Hosea 9:10-11

God's goodness met with ingratitude by a sinful people.

Instead of repenting of their sins, they persevered in their rebellion against God. As if God overlooked or connived at their enormities, they added their deep corruption in the matter of Gibeah, in the days of the judges, to the iniquity of Baal-peor at a still earlier period; while the sins of Gibeah and Baal-peor were equaled by those of the prophet's own day.

I. THE DELIGHT WHICH GOD TOOK IN THEIR FATHERS . Their sainted sires had been the favorites of Heaven; the fathers and founders of their race had sought God's "face and favor free;" and, walking in his ways, enjoyed his benediction.

1. God's pleasure in the piety of his people is truly astonishing, though that piety is entirely traceable to his own gracious dealings with them. When a weary wanderer in a wilderness comes upon grapes rich and ripe, or figs the first and finest of the season, how he is refreshed by fruits so rare and luscious! Such is the strong and suggestive figure by which God expresses his delight in his servants of old; nor does he take less delight in them in the present than in the ancient days. Men like Abraham the faithful, or Isaac the meditative, or Jacob the prayerful, or Joseph the pure, or Moses the meek, enjoy the sunshine of God's favor still.

2. Where much is given much is required. If God thus delights in his people, surely his people should delight in God. If God views with such complacency the fruit of his own Spirit's operations in the hearts of his people, and the effects of his own grace seen reflected in their lives, surely it is our bounden duty as well as high privilege to reciprocate in some measure the Divine goodness, delighting in the Divine ordinances, living in the Divine service, and promoting the Divine glory.

3. God is particularly delighted with the firstfruits, and not only so, but with the first of the firstfruits. Here is special encouragement to the young to devote themselves early to God, and early to delight themselves in him. They are invited to give their young hearts to God when the dew of their youth is heavy upon them—when their perception is keen, their conscience tender, their affections warm, and their memory retentive.

II. THEIR DEGENERACY . Their fathers had been to God as grapes in a desert land, and as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time; but the degenerate descendants of such godly ancestry had become like fruit bitter and sour. They resembled fruitless fig trees, or the wild vine with its small harsh berries; and that, notwithstanding all Jehovah's care and culture, they had long ceased to walk in the ways or follow the steps of their godly forefathers. The holiness of those forefathers, refreshing as grapes of best quality and figs of the first growth to the heart of God, was no longer to be found; their fruit was sour, their ways corrupt. The God of their fathers had ceased to be their God. "Oh! it is a comfortable thing," says an old divine, "when a child is able to say, as Exodus 15:2 , 'My God,' and "My father's God." "God was my father's God, and delighted in my father; and, blessed be his Name, he is my God, and I hope he has some delight in me."

III. THEIR DEPRAVITY . They for their part (the use of the pronoun adds emphasis) went to Baal-peor.

1. Here they are either contrasted with their godly forefathers, or the contrast is rather between God's care and goodness on the one hand, and their ingratitude and baseness on the other. The complaint of God resemble, that of a fond and indulgent husband who has lavished his love on a worthless wife, and who, to his unspeakable mortification, discovers that he has been cherishing an adulteress. Instead of reciprocating his affection, She plays the wanton; instead of a suitable return for his many acts of kindness, tenderness, and care, she dishonors him by turning aside to some base adulterer. So with Israel when they turned from the living God to dumb idols; so with any people who, instead of seating their affections on God, transfer them to any earthly, sensual, or sinful object.

2. We see in the conduct of Israel a notable example of the perverted use of the Divine mercies. God had segregated Israel from the nations around them, and separated them to himself to be a peculiar people. The Nazarite who by his vow was separated and specially consecrated to Jehovah, was symbolical of the whole nation in its separation and consecration to God. But, regardless of God's mercy and reckless of their own privileges, they separated themselves to the service of a shameful idol. When they went to Baal-peor, whether the idol itself or rather the place of the idol (the same as Beth-peer), they engaged with full consecration, rather desecration, of all their powers in the infamous worship of Baal, here called Bosheth , their shame.

3. Their abominations were according as they loved; that is,

4. Here, in passing, we observe one of the many references and allusions of the prophet to the earlier books of Scripture. Through the evil counsel of Balsam a stumbling-block was placed in the way of the people of Israel, when they were enticed to impurity and so to idolatry by the daughters of Moab, and when, in consequence of their sin in the matter of Baal-peor, so many thousands perished in the plague.

IV. THEIR DESTRUCTION . Ephraim's glory consisted of many elements—prosperity, pomp, and power, but most especially their population and numerous progeny as contributing to that population. In this particularly did Ephraim glory; but the day of their glory comes to a speedy and disastrous end.

1. The departure of their glory is compared to the flight of a bird, and thus that departure is represented as sudden , like the flight of a bird when it is startled from its nest in the greenwood, or when some one throws open the door of the cage in the dwelling where it has been imprisoned; as swift , like the flight of the eagle toward heaven; as irretrievable , like the bird of powerful pinion, which distances pursuit and escapes beyond the possibility of being ever caught or found again.

2. Disaster awaits them at every stage—conception, gestation, and parturition. The curse of God pursues them from first to last, hindering the conception, or causing abortion, or preventing the birth.

APPLICATION . Learn hence:

1. The folly of glorying in any earthly prosperity or worldly advantage. "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven."

2. The prosperity of the wicked lasts not long. Ephraim, comprehending the ten tribes, had enjoyed great prosperity, and had surpassed Judah in numbers. This was particularly the case in the reign of Jeroboam II ; to which this Scripture may probably refer. They had enjoyed prosperity so long, they thought it would last always; yet it passed away as in a moment.

3. Let us seek the glory that is real and abiding. "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he under-standeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord."

4. What reason we have to bless God for his preserving care. "He preserved us in the very conception, preserved us in our mother's womb, and then in the birth; and then in the cradle, in our childhood, in our youth, in our middle age, and in our old age; for we lie at his mercy at every point of time."

"Thy providence my life sustained,

And all my wants redressed,

When in the silent womb I lay,

And hung upon the breast."