CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 2:6. Hedge and make] Build a wall, a double enclosure of stones and thorns. In the East cattle are fenced with thorns and closes. God with determined purpose will interpose between Israel and her idols. Behold, I will hedge] Exile and distress, and the inability of her gods to help, would prove the folly of her conduct (Job 19:18; Lamentations 3:7-9).
Hosea 2:7. Follow after and seek] In eager pursuit and diligent search. “They express together a pursuit, whose minuteness is not hindered by its vehemence, nor its extent and wideness by its exactness. She shall seek far and wide, minutely and carefully, everywhere and in all things, and shall fail in all” [Pusey]. Not find] deliverance from calamity.
HOMILETICS
THE UNSUCCESSFUL PURSUIT.—Hosea 2:6-7
Though Israel is dishonoured and fallen, she is not left to herself. God’s mercy yearns over and seeks to check her in sin and recall her to himself. God even now has not written a bill of divorcement, nor cast away the people whom he did foreknow. Through eighteen hundred years they have been wandering without a dwelling-place and a temple; but the day will come, when she will “no more be termed Forsaken,” nor “the land be termed Desolate; but she will be called Hephzi-bah and the land Beulah.” Men are prone to wander. They are disappointed in their wanderings, and God rouses, instructs, and restores his backsliding people.
I. A pursuit after wrong objects. Man is a creature of strong affections. His feelings cling round the objects of his choice like ivy round a tree. Through sin these affections are misplaced. He loves the things which he should hate, and hates the things which he should love; forsakes the true God, and pursues lovers of his own. He must love, he will worship, something; “that I may win” is the desire of every soul. Wealth, honour, position, and learning are eagerly sought, loved for their own sake and for the sake of what they are thought to give. Thus men are seeking happiness where it cannot be found; committing two evils, forsaking the fountain of living waters, and hewing out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns which will hold no water. “Who will show us any good?” is the cry of the many. “Lord, lift thou upon us the light of thy countenance,” is the prayer of the few.
II. A pursuit with intense anxiety. Man’s spiritual desires are insatiable, yet ever seek gratification. They forbid him to rest, and compel him to seek supply. Inward sense of want, incapacity for alliance with sin, and instinctive longing for God, the “first good, first perfect, and first fair”—of whom all created beauty and good are mere shadows—make men restless and discontented. But instead of lifting the soul to God, they look to the creature for satisfaction; “seek” and “follow after” in eager pursuit of what they love; labour harder in sin, and seeking pleasure, than in serving God. They weary themselves in pursuit, rendered more eager by thorn-hedges and hindrances. Vexation and disappointment excite to desperate tenacity; affliction and remorse are often no check to the sinner; fuel is added to the fire, and with renewed ardour onward he goes to ruin and despair. “I will go after my lovers.” The impenitent struggle on after that which God is taking from them, and will not give up, until the pursuit is found hopeless and exhaustive, and God in preserving mercy brings him back. “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”
III. A pursuit under Divine restraint. God governs the world, and seeks the good of his creatures. The way of transgressors is rendered hard “through much tribulation.” It is a warfare against conscience, reason, and revelation. In consciousness of guilt we may discern our relationship to God. The trouble and anguish of spirit springing from this consciousness, “the inward unrest which sometimes seizes the slave of sin are proofs that he has not quite broken away from God.” God works within by his Spirit and without by his providences. Hedges and walls are fixed up to restrain men in sin.
1. The restraints of God’s providence are various in their nature. God sought to cut off Israel from idolatry by solitude and affliction. Like a thorn-hedge, affliction is painful. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.” Conscience, the Divine officer, warns and checks the sinner. Disappointments in pursuits, pains attending pleasures, Divine judgments, and special manifestations, turn men from their purpose. Saul was overcome by light from heaven; Balaam was met by an angel, and David by Abigail (1 Samuel 25:32).
2. The restraints of God’s providence are merciful in their design, “that she shall not find her paths.” (a) Given to withdraw men from sinful pursuits. “She shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them.” (b) Given to restore men to God. “Then shall she say, I will go and return.” Strong barriers and painful providences are not sufficient. If God did not mercifully interfere we should all go astray. Let us repent of sin, be thankful for correction, and admire the wondrous grace of God. “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word.”
IV. A pursuit ending in failure. “She shall not overtake” what she follows; “she shall not find” what she seeks. Failure and disappointment after all her eagerness and effort! Egypt and Assyria were trusted in vain. Worldly alliances were of no service; did not give the anticipated deliverance. Idols were impotent; foreign nations were a broken reed, a source of sorrow and bitterness of spirit. Israel was obliged to confess, “it was better with me than now.” The sinner gains nothing, but loses everything, by forsaking God. He pursues phantoms of bliss. The pursuit will disgust, and end in failure. “Why did the cannon-balls spare me to die in this manner? I am no longer the Great Napoleon. How fallen and disappointed I am!” cried Napoleon in his latter end. Nothing can take the place of God—nothing can satisfy but bread. A sinful life can never give peace of conscience and peace with God. The beast may be satisfied with what it finds on earth, for its nature aspires no higher; but man is linked to God, longs for him, and cannot be contented without him. Though the heart once alienated from him turns further away, and moves not towards him until renewed, yet even in its wandering it retains its nature and necessities. God is its centre, and it is restless and void till it meets with him again. Men go here and there, do this and that, in quest of good, as moments dictate and circumstances call forth, but all in vain. They faint in mind and fail in hope. God never created man to find rest and happiness in utter rejection of himself. “Thou madest us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it repose in thee” [Augustine]. “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”
THE BACKSLIDER’S WAY HEDGED UP.—Hosea 2:5-7
Consider the text, and seek to arouse and restore backsliders, who have left their first love, and may have forsaken the Church of God, given up their profession and all attendance upon Divine worship.
I. While sinful men are in prosperity they pervert the mercies of God to their own injury, making them instruments of sin and weapons of warfare against God. While Israel enjoyed abundance of temporal comforts they ascribed all these blessings to false gods. Prosperous sinners make three great mistakes. At the outset they give their temporal mercies the first place in their hearts. Business prospers, but they consider not their soul. They say, “We must live,” but they forget that they must die. Such folly most shameful, base ingratitude, in one who has known, or professed to have known, better. One error leads to another, and hence such people hold their temporal things upon a wrong tenure. Observe how many times the word “my” is found in the text. “Give me my bread,” &c. They were not hers, but God’s, who expressly claims them, and threatens to take them all away (Hosea 2:9). The backslider once professed himself to be God’s servant; nothing is his now—houses, lands, profits, and children, only lent for a season. He is but God’s under-bailiff, possesses only as tenant-at-will, or as a borrower, holding a loan. Then, further, backsliders are apt to ascribe their prosperity and their mercies to their sins. I have even heard one say, “Ever since I gave up a profession of religion I have made more headway in business than I did before.” Some apostates have boasted, “Since I broke through puritanical restraint, and went out into worldly company, I have been better in spirits, and better in purse than ever I was before.” Thus they ascribe the mercies which God has given them to their sins, and wickedly bow down to their lusts, as Israel did before the golden calf, and cry, “These be thy gods, O Israel!” These things are given to try you, to see how far you will go, and to what extravagances of ingratitude you will descend.
