Hosea 4
v. 1 – “the Lord hath
a controversy with the inhabitants of the land,
because
there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God
in the land”
“no truth” implies
that there is “no one doing the truth, and no one
speaking the truth;” while on the words “nor
mercy,” he adds, “How much
[does it follow
thence] that there is no mercy, for mercy is the superabundance
of goodness over and above what is meet; and as to him who does not
maintain either truth or
justice, how much less will he show mercy?” (The
Founding Fathers thought concerning the
King of
vain to hope for mercy where one will not do
justice” – CY - 2009) - The
combination of truth,
mercy, and knowledge of God may be compared
with the triple
duties specified by Micah, as doing justly, loving mercy, and
walking humbly with
God – Micah 6:8
comments on this controversy as follows: “With the inhabitants of the land
of
that they should exercise righteousness and judgment, and on this condition
I pledged myself to them that my eyes would be upon them from the
beginning of the year to the end of the year. But since they practice the
opposite — cursing, lying, etc. — I also will act with them in a way
contrary to what I assured them, and will hide my face from them.”
Truth and mercy are at once Divine attributes and human virtues; it is in
the latter sense, of course, that they are here employed. Truth includes
works as well as words, doing as well as saying; it implies uprightness in
speech and behavior — thorough integrity of character and conduct,
Mercy goes beyond and supplements this. We sometimes say of such a one
that he is an honest but a hard man. Mercy combined with truth, on the
contrary, makes a man kind as well as honest, benevolent as well as
upright. The knowledge of God is
the real root of these two virtues of truth and
mercy. If we know God as He is in Himself and as He stands in His relations to
us, we shall conform our conduct to His character and our actions to His will. If
we know God to be a God of truth, who delighteth in truth in the inward
parts, we shall cultivate truth in our hearts, express it with our lips, and
practice it in our lives. If we know God as a God of mercy, who has shown
such boundless mercy to us in pardoning our multiplied and aggravated
offences, we shall imitate that mercy in our relations to our fellow-man.
See Exodus 34:6-7
v. 2 - The absence of the virtues specified implies the presence of the opposite
vices. “Swearing, and lying, and murdering, and stealing, and committing
adultery.” The commandments
which the children of
the third, the ninth, the sixth, the eighth, and the
seventh.
“they break out” –
they break through the wall which is a fence to keep
us from overly sinning and by doing so multiply transgressions.
v. 3 – Moral evil
transmutes itself into physical evil and even inanimate
and animate creation suffers. All creation,
rational and irrational, are
involved with the consequences of
v. 4 - looks
like an interjected clause, coming in the middle of the
enumeration of Divine judgments; and the purpose is
not so much to justify
the severity of those judgments as to intimate their inefficacy, owing to the
incorrigible character of the
people.
“Yet let no man
strive, nor reprove another: thy people
are as they that strive
with the priest” -
reasoning with them would be useless, and reproof thrown
away because of the
desperate obstinacy of these offenders - they were so self-
willed that they would
not allow any one to reprove them for their conduct.
“God had taken
the controversy with His people into His own hands; the
Lord, he said (ver.
1), had a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
Here He forbids man
to intermeddle; man let him not strive (he again uses the
same word).
The people were obstinate and would not
hear… so God bids man
to cease to speak in
His Name. He himself alone will implead them, whose
pleading none could
evade or contradict.”
Is there an
allusion to Korah and his company gainsaying to Aaron
in Numbers
16 and referred
to in Psalm 106:16?
