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Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Secular Prosperity
Hosea 4:7
D. Thomas
As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame. The "increase" referred to in the text is in all probability an increase in the number of the population. Israel had become a numerous people. But it might also refer to their increase in wealth; this is the application that we shall make of it, and notice three points.

I. SECULAR PROSPERITY ATTAINED BY THE WICKED. They were an idolatrous and rebellious people, yet they had grown rich. Their lands brought forth plentifully, and their merchandise was prosperous.

1. This is a common fact. Wicked men, in all ages from the beginning, have not only been successful in the accumulation of wealth, but as a rule have been more prosperous than their contemporaries. Two things may account for this fact.

(1) Their secular earnestness. Material good is the one thing that fills and fires an unregenerate soul, and for this he labors with might and main. The more earnest a man is in any pursuit (his aptitudes being equal), the more successful. The mere worldly man is "fervent" in business.

(2) Their moral unscrupulousness. They have no high sense of honor, no inviolable rules of right, no swaying sense of moral responsibilities. Hence they will not reject the fraudulent and the false if they will serve them in their course. Fraud and falsehood are perhaps the chief factors in fortune-making. No wonder, then, that the wicked become rich.

2. This is a trying fact. Men of incorruptible truth, honesty, and high devotion have in all ages been baffled and distressed by this fact. "Wherefore do the wicked prosper?" This has been their puzzle.

II. SECULAR PROSPERITY ABUSED BY THE WICKED. "As they were increased, so they sinned against me." Wealth has a wonderful power either for good or ill. With it the truly generous and holy can widen the empire of spiritual intelligence and advance the cause of human happiness; and by it the wicked can increase the corruption and swell the tide of human depravity. In the hands of the wicked wealth can:

1. Promote injustice. Wealth gives a man power to baffle the cause of justice, trample on human rights, and oppress the poor and the innocent. Wealth fattens the despotic in human nature.

2. Promote sensuality. It provides means to inflame the low passions of human nature, and to pamper the brutal appetites. It tends to bury the soul in the warm and sparkling stream of animal passions.

3. Promote practical atheism. The man who has an abundance of the things of this life, and who has not the fear of God in his heart, is sure to sink into an utter forgetfulness of the Author of all good. Thus, then, "as they were increased, so they sinned against me." A terrible fact this.

III. SECULAR PROSPERITY RUINOUS TO THE WICKED. "Therefore will I change their glory into shame." I will strip them of all they now glory in, all their worldly prosperity, and give them shame instead. I will quench all the lights which they have kindled, and which glare around them, and there shall be darkness. I will bring them into wretchedness and contempt. "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found."

"Today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes, tomorrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost:
And, - when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, - nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do."

(Shakespeare.) D.T.

Biblical Illustrator
As they were increased, so they sinned against me.
Hosea 4:7
Secular prosperity
Homilist.
The "increase" is in the number of the population; but it may refer to increase of wealth.

I. SECULAR PROSPERITY ATTAINED BY THE WICKED.

1. That is a common fact. Wicked men in all ages have, as a rule, been more prosperous than their contemporaries. Two things account for this fact —(1) Their secular earnestness. Material good is the one thing With them.(2) Their moral unscrupulousness. They have no high sense of honour, no inviolable rules of right, no swaying sense of moral responsibilities. Hence they will not reject the fraudulent and false if they will serve them in their course.

2. That is a trying fact. Men of incorruptible truth, honesty, and high devotion have in all ages been baffled and distressed by this fact.

II. SECULAR PROSPERITY ABUSED. In the hands of the wicked wealth can —

1. Promote injustice. It fattens the despotic in human nature.

2. It promotes sensuality. It provides means to inflame the low passions of human nature, and to pamper the brutal appetites.

3. It promotes practical atheism. The man with wealth, and without God in his heart, sinks into an utter forgetfulness of the Author of all good.

III. SECULAR PROSPERITY IS RUINOUS TO THE WICKED. God will strip them of all they now glory in, all their worldly prosperity, and give them shame instead. "Therefore will I change their glory into shame." I will quench all the lights which they have kindled. I will bring them into wretchedness and contempt.

(Homilist.)

