If you’re a fan of comedy movies like I am, the title of today’s sermon will ring a bell. The theme song of “Ghostbusters” went something like, “When there’s something weird in your neighborhood, who ya’ gonna’ call? Ghostbusters!” There was something about the idea of a S.W.A.T. team ready to deal with supernatural disturbances that was both ludicrous and kind of fun. It hinted at the idea that if there really was a clean-up squad for the frightening and unknown threats we face, maybe there could be some kind of problem-solving guerrillas to deal with problems we can see and face everyday.
Alas, Ghostbusters was fantasy. No matter how powerful the S.W.A.T. team of paranormal soldiers, they couldn’t really do anything about the enemies we face that are within us (our own rebellions, our own irresponsibility, and our own unconcern), much less the enemies who are outside us (hostility to God’s truth, self-centered individuals actively opposing us to build their personal wealth and empires, and even that pervasive evil we identify as the demonic which shows itself so often in hideous, horrifying, and horrendous crimes and atrocities). Nothing can rescue us from our own sin and those who set themselves against us except the power of God our Creator and Redeemer. Yet, sadly, even those of us who believe are probably more likely to call “Ghostbusters” than truly submit to Almighty God.
Hosea faced a similar situation. God wanted to redeem and reconcile Israel in the same way that Hosea had redeemed and reconciled Gomer as his wife. God wanted to be able to protect His people against the onslaught of Assyria in much the same way that He protected Judah against Sennacherib when he surrounded Jerusalem, only to be called away under mysterious circumstances just as victory was in his grasp. Yet, Israel (the northern kingdom) was flitting from alliance to alliance in hopes of finding help.
If you asked Israel who she was gonna’ call, it could have been their ill-fated smaller allies (Damascus with its on-again/off-again results, and Judah, but most likely would have been Assyria, Egypt, or both. In fact, BOTH Assyria and Egypt fit the context in verse 11. Let me share with you from my translation.
v. 11 And Ephraim has proceeded to become like a dove, simple without a mind. They cry out to Egypt. They go to Assyria.
God’s people in the northern kingdom were acting like a dove, quite senseless and flitting back and forth between Assyria and Egypt as their protector—in spite of the fact that Yahweh, God of Armies (“Lord of Hosts”) wanted to be their shield and defender. This is a powerful figure of speech. God’s people are so foolish that they don’t know when they are actually safe.
Now, some of you are asking, “Isn’t Hosea being a little hard on doves? After all, they’re beautiful birds and they’re always releasing them at weddings, funerals, and special events, why would Hosea call them silly or mindless?” Well, check this out. Did you know that they don’t really release doves at weddings and funerals? What they release are actually white homing pigeons, birds who are strong and have the intelligence and instinct to fly back to safety. White doves are a color variety of the Ringneck dove. They are smaller than the white pigeons and can’t fly very far. Further, they become easy prey for predators and they simply aren’t smart enough to forage for food on their own.
What an apt illustration for God’s people when they look past the divine solutions for their problems and needs in order to grasp at human solutions that may only provide stop-gap measures. How often do God’s people go charging off to plan, reorganize, and work in a panic instead of seeking God and God’s will so that they even knew what direction to “fly.” So, we go one way and when that doesn’t work, we go another way. We keep changing what we do so often that we are whipsawed by our own flitting from non-working solution or temporary solution to another. We end up with spiritual whiplash. We don’t know what to do because we have sought our version of Egypt or Assyria instead of God. Let’s read on!
v. 12 Just as they went (to Assyria) I will spread my net over their heads, like the birds of the heavens, I will cause them to come down. I will punish them like (I) heard concerning their evil.
v. 13 Woe to them BECAUSE they departed from me. Ruin to them BECAUSE they rebelled against me. And I, I was redeeming them but they told lies concerning me.
Now, you’re probably wondering why appealing to Assyria was perceived as such a bad thing. You may also be wondering why Assyria ended up being the instrument of punishment against Israel when Assyria was the one they called upon for help. Well, sometimes the very ones we turn to for help end up being disastrous. We need to be careful about where we seek help. In II Kings 15:17-22, we read where King Menahem paid tribute to Pul (King Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria). This tribute is also recorded in the Assyrian annals. Now, it doesn’t sound so bad. It just sounds like a practical way of staving off war.
But, in order to pay tribute to Assyria, one had to swear allegiance to Assyria’s gods, as well. Paying tribute to Assyria implied that those false gods were more effective and more powerful than our God. So, is it any wonder that Yahweh took it personally. As a result, God states that He will pull down Ephraim/Israel in the same way hunters caught birds in a net, and He would punish (could read “chastise” or “discipline”) them because they didn’t understand His true nature. By swearing allegiance to Assyrian gods and paying tribute to a rival empire, they “told lies” concerning God’s true nature.