In Deuteronomy 17:12,
“The man that will do presumptuously, and will
not
hearken unto the priest
that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy
God, or unto the
judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put
away the
evil from
persons who were so
obstinate and presumptuous as neither to obey nor
reverence, but rather
rebel against, the true priests of Jehovah, who, in his
Divine Name and
by Divine authority, instructed or reproved. Such persons
neither feared God nor
regarded man. It was the refractoriness of
pupils
acting in opposition to
their teacher, or of a people rising in rebellion
against their spiritual
instructors. Thus the Chaldee understands it: “And
thy people contend
[quarrel] with their teachers.” (There is a two-fold
modern
application: sounds like attitudes found
both in secular society
and the modern
school system today – CY – 2009)
Romans 3:18 – “There is no fear of God before their eyes”
Psalm 2:3 – “Let us break their
bands asunder, and cast away their
cords
from us”
They are similar to
the “boundary movers” in ch. 5:10 or those who
want to re-write
history in our day an time! (CY – 2009)
v. 5 – “Therefore shalt thou fall
in the day, and the prophet also shall
fall with
thee in the night” - the meaning of the sentence, divested
of its peculiar form of parallelism, is that people and prophet
alike
would fall together, at all times, both by day and by night,
that is to
say, there would be no time free from the coming calamities;
and
there would be no possibility of escape, either for the
sinful people or
their unfaithful priests; the darkness of the night would
not hide them,
the light of the day would not aid them; destruction was the
doom of
priests and people, inevitable and at all times.
Compare v. 14 – “THE PEOPLE
THAT DOTH NOT UNDERSTAND
SHALL FALL”
v. 6 – “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” - The knowledge of
God is the most excellent of all sciences. Paul counted all things but loss in
comparison with its possession; and our
blessed Lord Himself says, “This
is
ife eternal, that they might know thee the only
true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom thou hast sent;” while the Prophet Isaiah (5:13) attributed the captivity to
its absence: “My people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge.”
“Because
thou hast rejected knowledge...
seeing thou hast forgotten the Law
of thy God”. The
cause of this ignorance is here charged on the unfaithfulness
of the
priesthood. They
rejected knowledge and forgot the Law of their God. The two
concluding clauses of this verse may be regarded as “split members” of a
single sentence. As rejection implies the presence of the object rejected,
while forgetfulness implies its absence from the mind or memory, some
have understood rejection of knowledge as the sin of the priest, and
forgetfulness that of the people. This separation is not
necessary, for
what
men continue for a
time to despise they will by-and-by forget. The
forgetfulness is thus an advance upon rejection. The sin of these priests
was very great, for, while the priests’ lips were required to keep
knowledge, they neither preserved that knowledge themselves nor
promoted it among the people; hence the indignant and direct address.
Compare Jesus’ words about lawyers (ACLU)? in Luke 11:52 – “Woe unto
you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered
not in yourselves, and them that were entering in YE HINDERED”
Thus Kimchi says: “He addresses the priestly order that existed at that
time: Thou hast rejected he knowledge for thyself and to teach it to the
people, consequently I will reject thee from being a priest unto me. Since
thou dost not exercise the office of priest, which is to teach the Law, I will
reject thee so that thou shalt not
be a priest in my house.” I will also reject
thee that thou shalt be
no priest to me… I will also forget thy
children, even I. The punishment resembles the offence; the human
delinquency is reflected in
the Divine retaliation.
v. 7 – the more they were blessed the more they sinned
against God!
Proverbs 1:32 – “the prosperity of fools shall destroy
them”
v. 8 – “they set their
heart on their iniquity”
v. 9 – “I will punish
them for their ways, and reward them their doings”
Proverbs 1:31 – “Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of
their own
way, and be filled with t heir own devices”
HOW A MAN’S WAYS COME HOME TO HIM!
v. 10 – “they have left off
to take heed to
the Lord” – they have
forsaken the Lord to observe whoredom and wine and
new wine?????????????????
v. 11 – “Whoredom and
wine and new wine take away the heart”
This states the debasing influence which
debauchery and drunkenness
are known to exercise over both head and
heart: they dull the faculties
of the former and
deaden the affections of the latter. The heart is not only
the seat of the affections, as with us; it comprises
also the, intellect and will;
They deaden also man’s inhibitions which
normally acts as a braking
system to the intellect!
