Charles H. Spurgeon

Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? —Hosea 14:8

The last point is to be the resolute question, “What have I to do any more with idols?”

Let us put it this way, “What have I to do any more with them? I have had enough to do with them. What have my sins done for me already?” Brothers and sisters, look at what sin has done for us and all our race. It made that beautiful Eden, which was our garden of delight, to be a wilderness and made us to be the children of toil and sorrow. What has sin done for us? It has stripped us of our beauty; it has put us away from God. It has set the flaming cherubim with the drawn sword to keep us back from coming near to God as long as we live in sin. Sin has wounded us, spoiled us, killed us, corrupted us. Sin has brought disease into the world and digged the grave and bred the worm. O sin, thou art the mother of all the griefs and groans and sighs and tears that ever befell men and women in this world. O wretched sin, what have we to do any more with thee? We have had more than enough of thee.

And have not you and I personally had quite enough to do with our idols? I had enough to do with my self-righteousness, I do boldly say; for, oh, how I loathe to think that I should ever have been such a fool as to think that there was anything good in me—to think that I could ever have dreamed of coming before God with a righteousness of my own. Oh, how I abhor the thought! God forbid for one single moment that I should ever be other than ashamed of having boasted in aught that I could do or feel or be. Do you not feel yourselves humiliated at the remembrance of such pride and presumption? What have you to do any more with the idol of righteous self? Nothing! We can never bow down before that any more.

With regard to other idols, have you not smarted enough about them? The convert who was once a drunkard will say, “I have had enough to do with the cup of intoxication.” “Who hath woe?…Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine”; [the] “men of strength to mingle strong drink” (Pro 23:29-30; Isa 5:22). The wine-bibber has had enough to do with that. He has paid heavy smart money, and now he has done with rioting and excess forever. The man who has plunged into vice will often have to say, “It has injured me in body, mind, and estate. What more can I have to do with it?” “Ah,” said one to me the other day, “when I lived in sin it was so expensive to me that it will take me years to recover what I have wasted upon the devil and myself. I am not the man for the service of God that I should have been if it had not been for that.” Ah, we have all had enough of it—more than enough of it. There is no cup of sin, however sweet it was in the day of our unregeneracy,⁸ but we feel that we want no more of it, not even with all its beaded bubbles sparkling on the brim when it moveth itself aright. We are sick of it—sick to the death, and the very name of it causes nausea in our soul. What have I to do any more with idols, when I consider what idols have done for me?

But there is another view of it. “What have I to do any more with idols?” Do you see, and can you bear to look upon, that strange sight yonder: three gibbets set upon a hill and on the center one a wondrous man in fearful agony nailed to the cross. If you look at Him you will see that there is such a mixture of majesty in His misery that you discover Him at once to be your Lord. Lo, it is the Bridegroom of your soul, your heart’s best Beloved, and He is nailed up there like a felon gibbeted⁹ to die. Who nailed Him there? Who nailed Him there, I say? Where is the hammer? Whence came the nails? Who nailed Him there? And the answer is—our idols nailed Him there. Our sins pierced His heart! Ah, then, what have I to do any more with them? If I had a favorite knife and with it a murderer had killed my wife, do you think I would use it at my table or carry it about with me? Away with the accursed thing! How I should loathe the very sight of it. And sin has murdered Christ! Our idols have put our Lord to death! Stand at the foot of the cross and see His murdered, mangled body, bleeding with its five great wounds, and you will say, “What have I to do any more with idols?” The vinegar and gall, the bloody sweat and death pangs have divorced my soul from all its ancient loves and wedded my heart for ever to the Well-beloved, even the King of kings. “What have I to do any more with idols?” Nothing separates a man from sin like a sense of the love and the sufferings of Jesus. Redeeming grace and dying love—these ring the death-knells of our lusts and idols.

Soon as faith the Lord can see, Bleeding on a cross for me,
Quick my idols all depart, Jesus gets and fills my heart.

