When God Steps Back

Hosea 5

Good evening Church.

Grab your Bibles and make your way to Hosea 5.

Well, Church, I’ve gotta say — I love Baptist business meetings. Nothing quite says “we’re family” like voting on carpet colors and church chairs. I mean, you know revival’s close when the whole room is united on that!

We’ve talked budgets, approved new flooring, and even voted to move forward with a Student Minister position — praise God for that.

Thats hughe. That’s not just numbers and logistics; that’s vision. That’s saying, “We believe the next generation matters.” And in my humble yet accurate opinion the next generation is always the most important generation in the life of the church. Because a church is never but one generation awau from extinction.

Now, after a night like that, it’d be easy to think we’re doing pretty good as a church.

We’re organized, unified, financially stable- and we are growing as a congregation — all signs of health, right?

But as we are about to see in Hosea chapter 5, its not about the external. Its about the internal.

God kind of leans in and says, “I see your meetings. I see your motions. But I also see your hearts.”

See, Israel had all the externals in place. They were still bringing their sacrifices. They still gathered for worship. On the outside, everything looked right — but on the inside, their hearts were far from God. They wanted the appearance of faithfulness without the surrender of repentance.

And in Hosea 5, God calls them out. It’s as if He says, “You’ve budgeted for everything but Me.”

That’s what we’re gonna talk about tonight — how God, in His grace, confronts His people when they’ve gotten too comfortable with pretending. Because He doesn’t expose us to embarrass us — He exposes us to heal us.

So as we walk through Hosea 5, let’s ask the Lord to do for us what He did for Israel — not just balance the books, but examine the heart.

So lets go ahead and read all of Hosea 5 and quickly unpack what God has in store for us this evening.

Hosea 5 “Hear this, O priests! Pay attention, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor. And the revolters have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore; Israel is defiled. Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord. The pride of Israel testifies to his face; Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt; Judah also shall stumble with them. With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them. They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord; for they have borne alien children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields. Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth-aven; we follow you, O Benjamin! Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment; among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure. The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water. Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth. But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah. When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.”

Sinful Leaders Harm Everyone Hosea 4:4–6; 5:1, 10

By the time we get to Hosea 5, God’s courtroom is open, and the defendants are the priests, the princes, and the king himself. He’s calling out the very people who were supposed to represent Him to the nation and lead His people in righteousness — and instead, they’ve led Israel straight into sin.

The priests were guilty of spiritual negligence. They’d stopped teaching the Word of God. Their calling was to know the law, live the law, and teach the law — but instead, they’d “rejected knowledge” and “forgotten the law” (4:6). They traded revelation for ritual. They showed up to perform religious duties, but their hearts were hollow. They were supposed to bring people to repentance, but instead they made people comfortable in rebellion.

The princes were guilty of moral compromise. Instead of confronting sin, they condoned it. Verse 10 says the princes of Judah “moved the landmark.” That’s not just talking about property lines — it’s a metaphor for shifting moral boundaries. They were moving the lines God had drawn, blurring the difference between right and wrong, holy and unholy. In modern terms, they were saying, “Times have changed. We can’t hold people to that old standard anymore.” But when leaders move God’s lines, people lose God’s truth.

And the king — he was guilty of political idolatry. Rather than trusting God to protect the nation, he tried to make alliances with pagan nations. He put his hope in strategy instead of surrender. It was leadership without lordship — running the nation without bowing the knee.

The spiritual leaders of Israel had gone off the rails, and their sin was spilling over onto the people they were supposed to shepherd.

That’s how it always works. When leaders drift from God, the people they lead eventually feel the fallout. God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” He’s not talking about general ignorance—He’s talking about a generation that’s grown blind to His Word.

And why didn’t they know it? Because their priests — the ones called to teach it — had stopped listening to it themselves. God says, “You’ve rejected knowledge” and “You’ve forgotten the law of your God.” The shepherds had lost sight of the truth, and as a result, the sheep wandered into destruction.

When leaders stop loving and living the Word, the whole house suffers. That’s true in Israel, and it’s true today — in churches, in homes, and in every place where God calls someone to lead.

Church, this is why leadership matters so much — not just from the pulpit, but in every corner of the church. When leaders walk closely with God, the people under their care flourish. But when leaders drift, others stumble in the wake.

That’s why what we voted on tonight — a budget, new carpet, new chairs, and a Student Minister position — isn’t just about upgrades and staff additions. It’s about stewardship.

Every decision we make says something about what we value and who we’re following. We don’t just want to fill positions; we want to raise up people who love God’s Word, live by it, and lead others toward it.

Because one thing’s for sure — the spiritual health of a church will never rise higher than the spiritual health of its leaders.

Now, if you stop reading at verse 10, it sounds like God’s just angry — like He’s fed up and ready to wipe His hands of Israel. But that’s not what’s happening. Yes, He’s confronting sin, but not to destroy His people — to deliver them.

God never exposes sin just to embarrass; He exposes it to heal. Just like a good doctor can’t treat what he won’t diagnose, God loves His people too much to let them stay sick in secret. Hosea 5 is tough, but it’s not cruel. It’s grace wrapped in confrontation.

So as we move forward in the passage, we’re going to see that the same God who judges sin also longs to restore sinners. He wounds so He can heal. He disciplines so He can draw us back. Because at the heart of all of God’s correction is the same heartbeat that sent His Son to the cross — a love that refuses to give up on His people.

God Punishes Sin Hosea 4:9–10; 5:6, 10, 12, 14–15

One thing the Bible never sugarcoats is this: God takes sin seriously. His wrath isn’t unpredictable or unfair — it’s righteous and consistent. From Genesis to Revelation, God has made it clear that sin always leads to judgment. Hosea reminds Israel of that in no uncertain terms.

