Hosea 9.1-17
I am sure we have all met people who always seem to look on the negative. Every time you meet them they have a tale of woe to tell you. No sooner have they recovered from one illness than they have a new illness to complain about. During world war II a man called Tommy Handley’s had a radio programme with a character whose catchphrase was “It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going.” The characters name? ‘Mona Lott.’ I am sure we have met such people. I pray we are not such people. Hosea 9 begins with the people of Israel planning to enjoy life. The harvest has been gathered in and it appears they, like the rich fool in Jesus’ parable, plan to sit back and enjoy the riches they have gained. However, along comes Hosea to basically tell them “the party is over.”
Verses 1-6 The party is over.
The harvest has been gathered in and it is plenteous. The people plan to enjoy the fruits of this harvest with a great festival until Hosea arrives. It appears that everyone has helped bring in the harvest and are now planning to relax and enjoy life. The reference in verse 1 to prostitutes refers to the immorality of such celebrations. Many of the men used the opportunity of the harvest festival to engage prostitutes and also to participate in fertility rites of the pagan god Baal. Hosea tells them not to rejoice or celebrate and in the second part of the verse he gives them the reason for this injunction from God – because you have been unfaithful to God. The people of God were never to give themselves to the immoral celebration of the pagan nations around them at the time of harvest. The Canaanites had been driven out of the promised land so that the people of God might possess it. Now the people of God had embraced the pagan deities and practices of the Canaanites and for that they would be punished. They were not to attribute the blessing of harvest to pagan fertility gods but to the true and living God who had brought them out of slavery from Egypt into freedom and blessing the land of promise.
The result (verses 2-6) is that God would turn from them and reject them. The people would eat unclean food (verse 3) and be unable to offer the required sacrifices to God (verse 4). Because of their unfaithfulness they would be unable to celebrate the appointed feasts (verse 5). In essence everything which marked them out as the people of God would be removed from them and they would become like the nations around them, because that is how they were behaving. To the people of God ‘religion’ had degenerated into festivals, stories, customs and taboos. It had become a good luck charm against trouble and their excitement was not in the worship of the living God but in the sensuality and immorality of the Canaanite worship. The result would be that they would lose their distinctiveness and be totally adrift in their sinfulness – verse 3. What an awful shock those words must have been to the people of God – you will no longer dwell in my land. They would no longer inhabit his land of promise and blessing. The land promised to them by God would be taken from them by God. In Deuteronomy 6.12-15 God had warned them not to follow the pagan ways of those around them when they entered the Promised Land but they had failed to heed the warning.
Friends listen again to those words from Deuteronomy 6.12-15. Now allow me to relate them to you this morning as a Christian believer. You have been brought out of the land of slavery to sin by Christ. You have been called to live a different life, a holy life. Why would you live as those who do not know or follow Christ? Heed the words of God spoken through Hosea in these first 6 verses. God will remove you from the land of promise if you continue to live as a citizen of slavery and not of heaven.
In verses 3-4 the dire nature of their situation is pictured. These people had eaten pagan food in their pagan celebrations but a time is coming when there would only be pagan food to eat because they would be slaves in a pagan land (Assyria) which would be similar to the experience their forefathers had in Egypt. Not only would they have to eat pagan food but they would be unable to celebrate any of the feasts appointed by God because they would be far from the Temple in Jerusalem and they would only have pagan food and non of the ceremonially clean food available to them. The ‘bread of mourners’ was not acceptable in offerings to God as it had been connected with the dead and as such was considered unclean. These people were viewed as such by God and the consequences of their present way of living would be alienation from and rejection by God which would lead to slavery both physical and spiritual. These people, who were meant to live in a land of promise and blessing, would instead live in a land of slavery and ultimately death. The land would be desolate and they would be buried in a land of slavery – like their forefathers. How quickly things can be reverses when people wander from God into the pagan ways around them – take heed.