The truth is that some of the “solutions” we seek to solve our problems “tell lies” concerning God’s true nature. When we voice our worries, start panicking about the state of the market, and seek human help before we put our needs and problems in God’s hands, what are we telling the world? We’re saying that we can’t depend on God. We’re saying that God isn’t powerful or reliable enough to meet our needs.
Worse, v. 13 uses an imperfect verb to describe God’s redemptive efforts. God was already in the process of saving them when they rebelled against Him. God was already in the process of saving them when they gave false witness about His power as God. Yet, even today, many of God’s people jump so quickly into trying to do things for God before asking if it’s the right thing that they mess up God’s plans. Even today, we can get in God’s way by changing jobs too quickly, dating and marrying the wrong person, refusing to take opportunities for service that come our way, using our time unwisely, investing our money in ways that seem expedient rather than seeking God’s investments, and more. All of these are ways of testifying that we were seeking other ways of finding what we need in life rather than trusting God. As the text continues:
v. 14 And they did not cry out to me in their inner beings (lit. inner man, mind, heart) because they did not howl in their beds. They assembled themselves (for) grain and new wine. They have turned aside from me.
v. 15 I was the one who trained them. I strengthened their arms, but they were plotting their evil against God.
It’s intriguing that where verse 13 used an imperfect verb for God’s action (action in process but not completed) and a perfect verb for both telling lies and rebelling (completed action), verse 15 uses perfect verbs for God’s actions (completed) and an imperfect verb for plotting evil against God. To me, this suggests that Israel’s rebellion (like our own) interrupted God’s perfect plan. Then, God did what was necessary to train and strengthen Israel to be able to stand against her problems, but even when God poured out the best solution for them (even if painful), they were plotting against God. The good news, though, is that the plotting isn’t complete and repentance is still possible.
If I’m right in this observation, that means that God’s actions spurned by Israel’s rebellions in verses 13 and 15 form one of those theological sandwiches. Verses 13 and 15 are the slices of bread or the hamburger bun and verse 14 becomes the meat. It probably is. That they didn’t cry out to God with their wills (literally, their hearts) means that they didn’t have the right motivations, the right priorities. The fact that they did not howl in their beds suggests the idea of feeling something deeply, so deeply that we cry out what we really feel in our privacy, in the darkness of the night. [If you’re interested, you can compare Psalm 6:7 where it refers to grief, Micah 2:1 where it refers to thinking up double-dealing in the dark night, and Psalm 149:5 where it indicates a proper praise held in private.]
Instead of setting their priorities based upon their relationship to God, and instead of expressing their deepest feelings in privacy to their God, they assembled themselves to receive grain and new wine. Although God provided the grain and new wine in reality, these were symbols most used in pagan fertility worship—worship of the gods and goddesses of success and sexuality. So, instead of having the proper motives, what do they demonstrate other than human greed—an egocentric universe. And are we any different?
We should be different because when we merely get together for what we think is good for us instead of what God has prioritized within our wills and God has communicated to us with the same emotional impact as grief, praise, (or on the negative side) plotting in the night, we are actually turning away from God. We are rejecting God’s direction in our lives.
So, what can we do? Remember, our plotting is unfinished, but God’s training and strength-conditioning is already there for us. I want to talk about this chastising, sometimes translated as punishing, and which I have translated as “training.” I have something in mind. The Hebrew verb means to provide corrective and instructive punishment.
As corrective and instructive punishment, I like to think of it in terms of “Victory Hill.” When I was in high school, I was far too little and uncoordinated to compete on any of the athletic teams. But one day, I overheard some of the varsity football players talking about “Victory Hill.” They were speaking of “Victory Hill” in terms of how many times they had been forced to run up and down “Victory Hill” with full gear on. Later, when the football coach was also my regular PE teacher, I found out about “Victory Hill” up close and personally. “Victory Hill” referred to the stands on one side of our football practice field (we shared the actual stadium where the games were played with another school).
When the coach was annoyed at us, he would have us make 10 or 20 round trips up and down “Victory Hill.” We would run from the bottom of the stands to the top and back. He called it “Victory Hill” for the football players because he believed that the conditioning they received from running up and down these steps would prepare them for victory. If they really wanted to win, he had told them, they would need to become acquainted with “Victory Hill.”
