Untitled Sermon

The Lord's Relentless Judgment on Israel

When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He exalted himself in Israel, But through Baal he did wrong and died.

And now they sin more and more, And make for themselves molten images, Idols skillfully made from their silver, All of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, "Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!"

Therefore they will be like the morning cloud And like dew which soon disappears, Like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor And like smoke from a chimney.

Yet I have been the LORD your God Since the land of Egypt; And you were not to know any god except Me, For there is no savior besides Me.

I cared for you in the wilderness, In the land of drought.

As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, And being satisfied, their heart became proud; Therefore they forgot Me.

So I will be like a lion to them; Like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside.

I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, And I will tear open their chests; There I will also devour them like a lioness, As a wild beast would tear them.

It is your destruction, O Israel, That you are against Me, against your help.

Where now is your king That he may save you in all your cities, And your judges of whom you requested, "Give me a king and princes"?

I gave you a king in My anger And took him away in My wrath.

The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; His sin is stored up.

The pains of childbirth come upon him; He is not a wise son, For it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.

Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.

Though he flourishes among the reeds, An east wind will come, The wind of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; And his fountain will become dry And his spring will be dried up; It will plunder his treasury of every precious article.

Samaria will be held guilty, For she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, Their little ones will be dashed in pieces, And their pregnant women will be ripped open.

“I WILL BE YOUR KING”

A. Two pictures of judgment.

1. (Hos_13:1-3) Sinful Israel will be scattered like the morning clouds.

When Ephraim spoke, trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended through Baal worship, he died. Now they sin more and more, and have made for themselves molded images, idols of their silver, according to their skill; all of it is the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!” Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud and like the early dew that passes away, like chaff blown off from a threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.

a. Now they sin more and more: God never blessed Israel when they worshipped Baal, but that didn’t stop them. They kept after their idolatry more and more.

b. The men who sacrifice may instead have the idea of engaging in human sacrifice, and could be translated “the sacrificers of men.” In ancient Israel human sacrifice was almost always child-sacrifice. Hosea has already spoken of this horrible practice in Hos_9:13 and perhaps in Hos_5:2.

i. “Viewed together, the sin is a total perversion of values. A craftsman’s work is elevated to divine status; human beings sacrifice their offspring to a metal object from whose lifeless form they also beg help; persons embrace with adulation the images of the very animals that they use for ploughing, threshing and hauling.” (Hubbard)

c. Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud and like the early dew that passes: Because Israel trusted in themselves and in idols, they could not stand. They would pass like the early dew.

Like the Morning Mist

Life Is Brief. Gregory of Nazianzus: Such, brethren, is our life, we whose existence is so transitory. Such is the game we play upon earth. We do not exist, and then we are born, and being born we are soon dissolved. We are a fleeting dream, [Job_20:8.] an apparition without substance, the flight of a bird that passes, a ship that leaves no trace upon the sea. [Wis_5:10-11.] We are dust, a vapor, the morning dew, a flower growing but a moment and withering in a moment. “Man’s days are as grass: as the flower of the field, so shall he flourish.” [Psa_103:15 (102:15 LXX).] How beautifully has holy David meditated on our weakness: “Declare unto me the fewness of my days.” [Psa_90:12 (89:12 LXX).] On His Brother St. Caesarius, Oration 7.19. [FC 22:19*]

2. (Hos_13:4-8) Sinful Israel will be torn apart as if by a lion.

