I. Consider the statements of the text in their primary reference to Israel and Judah, showing their application in spirit to ourselves. (1) Those whom God originally called to be one, whom He consolidated into a Church, making them His family and people, are now two; they are split and divided into contending factions. (2) Notice the different conduct by which the two parties in the text were distinguished. Israel builds temples. Judah multiplies fenced cities. Israel fell from and corrupted the primitive institutions of Divine worship. Judah put her trust, not in what God had promised to do for her, but in herself. The people had the form of godliness without the power. While they approached God with their lips, their hearts were far from Him; they bowed in His temple, but they trusted in themselves. (3) The conduct of Israel and Judah, though so different, was alike bad; in each case it proceeded from the same sinful source; against both the judgments of God were equally denounced.
II. Notice a few practical lessons from the subject. (1) Religion is the most powerful thing in the world. (2) This power, the strongest in itself over the human mind, is exposed by the heart to the greatest perversion, and that in various and opposite directions. (3) The liability of religion to corruption, and the power and tendency of men to corrupt it, are no presumption against the reality of religion in general, or against the truth of Christianity in particular. (4) While large masses of the professing Church may seem to be characterized by particular and obvious forms of error, we should always remember that many individuals in each mass may not be involved in the surrounding corruption. (5) It is highly important for us to consider what may be the tendency of any Church system with which we are connected, and to examine narrowly into our own spirit or temper.
T. Binney, Sermons in King's Weighhouse Chapel,2nd series, p. 267.
References: Hosea 10:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. v., No. 276; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi,p. 315; Ibid.,p. 318. Hosea 10:12. Ibid., Sermons,vol. xxi., No. 1261; vol. xxvi., No. 1563; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 92; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation,2nd series, p. 281.Hosea 11:1. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxviii., No. 1675.Hosea 11:3. Ibid.,vol. xvii., No. 1021.