L Hosea 8:5 Your calf, O Samaria, has cast you off; my anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocence? s: — Jeroboam's calf symboled not only his casting off the true faith, but also his preference for the secular and sensual culture of Egypt, instead of the simplicity and purity of life which God had prescribed for His people. For a while the rebellious people seemed to prosper. At length the thunderbolt of Divine wrath fell. The godless land was ravaged, and the people carried away captive by the Assyrians. Egypt turned a deaf ear to their appeals. This, Hosea predicted in words of withering sarcasm: "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off." (The calf was a copy of the Egyptian Mnevis.) I. THE CALF STANDS IN GENERAL FOR SIN. No sin ever, in the long-run, meets the promise it makes to the imagination. In the end the soul has to pay for its guilty pleasures out of its own pains. True of fleshly lusts. Their glow is that of a fever rising; soon they will burn. Nature does not put enough strength in the human frame to endure more than a temperate, lawful supply of the appetites. This fuel gone, the indulgence has become a necessity, and consumes the life itself. Selfishness cannot enjoy its accumulations beyond a limited amount; beyond this they feed impatience and ennui. "Pride," as Bulwer says, "is a garment all stiff brocade outside, and all grating sackcloth on the side next the skin." II. THE CALF STANDS FOR A PECULIAR CLASS OF SINS. The Samaritans did not regard their worship as degrading. The calf represented life, productiveness; a far nobler object of worship than that set up by many heathen nations. It represented especially polite sins, and those lines of conduct whose evil consists chiefly in that they are not obedience to God. For instance, such as meet our ideas of expediency, but are not according to strict conscience. Young men generally begin with such sins. Thus the standard is gradually lowered. 1. They will do nothing disreputable in religious or even secular society. 2. Nothing disreputable in club life. 3. Nothing that they (now blinded by indulgence) think will hurt them. 4. At last, their own passion has become their standard, and they are socially a wreck before they are fully aware of their danger. III. THE CALF STANDS FOR A CURRENT FORM OF UNBELIEF. The calf-worship was mixed with some features of the true worship of Israel. It had a line of priests. Its chief sites were places already sacred in the religious history of God's people. The altars were dedicated at the time of a true religious festival — the Feast of Tabernacles. A current form of infidelity is a blending of human conceits with some scriptural teaching. It uses Sabbaths, sanctuaries, ministries. It admires Jesus, and praises His precepts. But it denies supernaturalism. Not God's Word, but the human reason, is supreme. (L.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency? |
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