But they fail to consider in their hearts that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds are all around them; they are before My face. Sermons
I. THAT GOD REMEMBERS THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN. "Wickedness" may exist in thought or intention (Psalm 139:23, 24), in word (Matthew 12:36), in act (Psalm 51:4). 1. This fact is proclaimed in God's Word. (1) Statements. Jeremiah 14:10 proves God's watchfulness, Jeremiah 17:1 his recollection, Isaiah 44:22 his record, etc. (2) Examples seen in the sin of Adam, the antediluvians, Joseph's brethren, Abraham in Egypt, David, etc. 2. This fact is necessitated by the Divine nature. God's omnipresence, omniscience, and immutability imply it. His absolute perfection makes impossible either defect of knowledge or decay of faculty. 3. This fact is exemplified in the life of the Lord Jesus. "He knew what was in man;" "He knew their thoughts," etc. Show how completely he detected the plots of his foes, knew the doubts of his disciples (John 20:27), overheard the discussions of distant followers (Mark 9:34), perceived the unexpressed longings of the unpardoned (Matthew 9:2-7), and read the secrets of a sinful life (Luke 7:37-50). 4. This fact is a requisite to a just judgment. See references to the coming judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:14; Jeremiah 32:18, etc.). No fair decision could be given except by One who knew all our sins and struggles, and had forgotten none of their circumstances. II. THAT MAN FORGETS THE SUPERVISION OF GOD. "They consider not," etc. It is not said man has no knowledge of the fact, but that he does not reflect upon it. To "consider in the heart" is to think over the truth seriously, closely, with sincere application to ourselves. If the charge were not true, we should no longer continue in sin; we should not attempt to extenuate it; we should mourn over it as an offence against God rather than as a cause of dishonor or loss to ourselves. Show the sinfulness of this. 1. It is disobedience to the exhortation of God. "Now therefore consider your ways;" "Oh that they were wise, that they would consider," etc.! 2. It is rebellion against the rule of conscience. Show what conscience is to the child at his first offence, and what it becomes through continued heedlessness. 3. It is encouragement to secret s/n. "They say, Doth God know?" etc. Many sins are disguised from the world, unsuspected by our friends, from which, therefore, no regard for reputation will save us. The secret sin undermines the character. Open sin follows. Even if it does not, the judgment of God is against those that do such things. 4. It is a hindrance to true repentance. Men do not come to Christ until they feel their need of him, who "saves his people from their sins." - A.R.
And they consider not in their hearts that I do remember all their wickedness. What the prophet affirms of God's ancient people is gravely distressing.I. THE FACT ASSERTED. God remembers the wickedness of men. Wickedness denotes what is hateful and destructive. Men may excuse it, deny it, forget it; but God remembers it. 1. This fact is clear from the declarations of His Word. 2. From the perfections of His nature. "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed." 3. From the equity of His government and a future judgment. You that forget God, and forget your sins, know that God remembers. II. THE EVIL STATED. That men forget this fact. The evil lamented is inconsideration. The want of consideration appears — 1. In men's continued commission of sin. 2. In their doing this without regret. 3. In their readiness to extenuate sin. 4. In their disregard of future consequences.Wherein then consists the evil of this want of consideration? (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (T. Kidd.) I. A FACT IN THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE OR GOVERNMENT. "I remember all their wickedness." "Remember," as applied to God in Scripture, does not represent a faculty of the Divine mind, but a state of God's nature, or the conduct of God in some particular instance. The text means, "Your sins are ever before Me." 1. God remembers all kinds and degrees of sin. 2. All the sins of all men. 3. He remembers accurately and completely. 4. Continually and for ever. And — 5. With a practical result, that He may act upon His recollection.Then how wonderful is God's patience and forbearance! How entire must God's pardon be when He forgives a sinner! How complete will be the transactions of the judgment day! How full will future and final punishment be! II. THIS FACT IS FORGOTTEN BY THOSE WHO OUGHT TO REMEMBER IT. They do not think or reflect, at least, so as to feel. III. GOD'S COMPLAINT OF THIS FORGETFULNESS. God complains of forgetfulness, because it sears the conscience, leads to false views of a man's position, is personally offensive to God, and is frequently the occasion of final ruin. God does not hate you as a being, but lie does hate your character. And this offensiveness to God is continually increasing. You can consider this matter, and at once. Enter then the path of serious thought and pursue it. (Samuel Martin.) Homilist. I. GOD REMEMBERS men's sins. "I remember all their wickedness."1. This is a wonderful fact. When we think of the infinite greatness of Him to whom the universe is as nothing. Sin is no trifle in the eye of Him whose glory is His holiness. 2. This is not only a wonderful, bat a solemn fact. God not only observes and knows my sins, but He remembers them. II. MEN DISREGARD God's remembrance of their sins. Why, then? 1. Because other thoughts engross their minds — thoughts of worldly wealth and power. 