“And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness.”—Hosea vii. 2.
Is it possible for any man to conceive of truths more fitted to arrest the attention and impress the heart than are those contained in this volume? It has been said that if a blank book had been put into our hands, and every one of us had been asked to put into it the promises we should like to find there, we could not have employed language so explicit, so expressive, and so suited to all our varied wants, as is here. And may I not say that no facts and declarations and appeals could be more fitted to rouse the conscience, and to regulate the life, than those we here find. Alas! however, with what affecting appropriateness may the Almighty say of Englishmen as of Israelites—of persons living eighteen
centuries after Christ’s death, as of those living eight centuries before it—“They consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness.”
This passage brings before us two parties. One is the speaker, the other the persons addressed. It states a fact respecting each. Let us look at these facts:—
I. “I remember,” says Jehovah, “all their wickedness.” What an idea does this statement furnish of the unlimited vastness of the Divine mind! For if He remembered all the evil deeds of all the Israelites, He remembered the evil deeds of all other persons. If He remembered all the evil deeds of all then living, He remembered all the evil deeds of all who ever had lived. And if He remembered all evil deeds, assuredly He remembered all good ones. The Scriptures declare this fact for the comfort of the righteous. What a cheering declaration to a good man is that found in Hebrews vi. 10, “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.” What a vast number of incidents are included in the space of but one year in the history of each one of us! What a still vaster number in the whole period of life! And when we think of the ten hundred millions of mankind
now peopling our globe; when we add to these the almost countless millions that have departed, and realize the fact that every incident of every individual of them is remembered—remembered as distinctly too as if one solitary incident were all that memory was charged with, what an idea is given us of the vastness of the Divine mind! What can we do but wonder and adore!
My text says much, but like many others, it means more than it says. How much of what Scripture intends to teach us shall we fail to learn, if we do not consider what is included and involved, as well as what is affirmed! This declaration imports three things. It imports—
1. That God observes all our wickedness. To remember a thing implies knowledge of it. This knowledge the Scriptures frequently declare the Divine Being to possess. They tell us that His eyes run to and fro the earth, beholding the evil and the good; that all things are naked and open to His eyes. They go further. They teach us that He is always present with us all, that there is no part of this earth, of the vast universe, from which He is ever absent. David expresses himself strikingly on this point—“Whither shall I go from Thy spirit?” says he, “or wither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I
ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell (hades), behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.” Psalm cxxxix. 7–12. How certainly therefore does God observe all our wickedness! Did we but constantly realize this fact what a restraining power it would exert over us when we are tempted to evil. A man left his cottage very early one morning taking with him a sack, and accompanied by his son, a little boy. That boy was a Sunday scholar, and little suspected his father’s errand. After proceeding some distance the father entered a turnip field, and throwing down his sack, looked in this direction and in that to see whether any one was observing him. On discovering the father’s object, the child said, “Father, there was one way you did not look.” “Indeed,” replied he, hastily; “which was that?” “You did not look upward,” was the rejoinder, “and God is observing you.” That was a word in season. The father’s
arm was paralyzed. He took up his sack and returned home. Remember, my friends, that the sleepless eye of the Omnipresent One is upon you. The man that goes forth at the still, dark, hour of midnight to plunder our habitations, how startled would he be if an inmate should noiselessly and suddenly present himself before him—the servant that robs his master, the circulator of base coin, the man of fraud—would these practise their misdeeds if they realized this truth: “Thou God seest me?” Would the slanderer, or backbiter, or hypocrite, indulge their habits if they realized this truth? Of what immense benefit would the realization of this truth be, both personally and socially!