II. Turn from the gloomy side, and observe that the Lord interposes adversity in order to bring back his wandering children. Consider the hindrances which a God of love puts in the way. You see an unexpected hindrance, for it is placed right in the man’s way. “I will hedge up thy way”—it was his way, his habit; he had fallen into it, and he meant to keep on; but suddenly he met with an unlooked-for obstacle. This hedge is placed in your way in different shapes. Business grows slack; bad debts multiply; bankruptcy stares you in the face; and where you had enough to lavish on pleasure you have not enough to supply your need. You thought you would live a millionnaire; more likely now to die a pauper. Or sudden sickness falls upon a strong healthy person. Possibly the hedge is of other thorns. The first-born son, the expected heir, the joy of the father’s heart, falls like a withered flower; his wife is cut off as a lily snapped from its stalk. These are walls across the way of those whom God ordains to bless. Observe, it has a very disappointing impediment. The prosperous sinner is stopped when securely pursuing his way. “Why,” says the man, “if it had not been for that I should have made a fortune.” “Why did death come just when my fair girl looked so lovely, and when my dear boy had grown so engaging? Ah! this is trouble indeed. To meet with misfortune just when I built that new house, and held my head so high, and expected to see my daughters so respectably married; this is very disappointing.” The man kicks, and though once professed to be a child of God, he is ready to curse God and die. If he knew the Divine nature, he would thank God for his troubles on bended knees. What painful hindrances our heavenly Father often uses. He hedges the sinner’s path, not with rhododendrons and azaleas, not with roses and laurels, but with thorns—prickly thorns, which curse the soil and tear the flesh, are God’s instruments of restraint. Furthermore, the fence is effectual; if the thorn hedge will not suffice, it is written, “I will make a wall.” Some are so desperate in sin that they break through ordinary restraints; then a wall shall be tried, through which there is no breaking, over which there is no climbing.
III. You would think that the sinner would now stop, but instead of that, according to the text, even though God walls up the way of sin, men will try to follow it, but this resolve shall be in vain. He is desperately set on destruction, as though it were to be desired. What a creature is man, though he knows that sin will be his ruin, yet he hugs it as though it were his chief mercy; heaps to himself destruction as though it were gold. If the righteous were half as intent in seeking after goodness as the wicked are in hunting sin, how much more active would they be. Truly this love is so strange, that if we did not see it in ourselves we should wonder at it. It is in you, Christians, as in the worst of men, and but for Divine mercy you would have plunged on from bad to worse.
IV. Consider that the backslider’s failure is followed by a blessed result. Observe, here is repentance attended with sorrow. The poor creature deeply feels to the very soul the wretchedness of her condition. It is an active repentance. It is not merely “I will return,” but, “I will go and return.” There is much earnestness in a sinner seeking Christ; but more, if possible, in a backslider returning from the error of his ways; for he has not only the guilt of sin to mourn over, but the double guilt of having despised the Saviour, of having known the way of righteousness and turned from it. The confession which this poor soul makes of folly is one which is sustained by the best of reasons. “Then was it better with me than now.” Backslider, what have you gained? Have you gained anything more comfortable than the light of your Father’s face? Before, you had the privilege of going to the throne of grace, you could tell your wants before God, and spread your sorrows there; but now you have no throne of grace to go to. Then you had God’s promises to fall back upon. Once you had communion with Christ. What can the world afford you comparable to this? There is no room to entertain a comparison for a moment. Lastly, this repentance was acceptable. It is not often that a husband is willing to take back his wife when she has so grossly sinned, as the metaphor here implies; yet God is willing to receive the sinner, though his sin is even more aggravated. “Return unto me, for I am married unto thee.”
V. Observe that there is an awful contrast to all this. Some prosper until, like a wide-spread tree, they are cut down and cast into the fire. There are backsliders who, never having had the root of the matter in them, go back unto their own ways and continue there for ever. Never trifle with backsliding. Chosen vessels, notwithstanding their backslidings, are brought back; but, ah! remember that nine out of ten of those who backslide never were God’s people. You must be born again, and only the man who continues to the end shall be saved.
