Hosea 10:2 Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images. 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images. |
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