Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2474
“Ephraim shall say, What ha ve I to do anymore with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From Me is your fruit found.” Hosea 14:8.
THIS passage is in very vivid contrast to what Ephraim had previously said, as it is recorded in the early part of Ho-sea’s prophecy. If you turn to the second chapter, and the fifth verse, you will find this same Ephraim saying, “I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” These lovers were the idol gods and Ephraim was determined to go after them, for she ascribed to them her various comforts, her bread and her water, her wool and her flax, her oil and her drink. So desperately set was this Ephraim upon going after her idols that God had much ado to drag her away from them, for that second chapter continues, “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them.”
So, you see, this people had been desperately set upon following after idols, yet, before the prophecy is ended, we find this same Ephraim saying, “What have I to do anymore with idols?” What a change the Grace of God works in the heart! It reverses the action of the entire machinery of our being. It puts, “No,” for, “Yes,” and, “Yes,” for, “No.” It is a radical change—that which we hated, we come to love—and that which we loved, we come to hate. Whereas we said, concerning this and that, “I will,” and, “I shall,” the Grace of God makes us change our note and we say, “I will not, by God’s Grace. I will not act as I said I would, for what have I to do anymore with idols?”
But now I shall take you at once to the words of the text, that we may think of the change which was worked upon Israel, or Ephraim. We will consider, first, the character of this change—“Ephraim shall say, What have I to do anymore with idols?” Then, secondly, let us note the cause of this change. And thirdly, the effect of this change.
I. First, then, we are to consider THE CHARACTER OF THIS CHANGE.
Ephraim had been drunk with her idolatry. The Israelites were never content with idols of one sort—they went to Moab, to Egypt, to Philistia, to Assyria, to the Hittites and to any other ites—to borrow idols. They introduced fresh idols from distant countries. They were never satisfied with the number of their images, yet now, when God has effectually worked upon their hearts, they say, one voice speaking for all, “What have I to do anymore with idols?”
Notice, that this change was a very hearty and spontaneous one. Ephraim did not say, “I should like to worship idols, yet I dare not.” She did not say, “I should like to set up engraved images, but I must not.” On the contrary, she, herself, said, “What have I to do anymore with idols?” I wish that some people whom I might mention understood what conversion means. They say to us, “So you do not attend the theater—what a denial it must be to you!” It is nothing of the kind, for we never have a wish or a desire to go there. What have we, the twice-born, to do with these vain things of the world?” Oh, but the drunk’s cup—it must be a very great piece of self-denial to you to forego it!” On the contrary, it is loathsome to us! We have come to feel as if the most nauseous medicine that could be mixed would be sweeter to us than that cup! What have we to do anymore with idols?
So, each thing that is evil becomes to the real convert a disgusting and distasteful thing. He does not say, “Oh, how I should like it! How I long for it! What a hungering I have after it!” If he detects in himself the least hankering after evil of any kind, he cries out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But as far as the work of God’s Spirit has been worked upon him, he has a thorough hearty severance and divorce from those things which he once loved. He has as great a horror of them as once he had a desire for them. Now he sings—
“Let worldly minds the world pursue, It has no charms for me. Once I admired its trifles, too, But Grace has set me free. Its pleasures now no longer pleases, No more content affords. Far from my heart are joys like these, Now I have seen the Lord! As by the light of opening day The stars are all concealed, So earthly pleasures fade away, When Jesus is revealed.”
I say again, the change is a very spontaneous and hearty one. Ephraim shall herself freely say, “What have I to do anymore with idols? I have done with those things and I am glad to have done with them. Oh, that I had done with them once and for all!” I asked a convert, this last week, a question which, perhaps, I have asked a dozen others, “My dear Brother, are you perfect?” “No, Sir,” each one has said, “I am not.” Then when I have enquired, “Would you not like to be perfect?” the answer in every case has been, “Yes, indeed I would. It would be Heaven on earth if I could but be perfectly holy. Oh, that I were clean rid of sin!” So we sing, with Cowper—