garden that a mysterious seed of the woman should be born and should bruise the serpent’s head. In mysterious signs he had shown to his people that a Messiah was coming, by many of his prophets had he spoken of Immanuel, God with us. But for thousands of years the Lord came not, although sin was rampant and the darkness dense, nothing could excite the Lord to an unwise haste. Nor on the other hand did he stay beyond the proper hour, for when the fulness of time was come God sent fourth his Son, born of a woman made under the law. In heaven we shall probably discover that Christ came to die for our sins precisely at the only fitting moment, that in fact redemption’s work could not have been so wisely accomplished at the gates of the garden of Eden as on Calvary; and that the reign of Herod and the Roman Caesar afforded the most fitting era for the sacrifice of the Cross.
And so shall it be with regard to the second advent of our blessed Lord and Master, we are apt to say, “Why are his chariots so long in coming. Do not the virgins sleep because the bridegroom tarrieth, the wise as well as the foolish, have they not all slumbered and slept.” And many be the servants who say in their heart, “My Lord delayeth his coming,” and are ready therefore to beat their fellow-servants, to drink and to be drunken; but cheer your hearts ye who look for his appearing, he will not come too hastily, for why should the sun arise until darkness has had its hour. Nor will he delay his appearing one moment beyond the proper time, for should not the sun beam forth in the morning? We know and are persuaded that when he shall stand a second time upon the earth, it shall be as much the fullness of times for him to come, as it was the fullness of time when he came at first. When his feet stood on Calvary they stood there in good time, and when they shall stand on Olivet, and when he shall judge the nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat, then too shall he come at his proper time and his proper season. Watch then, beloved, watch and wait earnestly, be not discouraged or cast down; “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years are but as one day.” He shall come, and you shall behold him in his glory, and shall be partakers of the splendor of his reign.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
