Hosea 3.1-4.12
How well do you know God?
I remember seeing a programme on television once where an old man through tear stained eyes spoke of his love for his wife. What became apparent over time was that she had left him on many occasions and led a quite decadent and immoral life. Yet each time he searched her out and brought her home, even travelling great distances to do so. In the story he tells how she died as a result of the lifestyle she had lived and his last words were still of his deep love for her and that he did everything he could each time to bring her home because he had made his vows before God. I sat there truly amazed and deeply moved by this man as he told his story. If you turn with me to Hosea 3 verse 1 we encounter Hosea about to embark on just such a journey with Gomer.
Verse 1- God tells Hosea to go and bring Gomer home. Hosea is commanded to go and love Gomer again, even though she has led a desolate life and is presently with another man. Note will you that Gomer at this point is called ‘woman’ and not ‘wife’ – emphasising the distance and estrangement in the relationship between Hosea and her at this moment. In the second half of the verse God gives Hosea the reason for this action. He is to love Gomer in the same way that God loves the people of Israel. Just as Gomer had turned to other lovers and committed adultery so the people of God had turned to other gods and committed spiritual adultery. The people of Israel loved the ‘raisin cakes’ which were delicacies of the day and were used in the cultic worship of Baal. God had given them spiritual food but they preferred the ‘delicacies’ of pagan worship and sin. Hosea obeys the divine command and goes to love Gomer again.
Verse 2 – Hosea buys back his wife. She had become the property of another and the price he paid, when you add up the shekels and the barley, comes to 30 shekels of silver. 30 shekels of silver was the price of a slave. Gomer, maybe through the decadence of her lifestyle, was valued at the price of a slave. In this we see where her sinful waywardness has led – into slavery, as all sin does. Hosea pays the price of a slave to buy back what is rightfully his in the first place. Is that not a wonderful picture of love for his wife? Is that not also a picture in the OT of what God in Christ would do for us on the cross? He paid the ransom, bought us back with his own blood, for what was rightfully His in the first place.
Verse 3 – again we see in the words of Hosea that it is not a sentimental love which motivates him and his actions towards Gomer. His love for her is not blind to her sin. He does not ignore how she has lived in the past but wants her to change in the future. He loves her enough to want her to change. He tells her that she must leave the past life of prostitution behind her. She cannot come back with him and live as she has been living. She must live a celibate life. I find it interesting that Hosea tells Gomer that she must be celibate, even from him. Why? Think about it for a moment. The physical act of love had become meaningless to Gomer. It had become a matter of commerce to her. Her relationship with Hosea was not to be a matter of commerce and so the physical side of their marriage needed to be restored to its rightful place and that is why Hosea speaks as he does.
Verse 4 – God now speaks of how this will be a reflection of Israel’s relationship with Him. This will be marked by three things;
1. Israel without autonomous rule – king or prince
2. No religious ceremonies – without sacrifice or sacred stones.
3. without any means of knowing the future – ephod/idol
In these three things we see how the people of God will be left destitute and abandoned by God. In these three things we see how everything in the life of Israel has been touched and corrupted by pagan worship and immorality. Even the things of God have been corrupted by the way they have been living and behaving. In removing all of these from the life of Israel God is showing that there needs to be a clean break from the past and that the separation needs to be long enough and deep enough that they will not go back to the old ways of living. God wants a complete break with the past so that a new beginning can happen. Friends learn the spiritual lesson there in your life and my life. Old habits, old lifestyles, old relationships, whatever it is that led us into sin, not only needs to be repented of but separated from if a new beginning in and with Christ is to occur. Remember that lesson this morning, take it on board and do something about it. There are things in all our lives that we need to separate from and not just for a few hours or a few days but for a long period so that their power over us wanes and dies. For some this morning you know exactly at this moment what God is saying in your life needs to be separated from. There is a struggle going on for your eternal soul right at this moment and you need to take this on board this morning.
Verse 5 what a wonderful picture of restoration by God. Here is a wonderful portrait painted of Israel reconciled to God and restored by God to a right relationship with Him. Here is a picture of the faithful Israel coming to the living and true God for blessing. But did you notice verse 5 could not happen unless God bought them back and they separated from the sinful things of the past. Remember that this morning in your life. God has bought you back with the blood of Christ and He calls you now to separate from the sinful/immoral things in your life so that you might know His reconciliations, restoration and blessing now and on the last day.
Chapter 4 verses 1-12 – Hosea is nothing if he is not honest and confrontational when he deals with Gomer and the people of God. These verses are frightening in their honesty and they cut deep into the lives of the people and their religious leaders.
Verses 1-4 Israel’s indictment.
Imagine a courtroom in which a divorce case is being heard. At this moment the husband is bringing the charges of infidelity against his wife. That is exactly what God does in these 4 verses to the people of Israel. In verse 1 God lays three things against the people of Israel:
1. No faithfulness – in essence they were untrustworthy. They were called into an exclusive covenant relationship with God and they had forsaken it to sleep with other gods. Remember in the foreground here is Hosea and Gomer. Gomer had been unfaithful to her marriage vows and that is the picture of Israel with the covenant.
2. No love – just as Gomer had failed to love Hosea and had shown by her actions that she did not love him so the Israelites had failed to love God.
3. No acknowledgement of God - Gomer had failed to acknowledge that Hosea was her husband. When she prostituted herself she failed to acknowledge that she was married to another. The people of God failed to acknowledge that God was God and that they belonged to Him when they prostituted themselves before Baal.
