CRITICAL NOTES.]
Hosea 13:10. Where] thy king to save when Assyrians attack cities? Where thy judges who surround the king and help to administer right? God gave and God punished them through a king.
Hosea 13:12. Bound up] like money in a bag, and put in secret places (Job 14:17; 1 Samuel 25:29). The punishment preserved, kept in store, is certain to come (Job 21:19).
Hosea 13:13.] Pains and violent agony, sorrows like a woman in child-birth shall come (Jeremiah 30:6). Unwise] in not foreseeing and escaping the danger (Proverbs 22:3).
Hosea 13:14.] May be applied to Israel’s deliverance from Assyria, then to future times of restoration, which typify redemption in Christ and resurrection from death at last. Believers should never despair.
Hosea 13:15.] The name Eph. shall become a truth, and the blessings promised shall not be lost (Genesis 48:4; Genesis 48:20; Genesis 49:22), say some. But promises are only fulfilled when persons keep to the conditions. In Ephraim and in the Christian Church those only are saved who walk with God. Whatever be the appearance of the fruitful field, judgments will be like a fearful tempest which will destroy all before them (Jeremiah 4:11; Jeremiah 18:17; Ezekiel 19:12). He] The conqueror will plunder and destroy all costly vessels.
Hosea 13:16. Her God] An aggravation of guilt because against him who made himself her God. The destruction was complete. The living children dashed to pieces, and the unborn to he destroyed in their mother’s womb (2 Kings 8:12; 2 Kings 15:16; Amos 1:13). Not a memorial left of all the outward pomp and prosperity. When God is forsaken for the world, the choice will be regretted.
HOMILETICS
GOD THE ONLY KING.—Hosea 13:10-11
God shows again how he will help them. When their kings and princes—whom they sinfully sought, and whom God would take away in displeasure—could not save them even in one city, he would prove their King and Helper.
I. God is our lawful king. “I will be thy king,” &c. God proclaims himself the source of wisdom and counsel, of power and authority.
1. Man requires a king. Our moral constitution is a witness that we are under authority, made to obey laws, and are only happy in loyal obedience. To satisfy his wants, man has often gone to his fellow-men, trusting to them, because thought to be great, wise, and even divine. Hence nations and ages have had their heroes, poets, orators, and prophets. But man still cries for a king. No human person can satisfy the totality of his nature, remove his guilt and fear, and reconcile the conflict between conscience and heart. God alone is the rest and satisfaction of the soul. No code of laws, no idea of society, though pure and transcendant as that of Plato, can supply the want of a king. God in Christ reveals his claims, and demands our homage and obedience. He is our Divine lawgiver and sovereign Lord. “Behold your king!”
2. God alone should be our king. “We are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.” He feeds and guides us by his special providence, like a shepherd leading his flock. He has dominion over heaven and earth, therefore worship is due to him. He demands obedience, and to refuse is most unreasonable and most insulting. “For God is the king of all the earth.”
II. God is often rejected by the choice of an unlawful king. “Thou saidst, Give me a king and princes.” Israel rejected God and demanded Saul, and subsequently chose Jeroboam to free them from the taxes imposed by Rehoboam. They despised God, and looked to man for help. “Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may also be like other nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” God is often put in competition with others. Half-prayers and half-allegiance are given to him. Some other god is sought and served with him. God is sometimes rejected, and an idol set up to govern our hearts and lives. In distress and social pressure we flee to man. Pleasure, passions, and the world rule over us. God is dethroned, and our affections are centered on self, or an unlawful sovereign. The heart can only have one power supreme, one king enthroned at once. Whatever monarch that may be, it dictates to every faculty and every effort, saying, “Do this,” and it does it. Obedience is willingly and continually given. As the beginning, such will be the end; as the rule, such will be the result. “But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble; for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.”
III. When God is rejected and another king chosen the end will be misery. “Where is any other that will save thee in all thy cities?” God was against Israel and their kings. As they began by rejecting God, so they end in rejection by God. Civil commotions, anarchy and murder, were the repeated issue. Not one in all their cities could help them when God had forsaken them. Sinful rulers will be tyrants, and their rule will ever prove impotent and destructive.
1. Sometimes our supports are taken away. “I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.” What God gives or permits us to take to ourselves he can take away. By rejecting God we cannot defeat his purpose. We may have our wish granted, yet be disappointed in our choice. The gift and its loss will be a grief to us. What we inordinately desire, what we are determined to have in opposition to God’s will, whether granted, withheld, or taken away, will be the occasion of wrath and tribulation to our souls. “Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, and then the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you.”
2. If our supports are not taken away they are rendered impotent. “Where is any that may save thee?” Kings and princes may be shorn of power. Danger may threaten every city in the nation, and blessings unlawfully gained or ungratefully abused afford no shelter. All courses and carnal policies of men will not avail against God. If we forsake God disappointment will meet us in every condition, and a way which is cursed at the beginning will be more cursed at the end. In anger a king was given; in wrath was he taken away. There is no help but in God. “I will be thy king.”
