Hosea 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. While anything detains the heart from God, the man is in a state of perdition. "He is joined to his idols." There is something very dreadful in this declaration — I. IF YOU DISTINGUISH THIS DESERTION FROM ANOTHER, WHICH MAY BEFALL EVEN THE SUBJECTS OF DIVINE GRACE. God sometimes leaves His people when they are becoming high-minded, to convince them of their dependence upon Him. He leaves them to their own strength to show them their weakness, and to their own wisdom to make them sensible of their ignorance. But this differs exceedingly from the abandoning of the incorrigible. II. THIS LEAVING OF THE SINNER IS A WITHDRAWING FROM HIM EVERYTHING THAT HAS A TENDENCY TO DO HIM GOOD. Ministers, saints, conscience, providence — "let him alone," Ye afflictions, say nothing to him of the vanity of the world. Let all his schemes be completely successful. Let his grounds bring forth plentifully. Let him have more than heart can wish. III. CONSIDER THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BEING WHO THUS ABANDONS. It would be much better if all your friends and neighbours, if all your fellow-creatures on whom you depend for assistance in a thousand ways, were to league together and resolve to have nothing to do with you, than for God to leave you. While God is with us we can spare other things. But what is everything, else without God? IV. WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS DETERMINATION? It will be a freedom to sin; it will be the removal of every hindrance in the way to perdition. When God dismisses a man, and resolves he shall have no more assistance from Him — he is sure of being ensnared by error, enslaved by lust, and "led captive by the devil at his will." It is as if we had taken poison, and all that is necessary to its killing us is not to counteract its malignity. Such is the judgment here denounced. Notice — 1. The justice of this doom. All the punishments God inflicts are deserved, and He never inflicts without reluctance. Your condemnation turns upon a principle that will at once justify Him and silence you. "Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life." 2. Let me call on you to fear this judgment. And surely some of you have reason to be alarmed. With some of you the Spirit of God has long been striving, and you have "done despite unto the Spirit of grace." Now you know what He has said, and you know what He has done. If you say you have no forebodings, the symptoms are so much the worse. Spiritual judgments are the most awful, because they are insensibly executed. 3. Perhaps some of you say, "I am afraid this is my doom already. My convictions seem to have been stifled." Perhaps this is true. Perhaps it is a groundless apprehension. Remember, it is a blessed proof that God does not let you alone, if you cannot let Him alone. (William Jay.) Parallel Verses KJV: Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. |
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