The whoredom to which they surrender
themselves and the constant
drunkenness which they practice take their heart, so
that they have no
understanding to perceive what is the way of goodness
along which they
should go.” He further distinguishes the tirosh from the yayin,
remarking
that the former is the new wine which takes the
heart and suddenly
intoxicates. The prophet, having had occasion to mention the
sin of
whoredom in ver. 10,
makes a general statement about the consequences
of that sin combined with drunkenness in v.
10, as not only debasing, but
depriving men of the
right use of their reason and the proper exercise of
their natural
affections. The following verses afford
abundant evidence of
all this in the
insensate conduct of
vs. 12-14 -The first of these verses exhibits the private life of the people as
depraved by sin and
folly; the
second their public life as degraded
by idolatry and
lewdness; while the third points to the
corresponding
chastisement and its cause.
“My people ask
counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth
unto
them, for the spirit
of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they
have gone a whoring
from under their God”
The stupidity
of idolatry and the sin of divination are here combined!
That
a people like
of the earth and distinguished by special tokens of Divine favor, and to
whom He had given the ephod with the truly oracular Urim and Thummim,
should forsake Him and the means He had given them of knowing His will,
and turn aside to gods of wood, evinced at once stupidity unaccountable and
sin inexcusable. “The prophet,” says Calvin, “calls here the Israelites the people of
God, not to honor them, but rather to increase their sin; for the more heinous
was the perfidy of the people, that, having been chosen, they had afterwards
forsaken their heavenly Father.... Now this people, that ought to be mine,
consult their own wood, and their staff answers them!” For
the spirit of
whoredoms hath caused
them to err, and they have gone a-whoring
from under their God. In this part of the verse the prophet attempts to
account for the extreme folly and heinous sin of
first clause. It was an evil spirit, some demoniac power, that had inspired
them with an insuperable fondness for idolatry, which in prophetic
language is spiritual adultery. The consequence was a sad departure from
the true God and a sinful wandering away from His worship,
notwithstanding His amazing condescension and love by which He placed
Himself in the relation of a husband towards them.
v.
13 – “They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains,
and burn
incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because
the
shadow thereof is good” - The
prophet here enlarges on the sin of idolatry
mentioned in the preceding verse, and explains fully how it showed itself in
the public life of the people. Two places are specified as scenes of
idolatrous worship: one was the tops of mountains and hills; the
other
under every green tree, here specified as oaks, poplars, and terebinths,
whether growing alone or in groves, in vale or upland. The hills
and
mountain-tops were selected on account of their elevation, as though the
worshippers were thus brought nearer to the objects of their
adoration; the
green trees as affording shade from the scorching heat of an
Eastern sun,
secrecy for their
licentious rites, and a sort of solemn awe associated with
such shadow. In
such scenes they not only slew victims, but burnt odors in
honor of their idols. The resemblance to, if
not imitation of, the rites of
heathenism in all this is obvious. Among the Greeks the oak was
sacred to
Jupiter at
practiced their superstitions in the shadow of the yaks. The singular of the
nouns, under oak and poplar and terebinth,
intimates that scene after scene
of
indignation; the mention of the goodly shadow seems designed to
heighten that feeling of just indignation, as though it came into
competition
or comparison with “the shadow of the Almighty,” the abiding-place of him
that “dwelleth in the secret place
of the Most High.” - Psalm 91:1 –
“Therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and
your
spouses (properly, daughters-in-law)
shall commit adultery” - hL;K"
primarily signifies “bride,” but for the parents of the bridegroom,
“daughter-in-law,” its secondary
sense. The bad example of the parents
acts
upon their children and reacts upon themselves; on their children in
causing bad conduct, on themselves by way of chastisements. The parents had
been guilty of
spiritual whoredom by their idolatry; their daughters and
daughters-in-law would commit
whoredom in the literal and carnal sense.
This would wound
the parents’ feelings to the quick and pain them in the
tenderest part. Their personal honor would be
compromised by such
scandalous conduct on the
part of their daughters; their family honor
would be wounded and
the fair fame of posterity tarnished by such gross
misconduct on the part of
the daughters-in-law.
v.
