Ephraim will be laid waste on the day of rebuke. Among the tribes of Israel I proclaim what is certain. Sermons
I. THE NATURE OF AN EARNEST MINISTRY. "Cry aloud." Let the whole soul go forth in the work. Let us not mistake the nature of earnestness. It is not noise. Ignorant people imagine that the minister who makes the greatest noise, roars and raves the most in the pulpit, or parades his doings most in journals and reports, is the earnest man. "A celebrated preacher, distinguished for the eloquence of his pulpit preparations, exclaimed on his death-bed, 'Speak not to me of my sermons. Alas! I was fiddling whilst Rome was burning.'" It is not frightening people. Often he who is the most successful by graphic and impassioned descriptions of the judgment day and hell fires, in terrifying men, is considered the most earnest. This is a mistake - a popular and fatal mistake. It is not bustle. He who is always on the "go," whose limbs are always on the stretch, into this house and that house, into this meeting and that, who is never at rest, men are always disposed to regard as an earnest man. Genuine earnestness is foreign to all these things. It has nothing in it of the noise and rattle of the fussy brook; it is like the deep stream rolling its current silently, resistlessly, and without pause. An earnest ministry is living. It is not mere preaching or service, occasional or even systematic; it is the influence of the whole man. It is the "Word" made flesh; so permeating the whole man that every word, act, and expression are as the blasts of a Divine trumpet, rousing sinners to a sense of their moral danger. Such a ministry is a matter of necessity. The Divine thing in the man becomes irrepressible, it breaks out as sunbeams through the clouds: "Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel." Such a ministry is constant. It is not a professional service; it is as regular as the functions of life; it is a thing that is "in season and out of season" - in shops and in sanctuaries, on hearths as well as in pulpits. Such a ministry is mighty. Men can stand before the most thunderous words and violent attitudinizations, but they cannot stand before such a ministry as this; they are before it as snow before the sun. "Oh! let all the soul within you II. THE NEED OF AN EARNEST MINISTRY. Why was the "comet" to be now blown in Gibeah, and the" trumpet" in Ramah? Because there was danger. The moral danger to which souls around us are exposed is great. There is the danger of losing, not existence, but all that makes existence worth having - love, hope, power, friendship, etc. "To be carnally minded is death." It is near. It is not the danger of an invading army heard in the distance. The enemy has entered the soul, and the work of devastating has commenced. It is increasing. The condition of the unregenerate soul gets worse and worse every hour. Brothers, let us be earnest in our work, always "abounding in the work of the Lord!" "Time is earnest, passing by;
Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke. "Desolate" may be reckoned with energetic adjectives. It was another form of the word that the prophet used; it was a substantive, colder than ice, hollower than the wind: Ephraim shall be a desolation. Here we come from the descriptive word into the concrete term — a desolation; a word which carries its own limitations and qualifications. You cannot amend the word, you cannot enlarge it, you can add nothing to its cheerlessness; desolation admits of no companion term; it must be felt to be understood. There have been times when the house was a desolation; there was no light in the windows; though they stood squarely south, and looked right at the sun at mid-day, yet they caught no light; there was silence in the house; no sound; the fire crackled and spluttered, and spent itself in vain explosions, but there was no poetry in all the way of the flame, there was no picture of home in all the blank shining of the hollow tongues of fire that licked the grate, but said nothing, yet only hinted that the place was empty; bed and cot and favourite fireside, all vacant, and the very grandeur of the house an aggravation of its vacancy. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Why is God so wrathful? Is this an arbitrary vengeance? Doth He delight to show His omnipotence, and to chastise the insects of a day because He is almighty? Never. There is always a moral reason, — "The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound." God has always been jealous of the landmark. God is honest; would His Church were also honest! God will not live in the house until the false weights and scales be taken out of it; God will not tabernacle with men whilst they are pinching the poor of one little inch of the yard length; He will trouble the house with a great moan of wind, until the balances be right; then He will say, You may now pray. And every sentence will be an answer. From the beginning we have seen that God would have the landmark respected. Here are the princes of Judah, thieves. It must be an awful thing to rob the poor as they were robbed by the great in all ages. It must be an infinitely difficult thing for a prince to be honest; it is an almost impossible thing for a rich man to be really honest. The Lord is the defender of the poor. We cannot understand how, but there is in history, taking it in great breadths, a spirit that reclaims what has been taken unrighteously, that punishes the men who trifle with landmarks and boundaries, and old family fences, God rebukes the rich; God never blesses human greediness. Judge not by appearances, or by narrow instances; take in cycles of time, great spans of history, and see how the slow moving but sure moving spirit of providence readjusts and reclaims, and finally establishes according to the law of honesty and righteousness.(Joseph Parker, D. D.) People Benjamin, Hosea, Israelites, JarebPlaces Assyria, Beth-aven, Gibeah, Mizpah, Ramah, TaborTopics Declare, Desolate, Desolation, Ephraim, E'phraim, Laid, Proclaim, Punishment, Rebuke, Reckoning, Reproof, Sure, Surely, Tribes, WasteOutline 1. The judgments of God are denounced against the priests, people, and princes, 9. both of Israel and Judah, for their manifold sins. 15. An intimation is given of mercy on their repentance. Dictionary of Bible Themes Hosea 5:9Library 'Physicians of no Value''When Ephralm saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither shall he cure you of your wound.'--HOSEA v. 13 (R.V.). The long tragedy which ended in the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyrian invasion was already beginning to develop in Hosea's time. The mistaken politics of the kings of Israel led them to seek an ally where they should have dreaded an enemy. As Hosea puts it in figurative fashion, Ephraim's … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture An Obscured vision The Call and Feast of Levi That None Should Enter on a Place of Government who Practise not in Life what they have Learnt by Study. Ramah. Ramathaim Zophim. Gibeah. Ripe for Gathering Meditations for the Sick. Of Civil Government. That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful. The Arguments Usually Alleged in Support of Free Will Refuted. Hosea Links Hosea 5:9 NIVHosea 5:9 NLT Hosea 5:9 ESV Hosea 5:9 NASB Hosea 5:9 KJV Hosea 5:9 Bible Apps Hosea 5:9 Parallel Hosea 5:9 Biblia Paralela Hosea 5:9 Chinese Bible Hosea 5:9 French Bible Hosea 5:9 German Bible Hosea 5:9 Commentaries Bible Hub |