CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 5:4. Will not frame] Heb. give their doings. Margin, will not suffer them. They are slaves, not free to turn from evil habits. Their works stand in the way, prevent them from returning. Habit is a second nature domineering over men’s thoughts and ways. In them] The knowledge of God was wanting, the evil spirit had taken possession of their very centre, had its seat within them, and held resistless sway over them.
Hosea 5:5 Pride] The haughtiness of Isa. shall be a witness before God of their folly. Others refer it to Jehovah, the glory of Is., who will witness by judgments and the destruction of their false glory (ch. Hosea 7:10; Amos 8:7). Jud.] shall fall, because participating in Israel’s guilt.
HOMILETICS
THE POWER OF EVIL HABITS.—Hosea 5:4
The prophet makes a fourth charge of obstinacy through affected ignorance of God and long custom in sin. God had been “their God” by covenant and tender care, but they despised and abused his mercy, and “would not,” could not turn unto him. They were so habituated to evil practices that they were not only indisposed but ill-affected towards God. They lost all power to return, and were perfect slaves to evil habits. They were possessed by the spirit of whoredom, an evil spirit which impelled and carried them on to sin.
I. The spring of evil habits. “The spirit of whoredom is in the midst of them.” In their centre and seat a mighty power held resistless and triumphant sway. Sinful habits spring from sinful nature.
1. They spring from ignorance of God. “They have not known the Lord.” They might have known him, for they had the law and the prophets of God. They were wilfully, shamefully ignorant. Some have not knowledge of God—I speak this to your shame. Sin at first was the cause of ignorance, but now ignorance is the cause of sin. Swearing, lying, and murder abounded in the land “because there was no knowledge of God.” All sins are seminally lodged in this one. It leads to error (Matthew 22:29), persecution (John 16:2-3), and to rejection of Christ. Aristotle says ignorance is the mother of all misrule in the world. As certain epidemics are generated and become active during night, in places not visited by the beams of the sun, so mental and moral ignorance spread pernicious influence and scatter seeds of death. That ignorance which keeps men slaves to evil makes them hate the freedom of truth. Sinners dread, decline to know God, lest they be disturbed in their sinful ways. They are ignorant of his beauty and excellency, goodness and love; they despise his mercy and forbearance; providential warnings and judgments fail to convince them of sin and bring them to repentance. Knowledge is the life of the soul—the life of intelligence to know God; the life of power to love him.
2. They spring from an evil heart towards God. The heart of the Jews was alienated and perverse. Love which appealed to their affections could not reclaim them. The heart is the source, the mainspring of human conduct, and when that is defiled the character and the life will be defiled. “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” His thoughts and feelings identify him with his moral self, and discriminates him from others. They place him in a distinct relation to God, and morally fix him in “his own place.” This “hidden man of the heart” subordinates the outer man and the outer world to itself. Habits result from acts repeated; and from habit results character and its consolidation. Like the gradual growth of an everlasting mountain, character is always acquiring a bolder outline and firmer base. It is the slow and conscious product of man’s voluntary nature.
Each man makes his own stature, builds himself;
Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids:
Her monuments shall last, when Egypt’s fall.
II. The result of evil habits. “They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God.” If their habits of sin had not got the mastery over them they rendered them indisposed to return. But the margin gives another sense. Their doings would not suffer them, and they could not turn inwardly, while they did not turn outwardly.
1. Habits influence the will. “They will not.” The more they sinned the more disposed they were to sin, and the less power they had to do right. This is just the result of habit. By repetition of evil, moral power is diminished. The will becomes impotent and the conscience seared. But moral power is required to resist evil passions which prompt to repetitions of acts, hence the less the power to resist the easier the repetition of an act. Thus evil begets a tendency to evil; goes on repeating and enlarging itself; binding the will, alienating the heart, and driving men from God. “It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” “Ye will not come unto me.”
2. Habits enslave the life. There was not simply the tendency, but the tyranny of sin. We may calculate the immediate effects of an act, but if the act lead to the habit the ultimate results must not be overlooked. Drunkenness and sensuality have sprung from repeated acts. Perverted judgment at the beginning of life may disqualify a man for believing the gospel at the close. Men may not mean to plunge deeply into vice, but when the steps are taken and repeated they are fastened with their own chain. Habit is stronger than reason and stronger than taste. When a man gives himself up to its power he loses freedom and self-control, and it governs him “with authority.” Wicked men allow free will to be inactive; give bridle to desire and passion; acquire habits of vice; and at last are bound by chains of iron. Augustine thus speaks of the force of habit in his Confessions: “My will the enemy held, and thence had made a chain for me, and bound me. For of a froward will was a lust made; and a lust served became custom; and custom not resisted became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me enthralled.” Most people think lightly of sins, believe they can give them up easily, but Saul found his evil passions his torment and captivity. He had convictions of duty, but his very efforts to extricate himself from evil increased his guilt and misery, and he rushed from habitual crime to endless misery (1 Chronicles 10:13-14). “A rooted habit becomes a governing principle. Every lust we entertain deals with us as Delilah did with Samson: not only robs us of our strength, but leaves us fast bound,” says Tillotson. “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself; and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
The longer the continuance in sin, the more difficult is the return. He who commits sin is the servant of sin. At first he will not return, at last he cannot. The heart is hardened. The spirit of whoredom: not single sins that are committed, but an evil spirit rising up and taking possession of the soul. The more men sin against God, the more they lose the knowledge of him, and the more difficult it is for them to return; and so the chastisement of God must be more severe to bring them back to him [Lange].
The slavery of sin. Men in bondage to conscious guilt and innumerable habits. They are often the dupes of ignorance, prejudice, and passion.
1. There is the slave of ignorance.
2. There is the slave of superstition.
3. There is the slave of bigotry.
4. There is the slave of passion.
5. There is the slave of sensual appetites.
6. The slave of evil habits.
“He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside.”
Frame their doings, i.e. take necessary steps to conversion.
1. By consideration.
2. By amendment of life. “They might have sought and yet not made speed, because of their unsoundness and formality in their way, but they were either so ignorant, or malicious and impious, as they did not so much as endeavour to bend their course that way” [Hutcheson].
Men “know not the Lord,” or else they would not persistently and suicidally turn from him. They may have intellectual but not practical knowledge. A man really knows no more than he puts into practice. Eli’s two sons “knew not God,” because they loved and obeyed him not. Ignorance of God, affected or acquired, is “the mother” of mischief and misery, not “of devotion.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Hosea 5:4. Nothing but the hand of God can hold man from ruining himself. The heart of man is so set upon sin, that he would rather lose his soul than his lusts. ’Tis as easy to stay the motion of the sun, or to turn back the course of nature, as to stay or turn back the natural motion or course of the heart in sinning. An almighty power must do the latter as well as the former [Caryl].
Other tyrants can but tyrannize over our bodies, but sin is a tyrant over body and soul. It is the worst and greatest tyrant in the world. It hath a kind of jurisdiction in most men’s hearts: it sets up the law of pride, the law of passion, the law of oppression, the law of formality, the law of carnal reason, the law of unbelief, and strictly commands subjection to them. Other tyrants have been brought down and brought under by human power, but this cannot, except by Divine [Brooks].