SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW.
By W. N. G.
INTERNATIONAL LESSON NOTES.
THE name Hosea means salvation. According to common chronology, Hosea prophesied about sixty-five years, and was contemporary with Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, and Micah. His time was one of extreme wickedness on the part of Israel. It was toward the end of Israel's career as a kingdom. Of the last six kings four of them fell by conspiracy, and another with the final fall of his kingdom; and not one of them bears any other record than that of doing evil in the sight of the Lord. "ISRAEL is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself." This would indicate that Israel was something like the barren fig tree, all his force was poured forth in empty show of branches and leaves—there was no fruit for God. All his vitality was spent upon himself, and thus he "increased the altars" and "made goodly images." Keil says: "The Jehovah, worshiped under the symbol of an ox, was no longer essentially different from the Baals of the heathen, by whom Israel was surrounded; and the difference was merely a formal one, consisting simply in a peculiar mode of worship." "THEIR heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty." A merely nominal or half-way service is always an abomination unto the Lord. It is no more recognized by him than the worship of the heathen. In Israel's case the Lord favored the heathen more than his own chosen people, for he gave the apostatized Israelites into the hands of the heathen for chastisement. Here is illustrated the teaching of the Scriptures elsewhere that God will not accept a divided heart. "No man can serve two masters; . . . ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matt. 6:24. "THEY have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant." Here is reference to their covenant with God, which, having been broken on their part, their declarations of allegiance became false words. The fact of Israel's making covenants with other nations, as Assyria and Egypt (see chap. 12:1), would also convict them of swearing falsely in making covenants. They had promised to do all that the Lord should command them, and he had given express command that they should make no covenants with the nations around them. And this principle was not done away when the old covenant ended; it is as firmly ingrafted into the new: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." 2 Cor. 6:14. "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." James 4:4. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15. "THE calves of Bethaven" (house of vanity) and Aven (verse 8) are degraded names of Bethel, which means the house of God. At Bethel was the principal place of calf-worship; here Jeroboam I had set up a golden calf. This golden idol would be carried to Assyria, with all the treasures of the place, all of which were no doubt of great monetary value. Thus would Ephraim "receive shame." (Ephraim, being the principal division of the northern kingdom, and containing the capital, is sometimes taken for the whole.) "And Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel." Having trusted in the idols of Bethel, and taken counsel of her priests, it would be a source of great humiliation to see the object of their trust carried away by their enemies as a trophy of war. THE threatened desolation of the land should be so great, and judgment of the people so terrible, that they would "say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us." This is also typical of the judgment of the great day of the Lord. See Rev. 6:14-17. And this will be especially true of those who have had the greater opportunities under the gospel, and have professed to be doing the work of the Lord, yet have rejected his warning messages, supposing themselves to be all right because they have been reckoned as the people of God. "And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." Luke 12:47. NOTWITHSTANDING the great wickedness of Israel, and the fierce denunciation of judgment by the prophet, he still holds out a way of peace with God: "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." Fallow ground is that which has lain for a long time uncultivated. Before it can be made to produce grain again it must be broken up, and there must be sowing done before fruit can be reaped. This was the design of the prophet's testimony to the people. They should repent, make humble confession of sin, put away evil, and turn to the Lord with all their heart. This would be breaking the fallow ground that had so long lain in wickedness, producing only the thorns and thistles of sin. This would be sowing righteousness, with a guarantee of reaping in mercy. THIS preaching of Hosea is just as pertinent today as when first proclaimed. The professed children of God are as much allied to the world today as was Israel in the days of Hosea. The golden calves of the modern Bethavens, through the medium of which God is formally worshiped, are scarcely discernible from the Baals of the world. Verily, in the language of the prophet, expressed in this lesson, "it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth." Ps. 34:16. But "the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveeth such as be of a contrite spirit." Verse 18.