14 – “ I will not punish
your daughters when they commit
whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery.” The spiritual
adultery of parents and
husbands would be punished by the carnal adultery
of daughters and
wives; sin would thus be punished by sin. Their own
dishonor and disgrace, through the unfaithfulness of persons so
near to
them, would impress them with a sense of the dishonor done to
God, the
spiritual Husband of His
people; their feeling of pain and shame in
consequence would convey to them a
clearer notion of the abhorrence
which their offences had occasioned to God. But their punishment would
become more severe, and their pain intensified by the Divine refusal to
avenge them by punishing the lewdness that caused such dishonor. While
punishment would prevent the sin and consequent reproach, impunity, or
the postponement of
punishment, would leave the offenders to go on in
their course of sin and
shame.
“For they themselves are separated with
whores, and they sacrifice with harlots” - The change of person appears
to imply that God turns away with inexpressible disgust from such
vileness,
and, turning aside to a third party, explains the
grounds of His procedure.
After stating
the humiliating fact that fathers and husbands in
Israel, instead
of uniting with their wives in the worship of Jehovah,
separated themselves,
going aside with these female idolaters for the
purpose of lewdness, and shared in their sacrificial feasts, the prophet, or
rather God by the prophet, impatient of the recital of such
shameless
licentiousness, and indignant at such presumptuous sinning, closes abruptly
with
the declaration of the recklessness, and denunciation of the ruin of all
such
offenders, in the words — the people that doth not understand
shall fall” - Both Aben Ezra and Kimchi give from the Arabic, as an
alternative sense of silbat, to fall into error.
vs. 15-17 - In this
section the prophet, as if despairing of any
improvement or amendment on the part of
spiritual whoredom, addresses an earnest warning to
proximity to those idolatries and debaucheries so prevalent in this
northern
kingdom, and from the corruption at least of the court in the southern
kingdom during the reigns of Joram, Ahaziah, and Ahaz, (modern
examples could be John
F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton – CY – 2009) –
earnest warning, to the sister kingdom
not to involve herself in the same or
similar guilt. Rashi’s brief comment here is, “Let not the children of
learn their ways.”
v. 15 – “And come not ye unto Gilgal,
neither go ye up to Bethaven,
nor swear, The Lord liveth. From a solemn warning in general
terms, he proceeds to a specific prohibition. The prohibition
forbids
pilgrimages to places of idol-worship, such as Gilgal
and Bethaven; it also
forbids a profession of Jehovah-worship to be made by persons
inclined to
idolatrous practices. Gilgal, now the
school of the prophets in the days of Elijah and Elisha, had, as we may
rightly infer from passages in Hoses and Amos, become a seat of
idolatrous
worship. The Hebrew interpreters confound the Gilgal
here referred to
with the still more renowned Gilgal between
Joshua circumcised the people a second time, and celebrated
the Passover,
and
where, manna failing, the people ate of the old corn of the land. “And
why,”
asks Kimchi, “to Gilgal?
Because at Gilgal the sanctuary was at the
first when they entered the land; therefore when they went to
worship idols
they built high places there for the idols. But with respect to the tribe of
sanctuary which is in their own cities?” And Beth-el, now Beitin, had
become Beth-avon — the house of God a
house of idols, after Jeroboam
had
set up the calf there.
purity of worship;
also a practice hypocritical in its nature and highly
dangerous in its
tendency, namely, confessing Jehovah with the lips, and by
a solemn act of
attestation indicative of adherence to his worship, but
belying that
confession by complicity in idolatrous practices, like the
peoples who
“worshipped Jehovah, but served their own gods”
-
II Kings 17:32-34
v. 16 - The “backsliding,” according to the Authorized Version,
is
rather “stubbornness,” “intractableness,” or “unmanageableness.”