Prosperity encouraging sin
George Hutcheson.
The Lord accuses them of ingratitude, that the more they prospered, or increased in number or glory, they were the more bold on sin; therefore He threatens them with ignominy to come in place of that glory which made them miscarry so far. Learn —

1. Such as do provoke God highly, may yet, in His long-suffering patience, not only continue as they are, but increase in prosperity, issue, and glory for a time.

2. As there is no outward mercy conferred on wicked or unrenewed men, but they do make it a snare to draw them into sin, and harden them in it, so this abuse of God's goodness doth aggravate sin exceedingly, for it is a challenge that "as they were increased, so they sinned against Me."

3. Any glory or splendour which men abuse to harden themselves in sin, neglecting that which is their true honour, will certainly end in ignominy; and especially when ministers glory of worldly state or riches as their chief excellency, neglecting that true honour of being faithful in their station.

(George Hutcheson.)

Worldly prosperity an insidious danger
"Life of Jenny Lind," by Canon Scott Holland.
Once an English friend found Jenny Lind sitting on the steps of a bathing-machine, on the sands, with a Lutheran Bible open on her knee, and looking out into the glory of a sunset that was shining over the waters. They talked, and the talk drew near to the inevitable question: "Oh, Madame Goldschmidt, how was it that you ever came to abandon the stage, at the very height of your success?" "When, every day," was the quiet answer, "it made me think less of this" (laying a finger on the Bible) "and nothing at all of that" (pointing to the sunset), "what else could I do?" ("Life of Jenny Lind," by Canon Scott Holland.)

Spiritual ruin through temporal prosperity
J. Ossian Davies.
It is not an unmixed blessing to be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth, for we all need the benefit of the struggle. I knew a man who commenced business on a small scale, and at that time he attended the chapel twice every Sunday. The business increased rapidly, and he attended chapel once a Sunday, and then once a month, and now he spends his Sundays in a house-boat on the river, and has lost all taste for sacred things! He is the miserable slave of his gold — he worships it by day and dreams of it by night- and one would not be surprised to hear of his seeking his euthanasia in suicide! A man alone with his money is a sorry sight, for his heart is petrified, his spirit materialised, and his life poisoned. The gold mines of Peru helped to wreck the fortunes of Spain, for men abandoned honest work, and became avaricious adventurers. Excessive luxury and avarice are the sure forerunners of national decadence, and we Britons must be on our guard against it, or the fate of Spain will be ours. Life is qualitative rather than quantitative, and our prosperity will spoil us unless we give to soul-culture the first and highest place. As Seneca says: "One of the most serious calamities which can befall any man is not to know something of adversity."

(J. Ossian Davies.)

Therefore will I turn their glory into shame
Perverted gifts
E. B. Pusey, D. D.
God bestows on man gifts, which may be to him matter of praise and glory, if only ordered aright to their highest and only true end, the glory of God. Man perverts them to vainglory, and therefore to sin; God turns the gifts, so abused, to shame. He not only gives them shame instead of their glory; He makes the glory itself the means and occasion of their shame. Beauty becomes the occasion of degradation; pride is proverbially near a fall; "vaulting ambition overleaps itself and falls on the other side."

(E. B. Pusey, D. D.)

Man's glory changed into shame
Henry Melvill, B. D.
The very blessings which God had bestowed on these priests for their glory, in order to their good, were to be converted into their shame, and be made instrumental to their injury.

I. THE THREATENING IN ITS RELATION TO THE JEWS. There never was a nation upon which were poured with such profusion things which should have been for their good and for their glory. But in a very wonderful manner the Jews perverted all their privileges, and thus turned their glory into shame. Their national mercies only strengthened the national apostasy, and then the threatening took literal effect, though only through their own misuse of their many advantages.

II. THE THREATENING IN ITS RELATION TO OURSELVES. Constantly things which should have turned to our glory have been instrumental to our shame. But this cannot occur without fatal injury.

1. How may our temporal blessings be turned into shame? Nothing tries a man more than prosperity. There are many tempers and dispositions which are comparatively repressed by straitness of condition, but which walk abroad in full liberty when that condition is enlarged. Nevertheless, riches are designed of God to be for man's glory. Alas! there too often occurs the reverse of this, and riches are turned into shame. This is also true of intellectual riches. Genius has often been the ruin of its possessor; the powers which ought to have been for their glory, needing nothing but righteous employment in order to the rendering their possessors happy in themselves, and benefactors to the world, have been given to the cause of vice and infidelity. But illustrations had better be taken from commonplace than from rare instances.