Those of you who saw the wonderful movie about the miraculous Olympic hockey win at the Lake Placid Olympics, Miracle, may well remember the scene when the team had gone overseas to play another national squad. They had tied the other team, but that wasn’t good enough for the coach. So, after that game, he had his assistant blow the whistle over and over again. They would then do wind sprints from the goal line out to the red line (I think) and back. Whatever they did, they were dog-tired, but this session of whistle-skate, whistle-skate became emblematic of the superior conditioning on that team, conditioning that allowed them to defeat the Russians.
Whenever God punishes us, it is intended to correct and strengthen us. If we turn aside from God instead of responding positively to this, we are rejecting Him. The bottom line is that even in spiritual warfare, even in everyday life, we need our “Victory Hill.” And God is the only One who knows what conditioning we really need in life.
But sadly, in our text, it gets worse. Let’s read it.
v. 16 They turned to worthlessness like a deceitful bow. Their princes fall to the sword from arrogant speech (and) this shall be their mocking in the land of Egypt.
Imagine, if you will, that swordsmen and javelin-throwers are charging you. You pick up a bow, nock the arrow, take careful aim at your enemy, and then, let the arrow fly. Instead of taking down your enemy, it flies off to the right like some of my tee shots in golf, slicing crazily away from where it’s supposed to go. You wonder what is wrong, only to discover that the bow was not cured properly and is actually warped. You’d be very upset, wouldn’t you? Or, imagine that the string is not taut. You try to fire the arrow and it drops harmlessly a short way in front of you, far short of the enemy. You’d feel pretty foolish, wouldn’t you?
Yet, that is how Hosea describes Israel’s alliances. These alliances seem like a weapon. They seem like they would provide a defense, but they are worse than useless because they have created a false hope. You see, this is what happens when we seek human answers for love without God’s guidance, sometimes settling for sex and broken relationships. This is what happens when we seek human answers for peace without God’s guidance, sometimes settling for pacifism and appeasement instead of actual security. This is what happens when we seek human answers for joy without God’s guidance, sometimes settling for overindulgence and wild abandon rather than authentic satisfaction and contentment. This is what happens when we human answers for discipline and self-control without God’s guidance, sometimes enslaved by our own self-righteousness or our own regimens rather than finding the true freedom of God’s discipline.
Without God, all human answers are deceitful bows. We think they are weapons; we think they are solutions, but they are merely false hopes. Even Israel’s leaders thought they had things under control. Their arrogant speech (not just bragging, but their arrogant intentions with regard to building an alliance against Assyria) has caused them to engage in a war that they can’t win.
A former friend of our family had a regular saying. Whenever you’d ask him about something, he would indicate that he could handle it by saying, “No sweat!” Now, the trouble was that as you began to get to know this fellow, you knew that he used the phrase “No sweat!” so often that it meant nothing. If anything, whenever he said “No sweat!” it meant that you’d better start sweating because he wasn’t going to do anything about it. It was sort of like when, as an editor, I would ask a writer how he or she was coming on an article and she or he would say, ambiguously, “I’m working on it.” What that usually meant was that the author was “thinking” about it and nothing tangible had been done. Or, it was a lot like when you ask a child if her or his homework is done and he or she says, “Almost.” All that means is that they know what the assignment is. It doesn’t mean they’ve really worked on it.
Well, these princes, captains, or leaders of Israel (the noun can mean any of the three) were telling the people the equivalent of “No sweat!” “We’re working on the problem,” and “Almost” all at once. They felt like they knew what they were doing and that their alliances would make sense. But the truth is that all of their assurances, all of their arrogant speech, was merely to provide the basis for Egypt to mock them. Remember those old Warner Brothers cartoons where Road Runner would trick Wile E. Coyote or Tweety would fool Sylvester the Cat and the predators would suddenly change into an all-day sucker for a moment? When verse 16 moves from the arrogant speech of the leaders to the mockery of the Egyptians, it is almost as if Hosea is painting the leaders as all-day suckers.
The tragedy is that this transformation from arrogance to mockery isn’t funny like it is in the Warner Brothers cartoons. When God’s people quit seeking God’s priorities, it affects a lot more people. When God’s people don’t accept God’s real solutions, there are many other people who are affected by the rebellion of those who should know better.
Frankly, I’m not sure why God chose this passage (or even Hosea as a whole) to share with you. But I know that there have been too many times in my life when I acted like a stupid dove, flitting from one solution to another instead of seeking out God’s priority. And I know that there have been many times in my life when I thought a ministry plan, a church organization, a financial investment, or my own efforts were going to win the day against the world’s disinterest, intolerance, and hostility, only to discover that my plans and efforts were a deceitful bow. May we all seek God’s priority instead of our convenience!
