Hosea 2:6-13

The pains and penalties that are attached to sin.

In the Book of Judges it is stated once and again that, when the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, he delivered them into the hand of their enemies. "They forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled them; The children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin King of Canaan;" "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian."

I. THE DIFFICULTIES PLACED IS THEIR WAY . First there is a hedge, which no one can crush through without risk of painful lacerations. God frequently draws round sinful pleasures, as a fence, severe sufferings to warn men against their indulgence. But when all restraints are cast aside, and men will force their way through all such fences, there is another mode of Divine operation, which opposes an insurmountable barrier to men's lusts. If a hedge may be broken through, a wall cannot; if a hedge fail to check men in their onward career of sin, a wall will effect the purpose. 1t thorns in the flesh do not deter men from sinful gratifications, a wall is raised up that cannot be passed over, when, through failure of bodily strength, the crippling of worldly resources, the removal of opportunity or occasion, or otherwise, those gratifications become impossible. The sorrows which Israel suffered by their idols and idolatrous alliances were only the hedge, and served merely for a partial and passable fence; the wall was a complete separation between them and their sins.

II. THE DEFEAT OF HER DESIGNS . The most vigorous pursuit fails, the most minute search is frustrated. For years and centuries the Hebrew race has had their eyes directed to a temporal Messiah, who would lead the armies of his people, fight their battles, triumph over all enemies, and raise them to the highest pinnacle of human greatness, and their nation to a proud pre-eminence among the kingdoms of the earth. We know the result. God has hedged up their way and walled up their path. So, too, with sinners in general. God often seeks by cross providences to withdraw man from his purpose. He places thorns and snares in the way of the froward, making the way of sin difficult, sometimes impossible, so that they follow after their beloved lusts but do not overtake them, and seek them but cannot find them. How different with the search after gospel grace! It is "ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find."

III. THE DETERMINATION AT LENGTH ARRIVED AT . The disappointments which Israel meets with bring them to a sense of sin and its sorrows. Having long and eagerly sought satisfaction in the pursuits of the world and in the pleasures of sense, they are forced at last to acknowledge their mistake. Such things do not and cannot satisfy; they are husks that starve but do not support a hungry soul; their idols cannot succor them in the time of need. They recall the early history of their nation, and, contrasting the past with the present, are convinced of the better days that had long gone by. They thought of the time when Jehovah was the God of Israel, sitting between the cherubim, and when the prosperity of the people had kept pace with their piety. How different now! How different ever after Jeroboam seduced them to the idolatry of the calves, or Ahab indoctrinated them in the heathenish rites of the dual deities of Phoenicia! The retrospect persuaded them of their sad mistake in departing from their true Husband and Head. Finding themselves hardly bestead, their condition desperate, and their hopes blighted, they determine to retrace their steps, and with sentiments and language closely akin to the prodigal in our Lord's parable, they set about the accomplishment of their purpose.

IV. THE SAD MISTAKE OF ISRAEL . In the time of their plenty and prosperity they mistook the source of their blessings, as also the right use of them. They attributed them to their idols, and abused them in their service. Worldly prosperity was what Israel, in the period of degeneracy, most cared for. What contributed to bodily gratification, luxurious living, and worldly wealth, was most esteemed by them. These they counted blessings, and regarded as the bestowments of their idols. Just as in Jeremiah's time their brethren, or rather sisters, of Judah clung obstinately and stupidly to the evil and error of their ways, saying," We will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine." Whatever excuse the heathen may have had when they spoke of their corn as coming from Ceres, and their wine as the gift of Bacchus, and their wealth as bestowed by Ptutus, Israel had none; for they had early been instructed in the knowledge of the one living and true Cod, and early as well as impressively reminded that the good land, which yielded the corn and on which the vine and olive grew, was God's gift; and that it was God, moreover, who gave them power to get wealth, so that however plentiful the silver and abundant the gold, they owed all to him. Worst of all, they not only mistook the Author of these mercies, but perverted them to the service of a rival deity, thus provoking Jehovah to jealousy with that which was not God, but the miserable idol of Sidon, Tyre, and Phoenicia.

