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Hosea Chapter
Eight
Hosea 8
Chapter Contents
Destruction threatened for the impiety of Israel. (1-4)
For their idolatry. (5-10) Further threatenings for the same sins. (11-14)
Commentary on Hosea 8:1-4
When Israel was hard pressed, they would claim protection
from God, but this would be disregarded. What stead will it stand in to say, My
God, I know thee, if we cannot say, My God, I love thee, serve thee, and cleave
to thee only?
Commentary on Hosea 8:5-10
They promised themselves plenty, peace, and victory, by
worshipping idols, but their expectations came to nothing. What they sow has no
stalk, no blade, or, if it have, the bud shall yield no fruit, there was
nothing in them. The works of darkness are unfruitful; nay, the end of those
things is death. The hopes of sinners will deceive them, and their gains will
be snares. In times of danger, especially in the day of judgment, all carnal
devices will fail. They take a course by themselves, and like a wild ass by
himself, they will be the easier and surer prey for the lion. Man is in nothing
more like the wild ass's colt, than in seeking for that succour and that
satisfaction in the creature, which are to be had in God only. Though men may
sorrow a little, yet if it is not after a godly sort, they will be brought to
sorrow everlastingly.
Commentary on Hosea 8:11-14
It is a great sin to corrupt the worship of God, and will
be charged as sin on all who do it, how plausible soever their excuses may seem
to be. The Lord had caused his law to be written for them, but they cared not
to know, and would not obey it. Man seems by the temples he builds to be
mindful of his Maker, yet really he has forgotten him, because he has cast off
all his fear; but none ever hardened his heart against God and prospered. So
long as men despise the truths and precepts of God's word, and the ordinances
of his worship, all the observances and offerings, however costly, of their own
devising, will be unto them for sin; for those services only are acceptable to
God, which are done according to his word, and through Jesus Christ.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Hosea》
Hosea 8
Verse 1
[1] Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle
against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and
trespassed against my law.
Set the trumpet — The Lord here commands the
prophet to publish, as by sound of trumpet, that which God will bring upon
apostate Israel.
He — The king of Assyria.
As an eagle — Swift, hungry, surmounting all
difficulties.
House of the Lord — The family of Israel,
the Israelites church.
Verse 2
[2] Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee.
Shall cry — But not sincerely.
Verse 4
[4] They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made
princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them
idols, that they may be cut off.
They — Israel.
Kings — Shallum, Menahem, Pekah, and Hosea.
Not by me — Not by my direction.
Knew it not — Did not approve of it.
Verse 5
[5] Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is
kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?
Thy calf — The chief idol set up in Samaria.
Cast thee off — Hath provoked God to cast thee
off.
Against them — Idols, and idol worshippers.
How long — How long will it be, ere they repent and reform?
Verse 6
[6] For from Israel was it also: the workman made it;
therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.
From Israel — By their invention.
It — Both the idol and the worshippers of it.
Verse 7
[7] For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the
whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield,
the strangers shall swallow it up.
Sown the wind — A proverbial speech to denote
lost labour.
Whirlwind — A tempest, which destroyeth all
that is in its way; an emblem of the wrath of God.
No stalk — All your dependance on idols, and foreign assistance,
will be as seed that bear neither stalk nor bud.
No meal — Or suppose it produced stalk and bud, yet the bud
shall be blasted, and never yield meal.
Verse 9
[9] For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by
himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.
Gone up — Israel is like a wild ass.
A wild ass — Stubborn, wild, untamed.
Alone — Solitary, where is no path or tract; so they were in
their captivity.
Verse 10
[10] Yea, though they have hired among the nations, now will
I gather them, and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of
princes.
Gather them — I will assemble them together,
that they may be taken and destroyed together.
A little — For a while before their final captivity.
The burden — The tribute laid on them by the
king.
Verse 11
[11] Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars
shall be unto him to sin.
Altars — Those which they shall find in Assyria.
To sin — Shall be the occasion of his greater guilt and
punishment.
Verse 12
[12] I have written to him the great things of my law, but
they were counted as a strange thing.
Written — By Moses first, by other prophets afterwards.
But they were counted — Israel looks on them,
as nothing to them.
Verse 13
[13] They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine
offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepteth them not; now will he remember
their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.
They shall return — Many shall fly from
the Assyrian into Egypt.
Verse 14
[14] For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth
temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon
his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.
Temples — Idol temples.
Devour the palaces — This was fulfilled
when all the cities of Judah and Israel were laid in ashes by the king of
Assyria.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Hosea》
08 Chapter 8
Verses 1-3
Verses 1-14
Verse 1
Set thy trumpet to thy mouth.
The Gospel trumpet
1. By sounding the Gospel trumpet the mind of God can alone be
communicated to man. The voice of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost must be heard
from the Scriptures. To the whole Christian priesthood the command is given,
“Preach the Word.”
2. It is the purpose that all shall hear and obey the Gospel trumpet.
The silver trumpet of the wilderness was for the entire encampment. “Preach the
Gospel to every creature.”
3. In setting the trumpet to the mouth, we must give no uncertain
sound. In the ordinance of the silver trumpet the greatest care was taken to
instruct the sons of Aaron in its proper use. What is the Gospel? Is it not
this?
As an eagle against the
house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed
against My law.
The conventional Church
These words are singularly abrupt, and indicate the suddenness of
the threatened invader. By “the house of the Lord” we are to understand Israel
as a section of the professed people of God.
I. As endangered.
How comes the eagle? Ravenously, suddenly, and swiftly. A conventional Church
is in greater danger than any secular community, because--
1. Its guilt is greater.
2. Its influence is more pernicious.
Whose influence on society is the most baneful--the man who denies
God, the man who ignores Him, or the man who misrepresents Him? The
conventional Church gives society a mal-representation of God and His religion.
II. As warned. Blow
a blast that shall thrill every heart in the vast congregation of Israel. Why
sound the warning?
1. Because the danger is tremendous.
2. Because the danger is at hand.
3. Because the danger may be avoided.
What is wanted now is a ministry of warning to conventional
Churches.
III. As repentant.
“Israel shall cry unto Me, My God, we know Thee.” Oh hasten the day when all conventional
Churches shall be brought to a deep and experimental knowledge of God and His
Son! when this transpires the dense cloud that has concealed the sun of
Christianity shall be swept away, and the quickening beam shall fall on every
heart. (Homilist.)
God coming in judgment
whatever be the local and particular references as to the eagle,
the great principle remains from age to age that God comes to judgment in
various forms, always definitely, and always, as we shall see, intelligibly,
not only inflicting vengeance as a Sovereign whose covenants have been
outraged, but condescending to explain the reasons upon which His most
destructive judgments are based. Thus we read, “Because they have transgressed
My covenant, and trespassed against My law”: the covenant had been broken by
idolatry, and the law had been violated by social sins. It is needful to mark
this distinction with great particularity, because it shows the breadth of the
Divine commandment. God is not speaking about a merely metaphysical law,--a law
which can only be interpreted by the greatest minds, and put into operation on
the sublimest occasions of life; He is speaking about a law which had indeed
its lofty religious aspects, but which had also its social, practical, tender
phases, in whose preservation every man, woman, and child in the kingdom ought
to be interested. God has made it clear that sin is always a crime. Whoever
sins against God sins against his own soul. Once let God’s beneficent laws be
violated, and the man does not only suffer metaphysically, or go down in some
practical quantity or quality, but he actually suffers in body and estate,
sometimes apparently, always really. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Verse 2
My God, we know Thee.
