Hosea 13:6

OUR text will lead me at this time to speak upon the perils of prosperity and, as those who are prospering in worldly circumstances make up a comparatively slender portion of any congregation, the sermon must mainly aim at a small class. Still, it is my duty to speak to these, for every word of Scriptural warning should have its tongue in a complete ministry and every condition of soul must be duly met by a watchful pastor.

OUR text will lead me at this time to speak upon the perils of prosperity and, as those who are prospering in worldly circumstances make up a comparatively slender portion of any congregation, the sermon must mainly aim at a small class. Still, it is my duty to speak to these, for every word of Scriptural warning should have its tongue in a complete ministry and every condition of soul must be duly met by a watchful pastor. May the Holy Spirit enable me to make full proof of my ministry by declaring the whole counsel of God to all characters. Suffer me, however, to observe that if the subject should seem to take a narrow range, it is in your power to alter it very rapidly, for, while those who are prospering will kindly take note of the voice of God's Word to themselves, those of you who are not prospering may be profited by becoming the more contented with your lowly lot since it will be plain to you that had you succeeded in life you might have fallen into the sins denounced in our text. It may be that you would never have known the holy joy and sacred peace which you now possess if you had been allowed to climb to those heights of wealth which you have longed to reach. God, who knows your frame knew that you were not able to bear the trial of prosperity and, therefore, He has kept you where you are—more safe and more happy, though less enriched. Another class of persons may have enjoyed fair weather in times past, but now a cloud has come over them and they are troubled. Possibly they may be taught by our discourse to say, each one to himself, "God has taken me not so much out of the sunlight as out of the furnace. He saw that evils were generated by my success which would have caused me solemn injury and so He has removed me out of their reach.

According to their pasture, so were they filled - o: “He implies that their way of being ‘filled’ was neither good nor praiseworthy, in that he says, ‘they were filled according to their pastures.’ What or of what kind were these “their pastures?” What they longed for, what they murmured for, and spoke evil of God. For instance, when they said, ‘who wil give us flesh to eat? We remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt freely. Our soul is dried up, because our eyes see nothing but this manna’ Num 11:4-6. Since they desired such things in such wise, and, desiring, were filled with them to loathing, well are they called ‘their pastures.’ For they sought God, not for Himself, but for them. They who follow God for Himself, things of this sort are not called ‘their’ pastures, but the word of God is their pasture, according to that, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, which proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ Deu 8:3. These words, ‘according to their pastures,’ convey strong blame. It is as if he said, ‘in their eating and drinking, they received their whole reward for leaving the land of Egypt and receiving for a time the law of God.’ It is sin, to follow God for such ‘pastures.’ Blaming such in the Gospel, Jesus saith, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life’ Joh 6:26-27. In like way, let all think themselves blamed, who attend the altar of Christ, not for the love of the sacraments which they celebrate, but only to ‘live of the altar.’ This fullness is like that of which the Psalmist says, ‘The Lord gave them their desire and sent leanness withal into their bones’ Psa 106:15. […]