Hosea 9&10 (2)
Notes
Transcript
Main Point:
Sowing sin reaps death
Sowing righteousness reaps steadfast love
Kids Time!
>> The Holy Spirit helps us be like Jesus!
Story of planting seeds in garden… Would you plant weeds in a garden on purpose??
If you want a good garden, what should we plant in it?
Galatians 6:7-9
What we’ve covered so far:
>> You Reap what you sow
>> Israel has sowed unfaithfulness, corruption, and idolatry… Hosea prophesies and warns God’s people that they will reap loss, death, and exile…
Finale of this imagery in Hosea is found in Hosea 10:12-15
Starting in Chapter 9, we’ll read about:
Judgement (Hosea 9-10:11)
Banishment to Assyria (Hosea 9)
Destruction of… (Hosea 10:1-11)
Exhortation (Hosea 10:12)
Reality (Hosea 10:13-15)
[Prayer]
Hosea 9–10 (ESV)
>> John MacArthur commentary, division of chapter 9 into 5 features of Israel’s banishment to the Assyrians (722 BC)…
>> Loss of Joy
9 Rejoice not, O Israel!
Exult not like the peoples;
for you have played the whore, forsaking your God.
You have loved a prostitute’s wages
on all threshing floors.
2 Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail them.
>> These verses describe the prostitution and immoral worship of the pagan god Baal. These practices were performed to earn Baal’s favor that he would provide for them… ironically, God calls it out and promises them they’ll be left wanting and without answer…
>> Exile
3 They shall not remain in the land of the Lord,
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
and their sacrifices shall not please him.
It shall be like mourners’ bread to them;
all who eat of it shall be defiled;
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
5 What will you do on the day of the appointed festival,
and on the day of the feast of the Lord?
6 For behold, they are going away from destruction;
but Egypt shall gather them;
Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;
thorns shall be in their tents.
>> “Nettles” = Thorns, by the way...
>> The Lord is severe against evil. He does not provide for it. They sow unfaithfulness, forsaking the Lord, pressing in to their evil neighbors, they will reap what they've sown. Where they have abandoned the Lord and pursued their "lovers", their false gods and allegiance to the pagan Assyrian neighbors, they will become closer with them than they could have ever dreamed... in exile and oppression from them.
>> loss of spiritual discernment
7 The days of punishment have come;
the days of recompense have come;
Israel shall know it.
The prophet is a fool;
the man of the spirit is mad,
because of your great iniquity
and great hatred.
8 The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God;
yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,
and hatred in the house of his God.
>> These verses show us Israel's treatment and heart posture toward the prophets. Remember, the prophets served as the spokesman of God, delivering messages to God's people to warn, exhort, and ultimately save them... And the people of Israel treated them as fools. "The days of punishment have come"... and the watchmen of the gates, the one who saw the danger from afar and called down to this city his warnings... is ignored.
>> How bad is it though? What is the condition of the people, that they should deserve such a severe punishment from God? Is God being severe against evil? We’ll see this in our next subsection…
>> Declining birth rate
>> Or… “Unfruitfulness” (Ephraim is Fruitful)
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah:
>> Verse 9 mentions Gibeah... Verse 10 mentions Baal-peor... In John MacArthur's commentary on Hosea, he summarizes these dark moments in Israel’s history:
>> "Israel's sin is likened to the gross evil of the men of Gibeah, a reference to their heinous rape of the concubine (Judg. 19:22), an infamous and unforgettable crime (cf. Judg. 19:30)."
>> Hosea's charge against God's people is that they "became detestable like the thing they loved". What do you behold as precious to you, you defend it when it’s threatened, you look to it for comfort… I promise you, the thing you behold is the thing you will become... so, what do you behold?
he will remember their iniquity;
he will punish their sins.
10 Like grapes in the wilderness,
I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree
in its first season,
I saw your fathers.
But they came to Baal-peor
and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
>> “Prior to entering the Promised Land, Israel fell into the idolatrous worship of Baal at Baal Peor (Num. 25.3-18). God killed 24,000 because of their immorality and false worship (Num. 25.9).”
11 Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
12 Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them till none is left.
Woe to them
when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow;
but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.
14 Give them, O Lord—
what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.
15 Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their princes are rebels.
16 Ephraim is stricken;
their root is dried up;
they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
I will put their beloved children to death.
>> “Ephraim” is a name that means “Fruitful”...
>> When we sow separation from God, when we wish that God would just “leave us alone!”… This is an evil thing! The prophet Isaiah says,
Isaiah 59:1–2 “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
>> It is their iniquities that have caused this separation. And what blessing, or benediction, do churches throughout history make to the people?
Numbers 6:24–26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
>> Their separation, their iniquity, their evil against God would separate them from fruitfulness, blessing and glory in child rearing… and their punishment will make them wish that they couldn’t bear children at all, as we saw in verse 14!