“Yet I am the LORD your God ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but Me; for there is no Savior besides Me. I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. When they had pasture, they were filled; they were filled and their heart was exalted; therefore they forgot Me. So I will be to them like a lion; like a leopard by the road I will lurk; I will meet them like a bear deprived of her cubs; I will tear open their rib cage, and there I will devour them like a lion. The wild beast shall tear them.”

a. Yet I am the LORD your God ever since the land of Egypt: Israel changed, but the LORD God did not. He is still the only God and the only Savior, and His people will be left desolate when they leave Him.

b. They were filled and their heart was exalted; therefore they forgot Me: It is a strange and terrible aspect of human nature that when times are good, we often forget the God who blessed us. When times are bad we are often more likely to turn our hearts back to God.

i. At the end of the 20th Century, Americans were in a season of unprecedented prosperity. Yet statistics show that in the 1990s churchgoers gave a smallest percentage of their income in contributions since the Great Depression. Sadly, often when we are filled, then we find our hearts exalted, and soon we forget God.

c. So I will be to them like a lion: When we neglect and affront God as He blesses, we then will often face the chastening hand of God. It isn’t because God hates us, but because we have demonstrated that we will only turn to Him when times are bad.

i. “The three mentioned - lion, leopard, and bear - were all native to Palestine and known for their relentless manner of killing prey.” (Wood)

B. God, the only hope of Israel.

No Other God

God Alone Is Creator. Hilary of Poitiers: All things have been created by the Lord Christ, and therefore the proper name for him is that he is a creator. The nature and title of what he himself produced is unsuitable for him. Our witness is Melchizedek, who proclaims God as the Creator of heaven and earth in the following words: “Blessed be Abraham by the most high God, who created heaven and earth.” [Gen_14:1.] Hosea the prophet is also a witness when he says, “I am the Lord your God who strengthened the heavens and created the earth, whose hands created all the hosts of heaven.” Peter also is a witness, who writes as follows: “Commending your souls as to a faithful creator.” [1Pe_4:19.] Why do we attribute the name of the work to the maker? Why do we give God the same name as our own? He is our Creator, the Creator of the whole heavenly array. On the Trinity 12.4. [FC 25:503.]

Devouring Like a Lion

The Suffering Lamb and the Victorious Lion. Augustine: In fulfillment of holy Writ, the truth has resounded through the voice of the apostles, for the psalmist has sung, “Their voice has gone forth unto all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” [Psa_19:4 (18:5 LXX); Rom_10:18.] So also “Christ our Passover is sacrificed,” [1Co_5:7.] for of him the prophet had foretold: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and he was mute as a lamb before its shearer, and he opened not his mouth.” [Isa_53:7.] Who is this man? He is the man of whom the prophet at once goes on to say, “In humility his judgment was taken away; who shall declare his generation?” [Isa_53:8.] I recognize the realization of so much humility in a king of so much power, for he who is as a lamb that opens not its mouth before its shearer is also “the lion of the tribe of Judah.” [Rev_5:5.] Who is this lamb and lion? He suffered death like a lamb, and he has devoured like a lion. Who is this lamb and lion? Meek yet courageous; lovable yet fearsome; innocent yet powerful; silent under judgment, yet roaring to pronounce judgment. Who is this lamb and lion—suffering like a lamb; rising up like a lion? Rather, is he not at the same time a lamb and lion in his suffering and his resurrection? Let us discern the lamb in the suffering. “He was,” as we have just reminded you, “mute as a lamb before its shearer, and he opened not his mouth.” Let us discern the lion in the suffering. Sermon 4. [FC 11:307-8.]

1. (Hos_13:9-11) The rejected King and the imposed king.

“O Israel, you are destroyed, but your help is from Me. I will be your King; where is any other, that he may save you in all your cities? And your judges to whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? I gave you a king in My anger, and took him away in My wrath.”

a. You are destroyed, but your help is from Me: Even when Israel feels the sting of God’s chastening hand, they can still find help from the LORD, if they will only turn to Him.

b. I will be your King . . . I gave you a king in My anger, and took him away in My wrath: God wanted to be recognized as the King of Israel, no matter which man sat on the royal throne. When they rejected the LORD as King, He gave them the kind of kings their hearts wanted and deserved, and then even took those kings as further judgment.

