Self-destroyed, Yet Saved
(No. 2425)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, AUGUST 11, 1895.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
11, 1887.
"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help." Hosea
13:9.
IT would be a very important subject for our meditation if we kept to
the text and thought upon its great Truth of God–that the ruin of man
is altogether of himself and the salvation of man is altogether of God.
These two statements, I believe, comprehend the main points of a sound
theology. There have been divisions in the Church over these points
where there ought not to have been any. The Calvinist has said and said
right bravely, that salvation is of Grace alone. And the Arminian has
said and said most truthfully, that damnation is of man's will, alone,
and as the result of man's sin, and of that only. Then they have fallen
out with one another. The fact is, they had, each one, laid hold of a
Truth of God, and if they could have put their heads together and
accepted both Truths, it might have been greatly for the advantage of
the Church of Christ! These two doctrines are like tram lines that you
can travel on with safety and comfort, these parallel lines–ruin, of
man; restoration, of God. Sin, of man's will; salvation, of God's will.
Reprobation, of man's demerit; election, of God's free and Sovereign
Grace. The sinner lost in Hell through himself, alone, the saint lifted
up to Heaven wholly and alone by the power and Grace of God!
Get those two Truths of God thoroughly engraved upon your heart and you
will then hold comprehensively the great Truths of Scripture. You will
not need to crowd them into one narrow system of theology, but you will
have a sort of duplicate system which will contain, as far as the mind
of man, being finite, can contain–the great Truths revealed by the
Infinite God. I am not, however, at this time going so much into the
doctrinal point as to try and make use of my text for practical
soul-saving purposes.
You notice in this text, "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself," how
God comes to close terms with men. He speaks, calling the persons
addressed by name, "O Israel," and then He uses a singular pronoun,
"you have destroyed yourself." It is something like Nelson's way of
fighting. When he came alongside the enemy, he brought his ship as
close as he could, and then sent in a devastating broadside from stem
to stern! So does this text–it seems to get alongside of the man, puts
its guns right close up to him, and then discharges its volley–"O
Israel, you have destroyed yourself."
There is nothing said here that is at all flattering–"you have
destroyed yourself." God bids a man look at himself as a blighted,
blasted, ruined thing when He tells him that he is a self-destroyer! He
has done it all! He has no need to ask, as Jesus did, "Who slew all
these?" Your own red right hand has done it! O you guilty sinner, you
have ruined yourself! See how plainly God speaks, how He lays judgment
to the line and righteousness to the plummet, and with His storm of
hail sweeps away all refuges of lies–"O Israel, you have destroyed
yourself."
But though He does not flatter, observe that the Lord does not conclude
His address to the sinner by leaving him in despair, for the second
part of the text is, "In Me is your help." We should never so preach
the Law as to show only the naked sword of Divine Justice–the sweet
invitations and promises of the Gospel must come in after the dreadful
verdict of judgement! Let the thunders roll, let the lightning set the
heavens on fire, but conclude not till some silver drops have fallen
and a shower of mercy has refreshed the thirsty earth! No, God will not
have us preach only the Law and its terrors, but the Gospel must also
be brought into our message–"You have destroyed yourself, O Israel:
there is no concealing from you that grim and terrible fact. But in Me
is your help: there is no keeping back from you that cheering and
blessed information!" When these two things work together, breeding
self-despair and hope in God, this is the way by which eternal life is
worked in the souls of men!
I am going to speak, then, of those two themes and first, here is a sad
fact–"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself." Secondly, here is a
hopeful assurance–"In Me is your help." And, before I finish, I wish
to notice, in the third place, an instructive warning which is given by
this text as you read it in the Revised Version–"It is your
destruction, O Israel, that you are against Me, against your Help." It
is a warning to men not to fight against their own salvation, or
contend against the only Helper who can aid them to any purpose!
I. First, then, here is A SAD FACT–"O Israel, you have destroyed
yourself."
Now, dear Friends, I believe that there is a message here to every one
of us. The text speaks in tones of thunder to each unconverted person
and says, "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself." But if any child of
God has lost his first love, his joy, his comfort–if he has become a
backslider–if he has fallen into a sad, melancholy condition, he has
done it himself and the text tells him so! "O Israel, you have
destroyed yourself." If there is about any of us that which we have to
mourn over by reason of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the
living God, the text puts its finger on the sore, and says, "you have
destroyed yourself! You have, yourself, done all this mischief."
