3527. The Divided Heart

A Sermon Published On Thursday, August 31, 1916.

Their heart is divided; now they shall be found faulty. {Ho 10:2}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 276, “Divided Heart, A” 268}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3527, “Divided Heart, The” 3529}

   Exposition on Ho 10:1-6 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3527, “Divided Heart, The” 3529 @@ "Exposition"}

1. This was originally spoken of the kingdom of Israel. For many years they had been under a king who commanded the worship of Baal, and persecuted the worshippers of Jehovah. God chastened the people very severely for this, but he did not utterly destroy them. At last Hoshea, the king, came to the throne. He was the last king of Israel, and it is very remarkable that it is said of him that he was much better than those who went before him. He did not do evil in the sight of the Lord in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. He was not all that could be wished for, but still he was not like the rest; and it seems very odd to a person who reads it casually that God should spare the nation under worse kings, and then should carry it away into captivity, when they had for once in a long while a far better king. But the matter is explained like this. Hoshea withdrew the curse of persecution from the people, and they were left free to follow Jehovah. While they were persecuted—compelled to worship Baal, God, as it were, had compassion on them. He abhorred their idolatry, but still his anger did not burn against them to the same degree as it did afterwards when they were left to do as they pleased, and religious persecution was withdrawn and the pressure was taken off. Then, when there began to be an internal discussion and strife, and some went after the true God, and others still followed the old idol, then it was that God saw that the nation was incurable. They were altogether bent on evil, and he said, “Their heart is divided; now they shall be found faulty,” or it might be read, “Now they shall be condemned.” From which I gather that a sin in a certain case may be overlooked for a while, and that the same sin under another circumstance may be speedily punished. God knows the circumstances of temptation in which a man may be placed, and though the force of temptation is not an excuse for sin, it may serve as a mitigation of it. A person under a tyrannizing power who is driven to sin by fear may be far less guilty than another who is under no such constraint, but who wilfully of his own volition chooses the evil, and God may bear a long time with the same sin in one man under certain circumstances, which in another under different circumstances shall provoke him at once to anger, and he shall sweep the man from the face of the earth. Beware, dear hearers, of deliberate sin. Beware of the sin which is of your own choosing. I may say, beware of all sin, for in a measure it is deliberate, and of your own choosing, but especially that sin which is not brought on you by any pressure, but simply by your own wilful disobedience to God. This is a crying sin, and one which God will not put up with for long.

2. And now I shall take the language of the text, and apply it in other ways. Their heart is divided; now they shall be found faulty.

3. I. Our first point is:—THIS MAY BE TRUE OF ANY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

4. It has long been my joy, beloved in the Lord, that our heart has not been divided. We have walked together these many years in holy fellowship, and, imperfect as we are, yet there have not been divisions among us. There has been no division about doctrine. We have agreed on the great truths of God. There has been, I believe, no division about who shall be greatest. Each one of us has been content to occupy his place in the church, and to work on. It is not our goodness that has made it so; it is only the power of God’s Spirit which has kept us, who otherwise might readily have been divided—kept us as the heart of one man in sacred unity. Oh! let it always be so—let it always be so! May these eyes be closed in the darkness of death long before I shall see you contending against each other. If it should ever happen that I should be unfit to go in and out among you to your edification, may I be laid aside, and some other found around whom you may rally as one man, that by any means and every means the church may be kept in its integrity—one in heart—a threefold cord cannot be broken. Let each man endeavour to avoid giving offence to his brother. Let us all be members to edification of the same one Lord, one faith, one baptism. May the same Spirit reside in us, and work with us for God’s glory, for we well know that a divided church is found faulty. It is faulty so far as anything like usefulness is concerned. The strength that is spent in division is so much taken away from service. When the children of God use their swords against each other, they are not using them against the adversaries of the Lord. May our strength never be spent in division. A house divided against itself must come to naught, but strong in the unity which God shall give us may we not be found faulty.

5. II. I will not dwell on that, however, but remark that the text:—MAY BE USED AGAIN FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIAN.

6. One-heartedness in a Christian is a great point. “Unite my heart to fear your name” is a prayer which every Christian should always pray. “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” A double-hearted Christian—what shall I say of him? He is like the eye which when it is good fills the body with light, but if it has lost its goodness it causes the body to be darkness; and if the light that is in us is darkness, how great is that darkness! Though a Christian deep down in his soul cannot be divided in heart, but must love his God, yet there may be very much of division of pursuit, division of aim and object in Christian men. And, brothers and sisters, may I not suggest that it may be so with some of you, that your hearts may be divided, and therefore you are found faulty?