INIQUITY RESERVED FOR FUTURE PUNISHMENT.—Hosea 13:12-13
The nation had accumulated wickedness from time to time. This sin, though spared, was not forgotten, but sealed up and reserved for future judgment. The affairs were coming to a crisis, like a woman in travail, and could not be avoided. Unless they rescued themselves from the danger, the result would be that individual citizens and political existence would entirely perish. Hence, they should not neglect the means, but earnestly seek God before it was too late.
I. Iniquity is treasured up by God. “The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up.” Men treasure or seal up what they want to keep. Sin is hid by a wonderful providence to be accounted for at a future time. “My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.”
1. God does not forget iniquity. He numbers our steps, keeps a strict account of our actions, and brings sin to our remembrance. We are not to presume on God’s forbearance, and think because sin is not punished it is forgotten (Ecclesiastes 8:11). This is to ignore the future and treasure up “wrath against the day of wrath” (Romans 2:5).
2. God does not forgive iniquity without repentance. If sin is not confessed and forsaken, it is stored up. Unrepented sin is an ever-increasing store, hid from the sight of men, but of which God will lose nothing. Sinners may excuse and defend themselves in pride and self-righteousness, but a day of accounts will come. “Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.”
II. Iniquity treasured up by God will be punished. “The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him.”
1. This punishment is certain, “shall come.” There is an order of sequence in moral as in physical law, and we inevitably suffer if we break that order. Results are fixed and certain. Punishment may be long delayed, but cannot be avoided. Delay does not diminish its certainty either here or hereafter. “Evil pursueth sinners.”
2. This punishment is distressing. Agony unexpected and inevitable. Sorrows often in this life, and in the life to come the full cup of bitterness. “Avenging deities are shod with wool,” but they never pause nor mitigate their judgments. We may doubt or deny the fact, but we see day by day that “the mill of God grinds late, but grinds to powder.” “Never sin went unpunished,” says one, “and the end of all sin, if it be not repentance, is hell.”
III. If men do not escape from iniquity treasured up they are foolish. “For he should not stay long in the place.” He that lingers between death and life, and vacillates between God and the world, “is an unwise son.” If we “stay long,” and delay in anything, we never bring forth results. Decision is necessary. Despatch is better than discourse. Men who halt are at the mercy of every temptation and fall before the foe. “I never defer till to-morrow what can be done to-day,” declared one. But when immortal interests are at stake, what folly to hesitate or resist. How fatally “unwise,” to put off repentance and return to God. Judgment is impending, to-morrow may be too late. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.”
Lose this day, loitering, ’twill be the same story
To-morrow, and the next more dilatory.
The indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? seize this very minute!
What you can do, or think you can, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin it, and the work will be completed!
THE GREAT CONQUEST.—Hosea 13:14
To preserve his people from despair, God promises to help them. Though like dead men in the grave, he will redeem them, and they shall triumph over death and destruction. He will never repent of this purpose concerning them.
I. The mighty enemies.
1. We have death. “I will redeem them from death.” (a) Death as a spiritual condition. Sinners are dead in trespasses and sins. Senseless and helpless in their spiritual condition. But the Holy Spirit quickens, and Christ redeems them from their danger. The sentence against them is blotted out, the curse of sin removed, and they are delivered, raised to newness of life in Christ Jesus. (b) Death as a reigning power. Men live in captivity, are held in bondage, all their lifetime through the fear of death. It is a universal and resistless foe. It spares no rank and pauses for no request. It rends our hearts with grief, fills our homes with sorrow, and the grave with its victims. (c) Death as a mortal enemy. An enemy to Christ and his people. Till death is conquered, Christ cannot realize his hopes nor his people gain their inheritance. The mediatorial glory will never be acquired without this conquest. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
2. We have the grave. “The power of the grave.” Like death, the grave has a mighty power, and is a triumphant foe. “The king of terrors” makes this his palace. “The grave is my house” (Job 17:13); “crying, Give, give” (Proverbs 30:15). It has received its countless millions, and still craves and yawns for more. “Hell and destruction are never full.” (a) As a mighty terror, and (b) a final-resting place, it must be conquered to gain the crown and the kingdom.
II. The glorious conqueror. “I will ransom, I will redeem,” says God. None but God could deliver from such a state of misery and death. God in Christ conquers death and hell. “He will swallow up death in victory” (Isaiah 25:8). The Captain of our salvation has entered into the conflict for us, and come out victorious. “He hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light.” “He hath destroyed him that had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14), and his victory becomes ours by faith. “I am the resurrection and the life: whoso believeth in me shall never die.”
III. The wonderful method of conquest. “I will ransom.” “I will redeem.”
1. Christ has paid a price for our deliverance. He hath redeemed us by his blood. “Who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6; Matthew 20:28). He became near of kin, by taking our nature and suffering in our stead. The first and second death are overcome by him. He is the plague of death and the destruction of the grave. Death the curse is turned into a blessing; death an enemy is changed into a friend, and the grave is made the portal to glory. “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.”