>> We end these severe punishments with verse 17,
>> Abandonment by God
17 My God will reject them
because they have not listened to him;
they shall be wanderers among the nations.
>> Notice Hosea say, “my God will reject them…” there is no ownership there between God and His people…
>> God is severe against evil in that He rejects foolishness… to not listen to God, to pursue idols and evil vein things, is to pursue rejection from God and to reap being lost among the other lost people… “the nations”.
————————————-
>> Destruction of Order
10 Israel is a luxuriant vine
that yields its fruit.
The more his fruit increased,
the more altars he built;
as his country improved,
he improved his pillars.
2 Their heart is false;
now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars
and destroy their pillars.
3 For now they will say:
“We have no king,
for we do not fear the Lord;
and a king—what could he do for us?”
4 They utter mere words;
with empty oaths they make covenants;
so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds
in the furrows of the field.
>> I have wild vines growing in my garden and in the back of my property. When I was first growing plants, I saw them and was like, “Sweet! I guess I do have a green thumb!”. But what I quickly learned was that these weeds were not only very fruitful in their production of more weeds… but super hard to get rid of!
>> God admits their fruitfulness… fruitfulness to produce more alters and more pillars for false worship. Their successes have led them to be anarchists around their leadership. MacArthur notes, “the Last Five kings of Israel were usurpers” (one who seizes power or an office by force or without right). God sees these weeds and has his own Round Up to deliver. He’ll tear down and destroy their altars and pillars of idolatry, meet empty devotion with judgement.
>> Continuing in verse 5, we see their bent hearts toward idolatry,
>> Destruction of Idolatry
5 The inhabitants of Samaria tremble
>> tremble = “Will have anxiety over”
for the calf of Beth-aven.
Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests—
those who rejoiced over it and over its glory—
for it has departed from them.
6 The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria
as tribute to the great king.
Ephraim shall be put to shame,
and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol.
7 Samaria’s king shall perish
like a twig on the face of the waters.
8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,
shall be destroyed.
Thorn and thistle shall grow up
on their altars,
and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,”
and to the hills, “Fall on us.”
>> The image of “hiding in the hills” at the coming of God’s wrath/day of judgement. Why do they run? Their evil is exposed, they can’t withstand the righteousness of He who come to judge the living and the dead…
>> Reminds me of Revelation 18, when the people of the earth mourn the destruction of Babylon… this image of the kings, the merchants, the workers, mourning over this great and evil city of destruction. “Alas! Alas!” they cry as it’s destroyed. Their city of productivity, of sensuality, of excess wealth… and the blood of the saints who’d been slain within…
>> We’ve said this before, but, you can identify someone’s idol very quickly… when it’s taken away…
>> Destruction of liberties
9 From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel;
there they have continued.
Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah?
10 When I please, I will discipline them,
and nations shall be gathered against them
when they are bound up for their double iniquity.
11 Ephraim was a trained calf
that loved to thresh,
and I spared her fair neck;
but I will put Ephraim to the yoke;
Judah must plow;
Jacob must harrow for himself.
>> No longer will the Lord be long suffering with Israel.
>> As a parent, I know the importance of long suffering with my kids. I allow them freedoms, give them extra time to do something themself rather than hovering… but when it comes to their disobedience or sin, I try to jump on that and jump on it hard. And here, God is saying, “I’ve been long suffering… and the day for discipline has come”.
>> Exhortation
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground,
for it is the time to seek the Lord,
that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.
>> This has followed the same theme of Hosea since the beginning: That the Lord desires steadfast love, that He is the source of righteousness and goodness and true flourishing that our souls need. And He reminds us that our righteousness, the righteousness of our hearts, will reap steadfast love. That our seeking Him is our source of salvation. Even in our disobedience! And He is so gracious, to “rain righteousness” upon us. (Not prosperity gospel...)
>> But that’s not the reality we see from Israel. We end with our final section:
>> Reality
13 You have plowed iniquity;
you have reaped injustice;
you have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your own way
and in the multitude of your warriors,
>> Therefore…
14 therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people,
and all your fortresses shall be destroyed,
as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle;
mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.
15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel,
because of your great evil.
At dawn the king of Israel
shall be utterly cut off.
>> Our reality is, that we live in a broken world. Usually when we say that, we’re looking outside ourselves at everyone else… when in reality, the brokenness of our world is a result of the combination of demonic, evil forces waging an unseen war around us… and our own bent and sinful natures. The Bible calls this our “flesh”.
>> Paul writes about this in Galatians chapter 5:
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Worship team come up...
>> Paul reminds us that the way toward life, the way of the sent and present Holy Spirit, is found in putting to death the ways of the flesh, and pressing in to the Spirit. Is this easy? Let me ask this: have you ever prayed for patience?… “if you pray for patience, God will give you something to be patient about!”
>> No it’s not easy, but we must be a people who do not grow weary of doing good:
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
