CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 8:6. For] The reason of displeasure. It also] The calf as well as the kings set up, made by Israel, not by God. It deserved not their homage, no creature can be God; idol worship therefore folly in the extreme.
Hosea 8:7. Wind] an image of labour in vain, from which ruin springs as naturally as harvest from evil sowing; as the wind becomes a tempest (Proverbs 22:8; Galatians 6:7). Whirlwind] Intensive form, a mighty whirlwind. Three things first—no stalk, no yield, devoured by strangers. Israel’s efforts in every direction were fruitless.
HOMILETICS
IDOLATRY; ITS ORIGIN, EFFECTS, AND DESTINY.—Hosea 8:5-6
These words describe the cause and nature of Israel’s sin, and justify God’s anger against them.
I. Idolatry in its origin. Idols are the device of man. “The workman made it.” Man in his natural and primeval condition had a knowledge of God sufficient for the condition in which he was placed. But sin alienated him from God and robbed him of fellowship with God. There is a natural tendency in man to embody in living forms (eidola) the image of God, to imagine and honour other gods. Dissatisfied with the law, and forgetful of the claims of the true God, he has wandered in the conjectures of reason and the creations of fancy; in the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea, in all the lights of heaven and in all the elements of nature, he beheld the movements of a false deity; and associated vague notions of power and wisdom with the realities by which he is surrounded. Hence the creation of gods many and lords many. They are things made, the work of men’s hands. “They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not.” They are not gods, but vanities, and have become a crime and a curse to heathendom. “They that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them.” But “from Israel was it also,” who boasted of the knowledge and law of God. Israel knew her sin, and felt that calf-worship was not the worship of Jehovah. This rendered her inexcusable and aggravated her guilt. Now among people to whom the oracles of God are committed, even in the Christian Church, we have idolatry. Men cut and carve gods of their own fancy. The wife of their bosom, the child of their loins, may be a god. An image of gold or of clay;—business, fame, and success, may be set up, take the place of God in our affections, and unduly absorb homage and attention due to God. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
II. Idolatry in its effects.
1. It is dishonouring to human nature. Man assimilates himself to the moral character of the object which he worships, becomes like the thing which he loves. He looks upon his God as the standard of virtue; abandons everything in life which offends; and desires favour by conformity to the will and character of his deity. The history of idolatry confirms this truth. When men have bowed down to the brutes, they have lowered themselves in the depths of vice. The more they worshipped the more they resembled the objects of their worship. Medhurst says that in China the priests teach this doctrine of assimilation. “Think of Buddha and you will be transformed into Buddha. If men pray to Buddha and do not become Buddha, it is because the mouth prays, and not the mind.” Our character and conduct can never rise higher than our aims. If we follow earthly objects we become earthly and grovelling. The pleasure-seeker becomes light and frivolous; the mammon-worshipper sordid and mean. “My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.”
2. It is displeasing to God. “Mine anger is kindled against them.” God here speaks after the manner of men to remind us of his claims. As men who incensed will execute their displeasure, so God will punish idolatry. It forbids his worship and denies his existence. It is degrading to his creatures and calamitous to the universe. Its temporal consequences have been awful to its votaries. What then must be its eternal? “They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.”
3. It is a hindrance to moral purity. “How long will it be ere they attain to innocency?” God is the fountain of all goodness, and his will the standard of all virtue. When God’s will is rejected there is no check to moral pollutions, and no motives to moral purity. The knowledge of God is essential to holiness and progress! inseparable from the welfare of men: and necessary to extricate a fallen world from the evils of idolatry.
(1) Purity of heart is necessary to purity of life. This is only gained by the love and worship of a pure object. A sinful object defiles physically and spiritually. God is opposed to sin, revealed as our example, renews the heart, and satisfies the conscience in Christ. “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.”
(2) Purity of the object worshipped must therefore have sufficient influence to beget holy life. The mere representation of God, the presentation of a holy object would not touch the heart, change the opinions, and draw men from evil practices. A display of power and persuasion alone can overcome evil habits, wean men’s affections from idols, and fix them on God. God has interposed by his Son and his Spirit, and sinners are converted from the error of their ways. We have one true and living God made known to us as the object of supreme love and regard. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
III. Idolatry in its destination. “The calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.” In origin it is a thing of nought, the work of men’s hands and ingenuity. In its end it shall be nought. Idolatry is a nullity, and is doomed to destruction by its inherent weakness and God’s purpose.