7. Take the Christian man who desires to serve God, but still is equally desirous to amass wealth. Such a man—may God not put him into the scales and judge him, for I fear he will be found wanting; but if his desire for wealth is even subordinate to that of the glory of God only in a slight degree he will never attain to any great eminence in the divine life. He cannot. In proportion as his vital force is divided and drawn away from the main business of life, he will become spiritually lean, even if he becomes monetarily rich. He may be a millionaire in the world, but he will be a pauper in the church. He may be a “strong” man on the market, but he shall be a very dwarf in the house of God. There will surely be a faultiness where the heart is so divided. The most charitable construction we can put on it is that there are darker evils.

8. We have known Christians, too, whose object in life has been the large acquiring of knowledge, the pursuit of science, the gathering up of information. This, like the pursuit of wealth, is lawful enough in its subordinate place, but when it comes into rivalry with the seeking of the glory of God, the man may become a scholar, but he will never become a beloved disciple that leans his head on Jesus’ bosom. He may be great in the classics, and he may be a master in the sciences, but he will never be a master in Israel. The division of his vital powers, the lack of concentration, will be sure to keep him in the rear ranks of the Church of God—if he is kept there at all. Oh! what a blessed thing it is to see a whole-hearted Christian man, who, while he pursues his present business, still pursues it for God’s glory; while he studies and stores his mind, is doing it for one object, namely, that by it he may be more useful to the Church of God, and more helpful in the winning of souls. Give the man only one heart, one object, and he is a man. Someone has said that he dreaded the man of one book, and so the wicked world may dread the man of one object if that one object is the glory of God. Those who have two targets to shoot at shall not strike either; they miss their aim; but he who lives only for God with all his might, is like a thunderbolt launched from Jehovah’s hand and goes crashing through every difficulty, and reaches the point God aims at, and that the man himself seeks. He shall live for something; he shall impact his age; he shall leave his mark. The man with undivided heart—he shall not be found faulty, but he who is this and that—a follower of Christ, but yet something over and above that, almost equally as much the other as he is a Christian—he shall be a poor, poor thing; he shall not enjoy the light of fellowship with God; he shall not walk in nearness to Christ. He shall be saved, but “so as by fire.” No “abundant entrance” shall be administered to him into the kingdom of God our Father.

9. I believe, dear friends, and I will go a step further using the same words, that this case, if it should happen to be that of a minister with a divided heart, is more sad than it is in the case of the common Christian. Dear brethren, those of us who believe that we are called to be ministers for Christ are, above all the rest of the Church, bound to devote ourselves to one thing. “This one thing I do.” If other men have two things to do, we, by our call and office, if we are not liars in professing to be of God, and traitors to our office, are bound to do only one thing, and that is to free ourselves from the blood of all men, that we may stand before God as his honest servants. You may depend on it that a minister with his heart at all divided will make a failure of his ministry. It must be so. I have watched the career of a good many young men, though not old myself, and I remember one with remarkable abilities, and in his preaching there was a good clear sound of the gospel. But I, who was as a father to him, noted that he had an ambitious desire to be distinguished as a speaker. I saw that, even when he sought to win souls, it was with a view that people might say how earnest he was. I could not help detecting in his conversation that there was an evident object to make himself something, so that he might be great in Israel. And I well remember how I walked with him and warned him that if God’s servant did anything whatever for himself, God would not use him for his divine purposes; that if we sacrificed to our pride, God would not let us stand as priests at his altar; that if we would be honoured, we must keep down, keep humble; that God would not long bless a man who was self-seeking, even in the ministry of Christ. He received the warnings very kindly, but they never sank into his heart; and I can see him now! He is not here, but if he were here I think he would confess the truth of what I say. He lies a miserable wreck on the shore, and he has fallen by his ambition! Otherwise if it had not been for that, I would have conceived for him a high and excellent career.

