Faithful God (Part Eleven): Reaping the Whirlwind

Transcript

JROT 11
2/19/2023
Faithful God (Part Eleven): Reaping the Whirlwind
Hosea 8:1-14
Jesse Randolph

Alright, well it is great to be with you again this evening. I have no opening illustrations tonight involving Harvard, Yale, or Dartmouth. We’re just going to get right into it with the book of Hosea.

The people of Israel in the days of Hosea were at their core, as we have seen through our study over these past many months, a self-reliant people, a self-willed people, a stubborn, a stiff-necked people. They were ruled by self-appointed kings. They were worshiping man-made objects. They were following their own wisdom in linking up with other nations. They were relying on their own strength in building walls and fortresses. They were adopting their own forms of integrated or syncretistic religion. The only problem was they weren’t involving God in any of it. And, in fact, their failure to involve God in any aspect of their living signaled what was, in fact, an outright rejection of God. Israel as we’re going to see this evening, had forgotten their Maker. That’s the root problem of what we’re going to see tonight in our text for this evening. That’s the main issue, that Israel had forgotten God.

Now, had they forgotten Him in the normal sense of the word? Had they forgotten that He existed or that He did exist? Had they forgotten that He is, in fact, God? By no means. Men cannot forget God in that sense. Men can deny God all they want. They can suppress the truth they know about God in unrighteousness, as Romans 1:18 says, as they willfully shove God out of the way and consciously stuff down the reality of God that they so badly want to ignore. But even as they do so, in a sense, they’re remembering Him. As they actively strive to forget God, you see what I’m saying, they were actually remembering God! To say that Israel had forgotten God means simply that they had laid Him off to the side. They had no use for Him. They weren’t taking Him seriously. They had pushed Him into a corner. Out of sight, out of mind.

Now, Israel had been warned many times up to this point in its history about the dangers and the perils of forgetting God. In fact, all the way back in the book of Deuteronomy, as Moses was giving his farewell address to the people before he passed away, he stressed repeatedly the importance to the people of not forgetting God.

In fact, let’s go back to Deuteronomy chapter 4. We haven’t even cracked Hosea yet but we’re going to look at Deuteronomy. In fact, you’re going to want to keep a tab, a notecard, a finger, in Deuteronomy tonight because we’re going to be going back and forth quite a bit. Look at Deuteronomy 4. We’re going to go through sort of a survey, a sampling, of all these words of warning from God through Moses to the people of Israel about the perils of forgetting Him. Deuteronomy 4, we’ll start in verse 7, it says, “For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today? Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your hearts all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and grandsons.”

Now flip over to Deuteronomy 6. We’re going to see more of the same. Look at Deuteronomy 6 picking it up in verse 10, it says, “Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

A couple more… Deuteronomy 8, a couple pages over, look at Deuteronomy 8 in verse 11. It says, “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today.” If you skip down to verse 17 of chapter 8, he says, “Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”

Well, Moses gave those warnings in Deuteronomy to the Israelites about the perils of forgetting God somewhere around 1445 B.C.; Hosea, the book we’re studying, ministered to the people of Israel about 700 years after that. And in the centuries which had passed between Moses and Hosea the people of Israel had forgotten God. Sure, they intellectually assented to His existence, but their conduct didn’t show it. They were oblivious to Him, but He wasn’t oblivious to them as we are about to see. Which is why the Lord in the book of Hosea starts laying out these unflattering descriptions after unflattering descriptions, stinging accusation after stinging accusation, against them in this book. You’ll remember He calls them -- just in the chapters we’ve seen so far, we’re only halfway through the book -- He calls them a prostitute, a wayward wife, a wilderness, a desert land, blind stumblers, revolters, liars, harlots, wrongdoers, morning clouds, dew which goes away early. A cake not turned, a silly dove, a deceitful bow, and that’s halfway home. And now they faced His judgment.

With that, let’s go ahead and turn our Bibles to Hosea chapter 8. We’ll be in Hosea chapter 8 tonight and going to see in this chapter… I’m going to outline it is as follows. We’ve a five point outline tonight. In verses 1 through 3 we’re going to see “God’s Provision Rejected.” In verse 4 we’ll see “God’s Primacy Rejected.” Verses 5 through 7 we’ll see “God’s Praise Rejected.” Verses 8 through 10 “God’s Power Rejected.” Note a trend? And verses 11 through 14 “God’s Principles Rejected.” So “God’s Provision Rejected,” verses 1 through 3. “God’s Primacy Rejected,” verses 4. “God’s Praise Rejected,” verses 5 through 7. “God’s Power Rejected,” verses 8 through 10. “God’s Principles Rejected,” 11 through 14. And all of it as we’re going to see this evening flows out of these five words that we’re going to get to eventually in Hosea 8:14, “Israel has forgotten his Maker.” “Israel has forgotten his Maker.” With that we’ll get right into it.