This refractoriness was
way, and became refractory, like an unmanageable heifer,
which
rebels upon being trained. And,
behold, he compares
cow,
with which a man cannot plough.”
waxed stubborn and
intractable. They would have their own way, and
worshipped according to their
own will, in indulging all the
while with a high hand
in vilest lusts. Now the season of
punishment is
arrived; and as they refused instruction and rebelled against
Divine
guidance, God, in just judgment and
deserved punishment, leaves them to
themselves. Carried into captivity, they
may worship what they will, and
live as they list. In these circumstances they will resemble
a lamb taken
away into a wilderness, and left there to range the wild and
live at large,
but without provision and without protection. Untended by
the shepherd’s
watchful care, unguarded from ravening wolves or other beasts of
prey,
that lamb is in a
lost and perishing condition. So shall it be with
Now will Jehovah let
them feed alone in a wide place, like a lamb which
bleats and goes to and fro, and neither rests nor feeds.”
v. 17 – “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone” - Ephraim being the
dominant tribe, gave its name to the northern kingdom. The idols
were
Ephraim’s folly, and to that they were wedded; and in consequence they
are left to their
folly, and at the same time surrendered to their fate. They
may persist in their
folly; they cannot be prevented. “Give him
rest,” as the
words literally mean, from exhortations and expostulations, from
remonstrances and reproofs; he will persist in his folly,
prepare for his fate,
and perish by his sin.
This abandonment of Ephraim proves the desperate
nature of his case. Left
to his own recklessness, he is rushing towards ruin.
might get implicated in
the sin and involved in the punishment of Ephraim.
vs. 18-19 - The first of
these two verses gives a picture of the
degeneracy of the times; the second predicts the destruction that would
ensue. “Their drink is sour (margin, is gone): they
have committed
whoredom continually” - If the first clause be taken literally,
vice the people of the northern kingdom, as is well known,
were
addicted: the wine,
from oft-repeated potations, became sour in the
stomach and produced loathsome eructations.
as in the margin, explain the meaning to be that “when their
intoxication
is gone they commit whoredom.” But though drunkenness and
debauchery
frequently go together, it is rather during the former
than
afterwards that the latter is indulged in. (once a girl in health
class gave an oral
report on “Alcohol and Sex” – I remember
a state-
ment she made – “alcohol
increases the desire but hinders the
performance” – CY – 2009)
either literally or figuratively, or both. Thus the sense is the
degeneracy of
principle
among the people in general, or rather among the
principal
men of that
day. By the finest wine becoming vapid,
the prophet represents
the leading men of the
nation, on whom so much depended and from
whom so much
might be expected, as becoming unprincipled, and as
being
addicted to immorality or idolatry, or probably both
(hazneh
hiznu): “whoring they have committed whoredom.”
“Her rulers (margin, shields) with shame do love, Give” -
The shields
are the
princes, or natural
protectors of the state, as in Psalm 47:9,
“The princes of
the people are gathered together.., for the shields of the
earth belong unto
God.” The shame they loved was the sin which is a shame to
either princes
or
people, causes shame, and ends in shame. Isaiah expounds the thought
(in Isaiah 1:22), a comparison of
which confirms the above exposition.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
v. 1 - OMISSIONS
SOON MAKE WAY FOR COMMISSIONS. When the
duties of truth, mercy, and the knowledge of God were omitted, the
grossest sins succeeded and
took their place. But we must notice the
expression, “in the
land;” this appears to mean more than the general
prevalence of such
through all this country; it seems to hint at
ingratitude. The sins committed by
disorganized state of
society. The most important duties were omitted and
the most enormous sins
committed; nor was this strange, when there was no
knowledge of God in the
land; and yet this very
circumstance was the great
aggravation both of their omissions and commissions.
v. 3 - HUMAN SINFULNESS DRAPES NATURE IN WEEDS OF WOE.
