Hosea 10:2

Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty.

A divided heart

It is one grievous fault with the Church of Christ at the present day, that it is not merely divided somewhat in its creed, and somewhat also in the practice of its ordinances, but, alas! it is also somewhat divided in heart. When our doctrinal divisions grow to so great a head that we cease to co-operate, when our opinions upon mere ordinances become so acid towards each other that we can no longer extend the right hand of fellowship to those who differ from us, then indeed is the Church of God found faulty. Even Beelzebub, with all his craft, cannot stand when once his hosts are divided. The smallest church in the world is potent for good when it hath but one heart and one soul; when pastor, elders, deacons, and members are bound together by a threefold cord which cannot be broken. Union is strength. By union we live, and by disunion we expire. Apply the text to our individual condition.

I. A fearful disease. “Their heart is divided.”

1. The seat of the disease. It affects a vital part, a part so vital that it affects the whole man. There is no power, no passion, no motive, no principle which does not become vitiated when once the heart is diseased.

2. The disease touches this vital part after a most serious fashion. The heart is cleft in twain. Nothing can go right when that which should be one organ becomes two; when the one motive power begins to send forth its life-floods into two diverse channels, and so creates intestine strife and war.

3. It is a division in itself peculiarly loathsome. Men who are possessed of it do not feel themselves unclean; they will venture into the church, they will propose to receive her communion, and they will afterwards go and mingle with the world; and they do not feel that they have become dishonest. Take the glass and look into that man’s heart, and you will discern that it is loathsome, because Satan and sin reign there. All the while that he is living in sin he is pretending that he is a child of God. Stand out in thy true colours. If thou art a worldling, be a worldling.

4. It is a disease always difficult to cure, because it is chronic. It is not an acute disease, which brings pain and suffering and sorrow with it. But it is chronic, it has got into the very nature of the man. What physician can join together a divided heart?

5. This disease is a very difficult one to deal with, because, it is a flattering disease. The most cunning of all flatterers is a man’s own heart. A man’s own heart will flatter him, even about his sins. He is contented and self-satisfied.

II. The usual symptoms of the disease.

1. Formality in religious worship. These men have no faith; they have only a creed. They have no life within, and they supply its place with outward ceremony. What wonder, therefore, that we fiercely defend that!

2. Inconsistency. You must not see him always if you would have a good opinion of him. You must be guarded as to the days on which you call upon him. You must have a divided heart if you live an inconsistent life.

3. Variableness in object. There are men who run first in one direction then in another. Their religion is all spasmodic. They are taken with it as men are taken with the ague. They take up with religion, and then they lay it down again.

4. Frivolity in religion is often a token of a divided heart. It is perhaps too common a sin with young persons to treat religion with a light and frivolous air. There is a seriousness which is well-becoming, especially in youthful Christians.

III. The sad effects of a divided heart. When a man’s heart is divided he is at once everything that is bad.

1. With regard to himself, he is an unhappy man. Men who are neither this nor that, neither one thing nor another, are always uneasy and miserable.

2. He is useless in the Church. Of what good is such a man to us? We cannot put him in a pulpit or make him a deacon. We cannot commit to his charge spiritual matters, because we discern that he is not spiritual himself. We know that no man who is not united in his heart vitally and entirely to Christ can ever be of the slightest service to the Church of God.

3. He is dangerous to the world. He is like a leper going abroad in the midst of healthy people; he spreads the disease. Though outwardly whitewashed like a sepulchre, he is more dangerous to the world than the most vicious of men.

4. He is contemptible to everybody. When he is found out nobody receives him; scarcely will the world own him, and the Church will have nothing to administer to him but censure.

5. He is reprobate in the sight of God. To the eye of infinite purity he is one of the most obnoxious and detestable of beings. The holy God both hates his sin and the lies with which he endeavours to cover it.

