“Warning!!!”

Series: “God Speaks”

Text: Hosea 9:1-9

Introduction: (What?)

I’m always frustrated by those drivers that seemingly don’t believe the warning signs telling them that a lane is being closed ahead. They just blithely go their way, staying in the lane that will be closed until they have to force their way into traffic that has already merged. In the same way there are people who ignore the warnings of God, acting surprised when He delivers on His warning.

Examination: (Why?)

1. Why the punishment is coming (vv1-4)

Hosea 9:1-4 “Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do, for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God. You love the wages of a prostitute on every grain-threshing floor. Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them, and the new wine will fail them. They will not stay in the land of the Lord. Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria. They will not pour out their wine offerings to the Lord, and their sacrifices will not please him. Their food will be like the bread of mourners; all who eat it become defiled. For their bread will be for their appetites alone; it will not enter the house of the Lord.”

The reasons for the judgment of God upon Israel all stemmed from their idol worship. Their promiscuity was involvement with cult prostitutes in Baal worship. The threshing floor and the wine press were places of idol worship where these sexual sins took place under the guise of worship. Today many people worship at the altar of sexual pleasure either before marriage or adultery during marriage. We also worship at the altar of the almighty dollar, taking advantage of others in order to enrich ourselves. While we claim to be Christ followers, we actually follow the political party that will promise the most money for our pockets.

God’s warning to the Israelites was that they would once again go into bondage. This time it would be the Assyrians who would hold them captive (70 years in Babylon). While they continued to “worship” God, He would no longer accept their tainted sacrifices. Their “bread” would be tainted as if it had been in contact with a dead body (mourner’s bread). Therefore, it would not be acceptable as an offering to God.

2. The result of the punishment (vv5-8)

Hos 9:5-8 “What will you do on a festival day, on the day of the Lord’s feast? For even if they flee from devastation, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis (an ancient city of Egypt) will bury them. Thistles will take possession of their precious silver; thorns will invade their tents. The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come. Let Israel recognize it! The prophet is a fool, and the inspired man is insane, because of the magnitude of your iniquity and hostility. Ephraim’s watchman is with my God. Yet the prophet encounters a bird trap on all his pathways. Hostility is in the house of his God!”

Israel had been sinning more and enjoying it less. God’s prosperity disappeared and they found themselves in bondage to the Assyrians. They could not even keep the dietary laws they had grown up with because the Assyrians demanded they eat what was given them. Remember Daniel’s appeal to the keeper of the eunuchs (young Jewish men who had been castrated so that they could not marry or reproduce)? He asked that he and his friends be given “clean” foods rather than the unclean food of the kings. By God’s grace his request was granted and God blessed him, along with Shaddrack, Mesheck and Abednego.

Also they could not celebrate the festivals and feasts that God had ordained for Israel. God had warned them through the prophets, but Israel considered them to be fools and madmen. Today there are faithful pastors who preach the truth of God and warn of coming judgment unless America repents. The growing number of “nones” (those who have no religious background) sneer at them, make jokes about them and totally ignore their warnings. They even become hostile toward men and women of God whom God has appointed as watchmen for the nation.

In our day Believers have fallen prey to the idea that patriotism and Christianity are one and the same. This is very close to the sin of Israel. They banked on their claim to be the “people of God” to bring them God’s approval. However, God has never nor will never tolerate wanton sinful behavior. Love of country is fine until it supplants love for God. At that point we become enemies of God rather than His followers.

3. God remembers unconfessed sin (v9)

Hos 9:9 “They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. (read Judges 19-20)He will remember their iniquity; he will punish their sins.”

One very interesting thing about God is that He is the only being that can forget. When we confess our sins, He totally forgets them. Jer 31:34 “No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.” This is part of the New Covenant that God will make with Israel after they repent. In Isa 43:25 “I am the one, I sweep away your transgressions for my own sake and remember your sins no more.”

Heb 10:14-17 “For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says: This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, the Lord says, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds, and I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts.”

However, the passage we just read in Hosea tells us that “He will remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.” Although we may try to put our sins out of mind, God remembers every violation of His commands UNLESS OR UNTIL THEY ARE CONFESSED AND WE TURN AWAY FROM THEM TO HIM. You may get tired of my harping on the need for repentance, but it is for your good.

There are two times that repentance is needed. The first, and most important, is when you realize that you are separated from God because you have never surrendered to Jesus. To surrender to Jesus means that you believe that He is the Son of God whom God raised from the dead, and you confess Him as your LORD. Unless you repent of that unbelief, you will die in your sins and be forever separated from God. The second is anytime you violate the will of God AFTER you have surrendered to Jesus. Though you will not lose your salvation, you will have to give an answer to Jesus at His judgment seat for those unconfessed (and therefore unforgiven) sins. That is the reason that I encourage to often pray the prayer that the Psalmist prayed in Ps 139:23-24 “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.” While we may have conveniently forgotten our sins, God has not…until we confess them.

Application: (How should I apply this message to my life?)

Henry Blackaby noted in his book “The Solomon Promise” that we have forgotten “the fear of the LORD”. He pointed out just what Hosea said in this passage. The people of the Northern Kingdom were annihilated when God judged them. The people of Judah saw Jerusalem destroyed and were exiled to Babylon for 70 years. The Jews in Jesus’ day were scattered across the earth for 1900 years before they came together again as a nation in 1948. Finally he wrote, “We are closer to either revival or judgment than we have ever been. Either God’s people return to Him with all their hearts, or God will judge our nation.”

So what is YOUR choice; repentance or judgment?