And it shall be like people, like priest. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. Sermons
I. THERE IS A LIKENESS IN THE NATURE OF THINGS. In their relations to God and to their fellow-men, it is "like people, like priest." 1. The principle applies to matters of personal life. The priest is "taken from among men" (Hebrews 5:1-3). He is by nature guilty, sinful, polluted, helpless, like every other member of the congregation. If he be a true believer, he has been washed in the blood of Christ, and justified by the grace of God, and made a partaker of the Spirit, like other believers. He is exposed to temptations, and prone to backslidings, as they are. He must "fight the good fight of faith," just like others. 2. The principle applies to social relations. A minister does not cease to be a man when he becomes a minister. He is to be "one that ruleth well his own house" (l Timothy 3:4). Like other citizens, he ought to interest himself in politics. The cause of liberty and righteousness, the redress of wrongs, and the elevation of the masses, should be specially dear to him. He must not allow himself to seem an emasculated man, who either has no opinions on public questions, or is afraid to avow them. 3. The principle applies to business habits. The priest is to eat his bread "in the sweat of his face," like other men. Observation of his habits ought not to produce the impression that he is without any engrossing occupation. No man in the congregation should be busier. No other work makes so constant a demand upon all the best energies of human nature as the work of the Christian pastor. 4. The principle applies to the matter of his work itself. According to the spirit of New Testament teaching, no hard-and-fast line is to be drawn between the Christian ministry and other useful occupations. The pastor ministers to a higher part of man's nature than the merchant does; that is all. "Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Colossians 3:17); that is the Christian law of work for all godly men alike. The life of the priesthood has no halo around it which does not belong to the life of the people. 5. The principle applies to spiritual privileges. The pastor enjoys the blessings of grace in common with the people - all of them, and no more. He has the same access to God which other Christian men and women have; no other access, and no nearer. He does not belong to a sacerdotal caste. He is in no respect a mediator. The special application of the term "priest," as denoting one who offers sacrifice, is not for the Christian pastor. In that sense the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Priest of the Church. The one respect in which the pastor is a "priest to God" is that in which, as Archbishop Leighton has put it, "all Christians are God's clergy." 6. The principle applies to the final account. It shall be "like people, like priest," at the day of judgment. His reward, like theirs, shall be in proportion to his diligence, efficiency, and success. And, contrariwise, the punishments inflicted for indolence shall be equally impartial. This is the very point of the text: "I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings." This general principle is so obvious, and so constantly enforced in the teaching of the New Testament, that it seems strange that it should ever have been contravened. Yet the subversion of it has been one of the most cherished errors of the Christian Church. Is not the denial of this principle the cornerstone of the Papacy? The Romish Church exalts one man, and one class of men, to absolute control over the consciences of their fellows. And does not the ritualism of our time at home involve the same error? Ritualism might be harmless if it meant only an ornate and beautiful service; but, meaning as it does a return to sacerdotalism, and the fettering of the spiritual liberty of the Christian people, it is full of deadly poison. Many communions, also, which are free from the temptations to clericalism in its grosser forms, are often in danger of separating those responsibilities, on the part of minister and people, which God has joined together. E.g. do not some minds harbor the notion that a higher standard of piety is appropriate for the pulpit than what is necessary for the pew? And are there not some popular amusements which it is thought quite lawful for other members of the Church to indulge in, but which a minister is expected to abstain from, under peril of being judged an unspiritual man? There is, however, no mention in the Bible of a broader and a narrower gauge of righteousness There, it is" like people, like priest." II. THERE IS A LIKENESS PRODUCED BY RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE. The relationship between pastor and people is a very sacred one. It is a union in which the one party does not absorb the other; rather, they tend to become filled with the same common life, and to be mutually assimilated in views, sentiments, and spiritual tone. We need not stay to speak of, the influence which the priest has upon the people. For the one direct end of the ministry is to move men to live for God and Christ. ]t is designed, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to influence the