Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2252
“For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore I wiil return, and take away My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and will recover My wool and flax.” Hosea 2:8,9.
IN reading any of the records concerning the people of Israel and the people of Judah, one stands amazed at two things, and scarcely knows which to wonder at the most. The first thing which causes astonishment is the great sin of the people. And the next thing, which is even more marvelous, is the great patience of God. I scarcely know which of the two things causes me greater surprise—that men should be so guilty, or that God should be so gracious! On every page of Israel’s history, the kindness and forbearance of Jehovah are manifested towards the people whom He had betrothed unto Himself. Even in the midst of their backsliding and idolatry, He did not forget the Covenant which He had made with their fathers. Yet, in spite of all this goodness, the people sinned times without number and grieved His Spirit again and again! Instead of being led to repentance, they sinned yet more and more! Their iniquity and the forbearance of God stand like two mountain summits of the history of the chosen yet wayward people.
Let us transfer these thoughts to ourselves and see if we can, with any justice, cast a stone at the people who, in spite of such love, went so far astray. Alas, we are condemned by the comparison! We are nothing better than they were! Our case is, perhaps, fuller of contradictions and inconsistencies, if that is possible. Is it not amazing, first of all, that we should have been so guilty, that we should have persevered in sin so many years, that even after we have known God we should have been so unfaithful to Him, so unfaithful to our own convictions and to our own conscience? Is not this awful fact amazing? But that God should love us, still, that He should follow us with warning and invitation, that His Holy Spirit should strive with us and continue to strive until He wins the day—and that in spite of our shortcomings and our transgressions—He should have remained faithful to us, even to this very hour, is still more amazing!
O my Soul, sink low in deep humiliation because of your sinfulness! But, rise higher and yet higher in adoration of the unutterable love, the boundless mercy of God to you in spite of your iniquity! Beloved Brothers and Sisters, if it were possible for us to only know adequately these two things—man’s sin and God’s love—we would have learned more than the greatest scientists of this world ever knew! And we would have attained to more true wisdom than all earth’s philosophers ever possessed. There are some, who in their search for knowledge, have almost seemed to walk the heavens in order to tread the stars, and to dive into the depths to arrange the rocks and all their ancient life. But there are two things that none of the wise among men have ever been able to compass. Two things which unaided reason has always failed to grasp and always will—sin and love! Sin for its thunder and love for its music—sin for its Hell and love for its Heaven. But we who have been taught by the Grace of God, do know something of sin—may we know increasingly what an evil it is! I trust we also know something of Divine Love—may we be filled with it, even to overflowing!
But, coming now close to our text, I am going to make four observances upon it.
The first will be one that seems self-evident, yet is often forgotten, namely, that God is the Giver of every good gift. “I gave her corn, and wine and oil.” In the second place, I will dwell upon the sad fact that many seem not to know this. “She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil.” My third observation will be that this ignorance leads to perversion of God’s gifts—the gifts of God were profaned by being “prepared for Baal.” In the last place, the solemn Truth of God will demand our attention, that this ill use of God’s gifts causes God to withdraw them. “Therefore will I return, and take
away My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and I will recover My wool and My flax.” We lose what we are determined to put to improper use. So you see that my discourse promises to be a very practical one.
I. The first thought in the text which claims our attention will be THAT GOD IS THE GIVER OF EVERY GOOD GIFT. “I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold.” Whether we know it, or not, it is true that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Do not, then, exult over your brother if you are more richly endowed with God’s gifts than he is—“For who makes you to differ from another? And what have you that you did not receive?” All things that we possess have been bestowed upon us, for it is as certain that we brought nothing into the world, as that we shall take nothing out of the world. We receive everything from the great Distributor who opens His hands and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Though used with reference to a higher gift than any of those mentioned in the text, the words of John the Baptist are true concerning all God’s gifts, “a man can receive nothing, except it is given him from Heaven.”