Prepare the Soil of Your Heart
Hosea • Sermon • Submitted
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Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
1 Israel was a spreading vine;
he brought forth fruit for himself.
As his fruit increased,
he built more altars;
as his land prospered,
he adorned his sacred stones.
2 Their heart is deceitful,
and now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will demolish their altars
and destroy their sacred stones.
3 Then they will say, “We have no king
because we did not revere the Lord.
But even if we had a king,
what could he do for us?”
4 They make many promises,
take false oaths
and make agreements;
therefore lawsuits spring up
like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.
5 The people who live in Samaria fear
for the calf-idol of Beth Aven.
Its people will mourn over it,
and so will its idolatrous priests,
those who had rejoiced over its splendor,
because it is taken from them into exile.
6 It will be carried to Assyria
as tribute for the great king.
Ephraim will be disgraced;
Israel will be ashamed of its wooden idols.
7 Samaria and its king will float away
like a twig on the surface of the waters.
8 The high places of wickedness will be destroyed—
it is the sin of Israel.
Thorns and thistles will grow up
and cover their altars.
Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
9 “Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel,
and there you have remained.
Did not war overtake
the evildoers in Gibeah?
10 When I please, I will punish them;
nations will be gathered against them
to put them in bonds for their double sin.
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
that loves to thresh;
so I will put a yoke
on her fair neck.
I will drive Ephraim,
Judah must plow,
and Jacob must break up the ground.
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes
and showers righteousness on you.
13 But you have planted wickedness,
you have reaped evil,
you have eaten the fruit of deception.
Because you have depended on your own strength
and on your many warriors,
14 the roar of battle will rise against your people,
so that all your fortresses will be devastated—
as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle,
when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.
15 Thus will it happen to you, O Bethel,
because your wickedness is great.
When that day dawns,
the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
Introduction
Introduction
As we consider this passage this evening, I want to just take us briefly through the verses of the passage, and draw out some of the important aspects relating to this text. Much of the thrust of Hosea’s message has been brought across. We are finding that Hosea continues with his call to Israel to live in a particular manner before God. He is also warning them that consequences are most certainly coming as a result of their sins.
As we consider this chapter today, I’m going to move fairly quickly through most of the verses. And then I’d like to spend some further time on verse 12 of our passage. This verse is a call to Israel within the context of their sin to engage in some serious work in the soil of their hearts. I think it’s always going to be applicable. It’s always going to be pertinent for us even as Christians. And even as we see chaos in the world, divisions among people, fractured relationships etc, we need to be about this work of preparing our hearts for God to work in us.
1. Blessing Leading to Apostasy (vv.1-2)
1. Blessing Leading to Apostasy (vv.1-2)
1 Israel was a spreading vine;
he brought forth fruit for himself.
As his fruit increased,
he built more altars;
as his land prospered,
he adorned his sacred stones.
This picture looks back to the picture of the vine that we found towards the end of Hosea 9.
When God had found Israel, they were as a fruitful - something delightful.
In this verse, God is describing Israel as a spreading vine.
They were thriving. They were being blessed by God. Promised land blessing!!
But the sad reality was… this led them further and further into unfaithfulness.
They thought they relied on God… but over time, the true nature of their hearts was being revealed.
They actually didn’t care for God, but rather for themselves...
They set up altars at Dan and Bethel.
They apostasized. Thus God sent Hoesa to preach to them.
As they prospered, the people slowly drifted more from God.
8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.
2 Their heart is deceitful,
and now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will demolish their altars
and destroy their sacred stones.
Their actions flowed out of the deceit of their own hearts.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
Judgment would come. The Lord would demolish and destroy the altars that they had put up.
This is the sad situation regarding the hearts of men.
If we consider the world around us… how deceived the world is.
Celebrating evil!! They celebrate themselves as champions of freedom, but they could not be more
America - liberals celebrating evil things… gender identity. Horrifying in one sense...
Must recognise that this is a picture of the deceived hearts of people.
And ultimately… what is happening in nations around the world is flowing out of people turnin away from the word / revelation of God.
2. Consequences flowing from Apostasy (vv.3-10)
2. Consequences flowing from Apostasy (vv.3-10)
What flows from this is God’s announcements of the consequences that would follow.
We have considered them in some detail through our study, so we’ll only touch on them now.
