Extent of Israel's apostasy.
I. Here we are shown now FOR ISRAEL HAD APOSTATIZED, how unlike they were to the patriarch of whom they boasted, and how far they fell short of admonitions that had been addressed to) them.
1. They were like the Canaanite whom they despised than the patriarch from whom they were descended. They had become liker fraudulent merchants than God-fearing members of the Church of God. To fraud they added oppression where they had the power.
2. The love of money was the root of this evil trait of Jewish character—a trait that shows itself too frequently at the present day, and which is not confined to the Jew, but comprehends the Gentile also. Men hasten to be rich, and cannot long be innocent.
3. There is no greater aggravation of sin than the love of it. The people of Israel at the period specified were not only addicted to the sin of covetousness or greediness of gain, but were actually enamored of their sin. One of the worst features of wicked men, which the apostle has so vividly photographed in that black catalogue of sin, is that, "knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."
4. Men addicted to covetousness and whose hearts are set on getting gain make light of the doctrines of religion. Thus in the days of our Lord "the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him." Sacred truths and Divine mysteries were despised, while the ways and means of amassing wealth were their delight. So here the connection of Hosea 12:7 may be the prophet's complaint of his countrymen's neglect of his exhortations, owing to their covetousness. "The scope of the prophet and the connection here is—We may exhort, but so long as their hearts are covetous, and set upon their way of getting gain, they will never regard what we say; they will not turn to God, they will not hear of it, but will rather turn a deaf ear to all entreaties."
II. EXCUSES FOR SIN. Here we see how wicked men excuse themselves and palliate their sins.
1. Success furnishes them with a plausible plea for self-vindication. The prosperity of fools, we are told, destroys them; while the worldly prosperity of the wicked is frequently fatal to their spiritual welfare. "Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way," says the psalmist, afterwards adding, "for evil-doers shall be cut off." It has been well and truly said that "prosperity in sinful ways is an old snare, hindering men from heeding challenges or God's anger because of them."
2. The boastful spirit of the wicked; they glory in their gains as self-procured; they attribute all to their own skill, or strength, or ingenuity, or industry, or ability, and refuse to acknowledge God. Nor is it, indeed, possible they should, for how could they bless God for what they have acquired by sin or gained by fraudulent dealing?
3. False refuges to which wicked men resort: they divest themselves of all dread of Divine displeasure or of danger on the ground of prosperity; they force themselves to believe that if their conduct were either displeasing to God or fraught with danger to themselves, they would not be so prosperous in getting gain or have such success in sin. Another false refuge is to seek relief for a guilty conscience from the outward comforts procurable by ill-gotten gain.
4. Other false shifts or hypocritical evasions are, as is here intimated, resorted to by sinners. Sometimes they gloss over their sins with fair names; thus their dishonesties, whether by fraud or force, take the name of the fruits of their labors, the earnings of their industry, or the profits of their calling. Sometimes they depend on secrecy and defy detection, and, while they feel themselves free from discovery, they fancy themselves safe in their sin, as though the eye of God did not penetrate such thin disguises, or as if God had not said, "Be sure your sin will find you out." Sometimes they hypocritically profess abhorrence of sins they habitually practice; or, if they acknowledge sin at all, they salve their wounds of conscience by the consideration that their sins are very venial offences, and such as are incidental to their situation, or common to their calling, or peculiar to their trade. Thus they minimize their culpability and impose on their own souls,
III. EFFECTS OF SIN. God's goodness, which is designed to lead men to repent of sin, aggravates the sin of the impenitent.
1. God's claims on Israel's gratitude had been, indeed, mighty and manifold, as well as from ancient times. The glorious deliverances he had wrought for them, the low estate from which he had lifted them, the great exaltation to which he had raised them, the good land into which he had brought them, the rich grace he had bestowed on them, and the religious privileges he had conferred on them,—all these blessings, having been abused, increased the sin of their ingratitude and intensified their guilt.
2. God cannot hold the sinner guiltless. Sin, wherever it is found or by whomsoever it is committed, cannot pass unpunished. The offences of God's own dear children bring down chastisement upon them; he will not spare their faults. A father does not love his son less because he corrects him; he pities while he punishes; his bowels of compassion move while his hand holds the rod. So Israel, having been unmindful of God's mercy, must be exiled from their goodly pleasant land, and go into a bondage bad as, or worse than, that in Egypt of yore.
3. Yet God for all that does not renounce his interest in his people; he will give them occasion again to remember his goodness and to celebrate his redeeming love. Their preservation and restoration should again afford abundant matter for gladness and thanksgiving, when they would join trembling with their mirth, and celebrate the solemn Feast of Tabernacles, with joy drawing water out of the wells of salvation. Whether the reference be to a literal joyful restoration of Israel to their own land, or a glad time of revival and refreshing to all the trim Israel of God, whether Gentile or Jew in gospel times, the encouragement is gracious and the prospect glorious. Nor is it less so from the contrast between the chastisement so deserved and the consolation promised.
IV. EXCELLENCE OF DIVINE TEACHING AND INEXCUSABLENESS OF THOSE PRIVILEGED THEREWITH.
1. To his people in the past God spake at sundry times and in divers manners, or in divers portions, as they needed or could bear it, and in divers ways, by prophecy, by visions, by similitudes, and by the ministry of the Word. The means of grace were thus abundant and multiplied.
2. However different the modes of ministration were, the speaker was still one and the same. It is God who thus speaks to us by his messengers. If we reject the message and the messenger that brings it, we reject the Author; if we receive the message from the lips of the messenger, we receive him who gave the commission. What a grave responsibility! What need to take heed how we hear as well as what we hear! And bow incumbent on ministers also to take good heed, not only to the matter, but to the manner in which they convey the message they have received, remembering that they stand between the living and the dead, like Aaron when he took his censer and ran into the midst of the congregation till the plague was stayed.
3. The inexcusableness of those who, like Israel, enjoy so many privileges. The plainness, the variety, and the frequency of the Divine teaching impose a weighty responsibility, for unto whomsoever much is given, of them much shall be required; it is even a human principle practiced among men, that to whomsoever men have committed much, of him they ask the more. How God has left us all without excuse, seeing that in these days of light and liberty God has given us such a clear revelation of his will, so many ministries to explain and enforce it, so much freedom to exercise our judgment upon it, and derive light and leading from it, while we sit, like Israel of old, under our vine and fig tree in peace and safety, none daring to make us afraid!