Hosea 10:3
Surely now they will say, "We have no king, for we do not revere the LORD. What can a king do for us?"
Sermons
The Empty VineJ. Orr Hosea 10:1-3
The Calves and the KingsC. Jerdan Hosea 10:1-8














Hosea 10:2 (first clause)
The preceding verse describes the sin of the people; this points us to its source. Like a vine, luxuriant in branch yet yielding no sound fruit, Israel deserved the curse which, during the ministry of our Lord, fell on the barren fig tree. The first verse may be compared advantageously with the description given of Israel in Psalm 80:8-15. The third clause in that verse does not continue to develop the figure, but makes a declaration which was literally true, viz. that in proportion as the fields were fruitful Israel multiplied idolatrous altars; and as the land was made good, so the images they worshipped were adorned with beauty. In other words, God's gifts were abused, and were dedicated, not to him, but to false gods. The fear of Moses was justified. Now they enjoyed the goodly land they were forgetting the Lord their God. Point out the enervating effect of prosperity in such men as Hezekiah, and in the decline and fall of great nations. The cause of Israel's sin was to be found in the fact that they were not whole-hearted in the worship of God; but while they kept up still the outward forms of the old religion, with "divided hearts" they mingled with it, or supported beside it, idolatrous practices. The question of Elijah, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" needed repetition in those days, and in these Our Lord has distinctly declared that the frequent and sinful attempt of men to serve God and mammon is vain. Subject - The divided heart.

I. ITS CONDITION first demands consideration. Whether in the physical or in the moral life of man, if we are in doubt about the state of our heart, we cannot be too careful in diagnosis. Diseases assail it which are so occult that they may not reveal themselves till they become fatal in result. Other diseases may have outward signs which any onlooker can recognize. Some heart-diseases are as insidious as they are perilous, betraying themselves neither by rash nor by pain. As the heart is the center of our physical life, so here and elsewhere in Scripture it is alluded to as the center of moral life; and in that aspect of it the words are true, "The heart is deceitful above all things." (Some such idea underlies the Hebrew word which Keil translates "smooth," or "flattering.") None but God and a man's own consciousness can declare whether this be true of any one, "his heart is divided." This is so, however, with any whose attitude towards God and his truth is as follows:

(1) If their minds are convinced;

(2) if their fears are aroused;

(3) if their consciences are disturbed;

while yet they yield no genuine homage to him whose existence and claims they dare not deny.

II. ITS EVIDENCES may be discovered in such characteristics as these:

1. Formality in worship. "This people draweth nigh to me with their mouth," etc. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The scribes and Pharisees were examples of this, exposed and rebuked by our Lord.

2. Inconsistency in conduct. This may be glaringly conspicuous, or it may be that the unholiness or unrighteousness is too secretly practiced to be discovered by the world, or too subtle to be described and condemned by the Church, or ten generally practiced to be reprobated by society. Give examples of each in professional, or commercial, or social life.

3. Fickleness in effort. It is a sure sign of reality when we are "steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord;" when the world frowns as well as when it smiles; when the service is uncongenial as well as when it is delightful. He who readily takes up Christian work and then suddenly abandons it, may fairly ask himself whether his heart is not divided. The great Sower still sees the shallow soil of a sentimental character, where there is no depth and therefore no stability.

III. ITS CAUSES.

1. The love of sin. We must lay aside "the sin that doth so easily beset us" if we would run the race and win the crown. He who will not give sin up for Christ's sake has the" divided heart."

2. The fear of man. The lad at school, or the man in business, is often disloyal to conviction, and refuses to lay to heart the declaration of Christ, "He that is not with me is against me."

3. The habit of procrastination. The child says, "I will wait till I am old enough to take my own place in life;" the busy man or woman waits the leisure of old age; the vigorous delay till illness gives time for thought; and so life speeds away, and the words of Christ are unheeded, "My son, give me thine heart."

IV. ITS EFFECTS.

1. Present unhappiness. The undecided man knows too much to find rest in the world, but he loves too little to find rest in Christ. The consciousness of being wrong, the thought of a solemn duty left undone, the fear of discovery by Christian friends, the dread of death and its issue, with more or less frequency and intensity, bring him misery.

2. Disastrous influence. If he professes to be a Christian, he dishonors his Lord by his conduct in the world far more titan one who avows himself to be an unbeliever. His Christian name injures the world, while his worldly character injures the Church. Examples: Judas, Demas, Ananias.