3 Then they will say, “We have no king
because we did not revere the Lord.
But even if we had a king,
what could he do for us?”
God is saying that the king that was ruling over them as a nation would be deposed.
There would be no more king to rule because the king himself would be taken over by more powerful kings.
This is a response… indicates despair on the part of the Israelites
Fulfilment - possibly 2 kings 15 29...
29 In the time of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria.
The fact is the time would come, and all too late Israel would become aware of their own sin through the punishment of God...
4 They make many promises,
take false oaths
and make agreements;
therefore lawsuits spring up
like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.
Their actions further lead to societal animosity and hatred...
Their society was being marked by false promises and oaths.
Trust was eroded.
Relationships were destroyed. People brought lawsuits against each other.
There was no fidelity… deceitfulness marked the people.
I would dare say.... sadly, the world at large is marked by so much of this.
Degradation of relationships… trust… all sorts of societal ills.
Caution!!!! The church must never become like this!!
Hosea then goes on to speak about the consequence in terms of a takeover from Assyria (vv.5-7)...
5 The people who live in Samaria fear
for the calf-idol of Beth Aven.
Its people will mourn over it,
and so will its idolatrous priests,
those who had rejoiced over its splendor,
because it is taken from them into exile.
6 It will be carried to Assyria
as tribute for the great king.
Ephraim will be disgraced;
Israel will be ashamed of its wooden idols.
7 Samaria and its king will float away
like a twig on the surface of the waters.
Fear for the Israelites… (vv.8)
8 The high places of wickedness will be destroyed—
it is the sin of Israel.
Thorns and thistles will grow up
and cover their altars.
Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
A Charge against Israel…
9 “Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel,
and there you have remained.
Did not war overtake
the evildoers in Gibeah?
10 When I please, I will punish them;
nations will be gathered against them
to put them in bonds for their double sin.
3. A Call to Sow Righteousness (vv.11-12)
3. A Call to Sow Righteousness (vv.11-12)
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
that loves to thresh;
so I will put a yoke
on her fair neck.
I will drive Ephraim,
Judah must plow,
and Jacob must break up the ground.
Previously, God used the picture of Israel as a heifer in a negative context (see Hosea 2:6, 4:16).
Now he turns the picture… will now use it to speak of the work that Israel must do in order to plough the fields of the heart in order to reap that which is beneficial.
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes
and showers righteousness on you.
God returns here to a picture of soil
He calls the people of Israel to prepare their hearts, to do that which would
Things within farming would appear to be based on the efforts of the farmer.
What would determine the success of the crops? The Lord will determine.
You can do all you like, but if God does not bless, then there will not be a harvest.
BUT!!!!
There is work to be done.
Certainly a farmer must do the work.
If we had to look at a farmer, the one that did not pull out the weeds, or plow the field for a crop planting etc, we would consider them highly negligent.
Hosea is calling the people of Israel to sow to themselves…
They are to reap fruit.
They are to break up the ground and prepare that ground for the seed of God.
This verse speaks as if it is completely dependent upon our efforts.
IT is necessary for us to seek the Lord!!!
Are we seeking God? Are we plowing the heart so that there may be a harvest coming from our hearts?
Note the order… Sow, Reap, Plow… Not normal order.
But the order is probably given for impact
We can do nothing without God… but we must do it… with the help of God.
There is a human responsibility!!
We had better be about the business of preparing our hearts.
1. Break up the Unplowed Ground
This is a call to the covenant people of God.
Couched in covenantal language. A sinner cannot sow in righteousness and reap in mercy. Impossible. We cannot do any of these things apart from the wonderful grace of God.
But here is a call for the covenant people of God to break up the soil of their hearts
What does it mean to break up the ground?
If there is a field, and the soil is very nutritious, but the farmer just throws the soil onto the ground, without preparing it… there would be no result. Failed to turn over the soil. Failed to prepare the soil first before planting.
Turning the soil allows the seed to take root, and to penetrate the hard surface.
Israel had taken that which God had given them, but they had mixed it with the things of the world. Israel had hearts that were exceedingly hard.
God reminds Israel that they must break up their fallow ground. Their hearts had become hard over the years. They had become idolatrous. They had engaged in activities that had caused them to
Fallow ground is that ground that is neglected or abandoned, unplanted.