But, addressing myself mainly to those who do not as yet know the Lord,
I want you, dear Friends, to notice that this sad fact stared Israel in
the face–"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself." He could see it, he
could feel it, he could not escape from knowing it, for this was the
singular fact–that God Himself seemed to have turned against him. I
read you, just now, those seventh and eighth verses where God says, "I
will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe
them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and
will tear open their rib cage, and there will I devour them like a
lion: the wild beast shall tear them."
It happens to some men, as it has happened to many who have come under
my observation, that they have gone on pleasantly in sin for a time,
till, all of a sudden, the hand of God has gone out against them. They
have been smitten with sickness–those same strong young fellows who
never had any sickness and who thought that they could indulge their
passions to the utmost without fear–have been, all of a sudden, laid
low. Perhaps the hand of God has gone out against them in business.
They were prospering. They added field to field. They could afford to
spend money freely in various ways, but, by-and-by, the stream of
business began to run low and then to dry up altogether! What they
attempted did not prosper however hard they labored. They rose up
early, they sat up late, they ate the bread of carefulness–but all
went amiss with them. Whatever they did seemed to have a blight upon
it. Truly, God met them as a lion and as a bear bereaved of her whelps!
At such a time as this, the man begins to see that there must be
something wrong with him. He did not know it, be-fore–perhaps he even
thought that his prosperity was a proof that God was not angry with
him! And he went on from sin to sin and said within himself, "Why, I do
not suffer even as Christian people do! Surely, I must be right, after
all, for I increase in riches and my eyes stand out with fatness." Oh,
if you are one of God's chosen, there will come to you a day of
darkness in which you shall not see your way along the road of sin! God
will hedge up your path with thorns and dig deep ditches in your
way–and you shall stumble and fall–and then shall you say, "I
perceive that something is amiss with me. I see that I am on the wrong
track. Oh, how shall I escape, how shall I get onto the right road?"
I say, again, when a man is in that condition, as Israel was in my
text, then his sad state stares him in the face! You cannot convince
the worldling that he is in an evil case when he is living without God
and yet prospering! Oh, no–he is satisfied as long as he gets the
things of this world–what cares he for the world to come? Therefore,
one of the first means that God uses to awaken men from the dangerous
slumber of their natural estate is to go to war with them and to be
like one who is cruel to them–that He may tear them away from
themselves and from their follies.
Notice, next, that while this grief stared them in the face, it was
attributed to themselves, it lay at their own door– "O Israel, you
have destroyed yourself." There is always hope for a man when he knows
this and confesses this. The worst of it is that, by nature, we lay our
ruin at anybody's door but our own! "It was all the fault of our family
environment– how can we help it? It was God's purpose, or it was the
devil's temptation." We put the saddle anywhere but on the right horse!
We will not accept this great and certain Truth, "O Israel, you have
destroyed yourself." Now, you can be sure of this, O Man, that the sin
which will ruin you is your own sin! That for which you will suffer,
that for which you do suffer is the sin which you, yourself, have
committed–the evil which you have willfully committed! There are some
to whom this Truth of God has a special reference. Let me see whether I
can identify them.
There are some of us who went into sin without any previous training
whatever! Some of us were born of Christian parents and our earliest
days were spent in a holy circle. We heard no evil language, we saw no
evil example, we cannot remember anything that was wrong that crossed
our path as children. Yet we went astray from childhood unto youth,
pursuing evil as eagerly as did the children of the vicious! Wherever
this is the case, does not the text come home with great sharpness, "O
Israel, you have destroyed yourself"? You cannot say, "The fathers have
eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." You have
eaten the sour grapes, yourselves, and set your own teeth on edge!
Perhaps some, here, are the children of Christian ministers and they
know where they spent last night–I do not. Perhaps some, here, were
borne and trained by mothers whose purity was most exemplary–but they,
themselves, though they never had an evil example, have plunged into
sin as naturally as the young crocodile takes to the Nile! This is,
with an emphasis, for a man to destroy himself!
