Hosea 4:15-19

A passing word of warning is addressed to Judah.

The prophet pauses in his dark catalogue of Israel's sins and sorrows, and, turning aside, speaks a word of warning to Judah, that the people of the southern kingdom might be deterred from the crimes and awed by the calamities of their northern neighbors. In the large heart and catholic spirit of the prophet both Judahite and Israelite found a place; he had a message from God for both.

I. PLACES PERILOUS TO PIETY SHOULD BE SHUNNED . Judah had hitherto maintained their superiority to Israel both in religious worship and moral conduct; but their proximity to such neighbors was fraught with peril. Evil communications exercise a fearful potency in corrupting good manners; sensual indulgences, especially in the guise and under the name of religion, present strong inducements; scenes of sin have not infrequently a fatal glamour about them. If Judah would steer clear of the rocks on which the faith of Israel had been wrecked, they must keep aloof from such places of peril and scenes of dissipation as Gilgal and Beth-avon. Wantonness and crime had proved disastrous to Israel, therefore let Judah beware and take warning in time. if men are in earnest in their prayers and in their efforts to avoid temptation, they must keep away from those places and those persons that would tend to lead them into temptation. Hypocritical profession with irreligious practice was both detrimental and dangerous. After this friendly warning to Judah, Hosea resumes his complaint about Israel.

II. PUNISHMENT IS OFTEN A DARK REFLECTION OF MEN 'S SINS . Israel had refused God's yoke, comparatively easy as it was, and started backward or turned sideward instead of drawing forward. They declined God's service, and determined to have full liberty and license. They got their desire, but it was given them in judgment. The limits of the law and its straitness provoked their resistance; now they will be permitted to wander forth as captives through the wide wilderness of the East, or as exiles with all the world before them. They had been strong and stubborn as a headstrong, unmanageable heifer; now they are to become solitary as a lamb shut out from its flock or separated from its dam, and in a state as helpless as that same weak creature when exposed to savage beasts of prey, and left alone amid the wasteness of a wilderness. Ephraim, turning away her affections from her Maker as her Husband, got attached to idols, and clave fast to them; and so they are given up to their own hearts' lusts. They don't wish to part with their beloved idols, or to be parted from them; nor shall they. They are incorrigible, and God gives the m up as beyond reproof and without hope—absolutely desperate. They wished to be left to themselves and their own ways, and so they are; not even Judah is to interfere with them. They are to be let go on without check from conscience, or reproof from prophet, or warning from the Divine Word, or any interference by Providence. "It is a sad and sore judgment for any man to be let alone in sin: for God to say concerning a sinner," He is joined to his idols, the world and the flesh; he is incurably proud, covetous, or profane, an incurable drunkard or adulterer,—let him alone; conscience, let him alone; minister, let him alone; providences, let him alone. Let nothing awaken him till the flames of hell do it. The father corrects not the rebellious son any more when he determines to disinherit him. "Those that are not disturbed in their sin will be destroyed for their sin."

III. PERSISTENCE IN EVIL PROVOCATIVE OF DIVINE DESERTION .

1. Persistence in evil . Idolaters are so attached to their idol-gods that they will not give them up, however hideous those idols or however vile those gods may be.

2. Divine desertion . This was implied in the injunction to whomsoever it was addressed.

HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN