God Sends The Whirlwind Series

Hosea 8:7 ‘They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind’.

Whirlwinds aren’t a very common sight here in the UK so just to get us in the right frame of mind – just to get the right pictures into our heads – lets just watch a short clip from the film Twister.

Show Clip

Now I know that that is very Hollywood but truth is that whirlwinds and tornado’s and hurricane’s can and do cause massive damage. I did a little bit of research about most destructive hurricane’s and tornado’s.

13 Nov 1970 East Pakistan (hurricane) Killed 500,000 people

1881 Vietnam (hurricane) Killed 300,000 people

3 May 2008 Burma (hurricane) Killed 100,000 people

The worst hurricane to hit the western continent:

10 Oct 1780 Barbados Killed 20,000

These of course are all hurricanes - The worst Tornado’s (difference between a hurricane and a tornado – from what I could find out - is that a hurricane begins it’s life out at sea – tornado inland)

26 Apr 1989 Daulapur - Saturia Bangladesh (T) Killed 1300 people

18 Mar 1925 Tri-States US (T) US quite a hotspot) Killed 695 people

If you want to put that into some sort of context – we all remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005 – the devastation that it left in it’s wake – the official number of those killed was 1,164.

Hurricanes and tornados and whirlwinds, are far more than just a wind – they have an incredible power and intensity.

Sowing and Reaping

Hosea says "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."

Now follow me carefully with this - Sowing and reaping is a well known fundamental, physical principle of life. You always reap more than you sow! If I was to go into my garden and plant a potato into the ground – in a few months time I wouldn’t reap one potato, I would reap lots of potatoes. If I plant a runner bean, then in a few months time I won’t get back one runner bean – I will get back lots of runner beans. That’s the principle – you always reap more than you sow.

But not only do you reap more than what you sow – you will reap more of the same of what you sow. It’s no good me putting a potato in the ground if what I want is a harvest of carrots. If I want a harvest of carrots I need to sow carrots – if I want a harvest of potatoes I need to sow potatoes. That’s how sowing and reaping works – what you put in is what you’re gonna get out again only more so! Yea?

Hosea didn’t say ‘they sow the wind and reap a heat wave’ – he said, ‘they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind’ because what you sow you will also reap only moreso!

There’s a story about Sir Robert Watson Watt, the inventor of the radar who was arrested for speeding. He was reportedly pulled over by a policemen with a radar-gun. And allegedly Robert Watts said to the policeman, "Had I known what you were going to do with it I would never have invented it!" Shortly after he wrote this poem:

Pity Sir Robert Watson Watt

Strange target of his radar plot,

And this, with others I could mention,

A victim of his own invention.

You reap what you sow. And what is true in the physical sense is also true in the spiritual sense.

Everything we do has consequences. The sins that we do have consequences. The good things that we do have consequences. The priorities we have in life have consequences. The choices we make in life have consequences.

"They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind." Just as the whirlwind is much greater than the wind so the consequences of our actions end up being greater than the deed itself. There are many things that start off small but that lead to greater things. Great oaks, for instance, grow from tiny acorns. The giant sequoias tree start off from the smallest of seeds. And, Jesus spoke of seed that fell on good soil and produced a crop that was some 30, 60, and 100 times greater than the original seed.

In the same way, warns Hosea, we will reap a whirlwind if we sow the wind. In other words, we will get much more than we bargained for.

I just want to say three things very quickly this morning:

1. God sees what you sow

As we as a church have been going through the book of Hosea we have seen how far away the people of Israel were from God. God calls them an adulterous nation, and adulterous people. They were heavily involved in idol worship, they were heavily involved in religious prostitution. There was lying, there was cheating, there was deception, there was murder and there was bloodshed. Godliness and morality were at an all time low. People living as they pleased, satisfying their own needs, their own lusts, satisfying their own desires. These were the seeds being sown. And God sees what you sow. Back in Hosea Chapter 7 God tells the people ‘I remember all their evil deeds. Their sins engulf them; they are always before me.’