CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 9:5. Solemn day] God “singles out the great festivals which commemorated his great doings for his people as though they had no more share in these mercies.” Sad to be deprived of ordinary sacrifice, how much more to be excluded from feasts of joy!
HOMILETICS
THE SOLEMN DAYS OF LIFE.—Hosea 9:5
Israel had sinned away their privileges, and deprived themselves of sacrifices and feasts. What would they do “in the solemn day” when it was impossible to rejoice before the Lord (Numbers 10:10)? In captivity they would not be able to celebrate the festivals. The temple would be in ruins, and they would be exiled into a foreign country. “The more solemn the day, the more total man’s exclusion, the more manifest God’s withdrawal.” There are solemn days in our life which we must all meet. How shall we meet them?
I. The day of affliction is a solemn day. “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Suffering is the law of our being, and co-extensive with our race. As certain as we are born to live we are born to trouble, and our days are “full of trouble.” No wealth can purchase, no power effect, deliverance from the common lot. Reverses of fortune, poverty and want, disquietude and fear, prey upon the mind. Inward consumption and outward accidents lay men on beds of sickness. They cannot go to places of amusement, nor enjoy company of pleasure; they are shut out from Christian fellowship, and deprived of all the means of grace; they are on “the bed of languishing” and sorrow. When the world deserts them, and remembrance of the past distresses them, what will they do? When a Christian is sick God gives ease and health to his soul. “Thou wilt make all his bed in sickness.” But “in the day of adversity” what will the sinner do?
II. The day of death is a solemn day. “What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” Neither by wisdom nor strength can we avoid the common doom. Death spares no rank nor condition, calls with impartial step at the cottage of the poor and the palace of the prince. “There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death; and there is no discharge in that war.” Charles V. was advised to retire from danger at the battle of Tunis, but refused, and said that an emperor was never slain with great shot. William Rufus declared that kings were never drowned. But the hero of a thousand fights can claim no exemption here. What a solemn day is this day! What will you do when the physician’s skill is of no avail? when millions of money would not buy an inch of time? when there is no help from earth or heaven? The wicked may strengthen himself in wickedness, but he can neither outwit nor overcome his enemy. His “covenant with death and with hell shall be disannulled.” “The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.”
III. The day of judgment will be a solemn day. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.” That will be the most solemn day, when the eternal destinies of men are fixed by the Great Judge. Every work, great and small, public and private; every secret thing, good or bad, the hidden thoughts of the heart and the forgotten sins of youth; “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” Simeon, a holy bishop, was saluted on his way to martyrdom by Urthazanes, a Persian courtier, and an apostate. But the courtier was frowned upon by the bishop, and cried, “How shall I appear before the great God of heaven, whom I have denied, when Simeon, but a man, will not endure to look upon me? If he frown, how will God behold me when I come before his tribunal?” This led to his reclamation. How will you appear before the Judge? What will you do in that solemn day? Will you call to the rocks and to the mountains to fall upon you and hide you? Make your peace with God, and prepare to meet him, “that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”
“At his call the dead awaken,
Rise to life from earth and sea;
All the powers of Nature, shaken
By his looks, prepare to flee:
Careless sinner,
What will then become of thee!”
A SAD PICTURE.—Hosea 9:6-7
Israel fled to Egypt because of the destruction of their own land, hoping to find help in time of need. But they were disappointed. In Egypt they found their graves (Exodus 14:11); they were gathered and buried together (Jeremiah 8:2; Job 27:15). Their tents were overrun with nettles, their treasures of silver were in ruins, and the land desolate and without inhabitants. A sad picture of the consequences of sin.
I. Expected refuge turned into destruction. “Memphis shall bury them.” Men run away from one trouble only to get into another. Wealth, friends, and the world are tried and fail. Places of refuge prove places of death. They are received and gathered only to be buried. Those who flee from God, expecting life, will be certain to meet their death. They flee from the smoke only to fall into the fire. They seek good and find evil. Calamity sooner or later overtakes the Christless and impenitent from which they cannot escape. They choose death and obtain their choice. “The eyes of the wicked shall fail and they shall not escape, and their hope the giving up of the ghost” (Job 11:20).