God’s prophets ignored – verses 7-9.
You know one of the saddest things about the people of Israel at the time of Hosea was that they appeared to be totally ignorant of the judgement of God that was about to fall upon them. Not much different today, is it? In verse 7 Hosea warns the people of the coming judgment of God but look at the second part of the verse to see the reaction of the people. They consider the prophet to be a fool and a maniac. In Micah 2.11 we read of just the sort of prophet the people would listen to. Friends there are such prophets around today and some are even within the leadership of churches. Telling people what they want to hear. Paul warned the young Timothy that a time would come when men and women would not listen to the sound teaching of the Word of God but gather preachers who would tickle their ears and massage their egos. Such happened in the day of Hosea, in the day of Paul and happens today. God says that He has set His prophets as ‘watchmen’ (verse 8) to warn Israel. A watchman stood on the highest point possible to see as far into the distance as he could and he was to warn of coming danger. Such a task was one of great importance because the lives of the people were in his hands and so he was not to be diverted from the task of watching for danger. That is how God pictured His prophets – warning the people of the coming judgement of God if they did not repent of their ways and turn back to God. If the people did not heed the watchmen when he warned of impending danger then he was innocent of their blood but if he failed in his duty then he was guilty of their blood. Hosea was innocent of the judgment that was about to fall on the people of Israel because they dismissed him as a fool, even a maniac, as they had the other prophets. It is not enough that they ignore the warnings of the prophets but God says they are hostile towards them and even seek to entrap them. They actively work against the Word of God by working against the prophets of God.
You see the people of Israel were really far gone in their sin – verse 9. Gibeah is one of the most disturbing and heinous incidents in all of Scripture. The men of the town demanded that a visitor be given to them for their pleasure and when that did not happen they took his concubine and gang-raped her until she died. The result of their actions was to lead to civil war and the near annihilation of the tribe of Benjamin. It was considered by the people of Israel to be a dreadful stain on their history and yet here God says to them that they had been behaving in similarly appalling ways. The consequences would be that God would punish them for their sins and wickedness.
Verses 10-14 the glory departs. In these verses we eavesdrop on a conversation between God and the prophet Hosea. In verses 10-12 God lays out His accusation against Israel and in verses 13-14 Hosea responds in agreement with God’s judgment.
We have a magnificent castle here in Carrickfergus, built as you know in 1180AD. You can walk around it and with a little imagination, and the help of the guides, imagine how it once was. But the truth is it has lost some of its past glory over the years. Like an old coin that you take out now and then – over time the shine has gone and it never really seems to shine as brightly as it once did, even when polished. That is the picture painted in verses 10-14 by God of the people of Israel. At one time they brought great delight to God (verse 10). They were like grapes or figs found where they were not expected, in the desert and before the harvest. They were like the joy of finding such an unexpected refreshment in a dry land. God draws their attention to their history and how they had been brought into a covenant relationship with Him and the mutual joy they had one with another. No doubt Hosea pointed to the same in the early days of his marriage to Gomer and the delight she had brought him before her unfaithfulness. There was great hope and potential but it all faded and died with unfaithfulness. You know that happens in any relationship but especially a marriage relationship. Just like Adam and God walking in the garden before the fall – delight, refreshment, and potential. God was saying to these people – remember the past days when there was delight and refreshment in our relationship? Remember when all seemed so hopeful and hope filled? But those days are gone because of your unfaithfulness. Just as at Baal-Peor (Numbers 25) when the people were unfaithful spiritually by bowing down to pagan gods and in indulging in sexual immorality with Moabite women so it is in the day of Hosea. The people of God surrendered the ways of God to their own perverse lusts. In Psalm 115.8 God had warned that that which you worship you become like and make common cause with. The Exodus generation worshipped the gods of Moab and became like the Moabites in their immorality and they made common cause with them as a result. The same is true today. Think of the whole area of sexuality in our world. It is worshipped almost as if it were a god and common cause is made for the immorality which pervades our society and potentially our church. People become what they worship and make common cause with it.