3. Certain retribution. "Some will awake... to everlasting contempt." "Let both grow together to the harvest," etc.

CONCLUSION. Encouragement to offer to our God the broken heart of true penitence, which he will not despise. - A.R.

Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty.
It is one grievous fault with the Church of Christ at the present day, that it is not merely divided somewhat in its creed, and somewhat also in the practice of its ordinances, but, alas! it is also somewhat divided in heart. When our doctrinal divisions grow to so great a head that we cease to co-operate, when our opinions upon mere ordinances become so acid towards each other that we can no longer extend the right hand of fellowship to those who differ from us, then indeed is the Church of God found faulty. Even Beelzebub, with all his craft, cannot stand when once his hosts are divided. The smallest church in the world is potent for good when it hath but one heart and one soul; when pastor, elders, deacons, and members are bound together by a threefold cord which cannot be broken. Union is strength. By union we live, and by disunion we expire. Apply the text to our individual condition.

I. A FEARFUL DISEASE. "Their heart is divided."

1. The seat of the disease. It affects a vital part, a part so vital that it affects the whole man. There is no power, no passion, no motive, no principle which does not become vitiated when once the heart is diseased.

2. The disease touches this vital part after a most serious fashion. The heart is cleft in twain. Nothing can go right when that which should be one organ becomes two; when the one motive power begins to send forth its life-floods into two diverse channels, and so creates intestine strife and war.

3. It is a division in itself peculiarly loathsome. Men who are possessed of it do not feel themselves unclean; they will venture into the church, they will propose to receive her communion, and they will afterwards go and mingle with the world; and they do not feel that they have become dishonest. Take the glass and look into that man's heart, and you will discern that it is loathsome, because Satan and sin reign there. All the while that he is living in sin he is pretending that he is a child of God. Stand out in thy true colours. If thou art a worldling, be a worldling.

4. It is a disease always difficult to cure, because it is chronic. It is not an acute disease, which brings pain and suffering and sorrow with it. But it is chronic, it has got into the very nature of the man. What physician can join together a divided heart?

5. This disease is a very difficult one to deal with, because, it is a flattering disease. The most cunning of all flatterers is a man's own heart. A man's own heart will flatter him, even about his sins. He is contented and self-satisfied.

II. THE USUAL SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE.

1. Formality in religious worship. These men have no faith; they have only a creed. They have no life within, and they supply its place with outward ceremony. What wonder, therefore, that we fiercely defend that!

2. Inconsistency. You must not see him always if you would have a good opinion of him. You must be guarded as to the days on which you call upon him. You must have a divided heart if you live an inconsistent life.

3. Variableness in object. There are men who run first in one direction then in another. Their religion is all spasmodic. They are taken with it as men are taken with the ague. They take up with religion, and then they lay it down again.

4. Frivolity in religion is often a token of a divided heart. It is perhaps too common a sin with young persons to treat religion with a light and frivolous air. There is a seriousness which is well-becoming, especially in youthful Christians.

III. THE SAD EFFECTS OF A DIVIDED HEART. When a man's heart is divided he is at once everything that is bad.

1. With regard to himself, he is an unhappy man. Men who are neither this nor that, neither one thing nor another, are always uneasy and miserable.

2. He is useless in the Church. Of what good is such a man to us? We cannot put him in a pulpit or make him a deacon. We cannot commit to his charge spiritual matters, because we discern that he is not spiritual himself. We know that no man who is not united in his heart vitally and entirely to Christ can ever be of the slightest service to the Church of God.

3. He is dangerous to the world. He is like a leper going abroad in the midst of healthy people; he spreads the disease. Though outwardly whitewashed like a sepulchre, he is more dangerous to the world than the most vicious of men.

4. He is contemptible to everybody. When he is found out nobody receives him; scarcely will the world own him, and the Church will have nothing to administer to him but censure.

5. He is reprobate in the sight of God. To the eye of infinite purity he is one of the most obnoxious and detestable of beings. The holy God both hates his sin and the lies with which he endeavours to cover it.

