Hosea 14:8-9

A call to understanding.

The former verse exhibits Ephraim brining forth the fruits of repentance, abandoning idolatry forever. God on his part hears his prayers, grants his petitions, and makes him the object of his paternal care and kind providence. Nor is that all; he becomes to him refreshment in every time of need, and the source of fruitfulness at all times. It is the part of understanding and the privilege of the prudent to devote due attention to and to attain to proper discernment of such things. By the judicious exercise of their natural powers, quickened and strengthened by grace, they convince themselves of the rightness and justness of God's ways, and continue, to their own unspeakable comfort, to walk therein; but transgressors stumble at God's dealings and fall into the perdition of ungodly men.

HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN