“I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man.”—Hosea 11:9.
The Lord, speaking of himself as “God, and not man,” mentions as the special point in which he is above and beyond man, that he has greater grace, greater long-suffering, and greater willingness to forgive: “I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man.” In a thousand respects, God is greater than man; for us to enter into that theme, would require a very considerable length of time; but the Lord here puts this truth most prominently forward, that he is “God, and not man,” in that he is infinitely more forbearing, infinitely more tender, infinitely more ready to pass by offenses than any man ever can be. What men cannot do by reason of the narrowness and shallowness of their goodness, God can and will do by reason of the height and depth and length and breadth of his immeasurable love.
Note that truth in our text, and then note another. When God can find in man no reason for showing mercy to him, he still finds a reason for displaying his mercy, for he looks for it in his own heart. He does not say, “I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for he is not as bad as he might be, and there is really something hopeful about him.” No, the Lord does not let the bucket down into that dry well; but he fetches the argument for his mercy out of himself: “For I am God.” “It is not what he is, but what I am, that decides the case,” says Jehovah; “I will have mercy upon Ephraim, because I am God, and not man.” Guilty one, your hope of pardon lies in the character of God; and the more quickly and completely you recognize this fact, the better will it be for you. Do not be looking into yourself to find some reason there why God should have pity upon you, for there is no reason within you but what Satan can answer and overturn. Rather look to God, especially as God looks to himself, for your hope lies in what be is whom you have offended. I know that he is just and holy, and that this truth at first condemns you; but he is also good and gracious, and this truth brings joy and brightness to you. The only rays of light you can ever get must come to you from the sun. You will not find any in your own eyes, for they are blind; it is from the sun himself that your very power to see, as well as the light by which you can see, must come. So, God fetches his argument in favor of mercy from himself; you have one specimen of it in that grand passage where he says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion,” drawing the reasons for the display of his mercy out of the great deeps of his own sovereignty.
Our text reveals this, as (God’s reason, drawn from his own nature, why he forgives men: “I am God, and not man.” I have known a despondent soul often to turn this great truth the wrong side out, and find in it a reason for despair rather than for hope. “Look,” says the awakened sinner, “if I had only offended against my fellow-man, I should have some hope of pardon; but my sin is so terrible because it is committed against high heaven. It is with God that I have to deal, and I can say with David, ‘Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.’” It is because you have to deal with God, rather than with men, that some of you think you must be shut up to despair. That mistake of yours only shows what a poor, faulty guide unbelief is; for it turns your back to the light, and makes you walk on in darkness. Faith, on the other hand, argues after the manner of God, and says, “If I had offended against man, I could not have expected him to forgive me. If I had injured man as I have injured God, I could not have hoped to be pardoned; but since I know that God is love, and that he is infinite in grace, I see that there is a wondrous depth of sound reasoning about this divine declaration, ‘I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man.’”
I am going to speak upon this one theme, to hammer away upon this one nail. There will be no great variety in my subject, and no particular freshness of thought in considering it; but I shall dwell upon just this one truth, that there is hope for guilty men. There is hope for every man, woman, and child who will come and confess sin, and trust in Christ, on this ground,—that he with whom we have to deal is “God, and not man.” This I shall have to show you at considerable length, and under many particulars; but the whole purpose of my discourse will be to show you the hopefulness in this great truth that, as sinners, we have to deal with God, and not with men.
I. For, first, MAN CANNOT LONG FORBEAR HIS ANGER.
I am not speaking now of certain passionate people who have no control over their tempers. Oh, dear! there are some persons whom I know, whose blood seems to lie very close to the surface; it is soon up, and very hot. With them it is, as men say, “a word and a blow”: sometimes, it is the blow without even waiting for the word. They are so very irritable that any little offense puts them on the defensive, or makes them ready to attack others. They cannot bear anything that annoys them; some, because they are so little, and as the proverb truly says, “A little pot is soon hot;” and others because they think themselves so big that, if anybody comes between the wind and their nobility, that person has committed an altogether unpardonable offense. Oh, dear! if we had to deal with a God who was like these men are, we should have perished long, long ago; but our text means even more than that. The Hebrew of this passage is very significant and expressive, and it might be rendered thus: “I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not the best of men,” for with even the best of men, the noble spirits who can bear a good deal more than ordinary individuals, yet there is a point of forbearance beyond which they cannot and will not go. If you have offended them once, twice, thrice, it may be that they are patient with you, and forgive you; but when the offense is repeated, and the provocation is multiplied, even the best of men is apt to ask, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?” He who put that question thought that he had gone a long way when he suggested sevenfold forgiveness; but the Savior said to Peter, “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, until seventy times seven.” You remember what the apostles said when they heard this saying; they prayed, “Lord, increase our faith;” as much as to say, “It needs very great faith to be able to forgive an offender until seventy times seven.” We have offended against God far more often than seventy times seven, yet has he borne with us. We who are here are the living monuments of divine mercy, and might truly write upon our brows, “Spared by the long-suffering of God;” for if he had strictly marked our sin, he must have destroyed us and if he had even dealt with any one of us who has been unfruitful, he must have said, as did the owner of the fruitless fig-tree, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground.” But here is the mercy of our case, we have to deal with the God of patience, who is long-suffering and very pitiful, who is, in fact, as our text declares, “God, and not man.” This should make us bless his name continually for the great forbearance he has shown toward us, and this goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering of God should lead us to repentance. We may not continue in sin because God’s grace abounds, but his abounding grace should make us loathe and leave sin.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
