Hosea 10:8-12

An Overthrown Altar

Hos 10:8-12

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed." We have seen that "Beth-el" means The house of God, and that by iniquity, manifold and black, Beth-el was turned into Bethaven, and that Bethaven means The house of vanity. This is an instance of deterioration, and more than mere deterioration; it is an instance of transformation from good to bad, from the heights of heaven to the depths of the world of fire. Such miracles can be accomplished in the individual character, and such miracles have been found possible in ecclesiastical relationship. Nature will not let things alone at any given point; nature is a destroyer; its very growths, if not checked and regulated, may come to express judgment, destruction, ruin. But the case is worse We now read of "the high places also of Aven"; the "Beth" is left out: once it was Bethaven, the house of vanity; now nothing is left but the vanity itself. As a house it was significant of definition, limitation: it was so much and no more for the time being; but the walls of definition have fallen down, the hedges and the boundaries are taken away, and there is nothing left but the smoke of vanity. That is the process of unchecked, untaught, unsanctified nature. We say of a man, He has still one or two redeeming qualities: he is sober, he is punctual, he is not wholly without feeling in the presence of sorrow or weakness. Gladly we point out two or three features that are supposed to be of a redeeming kind, and we gladly infer that so long as these exist the man may be saved, restored, set up again with rights and privileges in the household of God; but the time comes when every redeeming feature is lost, every fair line is blotted out, every sweet little thing that seemed to be as a prophecy in the life, foretelling summer, deliverance, and blessed immortality, is driven out; then men say of the abandoned one, Aven, vanity, all vanity and vexation of spirit, nothing of strength or beauty left; the whole man has gone away, and the brightest angel despairs of bringing him back again. The sin of Israel was the building of houses of vanity, the erection of altars on high places. Israel was theologically inventive; as soon as one pantheon was burned down Israel put up another. What is the issue according to prophetic instinct? "The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars." The words "come up" are very significant as originally used. Men always go "up" to the metropolis; no man goes "down" to London, Paris, St. Petersburg; to the capital, come from what place soever men may, they go up. It is even so with the house of God: no man goes down to church; the tribes go up; be the church ever so humble, and geographically or typographically be it in ever so little a place, no man goes down to it. To pray is to go up; to attend the humblest meeting-house is to ascend.

The mocking prophecy is full of bitter irony and taunt. The thorn and the thistle shall go up, come up, ascend to the altar; living men shall no longer be found there, disappointed souls shall have vanished from such mean altars; but now the worshippers shall be thorn and thistle, and weed of every name and quality. This the infinite mockery of God pronounced upon all merely natural religion. If men want nature they shall have it. God will remonstrate and expostulate, yea, he will solicitously importune them not to play such folly; but if they insist upon it they shall have nature in an abundance of growth, they shall be choked with its very luxuriance. Picture the altar with the thorn and the thistle growing all over it. Is there aught so mournful as an abandoned king? The very greatness of his former estate throws into humiliating contrast his present condition. A little cottage lying in a ruin is pathetic enough in its suggestions, for who can tell what births were there, and weddings, and little festivals, dances of glee and songs of innocent wildness? Who knows what honeysuckle grew there, or what roses jewelled the humble door? Who can tell how long and merrily the cradle was rocked there, and what little simple tragedies were wrought out under the unnamed and unknown roof? Every house has its sacred histories. But to see a great palace, a solemn, massive, magnificent architectural pile unroofed, the owl and the satyr hooting in it, and nature weaving her green robe as if to hide some mortal wound, what a sight is that! Compared with all such sights there is no vision so terrible, so humiliating, so instructive, as an overthrown altar a place once made sacred by prayer laughed at by nature, tormented as it were by a spirit of vengeance; dismantled, overthrown, mocked, leaped upon as if by invisible beasts of prey. There is but a step between thee and death. O man of genius, thou dost live next door to insanity; praying man, seraphic soul, one little step, and thou art with Lucifer. The altar will not save us, it must represent the altar of the heart; the outward sanctuary is no defence, it must represent by holy tender symbol the fortress of omnipotence, the very arms of Jehovah. "And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us." So much for nature-worship. A mountain should be satisfied with admiration, and we ourselves should be satisfied in according admiration to a mountain; or say for admiration wonder, with some touch of almost reverence in it: the pile is so vast that where other little hills catch only green patches, it goes high enough to catch the snow. But there must be no worship of nature; men must not even worship the sun. The sun is only an infinitised sparklet; it is nothing in itself. There never flew a comet through the sky that could not be put into a thimble. We must use nature, seek out the purpose of God in nature; use the mountains as stairways leading to something beyond themselves, and we may be most grateful to nature, responding to every tone of music, answering every appeal of abundance; but worship we must keep for God. If we will persist in worshipping the material, the natural, the outward, at last it will come to desiring the very thing we have worshipped to fall on us. We exhaust nature; we spend the stars, and are paupers after the revel. It is only God that is everlasting; it is only Christ who has unsearchable riches; it is only the Holy Ghost that can train man into perfectness, and therefore into rest and peace and the very quiet of the calm of God. There is no picture in all the gallery of Holy Writ so terrible as that which represents men as seeking death, and not finding it; desiring to die, and death fleeing from them. So men shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and it will be as if the mountains rooted themselves more firmly to the rocks on which they rest: men shall say to the hills, Fall on us; and the hills will fail to answer. For "mountains," for "hills," put any other terms that suggest false worship, false trust, profane loyalty put money, health, influence, greatness of any kind, all things that are not in God and of the quality of God; and according to the will and purpose of God, they come to this, that they disappoint their devotees, and turn their worshippers into victims. Such has been the consistent story of human experience.