Agnosticism
An agnostic is not one who knows nothing, for some men who are
embraced by this term are men of unusual mental attainments and ability. He is
one who neither denies nor affirms. The term is applied to those who hold that
there are matters pertaining to
religion which we not only do not know, but have no means of
knowing. An agnostic does not simply assert the incompleteness of human
knowledge upon things Divine, but that real knowledge concerning such things is
an impossibility to man.
An agnostic is not an atheist. He does not deny the existence of a God. He is
not a sceptic or doubter. He is positive in affirming that we neither have
nor.can get any knowledge of God, or of the unseen world. Mr. Herbert Spencer’s
views have been thus summarised:
“1. The proper
object of religion is a Something which can never be known, or conceived, or
understood; to which we cannot apply the terms emotion, will, intelligence; of
which we cannot either affirm or deny that it is either a person, or being, or
mind, or matter, or, indeed, anything else.
2. All that we can say of it is that it is an inscrutable existence,
or an unknowable cause; we can neither know nor conceive what it is, nor how it
came about, nor how it operates. It is notwithstanding the ultimate cause, the
all-being, the creative power.
3. The essential business of a religion so understood is to keep
alive the consciousness of a mystery that cannot be fathomed.
4. We are not concerned with the question what effect this religion
will have as a moral agent, or whether it will make good men and women.
Religion has to do with mystery, not with morals.” Agnostics reverence the
phenomenal and the Great Unknown above and behind it; but, holding that the
senses are the only source of knowledge, they do not know, and say we never can
know, that the eternal energy behind all phenomena can think, feel, will, and
contrive. Agnosticism is open to three objections.
I. It is
presumptive. The agnostic begins by a confession of human ignorance, and then
proceeds to make a universal assertion which implies the possession of
universal knowledge. To assert that the unknown cause “can never be known, or
conceived, or understood” is to assume that the speaker is acquainted with the
constitution and calibre of all mind in all ages. To say that the inscrutable
existence will never be known by man is to say we know what will be the extent
of all men’s knowledge in the future. We cannot measure all possible knowledge
with our finite minds. He who says that God is “unknowable,” takes a
self-contradictory attitude, and assumes such knowledge as can be attributed
only to a Divine Being.
II. Agnosticism is
paralysing. The great mainspring of human activity and basis of human happiness
is faith. The three steps taken by every man who has achieved ought worthy of
remembrance have been these--conception, conviction, and action. The conviction
was the faith which stimulated to and sustained the action. United to faith,
but distinct from it, is hope, that vigorous principle which enlists in its
service both head and heart. Agnosticism bows these two fair angels out of
human society. It tells us that we know only the phenomenal; we have no
spiritual insight. If every man in society were a consistent agnostic there
would be a speedy and inglorious termination to all scientific, social,
political, and ecclesiastical enterprises.
III. Agnosticism is
positively pernicious. It disposes of all true religion. For religion is the
linking of a soul to a personal God. Agnosticism defines religion as “devotion
to that which is believed to be best.” It has no personal God. Dispensing with
religion--
1. Agnosticism strikes away one of the chief supports of society.
2. Begets despair.
There is nothing left for the heart of man but to settle down into
a stony state of utter desolation and despair. Agnosticism encourages
pessimism. But we affirm that God is known, though our knowledge is incomplete.
We have sufficient knowledge to justify and demand our worship of God, our trust
in, and love for, and obedience to Him. That God is known is proved by the
Scriptures, by the manifestation of Christ, and by the testimony of Christian
experience. (J. Hiles Hitchens, D. D.)
The knowledge of God
Israel pretended to know God, but in works denied Him. They
would cry and say, We know Thee; when in truth they knew Him not, and were only
speaking lies in hypocrisy.
I. Observe the
time when they would make this profession. In a season of great affliction and
distress, when God would contend with them, when their enemies should be let
loose upon them, and everything around them look dark and distressing. When
they begin to feel God’s wrath they will begin to humble themselves, and
profess themselves to be His people. Troubles will often make those pray who
never prayed before. But if they leave off prayer when the trouble is over,
this shews that it came out of feigned lips. Conviction is often the fruit of
correction, but does not always lead to conversion.
II. The manner in
which this profession would be made, They would not only speak, but speak
vehemently, and “cry” with earnestness and confidence. But they called God
their God, though they had no interest in Him, and claimed an acquaintance with
Him while they were ignorant of His true character.
III. The importance
of a right knowledge of God.
1. It is a great thing truly to know the Lord. A perfect knowledge of
God is unattainable by us. But a true knowledge of God is vital and
efficacious, and has a transforming influence. It is the effect of Divine
illumination, so that none have it until it is communicated from above.
2. A profession of this knowledge is of great importance. It is no
light matter to be able to say on good ground, “My God, I know Thee.” With the
mouth confession is made unto salvation, but there must first be a believing
with the heart unto righteousness. True faith will produce a good confession.
Let us see that our acknowledgment of God be accompanied with corresponding
affections and dispositions towards Him, going to the grounds of our religion,
and tracing it up to its source and origin.
IV. Some of the
evidences of a true knowledge of God.
1. All saving knowledge proceeds from God only. All the knowledge we
have of Him by the unassisted efforts of reason will come to nothing.
2. Saving knowledge will produce a humble confidence in God. Humility
is one of the first fruits of a good understanding.
3. A spiritual acquaintance with God will be accompanied with a
conformity of soul to Him. There will be a resemblance of His holy nature, and
a subjection to His holy will.
The claim to know God
In the Hebrew the order of the words is, “To Me they shall cry, My
God, we know Thee; Israel.” This order hints some observations that would
hardly arise from our version. In our Bible it is only a speech of God to them.
In the Hebrew they seem to remind God who they wore; as if they said, “We are
Israel, who know Thee, remember we are not strangers to Thee.” Observe--
1. In affliction men see their need of God.
2. Even hypocrites and the vilest wretches in the time of their
distress will claim interest in God and cry to Him.
3. Knowledge and acknowledgment of God in an outward and formal way
hypocrites think will commend them much to God in time of affliction. They
expect favour from God because they have made some profession of Him. “We know
Thee,” as if they said, “Lord, we were not as others who forsook Thee; we
continued Israel still; we did not turn to the heathens.” It is very difficult
to take away men’s spirits from trusting in formality in outward worship. (Jeremiah
Burroughs.)
Verse 3
Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall
pursue him.
The chastening of them that forsake God
In this short sentence we have at once the sin of Israel and his
punishment. Consider the various ways in which Israel may be said to have “cast
off the thing that is good.”
