Burroughs on Hosea 4:4

[Wayne]

If I had to sell all my books save one besides my Bible, Jeremiah Burroughs' Exposition on the Prophecy of Hosea would probably be that last volume held back. Tough call on which forum to place this in, but it fits well here under Spiritual Warfare.
This is a difficult lesson here that Burroughs deals with. I know I have need to hear this. To receive admonition as a blessing from God--not so easy, is it?

Hosea 4:4 Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another; for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.

Obs. 1. Sin cannot be got from men without striving. Such is the perverseness of men's hearts, that they take fast hold of deceit, Jer. viii. 5, and you cannot get them away without striving; like men in a frenzy, you cannot get them off from that which will injure them without struggling with them. When you admonish and reprove men for sin, you must expect beforehand that they will bless God for you; at first you may be hardly used; What! you come to judge us? as they said to Lot, "Who made you a ruler? So you generally receive very ill language from men at first when they are reproved, yet be not discouraged, they may bless God for you afterwards, they may say as David unto Abigail, "Blessed be God, and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou for thy counsel."

Obs. 2. Even private men, (as implied in the former note,) so long as there is any hope, should strive with their brethren, by way of admonition and reprehension, to bring them from their sin. We must not say, Are we our brother's keepers? that is the language of a Cain. There is much striving and contending one with another for our own ends; oh that there were more striving and contending for God and his glory! It is a sign that the glory of God and the souls of our brethren are not precious in our eyes, when we can so strive and contend to have our own wills, and though God loses his glory, and our brother's soul is like to perish, we cannot strive and contend there, not even those of us that are full of strife otherwise.

Obs. 3. It is a great aggravation of sin, and a forerunner of destruction to a people, not to regard the strivings, admonitions, and reprehensions of others. "Let no man strive;" It is in vain to strive now (that is the meaning); indeed, so long as there was hope there might be striving, but now they are past striving. This was the height of wickedness that they were grown unto, and the forerunner of that wrath of God which was now ready to fall upon them, that they were now past all reprehension and admonition. [Burroughs continues with examples from 1 Sam. 2:25; 2 Chron. 25:16; and Prov. 29:1.

Obs. 4. Sin increases where it is let alone. . . . Those that once were capable of admonition, going on in sin and hardening their hearts, grow quickly past all reproof.

Obs. 5. There is a time when men may, yea, men should give up striving, admonishing, and reproving others, when they should let them alone. Especially in these two cases; when those they admonish scorn their admonition, when they trample their reproofs under their feet as swine, or turn again on them and rend them as dogs. There are two sorts not to be admonished or reproved, swine and dogs. When they become such, then you may leave, yea, you ought to leave admonishing them. for admonitions and reprehensions are precious things, pearls, that must not be cast to swine; Matt. vii. 6, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine," they are holy and precious things: for I do not take that place to be meant of the sacrament only; it may, by an argument a minori ad majus [from the lesser to the greater], be applied to it, but it is primarily meant of admonition and reprehension. So that admonition is to be looked upon as a holy thing, as a pearl, you are to prize it, and therefore not to be angry when we come to admonish you; but you are to look upon the holiness of God in it, and so reverence it; and regard it as a mercy of God, and bless him for it. There are many in heaven now blessing God for the admonitions which they have received from others, as David blessed God for Abigail and her counsel. Many think it a great happiness to them that they can reject admonition and counsel; and when they are gone from such as have admonished them, and are among their companions, they can boast and say, Oh, such a one came and reprehended me, but I said thus and thus to him; and so they rejoice how they have rejected admonition. But if they knew all, they have cause to mourn; it is a great misery for them when it comes to that, that God shall bid those that have to deal with them to strive no more with them : when you have so rejected the admonitions of others, that you think you have succeeded in stopping their mouths, and that you have fairly rid yourselves of all their reproofs, oh, you misery is the greater. For,
1. You have deprived yourselves of a special ordinance of God. Admonition and reprehension, even brotherly admonition and reprehension, is an ordinance of God.
2. Those who strive thus, who admonish and reprove you, must give an account to God what is become of their admonition and reprehension. You must give an account to God one day, and so must they also; yea, they should do it at present, thus : after they have admonished, they must go to God and tell him how it has succeeded, for they have done it in his name if they have done it right; and if their admonition and reproof have prevailed with you, they are to return to God with blessing, to bless God that he has been pleased to bless their admonition. And on the other hand, if you reject their admonition, they are to tell that too, and to lament your condition, and to entreat of him to look upon you, and to say, Lord, I have been thus and thus admonishing such a one in thy name, but, Lord, he contemns and rejects it. When you are laughing that you have rejected such a friend's admonition, then he that has been faithful to you, he is telling God of it; and do you not think there will come somewhat of this one day?
3. You are left to God's striving and rebuking, and "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." it is better when God strives with you by men, than that he should come and strive with you himself. As now, if a father send his servant to go and fetch in a child, to receive a rebuke, and he return and tell the father, He cares not for what I say; then the father goes himself, and it is worse for the child : so God sends thy brother to rebuke thee, and to fetch thee in, and thou carest not for him, but regardest him as thy fellow creature; and so thy brother goes to God, Lord, he regards not what I say. Then, saith God, I will rebuke him myself : and God's rebukes in this case will be "furious rebukes;" Ezek. v. 15, "When I shall execute judgments in thee in anger, and in fury, and in furious rebukes." Mark it, "furious rebukes;" the rebukes of a brother are loving rebukes, but if thou reject them, God's rebukes may come, and they will prove furious rebukes. The rebukes of a brother are out of love, but Amos vii. 4, "The Lord called to contend by fire." . . . Take heed how thou rejectest the strivings of a brother with thee, for God may not only say he shall strive no longer, but, My Spirit shall no longer strive with thy soul."

As we used to say in the '60s, "Heavy!" Where are the preachers like that today?

 

[py3ak]

Can I admonish you to forget the sixties?

I was thinking about this recently, that sometimes being willing to rebuke someone means being willing to withstand a hot temper, because there are people who blow up at first, and then when they settle down come and apologize and take the rebuke to heart; but withstanding that initial blast of temper isn't easy. Observation 1 shows that Burroughs expected to make people mad, and that he expected to tolerate what they said and did while mad. That's not an easy attitude to have, because it's easy to say "He's only going to get mad if I tell him about that" and either reject him as unworthy of our reproof, or conclude that it's not worth the hassle.