Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2134
“O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away. Therefore ha ve I hewed them by the Prophets; I have slain them by the Words of My mouth: and your judgments are as the light that goes forth.” Hosea 6:4,5.
VERY simple is the way of salvation—very plain is the road home. The chapter begins with it—“Come, and let us return unto the Lord.” By going away from the Lord we have lost our privileges, have become wounded and have lost ourselves. To find all these things again we must go back to the Lord, from Whom we have wandered. We must cry with the repenting prodigal, “I will arise and go to my Father”—and if we at once begin to carry out the resolve—the way home is not far to seek.
Concerning salvation we need only preach one sermon by way of explanation—but men need 10 sermons by way of exhortation. Turn to the right when you come to the Cross and keep straight on and you will get home, however much you have wandered from the right way. Alas, too many of our hearers complicate this sweet simplicity! They will not be content to take the plain way—they love more winding paths. They will not drink of the cool flowing waters—they look for a mingled cup of their own filling. They are waiting. For what are they waiting? They are looking about. For what are they looking?
They choose a thorny maze instead of a straight road. The Lord God, when He is resolved to save, sees it necessary to use peculiar methods with these who will not be satisfied to receive the kingdom of Heaven as a little child. Because they will not come when they are bidden, the Lord adds blows to His words. Because they will not come when they are gently drawn, they shall be roughly driven. Because the cords of love and the bonds of a man fail to bring them, they shall have the goad of the ox and the bit and bridle of the mule. If gentle breezes will not waft the ship, the tempestuous Euroclydon shall force it to the haven!
When the Lord resolves to save, He will lay on His chastisement until the whole head is sick and the whole heart faints. He will smite until, from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet, the body is all wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. By strong measures and strange methods He will bring back the stray sheep. “Yet does He devise means that His banished are not expelled from Him.” It is a great pity that there should be need for these unusual means, for the method of salvation is simple—and if we are willing and obedient we shall find her ways to be ways of pleasantness.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved,” is a command which is plain as a pike-staff. The Gospel precept is such as a child can understand and its commandment is not grievous. Alas, men will not follow this path of peace—and even those whom God eternally ordains to save are, for many a day, most rebellious against His easy plan. Therefore does God go about and use all sorts of wise dealings with men, that He may hide pride from them and may make them willing to accept the humbling terms of salvation by Grace alone through Jesus Christ.
In the case before us, love seems to have reached its nonplus. Infinite Love and boundless Wisdom seem, in this instance, to be brought to a dead halt. God has been dealing with Judah and Ephraim in ways as wide as the poles asunder—He has been as a moth, which, without noise eats the garment—and thus He has caused them a grave disquiet in a gentle and secret manner. But as this sufficed not, He has also turned His lion upon them and by sharp afflictions and terrible visitations they have been torn and wounded—as when a wild beast rends his prey in pieces.
But neither the gentle nor the terrible has availed—they have remained hardened. What treatment can now be tried? The Lord asks the question. He appeals to those whom He would bless and puts it to them. Infinite Wisdom is pictured as crying in bewilderment, “O Ephraim, what shall I do unto you?” What is the next thing? “O Judah, what shall I do unto you?” What else can be hopefully used after so many failures? In what terms shall I now address you? By what methods shall I now attempt to win you?
Ah, it is a thousand pities that the case should ever wear this complexion. Why should the line of Love be thrown into such a tangle? For, after all, today, at this very moment, the way of salvation is plain, open and simple to those of you whose cases are most perplexing! All else is intricate, but this is plain—“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” “Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth.” Since men will complicate it, the Lord pursues them in His infinite compassion and follows them, despite their devious ways, double dealings, inconstancies and falsehoods.
Our text tells us, first, of the disappointments of Love—“What shall I do unto you? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away.” Secondly, it mentions the devices of Mercy—“Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth.” When we have thought of these two things, we shall be led, very briefly, to notice the declaration of Justice. If all these ways of longsuffering are despised, God’s Justice will be abundantly vindicated—“Your judgments are as the light that goes forth.” The condemnation of those who disappoint Love and defy Wisdom will be richly deserved. In closing, we shall, in the fourth place, come back to where we began and remind you of the direction of Wisdom which stands before us in the first verse—“Come, and let us return unto the