I. By their
murmurings. So long as they trusted God’s Word, they continued to walk safely.
When they began to murmur, Amalek came upon them.
II. By their
idolatries. When God was arranging for their worship, they made and worshipped
the golden calves.
III. By their
rebellion. As in their response to the message of the returned spies. Referring
to Israel in their later history, we may say--
IV. By their
rejection of Christ. Because, when Messiah did come, He did not suit their
expectations, they despised and rejected Him. And the enemy was not slow in
pursuing them. Their city was destroyed, and they were scattered over the
earth. This threat is not confined to Israel. It is equally applicable to
nations and to individuals now. (N. Ashby.)
Good rejected
Him who is good, That which is good. The word tob includes
both. They rejected good in rejecting God, who is simply, supremely, wholly,
universally good, and good to all, the Author and Fountain of all good, so that
there is nothing simply good but God, nothing worthy of that title, except in
respect of its relation to him who is good and doing good. (E. B. Pusey, D.
D.)
The abandonment of good, and consequent pursuit of evil
I. The abandonment
of good. “Israel hath rejected what is good.” The good here is the true worship
of the true God.
1. True, Worship is “the good thing” for man. It is good not only
because God requires it, but because it is the necessary condition of spiritual
life, growth, harmony, and blessedness.
2. This “good thing” man sometimes abandons. Moral mind has the power
of abandoning the highest good.
3. The abandonment of this “good thing” imperils the soul. Moral good
is the only effective safeguard of the spirit; when this is given up, or “cast
off,” all the gates of the soul are thrown open to tormenting fiends.
II. The consequent
pursuit of evil. “Set up kings, but not by Me.” Reference is to Jeroboam and
his successors. From kings of their own making came the setting up of the
idolatrous calf-worship. So they went wrong in their politics and in their
religion. Let a man go wrong in his relations to God, and he will go wrong in
all his relations, secular and spiritual, There is nothing in connection with
the human race of such transcendent importance as worship. The religious
element is the strongest of all elements, and men must have a god of some sort,
and their god will fashion their character and determine their destiny. (Homilist.)
Verses 4-13
Verse 5
Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cut thee off; or, Thy calf, O Samaria,
hath kicked thee off.
Kicking calves
The words of the text have a quaint sound. They suggest a
ludicrous figure. There is something ludicrous in the notion of a boy trying to
drive a calf, and getting kicked by it. When you understand what the words
mean, you will soon grow grave enough. Samaria was the centre and capital of
the northern kingdom of Israel, as Jerusalem was the centre and capital of the
southern kingdom of Judah. Each city was a sacred city, a centre of worship, as
well as of business and government. There was a temple in each of them, and in
the temple certain symbols of the Divine presence and activity. At Mount
Gerizim they had only the golden calf and the emblems of its worship. At first
this calf was intended to be a nature-symbol of Jehovah. But it too closely
resembled the animal forms in the heathen temples--especially in Egypt--and
these animal forms were very apt to breed a kind of worship which gave free
play to animal lusts. At best, moreover, the calf was a “graven image,” and was
therefore a standing and flagrant violation of the law which God had given to
Israel. Soon the Ten Tribes sunk into the idolatries of the nations around
them, with their degradation of God and man. And they put no more restraint on
their carnal passions and lusts than the beasts whose forms they placed in
their temples. Men grow like the gods they worship, The animal part of their
nature soon prevailed over the spiritual. As soon as a man suffers the beast in
him to prevail, he grows worse than the beasts, and sinks below their level.
What they do by the law of their nature, he does against the taw of his nature.
Hosea paints a dreadful picture of the impotence and degradation into which the
Israelites had sunk through their false worship. They were consequently so
weakened by their strifes and divisions, their loss of manliness and
patriotism, as to be unable to resist the foreign invader when he came. And so
their calf had kicked them. If they did not speedily return to the God of their
fathers, their calf would soon “kick them off.” They would find themselves
abandoned by their god, in whose foul service they had sacrificed their
manhood, their unity, their strength. They would fall before the sword of the
foe, or be led captive by him into a strange land. So there is a principle in
Hosea’s quaint words. It is this--every sin carries in itself its own
retribution, and is sure to avenge itself upon us if we fall into it.
Punishment is only the other half of sin. Or every calf we worship is sure to
kick us, or even to kick us off. Whatever we love best and pursue most
heartily, that, for the time at least, is our god, our “calf.” For the moment
we look to it for the happiness or the gratification we most crave, and serve
and follow it with our supreme affection or desire. Look at some of these calf
worshippers, and mark how their god treats them. There is the greedy boy, who
puts no restraint upon his appetite. To gratify his appetite he will do things
which are mean, selfish, wrong. What follows? The calf which Little Glutton worshipped
has kicked him, and kicked him in his tenderest part, just where he feels it
most. Take the case of a vain, foolish girl, who gives herself great airs when
she goes to a new school. When she is found out, her fibs detected, or her
foolish self-complacency resented and exposed, may we not say that her calf has
kicked her, humbled her in the dust, so that she who wanted to be admired is
despised. Her sin has wrought its own punishment. But in the mercy of God her
punishment is intended to help her to recover herself. And men have made idols
of their very sins--drunkenness and licentiousness. They have sacrificed their
all to them. And not only our base passions, but even our best affections, our
plainest duties, may be exalted into the place of God, and thus be turned into
calves which will only too surely kick us, or kick us off, before they have
done with us. Young men may be tempted to snatch at business success by taking
some mean advantage of their fellows, so straining their integrity and defiling
the clear honour of their soul, violating the allegiance they owe to
principles, conscience, and God. Or men may suffer mere success in business to
absorb all their energies, so that they neglect the culture of the mind, and
the purest and best affections of the heart and home. In either case, if you
yield to these temptations, you will have turned what was once a clear duty
into an idol, into a calf such as that which of old men worshipped in Samaria.
And your calf will kick you as it kicked them. Your want of integrity, your
meanness and baseness will be detected and exposed. Your punishment will grow
out of your sin. And young women need to be told that even love, if it be made
an idol, will prove to be but a calf. If in the sacred name of love, you cast
away prudence, principle, parental control, and marry a man who has not yet
learned to earn his own livelihood, or whose character is dubious, or whose
life is bad, you may be sure your calf will kick you for your pains. All these
foolish and hurtful idolatries of ours spring from our false conceptions of
God, and of what He requires of us. The true ends of life do not lie in mere
worldly success, or even in gratified affection. Hosea teaches us to think of
God as a wise and loving Father who is ever seeking to make us good. In this
light we may see how poor and paltry are many of the aims which men pursue, and
how inevitable it is that they should be frustrated of these poor aims in order
that they may learn to set the true end of life before them. Our well-deserved
falls and failures are parts of the process by which our Heavenly Father is
teaching us to walk, and to walk with Him. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Idols worshipped
The gross and debasing idolatry of Israel soon brought upon them
the judgments of heaven; and when in their deep distress they discovered their
folly, they found that, having cast off Jehovah, they “had no god to go to.” It
is to this course of wickedness the text refers. The prophet addresses the
people of Samaria in tones of withering irony. Two important lessons.