VI. We conclude with this—is not this subject a very solemn warning to the people of God? If one man falls, another may. If one professor turns out to be a hypocrite, another may. There must be the continual keeping and anointing of the Holy Spirit. No man backslides at once. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Wake up your coldness in private prayer. If love to Christ has grown cold, pray to the Master to inflame your heart again. Let us trust the Saviour. There is the sinner’s hope; there is the saint’s strength [Spurgeon].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hosea 2:6. Subject:—Divine Restraints. I. These restraints are manifold. “I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall.” The first metaphor is from a husbandman who plants a prickly hedge to prevent cattle from breaking away. The other from architecture. If thorns are insufficient, high and massive walls must be built.
1. There is the restraint of affliction. When the wicked purpose some great crime, affliction comes, breaks their plans, and strikes them down.
2. There is the restraint of public sentiment. Public opinion, as it gets enlightened and strong, is a tremendous check to the wicked. The most daring cower before the public voice.
3. There is the restraint of conscience. Conscience is a Divine officer holding the sinner.
II. These restraints are necessary. It is necessary that God should plant thorny hedges and build massive walls around the sinner.
1. It is necessary for the sinner himself. Were it not for these he would go galloping to perdition. “O, unhappy men,” says Luther, “when God leaves them to themselves, and does not resist them in their lusts. You bless yourselves many times that in the way of sin you find no difficulty. Bless thyself! Thou hast cause to howl and wring thy hands, thou hast the curse of God on thee. A dreadful curse to make pleasant the way of sin.”
2. It is necessary for the world. What would become of the world if the wicked were not reined in? Were it not for restraints the Cæsars, the Alexanders, and the Napoleons would soon turn it into a Pandemonium.
3. It is necessary for the Church. Had wicked men their full fling, how long would the Church last? The flames of martyrdom would soon blaze to heaven and consume Zion to ashes. Thank God for thorny hedges and massive walls, for all the restraints he puts on sinful men [The Homilist].
The Danger of outward Prosperity—sufferings a specific against apostasy.
Divine Chastisements.
1. Love, their source.
2. Sorrow, their means.
3. Good, their end. “Crosses and obstacles in an evil course are a great blessing, and are so to be accounted. They are God’s hedges, to keep us from transgressing, to restrain us from wandering out of the green pastures, to withdraw man from his purpose (Job 33:17), to make the way of sin difficult, that we may not go on in it, and to keep us from it whether we will or not. We have reason to bless God both for restraining grace and for restraining providences” [Matt. Henry].
Hosea 2:7. The Course of Sin.
1. A course of labour—unrequited toil—vexation of spirit and bitter bondage. Sinners labour harder than saints, and receive nothing but exhaustion and fatigue.
2. A course of failure. Loss of health and peace—all loss and no gain.
3. The service of God the only true gain. “It was better with me.” Godliness is profitable to all things—body and soul, this world and the next. Sin suicidal. God’s service real advantage. Those who embrace God, would take him up as the best of choices, and his way as the shortest cut to do well and to be well: they are sensible of their own disadvantage in forsaking him: for so much is imported as the reason for her return, “for then was it better with me than now” [Hutcheson].
I will go and return.
1. The sinner’s wandering.
2. The sinner’s penitence.
3. The sinner’s return to God. “By this text we may gather what true repentance is: namely, when a sinner not only confesseth himself guilty and worthy of punishment, but truly displeaseth himself and seriously returns to God. Here we have two essential parts of true repentance—namely, contrition and conversion; or humiliation and reformation. The former is called in Scripture repentance for sin, the latter repentance from sin: and the one without the other is to no purpose or profit” [Trapp].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Hosea 2:6-7. Affliction. The hedge stops or gives a turn. God, in pursuance of his covenant, and with a gracious meaning to a revolting people, hedges them up by affliction to stop them from undoing. It is a mercy to be kept out of the pond, though it be by a thorn hedge, sharpest troubles. This stop the Lord doth often give, though not always to sinners; he sometimes lets them run on to fill up their measure of sin and to receive their full measure of punishment. Reproof for sin is a great favour. Though God is angry for what we have done, yet it is a mercy that he will not let us do more, and so make ourselves vile and miserable [Caryl].