Hosea 10:13-15

The prolific fruits of evil.

The Israelites are not only charged with neglect of duty, but with sins of commission. The concluding verses of the chapter point out this contrariety of their conduct to the foregoing exhortation, and its consequences; trace the source of their sinful courses to their carnal confidences; and foretell the coming calamities caused thereby.

I. THE CONDUCT OF THE PEOPLE HAD BEEN DIRECTLY CONTRARY TO THE ADMONITION JUST GIVEN .

1. They had been not only neglectful of duty, indifferent and careless about spiritual concerns, and self-satisfied with their sinful course, but had taken much pains in pursuing a course the opposite of what duty demanded. They had not only lived in sin, enjoying its so-called pleasures, but had labored in the practice of it, serving Satan and doing his drudgery. Thus they ploughed wickedness. Not content with the spontaneous growth thereof, which is sufficiently abundant in every natural heart, they actually cultivated it, sparing no pains and grudging no diligence in its culture. Thus they ploughed and sowed laboriously; but it was tares, not wheat or good grain they spent their labor on.

2. As they ploughed and sowed, so they reaped; the crop in harvest-time corresponded with the seed which they had sown, and for which they had made such careful preparation. The harvest was abundant, the increase thirty, or sixty, or a hundredfold. The quantity was large, but the quality was bad. "In all labor there is profit," said a minister to a man at work. "There is one exception," was the reply; "for years I labored in the service of Satan, and of that labor I can truly say, 'What fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.'"

3. The fruit of lies, like lies themselves, is deceptive; such fruit resembles the fabled apples on the shore of the Dead Sea—attractive in appearance, but ashes in the mouth. The pleasures of the wicked don't satisfy; their gains don't profit in the end; all sinful works are unfruitful works. Thus it was with Israel's hypocrisy, idolatry, and other abominations.

II. THEIR CARNAL CONFIDENCES WERE THE SOURCE 0r ISRAEL 'S SINS . They are also a common source of sin still. The people of Israel trusted in their ways of political wisdom, and the power and prowess of their mighty men. Their statecraft, their calf-worship, their military preparations, were their confidences. The fountainhead of their offending, the source whence such bitter waters flowed, and flowed so copiously, was the confidence they reposed in refuges of lies—their way inclusive of their wicked calf-worship, their tortuous worldly policy, and their forbidden foreign alliances with the heathen. Such was their internal safeguard, while the multitude of their mighty men was their external defense. All these confidences failed them. Every promise that sin makes to the sinner is a lie; the fruit of sin, like sin itself, is fallacious and deceptive.

III. CALAMITIES CROWDED ON THEM AS THE CONSEQUENCES , AND IN PUNISHMENT , OF SIN .

1. Their cities were sacked, their fortresses dismantled, their citizens and countrymen butchered, and unheard-of cruelties perpetrated.

2. Here we see how the worldly wise are taken in their own craftiness, and how sin finds the sinner out. The consequence of all was not a time of peace, but the tumult of war extending to the whole people in their tribal divisions, and probably to their neighbors, with whom they were in alliance; while the issue of the war was defeat and disaster—their defenses were destroyed, their strongholds rifled, the triumph of the enemy complete, and their cruelty unchecked.

3. See the bitter fruit of sin.

HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN