CRITICAL NOTES.]
Hosea 14:8.] God speaks now. Idols] Eph., I have no longer to plead with thee, on account of idols. I have nothing more to do with them, and thou hast not. I have answered and observed him, i.e. answered and cared for him, when idols did not. I am like a green fir, green winter and summer alike, and whatever fruit thou yieldest, it is from me. Some represent Eph. speaking, and acknowledging its flourishing condition; but God reminds him that it is owing to his blessing. Both senses represent God as the shelter and the life of the nation.
HOMILETICS
GOD IN RELATION TO A CONVERTED PEOPLE.—Hosea 14:8
These words represent Ephraim in his return to God; and God in his kindness to Ephraim. God has nothing to do with idols, therefore his people do not put them in competition with him; entirely renounce them; return unto him, and are accepted and blessed.
I. God attracts a converted people. “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?” Once he was “joined to idols,” and in the midst of Divine chastisement stupidly resolved, “I will go after my lovers.” Now he renounces all former sins and depends upon God. The world has no attraction to the true convert. He forsakes his evil ways and companions; parts with everything which disputes allegiance with God; and makes no idol of opinions, parties, or means. He has been drawn to God in love and power. He turns away from the glitter which fascinates to the treasure which enriches. He envies not, he seeks not, the worldling’s portion. God is all in all to him. “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”
II. God accepts a converted people. “I” is here emphatic. I have heard the confession and accepted it. God had hid his face before, or observed them only in his displeasure; now he watches over them and provides for them.
1. God hears their prayers. “I have heard him.” Prayer is an indication of a change of heart. Saul was no sooner converted, than he cried, “Lord what wilt thou have me to do?” Angels in heaven say of such a one, “Behold, he prayeth.” Prayer is the first breathing of Divine life, and then becomes “the Christian’s native air.” He may be despised, and considered weak in mind, or disordered in imagination, by the world: but God regards and hears him. “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.”
2. God delights in their character. “And observed him.” God is everywhere and observes all men. But more is intended here than mere observation. He is anxious about his people, cares for them and provides for them. He delights in them, and seeks to do them good. He sees the penitent a great way off, and desires his return. He knows and approves of his conduct. He is acquainted with all the remorse, the contrition, and the resolutions of the returning sinner. “Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.”
III. God beautifies a converted people. He is “like a green fir-tree” unto them. The fir is tall and stately; beautiful in appearance, fragrant, and useful. Without pressing the metaphor, it pictures the constant shelter, the lasting beauty, and the perpetual life of God to the soul. Created beauty is a faint image of moral life. Christians are beautified, winter and summer; are ever fresh and ever flourishing by sap and virtue from God. God is the same to the soul at all times and in all places: the constant shade and the undying verdure of his people. In the restoration of God’s image to man and the godly life of a believer we have the embodiment of “the sublime and beautiful.” “He will beautify the meek with salvation.”
IV. God fertilizes a converted people. “From me is thy fruit found.” Before conversion they have neither beauty, enjoyment, nor fruit in life. But God supplies all deficiency in them. He affords repast as well as repose. The fir-tree may be a shelter and evergreen, but yields no fruit. Fruit and shelter are united in God. “I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
1. The fruit they enjoy comes from God. In pardon and peace, in the comforts of the Holy Ghost, and the foretastes of heaven: they have the earnest, the first-fruits of eternal bliss. They possess it in their hearts, but God is the source and giver. The Church is not the fountain of sufficiency; the creed not the supply of grace. In God is our joy, from God our life, and to God must be our praise. “All my springs are in thee.”
2. The fruit they produce comes from God. Grace in the heart leads to activity in the life. We receive the gifts, but he imparts them. We repent and believe, but faith and repentance are produced by him. We obey, but he inclines and helps us. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” God therefore is the source of all fruits in this life and that which is to come. “Without me ye can do nothing.” The fruits of the Spirit result from the work of the Spirit. “The fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Idols. The language expresses former attachment, present aversion and rejection. “What have I to do any more with idols?”
1. They have been a source of pain.
2. A source of shame.
3. A source of degradation. The more penitent we are, and the more we taste of God’s goodness, the more useless do idols appear, and the more do we loathe former sins. “What fruit had ye in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed?”
Those who pray oftenest and secure greatest blessings will see the emptiness and vanity of everything in competition with God. “I have heard him;” therefore the response should be, “What have I to do any more with idols?”
1. God is a protection to his people, “like a green fir-tree.” They often encounter blasts and dangers in returning to him; but he shelters them from the storm (Isaiah 4:6).
2. God is a support to his people. Without him they are barren in their souls, and unfruitful in their lives. Support in penitence and duty springs from him. “From me is thy fruit found.”
Human nature, by itself, can as little bear fruit well pleasing to God as the pine or cypress can bear fruit for human use. As it were a miracle in nature, were these trees to bring forth such fruit, so, for man to bring forth fruits of grace, is a miracle of grace. The presence of works of grace attests the immediate working of God the Holy Ghost, as much as any miracle in nature [Pusey].