"It is in my desire that I should chastise them" ( Hos 10:10 ).

That is a graphic expression; the whole meaning of it does not appear in the English tongue. God does not willingly afflict the children of men; it is not the delight of Almightiness to crush. It is the vanity of considerable strength to tyrannise, but in proportion as strength becomes complete it pities, it spares the helpless, for it knows that by one uplifting of its arm, and the down-bringing of the same, it could crush every opponent. Imperfect strength is a despot: Almightiness is mercy. But now there is a stirring in the divine emotions. God says, It will be better for these people to be afflicted; they have left nothing for themselves now but depletion, and they must be brought to the very point of extermination. "It will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies"; "Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted." These are not the first words that God utters. Their meaning is in their postponement. Our eloquence has to be forced out of us. The Lord is very pitiful and kind, and his eyes are full of tears, and judgment is his strange work; but there have been times in the history of Providence which could only be consistently and rationally construed by granting that even the divine Father must be stirred to the desire to chastise and humble wicked men. "And the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows." Change the grammar if you would see the deeper meaning. Not, They shall bind themselves; but, They shall be bound as well. There shall be a voluntary act, but above that there shall be a confirmation of that act, that shall turn the change of it into an impossibility. Men bind themselves with a yoke, and God takes care to lock that yoke upon them. It is a human act, and it is also a divine act. Men will enclose themselves in their concealed chambers that they may perpetrate what iniquity they please, and when they have fastened themselves within, God fastens them without, the door closes on both sides; so when the revellers have ceased their carnival, and seek to return, lo! the door is locked on the other side. When will men see the two sides of everything, the corresponding aspects of every action? Life is not, as we have often seen, a series of dissociated accidents; it is one and the same, a continuity, an ongoing process, every part of which belongs to every other part. "They shall bind themselves in their two furrows"; that is to say, they shall be unanimous in sin; they never could draw equal furrows before them. In everything that expressed discipline, wise training, right education, submission to divine law, the furrow was crooked, the furrows when two were drawn together were dissimilar; the ox and the ass could not plough equally; the furrows betokened reluctance on the part of the plough, or restiveness, or ill-behaviour; but now men can be unanimous in sin. who never could get into accord in prayer, in benevolence, in noblest thinking. There are fellowships of darkness; there are men who unhappily can agree in spoiling the helpless, in wrecking the poor, in doing mischief. Ask them to agree in theological opinion, and they instantly fly away from the suggestion involving, as they suppose, an impossibility. Propose to them to act in accord upon any really noble question, and you will find their minds most inventive in the originating of excuses, difficulties, and hindrances of every name and degree; suggest to them that they should drink out of the same goblet, and they will seize the goblet with avidity; suggest that they should co-operate in evil, and the devil never had servants who more eagerly engaged in his service. How many are the compacts in life that are based on a determination to do that which is wrong! Pilate and Herod were made friends one day. They who were dissimilar in thought and feeling were united under circumstances of the most tragical interest. There must be binding; yoke upon yoke must be added to the neck. The question is, whether we will submit to a yoke that is imposed upon us for the outworking of our ruin, or whether we will listen to the voice that says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest: take my yoke upon you; my yoke is easy, my burden is light." A yoke you must have, says every voice wise in history: it is for man to say whether he will be yoked as a beast, or whether he will be disciplined as a child of God.

"And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn" ( Hos 10:11 ).