Verse 2 those three charges are elaborated upon by God. He sets forth an overt list of the sins of the people. Commandments 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all broken in this list. Violent crime is commonplace and there are no restraints or boundaries on their sinfulness. Let me ask you a question: Is there anything here that we could not say of our society? It was a time of decadence in Israel. Their immorality knew no boundaries and they gloried in their sinfulness. The land, the people, did not acknowledge God at all. God does not glamorise their sin and He does not go into to detail. He simply states it in its ugliness and states why it has come to pass – they failed to acknowledge God. It is not that they denied His existence but that they ignore Him and His commandments.
Verse 3 the result is that judgment will fall on the land and on the people. The picture painted here is of a poisoned environment. The land wastes under sin which brings its destruction. All of creation is affected by sin. The picture is one of environmental disaster because the future was sacrificed by the people of God to satisfy the sinful cravings and desires of the moment. Friends, there is a deep lesson there for us all this morning. How often would you sacrifice the blessings of God in the future for the meeting of a sinful desire in the present? How often we sacrifice God’s blessings to come because we will not acknowledge Him by being obedient now?
Verse 4 is a telling verse. God will not allow the people to accuse one another because they are all guilty of this sinful waywardness and immorality. At the end of this verse God introduces a charge against the religious leaders of the day. It is a charge that He expands upon in verses 5-12. A literal translation of verse 4 says ‘For with you is my contention, o priest.’ God says to the religious leaders ‘you are to blame’ and such a charge is not a comfortable one in 800BC or 2007AD.
Verses 5-12 You are to blame!
God now directly addresses the religious leaders of the day. What an indictment is read out here. I am sure Hosea was not popular for speaking these words to them. In verse 5 God speaks of the ‘stumbling’ of these leaders both in the day and night. Israel’s worship was during the day but the worship of Baal was at night. In this we see that the religious leaders were one thing during the day and another during the night. They were religious chameleons – happy to worship God and Baal. The result of this duplicity and hypocrisy is vividly painted in verse 6. The people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge of God. It was the responsibility and the calling of the priests and prophets to teach the people the Word of God. In failing to do this the people had no knowledge of God and therefore went astray into sin. God warns the priests and the prophets that if this is how they live then He will reject them as His religious leaders of the people. God will reject those who do not teach His word faithfully to the people. Can I say at this point that is why I have maintained, even in the face of opposition, that we should have Christian leaders here at HTW. Do you hear the warning here of leaders who do not teach the Word of God faithfully to the people under their care?
Verses 7-8. The greater the power of the priests the more they sinned. They grew arrogant, then cynical and finally shameless in their sinful leadership. You see under the covenant the priests were in a privileged position in society. In Leviticus 6.26 they were allowed a portion of the lamb offered in the atoning for sin sacrifice. The priests of Hosea’s day grew fat on the sacrifices being brought by the people. In fact the implications of these two verses is that they encouraged the people in their sinfulness so that they would need to bring even more sacrifices to atone and they, the priests, would gain materially from them. You know nothing much as changed in 2007. There are still those in leadership within the church of God who have not taught the Word of God and who we would say ‘relish’ the sinfulness of their people. They have exchanged the glorious things of God for the shameful and shame filled things of this world. These verses are a stark warning to us all, but especially to those called to leadership in the church of God.
Verses 9-12 the punishment of God follows this sinfulness. Both the people and the priests will be punished for their sinfulness. God says they will never find satisfaction in their sinful lifestyles because in deserting the Lord God they have deserted the One who brought them to this land of rich provision. It is their faithlessness that has brought them to this point in their lives. It is the faithlessness of the priests in failing to teach the knowledge of God that has led to this punishment. But before the people can lay the blame at the feet of their religious leaders they too have been unfaithful. Leaders who go astray need followers to follow. There is a responsibility on followers to be discerning and discriminating – after all Hosea is obeying God’s call in his life at the same time as the people are being unfaithful. The old wine and new wine steals away the understanding of the people. These people had sought out physical satisfaction in all its forms and in so doing forgot that man is more than the physical. God says that in seeking food and sex these people would never be satisfied. In fact there will be a shortage of food and infertility amongst the people. Their lack of understanding is seen in verse 12 where they consult wooden sticks and idols for guidance. Their minds are clouded and they are spiritually blind. It is as G K Chesterton said ‘when men give up believing in God it is not that they believe nothing but that they will believe anything.’ These people are without excuse – they knew the truth of the living God and were unfaithful to the covenant. They deliberately and knowingly went after other gods and prostituted their spirit before other gods.
These two passages show the contrasting destinies of people. In chapter 3 we hear how far God is willing to go to bring His unfaithful bride back. Yet in chapter 4 we hear of the stubborn unfaithfulness of the people. We also hear the dire warnings of judgment if the people persist in their wickedness and sinful lifestyles. We hear to the dire warning to those who are called by God to give leadership and impart the knowledge of God to His people. Their failure will result in judgment on themselves but also on the people they lead astray. Once again we are confronted by God through Hosea about how we live. We cannot escape the truth of God’s Word that he is a God of love who goes to extraordinary lengths to reconcile His people to Himself. Yet we cannot ignore the truth that He is a holy God and in His holiness He will punish sin. We cannot have one without the other. I, as your pastor, cannot preach one and ignore the other – to do so would be to fall into the same guilt as the priests of Hosea’s day.
So the challenge before us this morning – God has bought you with the blood of Christ – will you come home? In coming home will you be faithful and leave the past behind? If you are in leadership this morning are you faithfully teaching the Word of God? Or have you become a stumbling block and are you leading people astray? Does God accuse you this morning of living for yourself whilst appearing to be ‘religious’? To us all we need to heed the warning of the judgment to come – and to realise that no one escapes that judgement. There are no privileged places when it comes to that judgment.
Amen.
