Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2975
“Therefore have they forgotten Me.” Hosea 13:6.
Our text reminds us that God does take notice of what men do, or of what they do not do. Here He complains—and there is a kind of mournful plaintiveness about His words—“Therefore have they forgotten Me.” It is not a matter of indifference to God whether men remember Him or not. It seemed to be a subject of surprise to David that God should think of man, for He wrote, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man, that You are mindful of him?” Yet God is mindful of man and it grieves Him that man is not mindful of Him! It would not disturb our minds if one tiny ant should forget or ignore us, yet we did not create it, and we have not the claims upon it that God has upon us. Yet, little though we are—and so insignificant that the ant, itself, is a great thing in comparison with us if we reckon what we are in comparison with God—it seems that He does want us to remember Him, to think of Him and to trust, love and serve Him. And when we do not, He is vexed and grieved. At least, speaking after the manner of men, we are taught to believe that it pains Him at His heart, so that He cries out by the mouth of His servant, the Prophet, “They have forgotten Me—their Maker, their best Friend and their greatest Helper.”
I am afraid, dear Friends, that the accusation in our text may be brought against a very large number of us. Certainly it can be laid to the charge of all those who have lived without thinking of God and who have never turned to Him with repentance and faith and who, consequently, are still strangers to Him. How many such people there are, God alone can accurately compute! The great mass of our fellow creatures would come under that category. But, worst of all, among the Lord’s own people there are, alas, some against whom this accusation can be brought! They have forgotten their God—not absolutely, so as to be utterly and altogether like the thoughtless sinner—yet very sadly and grievously, so that God, Himself, complains of them, “They have forgotten Me.” For, mark you, if God observes what ordinary men do, much more does He take notice of what His own people do! An unkind word from a stranger may have a very slight effect upon us, but if such a word should come from the lips of one whom we love it would cut us to the quick! We could put up with a thousand things from those who are mere acquaintances, but from a beloved child, or from the wife of our bosom—such a thing would be very hard to bear. Remember, O Christian, that ancient declaration, “The Lord your God is a jealous God.” Because He loves us so much, He is in that very proportion, jealous, for the greatest jealousy grows out of limitless love. And the Lord our God who bought us with the heart’s blood of His dear Son, counts us so dear to Him that a wandering thought in our mind becomes a crime against Him—and the giving up of any part of our heart to love of the world, or of self, or sin, or Satan, or any other of His rivals—becomes to Him a cause of grief and sadness. If there are any children of God here—and I fear there may be many—who have grown cold in heart and who have wandered from the Lord, I hope the text will come like a lament from Him who hung upon the Cross of Calvary, “Therefore have they forgotten Me. Therefore have they forgotten Me.”
I. I am going to call your attention, first, to THE TIME WHEN THIS SIN WAS COMMITTED. “Therefore,” says the Lord, “have they forgotten Me.” When was that? If we ascertain that, we shall also find out when we ought to be most upon our guard against falling into a similar sin.
It appears, dear Friends, to have been when the Israelites had come out of the wilderness into Canaan—when they had escaped from troubles and had come into an easy condition, for so the context reads—“I did know you in the
wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten Me.” It is a very sorrowful fact that in this case the greater God’s goodness was to His people, the less was their gratitude to Him—just in proportion as He was kind to them, they were cold to Him. These people had been delivered from excessive toil. In Egypt they had been a nation of slaves. And in the wilderness they had been for 40 years pilgrims with weary feet. They seldom tarried long in any place, but backwards and forwards across that “waste howling wilderness” they marched almost continuously. And concerning all that time, God says, “I did know you in the wilderness.” He knew them, morning by morning, as the manna fell. He knew them when the quails came on swift wings to bring them flesh to eat. He knew them when the morning and evening lambs were offered in sacrifice for them, sinners as they were all the while they were in the wilderness, and He says, “I did know you then.” So, Brothers and Sisters, it has happened to some men that when they have had hard times, long hours and stern labor, they have managed to be up in the morning early to get a quiet season of communion with God and, though they scarcely could have been thought capable of doing it, for they worked so hard, yet they could find leisure to teach a few children in the Sunday school, or to distribute tracts, or to speak a word for Christ at an open-air service! They had very hard bondage in their daily occupation, yet whenever there was a weeknight service, they always managed to get there. They were very apt out of sheer weariness because they had been toiling so hard during the day, to fall asleep when they sat down in the pew—still, they said that half a loaf was better than no bread—and they were glad to get a message from any of the Lord’s servants in those trying days.