Gray hairs are a sign of decay. They are here the marks of age, the premonitory symptoms of dissolution; and so the truth the text announces is that men, many men, live in ignorance, and act in disregard, of signs that should warn and alarm them.
In illustration of this I remark
I. It appears in the history of states. The words were first spoken of the kingdom of Israel. In the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy, in the corruption of morals and the decline of true religion the prophet saw the signs of his country's decay, these were the gray hairs that were here and there upon them, and they knew not. Kingdoms, as well as men and women in decline, stricken with a mortal malady, have descended into the grave, blind to their dangers and their doom. (2) My text applies to the false security of sinners. Be our profession what it may, if we have habits if sin these are the gray hairs that, unless grace convert and mercy pardon, foretell our doom. So long as you see one star in the sky, the sun is not risen; so long as one leak admits the water, the ship is not safe; so long as one sin reigns in a man's heart, and is practised in his life, Jesus is neither his Saviour nor his King. The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. (3) This appears in men's insensibility to the lapse and lessons of time. The nearer we draw to our end, through a natural callousness or otherwise, the less sensible we grow to the evils and approach of age. And when a man has not left his peace with God to seek in old age, his greatest work to a time when he is least fit to do it: in such a case it is a most blessed thing that old age does not make our hearts old, or benumb our feelings that gray hairs are on us, and yet we know not. But where, in such a case, is the hope of those who have trusted to turning religious when they grow old, and attending to the concerns of a better world when they have ceased to feel any interest in this?
T. Guthrie, Speaking to the Heart,p. 1.
How comes it that a man may slip away from earnestness in the Christian life, into a condition of spiritual decrepitude, without knowing it?
I. Because we are all inclined to look more favourably on ourselves than on others. The man who is himself declining in spiritual health may be, very often is, blind to his own defections, while yet he has a clear perception of the backsliding of others. How shall this evil be prevented? By trying ourselves fairly by the standard of God's Word, and by laying ourselves open in earnest supplication to the inspection of the Lord Himself.
II. This insensibility to spiritual deterioration may be largely owing to the gradual way in which backsliding steals upon a man. No one becomes very wicked all at once; and backsliding, as the term itself implies, is a thing not of sudden manifestation, but of gradual motion. We shall know where we are when we test ourselves by the Word of God, as that has been vindicated for us by the example and the spirit of the Lord Jesus. Let us not compare ourselves simply with that which we were yesterday, or last week, or last year; but let us rather take daily sights of the Sun of Righteousness, and shape our course accordingly.
III. This unconsciousness of backsliding may be largely accounted for in many cases by the fact that the individuals are absorbed in other matters to such an extent that the state of the heart is forgotten. Just in proportion as their business prosperity increases their spiritual health diminishes. Here, again, the question arises, How is this danger to be obviated? And the answer is, In one of two ways: either (1) by curtailing the business, or (2) by consecrating it as a whole to God.
W. M. Taylor, Limitations of Life,p. 327.
References: Hosea 7:9. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiv., No. 830; H. M. Arthur, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvi., p. 282; Parker, Pulpit Notes,p. 73.