II. Fruitful land turned into desolation.
1. Silver, once treasured, had gone.
2. Nettles and thorns grew amid their habitations.
3. The land was swept of its inhabitants. What a scene of desolation and sadness! Sin has cursed the ground on which we tread, and drained many a nation of its prosperity. The cities of the plain were destroyed and “the garden of the Lord” turned into barrenness (Genesis 13:10). Where is the glory of Greece, once so famous for arts and sciences? What will become of “England, great, glorious, and free,” if she forsakes God, her defence? God can empty our stores, demolish our temples, and diminish our people. Let us take warning. “He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.”
HOMILETICS
DAYS OF VISITATION.—Hosea 9:7-9
Israel’s sin is one, but the tendencies and the manifestations are many. God had shown them what little cause for joy they had, warned them of the coming day; and now, lest they should slight the warning, declares that retribution is near. “The days of visitation are come.”
I. Days of retribution for guilt. “The days of recompence are come.” Men deny such days, and seek to delay them, but they come. They come to recompense, to reward men for their ways, and fix their doom. “For the Lord God of recompences shall surely requite” (Jeremiah 51:56). There is retribution enough to prove a moral government among men—that justice sees and will avenge the wrong, and that hereafter right will be dealt to all. Nature tells us that every law must have a penalty, or it is no law. Reason teaches that under no government, human or Divine, should the just be as the unjust. As there is no law without penalty, so there is no penalty inflicted but for law violated. “For the multitude of thine iniquity” are the days of visitation come. “Punishment ripens on the tree of evil.” “Punishment is justice for the unjust.” “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
II. Days of bitter experience. “Israel shall know it.” Men will not heed Divine warning. They must know by feeling the results of their sins. They cannot check the consequences, not confine them to the outer world when they come. They must experience the bitterness of their course. A man of sin is a man of pains. He lives in sin, eats it up, and it is bitter in his belly (Revelation 10:9). He tastes the wormwood and the gall, and drinks the bitter for the sweet. “Everything that I love, everything that belongs to me, is stricken,” cried Napoleon. “Heaven and mankind unite to afflict me.” Lord Byron declared that his days were “in the yellow leaf”—“the flowers” and the fruits were gone, and “the worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone.” The poet Burns said in dying hours, “I close my eyes in misery, and open them without hope.”
When haughty guilt exults with impious joy,
Mistake shall blast, or accident destroy;
Weak man, with erring rage, may throw the dart,
But Heaven shall guide it to the guilty heart.
III. Days of discriminating character. “The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad.” The man pretending to have spiritual inspiration, the prophets predicting prosperity, were mad, and retribution would convince them of their folly. The event would show what spirit was in them.
1. Character in public teachers is discriminated. Some called the prophets of God mad men, as Festus thought Paul. Elisha (2 Kings 9:11), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 29:5), and Christ himself were called mad. For ages the early Christian teachers were considered under the influence of phrenzy or madness. True prophets have never been understood; often called fools and fanatics by those who pretend to higher revelations and superior wisdom. False teachers commend themselves, glory in appearance, and condemn others. Real prophets proclaim their message, are “beside” themselves to God and “sober” to men. They are contradicted in words and blackened in character; but God and time defend their cause. The flatterer will be unmasked, the contrast between the false prophet and the true “watchman” shall be manifest, and it shall be seen that one walked “with God” and the other was “a snare” to the people “in all his ways.” “Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing.”