So there are some who are not the victims of temptation, but they have
deliberately gone into sin. I feel great pity for some that, from their
peculiar constitution, seem as if their very flesh led their soul into
mischief–from their birth they appeared to have a tendency towards
such and such evils. We do not excuse these guilty ones, but, at the
same time, are they as blameworthy as others who, without any
particular pressure from outside or from within, nevertheless
deliberately sin? Oh, my dear Friends, if you can sit down and look at
sin coolly, and calculate and turn it over, and then, after weighing it
in the scales, can go after it, then I must say, "O Israel, you have
destroyed yourself." Yours was wanton, deliberate mischief! Who shall
justify you before the bar of God at the great Judgment Day?
There are some who have to take a great deal of plotting and planning
in order to be able to manage to sin at all. Their surroundings are
such that they seem to be shielded and guarded against iniquities which
are natural enough to others. They have to dodge the inspection of the
household. They have to practice as many tricks to escape the eyes of
wife or daughter as the burglar does when he tries to break into the
house at night. Now, what shall I say of such who put all their wits to
work to damn their souls–and are far more busy to ruin themselves than
the greatest schemers and merchants are for a fortune? Yet there are
many such and of these we have to say emphatically, "O Israel, you have
destroyed yourself."
Yes, and I have even seen them act thus against warnings given them
with tears, warnings which have brought tears to their own eyes! They
have pushed through the most loving obstacles downward to the Pit as if
resolved to perish! And they have sinned against enlightenment, for Mr.
Conscience has flashed his bull's-eye lantern in their eyes. They have
stood, for a time, astonished at themselves, and have felt that they
could not sin thus, yet they have soon said that they would–and they
have pushed good Mr. Conscience to one side–and still pursued the
downward track. Oh, this is terrible! When a man acts thus, we must say
of him, "you have destroyed yourself."
Some will act thus distinctly against Providence. When God has stepped
in their path and blocked them out of one sin, they have edged about,
and gone to another! And when they could not effect their purpose. When
it seemed as if the very earth and the stars in their courses would
fight against them in their pursuit of sin, they have selected another
road as if to baffle the God of mercy and destroy themselves whether He
would let them do so or not! I am giving a terrible description, but I
am painting sinners exactly as they are–I know I am! There are some
here who will recognize their own portraits if they have any eyes
left–"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself."
Further, notice that in the text, God, Himself, reminds the sinner of
this sad fact! Ought he not to have known it without being told of it?
Yes, he should. Might he not have discovered it by listening to the
Prophets who would have told him so? Assuredly he should! But God,
Himself, breaks through all reserve and comes to this guilty
sinner–and says to him, "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself. See
what has come of your iniquity? Did I not tell you it would be so?
Look, and see for yourself." It is not a man like yourself who tells
you that it is so, but God who knows! God who never exaggerates! He
tells you that you have destroyed yourself!
O my dear Hearer, it may be that while I am speaking to you in truth
and soberness about this weighty matter, God, Himself, is speaking
through my lips! Indeed, it is so! It is the Lord who says to you, "you
have destroyed yourself; you have destroyed your innocence, you have
destroyed your righteousness, you have destroyed your tenderness, you
have well-near destroyed your conscience, you have destroyed your
hopes, you have destroyed your best years, you have destroyed your
usefulness, and now you have brought yourself to death's dark door–
"'Buried in sorrow and in sin."
God Himself can say no less than this to you, "you have destroyed
yourself." God who loves men. God the tenderhearted and the generous.
God who says, "How can I give you up?" Even He is forced to give this
solemn verdict, "O Israel, you have not only hurt yourself, and wounded
yourself, but you have damned yourself, you have destroyed yourself,
you have ruined yourself! Your last hope is put out, like the last
flicker of the candle, and you are left in the dark."
It may be that some here will confess the truth of this fact. If so,
bow your heads–solemnly bow before the living God and acknowledge that
it is so, "Yes, I have destroyed myself." It will be a bitter, bitter
moment, and yet it will be the best moment you have ever lived, in
which you sob out this confession, "O God, I have destroyed myself!"
How I wish that I could make men act thus, but I cannot. We try to
preach the Truth of God with all the earnestness we possess, but we
cannot get the Truth into our hearer's soul! On such a sultry night as
this, you sit and listen to me with as much attention as you can in the
closeness of the atmosphere, but O ungodly one, if this Truth of God
really entered your heart, I question whether you would be able to keep
your seat! It would fill you with an inward anguish and you would be
ready to cry aloud, "What shall I do, what shall I do, for I have
ruined myself?" If you could see the pit that yawns for you. If you saw
the chasm that is just before you–your foot is even now well-near over
a bottomless gulf, yet you do not perceive it–if you did perceive it,
it would be another matter for me to preach, and for you to hear this
message, "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself!"