2. Because this thought, if it occurs to them for a moment, is too painful to be entertained. III. That men's disregard of God's remembrance of their sins LEADS THEM TO REVEL IN INIQUITY. "How their own doings have beset them about; they are before My face." Here we have — 1. Their sins in general. They are abundant and daring. Their sins encompass them on all sides, and they perpetrate them without shame under the very face of God. 2. Some of their sins are specified here. They made them glad "with their lies," with the lying praises with which they crowned the favourites of the prince, and the lying calumnies and censures with which they blackened those whom they knew the princes disliked. (Homilist.) The great stone-book of nature reveals many strange records of the past. In the red sandstone there are found in some places marks which are clearly the impressions of showers of rain, and these so perfect that it can even be determined in what direction the shower inclined, and from what quarter it proceeded; and this ages ago! So sin leaves its track behind it, and God keeps a faithful record of all our sins.Now their own doings have beset them about Down from the dark ages comes the story — if memory is true to its charge — of an expert blacksmith, who was such a master of his trade, and withal so proud of his skill, that he often boasted no man could break a chain made by him. In time the blacksmith himself was imprisoned and manacled. With the hope that he might make his escape, he examined the chain to see if it was possible to break it, when, to his horror, he discovered that the chain was one made by his own hands, which no living man could break, himself included. The chain forged by his own hands made the blacksmith a helpless, hopeless prisoner in that vile dungeon. Is it not the same with us? Each of us is forging a chain we cannot break. Every bad habit becomes a link in the chain, which will bind, in hopeless slavery, the soul that makes it. Acts form habits. Let your acts be beautiful and Christlike, and your habits will be likewise,(Paul S. Biggs Shipley.) The prophet now arraigns all the citizens of Samaria, and in their persons the whole people, because they rendered obedience to the king by flattery, and to the princes in wicked things, respecting which their own consciences convicted them. He shows that the defection which then reigned through all Israel ought not to be ascribed to the king or to few men, but that it was a common evil, which involved all in one and the same guilt, without exception. If they wish to east the blame on their governors, it will be done in vain. As soon as Jeroboam formed the calves, as soon as he built temples, religion instantly collapsed, and whatever was before pure, degenerated. How was the change so sudden? Even because the people had inwardly concocted their wickedness, which, when an occasion was offered, showed itself; for hypocrisy did lie hid in all, and was then discovered. It often happens that some vice creeps in, which proceeds from one man, or from a few; but when all readily embrace what a few introduce, it is quite evident that they have no living root of piety, or of the fear of God. They then who are so prone to adopt vices were before hypocrites; and we daily find this to be the case. When men become corrupt in their whole life, and degenerate from the pure worship of God, they are justly deemed adulterers. The prophet compares them to an oven, because they were not corrupted by some outward impulse, but by their own inclination and propensity of mind. They had been set on fire by an inward sinful instinct, and were like a hot oven. The blame rested wholly on themselves.( John Calvin.) In the day of our king the princes On the king's birthday, or some other solemnity yearly observed, the princes induced the king to drink until he became sick, and forgot and prostituted his place and authority by joining with scorners, or men eminently dissolute. Doctrine.I. Days which men will have observed as days of festivity and solemnity do ordinarily prove days of great miscarriage and provocation against God. 2. Drunkenness and sensuality are heinous and crying sins, especially in rulers. It is a sad challenge that they should be given to "bottles of wine." 3. Nobles and princes and great courtiers are ordinarily great plagues and snares to kings, who, having their ear and countenance, do make use of it for no other end but to draw them to sin against God. 4. It is the height of sensuality, when men not only become brutish themselves, but dare invite and tempt others to the same excess of riot, and by all means draw them to drunkenness. 5. Men by their intemperance do not only draw on the guilt of misspending time, and abusing the good creatures of God, but of self-murder and abusing their own bodies also. 6. Days of feasting and intemperance do also ordinarily prove days of great insolence and boldness in other sins. 7. It is also the great sin of drunkenness, that by their sensuality they deprive them. selves of the use of reason, and render themselves contemptible, and like beasts, that they can neither know their place nor duty. The king debased himself to keep company with lewd persons and look like them. (George Hutcheson.) People HoseaPlaces Assyria, Egypt, SamariaTopics Acts, Always, Beset, Compassed, Consider, Deeds, Doings, Encompass, Engulf, Engulfed, Evil, Face, Heart, Hearts, Mind, Over-against, Remember, Remembered, Round, Sin, Sins, Themselves, Wickedness, WorksOutline 1. A reproof of manifold sins.11. God's wrath against them for their hypocrisy. Dictionary of Bible Themes Hosea 7:2 1020 God, all-knowing Library October 6. "Ephraim, He Hath Mixed Himself" (Hos. vii. 8). "Ephraim, he hath mixed himself" (Hos. vii. 8). It is a great thing to learn to take God first, and then He can afford to give us everything else, without the fear of its hurting us. As long as you want anything very much, especially more than you want God, it is an idol. But when you become satisfied with God, everything else so loses its charm that He can give it to you without harm, and then you can take just as much as you choose, and use it for His glory. There is no harm whatever in having … Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth Inconsideration Deplored. Rev. Joshua Priestley. Prayer to the Most High On the Animals Book vii. On the Useful or the Ordinary I Will Pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding Also- The Seventh Commandment Hosea Links Hosea 7:2 NIVHosea 7:2 NLT Hosea 7:2 ESV Hosea 7:2 NASB Hosea 7:2 KJV Hosea 7:2 Bible Apps Hosea 7:2 Parallel Hosea 7:2 Biblia Paralela Hosea 7:2 Chinese Bible Hosea 7:2 French Bible Hosea 7:2 German Bible Hosea 7:2 Commentaries Bible Hub |
    |