I. That every
false and worldly confidence is sure in the end to cheat and disappoint us. Speak to those who are
worshipping some other object than the one true God--drink, business.
II. The Lord
himself, and He alone, will never fail or cast off those that trust in Him. Why
should He taunt Israel upon the faithlessness and vanity of their earthly
idols, if to trust Himself might prove equally vain? Wherefore should He remind
you that the golden calves of worldly pleasure, pelf, and pride will all cast
you off, if perchance He will cast you off Himself? It is a curious fact that
just as foolish and worldly people generally cherish unfounded hopes, so
Christian persons often indulge unfounded fears. The one never imagine that
their calf, their idol, will cast them off: the other are constantly doubting
and dreading that their God will forsake them. If there is anything that God
makes quite plain, it is that this can never be; He never fails nor forsakes.
The truth is that God draws nearer and closer to His people in their trouble. (J.
Thain Davidson, D. D.)
The world a lie
The story of Jeroboam the son of Nebat affords a perpetual
warning. Other things besides consumption, and lunacy, and various maladies our
flesh is heir to are hereditary. Jeroboam’s sin descended to his children; and
was transmitted like an entail from sire to son. More than that, it struck like
a malaria of a virulent disease to the very walls of his palace; it infected
all his successors, and from the throne spread its deadly influence to the
poorest and most distant cottages of the land.
I. The sin of
Jeroboam. He was hardly seated on the throne, when a political difficulty
arose,--and that a very serious one. The Mosaic law required every male to go
up three times each year to Jerusalem. An astute and sagacious politician,
Jeroboam foresaw how this custom might be attended with dangerous results. But
he was not the man to meet the difficulty aright. He did what, no doubt, the
world had thought a clever thing. Setting up one calf in Bethel and another in
Dan, in imitation of the cherubim in the temple, he sent forth this edict, “Let
him that sacrificeth, kiss the calves,”--go and worship these. Jeroboam
succeeded, but his success brought down ruin on his house and government. It
was followed by results which should teach our statesmen that no policy in the
end shall thrive which traverses the Word of God. That can never be politically
right, which is morally and religiously wrong. What the “calf” did to the
monarch, it did to the people--here called Samaria. Following the steps of
their king, they apostatised from God, and turned their backs on His temple.
Then judgment succeeded judgment, and one trouble breaking on the back of
another, the land had no rest. The commonwealth sank under the weight of its
idolatry. The voice of God in providence might have been heard saying, “Thy
calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off.”
II. Warning from
the sin and sorrow of Samaria. The sentiment of the text is illustrated--
1. By the case of those who put riches in the place of God. The
thirst for gold, like the drunkard’s, is insatiable. The more it is indulged,
the more the flame is fed, it burns the fiercer.
2. The sentiment of the text is illustrated by the case of those who
live for fame--for the favour, not of God, but of men. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The sinner betrayed by his sin
s:--Jeroboam’s calf symboled not only his casting off the true
faith, but also his preference for the secular and sensual culture of Egypt,
instead of the simplicity and purity of life which God had prescribed for His
people. For a while the rebellious people seemed to prosper. At length the
thunderbolt of Divine wrath fell. The godless land was ravaged, and the people
carried away captive by the Assyrians. Egypt turned a deaf ear to their
appeals. This, Hosea predicted in words of withering sarcasm: “Thy calf, O
Samaria, hath cast thee off.” (The calf was a copy of the Egyptian Mnevis.)
I. The calf stands
in general for sin. No sin ever, in the long-run, meets the promise it makes to
the imagination. In the end the soul has to pay for its guilty pleasures out of
its own pains. True of fleshly lusts. Their glow is that of a fever rising;
soon they will burn. Nature does not put enough strength in the human frame to
endure more than a temperate, lawful supply of the appetites. This fuel gone,
the indulgence has become a necessity, and consumes the life itself.
Selfishness cannot enjoy its accumulations beyond a limited amount; beyond this
they feed impatience and ennui. “Pride,” as Bulwer says, “is a garment all
stiff brocade outside, and all grating sackcloth on the side next the skin.”
II. The calf stands
for a peculiar class of sins. The Samaritans did not regard their worship as
degrading. The calf represented life, productiveness; a far nobler object of
worship than that set up by many heathen nations. It represented especially
polite sins, and those lines of conduct whose evil consists chiefly in that
they are not obedience to God. For instance, such as meet our ideas of
expediency, but are not according to strict conscience. Young men generally
begin with such sins. Thus the standard is gradually lowered.
1. They will do nothing disreputable in religious or even secular
society.
2. Nothing disreputable in club life.
3. Nothing that they (now blinded by indulgence) think will hurt
them.
4. At last, their own passion has become their standard, and they are
socially a wreck before they are fully aware of their danger.
III. The calf stands
for a current form of unbelief. The calf-worship was mixed with some features
of the true worship of Israel. It had a line of priests. Its chief sites were
places already sacred in the religious history of God’s people. The altars were
dedicated at the time of a true religious festival--the Feast of Tabernacles. A
current form of infidelity is a blending of human conceits with some scriptural
teaching. It uses Sabbaths, sanctuaries, ministries. It admires Jesus, and
praises His precepts. But it denies supernaturalism. Not God’s Word, but the
human reason, is supreme. (L.)
Cast off by the god of worldliness
The great Wolsey, after he had climbed the highest round of
ambition’s ladder, in the evening of life bitterly exclaimed, “Would that
I had served my God as faithfully as I have served my king. He would not have
abandoned me in my old age.” The illustrious statesman, William Pitt, the
favourite of king and people, “died,” says Wilberforce, his friend, “of a
broken heart. On his dying bed he is stated to have said, I fear I have
neglected prayer too much to make it available on a death-bed.” Still more
distressing was the closing scene of Sheridan’s career. He who had stood on the
pinnacle of glory, and gained the most flattering distinctions, writes in old
age to one of his friends, “I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted.”
Misfortunes crowded on him, and his last moments were haunted by fears of a
prison. Forsaken by his gay associates, dispirited, and world-weary, he closed
his eyes in gloom and sorrow. Campbell, the author of “The Pleasures of Hope,”
in his old age wrote “I am alone in the world. My wife and child of my
hopes are dead; my surviving child is consigned to a living tomb (a lunatic
asylum); my old friends, brothers, sisters, are dead, all but one, and she too
is dying; my last hopes are blighted. As for fame, it is a bubble that must
soon burst.”
How long will it be ere
they attain to innocency?--
Attainment hindered
I. An attainment
spoken of. “How long will it be ere they attain unto innocency?” “Innocency” is
here put for “true and saving religion.” And this is a most desirable
attainment, more so than all besides.
1. It is important because without it there can be no fellowship with
God. Without fellowship with God there can be no peace; without peace there can
be no happiness.
2. It is important because without it man cannot live well. A guilty
man lives according to his thoughts.