10. And I would say to every minister, “I charge you fling away your ambition. Your only ambition must be to be nothing, to be hated, scorned, called a fool, a driveller, if by any means you may win souls for Christ; but to cultivate rhetoric, to be an orator, to study that you may be thought to be a profound thinker, to labour earnestly with this idea that you may be esteemed to be a first-class soul winner—even that is bad. The only thing is to seek to do what God would have you do, and to glorify him, to lay every honour at his feet, and live for him, for any kind of division in the Christian minister’s pursuit may make him faulty.” I believe that the man who gives himself to be a preacher should divest himself of the cares of this life, as the soldier does in the army, so that he may be able to give his whole soul and life to the one matter for which his Lord has called him. It will be good for him to do this, and then he had better leave politics alone. He had better leave everything alone but his one work. We do not have mind enough for two things, and our work is such that if we had mind enough for twenty things it would be best to consecrate it all on that one thing. If I may snatch firebrands from the flame, whoever wishes may fill your senate and may guide the policies of cabinets; if I may lead sinners to the cross of Christ, and tell them of life in his dear wounds, I should be content, though I should never influence anything besides except the hearts of men to the Saviour. One thing, young man, if you are about to be a minister—one thing, my brother, however old you may be, permit me to say to you and myself tonight—one thing we must do if we would not be found faulty.

11. III. But I intend to lay the stress of my text tonight on one particular case, and that is:—THE SEEKING SINNER.

12. There are some people who are awakened and are seeking salvation, but they are not likely to find it because their heart is divided, and they will be found faulty. Very briefly, and very briefly indeed, I intend to speak on this disease, on its evil, and suggest a few thoughts by way of a cure for it.

13. Concerning this disease, let me say that it is a disease in the heart. Now a very small prick in the heart will kill. A great gash in the head may be healed, but a slight wound in the heart is deadly. A division of understanding or of judgment may be remedied, but a division of heart is a very terrible and often a very fatal disease. Let me show you how, and in what respects, some seeking souls are divided in heart.

14. And they are, first, divided concerning a sense of their condition. At one time they think they are in great danger; tomorrow they do not know that there is anything very particular. When they have read a passage of Scripture, they believe their heart to be evil, but they forget the text, and they think their heart is, after all, not so bad as Scripture says it is. They hear that there is a wrath to come, and they are alarmed, but they get away to their friends and neighbours, and say, “Why was I so foolish as to be frightened by the preacher?” They are in danger; they dare not say they are not, but yet they almost hope it is not true. They know it is not all right with them, yet they try to cheat themselves with the idea that it is pretty nearly all right. They are never likely to seek a Saviour while they are in this condition, for until a man’s mind is thoroughly made up that he must be saved by Christ or perish he will never go to Christ. A divided heart about our personal condition before God is a deadly sign.

15. These same seekers are often divided concerning the objects of their choice. They want salvation tonight; they would give their eye-teeth to have it. They will get to their room and pray, “Oh God, save me!” They will endorse the language of that hymn:—

   Wealth and honour I disdain;

   Earthly comforts, Lord, are vain;

   These can never satisfy:

   Give me Christ, or else I die.

Tomorrow they will forget all about Christ, and they will be seeking after something else. Tonight they would have heaven, but tomorrow they would find a heaven on earth. Tonight they would give up sin, but tomorrow they wish to have much of it. Tonight they see the emptiness of earthly pleasure, but tomorrow they will suck it down as the ox drinks down water. Their heart is divided between this and that. They are not quite for the world nor quite for Christ; they halt between two opinions. Oh! that God would decide them that their heart, their divided heart, may not prove their ruin.

16. Some seekers are divided concerning the object of their trust. They trust in Jesus Christ, but they also trust a little in themselves. They believe his blood has a great deal to do with it, but they think their prayers have something too, and so they stand with one foot on the land and the other on the sea, and therefore they fall. They are relying on self in part and on Christ in part, and so they will assuredly come to destruction, for Christ will never be part Saviour. It must be all or nothing. He never entered into partnership with sinful worms to help save them; he is the sole foundation, and other foundation can no man lay. Alas! on this matter, how many have their hearts divided! They are trusting in their baptism, or in their confirmation, or in their sacraments—all false foundations—and yet they are trying to trust in Christ at the same time. Their heart is divided; now they shall be found faulty.

17. And this division is found in their love. They think they love divine things now, but eventually some earthly thing comes in and gets uppermost in their souls. Oh! I remember myself when, if I woke in the morning, I took care always to have a godly book under my pillow, and a rousing book too—Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress,” Alleine’s “Alarm,” Bunyan’s books, and the like—and yet at another time I forgot all about that. I was hot today and cold tomorrow. I would have been ready to die in order to be saved sometime, would gladly have escaped from the mercy of God, and permitted to “enjoy myself,” as I said in the things of the world. Oh! it is a sad state to be in. A seeker will never get Christ until he must have Christ, and he will never get salvation until salvation is the first thing, the last thing the middle thing with him—until it comes to this, “By God’s Spirit I must be saved. Nothing will satisfy me. I must be saved, and until I am saved, I cannot give sleep to my eyes, nor slumber to my eyelids.” May the Lord by his mercy give us a united heart about this, for a divided heart here is a faulty heart in the seeker.

