Hosea 7:9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not: yes, gray hairs are here and there on him, yet he knows not. Grey hairs on Ephraim denoted his moral degeneracy, or spiritual declension. He is described in this chapter as very immoral, corrupt, and profligate. But he was so stupid in his degenerate and languishing state that he took no notice of the visible and mortal symptoms upon him. When a degenerate people are blind to the marks of their degeneracy, they are in a dangerous condition. I. WHEN DO A PEOPLE BEAR MARKS OF MORAL DEGENERACY? 1. When they neglect the religious duties which they once practised. The children of Israel were once a very religious people. After a while they began to degenerate; forsook the house and worship of God, cast His laws behind their backs, and did what was right in their own eyes. They became formal, insincere, and hypocritical. In the time of Hosea they were covered with grey hairs, the sad marks of religious degeneracy. 2. When they dislike, oppose, and reject the plain and important doctrines of true religion, which they once professed to love and believe. A people generally become corrupt in practice before they become corrupt in principle. God's people soon became unsteadfast in their covenant, and as corrupt in sentiment as they had been in practice. They took up with the doctrines and delusions of the grossest idolaters. 3. When they run into such irreligious and vicious practices, as they once hated and avoided. This was the case of Israel in the days of their declension. They fell into every species of vice and dissipation. A sure sign of degeneracy. 4. When they justify themselves and others in the evil courses which they once condemned. When Israel became degenerate, they justified unholy, unscriptural, and ungodly conduct in themselves and others. A people often become very wicked when they presume to justify one another in their wickedness. This is one of the most visible and striking signs of a general and gross degeneracy. II. WHY ARE A DEGENERATE PEOPLE SO BLIND TO THE VISIBLE MARKS OF THEIR DEGENERACY? 1. Because they have degenerated gradually. This the metaphor of the text intimates. They neglect one religious duty, then another and another, until they neglect them all. They countenance and justify one sinful course after another, and finally justify all evil and condemn all good. 2. Moral degeneracy is of a blinding nature. It flows from a corrupt heart, which blinds reason and conscience. 3. They choose to be blind, because they are loath to see their own criminality. When they review their past, they feel self-reproach and self-condemnation: so they avoid reviewing. They hold fast deceit and refuse o return. III. THEIR VOLUNTARY AND CRIMINAL BLINDNESS TO THEIR DEGENERACY EXPOSES THEM TO PECULIAR DANGER. 1. It prevents them from using the proper means of reformation. So long as people think they are pursuing a right course, they will have no thought or desire of reforming. A great politician says, "It was never known that any degenerate nation ever reformed themselves." If reformed, it was owing to some foreign superior power. This is as true of religion as of civil government. 2. It disposes them to resist all means that are used to reform them Such persons may fear that God will say, Let them alone, and use no more means with them. Improvement — (1) A people may degenerate in religion while they are making great progress in other respects. Success in their secular concerns naturally tends to make them worldly-minded. They ardently desire temporal prosperity, and prefer it to religious attainments and growth in grace. (2) It is a favour to a degenerate people to have the marks of their degeneracy plainly pointed out. For though they are so visible, yet they are willingly blind to them. The more unwilling they are to see the disagreeable marks of their degeneracy, the more necessary it is that they should be made, if possible, to see them; for without the sight of them, God Himself cannot reform them. (3) Have you not degenerated in respect to the religious duties which you once practised? (4) Manifestly the people referred to in the text were in a very dangerous state. (5) There is peculiar need of special Divine influence to revive the languishing state of religion, over which we may have to mourn. (6) A time of religious declension is a time for all the sincere, faithful friends of God to seek unto Him for His gracious, renewing, sanctifying, and quickening influences. (N. Emmons, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. |
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