AMOS 7 AND 9 (CAC'S NOTEBOOK)
What is in my mind is to say a word about three things:- The chastening of God,
- The faithfulness of God, and
- The work of God.
These things are important for God’s saints to understand at all times, and particularly as the end of God’s ways draws [p. 435] near. I have no doubt that these verses from Amos refer particularly to His ways with Israel, but they have a very distinct bearing upon ourselves, especially as being in a time when God’s chastening hand is very specially upon the nations and upon His people.
What we find here is that God calls for the two visitations, the locusts in the first verse and the consuming fire in the fourth verse, His having in view that what is typified by the grass of the land should be reduced. Grass in Scripture is a very familiar type of the flesh and the greatness of man, and God deals with His people in order to reduce it.
There is a time referred to as “the king’s mowings”, “the latter growth after the king’s mowings”. The King’s mowings took place at the cross. It was there it was cut down and had no place. Then there is a latter growth that springs up after the mowings — a shooting up of the greatness of the flesh in God’s people even after this, and it is the shooting up of the flesh that necessitates His chastening. It is the shooting up of what was cut down at the cross.
We know God can prevent this shooting up of the flesh; He did with Paul; He gave him a thorn for the flesh that he might be consistent with his name Paul, which is ‘small’. Jacob is small. He is dealing with us to keep us small and precious in His sight. No one ever heard of a huge pearl, even a large one is relatively small; and what yields pleasure in the sight of God is small. The locusts and the consuming fire are all to keep us small, for only that which has that character will go through into the world to come. Anything else comes under God’s chastening; any movement of greatness in us causes God to deal with us in chastening love, blessed be His name! None of us wants the flesh to go on flourishing, we want it to be cut down, and the blessed God says, ‘I will send locusts and consuming fire to keep it small’. Then there is no longer need when we become small. Twice over the passage says, “How shall Jacob arise? for he is small”. That is, he is so small that he can only arise by the power of God — what a blessed point to be brought to, beloved brethren. When we [p. 436] realise that nothing about us has any value but what God has wrought in us, it is a day when we have found out our true measure. None of us will find it is very great. When we have reached that, God has reached His end. The object in His chastening ways is to reduce His saints to what they are as His work as their divine measure. He is dealing with us in view of His work — in view of conditions suited to His love, the world of which His Son is the Sun and Centre. So His chastening is a continual necessity to every one of us.
In chapter 9: 9 we have the next thing. That is, God’s faithfulness to preserve what has the character of smallness. He is not out to preserve what is great, it is obnoxious to Him, He is out to preserve what is small. His faithfulness comes out in this, though His providential ways may be a shaking, and He is shaking His people — shaking them to and fro — but not the least grain of His own work will be lost. It is to bring us down to the dimensions of His own work in us, and then we shall always realise that we are small. Oh, beloved brethren, do we not covet to bear such a character that it is God’s pleasure to preserve us, so that not the least grain falls upon the earth?
This is preparatory to the great matter that is before us, so that nothing may reduce or prevent the great thing that God has before Him, what He is doing at the present time for His own pleasure. It is in order that we may have part in what He is doing.
So I read verse 11. I think it has an application in the present time. “In that day I raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old”. You will observe this expression, “the tabernacle of David”; it is not, the city of David — that would represent what is abiding in all the stability of resurrection. The tabernacle of David signifies that it can be ruined. It answers to the church set up in responsibility here — a provisional thought, not permanent; but as belonging to a transitory period. So the Lord Jesus Christ set up His church here in a provisional way and [p. 437] committed it to the responsibility of man. The result is that the tabernacle has fallen and is a heap of ruins. But is God quiescent in that state of things? If He recovers and preserves His saints, it is in order that they may be prepared to work with Him at the present time. He is restoring the features of the assembly in a remnant in view of translation. It is not that He will restore a public body, for it is going to be the subject of His judgment very soon.
Now He wants our co-operation, beloved brethren. It cannot be done, and I speak reverently, apart from our cooperation. Satan has brought about public failure by taking away affection from the assembly of God. Breakdown soon came in, almost at the start, until nothing was left to bear truthful witness to what Christ set up. Well, God is waiting to bring about a restoration of true assembly affections. How could Christ come otherwise? It is by the restoring work going on now that we are fitted for that glorious day of which we were singing, of which ‘the Star’s in the sky’. Let us give ourselves to this, with our whole heart and soul and mind give ourselves to the promotion of it. It is to be restored in a remnant which will work out as the pearl.
I think it is worked out in view of the tabernacle of David being set up again. David is the man after God’s own heart and the assembly in its true character is after His own heart. It is worked out in individuals.