2. Christ does now morally deliver us. The blessing is not a prospective one. It is enjoyed in the present time, as an earnest and foretaste. The Spirit enlightens and grace redeems from the power of sin and corruption. The people of God are free and live without fear of death. The weakest believer confronts his deadliest foe, answers every accusation by pointing to “the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.” We are not merely conquerors, but triumphant, “more than conquerors through him that loved us.” The benefits of redemption have become “powers in the world to come,” and powers in the heart and life of a Christian. We have read and often seen the glorious victories over death and hell. “Is this dying? How have I dreaded as an enemy this smiling friend?” cried Dr Goodwin. “The battle’s fought,—the battle’s fought, and the victory is won,—the victory is won for ever!” said Dr Payson. “Victory! glory! hallelujah!” were the words of another. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
3. This proceeding of God will never be reversed. “Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.” God is unchangeable in his nature and promise. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29). He never revokes what he once gave to his people. Though they sin and fall into danger, he will love and deliver them still if they call upon him. “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips” (Psalms 89:34). Alterations and after-thoughts belong to us. God dwells upon his covenant, and repeats it continually, that we may love and obey it.
EARTHLY FOUNTAINS OF ENJOYMENTS FAIL.—Hosea 13:15-16
The prophet had spoken of the blessings of the righteous, now he pictures the desolations of the wicked. The pomp and luxuries of sin, the glory and vanity of the world, shall perish, and leave not a wreck behind. Its springs of joy shall be dried up, and its fruitful scenes made desolate as a ruined city.
I. Earthly prosperity is a fountain which fails. “Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come,” &c. Men may be planted in favourable circumstances, grow and flourish for awhile, but the “wind of the Lord” comes, and their leaves wither. Cities may be populous and powerful, but the enemy can destroy them. “Samaria shall become desolate.” All fair scenes and national fruitfulness can be laid waste as the wilderness. “The treasure of all pleasant vessels” can be taken away, and the infant of days, with the women of beauty, be “dashed to pieces” by deeds of barbarity.
II. Earthly pleasure is a fountain which fails. “His springs shall become dry.” The pleasures of the world are soon exhausted. They are shallow and deceitful; “as a stream of brooks they pass away” (Job 6:15). As rivers roll their hasty current to the sea; so the sum of sinful pleasures ends in endless sorrow and desolation.
III. Earthly joy is a fountain which fails. The joys which spring from domestic prosperity and success in business are soon cut up and withered at the root. “Joy hath passed me like a ship at sea,” said David Scott the painter. “Folly” is always “joy to him that is without wisdom.” “No joys are sweet and flourish long, but such as have self-approbation for their root, and the Divine favour for their shelter,” says an old divine. If our prosperity springs from Christ, and is rooted within us, nothing can destroy it. But if it is centered in the world, and enjoyed without God, then it will be cast up by the roots, and consumed by the blasts from heaven.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
1. Often the most outwardly prosperous, by abuse of prosperity, ripen most for the judgments of God. God may be preparing the wind “from the wilderness.”
2. When these judgments do fall upon them, they are the most destructive. A very great wind, “the wind of the Lord:” “an east wind shall come,” which is most terrible and tempestuous.
3. Nothing will be left to defend them. Adults shall “fall by the sword,” the beauty of the present, and the seed and hope of the next generation shall be cut off. Without fruitfulness in good works, springing from the Spirit of Christ, all other fruitfulness will be found as empty as the uncertain riches of the world; the wrath of God will wither its branches; the springs that watered it will become dry, and it shall be spoiled, and come to nothing. “In short, ‘tribulation and anguish’ belong to those who have rebelled against God, and are fixed immoveably on all who impenitently persist in rebellion; and their woes will be far more terrible than any that are experienced in that cruelty and carnage which sometimes attend the storming of populous cities. From such miseries and murders, and from sin, the fruitful parent of all sorrow, ‘Good Lord, we beseech thee to deliver us’ ” [Scott].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 13
Hosea 13:10-11. King. Edward the Black Prince, having conquered and taken prisoner King John of France, nobly condescended to wait on his royal captive the same night at supper. Christ having first subdued his people by his grace, waits on them afterwards to the end of their lives [Whitecross].
Under which king, Bezonian? speak or die.
King Henry IV.
Hosea 13:12. Bound up, as indictments drawn up and tied together against the day of trial; or as bills and bonds tied up that they may be ready against the day of account, when all must be paid [Poole].
Hosea 13:14. Triumph. In this world, he that is to-day conqueror may to-morrow himself be defeated. Pompey is eclipsed by Cæsar, and then falls by the hands of conspirators; Napoleon conquered nearly all Europe, and was then himself conquered. But the Christian’s conquest of death is absolute. The result is final. He has vanquished the last enemy, and has no more battles to fight [Foster]
Hosea 13:15-16. The world has delusive charms to flatter with a face of substantial bliss, when in reality it is a fleeting shadow [Wilson]. I am more and more convinced of this world’s tastelessness and treachery—that it is with God alone that any satisfying converse is to be had [Chalmers].
We should not stoop so greedily to swallow
The bubbles of the world so light and hollow;
To drink its frothy draughts, in lightsome mood,
And live upon such empty, airy food.