We have here at once an expansion and illustration of the
sentiment of
(Psalm 107:33, 34), “He
turneth… a fruitful land into barrenness, for the
wickedness of them that
dwell therein.” Man and beast, fish and
fowl
alike, are sufferers in consequence of human sin. The whole creation
groaneth
and
suffereth together in consequence of the creature having
been subjected to
vanity (Romans 8:22). “Even
the dumb elements shall feel the wrath of God.”
Many actual illustrations of this state of things, we doubt
not, had taken
place in the history of
Deuteronomy 28:22-24) and many a time besides. When rain was long delayed
and drought ensued, the land mourned and its inhabitants
languished.
vs. 6-10 - MINISTERIAL UNFAITHFULNESS. The ignorance of the people
is
here attributed to priestly negligence. They disliked and despised the
knowledge of God for themselves, and consequently had no heart for
dispensing it to others. The means available for knowing God they did not
take advantage of, and accordingly their own ignorance unfitted them for
instructing the people. Idleness
combined with indifference in the ease of
these
unfaithful ministers of religion, so that they were neither rightly
instructed themselves nor capable of instructing others; while their
carelessness increased their incapacity. It is incumbent on all public
teachers to be diligent in
their private studies; and a fearful
responsibility is
incurred by those who, appointed to instruct others in
religious matters,
refuse to take the pains necessary to qualify them for the efficient discharge
of such important duty. It is a grievous sin for ministers of religion to serve
God with what costs them nothing, and so to feed God’s people with husks
instead of the finest of the wheat. How different is the picture our Lord
gives us of one who is faithful to such an important trust! “Therefore,” he
says, “every scribe
which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like
unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his
treasure things old and new” - Matthew 13:52
v. 9 – There is a collusion between the priests and the people – (compare
Jeremiah
5:31) - “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests
bear
rule
by their means; and my people love to
have it so: and what will
ye do in the end
thereof?” The priests, instead of reproving sin, did
practically recommend it by their own godless conduct; and the people
were well pleased
to have it so. Alike in sin,
however, they shall be alike
in suffering;
they helped each other in sin, they must have their share in
punishment. The priests abused their position by neither practicing piety
themselves nor inculcating its practice
on others; the people, freed from all
restraint and having no
fear of God before their eyes, sinned with a high
hand. Both ran to an
excess of riot, and both are to be punished with equal
severity; neither can reasonably expect to be spared. The root
of the evil
was their leaving
off to take heed to the Lord. The word shamar, here
rendered “to take heed to,”
is very
expressive; it means to have a sharp
eye upon, then to
observe attentively. Applied to a person, it signifies
to
have the eye steadily set on His will, to meet His wishes, to obey. Thus
it
is said of one waiting on his master, as in Proverbs 27:18, “He that
waiteth on his master shall be honored;” while in the hundred and
twenty-third psalm we have a good practical illustration of the
observance
indicated: “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of
their
masters, and as the
eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our
eyes wait upon the
Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.”
vs. 11-14 - Faults in the Life Breed
Errors in the Brain, and Errors in the
Brain Produce in Turn Faults in the Life.
Thus it was with
extreme degree, had:
In this enfeebled state their intellectual and moral
powers, they had recourse,
in
cases of doubt or difficulty, not to the high priest, or prophets of God, or
Divine Word, for guidance and direction, but to their images of wood or
idolatrous divining staff.
SIN LEADS TO SIN. If sorrows love a train, sins like a series. How
often the culprit endeavors to conceal his guilt by lying, and
thus adds one
sin
to another! Lewdness and intemperance, as here intimated, frequently
go
hand in hand. Since, then, sins are so linked
to each other, our safety as
well
as our duty is to resist the very beginnings and buddings
of evil in the
soul. Every time sin is indulged
the power of resistance is weakened, until
men
become the prey of the evil one, and, after a few weak wrestlings
of
the
spirit against the flesh, the heart is easily taken captive. An effectual
way of avoiding vice or any vicious course is to practice
the opposite
virtues. Practical habits are formed and strengthened
by repeated acts.”