Poor Ephraim! History has no good word to say about Ephraim. Ephraim, though carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle; Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, whose appetites are excited and trained and directed along certain lines, and Ephraim loveth to tread out the corn. Is not that a compliment to Ephraim? Have we not in Jewish history seen the patient oxen going round and round the mill, and causing the stones to revolve so that the corn might be ground? Is not that a very excellent thing to do? No, not for Ephraim, because Ephraim gets advantage from this. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." Ephraim wanted plenty to eat; put Ephraim in a pasture, and he was most buoyantly, though selfishly, obedient and religious; put Ephraim to treading out the corn where he could fill himself from morning till night, and he walked as if an obedient child. There are too many men who are wonderfully obedient and pious when they are making gain by it. History is not wanting in instances in which men have apparently been going about their business in the most faithful, obedient, scrupulous manner, when in reality they were only going about it in order that they might eat the feast. Hence the meaning of the words that follow: "But I passed over upon her fair neck": I handled the yoke daintily, I did not force it upon the face of Ephraim, as if to break his teeth in the act of putting the yoke over the neck; but I acted daintily; I studied the occasion, I watched when Ephraim lifted the head, and presently the yoke was put over the fair neck, and that which lifted itself in pride found itself to be bent down in humiliation. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." We never know what God is doing. In the very midst of our rioting and feasting he slips a yoke over our fair neck, and we who sat down as guests remain as prisoners. "I will make Ephraim to ride." The grammar must be changed in order to get at the meaning: I will send a rider upon Ephraim, who shall so handle the bridle and dig the spurs into his quaking sides as to make him feel that he is no longer master. "Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods": they shall begin at the other end of the work; they shall not have all the corn-grinding and corn-eating to do, but they shall plough, do the hard work. "And Jacob shall break his clods": clods that he cannot eat; if he attempt to eat them, they shall break his teeth as with gravel-stones. Judah and Jacob shall be taught to work, to do what is useful, and by-and-by they may have plentifulness of bread. Until this is done nothing is done solidly in life. If you have not learned how to make your money's worth your money is of no use to you; if you are operating by trickery or by falsity, the end is simply disappointment and possible ruin. He who cannot plough and break his clods has no right to the loaf. We have only a right to the bread we have worked for. When men understand this, boys will be brought up to be independent. No boy is independent who cannot work. There is only one independent man in the world, and that is the working man. He is independent in poverty; nature lives for him, nature waits for him, nature says to him, I am your humble servant. A man who has only money can lose it; a man who has skill has treasure in a bank that will not fail. This is the difficulty of all education to bring parents to understand that their children must be taught to plough and to break up the clods. No, it is better that the boy should be clothed in broadcloth, and should have white hands, and should not be put to any inconvenience; the boy must not go out at five in the morning, and yoke horses and get the plough into the furrow and attend to the drudgery of husbandry, the boy must be a "gentleman farmer"! This is called kindness. The boy will live to curse the cruelty of such benevolence.

"Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy." Rather, Sow righteousness in the proportion of mercy: as God has been merciful to you, so be ye righteous to him; keep pace for pace with the divine mercy: be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect; be ye holy as your Father in heaven is holy. This is the ideal; God would have human righteousness in proportion to divine mercy. The standard is not arbitrary, it is gracious and tender and condescending; but who can attain unto it? It is not in man that liveth to keep pace with God. "Break up your fallow ground": this is not the order of husbandry. The Scripture cares nothing for your orders and chronologies. This Book in particular is a book that is urgent, energetic, tumultuous in its style. There are those who will only go with the clock, and have the clock strike two after it has struck one; this Book will strike twelve after one, and ten after seven. It is God's indicator; it will excite attention; it cares nothing for your mechanical orders; it rushes, roars, exclaims as with a trumpet voice, whispers as it delivering the message of burdened life. "Break up your fallow ground." Stir your souls, put on your strength, excite yourselves to the highest, noblest animation; no longer live the life of indifference, but live the life of enthusiasm and passion: make the best of yourselves; cultivate every out-of-the-way corner of your lives: break up, break up, break up; prepare for the harvest. "For it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." It is always time to seek the Lord; let us say here, It is high time, it is more than time; the hour is almost past up! It is the appeal of one who would stir the sluggard from his sloth, and break in upon the glamour of his destructive dreams. "Till he come and rain righteousness upon you." That is an unfamiliar figure; that, indeed, is not the figure which the prophet represented. To rain righteousness means, in the Scriptures, to teach righteousness. Here some of the ripest and holiest commentators have found what they believe to be a prophecy of the coming of the Holy Ghost It is the business of the Spirit to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; it is the function of the Spirit to reveal the righteousness of God. We are therefore to seek the Lord till he come, in some form or personality of ministry, to represent righteousness, to teach righteousness, to make the world forget all its mistakes, and begin anew, to do the right thing and the beautiful thing. No prophet could anticipate the coming of the Holy Ghost who did not first accept in his deepest consciousness the coming of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, from whom, as from the Father, proceedeth the eternal Spirit Whilst we are anxious not to import meanings into the Bible, we should be equally anxious not to impoverish the Bible of its richest suggestiveness.