In chapter 4, God says, “I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.” (v. 9). The priests and the people alike would experience the consequences of their rebellion. They thought they could sin and still prosper, but God says in verse 10, “They shall eat, but not be satisfied.” In other words, “You can chase pleasure, but you’ll never find fulfillment apart from Me.”

By chapter 5, the imagery gets even stronger. God says He’s going to be like a moth to Israel — like rot eating away at a house from the inside (v. 12). That’s a slow judgment. Quiet. Hidden. The kind that happens over time. Sometimes God’s judgment doesn’t crash down like lightning — it seeps in like decay. A marriage starts to crumble, a nation starts to drift, a heart grows cold — not overnight, but little by little, as sin corrodes what once was strong.

But eventually, the quiet rot gives way to roaring wrath. In verse 14, God says, “I will be like a lion to Ephraim.” That’s not gentle language. That’s judgment that tears and devours — and that’s exactly what happened when the Assyrians invaded.

The message is unmistakable: God punishes sin. He told us from the very beginning that sin leads to death — and that truth hasn’t changed.

AW Tozer once Said “God is holy; and because He is holy, He is actively hostile toward sin. He must be. God can only burn on and burn on and burn on against sin forever. Never let any spiritual experience or any interpretation of Scripture lessen your hatred for sin.”

God’s standards don’t shift with culture or convenience. He’s holy, and holiness means He can’t ignore sin.

But even here — even in the middle of all this judgment — grace breaks through. Look at verse 15: “I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face; in their distress they will earnestly seek me.” That’s not a threat — that’s an invitation. God says, “I’ll step back until you realize what you’ve lost… and when you seek Me, you’ll find Me.”

See, even when God disciplines, He’s still a Father. He doesn’t punish to destroy — He punishes to restore. His goal isn’t payback; it’s repentance. He wounds so He can heal.

So here’s the tension Hosea shows us: God’s judgment is real, but so is His mercy. Sin brings pain, but repentance brings presence. And the same God who roared like a lion in judgment would one day send the Lion of Judah to bear that judgment on our behalf — at the cross.

So if Hosea has made anything clear so far, it’s this: God doesn’t play games with sin. His holiness demands justice, and His justice demands a response.

But here’s what makes the gospel so stunning — the same God who pours out judgment also provides a way of escape. In verse 10, He says, “I will pour out my fury on them like water.” That’s a terrifying image — a flood of divine wrath breaking loose. Yet it’s in that same image that we see the beauty of the cross. Because one day, that flood of wrath didn’t fall on us…it fell on Jesus.

God always punishes sin. He has to—because He’s holy. But here’s the good news of the gospel: the same God who pours out wrath has also provided a way of escape. At the cross, God’s righteous anger against sin was unleashed—not on us, but on Jesus. Christ stood in our place as our substitute, our sacrifice, our Savior.

We deserved the flood. We were standing in the valley when the dam of God’s wrath broke wide open. Imagine a reservoir ten thousand miles wide and ten thousand miles deep, held back since the beginning of time—and the moment it bursts, that whole ocean of judgment rushes toward us. But before it hits, an enormous pit opens in the earth and swallows every drop. That pit is the cross. Jesus absorbed the full flood of God’s wrath so we could receive the full flood of His grace.

That’s the gospel. Wrath and love met at Calvary. Justice and mercy collided—and mercy won. Praise God for His outrageous, undeserved grace! Because of Jesus, sinners like us can be forgiven, reconciled, and restored.

But now that we’ve been rescued, the question becomes: how do we live differently? How do we avoid sin, live pure lives, and keep growing in Christlikeness? Hosea’s warning still applies—we don’t play around with sin; we run from it.

When a hurricane’s coming, you don’t stand on the beach and hope for the best—you evacuate. You take the warning seriously. Paul said it the same way:

“Flee youthful passions.” (2 Tim 2:22)

“Flee from these things and pursue righteousness.” (1 Tim 6:10-11)

“Flee from idolatry.” (1 Cor 10:14)

“Flee sexual immorality!” (1 Cor 6:18)

Flee. Get out of the blast zone. You can’t flirt with sin and expect holiness to follow.

And while we’re running from sin, we’re also running to God. Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors… and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matt 6:12-13). God gives us pardon for past sin and power over present sin.

So every day, we turn to Him—thanking Him for grace, asking for strength, and choosing to love Him more than we love our sin. Because people who’ve been saved from the flood don’t play in the puddles.

Hosea doesn’t end with despair — it ends with an invitation. God says, “In their distress they will earnestly seek Me.” That’s His heart. Even when He disciplines His people, His goal is not destruction but restoration.

Israel’s story is a mirror for us. God still exposes sin so He can heal His people. He still tears down idols so He can rebuild hearts. And the same God who confronted Israel’s leaders and called His nation to repentance is still calling His church to return.

Cedar Bay, this is where revival begins — not with a new budget, or fresh carpet, or even new staff positions — as thankful as we are for all of those things. Real renewal starts when God’s people get honest before Him. When we stop managing our sin and start confessing it. When we say, “Lord, search me, cleanse me, and make me new.”

We’ve seen what happens when leaders drift and when sin decays from the inside out — but we’ve also seen the grace of a God who runs toward the repentant. The cross proves it. The wrath that should have drowned us fell on Jesus, and now grace flows freely to anyone who will come.

So tonight, before we leave, let’s do what Hosea called Israel to do: seek His face. Let’s ask God to make our hearts clean, our church holy, and our mission unstoppable. Because when God’s people return to Him, He always brings new life.

Sin brings pain, but repentance brings presence. And when the Lion of Judah roars in your heart — it’s not to devour you, but to deliver you.