II. I am very happy to be permitted by my text to now change my strain,
praying that what has been already said may have its due effect and
prepare the way for this more pleasing note. Here is, secondly, A
HOPEFUL ASSURANCE– "But in Me is your help."
Notice that this assurance came at a very fit time. Just when the man
was made to know that he had destroyed himself, then it was that God
said to him, "But in Me is your help." What is the use of a Savior when
you do not need saving? The point is to have a Savior when you are
lost! And this is the glory of Christ, that He is a timely Redeemer who
does not redeem those who are not slaves, but ransoms us when we are
sold under sin! You will never know the Gospel till you have known the
Law. If you have not felt the crushing power of the first sentence of
my text, "you have destroyed yourself," you will not care for the
cheering note that makes up the second sentence, "In Me is your help."
Remember that when you have sinned–it is then that Christ washes you
from sin. When you are lost, it is then that Christ saves you and if
you are now full of sin, it is now that Christ can begin to bless you!
If you now feel so leprous that there is not a sound spot in you, it is
now that Christ can come and heal you!
"Oh!" you say, "if I did not feel as I now do, I think that Christ
could heal me." He can heal you as you now feel, or as you do not
feel–for if you are in such a condition that you do not even feel, but
are brought to acknowledge that death has seized you, and seems to have
petrified your very heart–yet where you are, and as you are, Christ is
an all-sufficient Savior for you! If you have gone down seven pairs of
stairs into the dungeon where the light never comes, yet Jesus can come
to you, even there, and set you free at once! I do not know where to
pick words strong enough to make this Truth of God quite plain and
emphatic–it is not your goodness that makes you fit for Christ–it is
your badness in which Christ shall be glorified by delivering you from
it! The need may never be so great, but Christ can meet it! The
distress may be never so urgent, but Christ can come and remove it! So,
then, this assurance was hopeful because it came at a fit time. When
Israel was destroyed, then God was his help!
Notice, next, that it came as a contrast to their condition–"you have
destroyed yourself." Yes, yes, "but–but in Me is your help." "You have
destroyed yourself. You can not save yourself. You have destroyed
yourself, that is true, but then I have come, not to destroy you–not
to do the work which you have done–you have done that effectually
enough. There is no need for Me to come in and do more destroying. I
have come to undo the work that you have done. I have come to give you
a better righteousness than the one you have lost. I have come to give
you a tenderness of heart far better than any you had by nature. I am
come to give you a new heart and a right spirit. I am come to work in
you, again, all that you have destroyed! Yes, and to work in you
something better than you have destroyed–to make you a new man in
Christ Jesus. In Me is your help." What a contrast is this to the
condition of the one who has destroyed himself!
Observe, also, that this assurance comes from God, Himself–"In Me is
your help." O Soul, I wish that I could make you turn your eyes, once
and for all, away from yourself and all that comes of yourself, for you
will never get help there! I would have you look to God, to God in
Christ Jesus, to God the Holy Spirit, to God the Divine Father–for if
ever there is help for such an one as you are, that help must be in
God! As an old friend said to me yesterday, "Nothing will do for you
and me but Grace." I said to him, "Yes, and that won't do unless it is
the Grace of God." It must be God's own Grace, redeeming us from all
iniquity and working in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure,
or else we can never be saved! But then God tells us that we can be
saved, for though He says that we have destroyed ourselves, He adds,
"But in Me is your help."
Sitting in the pew, over yonder, is one who says, "Oh, but I am full of
the most accursed sin!" I know that you are, but God is full of the
most blessed mercy and in Him is your help! "Oh, but I am all failure,
and shortcoming, and unrighteousness!" Yes, but God is all
righteousness, and Grace, and faithfulness–and there is where your
hope lies! "Oh, but I am powerless! I can do nothing!" I know that and
I would have you know it–but the Lord is almighty and He can do
everything! Cast yourself upon Him! This is faith–to go out of
yourself to God, to get away from all this hampering mass of
rottenness, this ruin, this destruction, the fallen manhood of the
flesh and the self-confidence that grows like a fungus out of it–and
come to the eternal God who is pure holiness–and rest in Him as He
reveals Himself in the Person of His dear Son!