hearts and habits of the people, not only upon the Lord's day, but during every hour of their lives. In what remains we shall rather consider the influence; which the people exercise upon the priest, to mould his character as a man, and to affect his efficiency as a pastor. The text does not read, "Like priest, like people," although it is frequently misquoted so. It reads, "Like people, like priest;" and thus it invites us to view more especially the influence which the pew has upon the pulpit - an influence which is everywhere present, and which is very subtle and powerful. The priest springs from the people. He enters the ministry with his mind already largely molded by the intellectual and religious influences which obtain amongst them. He may be expected to reflect in his own character the prevalent spirit in relation to Divine things amidst which he has been brought up. A long barren period of spiritual indifference will inevitably give to the Church a race of sapless anti-evangelical ministers; but when, on the other hand, there is a general revival of religion, many earnest young men from among the new converts will be found devoting their lives to the work of spreading the knowledge of salvation. Again, this influence is greatly promoted in connection with the more democratic systems of Church government. The writer of this homily, as a Presbyterian, may be allowed to point out that in every free Presbyterian communion the sap of the Church's influence rises from the people through sessions and presbyteries to the supreme court; and so, peculiarly under this system, it is, "like people, like priest." 1. Sometimes ibis influence is for evil. Take, e.g., the sin of priestcraft itself. It is the corruption of the people, in the first instance, that makes this sin possible. Look at the case of the golden ox at Horeb (Exodus 32:1). Or take that of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan. Jeroboam was trading with the spiritual degradation of the ten tribes when he instituted his false gods and his false priests. The malign influence continued down to the time of Hosea, and by-and-by involved the northern kingdom in destruction. Meanwhile, too, the evil leaven was spreading into the yet surviving monarchy of Judah (Jeremiah 5:31). And thus is it still. Whenever the blood of religion runs cold, and opposition to the doctrines of grace prevails, the Church will seek out teachers after her own degenerate heart (2 Timothy 4:3). At such times the congregation desires to have a tacit understanding with the prophet that he is not to "use great plainness of speech" (Isaiah 30:10). Every true minister has sometimes to contend against the temptation to suppress unpalatable truth. It is little more than a generation since thousands of pulpits in the United States submitted to be muzzled regarding the wickedness of slavery; and since hundreds of ministers in the Southern States were laboring to prove that slavery was proper. In our own country, on the other hand, the warning voice of the pulpit in relation to the evil of the drinking customs is still a somewhat muffled one compared with what it has long been in New England. Finally, here, the priest's personal relations to his people are so intimate that their attitude towards him goes largely to affect even the moral tone and fiber of his character. If he submit to be continually petted, the danger is that all manliness will gradually ooze out of him, and that he will come to expect on all occasions different treatment from other men. But surely the Christian ministry ought to be the manliest of callings. The pastor should be one of the hardiest of the trees of grace, and not a mere greenhouse plant. He should desire no allowances to be made for him which are not made for men of other callings. The whole Church should take care that it is not her fault if he is not every inch a man. 2. But often the influence of the people upon the priest is good and honorable. A congregation whose conception of the ministry is formed as the result of the devout study of the New Testament, will look and pray for men in the pulpit who possess the tongue of fire, i.e. the power of the Holy Ghost; not the power to compose eloquent paragraphs and perorations, but power to arouse, convert, edify - power under which hearts will melt, and lives will begin anew. When conversions occur, the pastor preaches with an enlarged heart and prays with redoubled fervor, and his path seems bathed in sunshine. After all, too, it is the people, quite as much as the priests, who guard the orthodoxy, purity, liberties, and spiritual life of the Church. For it is they who constitute the body of Christ; the pastors are only the servants of the Church for Jesus' sake. CONCLUSION. 1. It is doubtless sometimes the fact that the priest and the people never become assimilated to each other at all. It was so, e.g., in the case of Hosea; in that of Jeremiah; in that of the Lord Jesus himself, during his earthly ministry. But what the text expresses is simply an ordinary tendency in connection with this sacred relationship. 2. Let our closing thought be this, that the obligation involved in the pastoral tie is a mutual one. If his Church responsibilities should weigh heavily upon the minister's heart, they should also press upon the conscience of each member. Both are responsible for the results of the tie. It is, "like people, like priest." - C.J.