Not only a concern for unbelievers...
Very often people can come to church week after week and be so little affected by the word of God?
Probably there is very little thought of God before coming to church.
Puritans… family worship… before they would gather together for worship, each member of the familiy would go to their own places, prayer closets, spend time by themselves preparing their hearts for family worship. Only then would they gather together, and family worship would proceed.
Why do we see so little fruit? Why do we see so little movement in our own lives, that we are not transformed as we would like?
Are we preparing our hearts? Are we humbling ourselves in prayer before we come to worship the Lord and hear from His word? Are our hearts prepared?
What is it that is keeping us busy so much of the time? What is it that drives our thinking, our lives. Are we moved to want to serve God and please him in our lives? Are we seeking the Lord? What is life for, if we are not seeking God diligently?
How much time do we take in preparing our hearts?
You do it. Stop making excuses. Stop thinking that things are more important. Stop saying that life is too busy. We cannot allow this!!
We need to do the work of humiliation. The truths of God in the law and the Gospel must get into our hearts.
They must rend up the weeds and the thorns and the briars. We must get rid of sin. Turned up by the root!!!
Gardening - always must turn out the plant at the root, otherwise it just grows back again.
Do I cherish sin in my life? Or am I about the work of uprooting that sin? Am I getting rid of that sin?
We need to get a softness in our hearts through praryer and seeking the Lord.
Bunyan… you can do more than pray, after you have prayed. But you cannot do more, until you have prayer (check quote).
Do you pray in your prayers.
14 They do not cry out to me from their hearts
but wail upon their beds.
They gather together for grain and new wine
but turn away from me.
2. Sow in righteousness (sow to your self seeds of righteousness)
After the soil is prepared, it doesn’t help to walk away, without planting seed.
Some people never grow to maturity, because they are not sowing in righteousness.
18 The wicked man earns deceptive wages,
but he who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
No one who is born of God continues in sin. Cannot be called a disciple if you continue to live in sin.
A righteous life is the evidence of salvation.
Do you have a deep desire to do the work of Christ?
Are you longing for righteousness?
Are you sowing in righteousness? Works done after justification are rewards based.
As we do good works, we store up treasures in heaven.
Is the law of God our meditation all the day? Do we delight to do the law after the inward man? The law is good if a man uses it lawfully.
This is done after conversion… but we must search the vileness of every sin, seeing that sin separates the soul from God.
Do you long for righteousness in your life? But more than that.... are you working for righteousness?
A man who will not sow, will not reap. We cannot long for a harvest, but we refuse to put the effort into our lives towards
“Sow for yourselves righteousness...”
This is applicable to all people. We are all called to sow for ourselves that which will come reap righteousness.
If we sow to the flesh, we will reap from the flesh.
If we sow to the spirit, we will reap from the spirit.
Recall, Hosea sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind. If we sow sin in our lives, it will always lead to reaping of consequences in light of the sins that we engage in.
3. Reaping in Mercy (reap the fruit of unfailing love)
This will begin with a love for God.
There is a fruit that will flow out of the diligent pursuit of God… and that is a deep love for God.
But further to this, the fruit is to be seen among the relationships...
With the same measure that .... it will be given
1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
When you show mercy, that which you have sown will be poured back on you.
We must see the God of mercy, and we must then be transformed by him in order to show mercy to others.
4. Waiting for the Harvest
“...for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you...”
The time is now… even until the end of this age, as we wait for the return of Christ.
How long must we keep up this pursuit of godliness? Our entire lives.
Have you seen little fruit in your life? Don’t let that be cause for you to give up.
Keep on pressing on in these things!
What a joy that we have faithful brothers and sisters around us who can participate with us
4. The Consequences for Sowing Sin
4. The Consequences for Sowing Sin
13 But you have planted wickedness,
you have reaped evil,
you have eaten the fruit of deception.
Because you have depended on your own strength
and on your many warriors,
14 the roar of battle will rise against your people,
so that all your fortresses will be devastated—
as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle,
when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.
15 Thus will it happen to you, O Bethel,
because your wickedness is great.
When that day dawns,
the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
Application / Conclusion
Application / Conclusion
The Church is so important - hugely important in the work that God does in this world.
You are a part of that church. My concern is not for the person who is weak in the