IV. THE FUTURE PUNISHMENT OF THE MAN WHOSE HEART IS DIVIDED. Unless he is rescued by a great salvation. Let me describe the terrible condition of the hypocrite when God shall come to judge the world.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

The root of the evil in Israel was, as always, a heart divided, — that is, between God and Baal, — or, perhaps, "smooth," that is, dissimulating and insincere. In reality, Baal alone possesses the heart which its owner would share between him and Jehovah. "All in all, or not at all" is the law. Whether Baals or calves were set beside God, He was equally deposed. Then with a swift turn Hosea proclaims the impending judgment, setting himself and the people as if down in the future. He hears the first peal of the storm, and echoes it in that abrupt "now." The first burst of the judgment scatters dreams of innocence, and the cowering wretches see their sin by the lurid light. That discovery awaits every man whose heart has been "divided." To the gazers and to himself masks drop, and the true character stands out with appalling clearness. What will that light show us to be? The ruin of their projects teaches godless men at last that they have been fools to take their own way; for all defences, resources, and protectors, chosen in defiance of God, prove powerless when the strain comes. It is a dismal thing to have to bear the brunt of chastisement for what we see to have been a blunder as well as a crime.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Christian Herald.
Solomon wanted to live a life of self-indulgence while posing as a servant of God. His offering costly sacrifices, and building a magnificent temple, and making a beautiful prayer, could not rectify the inconsistency. The two could not exist together in one person. It was like the ice palace built for an empress of Russia, which was beautiful as a dream, with elaborate architecture, and glistening like a jewel in the sun. But it was intensely cold, and the empress ordered a fire to be built in it. The architect had to explain to her that the fire would destroy the building. She could not have an ice palace and warmth at the same time. Neither can any one have a heart of icy selfishness along with the warmth of God's love.

(Christian Herald.)

You know there is what is called "changeable silk," which looks now green and now brown, just as the light chances to strike it. It is neither brown nor green, as a matter of fact, but a commingling and compromise of the two: therefore you can get whichever colour you like, according as you present it to the sun. And I am sorry to say that it is so with a good many Christians. You can get a worldly shade or a heavenly shade on their piety, just according to the company they are in.

(A. J. Gordon.)

We are told that some of our scientists have recently been trying a very doubtful experiment. They take a section of one creature and fasten it upon another creature of an altogether different type. This is done by a delicate surgery when the creature is immature, and when it comes to perfection you have a strange monster. For instance, it is said that they fasten a section of a spider on the butterfly, and by and by you get an alarming and tragical organism. You may imagine what becomes of those antagonistic impulses and instincts. The creature has a feeling for the light and a passion for the darkness; it has a taste for blood, and loves the scent of roses; is afraid of itself and worries itself. Now, when you have seen the spider and the butterfly blended into one organism, you have seen a pale reflection of your own personality. One part of us sympathises with the low and another part with the lofty; one part of us looks into the firmament and another part cleaves to the dust.

(W. L. Watkinson.)

In every age and country there are some found with divided hearts on the subject of religion. Such was Hiram, King of Tyre, who, while he blessed the Lord that Solomon was king, and gladly traded with him for some of the materials for building a temple to Jehovah, also contributed one hundred and twenty talents of gold towards its erection. And yet, in his own country, he dedicated a golden pillar to Jupiter, built the temples of Hercules and Astarte, the Ashtaroth of the Zidonians, and enriched the shrines of the god and goddess with valuable gifts. So Redwald, the King of East Anglia, when converted to Christianity, is said to have kept two altars, the one to the God of the Christians, the other to Woden, a Saxon idol, being afraid of the imaginary god whom he had so long worshipped. So there are some now, who appear very religious at times, and yet their hearts go after covetousness, and they are quite at home in the circles of the gay and in the indulgence of sinful pleasure.

1. As the heart is a vital part, which cannot be divided without death, so men can have no life of God, nor acknowledgment of Him, when they are not solely and wholly for Him and His way.

2. When men do fall from God's way, it is just with Him to give them up to start and multiply divisions without end in their own way.

3. Civil dissensions and commotions are the just fruits of men's divisions in the matter of God and His worship.

(George Hutcheson.)

People
Hosea, Jacob, Jareb, Shalman
Places
Assyria, Aven, Beth-arbel, Beth-aven, Bethel, Gibeah, Gilgal, Samaria
Topics
Able, Fear, Feared, Revere, Surely, Truly
Outline
1. Israel is reproved and threatened for their impiety and idolatry,
12. and exhorted to repentance.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Hosea 10:3

     5896   irreverence

Library
'Fruit which is Death'
'Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images. 2. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: He shall break down their altars, He shall spoil their images. 3. For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us? 4. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