18. IV. Now let me speak on:—THE DANGER OF THIS DISEASE—the evil of it.

19. The evil of it is, first, that seekers with divided hearts miss the blessing. You shall find him when you seek him with your whole heart—not until then. Mercy’s door opens to the knock of a whole-hearted knocker. A half-hearted seeker will have to wait many a day before that gate will ever give him entrance. No, soul, if you do not think enough of mercy to ask for it with all your heart, you will have to wait for a while. No, man, the choice mercies of God are too precious to be thrown away on one who asks with a divided heart. Now look at heaven’s gate, instead of here and there, instead of looking right and left. For you one thing is required, sinner—that one thing. Fifty things you may leave to be sought eventually, but now for you it is one thing, and if you will not make it one thing, you will miss it—miss it to your eternal loss.

20. Again, remember that you who seek the Lord with a divided heart condemn yourselves. When you stand before the judgment seat you will not be able to say, as some will, “Lord, we did not know of this salvation. Lord, we never were impressed with its value,” for the Lord would tell you, “Why, you trembled under a sermon; you knelt and prayed, and you cried to me, though you lied with your lips because your heart was not perfect before me. Yet you did know the value of these things, and you did feel them, too, in a measure, so that you are without excuse.” He who follows the world with all his heart, and thinks that is the best, is a reasonable man in following it; but he who thinks the world to come is the best, and yet follows this present evil world—why, what a fool he is, and who shall plead for him? When he stands before God, his prayers will damn him, if nothing else will, for his prayers will be swift witnesses against him that he did know, did feel, and yet he would not act on his knowledge, and he blotted out what he perceived in his feeling. May God save us from missing heaven and from condemning ourselves by seeking it with a divided heart.

21. Moreover, oh man, I would press one fact on you very solemnly, and that is that a divided search after salvation is an insult to the Saviour. Who is it, and what is it, oh man, that you set up in competition with Christ? All heaven and earth cannot produce his equal, and have you found something that can rival him? What is it? Dare you say what it is? There have been men who have had good thoughts, but even a prostitute’s love has been chosen by them, instead of Christ. There are others who have loved the wages of unrighteousness, and Sabbath-breaking has made them forego Christ. We have known of others who, for fear of a little ridicule from their worldly companions, have been ashamed to follow Christ, and they have given up Jesus Christ sooner than bear a fool’s derision. Oh man, if you had the choice given to you tonight of all the kingdoms of this world, and Christ, you would insult Christ if you should pause in the choice, for he is better than them all, and your soul’s salvation is better than them all. “For what shall it profit a man, though he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” But I can weep for you while I rebuke you. What is it you put in competition with Christ? What is it you prefer to Christ? Man, are you mad that you should insult your Saviour, who poured out his heart’s blood for the salvation of such as you are, and do you think that anything can be worth the having at so dreadful a price as the loss of your soul, and the loss of the Saviour’s salvation? I beseech you to think that over. I cannot put it as forcibly as I wish, but please let your conscience help you, and answer if it is right in you to have a divided heart, and so to insult your Saviour.

22. Once more only on this point, and that is, do you not know that a divided heart is a continual disobedience to God? He says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength”; and now you have sinned your soul out of his favour and in danger of eternal death, and yet with only half a heart you turn to him. You put out one hand towards God, but with the other you would have your sin. You would gladly go to heaven and take your sins with you. You would be saved, but you want to sit both at the table of the Lord and the table of Satan. You desire to hold with the hare and run with the hounds—be the friend of the devil, and yet the friend of God. Oh man, the very thought is rebellion against your Maker. Cast it away from you, and ask the Lord tonight to bind all your affections into one bundle, and then draw them all to himself—so that for you the one thing may be to seek salvation through Christ, and reconciliation to the good Lord in heaven, through the precious blood of his dear Son.