And there shall be, like people, like priest. "Like princes, like people"; but also, alas! "like people, like priests," — a proverb which has acquired currency from its fatal truth, but which Hosea originated. The causes for the widespread immorality were twofold, as Hosea, resident perhaps in Samaria, saw more clearly, and pointed out more definitely than Amos. They were —1. The detestable vileness and hypocrisy of the priests, with whom, as usual, the false prophets were in league. From Hosea, the earliest of the northern prophets whose works are extant, to Malachi the latest prophet of the returned exiles, the priests had very little right to be proud of their title. Their pretensions were, for the most part, in inverse proportion to their merits. The neutrality, or the direct wickedness, of the religious teachers of a country, torpid in callous indifference and stereotyped in false traditions, is always the worst sign of a nation's decadence. Hosea was no exception to the rule that the true teacher must be prepared to bear the beatitude of malediction, and not least from those who ought to share his responsibilities. Amos had found by experience that for any man who desired a reputation for worldly prudence, the wisest rule was to hold his tongue; but for Hosea, for whom there was no escape from his native land, nothing remained but to bear the reproach that" the prophet is a fool, and the spiritual man is mad," uttered by men full of iniquity and hatred. A fowler's snare was laid for him in all his ways, and he found nothing but enmity in the house of his God. The priests suffered the people to perish for lack of knowledge. They set their hearts on their iniquity, and contentedly connived at, if they did not directly foster, the sinfulness of the people, which at any rate secured them an abundance of sin-offerings. So far had they apostatised from their functions as moral teachers. And there was worse behind. They were active fomenters of evil. But the second cause of the national apostasy lay deeper still. 2. The corruption of worship and religion at its source. The "calf. worship" was now beginning to produce its natural fruit. It would have indignantly disclaimed the stigma of idolatry. It was represented as "image-worship," the adoration of cherubic symbols, which were in themselves regarded as being so little a violation of the second commandment that they were consecrated even in the temple at Jerusalem. The centralisation of worship, it must be borne in mind, was a new thing. Local sanctuaries and local altars had been sanctioned by kings and used by prophets from time immemorial. The worship at Dan and Bethel could have claimed to be, in the fullest sense of the word, a worship of Jehovah, as national and as ancient as that at Jerusalem. For the ox was the most distinctive emblem of the cherub, and even in the wilderness, cherubs — possibly winged oxen — had bent over the mercy-seat and been woven on the curtains, and in the temple of Solomon had been embossed upon the walls, and formed the support of the great brazen laver. We read of no protest against this symbolism either by Elijah, Elisha, or Jonah. Hosea could more truly estimate its effects, and he judged it by its fruits. He saw the fatal facility with which the title Baal, "Lord," might be transferred from the Lord of lords to the heathen Baalim. He saw how readily the emblem of Jehovah might be identified with the idol of Phoenicia. Jehovah-worship was perverted into nature-worship, and the coarse emblems of Asherah and Ashtoreth smoothed the way for a cultus of which the basis was open sensuality. The festal dances of Israel, in honour of God, which were as old as the days of the Judges, became polluted with all the abominations of Phoenician worship. The "adultery" and "whoredom," which are denounced so incessantly on the page of Hosea, are not only the metaphors for idolatry, but the literal description of the lives which that idolatry corrupted. (Dean Farrar, D. D.) 1. Such priests cannot exert the influence which they should exert. They should be men of God, supremely loyal to God, and witnessing for the supreme claim of spiritual and eternal things. 2. Their example is positively mischievous. Men need no aid from their leaders in living selfish, self-indulgent, covetous lives. 3. Time-serving utterly ruins personal character. Nobility, heroism, devotion can only be nourished by living outside ourselves, for God and our fellows. Time-servers are self-servers. (Robert Tuck, B. A.) (Joseph Parker, D. D.) Homilist. I. THERE IS SOMETIMES A DISGRACEFUL RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE.1. It is a disgrace to a true priest to become like the people. One who is not above the average man is no priest, he is out of his place. A priest is a man to mould, not to be moulded; to control, not to cringe; to lead, not to be led. His thoughts should sway the thoughts of the people, and his character should command their reverence. Sometimes you see priests become like the people, mean, sordid, grovelling. 