O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God.
Man’s evil estate, and hope of deliverance
While the freeness of God’s mercy is the leading idea suggested by the text, it is not the only one: the condition of our nature is accurately expressed, as is the mode by which alone it can be ameliorated.
I. The state into which man has brought himself. There are few things more important than the fastening on the sinner all the blame of his sin. Adam might have obeyed the simple injunction, and, holding on his probation, might have won for himself and his descendants a hereafter fenced up against the spoiler. God foreknew that Adam would transgress, and prepared for the contingency. We can see that if there had been no ruin there could have been no restoration. The work of redemption takes, of course, for granted the apostasy of our race. On Adam must be fastened all the blame of his transgression. There was no extenuating plea which the offender could in justice have urged. The blame of the fall belongs individually to man. Thou hast not fallen through an inherent inability to stand; He has so constituted thee that thou mightest have stood. Thou hast not fallen through the ground being slippery, and thick-set with snares. He placed thee where thy footing was firm, and thy pathway direct. So that upon man himself comes home wholly all the effect of the fall. We argue from this the unqualified gratuitousness of God’s interposition on man’s behalf. In whatever degree there may be a necessity of sinning, in no degree is there a necessity of perishing. God places no man in such a moral condition that our falling into perdition is unavoidable. Let a man have once heard of Christ, and from that moment forward salvation is within arm’s length of this man. Man can have no right to take off the burthen of responsibilities and cast it on the secret decrees of his Maker.
II. The mode of man’s deliverance. “Return unto the Lord thy God.” It comes not within our power to destroy or diminish God’s title to our service. The fall did not do away with God’s claim on man. Some teach that God proportions His demands to our impaired capacities, and will be satisfied with the honest endeavour, seeing that we cannot come up to the thorough performance. But this is making God answerable for the apostasy of man. We may, however, gather an inference of consolation as well as one of admonition. There is the groundwork of hope, that God will yet look mercifully upon us, and restore us, seeing that, notwithstanding our alienation, He is still our God. Man of himself hath no power to turn unto God; but since God invites, He surely enables. He bestows all requisite assistance, and a clear pathway has been made. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
On repentance
In the history of the children of Israel we see the perverseness and ingratitude of man, and the forbearance and goodness of God. Israel’s sins were peculiarly aggravated by their having been committed after repeated and wonderful deliverances, after signal chastisements and mercies. At the period of Hosea’s prophecy Israel’s continued rebellion against God had nearly exhausted His patience toward that people. Though these words were primarily addressed to Israel, we shall consider them--
I. As conveying a gracious exhortation to all sinners to “return unto the lord.”
1. We must “return unto the Lord” with consideration. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways.”
2. With weeping and supplication. A proper review of our past follies and perverse wanderings, and of God’s mercies and patience towards us, will produce sorrow of heart, will cause tears of compunction to flow.
3. With humility. Our lofty imaginations and high opinion of ourselves must be brought low.
4. Through the Mediator. We cannot expect to find mercy unless, we seek mercy through Christ. Of this righteousness, not our own, we must make mention.
5. Without delay. This may be urged from the shortness and uncertainty of life, and from the greatness of the work which we have to do.
II. As declaring the reasonableness of the exhortation. “For thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” The text is applicable to the case of backsliders who have fallen from their steadfastness. But all mankind have fallen from God. Adam fell, and in him fell all his posterity.
1. Man is fallen from the favour of God, and is under the displeasure of God.
2. Man is fallen under the dominion of sin and the curse of the law.
3. Man is fallen into the snares and power of the devil.
4. Man, if not recovered by Divine grace, will at last fall into the bottomless pit.
Apply to those who are still in their fallen state, and are wandering from God.
1. Yield to the solemn and affecting truth that you have fallen by your iniquity, and let this truth stir you up to inquire with solicitude, “What must I do to be saved?”
2. Listen to God’s gracious invitation, and believe His willingness to receive you.
3. Contemplate what has been done to accomplish the great work of your redemption.
4. Consider the awful doom of the finally impenitent transgressor. (E. Edwards.)
Repentance as return
The Divine love is content with nothing less than return. And nothing less and nothing else will give safety. There must not only be a cessation of the present journey, but a definite and conclusive retracement of the steps. What the prophet sighs for, and what his God so earnestly commands, is not the mere inactive terror of proceeding onwards when the fiery abyss stretches to the view, nor the attempt, while that terror lasts, to breathe a hasty vow or utter a disordered prayer. What the Divine love insists on is a decided and complete retreat, such as when, conscious of peril and aware of only one refuge, and that in God, he eagerly seeks Him with the whole heart. “I will arise and go to my Father” is his earnest and practical resolution. (John Eadie, D. D., LL. D.)
