Blessed Night, Loves 😊

I Pray All Is Well With Everyone… And Your Hearts And Minds Are Full Of Love, Joy, And Compassion… For Yourselves And Everyone Else… All Around The World. Why Must We Continuously Be Love In A Seemingly Loveless World… You Ask? Because Where There Is No Love… There Is No Light! And For Mankind’s Cosmic Transition And Ascension… We Must Radiate Boldly… Our World… With The Sincere Love And Light Of Our “Mighty I AM Presence” – Defying The Lovelessness, Hatred, And Ignorance Of The Outer World Darkness; Focusing More On The Love And Light Of The Spirit Of The Living God… Within Us. And Learning To Love Our Inner Selves More Than We Love Outer World Influences And Distractions… We Learn To Love ALL The World Around Us; For All In The World Around Us… Is One; In Truth… One Spirit… One Connection! Amen…   

Give Thanks And Praises For Love And Life…   

And Y’all Be Love…  

“… The prophet is directed to tell them that now they had lost the life and spirit of their religion, though they still retained the name and form of it, they were but as a carcass to which the eagles and other birds of prey should be gathered together. The enemy shall pursue them as an eagle, so swiftly, so strongly, so furiously.

Note: Those who break their covenant of friendship with God expose themselves to the enmity of all about them, to whom they make themselves a cheap and easy prey; and their having been the house of the Lord and his living temples, will be no excuse nor refuge to them.

Here is the people’s hypocritical claim of relation to God, when they were in trouble and distress (Hosea 8:2), Israel shall cry unto me; when either they are threatened with these judgments, and would plead an exemption, or when the judgments are inflicted on them and they apply to God for relief, pouring out a prayer when God’s chastening is upon them, they will plead that among them God is known and his name is great (Psalms 76:1), and in their distress will pretend to that knowledge of God’s ways which in their prosperity they desired not, but despised. They will then cry unto God, will call him their God, and (as impudent beggars) will tell him they are well acquainted with him, and have known him long.

Note: There are many who in works deny God, and disown him, yet, to serve a turn, will profess that they know him, that they know more of him than some of their neighbours do. But what stead will it stand a man in to be able to say, “My God, I know thee”, when he cannot say, “My God, I love thee”, and “My God, I serve thee, and cleave to thee only?”

Here is the prophet’s expostulation with them, in God’s name (Hosea 8:5), How long will it be ere they attain to innocence? It is not meant of absolute innocence (that is what the guilty can never attain to); but how long will it be ere they repent and reform, ere they become innocent in this matter, and free from the sin of idolatry. They are wedded to their idols; how long will it be ere they are weaned from them, ere they are able to get clear of them?, so it might be rendered. This intimates that custom in sin makes it very difficult for men to part with it.

It is hard to cleanse from that filthiness, either of flesh or spirit, which has been long wallowed in. But God speaks as if he thought the time long till sinners cast away their iniquities and come to live a new life. He complains of their obstinacy; it is that which keeps his anger against them burning, which would soon be turned away if they did but attain to innocence from those sins that kindled it. They in trouble cry, How long will it be ere God return to us in a way of mercy? But they do not hear him ask, How long will it be ere they return to God in a way of duty?

Here are some particular sins which they are charged with, are convicted of the folly of, and warned of the fatal consequences of, and for which God’s anger is kindled against them.

(1) In their civil affairs. They set up kings without God, and in contempt of him, Hosea 8:4. So they did when they rejected Samuel, in whom the Lord was their king, and chose Saul, that they might be like the nations. So they did when they revolted from their allegiance to the house of David, and set up Jeroboam, wherein, though they fulfilled God’s secret counsel, yet they aimed not at his glory, nor consulted his oracle, nor applied to him by prayer for direction, nor had any regard to his providence, but were led by their own humour and hurried on by the impetus of their own passions. So they did now about the time when Hosea prophesied, when it seems to have grown fashionable to set up kings and depose them again, according as the contenders for the crown could make an interest.

Note: We cannot expect comfort and success in our affairs when we go about them and go on in them without consulting God and acknowledge not him in all our ways.

“They set up kings, and I knew it not, that is, I did not know it from them, they did not ask counsel at my mouth, whether they might lawfully do it or whether it would be best for them to do it, though they had prophets and oracles with whom they might have advised.” They looked not to the Holy One of Israel, Isaiah 31:1. Nor did the princes do as Jephthah, who, before he took upon him the government, uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh, Judges 11:11.

Note: Those that are entrusted with public concerns, and particularly with the election and nomination of magistrates, ought to take God along with them therein, by desiring his direction and designing his honour.