V. SEVERE CHASTISEMENT WAS THE CONSEQUENCE . This was to be expected. Created things are given to man for his service, and man himself was created for God's service; but when man perverts the creatures which God has given him, and, instead of serving and glorifying God by means of them, actually employs them in ways and for purposes derogatory to the Divine glory, no wonder the Almighty, in just indignation, should snatch them from him who so misuses and abuses them. As in yen. 8 the addition of the personal pronoun to the verb gives emphasis, so in verse 9 the repetition of the possessive pronoun with the nouns serves the same end. "She did not know, not she, that I even I it was that gave her corn and wine and oil,… therefore I will take away my corn, my wine, my wool, and my flax." God requires two things at least in return for his mercies:

Men praise the fruitful earth, but it is God that makes the earth fruitful; men talk learnedly of the laws of nature, but it is God that invests nature with those functions, or arranges those natural sequences called laws; men boast of good fortune, but such fortune is only the bounteous providence of God. Whether, then, it is articles of food, or materials of raiment, or the precious metals which represent wealth that men possess, it is God that either gives or withholds at pleasure. How beautifully this lesson is inculcated in that precious chapter, the eighth of Deuteronomy! "When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee;" and again, beware that "thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth." Further, the question with Israel, as with the heathen both then and now, is, "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" whereas the question should be. "How shall we use God's gifts to God's glory; so that whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we may glorify God?" The abuse of God's mercies abridges the time of their enjoyment; when we misuse or mismanage our stewardship, he turns us out of office, and tells us we may be no longer stewards; when we forget the Giver and forsake his service, we forfeit our interest m his gifts. The manner, too, of their removal adds justly merited severity to the stroke. Just as the time of reaping arrives, the harvest becomes a heap; just as the ship reaches the port, it becomes a wreck; just at the season when all seems sure and hopes are highest, the blight descends and expectation ends in bitterest disappointment.

VI. SHAME AGGRAVATES THE CHASTISEMENT . A sense of shame is sometimes the most painful punishment; men of greatest physical courage have often been found devoid of sufficient moral courage to bear up against a laugh or resist a sneer. Besides, when insult is added to injury, the indignity is complete. When Israel prospered, her folly was covered and her sin cloaked; her lewdness was long concealed, being unseen, or overlooked, or thought lightly of. But when the prosperity is withdrawn, the covering is cast aside and the cloak torn off. Outward prosperity, while it lasts, is like gilding over many a lewd life, or like veneering over a loose character. But when, in the providence of God, the day of adversity comes, the inward vileness becomes transparent; when Israel fell from her prosperous state, her corruption was made manifest, even in the sight of the idols she loved, and whose love-tokens she fancied herself to have enjoyed, or of the idolatrous nations whose alliance she courted, or of the sun and moon which as deities she worshipped; she is stripped naked, and exposed to shame, contempt, and insult. Nor is there any hope of remedy or prospect of recovery. It has been well remarked that "those who will not deliver themselves into the hand of God's mercy, cannot be delivered out of the hand of his justice."

