CRITICAL NOTES.]
Hosea 13:9.] This destruction is entirely their own. Against God, men are against their own help and welfare.
HOMILETICS
MORAL SUICIDE AND DIVINE HELP.—Hosea 13:9
The prophet once more refers to the cause of their sorrow, and declares God to be their only help when they were ruined and undone.
I. Moral suicide. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.” Many moral as well as physical evils may be traced to want of well-trained spiritual power, well exercised self-control, and to absence of life in the soul. Solomon contrasts the influence of sin with the health of a true heart. “A sound heart is the life of the flesh; but envy is the rottenness of the bones” (Proverbs 14:30; Proverbs 17:22). Sin is madness, and not medicine; death, and not life.
1. All sin is destructive. It is essentially death. It ruins the soul. “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” It often destroys reputation and character. It always destroys liberty, peace, and happiness. It is contrary to the constitution and health of the soul; hence the misery which is ever felt. It wounds the conscience, impairs the judgment, and brings disease and manifold deaths. He who forsakes God and worships idols “destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonour shall he get” (Proverbs 6:32-33; Proverbs 5:22-23).
2. Voluntary sin is voluntary destruction. “Thou hast destroyed thyself.” The sinner commits moral suicide, and has no one to blame but himself. Circumstances do not force him to sin. Fate, admitting such a thing, does not compel him. God destroys him not; for he is not willing that any should perish, but that all men should be saved (Jeremiah 27:13; Ezekiel 18:31). Men are the authors of their own destruction. They may blame whom they like, but the guilt rests upon their own head. Every bait to sin is the temptation to suicide—to self-murder. Sinners die because they will die and not live. They are inexcusable, and make their doom more intolerable, because they choose death rather than life. “He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul; all they that hate me love death.”
II. Divine help. “In me is thine help.” A wise man will call the best medical help he can find in times of sickness and danger. This disease defies the skill of man. There is a consumption of the body which no man can cure; and there is a consumption of the soul more deadly in its nature. Man may destroy himself, but God only can restore him.
1. Help the most free. We might have been left to perish in our sin, but God loved us and saved us in our blood (Ezekiel 16:6). God was not desired, not constrained to do anything. Desert there was none. “According to his mercy he saved us.” “By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.”
2. Help the most suitable. As the beauties of nature are adapted to the senses, and food to the taste, so the gospel is suited to our wants and woes, our weakness and danger.
3. Help the most efficient. Nothing less than an Almighty Saviour would do for mankind. The wounds are sore and the breach is great, who can heal thee? (Lamentations 2:13). “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. The grace of God subdues the proudest rebel and upholds the weakest believer. God is mighty to save. “I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me.”
4. Help the most extensive. God can not only help beyond desert, but save to the uttermost all that come unto him. None are excluded, except those who exclude themselves from his help. Everywhere the invitations of Scripture are full, free, and universal. “Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.” “Let him take hold of my strength.”
I know the grace is only thine,
The gift of faith is all Divine;
But if on thee we call.
Thou wilt the benefit bestow,
And give us hearts to feel and know,
That thou hast died for all.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
The malady is of no ordinary character. It is not a mere slight indisposition—a trifling attack—a little derangement of the system, but a sickness unto death—an incurable disease.
The physician is able, kind, and free. “Without money and without price” cures are given. Others heal the hurt slightly (Jeremiah 6:14), or physicians of no value; but God heals, and we are healed (Jeremiah 17:14). We hear much of “the cure of souls,” let us not forget to care for them. God has healed and will heal by his word, Spirit, and grace. “Lord, be merciful unto me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.”
First, Sin, self-destruction. It destroys the health and moral beauty of the soul; disables from duty, and ends in death.
Secondly, God, the sole restorer, working in us perfect soundness, saving us and granting us help in time of need.
Nothing can destroy us before God but sin, the only real evil; and sin is wholly from us, God can have no part in it. But every aid to withdraw us from sin, or to hinder us from falling into it, comes from God alone, the sole source of our salvation. The soul, then, must ever bless God, in its ills and its good; in its ills, by confessing that itself is the only cause of its suffering; in its good, owning that, when altogether unworthy of it, God prevented it by his grace, and preserves it each instant by his Almighty goodness [St Bernard].