The results of this spiritual adultery is that the glory of Ephraim will fly away as a bird flies away (verses 11-13).They had once brought delight to God but when His punishment comes such blessings would be removed. You see when the people gave themselves to pagan gods and to the immoral lifestyles which accompanied the worship of those gods then the glory of God departed from the people of God. In I Samuel 4 the wife of Phineas, one of Eli’s sons, names here son ‘Ichabod’ which means ‘the glory of God has departed’ because the Philistines have captured the Ark of God.
In these verses in Hosea 9 the picture painted is one of barrenness in the land and amongst the people. In verse 13 God speaks of the potential He had seen in Ephraim (Israel) and then we read the word ‘But’ and the people are stopped in their tracks. They had started out well and in the right direction and in a right relationship with God but over time they started to drift away from God and the things of God. In the second part of verse 13 and in verse 14 a dire picture of their future is painted. What started out with such great hope and potential ends in death and despair. The barrenness of the land is paralleled in the barrenness of the people. Hosea bows to the will of God and the judgement of God upon the people of Israel. What an awful prayer for Hosea to have to pray for the people he is called to bring God’s Word to. He prays that they might be fruitless. That may seem a harsh thing for him to pray but let us get a right perspective on it. Hosea could not bring himself to pray that God would destroy them in His judgment. It is actually a merciful prayer that he prays for these unfaithful people. No doubt all the time thinking of Gomer and her unfaithfulness and his love for her which tempers his judgment. You know sometimes as a pastor you pray such prayers for people. “Lord make their ways fruitless, till they come to their senses and repent and turn to you.” Do you think it is just possible that the father in the parable of the Prodigal son prayed such a prayer for his unfaithful and wayward son? Do you think you could pray such a prayer for an unfaithful and wayward child? Could you pray that God would make all their ways fruitless and restless till they repented of their sins and return to God.
Hosea 9.15-17 God looks backwards and forwards. At the beginning of this section God takes the people back to Gilgal. In Joshua 4.19-24 Gilgal was the point at which the people of Israel crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. At Gilgal in 1 Samuel 11.15 Samuel anointed Saul king over Israel (which by the way was a rejection of God’s rule over them). Again at Gilgal in 1 Samuel 15.10 God rejected Saul as king because he rebelled against the Word of God. That was the past and yet God says to them that is the present. The way Israel behaved at Gilgal is how they are behaving now. They had promise, blessing and potential but it ended in rebellion and rejection. Now I want you to listen carefully to these words because they are words we do not normally hear of God or associate with God – read verse 15. God hated them. Those are strong words but they are the only words that God has and Hosea can use to make the people realise the extent of their unfaithfulness and sin and how much God detests sin. If you follow on in verse 16 you see the consequence of this – God will drive them out of the land. God hates sin and all those who engage in sinful practices. Often today we hear people say ‘hate the sin and love the sinner.’ Whilst there is truth in that saying it is not the whole truth, it is only a partial truth and in that there is grave danger. You see you and are sinners and we sin. We would agree with that. But I cannot separate sin from me – I am sin. Sin is not some force out there in the ether that is separate from me – it is me. When I commit sin I am sin and God hates sin – that is why He turned His back on Christ Jesus on the cross because at that moment Christ had become sin for me and you – Romans
Listen to the next part of that verse – I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious (remembering Saul at Gilgal). Hosea then moves again to an agricultural illustration to depict how hopeless the situation is for Ephraim. The allusion to children dying and the barrenness of women would have been both shocking and dreadful to the people of Hosea’s day. Children were considered a sign of God’s blessing – Psalm 128.3-6 and therefore these words of Hosea show God’s displeasure and judgment on the people. Hosea had named, at God’s command, one of his children ‘Lo-Ruhama’ which means ‘no longer show love to the house of Israel’ (1.6). How ironic that in their history the people of Israel had witnessed God remove the Canaanites so that they might possess the land and now because they, the people of Israel, had embraced the pagan deities and practices of the Canaanites they would now be removed from the land of Promise.