Now, you may recollect again that we must have no more to do with idols, for the same sins which put our Lord to death will put us to death if they can. O child of God, you never sin without injuring yourself. The smallest sin that ever creeps into your heart is a robber seeking to kill and to destroy. You never profited by sin and never can. No, it is poison, deadly poison to your spirit. Do not, therefore, tolerate it for an instant. What have you to do with it? You know it is to be evil, only evil, and that continually. You know that it injures your faith, destroys your enjoyment, withers up your peace, weakens you in prayer, prevents your example being beneficial to others; and for all these reasons what have you to do any more with idols?…

Within a few months some of us will be in heaven, perhaps within a few weeks. What have we to do with idols? Even while we are here the Lord has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ. What have we to do any more with idols? This day are we accepted in the Beloved, the elect of God justified by faith with our names written on the palms of Jesus’ hands. What have we to do any more with idols? Truly the question answers itself. We have nothing to do with them except to loathe them, and whenever they are set up in our hearts even for a moment to break them down by the power of the eternal Spirit.

Now beloved, if God has wrought a great work in you and changed your hearts so that the idols you once worshipped you now detest, I would ask you to keep away from the idols all you can. If you have nothing to do with them do not go into the places where they are had in honor. “What have I to do any more with idols?” If I knew that a street was infected with small-pox I should not go out of my way to ride down it. I had rather go round about to avoid the plague. Let it be so with your once darling sin. Get as far away from it as you can, even as you would keep clear of a leper. You have nothing more to do with idols, therefore do not enter their temples or make a league with their worshippers…Keep as far off from sin as ever you can. If you have learned to say, “What have I to do any more with idols?” avoid the very appearance of evil and all those communications which corrupt good manners. The ale-house, the dancing saloon, and the theater are not for you. I loathe to hear Christian people say, “What do you think of this and that foolish amusement?”…

Well, my dear friend, if you enjoy anything that has any filth in it, I question whether you know anything about the love of God at all. You remember Rowland Hill’s¹⁰ observation to the person who said he liked to go the theater. The person said, “Well, you know, Mr. Hill, I am a member of the church, but I do not go often, I only go once or twice a year, just for a treat.” “Ah,” said Mr. Hill, “you are worse a great deal than I thought you were. Suppose it were reported commonly that Mr. Hill fed on carrion and was very fond of eating rotten meat. And suppose somebody came to me and said ‘I hear, Mr. Hill, that you are very fond of eating carrion.’ ‘Oh, no,’ I say, ‘Not at all. I do not regularly feed on it; I only eat a dish of it once or twice a year for a treat!’ Then everybody would say, ‘You are fonder of it than we thought. For if poor creatures have to eat it every day because they cannot get anything better, their taste is not so vitiated¹¹ as yours who turn away from wholesome food, and find rottenness to be a dainty dish.’” If you can find your pleasure and delight where sin of the worst kind is always very near at hand, where religion would be out of place, and where Christ your Master could not be expected to come, you have not learned to say with Ephraim, “What have I to do any more with idols?”

Run away from anything which has the least taint of sin, and may God help you so to do even to the end. Is this in order that you may be saved? God forbid! I am only speaking to you who are saved already. If you are not saved, the first thing is to have a renewed heart by faith in Jesus Christ, and after that we lay no bondage on you, and exact no tax from you by way of duty, but it will be your joy, your delight, your privilege, to keep near to your Master and to say, “What have I to do any more with idols?” God bless you for Christ’s sake.

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Delivered at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892): Influential Baptist minister in England. History’s most widely read preacher (apart from those found in Scripture). Today, there is available more material written by Spurgeon than by any other Christian author, living or dead. Born at Kelvedon, Essex.

8. unregeneracy – unrenewed heart, not born of God’s Spirit.
9. gibbeted – hanged upon a gallows and left as a spectacle.
10. Rowland Hill (1744-1833) – Anglican preacher who ministered at Surrey Chapel in Southwark, London. An aristocratic convert to Evangelicalism and an enthusiastic champion of itinerant preaching. Often quoted by Charles Spurgeon.
11. vitiated – corrupted; debased.

Courtesy of Chapel Library