CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 9:10. Like grapes] with which the traveller delights to quench his thirst. Grapes and early figs a great delicacy in the East (Isaiah 28:4; Jeremiah 24:2); so God delighted in Israel at first. He gave them richness and pleasantness, but they corrupted themselves, and no longer answered his good pleasure. Baal-peor] The Moabite idol to whom young females prostituted themselves (Numbers 25:3). Shame] that foul idol (Jeremiah 11:13).
HOMILETICS
HONOURED AND DISHONOURED.—Hosea 9:10
These words indicate the great honour that God put upon his people, the great worth which they had in his sight when he chose them, and the great care that he took with them in training them up for his purpose and good pleasure. But they despised this dignity, consecrated themselves to Baal-Peor, and became as abomin able as the idol they loved.
I. God’s grace honours a worthless people. What refreshing grapes and the first ripe figs are to the weary traveller, such was Israel at first to God.
1. By nature we are in a helpless condition. Education, wealth, and outward distinctions avail not before God. Israel was found in the wilderness; in a barren, wild, and solitary place.
2. God in love seeks men in their helpless condition. God could not have found Israel, unless he had sought. “I have found him in the wilderness” (Deuteronomy 32:10). God goes after men like the shepherd after the lost sheep until he finds them. In love and kindness he restores and exalts them; makes them holy and acceptable in his sight. They are not found until restored. “I can wander, but cannot find my way back,” was the confession of Augustine. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant.”
3. When God finds men he trains and cultures them for himself. Grapes and figs indicate continual care and kindness. Israel were planted and trained for God. Their “first ripe” buds and future prosperity came from him. He gave them riches and wealth, pleasantness and odour in the sight of others. They were precious in his sight and honourable (Isaiah 43:4). God honours nations, Churches, and families now, preserves them carefully, and prefers them constantly if they obey him. “The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant” (Isaiah 5:1; Isaiah 5:7). Men are dignified, nations are honoured, not by wealth, fleets, and outward splendour—God’s presence makes them glorious, God’s grace roots them, causes them to blossom, bud, and fill the world with fruit and sweetness (Isaiah 27:6).
II. A people honoured by God’s grace may dishonour themselves by idolatry. “But they went unto Baal-Peor, and separated themselves unto that shame,”—and that was a most shameful and abominable idol. They joined the Moabites in worshipping, in sacrificing, and eating to a god,” the filthiest and foulest of the heathen gods (Numbers 25:2-3; Psalms 106:28). They separated themselves, as Nazarites, united, devoted themselves to shame. The very people whom God exalted and blessed forsook him, sank below others, and dishonoured their own nature (Jeremiah 2:21). Is England free? are Christian Churches free from idolatry, debasing in its influence and tendencies? We hate cruel rites and bow not to Pagan gods; but do we not dishonour God and blaspheme his name among others by formalism, hypocrisy, and ungodly lives? We clothe our evil imaginations, our depraved affections, with attributes of power and wisdom, “and change the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man.”
III. The dishonour of a people will be according to the nature of the objects they worship. “Their abominations were according as they loved.” If history proclaims one truth more loudly than another, it is that man becomes assimilated to the moral character of the objects which he worships. The gods and hero-kings, Odin and Thor, of the Scythians were bloodthirsty and cruel—turned “the milk of human kindness” into gall in the bosoms of their votaries, and made them revel in slaughter and scenes of blood. Because heathen deities have destroyed themselves suicide has been recommended, and a natural death thought to exclude from eternal happiness. The more men worship such idols the more they resemble them. Hence the notion that the gods did not like the service, would not accept the sacrifice, of those who were unlike them. Israel became like their loves—shame was the object of their worship, and they had as many abominable idols as they had loves. Their deities corrupted their passions; their passions multiplied their deities, and corrupted their minds and lives. “Man,” says an author, “first makes his god like his own corrupt self, or to some corruption in himself; and then, worshipping this ideal of his own, he becomes the more corrupt through copying that corruption. He makes his god in his own image and likeness, the essence and concentration of his own bad passions, and then conforms himself to the likeness, not of God, but of what was most evil in himself.” Concerning all false gods the Psalmist says, “They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.” Love the world, you become worldly; love God, you become godly. Love has a transforming power which nothing else has. “Nothing else makes good or evil actions,” says Augustine, “but good or evil affections. What a man’s love is, that he is.” “Love the Lord thy God.”
SEPARATED UNTO SHAME.—Hosea 9:10
Idolatry is not a harmless mistake, misdirected aim, but a serious evil, the source of all evils. Its consequences are degradation and shame. All sin is shame, and those who separate, devote themselves to sin, separate themselves to shame.
I. This shame is a common experience. Adam and Eve were ashamed, and hid themselves in the garden. Men blush now when caught in the act of sin. They excuse, palliate, and apologize for their guilt. They were ignorant, tempted, and surprised. They are afraid to confess, and seek to cover their shame. If men do not appear to blush, they feel ashamed. They may be light before men, but serious before God—laugh in public, and sigh in secret. There are sad hearts beneath cheerful faces. “The conscious mind is its own awful world.”
II. This shame is a penal suffering. It is the result of wrong-doing, of broken law. The violation of all natural laws brings suffering—sin brings suffering, and this suffering is shame. It is not a shame to labour, to be poor and afflicted; but it is a shame to sin, and sin will expose a man to shame. The wicked are often put to shame before men. They lose respect and honour, get exposed to contempt and danger. They will be cursed by God in his providence. “Then time turns torment, when man turns a fool.” “A wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame.”
III. This shame is a threatened punishment. Believers will “have confidence, and not be ashamed” before Christ at his coming. But the wicked will “rise to everlasting shame and contempt.” Once great men of the world seemed wise, and those who denied sinful lusts were fools; but at the judgment day all things will be unmasked and realities seen in their true light. Shame will then be infamous, and disgrace conspicuous to the universe. “The wise shall inherit glory; but shame shall be the promotion of fools.”
IV. This shame is often a penitential feeling. When sin is seen in the light of Divine love, judged by the sufferings of Christ, it is felt to be exceedingly sinful. The penitent regards its pollution, not its punishment, feels ashamed, reproached, and self-condemned. The publican and the Psalmist, Ezra and Nehemiah, Job and Isaiah, all felt ashamed for their iniquities, and cried to God for cleansing and pardon. This is a painful, but hopeful experience. It attracts the notice of God. “He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Hosea 9:9-10. Corrupt. “O Lord, abhor me not, though I be most abhorrible,” said the dying Thos. Scott. “My repentance needs to be repented of; my tears want washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer” [Bp. Beveridge]. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious [Bacon]. The disposition of a liar is dishonourable, and his shame is ever with him (Sir. 20:26).