Kings Given and Taken

Even the Elect May Be Under the Temporal Power of a Reprobate. Gregory the Great: But let no one who suffers such a ruler blame him who he suffers. His being subject to the power of a wicked ruler was no doubt of his own deserving. Let him, therefore, rather blame the fault of his own evil doings rather than the injustice of his ruler. For it is written, “I gave you a king in my anger.” Why, then, do we scorn their being set over us, whose authority over us we endure from the anger of the Lord? If we receive rulers according to our deserving, from the wrath of God, we infer from their conduct how we really think in our estimate of ourselves. However, even the elect are frequently placed under the reprobate. Therefore David also for a long time endured Saul. But it is proved by a subsequent sin of adultery that he then deserved to be heavily oppressed by the cruelty of the one who was set over him. Morals on the Book of Job 5.25.34. [LF 23:125.]

The Irony of Saul’s Punishment. Augustine: Praise wicked King Saul, because he also was a punishment for sinners, as the Lord says: “I gave you a king in my wrath.” Praise the demon that king suffered, because it also was punishment for a sinner. [1Sa_16:14.] Praise the blindness of heart that has befallen Israel, and do not be silent about why it is said, “Until the full number of the Gentiles should enter,” [Rom_11:25.] although you will perhaps deny this is a punishment. If you were a lover of the inner light, you would cry out that it is not merely a punishment but a very great punishment. Against Julian 3.8. [FC 35:248-49.]

2. (Hos_13:12-16) The sorrowful judgment of Ephraim and her children.

“The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up. The sorrows of a woman in childbirth shall come upon him. He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long where children are born. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Pity is hidden from My eyes. Though he is fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come; the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness. Then his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up. He shall plunder the treasury of every desirable prize. Samaria is held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword, their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child ripped open.”

a. The sorrows of a woman in childbirth shall come upon him: Labor pains often come unexpectedly, are intense, and increase in their pain and duration. In the same way, judgment will come upon Israel.

b. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: The sin and judgment of Israel is great, but not greater than God’s ability and power to redeem. He can even redeem . . . from death, so that death and the grave are mocked as defeated foes.

i. Paul quoted the Septuagint translation of Hos_13:14 in describing our triumph over death in our sharing in the resurrection of Jesus: O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? (1Co_15:55)

c. Samaria is held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God: In the long term, Israel will see the glory of God’s redemption and His power over sin and death. In the near term, Israel will be chastened for their rebellion against God.

Death’s Plagues

Resurrection. Ambrose: No one could have known wisdom, because “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” [Mat_11:27.] Therefore he revealed him to John, since wisdom was with the apostle, and so he spoke not his own thought but that which wisdom poured into him: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” [Joh_1:1.] Death indeed could not hold it, for wisdom said, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” [Cf. 1Co_15:55.] The Prayer of Job and David 1.9.31. [FC 65:350.]

Lust and Death Overcome. Augustine: What is it the chaste person would like? That no lust at all should stir in the members against chastity. [The chaste person] wants peace but hasn’t yet got it. I mean, when we get to the stage where no lusts at all rise up to be opposed, there won’t be any more enemy for us to wrestle with; nor is there in that state any expectation of victory, because the triumph is being celebrated over the enemy already conquered. Listen to the apostle telling you about that victory: “The perishable must put on imperishability, and the mortal put on immortality; then will come about the saying that is written: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ” [Isa_25:8.] Now listen to the song of triumph: “Where, O death, is your striving? Where, O death, is your sting?” [Cf. 1Co_15:55.] You have stabbed, you have wounded, you have knocked down; but the one who made me was wounded for me. O death, death! The one who made me was wounded for me, and by his death he conquered you. And that’s when those who triumph over you are going to say, “Where, O death, is your striving? Where, O death, is your sting?” Sermon 128. [WSA 3 4:298.]

