The prophecy of Hosea begins with a dramatic enactment by Hosea of the relationship between God and his people Israel. It’s a shocking revelation of the unfaithfulness of a people who should have known better, who had had every opportunity to get their act together and to worship God faithfully but had failed at every turn. And it’s a heart-rending display of the pain felt by God at their betrayal as he pleads with them, through the experience of Hosea, to return to him.
But now the action moves from the living room to the Family Court. Ch. 3 may have appeared to have a happy ending, but it’s only a happy ending in preview. The present reality continues for now. The marriage has broken down and in this rare case there’s only one party at fault. So God brings forward his indictment of the people of Israel. Here is his opening statement of what will be a long and painful trial as he lists all the ways they’ve let him down, all the ways they’ve betrayed his love and faithfulness to them. He begins with three crucial character traits that God looks for in his people. What are they? Faithfulness, loyalty (steadfast love or loving kindness), and knowledge of God. Faithfulness speaks of the solid trustworthiness and reliability of the person of integrity. It’s one of those characteristics that used to be so highly prized in our culture. These days unfortunately it’s fallen by the wayside to a large degree as we’ve become more and more self-centred; as we’ve become people of the moment rather than people of the future.
Loyalty, or kindness, is that characteristic of God that’s often translated ’steadfast love’ or ’loving kindness’. It’s the sort of kindness and love that we’ve seen from God in this book so far. And it should be found in his followers: a love that seeks the good of the other and that results in good deeds done for the other.
Knowledge of God, of course, is the key. There’s a cognitive element to godliness that forms the basis for its practical outworking. It’s as we meditate on God’s word day and night that our lives begin to reflect his character. He’s not thinking here about mere head knowledge. This is a personal knowledge of God, the sort we saw last time, that results in and from an intimate relationship with God. And one way we develop that intimate relationship is through our minds being steeped in God’s word. This is a knowledge of God that implies a grasp of just how great God is. If we truly know God, in all his power and glory and awesome wonder, how could we possibly turn away from him to false gods. If we truly know God in his faithfulness and loving kindness, how could we not be like that too? Well we’ll hear more about these critical characteristics later on, when we get to ch6.
What’s the result of this failure of faithfulness and loyalty and knowledge of God? Look at v2: "Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed." When people turn away from godliness this is what you get: social breakdown.
You look at that list and you realise that it could be talking about today, don’t you? People wonder why our society is in such trouble at the moment. Why is it that relationships are so fragile? Why do people find it hard to trust their current life partner to be faithful? Why do people lie and swear and cheat and kill? Remember Jesus equated murder with hatred and there’s no shortage of hate in our world today is there? Why has morality become a thing of pragmatism rather than external standards?
You may have seen the news report a few weeks ago about a man who’d found a large sum of money by the side of the road and had taken it to the police to hand it in. People were surprised. In fact so much so that it made it to the news bulletins. People were asked later whether they would have handed it in and as many said no as said yes. You see our personal ethics are no longer governed by what’s right or wrong, let alone by what God thinks. Now all that matters is whether someone might find out.
Just like the nation of Israel at this time, faithfulness and loyalty, and knowledge of God are rare characteristics in our world.
And this situation isn’t just affecting the relationships between people. It’s also affecting the land itself. "3Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing." We rarely connect the ecological troubles of the world with the moral failings of our culture do we? But here we see a close connection. "Therefore the land mourns." When people are more interested in their own prosperity and well-being than anyone else’s, this is what happens. The earth is pillaged. Damage is done to the environment. How many times have we seen companies, motivated by higher profits, doing ecologically irresponsible things to the earth?
Well, the evidence is there for all to see. There’s a breakdown in society, the physical world is suffering; and why? Because the nation has turned it’s back on God.
But this isn’t just a general blast at all those who have failed to obey God. No, God has a special word to say to two groups of people in the nation; two groups who bear a particular responsibility for what’s happening: the priests and the kings.
Priests
Look at v4: "4Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest. 5You shall stumble by day; the prophet also shall stumble with you by night, and I will destroy your mother. 6My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children."
One difference between the priests of Israel and pagan priests was that the role of Israel’s priests wasn’t just to offer sacrifices. It was also to instruct the people in the ways of God. The priests weren’t the guardians of hidden knowledge, to be revealed only to the cognoscenti, to those who had been initiated into the mysteries of the religion. No, for God’s people the law was given to make wise the simple. God had revealed himself through his word and through his law which was meant to be taught to children from the earliest age.
The reason the nation had gone astray, the reason there was no knowledge of God in the land, was that the priests had failed in this most serious of tasks: the priests and the prophets, in our terms, the clergy, had failed to properly teach the things of God. So what was to happen? They were going to stumble. Jesus described the Pharisees as ’blind guides.’ Here they’re described as stumbling by day and by night. God is going to take away their ability to see the way clearly. He’s going to destroy their mother. I take that to mean the nation that brought them to birth. Already they’re destroyed, in fact, by their lack of knowledge. And finally he’s going to reject them and their children from being his priests.