3. It is important because without it man cannot die well. There is
nothing before a sinner but death, darkness, and despair.
II. A hindrance suggested.
The calves were the idols set up to prevent the Israelites from worshipping
Jehovah. The hindrances to attaining innocency (that is, satisfying the natural
cravings of religion in worshipping God) are the idols which are set up in the
human heart. These idols may be--
1. The gratification of self. Self is one of the most favoured of
idols, it is worshipped by all, and the man who worships self cannot worship
God.
2. The vanities of the world. The idolatry of the present day, if not
so bold in its rebellion, is not so religious as in the days of old. The
idolatrous Jews and heathen were essentially religious. It was death to any one
to speak against the gods. It is pleasure now men worship, and a god of any
sort is forgotten.
3. The blandishments of science. This is another idol men fall down
before. These are the calves which keep men from God, calves set up by
themselves at the instigation of Satan. No man can ever “attain unto innocency”
so long as they remain.
III. The
consequences inferred. A time is coming when true religion will be the only
thing worth possessing. The day of sifting will arrive. God’s anger will be
kindled against the persistently ungodly. Then what avail will the false gods
which men have served so long be to afford them shelter? The calf will cast
thee off. There are two penalties, then, to the guilty. They lose both earth
and heaven. They are cast off--
1. By the devil whom they serve. The world cannot offer them help.
Satan’s object is only to effect their ruin.
2. By the God whom they have neglected. How can He who has been
scorned and forsaken be the succour of those who have despised His love and
rejected His rule? (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)
Verse 6
The workman made it; therefore it is not God.
The religion of humanity
Humanitarianism has become the creed of the earnest and thoughtful
who have found for themselves the awful truth regarding their fellow-men in the
depths, and with that ever pressing upon them, have forsaken all else to
grapple with that evil and right that wrong. It has become the home of loving,
aching hearts that have lost their God. It has also become the mere fad of many
who put on charity as they do a garment when it is fashionable, and are
philanthropic when philanthropy is in vogue. But let these hangers-on of
humanitarianism be distinguished from humanitarians. Humanitarians proper are
large-souled enthusiasts. Humanitarianism has been elevated to the dignity of a
religion, and the humanitarian god has been hailed as the God of humanity. When
that is so, we have to look at the work in a new light, and study anew the
claims which it puts forth. And, first of all, I think we may safely say that
the first duty of any one who desires to elevate a cult to the rank of a
religion is to demonstrate that it is applicable to humanity in general, that
it is deep enough to find a common basis in characters the most widely diverse.
For that only is really religious which can be shared by all. The beauty-lover,
who is convinced that in the power of perceiving and appreciating the beauty
and harmony of the universe lies the uplifting of his Kind, sets himself to
show that that power is to be found, latent at least, in every one. The moralist,
who thinks that a certain code of laws, if strictly adhered to, would meet all
wants and settle all difficulties, has, for the first part of his task, to
prove that an inherently moral nature is co-existent everywhere with human
nature. And the humanitarian, too, must show that his religion may be a
religion for humanity. To the enthusiasts who are fired to generous
forgetfulness of self it may seem for a time to fulfil the purposes of
religion. They find in it an aim, an inspiration, a faith. But what of the
other side! Will it do for a religion to those who are to be uplifted to the
passive element, which, in their scheme, is simply to permit itself to be
raised to better conditions of life? Ah! that is where humanitarians err. They
cling tenaciously to their theory that conditions make humanity. It is true, we
grant it, but it must at the same time be admitted that humanity makes its own
conditions. The conditions of man’s material life, ii they be evil, eat slowly
but surely into his soul with corroding influence. But is the converse not also
true? Does what a man is, down in the heart of him, not stamp itself upon his
surroundings? Does not the likeness of a soul body itself out by slow degrees
in the conditions amid which it exists? Conditions the most favourable for the
growth of virtue, if round an ignoble soul, become a rich soil for vice to grow
in. Beauty may be changed to ugliness by man’s vulgar breath, harmony to
discord by his strident voice. Conditions make humanity, and humanity makes its
conditions. But these two truths were never meant to be brought into violent
opposition. A perfect humanity is the humanitarian’s dream, but a perfect
humanity is an impossible thing. If humanitarians would study humanity more
they would see the weakness of their claim for humanitarianism as a religion.
There is a something in humanity, an unknown quality, which for ever evades the
analyst. There is a wailing need for something greater than itself, the
“something never seen but still desired,” there is a hidden strength totally
unpresaged by the individual’s past life. Humanity is full of surprises; only
the most careful student of it knows how small the circle is within which he
may work, how great is the tract outside of it which must be allowed for
unknown powers and their influences. Only those who know its waywardness, its
uncertainty, its inherent weakness, its potential greatness, know how strong a
hope, how Divine a thought, humanity needs for its deliverance. To serve is to
obey, but do humanitarians ever dream of obeying the humanity which they deify?
And to look to humanity as a paymaster, ah, what wages of sorrow they are
earning, what disappointed hopes, what frustrated endeavours, what bitterness
of heart that there is not sweetness enough in the world to sweeten! Oh, that
they had given as unto God, and He would have repaid; that they had followed
Christ’s example--to serve God and save humanity. Then God would have rewarded,
and humanity would have been the recompense. And now the thought of Christ arrests
us. What, after all, is the humanitarianism which we have been seriously
considering as a new religion, but a branch of practical Christianity? The
limitation, which is its weakness, is all that is new in it. Why, then, has it
attained such great proportions, become so prominent that it has for the time
overshadowed all other considerations? Simply because it was for so long
overshadowed and neglected. And yet the Church, whatever it may have done, has
seen and attempted the greater part. It has taught this part of Christ’s
doctrine, that to be heroic and Christlike is better than to be comfortable.
But the humanitarian flood answers back vehemently--“Your God is a God for the
idealists, for those who in their visionary world delight themselves with thoughts
of ideal beauty, and goodness, and truth, and never feel the burdened heart of
the world of reality labouring beside them. Your creed is a creed for the
comfortable, the well-to-do, the intellectual who study Christ’s marvellous
philosophy, and forget that His practice gave it its power, and demonstrated
its truth. Heroism is for the strength of the individual heart; the ideal is a
home for the individual soul, but the attitude and practice of man towards his
fellow-men should be that of pitying, helpful love. Christ was heroic. He stood
majestic and unmoved in the midst of a scoffing, incensed mob. Yet He was the
champion of the friendless woman taken in adultery. He lived the life of an
idealist, and fed His soul on the beauty of heaven. Yet He was always ready to
render practical help to those in trouble or adversity. The duty of the Church
as an exponent of Christ is to expound Him fully and equally. The Founder of
Christianity came to enlarge, and deepen, and exalt the sphere of every life.