2. How may our spiritual advantages be turned into shame? Every doctrine of religion, every leading of .providence may clearly be for our own glory if rightly employed, and as clearly for our shame if misused and perverted. Illustrate by the doctrine of human helplessness, or of the forbearance God manifests to sinners. In dealing with the dispensations of providence, illustrate by affections. They are our glory, but, unsanctified, they become our shame. The prophet Malachi has this threatening in the name of God, "I will curse your blessings."

(Henry Melvill, B. D.)

Shame for glory
Jeremiah Burroughs.
God loves to stain the pride and haughtiness of men.

I. HE WOULD BRING SHAME INSTEAD OF GLORY. So God is wont to do. Women that glory in their beauty and splendour should mark well (Isaiah 3:16-24). If any will glory in parts, the Lord justly brings shame on them, blasting their gifts. It is reported of Albertus Magnus, that great scholar, that for five years before his death, he lost his faculties so completely that he could not read. If any glory in riches, God can soon turn that into shame. If any glory in honour, God can soon turn that into shame, as in the case of Herod. According to the glory of men in external things, so is their shame when God takes them away. Here is the difference between the saints and the wicked when they lose these outward things.

II. GOD MAKES THE VERY THINGS THEY GLORY IN TURN TO THEIR SHAME. He makes their very gifts to be their undoing. When men glory in this, that they had such success, and such a victory at such a time, and thence infer, "Surely God is with us, and blesses and owns us," God will turn this glorying into shame when He blasts their success, and makes it manifest to all that though they have all outward means, yet they avail nothing. When the saints suffer any shame for God, they can glory. What the world accounts their shame is their glory; and that which the world judges to be their glory is their shame. The prophet is speaking here more especially of the priests. God casts shame upon wicked priests.

(Jeremiah Burroughs.)

People
Hosea
Places
Beth-aven, Gilgal, Jezreel
Topics
Abundance, Change, Changed, Disgraceful, Exchanged, Glory, Honour, Increased, Increasing, Multiplied, Shame, Sinned, Sinning
Outline
1. God denounces judgments on Israel, for their aggravated impieties and iniquities.
12. He exposes the ignorance and wickedness of the priests,
13. and moral dissolution of the people,
14. he will leave their wives and daughters to commit lewdness, without present punishment.
15. He warns Judah, not to imitate Israel's crimes, which are still further reproved.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Hosea 4:7

     1194   glory, divine and human
     5836   disgrace

Hosea 4:6-9

     7768   priests, OT function

Hosea 4:6-13

     7233   Israel, northern kingdom

Hosea 4:7-8

     6616   atonement, in OT

Library
'Let Him Alone'
'Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.'--HOSEA iv. 17. The tribe of Ephraim was the most important member of the kingdom of Israel; consequently its name was not unnaturally sometimes used in a wider application for the whole of the kingdom, of which it was the principal part. Being the 'predominant partner,' its name was used alone for that of the whole firm, just as in our own empire, we often say 'England,' meaning thereby the three kingdoms: England, Scotland, and Ireland. So 'Ephraim' here …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Life, as Amplified by Mediaeval Biographers.
1. His Early Years.--Ephraim, according to this biography, was a Syrian of Mesopotamia, by birth, and by parentage on both sides. His mother was of Amid (now Diarbekr) a central city of that region; his father belonged to the older and more famous City of Nisibis, not far from Amid but near the Persian frontier, where he was priest of an idol named Abnil (or Abizal) in the days of Constantine the Great (306-337). This idol was afterwards destroyed by Jovian (who became Emperor in 363 after the …
Ephraim the Syrian—Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian

Instruction for the Ignorant:
BEING A SALVE TO CURE THAT GREAT WANT OF KNOWLEDGE, WHICH SO MUCH REIGNS BOTH IN YOUNG AND OLD. PREPARED AND PRESENTED TO THEM IN A PLAIN AND EASY DIALOGUE, FITTED TO THE CAPACITY OF THE WEAKEST. 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'--Hosea 4:6 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This little catechism is upon a plan perfectly new and unique. It was first published as a pocket volume in 1675, and has been republished in every collection of the author's works; and recently in a separate tract. …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Beth-El. Beth-Aven.
Josephus thus describes the land of Benjamin; "The Benjamites' portion of land was from the river Jordan to the sea, in length: in breadth, it was bounded by Jerusalem and Beth-el." Let these last words be marked, "The breadth of the land of Benjamin was bounded by Jerusalem and Beth-el." May we not justly conclude, from these words, that Jerusalem and Beth-el were opposite, as it were, in a right line? But if you look upon the maps, there are some that separate these by a very large tract of land, …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Of Orders.
Of this sacrament the Church of Christ knows nothing; it was invented by the church of the Pope. It not only has no promise of grace, anywhere declared, but not a word is said about it in the whole of the New Testament. Now it is ridiculous to set up as a sacrament of God that which can nowhere be proved to have been instituted by God. Not that I consider that a rite practised for so many ages is to be condemned; but I would not have human inventions established in sacred things, nor should it be …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

"For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus Hath Made Me Free from the Law of Sin and Death. "
Rom. viii. 2.--"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." You know there are two principal things in the preceding verse,--the privilege of a Christian, and the property or character of a Christian. He is one that never enters into condemnation; He that believeth shall not perish, John iii. 15. And then he is one that walks not after the flesh, though he be in the flesh, but in a more elevate way above men, after the guiding and leading …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Epistle cxxi. To Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville).
To Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville). Gregory to Leander, Bishop of Spain. I have the epistle of thy Holiness, written with the pen of charity alone. For what the tongue transferred to the paper had got its tincture from the heart. Good and wise men were present when it was read, and at once their bowels were stirred with emotion. Everyone began to seize thee in his heart with the hand of love, for that in that epistle the sweetness of thy disposition was not to be heard, but seen. All severally …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

That the Ruler Relax not his Care for the Things that are Within in his Occupation among the Things that are Without, nor Neglect to Provide
The ruler should not relax his care for the things that are within in his occupation among the things that are without, nor neglect to provide for the things that are without in his solicitude for the things that are within; lest either, given up to the things that are without, he fall away from his inmost concerns, or, occupied only with the things that are within bestow not on his neighbours outside himself what he owes them. For it is often the case that some, as if forgetting that they have …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

The Prophet Amos.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. It will not be necessary to extend our preliminary remarks on the prophet Amos, since on the main point--viz., the circumstances under which he appeared as a prophet--the introduction to the prophecies of Hosea may be regarded as having been written for those of Amos also. For, according to the inscription, they belong to the same period at which Hosea's prophetic ministry began, viz., the latter part of the reign of Jeroboam II., and after Uzziah had ascended the …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Seasonable Counsel: Or, Advice to Sufferers.
BY JOHN BUNYAN. London: Printed for Benjamin Alsop, at the Angel and Bible in the Poultry, 1684. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. THIS valuable treatise was first published in a pocket volume in 1684, and has only been reprinted in Whitfield's edition of Bunyan's works, 2 vols. folio, 1767. No man could have been better qualified to give advice to sufferers for righteousness' sake, than John Bunyan: and this work is exclusively devoted to that object. Shut up in a noisome jail, under the iron hand of …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Joy
'The fruit of the Spirit is joy.' Gal 5:52. The third fruit of justification, adoption, and sanctification, is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy is setting the soul upon the top of a pinnacle - it is the cream of the sincere milk of the word. Spiritual joy is a sweet and delightful passion, arising from the apprehension and feeling of some good, whereby the soul is supported under present troubles, and fenced against future fear. I. It is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow, which is a perturbation …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Third Commandment
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.' Exod 20: 7. This commandment has two parts: 1. A negative expressed, that we must not take God's name in vain; that is, cast any reflections and dishonour on his name. 2. An affirmative implied. That we should take care to reverence and honour his name. Of this latter I shall speak more fully, under the first petition in the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed be thy name.' I shall …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

The Doctrine
OF THE LAW AND GRACE UNFOLDED; OR, A DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE LAW AND GRACE; THE NATURE OF THE ONE, AND THE NATURE OF THE OTHER; SHOWING WHAT THEY ARE, AS THEY ARE THE TWO COVENANTS; AND LIKEWISE, WHO THEY BE, AND WHAT THEIR CONDITIONS ARE, THAT BE UNDER EITHER OF THESE TWO COVENANTS: Wherein, for the better understanding of the reader, there are several questions answered touching the law and grace, very easy to be read, and as easy to be understood, by those that are the sons of wisdom, the children …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

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

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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