"I know," says one, "that there is help in God." You know something,
but you do not yet know everything, for the text says, "In Me is your
help." Not only for Mary and for Thomas, but help for you. "In Me is
your help." "Surely," exclaims one, "it does not mean me, for I am a
destroyed one." I tell you that it means exactly you, for this help is
for the destroyed one–"You have destroyed yourself, but in Me is your
help." "Possibly there may be help for So-and-So, who has a good
natural disposition and has never gone astray as I have gone." That may
be. I do not know anything about him, but I have to deal with one, now,
who has no good natural disposition and nothing whatever to recommend
him. I have to deal with you, you destroyed one, you who are like an
old ruin, broken and cast down, inhabited by moles and bats, a foul and
filthy thing! You stand in the darkness, there, and it is Christ who
comes to rebuild such as you are and make a Temple for Himself out of
even you! I see you black and foul, not worthy to be picked off a
dunghill, and it is such as you are that the splendor of Almighty Love
has chosen, that in you, in all your rottenness and abomination, the
glory of His Grace may be manifested by making something out of you
though you are nothing–making a glorious righteousness to cover you
though you are naked–and your very righteousnesses are but as filthy
rags!
"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself." Bury him! Bury the dead out of
our sight! Cast him into the pit! "No," says Mercy, "stop that dreadful
procession! Let the bearers stand still. Christ comes to this dead
young man and He says, 'you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your
help.'" Look, the dead man lives! I see him sit upright! He is
delivered to his mother and God is glorified in the resurrection of the
dead. "You have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help."
What do you say, Sinner? Will you have this help? "Have it?" you ask.
"Have it? Yes, but I am not worthy." Now, away with that nonsense! Have
I not told you that the Lord comes to bless you not because of you
worthiness, but because of His Grace? "What am I to do to have it?" You
have nothing to do but take it! He freely gives it to you! "But surely
there is something expected of me." You are a fool if you expect
anything of yourself but sin! All your expectation of good must be from
God! You may expect great things of God, and then there will be great
things worked in you, but what you have to do now is just to accept the
infinite mercy of God and submit to Him as the clay on the wheel yields
to the hand of the potter, that He may mold and fashion you, and make
you to be a vessel of mercy fitted for His use.
God bless these words of mine to the salvation of some of you! I
travail in birth for you till Christ is formed in you. I remember times
when, if I had heard such an assuring word as this, when I was burdened
with guilt and full of fears, I think I would have leaped forward to
lay hold upon it! And if there are any such here, this message should
be as though a rift were made in the clouds to let them see into
Heaven. "In Me is your help," says Christ on yonder eternal Throne! "In
Me is your help," says the Father in the splendor of His Glory! "In Me
is your help," says the Spirit who, like a dove, is hovering here,
waiting to enter into some heart and work His gracious will!
III. I close with what I mentioned to you, the rendering of the Revised
Version, which has much to be said in its favor. This gives us AN
INSTRUCTIVE WARNING–"It is your destruction, O Israel, that you are
against Me, against your help."
Dear Friends, do not any of you fight against your only true Helper? Is
not this a dreadful thing for anyone to do? We sometimes say of a man,
"Now, you are standing in your own light. You know that it is only
yourself that is hindering yourself." We say this to the drunk who is
earning good wages, and yet spending so much of his money in poisoning
himself. We say to him, "You cannot keep on like this. You are ruining
your health, you are robbing your family, you cannot prosper while you
act thus, you are standing in your own light." It is a very sad thing
when this is the fact concerning a man's temporal prosperity, but what
shall I say of a man when he is his own soul's destroyer, when he
stands in the way of his own joy and peace through believing?
Let me close by beseeching you not to stand in your own light, any of
you, or to act in antagonism to your only Helper. "How can we do that?"
says one. Well, first, by disbelieving the Gospel. I have seen some do
this very foolishly. I heard one say, the other day, "Well now, that is
a very precious Gospel. I think, somehow, that I could believe it if it
were not so good as it is, but it seems too good to be true!" Well, if
you keep on with that kind of talk, you will be very foolish, you will
be standing in your own light! Suppose somebody were to come to your
house and say to you, "You know such a mansion." "Yes." "You know that
it has a beautiful park around it." "Yes." "Well, I have brought you
the title-deeds of that estate. I am going to make you a present of
it."
