“Only you have I known from all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”“I have chosen only you of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins.”You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.
6 sermons cite this verse
… for example Amos 3.2 you Israel you only have I known of all the families on the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities. What in the world does that mean? When God says to Israel, you only have I known, doesn't mean you only have I been aware of. He's God. Known means chosen. Numerous times in the Old Testament. The closest I can get in English to how we use the word like that is the word acknowledge or recognize. Like in the Senate, the senator from Nebraska is acknowledged. The senator from Nebraska is recognized. Get the word cognition or the word know, acknowledged. What does that mean? The senator from Nebraska is, I'm probably saying Nebraska because I love Ben Sass. I mean, seriously, he's dying of cancer and he's just gloriously finishing his race. But the senator from Nebraska is acknowledged, meaning I choose you to speak next. You get to speak next. That's the way we use acknowledge. That's the way we use recognize. …
WE do not intend entering into a discussion of the context and its relationship literally to the Jewish people. We have never hesitated to assert our conviction that there are great blessings in store for God's ancient Israel and that the day shall come when her comfort shall abound, when the glory of the Gentiles shall flow to her like a flowing stream and she shall be comforted by her God as one whom his mother comforts. But we believe that these passages are applicable to all the servants of God, that the comfortable passages of Scriptures are theirs, that whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, barbarian or Greek, we are all one in Christ Jesus—and all the promises are ours in Him—for in Him all the promises are, "yes," and, "amen." I believe, then, that this passage belongs to every child of God. It is well that there is such a promise as this on record, for Believers need comfort. They need comfort because they are men and, "man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." There has been a great necessity for consolation ever since the time when man was expelled from Eden. Men need comfort because they are but men. Although favored by God, elected by His Sovereignty and called by His Divine Grace into a peculiar state of acceptance, they are still in the body and they are made to feel it—being tempted in all points as other men are and in some points peculiarly tried. They are men and but men at the best! They need comfort, too, because they are Christians, for if others escape the rod, Christians must not, yes, shall not The Lord may be pleased to give to the sinner a long prosperity that he may be fattened as a bullock for the slaughter, but His promise to His people whom He calls by His Grace is, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." We must, therefore, have special consolation, since as men, as only men, and as Christians, we shall have constant occasions for comfort. …
Another thing the Prophet felt was the trouble he then experienced from God dealing with his sin. We must always discriminate between things that differ. God never punishesHis people for sin in the sense of a loyal and vindictive infliction. That would be unjust, for Christ, their Substitute, was once and for all punished in their place. They owe no debts to Divine Justice, for all their debts were paid by Christ to the utmost farthing. But now they are placed under a different government. They are not summoned before a judge, but they are put under parental care—and like as a father chastens every child who he loves, so our heavenly Father chastens us. Again, I say not with a legislative punishment for sin, but with a father's chastisementfor our offenses. Antinomians have gone the length of saying that there is no such thing as chastisement for sin. Very likely not, as far as they are concerned. I do not suppose that they were ever worth chastening, or that God ever took the trouble to chastise them. But He does chastise His own children and I think they who know their adoption will not be long before they get a very clear realization of it in the tingling of their flesh under the rod of the Covenant. Why, of all the blessings of the Covenant, the sharpest, but one of the best, is the rod. "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I kept Your Word," said David—and that testimony of David's is the testimony of all the saints! They will all tell you that they have to bless the hand of a chastening God quite as much as they have to bless the lips of a caressing God when He kisses them with the kisses of His mouth. No, the children of God cannot sin without smarting for it, even as God said to the children of Israel, "You, only, have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." If some boys were breaking windows in the street, tonight, and you went by, you might let them all alone save and except your own boy if you saw him there! And most likely you would make him smart for it. And when God goes through the world, as this is not the Day of Judgment, He winks at the sins of many sinners, but if He sees His people transgressing, He will not wink at them! I have often felt very glad when I have seen some of God's people come down in the world to poverty. I have not rejoiced at their misfortunes, but I have been glad of the gracious discipline it indicated. I have sometimes said of such-and-such a man, "If that man prospers, acting as he does in business, I shall know that he is not a child of God. If he is a child of God, he cannot do as other men do without making a terrible misadventure of it before long." If you only want gain in this world do not be a Christian, nor pretend to be one! You cannot expect God and mammon to agree together. If you are a Christian, God will watch you more narrowly than others. If you are a king's counsel, a little thing will be treason in you which would not have been treason in an ordinary subject. God expects great things where He gives great things—and if He honors us so much as to tell us the secret of His Covenant, He expects us to walk with the greatest possible circumspection. So, Christian, whenever you are in trouble, though it may not be distinctly the result of sin, yet you may well enquire whether it is so or not. Say with Job, "Show me why You contend with me." At the bottom of our sorrow there is generally a sin—at the roots of our grief we shall find our guilt. …