2. It is a disgrace to a people to become like a bad priest. There are priests whose natures are lean, whose capacities are feeble, whose religion is sensuous, whose sympathies are exclusive, whose opinions are stereotyped, whose spirit is intolerant. Shame on the people who allow them selves to become like such a priest!" II. THERE IS SOMETIMES AN HONOURABLE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE. 1. It is honourable when people become like a true priest; when they feel one with him in spiritual interests and Christly pursuits. 2. It is honourable to the true priest when he has succeeded in making the people like him. He may well feel a devout exultation as he moves amongst them that their moral hearts beat in unison with his, that their lives are set to the same keynote, that they are of one mind and one heart in relation to the grand purpose of life. (Homilist.) 1. Evil ministers are a great cause of sin and misery upon the people they have charge of. It is an addition to the priests' judgment that they drag so many with them into it.2. Albeit naughty ministers be great plagues and snares to people, yet that will not excuse a people's sin, nor exempt them from judgment, and therefore the people are threatened also. The sending of evil ministers may be so much the fruit of people's former sins, and they may be so well satisfied with it as may justly ripen them for a stroke. 3. As pastors and people are ordinarily like each other in sin, and mutual plagues to each other, so will they be joined together in judgments, for "there shall be, like people, like priest," that is, both shall be involved in judgment (though possibly in different measure, according to the degree Of their sin), and none of them able to help or comfort another. 4. Albeit the Lord may spare for a time, and seem to let things lie in confusion, yet He hath a day of visitation, wherein He will call men to an account, and recompense them, not according to their pretences, but their real deeds and practices. 5. When men have made no conscience of sin, so they might compass these delights, which they think will make them up, yet it is easy for God to prove that the blessing of these delights is only in His hand. 6. As no means can prosper where God deserts and withdraws His blessing, so what a man prosecutes unlawfully, He cannot look it should be blessed. (George Hutcheson.) The great northern apostle, Bernard Gilpin, who refused a bishopric, did not confine his Christian labours to the church of Houghton, of which he was minister, but at his own expense visited the then desolate churches of Northumberland once every year to preach the Gospel. The Bishop of Durham commanded him to preach before the clergy. Gilpin then went into the pulpit, and selected for his subject the important charge of a Christian bishop. Having exposed the corruption of the clergy, he boldly addressed himself to his lordship, who was present. "Let not your lordship," said he, "say these crimes have been committed without your knowledge; for whatever you yourself do in person, or suffer through your connivance to be done by others, is wholly your own; therefore in the presence of God, angels, and men, I pronounce your fatherhood to be the author of all these evils; and I, and this whole congregation, will be a witness in the day of judgment that these things have come to your ears." The bishop thanked Mr. Gilpin for his faithful words, and gave him permission to preach throughout his diocese.People HoseaPlaces Beth-aven, Gilgal, JezreelTopics Acts, Charged, Deeds, Doings, Evil, Habitual, Priest, Punish, Punishment, Recompense, Repay, Requite, Return, Reward, VisitOutline 1. God denounces judgments on Israel, for their aggravated impieties and iniquities.12. He exposes the ignorance and wickedness of the priests, 13. and moral dissolution of the people, 14. he will leave their wives and daughters to commit lewdness, without present punishment. 15. He warns Judah, not to imitate Israel's crimes, which are still further reproved. Dictionary of Bible Themes Hosea 4:9Library 'Let Him Alone''Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.'--HOSEA iv. 17. The tribe of Ephraim was the most important member of the kingdom of Israel; consequently its name was not unnaturally sometimes used in a wider application for the whole of the kingdom, of which it was the principal part. Being the 'predominant partner,' its name was used alone for that of the whole firm, just as in our own empire, we often say 'England,' meaning thereby the three kingdoms: England, Scotland, and Ireland. So 'Ephraim' here … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Life, as Amplified by Mediaeval Biographers. Instruction for the Ignorant: Beth-El. Beth-Aven. Of Orders. "For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus Hath Made Me Free from the Law of Sin and Death. " Epistle cxxi. To Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville). That the Ruler Relax not his Care for the Things that are Within in his Occupation among the Things that are Without, nor Neglect to Provide The Prophet Amos. Seasonable Counsel: Or, Advice to Sufferers. Joy The Third Commandment The Doctrine The Prophet Hosea. 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