, eternal Jehovah,
the God of the Covenant, and therefore of judgment on its breakers, and
as the Commander and God of the embattled forces of the universe. Is
this a God whose coming to judge is to be lightly dealt with? Is not
this a God whom it is wise for us to be ready to meet?

THE SINS OF SOCIETY

'For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye Me, and
ye shall live: 5. But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and
pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
and Beth-el shall come to nought. 6. Seek the Lord, and ye shall
live; lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and
devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el. 7. Ye who
turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the
earth, 8. Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and
turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day
dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and
poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His name:
9. That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the
spoiled shall come against the fortress. 10. They hate him that
rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
11. Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye
take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone,
but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards,
but ye shall not drink wine of them. 12. For 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 13. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time;
for it is an evil time. 14. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may
live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye
have spoken. 15. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish
judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be
gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.'--AMOS v. 4-15.

The reign of Jeroboam II, in which Amos prophesied, was a period of
great prosperity and of great corruption. Amos, born in the Southern
Kingdom, and accustomed to the simple life of a shepherd, blazed up in
indignation at the signs of misused wealth and selfish luxury that he
saw everywhere, in what was to him almost a foreign country