VII. SORROW FOLLOWS SHAME IN THE DAY OF ISRAEL 'S DISTRESS . Israel continued to keep up the outward ordinances of religion, but the inward essence had long departed; there was the semblance of worship, but the reality was altogether absent; there was a form of godliness, but it was destitute of the living power. Jeroboam had made the worship of Jehovah a state religion. The changes he introduced were with the view of furthering his political interests. The worship he established was a sort of rival worship, so that the breach between the ten tribes and the two might become wider and still widening. He changed the manner of worship by the introduction of images or symbols, so that Jehovah was worshipped under the form of a calf, as though in allusion to the cherubim over the mercy-seat; he changed the place of worship from its central seat at Jerusalem to Dan in the north and Bethel in the south; he changed the time of worship, at least in the case of the Feast of Tabernacles, from the seventh month to the eighth, as though the harvest was later in the north than in the south; he changed the ministers of worship, taking the priests out of all the tribes without distinction, and not from that of Levi, which had resisted his innovations and refused to sanction his godless novelties. But notwithstanding these changes—and important changes they were—he retained so much of the national worship as suited his purpose, and did not clash with his usurpation or tend to weaken his authority. Israel still had the weekly sabbath, memorial of creation work completed; and the month-sabbath, a monthly dedication to God. They had the three yearly festivals—the pesach, with the chag ha-matzoth, to commemorate the deliverance from Egypt; the chag ha-sh'bu'oth, or feast of weeks, called also chag ha-gatzir, the feast of harvest, and yom ha-biccurim, day of firstfruits; and the chag ha-asiph, the feast of ingathering, or chag ha-succoth . feast of tabernacles, or simply chag, the feast by way of eminence, the completion of the ingathering of fruits and vintage, and commemoration of Israel dwelling in tents in the wilderness; they had all the other solemn feasts of thanksgiving to God for special providences or particular blessings. With all these feasts were associated merry-makings, especially with that of tabernacles; but now God takes all these away. The outward joy had for long been severed from that inward spiritual joy of true religion; only the semblance remained, for the substance was gone. And now shadow as well as substance is to pass away. God in judgment turns their joy into sorrow, their mirth into melancholy. "Sin and mirth," says an old writer, "can never hold long together; but if men will not take away sin from their mirth, God will take away mirth from their sin."

VIII. RUIN OF THEIR PROSPECTS AS WELL AS OF THEIR POSSESSIONS . The threatened destruction of their vines and fig trees affected, not only their present and actual possessions, but also their future and possible prospects. The fruits of one year, or even of several, might fail; but other years of better harvests and other seasons of greater fruitfulness might repair in some measure the loss. The destruction here threatened, however, is not only that of one year's fruits or of one season's produce, but the cutting off of all future hope. It is not only the destruction of the fruits, but of the trees, and so a ruin without remedy. Neither is it a partial destruction—some of those fruit-bearing trees being still spared—but total; the country would be laid waste, the fences would be broken down, the enclosures taken away, and the vineyards left as a common; the fig trees would give place to forest trees, and wild beasts devour and dwell amid the ruins. Yet Israel could not say that this ruin was unmerited, for the prophet is careful to remind them bow foully they had abused the favors of God's providence, and scandalously regarded them as the fruits of their idolatry, the gifts of their idols, or the hire of their spiritual adultery.

IX. RETRIBUTION COMMENSURATE WITH THEIR WRONGDOING . God's chastisements in this, as often in other cases, bear an obvious proportion to the heinousness of men's sin and the time of its continuance. Like wicked men and seducers in general, idolaters wax worse and worse. From the wrong way of worshipping God under the images of the calves according to their own devices, they had proceeded to the grosser sin of setting up an idol in his place. This idolatry had long continued, and that continuance made an era in their history here named the days of Baalim.

1. The variety of this idolatry is specified. They worshipped Baal under divers forms, for divers purposes, and in divers places; and hence the plural, Baalim.

2. We may notice the devoutness of their idolatry. The burning of incense preceded the morning and succeeded the evening sacrifice of a lamb in the temple. It was symbolical of prayer and thanksgiving; it was, in fact, the highest and holiest of the priest's functions, as we may infer from Luke 1:9 .

3. Further, the preparation and pomp of this service to which Israel prostituted the wealth she possessed, decking herself, adulteress-like, with her earrings and her jewels, and lavishing the good gifts of God's providence on contemptible and filthy idols.

4. Her eagerness for idol-worship is as noticeable as it is lamentable. Unsought, unsolicited, without inducement or allurement, she takes the initiative, and with unblushing importunity makes advances to her lovers.

5. The blackest sin of all, and in some sort the source of all, was her forgetfulness of God. Alas! how often do men and women abuse the best gifts of God, and pervert them to the vilest purposes! How often are they far more zealous in a wrong course than in the right! How often do sinful pursuits engross their noblest powers! How often does the storm of evil passion sweep away all thoughts of God out of their mind I How often, amid the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, the pride of life, groveling avarice, soaring ambition, and schemes of worldliness, do men forget God altogether; or at least how often do they consecrate to self, or sensuality, or sin in some of its countless forms, the thoughts, affections, and love which God claims as justly his duel How often, too, does God visit with terrible retribution the sins of such!