Life Vain Without Christ. Braulio of Saragossa: In spite of these words, we are so deeply affected that we fall into tears and the longing of desire crushes the beliefs of the mind. How miserable is the human lot! How vain is all our life without Christ! O death, that separates those who were joined, cruel and harsh in forcing apart those who were tied by friendship! Now, now your strength is destroyed. Now is that wicked yoke of yours broken by him who sternly threatened you in the words of Hosea: “O death, I will be your bite!” So let us with the apostle voice our taunt: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” [1Co_15:55.] He who conquered you has redeemed us—he who betrayed his beloved soul into the hands of the wicked, that those who were once wicked he might make his beloved. Letter 19. [FC 63:48.]

Death Conquered for Those Who Believe. Gregory the Great: By this solemnity the elect who, protected though they were in undisturbed rest, were yet being held within the bounds of the lower world, have been brought back to the pleasant places of paradise. By his resurrection the Lord fulfilled what he said before his passion, “If I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all things to myself.” [Joh_12:32.] He who left none of his elect in the lower world did indeed draw all things to himself. He took from them all the predestinate. The Lord by his rising did not restore to pardon any unbelievers or those whose wickedness had caused them to be given over to eternal punishment; he snatched away from the confines of the lower world those whom he recognized as his own as a result of their faith and deeds. Hence he says truly by the mouth of Hosea: “O death, I will be your death; O lower world, I will be your bite.” What we slay we cause almost to pass out of existence, but we take some from what we bite and leave the rest. Because he completely conquered death in his elect, he became death for death; but because he took away a portion of the lower world and left part of it, he did not completely slay it but took a bite from it. Therefore he said, “O death, I will be your death,” as if to say, because I am completely destroying you in my elect, “I will be your death; O lower world, I will be your bite,” because by taking some away I am partially piercing through you. Forty Gospel Homilies 14. [CS 123:168-69*.]

Christ the Brazen Serpent. Gregory of Nazianzus: But that brazen serpent [Num_21:9.] was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpents, not as a type of him that suffered for us but as a contrast. And [the brazen serpent] saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live but because it was killed, and killed with it were the powers that were subject to it, being destroyed as it deserved. And what is the fitting epitaph for it from us? “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” You are overthrown by the cross; you are slain by him who is the giver of life; you are without breath, dead, without motion, even though you keep the form of a serpent lifted up on a pole. On Holy Easter, Oration 45.22. [NPNF 2 7:431.]

New Bodies Promised. Paulus Orosius: Thus, if the glory of incorruptibility has been hidden from all people in this time, how do you, in this very same age, boast that you are able to be clothed with that very same incorruptibility? For just as sinking into sin has become for humans the beginning of corruption, so not having sin will be the beginning of incorruption. Who, therefore, concealed this prior to the judgment of God or removed it from the bosom of Christ and handed it over to you? Or do you perhaps think that a person would not merit this in the future from the hand of the Lord? That most distinguished man, Paul, teaches this and says, “But when this mortal thing has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying which is written, ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?’ Now the sting of death is sin.” [1Co_15:54-56; Isa_25:8.] Through this the apostle shows that by no means can anyone so scoff at death and sin, until immortality follows mortality, and incorruption, corruption, and when, with the destruction of weakness, perfect virtue succeeds it; when there will not be male and female, but when all will be similar to the angels of God. Defense Against the Pelagians 32. [FC 99:165.]

The Wind of the Lord

Persecution Predicted. Hippolytus: Wherefore let us direct our discourse to a second witness. And of what sort is this one? Listen to Hosea, as he speaks thus grandly: “In those days the Lord shall bring on a burning wind from the desert against them, and shall make their veins dry, and shall make their springs desolate; and all their goodly vessels shall be spoiled. Because they rose up against God, they shall fall by the sword, and their pregnant women shall be ripped up.” And what else is this burning wind from the east than the antichrist that is to destroy and dry up the veins of the waters and the fruits of the trees in his times, because people set their hearts on his works? For which reason they shall serve him in his pollution. On the End of the World 4. [ANF 5:243 (spurious).]