Why? Because the more they’ve increased the more they’ve sinned. Because they’ve exchanged the true worship of God for an excuse to get fat. They’ve turned the glory of God into shame. And so, just as the ordinary people are suffering and will in fact suffer more, so too the priests will share in that suffering. They may have seen themselves as a spiritual elite. They may have thought they had some sort of monopoly on God’s blessing. But when they’re found guilty of leading God’s people astray, their privileges are revoked. And in the end the ones who are responsible, the teachers of the people, are the ones who’ll be held responsible, who’ll be held to account.
Kings
But it’s not just the priests who are in the firing line. Look at 5:1. "Hear this, O priests! Give heed, O house of Israel! Listen, O house of the king! For the judgment pertains to you." It’s also the nations secular leaders, the house of the king, that are responsible. The leaders are giving such an example of ungodliness that naturally the people are following suit. Look at v10: "The princes of Judah have become like those who remove the landmark; on them I will pour out my wrath like water." The king of Israel had recently tried to form an alliance with Assyria that virtually handed over the nation’s autonomy to the enemy. Never mind that God had given them this land as their own. Political expediency doesn’t allow for godly ethics or morals, does it?
But it gets worse. Look over at ch 7 "3By their wickedness they make the king glad, and the officials by their treachery. … 5On the day of our king the officials became sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with mockers. 6For they are kindled like an oven, their heart burns within them; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. … 8Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned. 9Foreigners devour his strength, but he does not know it; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, but he does not know it … 11Ephraim has become like a dove, silly and without sense; they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria." Far from being the leaders that God desires, leading with wisdom and prudence, they drink themselves silly at night and then in the morning look for the quick fix to get themselves out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves.
False religion
And the result is that the people, left without a guide, without the knowledge to show them how to live godly lives, how to worship God in truth, find their own ways of worshipping. But unfortunately that only leads them into false religion.
Look at 8:2. "2Israel cries to me, ’My God, we -- Israel -- know you!’ 3Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him. 4They made kings, but not through me; they set up princes, but without my knowledge. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction. 5Your calf is rejected, O Samaria. [My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?] 6For it is from Israel, an artisan made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces." You see, if you’ve lost the knowledge of God, if you’ve forgotten how God has said he wants to be worshipped, what do you do? Well, you do what all other religions do. You come up with something that feels spiritual. You create a god or gods to worship.
In the spiritual vacuum of the 70s, 80s and 90s what happened in western culture? People still had that God shaped hole inside them, but they’d rejected Christianity, so what did they do? They came up with an alternative. They rediscovered meditation. They sought out eastern gurus. They turned to new age religions. They bought crystals and Ouija boards. They explored Buddhism or Islam or Zoroastrianism or anything that promised to give them the religious experience they were longing for. But they never asked whether these were the way God wants his people to approach him. They never questioned whether perhaps these were simply human creations, akin to the golden calf that sat in the temple at Samaria. But this sort of counterfeit religion is something that God won’t tolerate. Just as Hosea wasn’t expected to tolerate his unfaithful wife’s behaviour, even though he loved her and did all he could to win her back, so too, God isn’t going to tolerate the unfaithfulness of this false religion. So he says "7they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
False Hope
The people thought they’d be all right if they kept up the outward appearance of worshipping God. But they were mistaken. This was a false hope. Look at 6:1. With these ironically prophetic words the people call one another to worship God again: "Come, let us return to the LORD; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. 2After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. 3Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth." If only they’d understood the reality of what they foretold, of Jesus Christ who would die and in three days rise again. But they were far from understanding the things of God and these cheery words were mere wind. It was a case of ’too little too late’.
God replies "4What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. 5Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. 6For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." The problem is that their false religion misses the point. Sacrifices are meaningless if they’re not accompanied by hearts that are aligned with God. He wants to see those three characteristics that we saw at the beginning: steadfast love and faithfulness; and a true knowledge of God. But they’ve lost those things. They’re nowhere to be found. And so he says in 5:6 "6With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the LORD, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them." It’s a chilling warning isn’t it? If we turn our backs on God he’ll withdraw from us. Again we need to think back to the controlling metaphor of this prophecy. If the adulterous wife refuses to change her ways even when the wronged husband pleads with her to return to him and be faithful again, what does he do? He gives her up. He closes the door on her. He withdraws his kindness and support from her. Now, that loses some of it’s punch in our world where a woman may even be better off materially without her husband, but in this context it leaves her in an unenviable position. And when God withdraws from us there is nothing left. Only an empty counterfeit.
The result will be that Israel will discover when they turn away from God to a foreign power for protection, that protection will lead to their destruction. "They sow the wind but shall reap the whirlwind."
These are grim verses aren’t they? Grim not just because of what they say about the history of Israel, but because they’re also warnings to us. We too live in an age when these temptations are rife. Faithfulness, loving kindness and knowledge of God are not things of value in our culture. Even in the church you can find them devalued. So it’s a warning first of all to those of us who teach, at whatever level, the things of God. Make sure you teach them well. But we live in the New Testament era when we’re all given the ability to understand and learn from God’s word. So it’s actually a warning to every one of us that we take seriously what God has to say about how he wants us to live, to worship him, to love him. Let’s make sure that these are the things that form the foundation for our lives: faithfulness to God, steadfast love towards God and towards our fellow Christians and a true knowledge of God, based on his revelation of himself in his word.
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