23. V. And now listen to the last few words which shall be meant to be:—A CURE FOR THIS DISEASE of a divided heart.

24. And the first word shall be this. You ought well to be finished with a divided heart when the matter in hand is your salvation or damnation. When a ship is floating merrily out at sea with favourable winds, men think very little of their safety. When she begins to rock and there is some danger, then their safety rises in importance, and they put it side by side with the safety of the gold they carry with them; but when the winds break loose and the storm is up, and the ship is about to go to pieces, and the man must leap into the life-boat, he flings his gold away; he leaves his treasures loose on the floor. As they sink into the abyss, he gives up anything if he may only save his life. In that dread hour when the vessel is going down, and only a handful of men are clinging to a mast, all is gone from them except the thought of saving life. And surely it should be so with you. When you are saved you may begin to think of some other thing, but not tonight. For as the Lord lives, before whom I stand, there is only a step between some of you and death. Before another Sabbath day—I may speak positively, for out of so many as there are here at least one of us will die this week, by all the probabilities of life and death—before another Sabbath day one of us will lie in the coffin, prepared to be taken to the grave, and if that should happen to be an unconverted man, then before another Sabbath you will know of hell and of the lake of fire more than this book can tell or these lips can utter, unless you are converted and flee to Christ. Surely in such jeopardy your whole heart ought to be set on the one matter—your own salvation—and I beseech you and I pray God the Spirit to make it so that you may now with your whole undivided faculties seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. By the awful peril of your soul, I entreat you to linger, and delay, and remain undecided no more, lest your heart, being divided, should prove faulty and be cast away for ever.

25. Remember, again, and the argument is equally forcible, though it is more pleasing, the mercy that you are seeking after is worth the concentration of all your thoughts to find it. To be delivered from all your past sin—is this not worth the seeking? To be made a child of God—is this not worth wrestling for? To be secure of heaven, to be delivered from hell—is this not worth an attempt to obtain? Oh! if you needed go to your houses tonight, and neglect tomorrow’s business—it is not necessary, but if it was—if you did not go to the market or to the Exchange for weeks, indeed, and if your tables were deserted, and you snatched only a morsel that might sustain life, and if you took no walk, had no recreation, if you denied yourself anything and everything until you found Christ, I could not blame you. I am sure it would be well worth the while. Anything, everything should be neglected so that you might become one of the people of God, and saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. If you knew the joy that belongs to Christians, you would never be satisfied until you had it. The man who saw the pearl of great price saw it in another dealer’s hands, and he thought, “I must have that; it is the finest pearl of all, so I must have that”; and he went his way, you know, and though he had many a dainty jewel, he sold all he had and turned it all into gold, and back he came to the trader, and he gave with joy all that he had so that he might buy that one pearl, and he made a good bargain too. And you would make a blessed bargain if everything were given up so that you might find a Saviour, and be delivered from the wrath to come. Therefore, please seek him with your whole heart.

26. Once more, remember that the Saviour gave his whole heart when he came to save men. There was no distracting Christ. His zeal for souls ate him up. He, loved, he lived, he died to save them. Will you have a divided heart about what took the Saviour’s whole soul? Remember the devil is in earnest to destroy you. He will leave no stone unturned to keep you as his victim so that he may utterly destroy you. Shall hell be in earnest to ruin you, and will you not be in earnest to escape from it? Remember, good men are in earnest. I wish that I could speak to you with the tongue of an angel tonight. There is no faculty of my mind which I would not lay under a heavy mortgage if I might only bring your soul to Christ. I would willingly enough go to school again and sit at any teacher’s feet if he could tell me how to deal with human hearts properly, and stir them and draw them to the Saviour. Ah! It is poorly done, but it is with my whole soul I would plead with you to flee to Christ. And yet it is only a little concern of mine, compared with the way in which it is a concern of yours. If I have been faithful, I shall not be responsible for you; it is your soul that is at stake. Sirs, shall I be anxious about your souls, and will you not care about them? Do they seem precious to me, and trifles to you? Shall I urge you to escape, and will you feel, “It does not matter; it is only a trifle.” Lord, deliver us from this insanity, for it is insanity for a man to trifle with his soul, when others are in earnest for him. And God is in earnest. The great eternal God is in earnest. He says tonight to you, “Turn, turn! Why will you die, oh house of Israel?” If salvation is child’s play to you, it is not to him. He gave his Son from his bosom to redeem men, and he sent his Spirit to men to sanctify them. He exerts his omnipotence, he taxes his wisdom to find a plan, and devise a way by which he might save mankind. Oh! do not trifle where God is so in earnest, lest you find him terribly in earnest in the day when his incensed love shall turn to wrath. Jealousy—what is it but love set ablaze? And if you hate God so much that you will prefer to live in hell sooner than be indebted to his mercy, then rest assured you shall feel how heavy his arm can be.