It is terrible to think how, instead of helping Christ in such a work, we spend
so much time and energy in crushing the life and power out of men; out of the
boy or girl who want sunshine and joy to brighten their growth; out of the
young man or woman enthusiastic with a great purpose to do good;--how we crowd
men and women out of their places and push them down and cause them to despond,
when all the while we could have inspired hope and given them life. The mission
of religion is to give true increase of life, and the Church of Christ exists
to help on the work. And the members of Christ’s Church should each feel upon
them the twofold chain that links them to God and their fellow-men. If our
march were but from the cradle to the grave, then we could afford to leave such
aids as the Church and religious communion out of account, and the creed and
practice of the humanitarian might satisfy us. But are we only the creatures of
the passing hour? Nay; verily the chords we strike here in the music of life
are but the prelude to a never-ending song. When all our material wants are
satisfied there is still a hunger of the soul which refuses to be allayed,
because only God, the Infinite One, can satisfy it. We are infinite, spiritual
beings, and no finite, material God, such as the humanitarian worships, can
give lasting help and sarisfaction. Nothing but the Infinite can fulfil our
infinite needs; nothing but the Highest can satisfy those who are made in the
image of the Most High. We need a God wide as the universe and eternal as the
life to which we belong. (A. H. M. Sime.)
Verse 7
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
The consequences of sin
Misery is attached to sin as its inevitable consequence; but the
connection does not always appear to a superficial observer. Transgression
sometimes appears to be productive of happiness, and obedience to be a source
of much affliction and trouble. But the wicked are not really happy now, and
they have no reasonable expectation of happiness in the eternal world.
I. Who may be said
to sow the wind? To “sow the wind” is a proverbial expression for labouring in
vain. It may be applied to all who seek happiness in the way of sin.
1. To sensualists, who yield themselves up to the gratifications of
sense. See confession of Solomon (Ecclesiastes 2:1; Ecclesiastes 2:10-11).
2. To worldlings. The lovers of this present world hope to obtain,
not a momentary gratification, but solid and lasting benefits. But riches are
proverbially uncertain. Our cares are generally multiplied by means of them.
3. To formalists. The performance of religious duties seems more
calculated to make us happy. No one can be happy who disregards them. But a
mere round of services can never satisfy the conscience. Some delude themselves
with an idea that it will secure the Divine favour. Under that delusion they
may be filled with self-complacency. A sight of sin will speedily dissipate
these self-righteous hopes.
4. To false professors. There are many who wish to be thought
religious when they are destitute of spiritual life. They may be jealous about
doctrines and their own particular form of Church government, but they are not
solicitous to live nigh to God in holy duties.
II. What they may
expect to reap. A “whirlwind” is a figure to represent extraordinary
calamities. Their calamities will be--
1. Sudden. They receive warnings, but are taken by surprise at last.
2. Irresistible. Illustrate by a whirlwind.
3. Tremendous. See desolation wrought by a whirlwind. Infers
Reaping the whirlwind
Said Napoleon to La Place, “I see no mention of God in your system
of theology.” “No, sire,” was the answer, “we have no longer any need of that
hypothesis.” A half-century of anarchy and social disorder in unhappy France
was the result--the awful “reign of terror.” How much wiser was Montesquieu,
who said: “God is as necessary as freedom to the welfare of France!”
Sowing the wind
This is a proverbial speech, signifying the taking a great
deal of pains to little purpose; as if a man should go abroad in the fields,
and spread his hands about with effort and yet grasp nothing but air. The wind
is an empty creature in respect of things solid, therefore the Scripture often
makes use of it to signify the vanity of the hopes and laborious endeavours of
wicked men.
1. Many do nothing all their lifetime but sow the wind; they labour
and toil, but what comes of it? It is no good account to give to God of our
time, to say that we have taken a great deal of pains; we may take pains and
yet “sow the wind.” Who are those that sow the wind?
The growth and power of habit
Notice the way in which the acts of daily life influence destiny.
I. We are
continually forming habits.
II. The tendency of
habits once formed is to increase in strength. “Wind--whirlwind.”
III. Habits increase
in the direction of original tendency. Same in kind, though vastly different in
intensity and force.
IV. The tendency of
habits is to increase in strength till they pass beyond control. The whirlwind
desolates the land and strews the sea with wrecks. Habit is something like
appetite: we are led by it, just as a hungry man makes his way towards home. It
cannot be explained how it is that actions become easier by being repeated, but
that it is so everybody must admit. If we do anything a certain number of
times, the doing has an effect upon us, and that effect we call “habit.” We
should therefore be very careful what we accustom ourselves to do, lest we
should acquire the appetite or habit of doing things that are hurtful and
wrong. Habit is the result of repeated acts, and it is wonderful how soon a
little child acquires a habit. The doing of a thing once or twice is sufficient
to lead the child to do it again--
“All
habits gather, by unseen degrees,
As
brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.”
(A.
Hampden Lee.)
Verse 9
A wild ass alone by himself.
The Scripture figure of the wild ass
What a figure of the untamed soul which refuses the easy yoke of
the blessed Redeemer. Man’s untamed spirit spurns the adorable Lord’s love. You
cannot conceive a truer picture of the altogether untractable than this. The
wild ass will go its own way. But this is according to nature. What we are
Called to contemplate is the fallen being man, described as a “wild ass alone
by itself.” Ephraim and the Ten Tribes are compared to the wild ass for many
reasons.
1. They refused Christ’s easy yoke; their hearts were untamed; they
were stubborn in their rejection of God’s inviting grace; they were full of
obdurate folly; they were headstrong and unruly, not consenting to any
restraints; they chose their own course, running up and down after sin, mad
upon their idols, as the wild ass traverses the desert only to gratify its own
low nature.
2. The wild ass is excessively swift; and although numbers of them
commonly herd together, yet it is usual for some one of them to break away and
separate himself from his company, and run alone or at random by himself. It is
when he thus breaks away that he is such an easy prey to the lion. Ephraim, in seeking
to be all for himself, became the more sure prey of the devourer; and whenever
the sinner breaks away by himself, thinking thereby to be masterless and free,
he is in a fair way of being left to his own devices and given up by God.
3. The wild ass is the lion’s prey in the wilderness, and the soul
faithless to Christ, seeking its own things, is as a wild ass alone by himself,
or for himself, for his own gratification, his own pleasure, and the end of
these things is death. (Alfred Clayton Thiselton.)
Verse 11
Ephraim hath made many altars to sin.
Perversion of worship
Israel was to have only one altar. Ephraim had built a number of
altars in different places. Men have perverted worship, not only by making
false gods, but by making false altars for the true God.
I. False worship
is a great sin.
1. It is a very propagative sin. Once admit a wrong thing in worship,
and that one thing will multiply itself; superstition will give it fertility.
2. It is a self-punishing sin. This is the heavy judgment of God, to
give men their heart’s desire in what is evil.
II. It is a sin
against great light. Israel could not say it sinned in ignorance.
1. God has given us laws concerning worship.
2. These laws are oft repeated.
3. These oft-repeated laws leave false worshippers Without excuse. (Homilist.)
Verse 12
I have written to him the great things of My law, but they were
counted a strange thing.