THE CHAINS OF
HABIT ARE NOT GENERALLY FELT UNTIL
THEY ARE TOO
STRONG TO BE BROKEN!
v. 12 - “They,”
says an old writer,” who commit idolatry, and follow
false religions, and so do renounce subjection to God,
and put themselves from under His directions, do also put
themselves from under His protection; for in both these
respects
it is true that
This would be
good to consider by those of the
for or desire the
realization of that non-constitutional phrase
“SEPARATION OF
CHURCH AND STATE” - Do you remember
how riled the
secular media got when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson
mentioned that possibility in reference to 9/11? (CY
– 2009)
v. 15 - If
faith of
such
places of peril and scenes of dissipation as “Gilgal”
and
“Beth-haven”
“Evil communications corrupt good manners” - I Corinthians
15:23 –
(Now we are living in a society in
children have neither
been taught MORALS nor GOOD MANNERS!
(CY-2009)
vs. 16-17
- PUNISHMENT IS OFTEN A DARK REFLECTION OF
MEN’S SINS.
and started
backward or turned sideward instead of drawing forward. They
declined God’s service, and determined to have full liberty and license.
They got their desire, but it was given them in judgment. The limits of the
law and its straitness provoked
their resistance; now they will be permitted
to wander forth
as captives through the wide wilderness of the East, or as
exiles with all the
world before them. They had been strong and stubborn
as a headstrong,
unmanageable heifer; now they are to become solitary as a
lamb shut out from
its flock or separated from its dam, and in a state as
helpless as that same
weak creature when exposed to savage beasts of
prey, and left alone amid the wasteness of a wilderness. Ephraim, turning
away her affections from her Maker as her Husband, got attached to idols,
and clave fast to them; and so they are given up to their own hearts’ lusts.
They don’t wish to part with their beloved idols, or to be parted from
them; nor shall they. They are incorrigible, and God gives them up as
beyond reproof and
without hope — absolutely desperate. They wished to
be left to themselves and their own ways, and they get their wish. They are
to be let go on without check from conscience, or reproof from prophet, or
warning from the Divine Word, or any interference by
and sore judgment for any man to be let alone in sin: for God to say concerning
a sinner,” He is joined to his idols, the world and the flesh; he is incurably proud,
covetous, or profane, an incurable drunkard or adulterer, —“let him alone”;
conscience, let him alone; minister, let him alone; providences, let him alone.
Let nothing awaken him till the flames of hell do it. The father corrects not the
rebellious son any more when he determines to disinherit him. “Those that
are not disturbed in
their sin will be destroyed for their sin.”
v. 17 – DIVINE
DISERTION – “Ephraim is joined to idols:
let him
alone”
Worst of all, God Himself lets them alone; and when He does
so, it
is
a token of their rejection. A father has used all legitimate means to
reclaim his profligate, prodigal, or rebellious son; and when all has proved
in vain, he is forced to say, “I
have done with him; I disown him; I will
have nothing more to do with him; I will leave him to
himself, and let him
alone.” So God lets men alone when he gives them over to themselves,
leaving them to their own devices, to their lusts, to their evil
ways, to their
doings that are not good. “They
would none of me,” saith God, “so I gave
them up to their own counsels.” The Spirit of the living God has striven
with that man to
turn him away from his injustice, or profanity, or
drunkenness, or impurity,
or hypocrisy; but he has resisted the Spirit,
stifled the voice of
conscience, and gone on in his way of wickedness, till
God,
long-suffering though He be, and full of infinite loving-kindness, says
at last,
“My Spirit
shall not always strive – Genesis 6:3. Let him
that is
filthy be filthy still;
let him that is unjust be unjust still.”- Revelation
22:11
HOW SAD THIS
LESSON – (CY – 2009)
JUST AS THE JEWS
ARE A CASE STUDY, SO WILL THE UNITED
STATES OF
BUT TO WHAT
AVAIL?
READER, MAY GOD BLESS THIS
STUDY TO YOUR SOUL’S PROFIT!
Carl Yahnig – April 14, 2009
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