Hosea responds to God in verse 17. He can do nothing else but bow to the will of God because he knows that God’s judgment of the people is right and righteous. The people would experience the consequences of their lifestyle choices, just as Gomer had. Like Cain (Genesis 4.14) the people are doomed to ‘wander among the nations.’ What a dreadful situation they will find themselves in. The delight to have once known the blessings of the Promised Land but because of apostasy and unfaithfulness they are sentenced to wander homeless and aimlessly in this world. What was once a flourishing tree bearing much fruit will wither and become a dried up stump but praise God out of that stump will come the shoot of Jesse – according to Isaiah 11.1. In Isaiah 53.2 we read that out of dry ground will rise a tender shoot and we know that to be Christ Jesus who will bring new life to a wayward and wandering people.
This chapter is not a chapter you would read if you wanted a ‘pick-me-up’ text for the day. It is a chapter that weighs heavy on the heart and reveals a side to God that we don’t often hear about and if we are honest we don’t really want to hear about. God here reveals His hatred of sin and His righteous judgment upon sin. It is a chapter of stark warnings of the consequences of unfaithfulness and persistent rebellion.
I don’t know where you would see yourself in this chapter. I would like to see myself as Hosea but the truth is I am more Ephraim at times than I am Hosea. Don’t we all embrace too readily the gods of this world and the ways of this world and we never think of the consequences or that God would judge us. But let me be honest with you this morning. I don’t think there is chapter which so reflects what I have witnessed in ministry over 14 years as this chapter. So many people, too many for me to count, have started out well with God. They crossed the river Jordan into the land of Promise but somewhere along the path they started to embrace the gods of this age and the practices of this age. Oh they still came, and come, to worship here on a Sunday and some still talk the talk of the ways of God but their heart and their lives are the ways of this world and of the gods of the age. I have found myself praying like Hosea for such people – that God would make their lives fruitless and restless until they repented and came to Christ. I have seen and heard people talk of their sorrow for their sin and how things would change but with no real brokenness or turning from the past – just like Gomer and the people of Israel.
Friends listen to God in Hosea this morning. Listen to the warning that if you continue to walk after other gods and live a life which is unfaithful and immoral then this morning God hates your sin and He will remove His love from you. Hear that warning this morning. Hear God’s footsteps of judgement coming into your life today and heed the call to repent. You might think this morning well he is not speaking to me and this passage doesn’t apply to me. But let ask you this morning ‘where is your heart?’ What is the love of your life? What consumes most of your time and thoughts? What dictates most of your finances? To what do you give most of your time? How much time in this past week did you spend reading your Bible? Praying? Or in fellowship with other people? You see we all have plenty of other gods in our lives because anything that comes before God in our lives is our god.
You may think I haven’t lived an immoral life this week. Let me ask you – you lied this week? Have you been angry with people this week? Have you used foul language this week? Have you watched things on TV that you would be embarrassed to tell someone you watched it? Entertained immoral thoughts about someone? Have you broken promises this week? Gambled on the lottery? The list could go on and on – getting more and more personal but even at that superficial level it shows how immoral we are as people.
You can say this morning this is not me, and maybe it isn’t because of Christ. But if it is you this morning then come to Christ this morning and repent of this and come home. For some here this morning you are just starting down that road of unfaithfulness and immorality. You have started to walk away from God – heed the warning of Hosea 9 –it will end in desolation and despair for you – so stop right now and turn back.
Brothers and sisters – Hosea is a timely warning to us all and this morning I know it has been heavy but we need to hear of God’s judgment of sin because sometimes in knowing His love we forget from what He has rescued us.
Amen.