A grave miscalculation
What God complains of is that whilst He has made known to Israel
the loftiest truths of righteousness and grace, Israel has treated those truths
as matters altogether foreign, with which he had the very least concern. And is
not this matter of ignoring the law characteristic of our own day? How many
live without attending to Divine revelation; they give it the go-by, they
dismiss it with serene unconcern.
I. The truths of
revelation are of the highest concern, If the dilemma of life is that we cannot
attend to everything, only to things of pre-eminent importance, then we must
attend to the great doctrines of revelation; for they are hound up with our
highest interests. Take the doctrine of righteousness from the Old Testament.
The righteousness of the law is essential to our worldly interests, to our
characters, to our happiness, and to our final salvation. Take the doctrine of
grace from the New Testament. Is not this great doctrine essential? Many pride
themselves upon neglecting religion. They attend to their business, and have no
time for religion. Religion is a fancy, a fashion, a luxury, g thing to be
brought in if possible, to be left out if necessary. But it is the one thing
needful.
II. The truths of
revelation are of abiding concern. In Hosea’s time the law had become
irrevelant, obsolete. Many now regard the law of God in revelation as
inadequate to the modern world. But do not these very objectors go back to the
Greek for intellectual perfection; to Euclid to learn mathematics; to
Demosthenes to learn eloquence; to Praxiteles to learn sculpture; to Homer for
the ideal of poetry? As God gave the Hebrew the knowledge of righteousness, it
is no reflection on us that we go back to Moses and Isaiah, to Job and Paul.
Our text declares the abiding validity of the law. God keeps on writing the
law; He is continually freshening it, and making it a living thing in the
conscience of the world. Men speak of outgrowing Christianity when they have become
dead to it through a life of materialism, worldliness, lust, selfishness. God’s
Word is not a strange thing. It is written for our admonition and salvation,
upon whom the ends of the world have come. We need the precious truths of this
Holy Book as much as ever.
III. The truths of
revelation are of universal concern. There is often in men the feeling that the
truths of religion may concern others, but are not applicable to them. But the
weighty things of the law concern us all. We all need the mercy Of God in
Christ (W. L. Watkinson.)
The Scripture despised
It is in vain to imagine that the depravity of the Jews was
peculiar to themselves. They were fair specimens of human nature. Under
superior advantages, we are no better than they. With regard to the Scriptures
consider--
I. Their author.
If we consider Scripture to be a cunningly devised fable, we shall treat it as
a delusion. If we believe it to be the word of mall, We shall receive it as a
human production. If we are convinced that it is indeed the Word of God, we
shall feel it to be Divine, and it will work powerfully in us, as it does in
those who believe. In favour of these writings we advance a Divine claim.
Whoever was the penman, God was the author. Evidence comes from the prophecies;
from kinness with the Book of Creation; from adaptation to the wants of man.
II. Their contents.
We naturally judge of an author by his work, but there are cases in which we
judge of a work by the author. As soon as we learn that God Himself is the
author of this Book, we may approach it confidently, expecting to find in it a
greatness becoming His glorious: name. We find great things.
1. Great in number.
2. In profundity.
3. In importance.
4. In their efficacy.
The greatest thing we have upon earth is the Gospel.
III. The reception
which this divine communication meets with. “They were counted as a strange
thing.” That means a thing foreign to us; a matter of indifference. That men
thus treat the Scriptures of truth is the charge here advanced.
1. It is a charge the most wonderful. We should naturally suppose
that a book written by God Himself would engage attention. And people are
naturally attracted to a work that regards themselves.
2. The most criminal. We often err in our estimate of things,
especially those of a moral nature. We have frequently a wrong standard by
which to judge of what is good; hence that which is highly esteemed among men
is an abomination in the sight of God. In the same way we deceive ourselves
with regard to what is evil. God takes into view the dishonour done to Himself.
He weighs the state of the mind, the motives that determine us, the good we
oppose and hinder;: the difficulties we have to overcome, the convictions we
have to stifle, the reasons that render us inexcusable. By this rule, nothing
can be more wicked than to treat with contempt or neglect the means God has
provided for our everlasting welfare.
3. The most dreadful. Though God is most patient with you, His
judgments must most surely fall.
4. The charge is very commonly deserved. Few pay a due regard to the
blessed Word of God. Of those who hear the Word, how many are curious hearers,
captious hearers, forgetful hearers, hearers only deceiving their own selves.
5. The charge is not universally true. There are many exceptions.
Good men have always been attached to their Bibles. Let me urge upon you a
still greater attention to the Word of God. (William Jay.)
Our duty to the Bible
What should be our attitude and action in relation to the Holy
Volume?
1. We should accept the volume gratefully as the gift of God. It is
the message of our Divine Father to us; designed to instruct us in all the
multiform duties of life--to guide us in the intricacies of our pilgrimage--to
solace us in the seasons of our sadness--to be a companion to us in our hours
of loneliness. It is fully adapted to all the necessities of our nature, and to
all the vicissitudes of our surroundings. Let us treat it as we treat no other
volume. Let there be no cessation to our thankfulness to God for a treasure so precious,
a comfort so profound, a guide so unerring, a weapon so unfailing, a light so
transcendent.
2. Our duty is to circulate it. The Book of books should be placed in
the hands of every man. It is addressed to all, intended for all, adapted to
all, and should not be confined to any clime or any class.
3. We owe the duty to God and ourselves, to study the volume for our
own consolation and guidance.
Did ever a nation, a family, or an individual regret adopting and
following the inspired Book as their guide? Compare it with all the volumes in
the public libraries of to-day. None originated in purer motives; none had a
Diviner origin; none has had a more wonderful history; none has produced fruits
of happiness and holiness so world wide; none has been so miraculously
preserved; none is destined to a future so glorious. (J. Hiles Hitchens, D.
D.)
The great things of Scripture
I. The Holy
Scriptures are God’s writing.
II. The subjects of
which the Holy Scriptures treat are great things. The things written in the
Scriptures may well be styled great things.
1. Because of their inherent grandeur. Can there possibly be any
greater subject than God Himself in His character, in His infinite excellence,
and in His relations to men, God as incarnated and revealed in the person of
His Son Jesus Christ? Can any themes exceed in interest, atonement for sin,
redemption, the indwelling Spirit, immortal life, resurrection, heaven?
2. Because of their supreme importance. They have been given mainly
for the purpose of answering those great questions which had perplexed the
minds of men from the beginning of human history, and which weighed heavily
upon their hearts and consciences the more they thought about them.
3. Because of their great effects. They make all those great who lovingly
receive them into their hearts. And much of what the Word of God does for
individuals it also does for nations. It introduces into them the germs of
solid prosperity and the elements of true greatness. It makes a people
righteous, temperate, pure, unselfish, benevolent.
III. Every human
being has a personal interest in the contents of the Holy Scriptures. They have
been written for all, in the sense of having been written for each individual
in that all. I have written unto him. This “I have written” arms
every part of the sacred Book with all the authority of God.
IV. And yet, how
many treat the “great things” which God has written in His word in the very
manner which is here condemned! They were counted by them as a strange thing;
that is, with indifference, with looks askance, as things with which they had
no practical concern, perhaps even with positive aversion. (Homiletic
Magazine.)