IV. The future punishment of the man whose heart is divided. Unless he is rescued by a great salvation. Let me describe the terrible condition of the hypocrite when God shall come to judge the world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The divided heart

The root of the evil in Israel was, as always, a heart divided,--that is, between God and Baal,--or, perhaps, “smooth,” that is, dissimulating and insincere. In reality, Baal alone possesses the heart which its owner would share between him and Jehovah. “All in all, or not at all” is the law. Whether Baals or calves were set beside God, He was equally deposed. Then with a swift turn Hosea proclaims the impending judgment, setting himself and the people as if down in the future. He hears the first peal of the storm, and echoes it in that abrupt “now.” The first burst of the judgment scatters dreams of innocence, and the cowering wretches see their sin by the lurid light. That discovery awaits every man whose heart has been “divided.” To the gazers and to himself masks drop, and the true character stands out with appalling clearness. What will that light show us to be? The ruin of their projects teaches godless men at last that they have been fools to take their own way; for all defences, resources, and protectors, chosen in defiance of God, prove powerless when the strain comes. It is a dismal thing to have to bear the brunt of chastisement for what we see to have been a blunder as well as a crime. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Antagonistic principles

Solomon wanted to live a life of self-indulgence while posing as a servant of God. His offering costly sacrifices, and building a magnificent temple, and making a beautiful prayer, could not rectify the inconsistency. The two could not exist together in one person. It was like the ice palace built for an empress of Russia, which was beautiful as a dream, with elaborate architecture, and glistening like a jewel in the sun. But it was intensely cold, and the empress ordered a fire to be built in it. The architect had to explain to her that the fire would destroy the building. She could not have an ice palace and warmth at the same time. Neither can any one have a heart of icy selfishness along with the warmth of God’s love. (Christian Herald.)

A divided heart

You know there is what is called “changeable silk,” which looks now green and now brown, just as the light chances to strike it. It is neither brown nor green, as a matter of fact, but a commingling and compromise of the two: therefore you can get whichever colour you like, according as you present it to the sun. And I am sorry to say that it is so with a good many Christians. You can get a worldly shade or a heavenly shade on their piety, just according to the company they are in. (A. J. Gordon.)

Divided hearts

We are told that some of our scientists have recently been trying a very doubtful experiment. They take a section of one creature and fasten it upon another creature of an altogether different type. This is done by a delicate surgery when the creature is immature, and when it comes to perfection you have a strange monster. For instance, it is said that they fasten a section of a spider on the butterfly, and by and by you get an alarming and tragical organism. You may imagine what becomes of those antagonistic impulses and instincts. The creature has a feeling for the light and a passion for the darkness; it has a taste for blood, and loves the scent of roses; is afraid of itself and worries itself. Now, when you have seen the spider and the butterfly blended into one organism, you have seen a pale reflection of your own personality. One part of us sympathises with the low and another part with the lofty; one part of us looks into the firmament and another part cleaves to the dust. (W. L. Watkinson.)

A divided heart

In every age and country there are some found with divided hearts on the subject of religion. Such was Hiram, King of Tyre, who, while he blessed the Lord that Solomon was king, and gladly traded with him for some of the materials for building a temple to Jehovah, also contributed one hundred and twenty talents of gold towards its erection. And yet, in his own country, he dedicated a golden pillar to Jupiter, built the temples of Hercules and Astarte, the Ashtaroth of the Zidonians, and enriched the shrines of the god and goddess with valuable gifts. So Redwald, the King of East Anglia, when converted to Christianity, is said to have kept two altars, the one to the God of the Christians, the other to Woden, a Saxon idol, being afraid of the imaginary god whom he had so long worshipped. So there are some now, who appear very religious at times, and yet their hearts go after covetousness, and they are quite at home in the circles of the gay and in the indulgence of sinful pleasure.

Judgment on the divided heart

1. As the heart is a vital part, which cannot be divided without death, so men can have no life of God, nor acknowledgment of Him, when they are not solely and wholly for Him and His way.

2. When men do fall from God’s way, it is just with Him to give them up to start and multiply divisions without end in their own way.

3. Civil dissensions and commotions are the just fruits of men’s divisions in the matter of God and His worship. (George Hutcheson.)