There is no joy, any more than peace, to the sinner.
However men put away from them the evil day, they can neither stave it off altogether nor delay its coming.
I. THE CERTAINTY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS OVERTAKING SINNERS. In the previous verse the prophetic past is used, to intimate that, though the event predicted had not yet taken place, yet was it as sure of accomplishment as if it had already occurred. Here the words "are come" are repeated to apprise sinners of its certainty; thus we read in the same tense, and with like repetition, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen." So also in Ezekiel 7:6, "An end is come, the end is come … behold, it is come;" while in the verse preceding, and in the one succeeding, the same expression is repeated to impress men with the fact of the threatened judgments being both sure and near, and thus prevent self-deception.
II. THE CHARACTER OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS.
1. They are days of Divine visitation. Men's sins shall be searched out and brought to light; they shall be scrutinized by the omniscient and heart-searching God.
2. They are days of recompense, when not only shall an exact account be taken, but a just recompense of reward dealt out to each according as his work shall be. The recompense shall correspond to the visitation; the stricter the former, the juster and more exact the latter.
3. They are days near at hand, so near as well as certain that they are spoken of as already come.
III. THE CONDUCT OF THE PROPHET. If, as some suppose, the prophet here mentioned is
"1. What a great God they had to deal with.
2. How vile a thing sin is.
3. The vanity of all their shirtings.
4. The dreadfulness of Divine wrath.
5. The faithfulness of God's prophets.
6. The wisdom of those who dared not do as they did.
7. The folly and vanity of all the false prophets that did before seduce them."
IV. THE CAUSE OF ALL THEIR ERRORS WAS THE MULTITUDE OF THEIR SINS. Faults in their life, as is not unusual with wicked men, bred errors in the brain. Their iniquity had been great and aggravated, and, in addition to their multiplied iniquity, they were just objects of hatred and subjects of the same—at once "hateful and hating." Besides their vile heart and wicked life, they hated God, his ambassadors, his ways, and. all godliness. Could they fail to be children of wrath while their carnal mind was thus enmity to God? It was reasonable that God should abandon such persons to prophets of lies, to deceive and undo their souls; or, on the other hand, it was in keeping with the malignity of their hearts and the malice of their nature to calumniate the prophets of the Lord and vilify them as fools and madmen; while the fact of accounting them so, aggravated their sins, hastened the fast-coming visitation, and intensified the recompense of reward.
God's goodness met with ingratitude by a sinful people.
Instead of repenting of their sins, they persevered in their rebellion against God. As if God overlooked or connived at their enormities, they added their deep corruption in the matter of Gibeah, in the days of the judges, to the iniquity of Baal-peor at a still earlier period; while the sins of Gibeah and Baal-peor were equaled by those of the prophet's own day.
I. THE DELIGHT WHICH GOD TOOK IN THEIR FATHERS. Their sainted sires had been the favorites of Heaven; the fathers and founders of their race had sought God's "face and favor free;" and, walking in his ways, enjoyed his benediction.
1. God's pleasure in the piety of his people is truly astonishing, though that piety is entirely traceable to his own gracious dealings with them. When a weary wanderer in a wilderness comes upon grapes rich and ripe, or figs the first and finest of the season, how he is refreshed by fruits so rare and luscious! Such is the strong and suggestive figure by which God expresses his delight in his servants of old; nor does he take less delight in them in the present than in the ancient days. Men like Abraham the faithful, or Isaac the meditative, or Jacob the prayerful, or Joseph the pure, or Moses the meek, enjoy the sunshine of God's favor still.
2. Where much is given much is required. If God thus delights in his people, surely his people should delight in God. If God views with such complacency the fruit of his own Spirit's operations in the hearts of his people, and the effects of his own grace seen reflected in their lives, surely it is our bounden duty as well as high privilege to reciprocate in some measure the Divine goodness, delighting in the Divine ordinances, living in the Divine service, and promoting the Divine glory.
3. God is particularly delighted with the firstfruits, and not only so, but with the first of the firstfruits. Here is special encouragement to the young to devote themselves early to God, and early to delight themselves in him. They are invited to give their young hearts to God when the dew of their youth is heavy upon them—when their perception is keen, their conscience tender, their affections warm, and their memory retentive.