The dignity of the Scripture
God hath vouchsafed the free use of His Word; what greater bounty?
Men pass by it as a thing not worth the looking to; what greater impiety?
I. The free use of
God’s Word.
1. The commendation of God’s Word, by the plenty, abundance, and
largeness of the matter that is in it; and by the price, excellency, and worth
of the matter. All necessary points, either touching faith or manners, are
abundantly contained and laid forth in the Scriptures. This fact condemns the
common neglect and universal contempt of the rules and precepts of Holy
Scripture. In matters of conversation, men prefer the examples and guides of
the times, the course and practice of the multitude, before the principles of
God’s Spirit. The excellency of Scripture is seen in that the author of it is
God; the matter of it is the mystery of godliness; the style of it, there is a fulness
of majesty in simplicity of words; the end of it is to make men wise unto
salvation.
II. The mercy of
God in vouchsafing His word to us.
1. How can it be said that God hath written His Word?
2. Why was it meet to write it?
3. When the Word of God began first to be written, and how it was
preserved for the Church’s use all that time.
4. How we shall be assured that that which amongst us is now called
the Scripture is the very same Word and precious will of God, which He hath
written for the use and comfort of His people. Nothing is able to persuade a
man’s conscience that the Scripture is the Word of God, but only the Spirit of
God. The best proofs are to be fetched out of Scripture itself. Its excellency
is shown in the purity of the law of God by Moses: the quality of the matter in
Scripture; the antiquity of the Scripture.
III. Man’s misuse of
scripture.
1. Shew the nature of the fault. They regarded Scripture as
containing matter that did not pertain to them. This fault is compounded of
three gross evils--disobedience, unthankfulness, neglect of their own private
good, even the good of their souls. What judgment is due to this offence? In
general it openeth the very floodgate of God’s wrath. In particular, it makes
all our prayers odious, and the torment of our souls. Seeing then that to
account the great things of God’s law as a strange thing, is a fault, a
grievous fault, a fault liable to extreme punishment, our fault, there is no
remedy but we must henceforth give all diligence, that the Word of God may be
no more a stranger unto us, but a dweller with us, and familiar unto us. (S.
Hieron.)
The great things of God
1. They are things that proclaim the greatness of the Law-maker; and
things of great use and importance to us.
2. It is a great privilege to have the things of God’s law written;
thus they are reduced to a greater certainty, spread the further, and last the
longer, with much less danger of being embezzled and corrupted than if they
were transmitted by word of mouth only.
3. The things of God’s law are of His own writing; for Moses and the
prophets were His amanuenses.
4. It is the advantage of those that are members of the visible
Church that these things are written to them, are intended for their
direction, and so they must receive them. (Matthew Henry.)
The great things of God’s law counted as a strange thing
That which should have been for their health, became to them an
occasion of more heinous and aggravated guilt.
I. God has written
unto us the great things of His law. By the law of God understand the whole
revelation which God has given of His will. Take brief survey of God’s law, as
written and delivered to us.
1. The declarations contained in it are great and important.
2. There are many promises which are exceeding great and precious.
3. There are great things written in the way of invitation and
encouragement.
4. There are great and interesting precepts and instructions.
5. There are solemn threatenings against obstinate and impenitent
offenders. We are certainly not less favoured than Israel was.
II. Whether and in
what degree we are chargeable with their guilt, in “counting the great things
of God’s law a strange thing.”
1. They did not receive what God delivered to them as being of Divine
authority, but as a kind of imposition to which they were under no obligation
to submit. We may judge who among ourselves are in a similar state of guilt.
All those who deny the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and deem that
invaluable treasury of great things to be nothing better than a cunningly
devised fable.
2. They did not at all see or discern their own interest in those
things. Are not similar views entertained among us? And is not similar conduct
the consequence? Some consider the Bible and religion as adapted only to
persons of a gloomy and melancholy cast of mind. Others think the study of them
belongs only to divines.
3. They were apprehensive that a strict adherence to God’s law would
make their conduct appear strange and singular among their surrounding
neighbours. We contract greater guilt when ever we are ashamed of the Gospel of
Christ; when we are afraid to act up to its sacred rules. The mercy of God, in
writing and committing to us the great things of His law, is such as cannot be
sufficiently estimated. It calls for fervent and lasting gratitude. “To whom
much is given, of him shall much be required.” (S. Knight, M. A.)
No excuse of ignorance
God had written their duties for them in the Ten Commandments with
His own hand; He had written them of old, and manifoldly. He wrote those
manifold things to them (or for them) by Moses, not for that time only, but
that they might be continually before their eyes, as if He were still writing.
He had written to them since, in their histories, in the Psalms. His words were
still sounding in their ears through the teaching of the prophets. God did not
only give His law or revelation once for all, and then leave it. By His
providence and by His ministers, He continually renewed the knowledge of it, so
that those who ignored it should have no excuse. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
The Bible to be read
Young man, if some one laughs at you, because you read the Bible,
laugh him to scorn. Let him laugh at you because you read Plato, or Homer, or
Dante, or Shakespeare, or Browning; but laugh at him if he laugh at you because
you read the Bible. More than we have gained from all other literatures we have
gained from this. More of our law from Moses than from Justinian; more of our
poetry from David than from Homer; more of our inspiration from Isaiah than
from Dante, Demosthenes, or Cicero; more of our philosophy from Paul than from
Plato; more of our life from this one Book than from all other books combined.
And yet it is not the book; it is the message in the book that has to give the
life. (Lyman Abbott.)
Verse 14
For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and
Judah hath multiplied fenced cities.
Neither the religion nor security of a nation to be judged by
appearances
The temples are the idolatrous temples built after the models from
Syrophoenicia. Fenced cities are fortified places erected against foreign
invaders.
1. The multiplicity of temples is no infallible proof of the growth
of religion in a country. When we think of the moral causes that often lead to
the erection of temples, they rather prove our forgetfulness of God. They are
greed, spite, sectism.
2. The increase of national defences is no proof of the increase of
national security. The safety of a people is in the moral excellence of their
character, and in the guardianship of heaven. (Homilist.)
God forgotten
Prosperous men become dangerously independent, and in their pride
they forget God, and exclaim with Nebuchadnezzar, “Is not this great Babylon
that I have built?” As Daniel Quorm quaintly says, “The devil is called in the
Bible ‘Beelzebub’--that do mean, the ‘god o’ flies’--and you’re sure to find
‘em a-buzzin’ about the honey-pots o’ prosperity.” Nothing so completely blinds
a man as gold-dust, for he cannot even see God--he is a practical atheist.
Affluence leads first to indifference, then to coldness, then to unbelief, then
to cynicism, and then to godlessness! Henry IV. once asked the Duke of Alva if
he had observed certain eclipses which had occurred that year. “No,” was the
reply, “I have had so much business to attend to upon earth, that I have had no
time even to look up to heaven.” This is one of the perils of prosperity--to
forget God, and leave heaven out of account. (Helping Words.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》