2. Character in private individuals is discriminated. Christians have often to bear reproach and maintain a dignified silence; but days of God’s visitation, times of persecution, defend their character, and rank them in their position. The wicked tremble and fear, the false professor forsakes God, but the righteous suffer and are glorified. Days of retribution sift character and conduct. Men are forced to confess that the wicked have not the best of it—that there is a God to recompense truth and justice, and reverse the judgments of men. “Then shall ye return (to a better state of mind), and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hosea 9:7. If we apply the words to religious teachers—
1. It is an unreasonable charge. Wise men have grounds for their judgment; but it is most unjust to condemn without a cause. These men are servants of God, pure in their life and noble in their aim.
2. It is a common charge. In every age when selfishness reigns supreme and scepticism abounds, men of deep convictions and unwearied zeal for God have been regarded as fanatics and madmen. But what appears insanity to some are “words of truth and soberness” to others.
3. It is a dangerous charge. Those who deal plentifully in terms of folly may have them flung upon themselves. Events may reverse the judgments of men, and those who call others fools may prove to be the greatest fools themselves. “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete,” &c.
The great hatred.
1. Against God. The carnal mind at hostility with God. The question at issue, the casus belli, who shall govern—God or the sinner? Many think they can adore and love God as Creator and Benefactor, while they rebel against him as Lawgiver. Many may love Cromwell, the Queen, or any ruler, for piety and courage, yet condemn the government as harsh and despotic. God’s moral government admits not of this distinction. His nature and office, his person and his throne, are inseparable. No neutrality in human affection and conduct. Either at peace or at war with God.
2. Against God’s Law. The law demands supreme and universal obedience—not only takes cognizance of external actions, but touches the inward springs of all action, weighs the motives and thoughts concealed in the heart. Its rigour never relaxes, its demands never cease. Hence the enmity and resistance.
3. Against God’s servants. Ahab said of Michaiah, “I hate him” (1 Kings 22:8). They hated so intensely (Hosea 9:8) that their whole soul was turned into hatred; they were hatred, as we say, personified; hatred was embodied in them, and they ensouled with hate. They were also the source of hatred against God and man. And this, each false prophet was in the house of his God! for God was still his God, although not owned by him. God is the sinner’s God to avenge, if he will not allow him to be his God to convert and pardon [Pusey].
Hosea 9:8. Watchmen and fowlers.
1. Watchmen walking with God, warning of danger, and urging the people to duty.
2. Watchmen neglecting their duty, and sleeping at their post.
3. Watchmen turned into fowlers, predicting peace, flattering the people and leading them to destruction. “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.”
Hosea 9:9. Deeply corrupted. Sin corrupts—
(1) the understanding,
(2) the affections, and
(3) the life. Sin corrupts everything it touches. The touch and the taint go together. It leads from bad to worse, and makes men totally and entirely depraved, if not forsaken.
Days of Gibeah (Judges 19).
1. Days of great lewdness.
2. Days of great shame.
3. Days of great punishment.
4. Days which epitomize Israel’s history in guilt and judgment (Romans 1:32).
Sins and punishment.
1. Contempt of God and his law will draw men into bominable wickedness.
2. When men have plunged into deeper wickedness they cannot recover themselves.
3. There is no wicked course into which men have fallen which the Church, departing from God, may not fall into again.
4. Whatever patience God may have, sinners of one age who fall into guilt will be visited by the same measure as another. As God spared not in the days of Gibeah, so now “he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Hosea 9:5-7. While the sun shines upon the earthly horizon the evil days are put to a distance. We scarcely admit the possibility of a change of scene. We exclude the prospect of dark days as an unwelcome intruder. The young revel in their pleasure, as if it would never end. But oh! the folly, the presumption of creatures born for an eternal existence, and to whom the present life is but the preparation time for a never-ending one, and to whom death is but the door of eternity, so wilfully shutting their eyes to this near approach, determining to live for this life only, and to let eternity take its chance [Bridges]. In the day of prosperity there is a forgetfulness of affliction; and in the day of affliction there is no more remembrance of prosperity (Sir. 11:25).
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).