   What chains of vengeance shall they feel

      Who slight the cords of love?

   How they deserve the deepest hell

      That scorn the joys above!

27. May God by his infinite mercy prevent anyone here from daring the wrath of God by following after Christ with a divided heart—trifling with his Maker, trifling with his soul, trifling with heaven, trifling with hell. May each one of us be in earnest, and may we all meet at the right hand of God through sovereign grace. May the Lord bless you all, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ho 10:1-6}

1. Israel is an empty vine, he produces fruit for himself:

Not for his God. It does not matter how much fruit we produce—if it is for self, we are really fruitless. A thing which is good in itself may lose all its goodness because it is stained with a selfish motive. We are to live for God; and we must always be watchful about this; otherwise we may be doing much, and doing nothing. “Israel is an empty vine. He produces fruit for himself.”

1. According to the multitude of his fruit he has increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.

It is a very sad thing when, the more men received from God, the more they sin. But just in proportion as the land of Israel was fat and fertile, in that proportion they set up altars to false gods, and provoke the true God, who had given them these mercies. It is a bad thing when men grow rich, and offer sacrifice to their own vanity—when men gather learning, and only use it to debate against the simple teachings of God—when just as God blesses, men cease to bless him!

2. Their heart is divided; now they shall be found faulty:

Half a heart is no heart at all; and when men seem to go after God, and at the same time to go after their idols, they are not going after God. Their religion is vain. The good side is only a pretence; the evil side is the real thing.

2. He shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images.

Let us take heed then, dear friends, that we make nothing into an idol. The shortest way to lose the dearest object of your affections is to make an idol of him. “He shall break down their altars. He shall spoil their images.” Sometimes this is done in great mercy to God’s people, for there is no greater evil than for a heart to be happy in idolatry. Sometimes it is done in judgment on the ungodly. They will not have the true God, and the false god shall be false to them. “He shall break down their altars. He shall spoil their images.”

3. For now they shall say, “We have no king, because we did not fear the LORD; what then should a king do for us?”

Their king was slain, but if he had lived, what would be the good of him without God? What is the good of any temporal blessing if God is not in it? It is the husk with the kernel gone; and if we are able to enjoy the husk, it looks as if we were swine, and swine are being fattened for the slaughter. What is the use to us of anything that we possess if God is divorced from it? I ask the question again. If you are a true child of God, all the grain and wine in the world cannot feed you. Your bread must come from heaven.

4. They have spoken words,

What they spoke was not truth. We cannot speak without words, but it is an evil thing when our speech is nothing but words. Words, words, words!—no heart, no truth. “They have spoken words.”

4. Swearing falsely in making a covenant: so judgment springs up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.

May God keep us from untruthfulness, and especially from a lack of truth towards him. Do you not think that often, both in prayer and praise, it might be said, “They have spoken words—nothing more?” There has been a falsehood in the most solemn transaction towards God. Woe to you, dear friends, if that should turn out to be the case. You may cheat your fellow men if you have a heart for it, but you never will be able to cheat your God. He is not mocked. “They have spoken words,” he says.

5. The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven:

Why, those calves are their trust. They rely on those images of false gods—those images which they set up in the place of the true God. Pretending by it to worship him, they trusted in these; and now they shall become their fear. He who will have a confidence apart from God will find his confidence soured into a fear before long. Your greatest reason for distress will be what was once the reason for your reliance apart from God.

5, 6. For its people shall mourn over it, and its priests who rejoiced in it, for its glory, because it is departed from it. It shall be also carried to Assyria for a present to King Jareb:

The spiteful king.

6. Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.

These golden calves aroused the desires of the king of Assyria, and he took them away. These gods were baits to their enemies, instead of a basis for their confidence. They were carried away captive by the people with them—their god taken captive—their god melted down to make images, or to make money for the king of Assyria! Ah! what shame did God pour on idolaters! And what shame he will pour on us if we have any confidence except in the unseen God, and if we rely anywhere but on the eternal covenant of his immutable grace. Oh! brothers and sisters, let us try to flee away from what is so tempting to sense—confidence in an arm of flesh, and let our sole and only trust be in him who made the heavens and the earth, and in his Son, Jesus Christ.