Idolatry
"Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off." These verses present to us idolatry in five aspects.
I. AS ABHORRENT TO JEHOVAH. "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them." By a synecdoche, Samaria is here used for all the ten tribes. There is no allusion in history to any calf set up in the city of Samaria, but its existence in Bethel, the most celebrated place of worship in the kingdom, is a matter of certainty. "The introduction of the worship of the golden calves by Jeroboam, in imitation of that of Apis at Memphis, and of Mnevis at Heliopolis, which he must have seen during his residence in Egypt, paved the way for the imitation and adoption of the gross idolatries practiced by the Phoenicians, Syrians; and Chaldeans.' Now, against this idolatry Jehovah declares his anger "to be kindled." The language is, of course, anthropomorphic, and used only to express his unconquerable opposition to idolatry, the foulest of all evils—a violation of his command, "Thou shalt have no other god beside me," It is the abominable thing which he hates. The fact that idolatry is abhorrent to the great God is the grand reason why his loyal servants should consecrate themselves to his service.
II. AS ANTAGONISTIC TO MORAL PURITY. "How long shall they be incapable of purity?" (Elzas). Where there is not supreme love to the supremely Good, there is no soil in which one solitary virtue can germinate, there is no foundation on which one stone can be laid for the temple of goodness. Hence the history of idolatry shows that it is inseparably associated with pollution and crime. Idolatry is a fountain essentially corrupt, and all its streams are filthy and foul. Paul's description in the first chapter of Romans is true to universal fact. If the world is ever to be made virtuous, it must have the one true and living God presented to it as the one Object of supreme love and worship.
III. As AN OUTRAGE ON REASON. "For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God." "It is the greatest folly," says an old author, "to look upon that which derives its excellency from ourselves as superior to us, and that in the highest degree; to forsake God that made us, and to make that to be a god unto us that we have made ourselves. If one be maintained or raised by another, he is expected to be serviceable to him. In this relation we stand to God, but idolatry makes men go against the very principles of reason. They fashion the idol and yet account it their god; they are made and sustained by God, and yet forget him." And yet this folly men are constantly committing every day, not only in heathen lands, but in Christendom. Men are everywhere making their gods. Power, money, pleasure, fame,—these be thy gods, O England!
IV. As DOOMED TO DESTRUCTION. "But the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces." "All idolatry must be destroyed" (Exodus 34:13; Deuteronomy 7:5; Ezekiel 20:7).
1. God has destroyed idols by the gospel.
2. God is destroying idols by the gospel. D.T.
"As I live, saith the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with my glory." "In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats: to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth."
V. As PRODUCTIVE OF GREAT EVIL. "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind," etc. "As the husbandman reaps the same kind of grain which he has sown, but in far greater abundance, so he who sows the wind shall have the whirlwind to reap." "It hath no stalk." Nothing that can yield a blossom. "The bud shall yield no meal." "If they should have a stalk, and that stalk should have a blossom, that blossom shall yield no fruit; and if there be fruit, the sower shall not enjoy it, for strangers shall eat it. The Israelites should be unsuccessful in all their undertakings, and whatever partial gains they might acquire would be eagerly seized by the Assyrians" (Elzas).
1. All men are sowing. Every human act is a seed.
2. Some are sowing worthless seed—" wind." The worldling, the man of pleasure, the conventional religionist, the speculative skeptic, are all "sowing the wind."
3. The more worthless the seed sown, the more terrible the reaping. "Reap the whirlwind." Great is the power of the whirlwind. The Scripture describes it as very great. In 1 Kings 19:11 it "rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks." Sabdicos reports that Cambyses' soldiers being at dinner in a sandy place, there arose a whirlwind and drove the sand upon them, so that it covered them all. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
"Hear, Father! hear and aid!
If I have loved too well; if I have shed,
In my vain fondness, o'er a mortal head
Gifts on thy shrine, my God, more fitly laid;
If I have sought to live
But in one light, and made a mortal eye
The lonely star of my idolatry;
Thou art Love; oh, pity and forgive!"
(Mrs. Hemans)
Perversion of worship
"Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin." Israel was to have only one altar, and that in the place where the Lord would reveal his Name (Deuteronomy 12:5). But, instead of that, Ephraim had built a number of altars in different places to multiply the sin of idolatry, and thereby heap more and more guilt upon itself (Delitzsch). The passage leads us to notice the perversion of worship. This is one of the oldest, the most prevalent, and most baneful sins amongst mankind. Men have perverted worship, not only by making false gods, but by making false altars for the true God. There is only one altar in true worship, and that altar is Christ (Hebrews 13:10). The text leads us to make two remarks in relation to false worship.
I. IT IS A GREAT SIN.
1. It is a very propagative sin. "Ephraim hath made many altars." "It men leave the rule," says an old author, "they know not where to stay; hence the multiplying of things thus amongst the Papists—five hundred altars in some one temple." How sublimely antagonistic the Jews were to the introduction of any altar but one (Joshua 22:11)! But now they had "many." Once admit a wrong thing in worship, and that one thing will multiply itself; superstition will give it fertility. The Romish Church is a sad illustration of this, and the Anglican Church in some sections is multiplying examples.
2. It is a self-punishing sin. "Altars shall be unto him to sin." The idea probably is, "As you have gone on persisting to multiply altars contrary to my will, I will let you alone; you shall go on. Your altars shall be a sin to you." That is, thus seeing they will have them, they shall have them; they shall have enough of them. Let them go on in their ways; let them multiply their sin. They make a great deal of stir for it, and have it they must; they refuse to see the light; they are prejudiced against the way of God's worship. Let them have their desires; let them have, saith God, governors to establish by their authority, and teachers to defend by their subtle arguments, what they wish for. They multiply altars to sin, and they shall be to sin, even to harden them; their hearts are set upon them, and they will have them and love them, and they shall be hardened in their heart's desire in what is evil. And as it shall be to them for sin, so it shall be to them for misery, the fruit of sin; for so sin is taken very frequently in Scripture for the fruit of sin. They will have them to sin, and they shall find in them the fruit of sin—misery. The text leads us to remark that—
II. IT IS A SIN AGAINST GREAT LIGHT. "I have written to him the great things of my Law, but they were counted as a strange thing." They could not say they sinned in ignorance. God gave them directions most concise and abundant concerning the nature and object of true worship. Some translate the words," I may prescribe my laws to them by myriads; they will treat it as a strange thing."
1. God has given us laws concerning worship.
2. Those laws are oft repeated. By myriads or by thousands. We have "line upon line, precept upon precept."
3. These oft-repeated laws leave false worshippers without excuse.—D.T.