Hosea 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. The people of Israel are here designated by the name "Ephraim." This tribe rapidly rose to influence beneath the shadow of Joshua's greatness. Under that hero, one of its greatest sons, Ephraim was located in the most fertile part of Palestine, and being less exposed than other tribes to external attack, grew in numbers and affluence. When another Ephraimite, Jeroboam, led the revolt against the house of David, and became the first king of Israel, this tribe, already strong, stood foremost, and its name became henceforth a synonym for Israel. In this chapter Hoses exhibits the sins of the people in a series of graphic pictures. He tacitly asks whether they had anything to urge in stay of judgment. He would prove to their own consciences the righteousness of the Divine decision, so that they would be left without excuse. There ever comes from the throne of God, as once there came from Mount Sinai, a voice which appeals to human conscience to confirm the Divine sentence: "Let all the people say, Amen l" Our text exhibits a nation abandoned by God - to whom all expostulation bad proved useless. It suggests a moral condition similar to the physical condition of some patient on whom the surgeon has operated again and again; who has often pleaded to be left alone, and from whom at last, with heavy heart, the skilful kindly friend turns away, saying, "It is best that he should be left alone now, for his disease is fatal." That Divine abandonment is possible may be shown from Jeremiah 6:30, compared with Matthew 5:13. At times God seems to reply to man's wish by an echo (compare Job 21:14 with Matthew 25:41). The solemnity of the fact that insensibility follows impenitence. I. THE WICKEDNESS OF IDOLATRY. "Joined to idols implies vital association with them. Ephraim would not part with idols, and could not be parted from them without death. Three forms o/idolatry prevailed. Each appealed to a distinct section of the people, and all alike drew their hearts from God. The calves introduced by Jeroboam from Egypt were deification of nature," and became at Gilgal and Bethel centers for political and national gatherings. Baal, the sun-god, was a deification of "power," and was worshipped in mountains and high places. Ashtaroth, the Astarte of the Greeks, the Venus of the Romans, was worshipped in the groves, under the shadow of which hideously licentious rites completed the degradation of the people. Each had its own cultus and its own worshippers. We all recognize that an idol may exist in our thought as well as in our sight. The essence of idolatry is the preference of anything to God, so as to allow it to take the place he should fill in our thoughts and affections. The same object does not tempt us all, nor will the same allure us in all the stages of our life. In youth you may worship Astarte; in manhood, Baal; and in old age, the golden calves. Speak of forms of idolatry prevalent in England. 1. The idolatry of wealth. We do not allude to the gaining of money, which is possible to a man who wins it by his shrewdness and skill, by his industry and probity in business. The Lord has given him power to get wealth, which he uses as a steward for God. Describe one who makes money-getting the object of life. lie chooses a business, without any care about its evil associations. He steels his heart to misery and to the claims of his own kin. He ignores the standard of integrity which an enlightened conscience sets up. If advantage is to be gained by bribe or trick, he is not the man to lose it from scrupulousness. He has no time for home duties, for Church work, etc., which claim his efforts. In brief, he dismisses, and feels that he must dismiss, God from his plans; and as the habit grows he becomes "joined to idols," and in his avaricious hardness God lets him alone. 2. The idolatry of pleasure is not extinct. Picture a young girl introduced to society, in whose gaieties she henceforth finds herself entangled. Simple of heart as she is fair of face, she is insidiously injured by the unwholesome excitement, the late hours, the inane and profitless chit-chat of such an existence. Too tired to pray, too flattered to conquer self, she forgets those solemn realities to which the present life is only a vestibule, until in the scales of Eternal Justice she is "weighed in the balances and found wanting." Slowly but surely her early sensibility decreases; and she whose heart was once easily touched, whose conscience was keenly sensitive, becomes the hardened, scheming woman of the world. She is joined to idols: let her alone. 3. The idolatry of sensuousness. The halls of entertainment in which the lusts of the flesh and of the eye are pandered to are thronged nightly by lads whose incipient manliness becomes deteriorated. There, and elsewhere, drink exercises a fatal influence. Short of intoxication, the will is weakened, the memory obscured, the imagination so excited as to find pleasure where otherwise there would be none; and so the first step to ruin is often taken half consciously. Little by little the power of drink asserts itself, till self-control is gone, and its victim cannot live without it; and so joined to idols is he that God says, "Let him alone." In these as in similar temptations many resent holy influence till they cannot feel it; they are "twice dead," "given over to a reprobate mind." II. THE WOEFULNESS OF INSENSIBILITY. 1. Its nature. "Let him alone," is God's command to all who have been speaking in his name, the prophet being their representative. A minister preaches, and many under the influence of the truth are moved to thought and penitence. One hears as others do, but, unlike them, is hard and callous. Often has he said to himself, "I wish I could go to a place of worship without feeling uneasy;" and at last God says," You shall. Ministers, let him alone!" Friends spoke faithfully to another, urging him to prayer, pleading with him, even with tears, to turn from sin. Sometimes he laughed at their anxiety, sometimes he was angry, at their interference, heartily wishing that they would interfere with him no more. Now they do not. One friend has removed to a distance, the voice of another is stilled by death, and another has given up further effort in utter despair of success. God has said, "Let him alone." Solemn events once stirred to thought, but now their influence is gone. The voice within which warned and entreated is sensibly weaker and less frequently heard. To conscience God has said," Let him alone," and now it is sleeping. 2. The dreadfulness of this condition is seen in the fact that the noblest art of man is gone. Suppose your hand was injured so that you were in pain night and day. Driven to desperation, you take a red-hot iron and sear the flesh, destroying nerves and tissue ruthlessly. The sore heals, the pain is gone. Ay, but the band is useless, and nothing can restore it. So may you deal with conscience. Refusing to go to the good Physician when conscious of your peril, you sin deliberately against God, and thus conscience may be "seared as with a hot iron." Note, also, the ominousness of being left alone. We see all the trees in an orchard pruned with an unsparing yet skilful hand, and are told that they will be the more vigorous and fruitful in the autumn, One tree, however, has been left untouched by the knife. Why? Is it because it is a favorite? You see the answer in the red cross on its trunk, which shows that it is marked for cutting down as a cumberer of the ground. Take another illustration. Two prisoners are convicted of offences against the law. The one, on the ground of his youth and possible reformation, is sent home for his father to chastise, and he goes weeping. The other, a hardened criminal, is to receive no stripes, but may have anything his appetite craves. Yet all look on him with horror. The fact that he is to receive no chastisement is ominous; for he is under condemnation of death. That you are so little troubled by serious thought is no sign of safety; it may be the indication that soon, "being past feeling," you will be "given over to a reprobate mind." "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." CONCLUSION. 1. Address those who fear they are left alone. If the faint desire to return to God yet lingers, if the fear of being forsaken of God makes you tremble, the curse has not yet fallen. The Lord, who is very pitiful and of tender mercy, still says, "Come now, and let us reason together," etc. 2. Address those in danger of being abandoned. Illustrate their position by the story of two brothers crossing a pass, overtaken by a snow-storm. One longs to sleep. He is dragged on for a time by physical force, is pleaded with earnestly, but at last is of necessity left. He sinks to rest; the snow-flakes fall silently and swiftly, and in the depths he finds his grave, and sleeps the sleep of death. You may say to all good influences, "Let me alone," until God puts his seal on your choice, and says to all that might save you, "Let him alone." - A.R. Parallel Verses KJV: Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. |
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