A message to backsliding Israel
I. The lord’s address unto His backsliding ones. “O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God.” God glorifies His sanctifying grace in some, and His pardoning grace in others. Let the children of God be in what state they may, as it respects their acts of grace or sin, this makes no alteration in the Lord’s love unto them. As they have the body of sin and death dwelling within them, there is a continual propensity in their fallen natures, to slide into themselves, and to backslide from the Lord Jesus Christ. Israel’s case was extreme. Be could not return unto the Lord by any strength of his own. He must be fallen by his iniquity into a state and kind of desperation. This was the fruit of his iniquity. It is the Lord Himself who here speaks. He does so in the language of commiseration. From these words what an infinity of grace and blessed encouragement may be derived, so as to encourage the people of the Lord to trust and hope in Him. None but backsliders know and feel the sorrows which arise from the same.
II. One substantial reason for the return of backsliding Israel to God. “O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God.” It lies in their relation to Him, and His relation to them. All sin is the effect of unbelief. Every act of departure from the Lord is the fruit of it; let it be mental, or let it be open and manifest. Backsliders need great encouragement, even from the Lord Himself, to return to Him. He is pleased to give it them. The interest the Lord God hath in His people can never be broken in upon, neither can their interest in Him ever be impaired or cease. It is always the same on both sides. The intercourse between the Lord and His people may be interrupted. But God is immutable in His love and mercy.
III. The reason made use of to hasten God’s people’s return to Him. “Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” The mercy of God in Christ Jesus exceeds the very uttermost of our minds to receive any adequate ideas of. Guilt in the conscience produces fear in the heart; so long as we indulge the same it weakens our faith and keeps us from Christ. (Samuel Eyles Pierce.)
A call to repentant return
In Hosea’s days idolatry was first universally set up and countenanced by regal power. Here we have--
I. An exhortation to repentance, with the motives enforcing the same. Every word hath its weight, and in a manner is an argument to enforce this returning. “Israel” is a word of covenant. Return unto the “Lord Jehovah,” who is the chief good, the fountain of all good. “Thy” God in covenant, who will make good His gracious covenant unto thee. Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity; thine own inventions have brought these miseries upon thee, and none but God can help thee out of these miseries. God comes not as a sudden storm upon His people, but gives them warning before He smites them. He is a God of long-suffering, and has a special regard to His own children. Another point--
II. The best provision for preventing of destruction is spiritual means. Of all spiritual means the best is, to return to the Lord. In this returning there must be a stop. To make this stop there must be examination and consideration, humiliation and displeasure against ourselves, judging and taking revenge of ourselves, for our ways and courses. There must be a resolution to overcome impediments. In the original it is a very emphatic, “Return even to Jehovah.” Do not only begin to return, but so return as you never cease coming till you come to Jehovah. Where there is a falling into sin there will be a falling into misery and judgment. The cause of every man’s misery is his own sin. Then take heed of sin. Pray to God to make our way plain before us, and not to lead us into temptation. “Take with you words.” They who would have help and comfort against all sins and sorrows must come to God with words of prayer. Barrenness and want of words to go unto God are blameworthy. This is for consolation: if they can take words, and can pray well, they shall speed well. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Sin separates from God
You may sometimes see in the ocean a pile of rock rising steeply to a considerable height, and having on it here and there, where a patch of soil covers it, the remains of what was once a luxuriant vegetation. If you examine it, and also the mainland a few furlongs off, you will come to the conclusion that they were at one time, now long gone by, united together. They have become separated by the action of the sea. At first there was but a small inlet, scarcely large enough for a single boat to anchor in; this was gradually enlarged by the incessant beating of the surf until it became a broad bay, and at last the sea, striking with more and more force upon the cliffs every year, cut its way completely through, and now what was once part of the mainland is but a solitary and desolate isle. One of the most direct and appalling effects of sin is the breach which it makes between the human heart and God. Man is made in the likeness of God; he is an offspring of the Divine thought and love; he is endowed with the same moral and spiritual capacities as those which God Himself possesses; but let sin be suffered to find an entrance into his heart, and, like the gnawing, devouring, destructive sea, it will eat away all the holy and sacred ties which bind his:heart to God, and cut him off from God, and leave him inwardly lonely and desolate. (B. Wilkinson, F. G. S.)