Unless thus severed from sin, we cannot be gathered into the garner. God's pure wheat must not be defiled by an admixture of chaff. There shall in no wise enter into Heaven anything that defiles, therefore every sort of imperfection must come away from us by some means or other before we can enter into the state of eternal blessedness and perfection. Yes, even here we cannot have true fellowship with the Father unless we are daily delivered from sin. Perhaps some of us today are lying up on the threshing floor suffering from the blows of chastisement. What then? Why, let us rejoice therein, for this testifies to our value in the sight of God. If the wheat were to cry out and say, "The great drag has gone over me and, therefore, the farmer has no care for me, " we should instantly reply, "The farmer does not pass the corn-drag over the darner or the nettles—it is only over the precious wheat that he turns his cartwheel or the feet of his oxen. Because he esteems the wheat, therefore he deals sternly with it and spares it not." Judge not, O Believer, that God hates you because He afflicts you! But interpret truly and see that He honors you by every stroke which He lays upon you. Thus says the Lord, "You only have I known of all the nations of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." Because a full Atonement has been made by the Lord Jesus for all His people's sins, therefore He will not punish us as a judge—but because we are His dear children—therefore He will chastise us as a father! In love He corrects His own children that He may perfect them in His own image and make them partakers of His holiness. Is it not written, "I will bring them under the rod of the Covenant"? Has He not said, "I have refined you, but not with silver. I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction"? Therefore do not judge according to the sight of the eyes or the feeling ofthe flesh, but judge according to faith—and understand that as threshing is a testimony to the value of the wheat, so affliction is a token of God's delight in His people! …
Look out for those who are in the same state as you have been in—and be very tender toward them. As you know their case, and have traversed that howling desert, you will be able to direct them. I have described your case because Ifear that I have sometimes been on the verge of it myself. I have found recovery by a fresh resort to the love of Christ and a simple renewal of my trust in Him. I can, therefore, enter into your feelings and ask you to try the same remedy. After you have found the remedy to be a good one, it is but a small return, and certainly it is due from you, to tell others how you have been restored! Some of you, Beloved, have never been thus carried into captivity. I pray God you never may be. There is no necessity for it, but let me entreat you to walk very tenderly with your God. We serve a jealous God. He will wink at many an act of insubordination done by His enemies, the one-tenth of which, if done by His favorite ones, His elect, His darlings—He will hide His face from them at once! "You, only, have I known of all the people of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Says He not, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten"? A sinner may go on wantonly unrebuked. He may add house to house and field to field, and he may think himself secure—God will deal with him in the next world. But the heir of Heaven is under a discipline of Divine Love and God will deal with him in this world! And among the chastisements of departure from Christ will be the loss of comfort, the loss of power to do good and I know not what other affliction added thereunto in his soul or in his circumstance. Dear Brothers and Sisters, walk carefully, then— while you have the Light of God, walk in the Light! Oh, prize the sweet love of Christ! Never, never let it go. Say unto your soul, when Christ is in your heart, "I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that you stir not up nor wake my Love until He pleases." Introduce no rival's love, and no worldliness! Fall into no inconsistencies, but pray for Grace that with holy jealousy you may still dwell in the Light of God and find favor in His eyes. …
Beloved, the simple reason of Christ's conscious absence from our souls is, in most cases, sin. I say in most cases, for sometimes Christ may hide Himself in absolute Sovereignty, but I am always jealous lest we should charge God foolishly. You are so apt to put too many saddles on that stalking horse! There are such multitudes of professors who would even excuse their sins upon the plea of a Divine Sovereignty which exposed them to temptation, that I scarcely like to mention it. I believe that God does not afflict willingly or arbitrarily the children of men. Neither does Christ hide His face from His people for nothing—but your sins have separated between you and your God. He chastises us, not as silly parents may do, out of mere spleen or caprice, or to please themselves, as the Apostle seemed to think some fathers did in his day, for he says, "They verily chastened us after their own pleasure." But when God chastens us, it is for our profit. Our good is His aim and His end in using the rod of correction. He makes us smart for the sin which seemed sweet. He nauseates our palate with the bitter fruits of disobedience, that we may afterwards relish the peaceable fruits of righteousness! Now, Beloved, in each individual case, the hiding of the Lord's face may be occasioned by a different sin. It is very probable that my Lord thinks that to be a high sin in me which He would take little notice of in you. It is equally possible that He may think that to be peculiarly offensive in you which He would not visit in my case with stripes, for according to our constitution, our office, our experience, our light and our several circumstances, our transgressions may be estimated. You are not provoked, perhaps, by a good deal of noise from one of your children, but half that noise from another of your children would exceedingly vex you. Because the one happens to be of a quick, impetuous temperament, you set it down to natural disposition, but the other, being of gentler habit and quieter mood, you upbraid him for his excitement, as if it were of evil prepense and intended to aggravate and annoy! So you may have a confidential servant in your family, from whom you may reasonably expect more care, thoughtfulness and circumspection than you look for in any of the other servants. The more trust you repose, the more scrupulousness you require. Let us, then, each one according to his position, seek Grace to walk uprightly, carefully, tenderly. It has been well said that what an ordinary subject might do or say, one of the Cabinet Council must not even think. The favorite of kings has a dangerous path to walk— and though it is a blessed privilege to be the favorite of Heaven, it involves a very solemn responsibility. "You only have I known of all the inhabitants of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for your iniquities." You can see defilement on a white slab which you would not have noticed on the common soil—and so there are sins which spoil the character of saints that would hardly be observed in ordinary society. The Presence of Christ can only be preserved with incessant watchfulness and inviolate fidelity. The sacred Dove is soon disturbed. The Beloved is soon awakened and made to stir. Hence it should be our cry, "I charge you by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that you stir not up, nor awake my love until he please." Having thus considered the cause why the Beloved is gone, let us enquire— II. WHAT ENSUES UPON THE WITHDRAWAL OF HIS PRESENCE? …