Perhaps you would smile and say, "There are a great many practical
jokes being played nowadays, and I suppose this is one of them." But
suppose that this person said, "No, this is a reality, it is no joke,
it is a fact. Here are the title-deeds of this estate made out in your
name." Suppose that, month after month, you said, "It is too good to be
true"? You would be very unwise. I think that if it were said to me, I
would go and see, for I would say, "There are so many strange things
that happen, nowadays, that one begins to expect the unexpected and, at
any rate, I would sooner be made a fool of by being led to believe
something more than is true, than I would make a fool of myself by not
believing what is really true!"
If you were shut up in a prison, condemned to die tomorrow morning, and
expected that at eight o'clock you would be hanged by the neck till you
were dead–if someone stood at the prison door and said to you, "Here
is a free pardon for you," I can imagine your saying, "Don't tantalize
me. It is too good to be true!" But if you actually went out to be
hanged, refusing the pardon because you thought that it was too good to
be true–well, I do not know what I would say of you. The Gospel cannot
be too good to be true! Whatever God says must be grandly good! It must
be divinely, infinitely good! Do you believe it? Do not quarrel with
God's mercy because it is so great! Little mercy could not serve your
turn. Therefore, do not cry out against it because it is so great, but
come and accept it cheerfully, and say, "God be thanked for it! I will
gladly receive this great favor which He so freely presents to me."
Then, do not fight against God by trifling with His mercy. How often
are persons impressed and awakened, yet they go straight into some
silly or even wicked company! It is a terrible thing for some people
that on the Sabbath they are often rendered serious by what they hear,
and then on the weekday they go into amusements which distract them
from better things and lead them on to evil things. And so the good
Word of God is forgotten. Their goodness is as the morning cloud and as
the early dew. What have any of you to do with mirth while you are
unsaved? What have you to do with sightseeing till you have seen your
Savior? There is not a moment you ought to waste, not an hour that you
can spare, till you have found Christ and are saved in the Lord with an
everlasting salvation!
Lastly, I pray you, do not fight against your best Friend, or contend
against your only Helper by hardening your hearts. Ask to have them
softened. Better still, whether hardened or softened, obey that blessed
Gospel precept, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved." Remember how He, Himself, puts the matter, "He that believes
and is baptized shall be saved." Or as Paul put it, "If you shall
confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your
heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For
with the heart, man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth,
confession is made unto salvation." Obey the heavenly message! Pause
not, hesitate not, but hasten to obey the voice of Christ! And when
this is done, then you shall find that despite your self-destruction,
help enough was laid up in God even for you–and you shall sing forever
to the praise of His Free and Sovereign Grace.
The Lord bless you, and this simple testimony of mine, for Jesus
Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HOSEA 13:1-14.
Verse 1. When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in Israel.
When we are little in our own esteem. When we are full of fears
concerning ourselves. When we dare not think of boasting, then it is
that we grow! "When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in
Israel."
1. But when he offended in Baal, he died. It is when, like Ephraim, we
turn aside to other gods, when our heart goes astray from the Lord,
that there is death–death to our joys, death to our confidence, death
to our usefulness. No one knows what destruction there is, even in the
least sin, to the most joyful Believer. It is like the hot breath of
the Sirocco which scorches up every green thing. If, before this
terrible blast, everything is like Eden, behind it all is as a desert.
Let us read the whole verse again that we may lay to heart the lesson
it teaches us. "When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in
Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died."
2. And now they sin more and more. That is the usual way of sin–it is
a growing evil–its course is downhill.
2. And have made there molten images of their silver, and idols
according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the
craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the
calves. Their idolatry was such that they were not satisfied with the
bulls that were set on high as images, but they had little imitations
of these which they wore upon their persons, just as Romanists wear
small crucifixes or crosses. These they carried about with them for
their own private worship. Oh, what a tendency there is in sin to
multiply itself! The idolaters were not satisfied with bowing the knee
to false gods, but they said, "Let the men that sacrifice kiss the
calves." Superstition goes from one evil to another–there is no end to
it! You may begin with what you call moderate Ritualism, but where you
will end I cannot tell. Some go beyond the superstitions of Popery,
itself! The only safe way is to worship the Lord our God and serve Him,
alone, and purge out the idols from among us.
3. Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew
that passes away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of
the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. If they make idols
their gods, they shall be like their idols! Idols are but for a
day–what is there in them of endurance? What is there in them of
power? "They that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that
trusts in them." If we trust in anything that we can see. If we trust
in anything but God, then our hope shall be "as the morning cloud, and
as the early dew that passes away," and we, ourselves, shall be like
the chaff that is driven from the threshing floor by a whirlwind, or
like the smoke driven out of the chimney by the blast!
4. Yet I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt, and you shall
know no god but Me: for there is no Savior beside Me. Now here is the
wickedness of idolatry–that we have so good a God and yet must look
after another! Here is the sin of trusting to an arm of flesh–that we
have an almighty arm to lean upon and instead of doing so, we begin to
look to a poor arm that has not strength enough to support itself, much
less to support us! Are any of you children of God forgetting your God?
Is your faith turning away from the great Invisible and the sure
promises of His Word? Are you looking to the creature? Beware of it, I
pray you! Whenever you do that, you are making a rod for your own back!
If you forsake the Lord, to whom will you go?
5. I did know you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. Look
back upon days of your trouble, when God was very near to you. Do you
not remember when He was everything to you? When you were poor, when
you were sick, when you were despised, God knew you, then, yet now you
sing–
"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed, How sweet their memory still!"
6. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled,
and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten Me. What a
terrible verse this is! After they had been filled, they turned away
from the God that filled them! When they were poor and despised, then
He was all to them! But afterwards, when, by His Providence, they grew
rich and increased in goods, then they forgot their God. I have often
seen it thus. It is a grievous evil under the sun. I have seen the man
rejoicing in God, earnest and devout while he has been afflicted and
poor. God has prospered him and then he has turned his back upon sacred
things and made the world his joy. Is not this a horrible sin, a gross
evil? I well remember one who used to steal into this House of Prayer
on Thursday nights, glad to escape, a while, from the persecution in
his own home. He had a hard time of it to be a Christian at all, but he
came to be the possessor of his father's estates and he has now no care
for these things! He is a fashionable gentleman, now–he who once was
glad enough to mix with even the poorest of God's people and to find
comfort among them! It is a sad thing when it is so and when the Lord
has to say to any, "I did know you in the wilderness, in the land of
great drought. They were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore
have they forgotten Me."
7, 8. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way
will I observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her
whelps, and I will tear open their rib cage, and there will I devour
them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them. For God is jealous
and most jealous of those whom He loves best! He cannot endure that we
should treat Him thus–He means to have our love by some means–and if
He cannot have it by gentleness, He will have it by sterner methods. If
the Lord has chosen you, He will sooner be to you as a leopard and a
lion than He will suffer you to live without Him. You must, you shall
find your all in Him!
9, 10. O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help. I
will be your King. If you have shifted Me from the Throne and set up an
usurper, I will come and be your King even now.
10. Where is any other that may save you in all your cities? To whom
else can you look? Where else can you find peace?
10. And your judges of whom you said, Give me a king and princes? What
is the good of them? Have they not all turned out to be a delusion?
11, 12. I gave you a king in My anger, and took him away in my wrath.
The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid. How sadly true
this is! Sin seems to be bound up in our very nature. It is hard to
find it–it is hidden away and when we discover some of it, and it is
purged away–there is still more to be found! As hidden treasure may
lie in a house for many a day and not be seen, so are there stores of
corruption that seem hidden away in our nature, and are not easily
discovered. What a gracious God we have to deal with, or else He would
have swept us away long ago!
13, 14. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an
unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking
forth of children. I will ransom them from the power of the grave. Oh,
what great promises we get driven, like piles, into the marshes of our
sin to make a foundation for God's Grace! Here, when the Lord says that
we have destroyed ourselves and He notes all the blackness of our
depravity, then He comes in with this gracious word, "I will ransom
them from the power of the grave." You who believe in Jesus shall not
die! No, not even the deadly force of sin shall hold you in your grave!
There is a resurrection for the dead. There is a spiritual resurrection
for you, Believers! When you mourn your death and cry, "O wretched man
that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" the Lord
will answer you, "I will ransom you from the power of the grave."
14. I will redeem them from death: O Death, I will be your plagues; O
Grave, I will be your destruction: repentance shall be hid from My
eyes. Lord, work this quickening in Your people, tonight, and let us
live in the fullness of Your Divine Love, and so anticipate the day
when our bodies, also, shall be raised by Your glorious power!