How to return to an earnest Christian life
As long as the bright summer sun shines into the forest glades the fungus has no chance to flourish; but when the sunshine wanes, in the months of autumn, the woods are filled with these strange products of decay. It is because we drift from God that our lives are the prey to numberless and nameless ills. Make the best of all new starts, and returning to the more earnest habits of earlier days, or beginning them from now, give yourself to God, believing that He will receive and welcome you, without a word of remonstrance or a moment of interval. Form habits of morning and evening prayer; especially in the morning get time for deep communion with God, waiting at His footstool, or in the perusal of the Bible, till He speaks to you. Take up again your habits of attendance at the house of God: in the morning and the evening go with the multitude that, with the voice of praise, keeps holy-day, and in the afternoon find some niche of the Christian service, in your home or elsewhere. Then, inasmuch as you do not wish to be a slip-carriage, which, when the couplings are unfastened, runs for a little behind the express, but gets slower and slower till it comes to a stand, ask the grace of the Holy Spirit to confirm these holy desires, keeping you true to them, causing you to be steadfast, immovable, and set on maintaining life on a higher level. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
God always watching for our return
Bianconi, the introducer of the car system in Ireland, on leaving his home in Italy, found his most trying leave-taking in separating from his mother. She fainted as he left her. Her last words were words which he never forgot: “When you remember me, think” of me as waiting at this window watching for your return.” We may think of God in the same way if we have departed from Him at all. In spite of all our faults, all our sins, He is always watching for our return, for “His mercy endureth for ever.”
For thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
Our fall by sin
The sight of fallen greatness is exceedingly affecting to the mind of a thoughtful man, and excites inquiries concerning the cause or causes of it. The prophet looked on the kingdom of Israel fallen from its past strength and honour, and declares the cause of the fall to be--iniquity.
I. The fall by sin is the most grievous in human experience.
1. The fall by sin is from the highest relationships the soul can enjoy. No relationships, how distinguished and valued soever, can equal those of God, There are none so essential to the soul’s good and safety. Without holiness no true relationship with Him can be sustained.
2. The fall by sin is from life’s great purpose. Short as life is, it has a great mission to fulfil. Eternal life has to be secured. The world’s truest good has to be promoted. Sin causes a lamentable failure.
3. The fall by sin is a loss of truest power. A right life wields a great influence. No power can be compared with that of a holy character. This power is lost by sin.
4. The fall by sin is from truest content of soul. The hallowed quiet and peace depart. Painful misgivings and pangs of remorse tear the breast. The consciousness of guilt prevents the light and joy of hope.
II. This fall is the inevitable result of sin. The course of sin is the act of man’s free will. But if he choose the path he cannot escape the ruin.
1. The path of sin leads to ruin.
(1) The pleasures of the way cannot avert the consequences.
(2) The fall may be delayed, but it will come.
2. None can pursue the path of sin and escape the ruin. The individual cannot; the Church cannot; the nation cannot.
III. For this fall man himself is responsible. He falls by his own iniquity,
1. None can compel another to sin.
2. As none can compel another to sin, so none can compel his fall.
Apply--
1. Sin with such power and consequences should have our intensest hate, and should be guarded against.
2. He who is fallen should forsake his sin, and seek mercy and grace from God. God’s mercy can cover the past, and His grace can sanctify and secure the future. (Rombeth.)
Message to the remnant
So the admonition of Hosea has ended, and the note of destruction has been sounded. It only remains to look for a remnant out of the fallen nation, which by repentance and faithfulness may plead with God for their own rescue if not for the nation’s restoration. Hope, unwilling to be quenched in the pious patriarch’s breast, suggests words of returning to God, to relinquishment of human politics, and reliance on His faithfulness. To such a remnant, be it small or great, the everlasting mercy of God offers out of the jaws of ruin, as out of death and the grave, the possibility of return to Him who is not afar from every one of us. If there are any that will understand, let them not charge their Maker with folly. He has dealt justly by sinful Israel, and will deal mercifully with all men repentant. (Rowland Williams, D. D.)
God’s call to the fallen
God seems to find an argument in the very fact of our fall. He is moved with compassion at the spectacle. He sees from what a height to what a depth man has fallen.
1. The call to return implies that we had wandered away. Our fall has indeed been occasioned by our wandering. All sin originates in the apostasy of the human heart from God. Sin would never have entered human hearts, and defiled the lives of men, if man had been true to his primal relations with God. As with the race, so with the individual. Moral deterioration and corruption naturally and necessarily ensue from the apostasy of the soul from God. Evil works naturally flow from the corrupt condition. The fallen soul not only loses contact and fellowship with God, but comes under the influence of a certain feeling of aversion, and almost of antipathy, towards God which leads him to shrink from the very thought of God. The apostate man is fallen not only in position, but in character. Innocence has been forfeited instead of being developed, and sin reigns where moral beauty should be crowned. Man needs no revelation to convince him of his fall. He alone of all the animals fails to live up to his own proper ideal, and violates in many cases systematically the laws of his own nature. Fallen in position and character, he is fallen in conduct also. Then the first thing needful for the fallen and falling is to return to God. He who invites us wants us to come back to Him. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)