1. Idolatry is doomed to destruction by its own weakness. With all its splendid rites and forms, its ancient priesthood and prevalence, it is coming to nought. It cannot satisfy the heart and the conscience. The heathens are closing their temples and pagodas, breaking their gods and forsaking their worship. Deserted by devotees, and their altars bereft of gifts and offerings, idols shall pine away and idol-worship perish by mere inanition. Idolatry in the old Roman Empire was thus destroyed, and this will be the process everywhere. Its seat is in the soul, and outward force cannot overturn it. But the gods of the heathen will be starved to death, by the failure of their revenue and offerings. “The Lord will be terrible unto them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen.”
2. Idolatry is doomed to destruction by the power of the gospel. God has purposed to send the gospel to all the nations of the earth. “As I live, saith the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with my glory.” Nothing can frustrate this design nor rob the nations of this glory. What a conception! What is there in patriotism, philosophy, or philanthropy, to equal it? The mighty scheme, as a mere system of social government and social culture, stands forth in peerless grandeur. But how blessed that day when “a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats: to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hosea 8:5. “How long.” The hardness of heart and the stubborn holding out of the sinner a matter of astonishment even to God. Continuance in sin and aggravation of guilt only make the case worse. God’s patience will end, and God’s anger will be the hotter. By this powerful expression three things are intimated. First, that these Israelites were refractory and desperate; not only unclean, but enemies to innocency, such as could not abide it: they were inveterate and incurable, their diseases ingrained, and not easily stirred by any potion. Secondly, that God is most patient, who though he thinks overlong of the time that men continue in sin, and therefore cries, How long? &c., yet bears with their evil manners and inviteth them to better. Thirdly, that he will at length break off his patience and proceed to punishment, since there is no other remedy (2 Chronicles 34:16; Proverbs 29:1) [Trapp].
The attainment of innocency. I. The thing to be attained—“Innocency.” Man was originally innocent in body and soul, created in the image of God. But this holiness he lost through sin and can never perfectly, only comparatively attain it in this world. Sinless perfection is a delusion (1 John 1:8). II. The method of attaining it. “How shall man be just with God?” Our guilt is removed in Christ, our natures renewed by grace, and the Holy Spirit imparts Divine enlightenment and transforms into the Divine nature. Believers in Christ are justified before God. Their faith works by love, and overcomes sin and the world. All men may secure this privilege. III. The reason why men do not attain it.
1. Some despise and do not feel their need of it.
2. Others despond in seeking it. God is able and willing to save. Examples of men most degraded and abandoned encouraged. “How long,” then, before you accept the proffered mercy and find peace with God!
Hosea 8:6. Not God. Such is the bewitching nature of idolatry, though men pretend that they worship God in the image, and the deceitfulness of the human heart; that they are gradually led to deify their idol. God therefore proves that it is not God (Exodus 32:4-5; 1 Kings 12:28).
Whatever estimation men have of images, or whatever excellency or Divinity they conceive in or represented by them, yet it is sufficient to refute them, that themselves, who are but vain and empty things, gave all the excellency they have; for the workman made it [Hutcheson].
The workman was rather a god to his idol, than it to him; for he made it; it was a thing made. To say that it was made, was to deny that it was God. Hence the prophets so often urge this special proof of the vanity of idols. No creature can be God. Nor can there be anything between God and a creature; and that which is not a creature is God. God himself could not make a creature who should be God [Pusey].
Broken in pieces. Deifying any creature makes way for the destruction of it. If they had made vessels and ornaments for themselves of their silver and gold, they might have remained; but if they make gods of them, they shall be broken to pieces [Mt. Henry].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8
Hosea 8:5-6. Idolatry. Travellers tell us that there is a tribe in Africa so given to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with so many idols, that they do not even leave room for their families. How many men there are who fill their hearts with the idols of sin, so that there is no room for the living God, or for any of his holy principles [Bate].
Man, that aspires to rule the very wind,
And make the sea confess his majesty;
Whose intellect can fill a little scroll
With words that are immortal; who can build
Cities, the mighty and the beautiful:
Yet man,—this glorious creature,—can debase
His spirit down to worship wood and stone,
And hold the very beasts which bear his yoke,
And tremble at his eye, for sacred things. [Landon.]