In their religious matters they did much worse; for they set up calves against God, in competition with him and contradiction to him. “Of their silver and their gold which God gave them, and multiplied to them, that they might serve and honour him with them, they have made them idols.” They called them gods (1 Kings 12:28, Behold thy gods, O Israel!) But God calls them idols; the word signifies griefs, or troubles, because they are offensive to God and will be ruining to those that worship them. Their silver and their gold they have made to them idols; so the words are referring primarily to the images of their gods, which they made of gold and silver, especially the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Idolaters spare no cost in worshipping their idols, but they are very applicable to the spiritual idolatry of the covetous: Their silver and their gold are the gods they place their happiness in, set their hearts upon, to which they pay their homage, and in which they put their confidence.

Now, to show them the folly of their idolatry, he tells them whence their gods came. Trace them to their original, and they will be found the creatures of their own fancies and the work of their own hands, Hosea 8:6. The calf they worshipped is here called the calf of Samaria, because it is probable that when Samaria, in Ahab’s time, became the metropolis of the kingdom, a calf was set up there to be near the court, besides those at Dan and Bethel, or perhaps one of those was removed thither; for those that are for new gods will still be for newer. Now let them consider what this god of theirs owed its rise and being to.

(1) To their own invention and institution. From Israel was it also, not from the God of Israel (he expressly forbade it), but from Israel; it was a device of their own (some think), not borrowed from any of their neighbours, no, not from the Egyptians, for though they worshipped Apis in a living cow, they never worshipped a golden calf; that was from Israel; it was their own iniquity. Now, could that be worthy of their worship which was a contrivance of their own? It was from Israel, that is, the gold and silver of which it was made were collected from the people of Israel by a brief; it was a poor god that was framed by contribution. It was owing to the skill and labour of the craftsman, Deuteronomy 27:15. The workmen made it, therefore it is not God, Hosea 8:6. This is a very cogent conclusive argument, and the inference so very plain that one would think their own thoughts should have suggested it to them, so as to make them ashamed of their idolatry. What can be more absurd than for men to worship that as a god, giving being and good to them, which they themselves gave being to (both matter and form), but could not give life to?

A made god, is no God. This is a self-evident truth; and yet St. Paul was accused as a criminal for preaching that those are no gods which are made with hands, Acts 19:26. And, here, this which should have turned them from their idols comes in as a reason why they were inseparably wedded to them; therefore they could not attain to innocence because it was from themselves; they were willing to have gods of their own to do what they pleased with, that they themselves might do what they pleased.

(2) What their gods would come to. If they are not gods, they will not last; nay, if they pretend to be gods, they will be reckoned with: The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces, and those that would not yield to the force of the former argument shall be convinced by this that it is not God, but an unprofitable idol, as the Chaldee calls it. It shall be broken to shivers, like a potter’s vessel, though it be a golden calf. It shall be chips or sawdust; it shall be a spider’s web; so St. Jerome. It seems to allude to Moses’s grinding to powder the golden calf that was in his time; this shall be served as that was. Sennacherib boasted what he had done to Samaria and her idols, Isaiah 10:11.

Note: Deifying any creature makes way for the destruction of it. If they had made vessels and ornaments for themselves of their silver and gold, they might have remained; but, if they make gods of them, they shall be broken to pieces.

(3) What their gods would bring them to. The breaking of them to pieces would be a disappointment to those who trusted in them. But that was not all. They have made to themselves idols, that they may be cut off (Hosea 8:4), that their gold and silver which they so abused, may be cut off (so some take it), nay, that they may themselves be cut off from God, from their own land, from the land of the living. Their idolatry will as certainly end in their extirpation as if they had purposely designed it. And, when this proves to be the effect of their sin, what relief will they have from the gods wherein they trusted? None at all: “Thy calf, O Samaria, has cast thee off; it cannot give thee any help in thy distress, and the pleasure thou now takest in it will vanish, and be no pleasure to thee.” Those that were justly sent to the gods whom they had chosen, found them miserable comforters, Judges 10:14.

If men will not quit the love and service of sin, yet they shall certainly lose all the delights and profits of it. If Samaria had continued firm and faithful to the God of Israel, he would have been a present powerful help to her; but the calf she preferred before him was a broken reed. The case will be the same with those that make their silver and their gold their god. It will cast them off, and not profit them in the day of wrath, Ezekiel 7:12.

Note: Those that suffer themselves to be deceived into any idolatries, will certainly find themselves deceived in them.”

Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible: Hosea Chapter 8, by Matthew Henry, 1706