Hosea 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. I. THE SIN OF EPHRAIM — IDOLATRY. We are apt to be surprised at the proneness of the Israelites to the sin of idolatry. Yet it may be doubted whether we have not a great deal in common with idolaters. The same vice is apt to show itself in different forms — forms produced by circumstances of age and .country. There is the same heart in the man and the boy; but the result of the same passions is different at the two different periods of life. And so we may not worship idols, and yet we may be partakers of the iniquity of those who did. Tim fountain-head and origin of Israel's sin was their own wilfulness, Wilfulness and impatience of old took the shape of idolatry; they now wear the form of heresy, and separation, and divisions. It was a zeal for religion which prostrated Israel at the footstool of idols; it is zeal without knowledge which makes men forsake the Catholic faith for crude theories of their own. II. THE PUNISHMENT OF EPHRAIM — LET ALONE. God did not, in so speaking, design to let idolatry go unpunished. "Let him alone" proclaims that idolatry would prove its own punishment; so sure, so inevitable, so miserable would be the consequences of forsaking the true God, that it would need no further outbreak of wrath to vindicate the honour of the Almighty. To forsake God is to forsake our own mercies. You cannot drop a single doctrine of the Catholic faith, without that doctrine, sooner or later, avenging itself. Truth neglected will make itself felt. God lets matters take their course, saying of those who follow their own devices, "He is joined to idols: let him alone." III. WHAT IS IT FOR AN INDIVIDUAL TO BE LET ALONE OF THE ALMIGHTY? God has implanted in the heart of every man something which chides him whenever he rejects the right and chooses what is wrong. Very wonderful is our mental organisation. More sublime seems conscience on her judgment seat, weighing and balancing every idea which memory or invention suggests; and if her judgment be not adopted, if we will not act by her verdict, chastising with a whip of scorpions. If, although remonstrated with as we are by our natural consciences and by the Eternal Spirit, we still fall into presumptuous sin, — what should we become? The judgment threatened in the text is one which would reduce us to the position of Satan himself. For what will follow God letting a man alone? That man will experience no further promptings and warnings, but be left unrestrained by any secret reluctance to work all manner of iniquity. Assure me that a man is troubled when he has done wrong, that he feels disquieted and restless, that after indulging his passions, he is sensible of disgust and loathing, and I have hope that the day will come when he will throw off the bondage of his lusts. But assure me that he is happy in his iniquity, that he can rob and cheat, and lie and be drunken without being miserable afterwards, and I shudder lest indeed he has come to such a point as to be left alone of God. (J. R. Woodford, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. |
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