A Divided Heart
I intend, however, to take the text this morning specially with reference to our individual condition. We shall look at the separate individual heart of each man. If divisions in the great main body--if separation among the distinct classes of that body should each promote disasters, how much more disastrous must be a division in that better kingdom--the heart of man. If there be civil tumult in the town of Mansoul, even when no enemy attacks its walls, it will be in a sufficiently dangerous position.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

How to Promote a Revival.
Text.--Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.--Hosea x. 12. THE Jews were a nation of farmers, and it is therefore a common thing in the Scriptures to refer for illustrations to their occupation, and to the scenes with which farmers and shepherds are familiar. The prophet Hosea addresses them as a nation of backsliders, and reproves them for their idolatry, and threatens them with the judgments of God. I have showed you in my first
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

The Books of the Old Testament as a Whole. 1 the Province of Particular Introduction is to Consider the Books of the Bible Separately...
CHAPTER XVIII. THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A WHOLE. 1. The province of Particular Introduction is to consider the books of the Bible separately, in respect to their authorship, date, contents, and the place which each of them holds in the system of divine truth. Here it is above all things important that we begin with the idea of the unity of divine revelation--that all the parts of the Bible constitute a gloriously perfect whole, of which God and not man is the author. No amount of study devoted
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Arbel. Shezor. Tarnegola the Upper.
"Arbel a city of Galilee."--There is mention of it in Hosea 10:14. But there are authors which do very differently interpret that place, viz. the Chaldee paraphrast, R. Solomon, Kimchi: consult them. It was between Zippor and Tiberias. Hence Nittai the Arbelite, who was president with Josua Ben Perahiah. The valley of Arbel is mentioned by the Talmudists. So also "The Arbelite Bushel." "Near Zephath in Upper Galilee was a town named Shezor, whence was R. Simeon Shezori: there he was buried. There
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Letter Xli to Thomas of St. Omer, after He had Broken his Promise of Adopting a Change of Life.
To Thomas of St. Omer, After He Had Broken His Promise of Adopting a Change of Life. He urges him to leave his studies and enter religion, and sets before him the miserable end of Thomas of Beverley. To his dearly beloved son, Thomas, Brother Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, that he may walk in the fear of the Lord. 1. You do well in acknowledging the debt of your promise, and in not denying your guilt in deferring its performance. But I beg you not to think simply of what you promised, but to
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Of Love to God
I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children's bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Worst Things Work for Good to the Godly
DO not mistake me, I do not say that of their own nature the worst things are good, for they are a fruit of the curse; but though they are naturally evil, yet the wise overruling hand of God disposing and sanctifying them, they are morally good. As the elements, though of contrary qualities, yet God has so tempered them, that they all work in a harmonious manner for the good of the universe. Or as in a watch, the wheels seem to move contrary one to another, but all carry on the motions of the watch:
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. "
We come now to speak more particularly to the words; and, first, Of his being a way. Our design being to point at the way of use-making of Christ in all our necessities, straits, and difficulties which are in our way to heaven; and particularly to point out the way how believers should make use of Christ in all their particular exigencies; and so live by faith in him, walk in him, grow up in him, advance and march forward toward glory in him. It will not be amiss to speak of this fulness of Christ
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Barren Fig-Tree;
OR, THE DOOM AND DOWNFALL OF THE FRUITLESS PROFESSOR: SHOWING, THAT THE DAY OF GRACE MAY BE PAST WITH HIM LONG BEFORE HIS LIFE IS ENDED; THE SIGNS ALSO BY WHICH SUCH MISERABLE MORTALS MAY BE KNOWN. BY JOHN BUNYAN 'Who being dead, yet speaketh.'--Hebrews 11:4 London: Printed for J. Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1688. This Title has a broad Black Border. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This solemn, searching, awful treatise, was published by Bunyan in 1682; but does not appear
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Directions to Awakened Sinners.
Acts ix. 6. Acts ix. 6. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do. THESE are the words of Saul, who also is called Paul, (Acts xiii. 9,) when he was stricken to the ground as he was going to Damascus; and any one who had looked upon him in his present circumstances and knew nothing more of him than that view, in comparison with his past life, could have given, would have imagined him one of the most miserable creatures that ever lived upon earth, and would have expected
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

"There is Therefore Now no Condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. "
Rom. viii. 1.--"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." There are three things which concur to make man miserable,--sin, condemnation, and affliction. Every one may observe that "man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward," that his days here are few and evil. He possesses "months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed" for him. Job v. 6, 7, vii. 3. He "is of few days and full of trouble," Job xiv.
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Hosea
The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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