Judgment Against False Lovers

The Lord does not forget bloodshed, nor does He overlook idols dressed up as religion. Ahab’s house falls because Naboth’s blood cried out from the ground, and Jezebel’s painted pride could not save her in the day appointed. Jehu becomes the rod of judgment, cutting down what had been raised against God. As Ignatius says, “yea, while yet an infant he slays their priests, and overturns their altars, and defiles the place where sacrifices were offered with dead bodies, and throws down the temples, and cuts down the groves, and breaks in pieces the pillars, and breaks open the tombs of the ungodly, that not a relic of the wicked might any longer exist.”

Yet the same day of judgment searches us also. Hosea shows that the Lord strips away feasts, ornaments, and plenty when these gifts are turned into offerings for Baal. God’s quarrel is not only with carved images, but with every misuse of His benefits. What He gave for thanksgiving, His people spent on adultery. Therefore He hedges up their way with thorns, not to destroy without remedy, but to bring them back to the wilderness, where they may learn again to call Him their husband.

Job stands in that wilderness: mocked by the lowly, cast down before men, emptied of honor. “So the worthless rose up against the honoured, those of no reputation against such as were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against those advanced in years.” Such humiliation is bitter; yet it teaches a man to seek no lasting city here.

Therefore let each man destroy his idols without flattery, receive correction without murmuring, and return to God with plain repentance. The Lord wounds the unfaithful, but He also allures the penitent.