II. THEIR DEGENERACY. Their fathers had been to God as grapes in a desert land, and as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time; but the degenerate descendants of such godly ancestry had become like fruit bitter and sour. They resembled fruitless fig trees, or the wild vine with its small harsh berries; and that, notwithstanding all Jehovah's care and culture, they had long ceased to walk in the ways or follow the steps of their godly forefathers. The holiness of those forefathers, refreshing as grapes of best quality and figs of the first growth to the heart of God, was no longer to be found; their fruit was sour, their ways corrupt. The God of their fathers had ceased to be their God. "Oh! it is a comfortable thing," says an old divine, "when a child is able to say, as Exodus 15:2, 'My God,' and "My father's God." "God was my father's God, and delighted in my father; and, blessed be his Name, he is my God, and I hope he has some delight in me."
III. THEIR DEPRAVITY. They for their part (the use of the pronoun adds emphasis) went to Baal-peor.
1. Here they are either contrasted with their godly forefathers, or the contrast is rather between God's care and goodness on the one hand, and their ingratitude and baseness on the other. The complaint of God resemble, that of a fond and indulgent husband who has lavished his love on a worthless wife, and who, to his unspeakable mortification, discovers that he has been cherishing an adulteress. Instead of reciprocating his affection, She plays the wanton; instead of a suitable return for his many acts of kindness, tenderness, and care, she dishonors him by turning aside to some base adulterer. So with Israel when they turned from the living God to dumb idols; so with any people who, instead of seating their affections on God, transfer them to any earthly, sensual, or sinful object.
2. We see in the conduct of Israel a notable example of the perverted use of the Divine mercies. God had segregated Israel from the nations around them, and separated them to himself to be a peculiar people. The Nazarite who by his vow was separated and specially consecrated to Jehovah, was symbolical of the whole nation in its separation and consecration to God. But, regardless of God's mercy and reckless of their own privileges, they separated themselves to the service of a shameful idol. When they went to Baal-peor, whether the idol itself or rather the place of the idol (the same as Beth-peer), they engaged with full consecration, rather desecration, of all their powers in the infamous worship of Baal, here called Bosheth, their shame.
3. Their abominations were according as they loved; that is,
4. Here, in passing, we observe one of the many references and allusions of the prophet to the earlier books of Scripture. Through the evil counsel of Balsam a stumbling-block was placed in the way of the people of Israel, when they were enticed to impurity and so to idolatry by the daughters of Moab, and when, in consequence of their sin in the matter of Baal-peor, so many thousands perished in the plague.
IV. THEIR DESTRUCTION. Ephraim's glory consisted of many elements—prosperity, pomp, and power, but most especially their population and numerous progeny as contributing to that population. In this particularly did Ephraim glory; but the day of their glory comes to a speedy and disastrous end.
1. The departure of their glory is compared to the flight of a bird, and thus that departure is represented as sudden, like the flight of a bird when it is startled from its nest in the greenwood, or when some one throws open the door of the cage in the dwelling where it has been imprisoned; as swift, like the flight of the eagle toward heaven; as irretrievable, like the bird of powerful pinion, which distances pursuit and escapes beyond the possibility of being ever caught or found again.
2. Disaster awaits them at every stage—conception, gestation, and parturition. The curse of God pursues them from first to last, hindering the conception, or causing abortion, or preventing the birth.
APPLICATION. Learn hence:
1. The folly of glorying in any earthly prosperity or worldly advantage. "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven."
2. The prosperity of the wicked lasts not long. Ephraim, comprehending the ten tribes, had enjoyed great prosperity, and had surpassed Judah in numbers. This was particularly the case in the reign of Jeroboam II; to which this Scripture may probably refer. They had enjoyed prosperity so long, they thought it would last always; yet it passed away as in a moment.
3. Let us seek the glory that is real and abiding. "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he under-standeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord."
4. What reason we have to bless God for his preserving care. "He preserved us in the very conception, preserved us in our mother's womb, and then in the birth; and then in the cradle, in our childhood, in our youth, in our middle age, and in our old age; for we lie at his mercy at every point of time."
"Thy providence my life sustained,
And all my wants redressed,
When in the silent womb I lay,
And hung upon the breast."