Thus it will be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. When the day dawns, the king of Israel will be utterly cut off. Sermons
I. HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY lies in the direction of these activities. 1. Sowing the seed. "Sow to yourselves in righteousness." Show how deficient Israel was in righteousness, both in national affairs and in social and civil life, during Hosea's ministry. (1) National righteousness is demanded. Honesty in diplomacy, equitable dealing with weaker peoples, fairness in commercial enterprise, choice of the right, and not of the profitable, etc. (2) Church righteousness, which will not allow us to neglect the poor, or to be careless of the interests of Divine truth, or to restrain prayer heft,re God. (3) Individual righteousness, which may be shown by every Christian in all the varied relations of life. Sowing to ourselves in righteousness is not always easy, and is not often immediately recompensed; but "in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." 2. Preparing the sod. "Break up your fallow ground." The work referred to is monotonous, hard, continuous. The ploughman does not see around him the glow of the golden harvest; he does not hear the merriment of those who are binding the sheaves; he has not the stimulus of the happy speed which the hope of finishing gives the reaper. Yet his work is as necessary. The reference is not to the cleaning from weeds of land already sown, but to the breaking up of virgin soil, i.e. of the parts of a field which were neglected before. (1) Make application to the development of Christian character. There is generally a want of completeness about this. Sins of pleasure and indolence are gone; but if sins of pride, ambition, censoriousness, remain, these also must be turned up by the plough of resolution. We must not be content with saying, "This part of my character is fertile," while that part lies fallow. So with Christian graces. We may have courage without tenderness, patience without enterprise, and thus have fallow ground yet to be broken up. (2) Make application to the advance of Christ's kingdom. Parts of the world sown with the good seed are fairly productive, other parts are moral wastes. This calls for missionary enterprise. Congregations comfortably worship, yet amongst the godless and ignorant "fallow ground" still lies around them. The world will become a paradise only when each does his own work in his own sphere. In the Western States, laud is not brought under cultivation by the expenditure of a millionaire; but each settler has his own allotment, effects his own clearing, builds his own log hut, adds field to field till his farm touches the next, and by this process the wilderness begins to rejoice and blossom like the rose. 3. Seeking the Lord. Hosea would have the people eagerly expecting Messiah, and ready to welcome him. Some of John's disciples were thus" seeking the Lord," and it was on these Christ rained righteousness, in the truths he taught and the Spirit he gave. Readiness for the second advent becomes the Christian still; and the Church is sighing for it. Meantime the Lord comes in holy thought, in right resolve, in chastened feeling. He comes down on weary hearts like "rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth." II. Divine RECOMPENSE. 1. It is generous. "Reap [not 'in,' but] according to mercy;" not in proportion to desert, or to justice, but to the boundless mercy of the Lord. Of all reaping that is true. When we sow our seed we give it over to the care of God. It would be something to receive it back again uninjured; but it is multiplied, "according to the mercy" of God, and harvest-fields come from a few bushels of seed. God gives "good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over." If we are thus requited in the natural, we shall be in the moral husbandry. Grace used brings more grace. The five talents employed become the ten talents. If we give, the habit of giving becomes a luxury. If we pray, prayer becomes easier, more refreshing, more essential. If ours are the tears of penitence, the light of God's love shines through them and creates the rainbow of peace. If, like the prodigal, we sow in righteous acknowledgment of sin, we reap peace and joy "according to God's mercy." 2. It is from above. "Until he come and rain righteousness upon you." When rain falls from heaven it blesses your garden, or your carefully tended plant, but it does not content itself with that. Fields you never saw are greener, limpid streams in distant counties are fuller, leaves and ferns and. unnoticed flowers are touched and blessed. All Churches need this outpouring from above. To do the right, to break up the fallow ground which has been unblessed before by enterprise, will all be useless unless he rains righteousness upon us. And for this great blessing a mural world, a weakened Church, a conscious yearning, say, "It is time to seek the Lord." CONCLUSION. Beware lest, in the sight of the Searcher of hearts, your condition should be described by the words which follow our text. "Ye have ploughed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity." "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." - A.R.
Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity. Whereas the Lord had, by His prophets, frequently inculcated that exhortation, to taker pains on their own hearts, to bring forth the fruits of piety and righteousness; they, on the contrary, took pains enough in serving sin, wherein they wanted not fruit, though it should disappoint their expectation. This challenge is farther amplified and enlarged by showing what was the fountain and spring of all this wickedness; to wit, their carnal confidence in the sinful ways and courses they followed, both in matters of state and religion, and their confidence in their many valiant men.1. Many are so perverse, as they are not only content to live in sin, neglecting their duty, but they will be at pains to promote sin, and will trouble themselves to undo themselves. 2. Sin is a very fertile weed among the children of men; such as are bent on it will soon get their hearts' desire of it, and God will give up such as are diligent that way, to a height of impiety, as a plague upon them. "Ye have reaped iniquity." By this we are not to understand God's causing them to reap the fruit of sin in judgments, but that their labours in sin came to a ripe harvest of grown-up iniquity. 3. Whatever fruit sin seem to promise to its followers, or whatever present comforts or success men seem to have by it, yet it will prove but vain, and disappoint them. 4. Men's carnal confidences are great snares to draw them upon sinful courses, and are promising fruits which will disappoint them. 5. There is no confidence that more easily ensnares men, and will disappoint them sooner, than their own witty projects and devices in matters civil and sacred, without respecting the law of God; and their seeming to have power enough to manage and uphold them in these contrived ways. For such is their snare here, which will surely disappoint them. (George Hutcheson.) Because thou didst trust in thy way Israel, the ten tribes, had two great confidences. "Thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men."I. IN THEIR WAY. That is, in the way of religion that they had chosen for themselves, and which was distinct from the way of Judah, from the true worship of God. They were confident that they were right, and would not hear anything to the contrary. That which is a man's own way he is very ready to trust in, and to esteem highly. None are more ready to charge others with pride than the proud; and none are more ready to charge others with adhering to their own way than those who most stick to their own conceit. II. IN THEIR MIGHTY MEN. "They had an army to back them, to fight for them, and to maintain that way of theirs. When the outward strength of a kingdom goes along with a way of religion, men think it must needs be right, and that all its opponents are but weak men. Great armies are the confidence of careless hearts. Those that trust to any way of their own have need of creature strengths to uphold them. (Jeremiah Burroughs.). People Hosea, Jacob, Jareb, ShalmanPlaces Assyria, Aven, Beth-arbel, Beth-aven, Bethel, Gibeah, Gilgal, SamariaTopics Bethel, Beth-el, Completely, Cut, Dawn, Dawns, Daybreak, Day-break, Destroyed, Evil, Evil-doing, Morning, O, Storm, Thus, Utterly, WickednessOutline 1. Israel is reproved and threatened for their impiety and idolatry, 12. and exhorted to repentance. Dictionary of Bible Themes Hosea 10:14 5315 fortifications 5316 fortress Library 'Fruit which is Death''Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images. 2. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: He shall break down their altars, He shall spoil their images. 3. For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us? 4. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture A Divided Heart How to Promote a Revival. The Books of the Old Testament as a Whole. 1 the Province of Particular Introduction is to Consider the Books of the Bible Separately... Arbel. Shezor. Tarnegola the Upper. Letter Xli to Thomas of St. Omer, after He had Broken his Promise of Adopting a Change of Life. Of Love to God The Prophet Hosea. The Worst Things Work for Good to the Godly How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. " The Barren Fig-Tree; Directions to Awakened Sinners. "There is Therefore Now no Condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. " Hosea Links Hosea 10:15 NIVHosea 10:15 NLT Hosea 10:15 ESV Hosea 10:15 NASB Hosea 10:15 KJV Hosea 10:15 Bible Apps Hosea 10:15 Parallel Hosea 10:15 Biblia Paralela Hosea 10:15 Chinese Bible Hosea 10:15 French Bible Hosea 10:15 German Bible Hosea 10:15 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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