I’m going to start as usual by reading the text in full and then we’ll work through the text line by line, verse upon verse. Hosea 8, verse 1, God’s Word reads, “Put the trumpet to your lips! Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law. They cry out to Me, ‘My God, we of Israel know You!’ Israel has rejected the good; the enemy will pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by Me; they have appointed princes, but I did not know it. With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves, that they might be cut off. He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying, ‘My anger burns against them!’ How long will they be incapable of innocence? For from Israel is even this! A craftsman made it, so it is not God; surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces. For they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.”

“Israel is swallowed up; they are now among the nations like a vessel in which no one delights. For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey all alone; Ephraim has hired lovers. Even though they hire allies among the nations, now I will gather them up; and they will begin to diminish because of the burden of the king of princes.”

“Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, they have become altars of sinning for him. Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, they are regarded as a strange thing. As for My sacrificial gifts, they sacrifice the flesh and eat it, but the Lord has taken no delight in them. Now He will remember their iniquity, and punish them for their sins; they will return to Egypt. For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities, but I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.”

Make total sense? We got it? Alright, we can go home, right? No. We have a lot of work to do tonight to work through what’s laid out here in this prophetic text. Now, in many ways, what we’re going to get through and work through here in Hosea 8 is much like what we’ve seen described of both Yahweh and Israel in the earlier chapters of this prophecy. In other words, essentially the same picture is being hung in a new frame. And as we’re being given these descriptions of Israel’s rebellion and its faithlessness and God’s judgment and faithfulness.

Again, our first heading for this evening spanning verses 1 through 3 would be this, “God’s Provision Rejected.” Let’s pick it up in verse 1, the chapter begins with this note of alarm, “Put the trumpet to your lips!” Yahweh here is commissioning Hosea directly and He is saying to His people through this prophet, “Sound the shofar! Blow the horn!.” These words resemble what we saw back in Hosea 5:8, where it says “Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound an alarm at Beth-aven; ‘Behind you, Benjamin!’ ” See, the people of Israel here are being pictured as having been summoned through this shrill, piercing sound of a trumpet into the presence of the Lord to face the reality of the judgment that was coming upon them as a people. Israel’s days of living as she pleased were coming to a close. And her new reality was that the Assyrians, the invaders from the north, were on the horizon with spears gleaming and horses panting and battle lines forming.

Verse 1 continues, it says, “Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the Lord.” That’s in fulfillment of what God said to Moses back in Deuteronomy 28. So let’s go back to Deuteronomy again, to Deuteronomy 28 where we’re going to see the reference here to what’s happening in Hosea 8:1. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 28 and we’ll start in verse 49. Deuteronomy 28:49, it says, “The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar,” this is seven hundred years prior to Hosea, “from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. Moreover, it shall eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who also leaves you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the increase of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the Lord has given you.” So Assyria is that nation that is being pictured here back in Hosea 8:1. They were “like an eagle,” ready to descend quickly upon Israel to devour her.

Now, we already know from our study of Hosea that it ultimately was Yahweh Himself who was at war with His people. Assyria was merely the instrument, the agent, the rod, which God chose to use to bring discipline upon this wayward nation. We saw that back in Hosea 5:14, where Yahweh says, “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah,” note all the first person references here, “I, even I, will tear to pieces and go away, I will carry away, and there will be none to deliver.”

Now back to here, Hosea 8:1, it reads “Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the Lord.” Now that reference to “the house of the Lord” is not a reference to the temple of Hosea’s day because the temple resided in Jerusalem which was in the south. Hosea here is ministering in the north. Instead, this reference to the “house of the Lord” appears to be a reference to the entirety land of Israel. Why is the eagle, Assyria, descending on Israel? Well, the answer comes next here in verse 1. “Because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against my law.” Now when He says they have “transgressed My covenant” we saw a couple of weeks ago in Hosea 6:7, that that’s not a reference to a so-called theological ‘covenant of works,’ but instead was a reference to the Mosaic Covenant, the covenant that the people of Israel entered into with God on the plains of Sinai all the way back in Exodus 19.

Note that it says they had transgressed His covenant. They didn’t stumble across and violate His covenant. They didn’t accidentally trip over His covenant. They have consciously and willfully violated, transgressed, His covenant. Now we have to remember that going back all the way to the days of Moses, it was a foregone conclusion that Israel would one day violate this very covenant. Deuteronomy 31, you don’t have to go there this time, Deuteronomy 31:29, Moses is speaking, this is right before his death, it says, “For I know that after my death you will act corruptly and turn from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days, for you will do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger with the work of your hands.” So that’s Moses predicting hundreds of years before the very type of conduct that we would see in Hosea during Hosea’s time.

But it was also a foregone conclusion in the days of Moses that provisions for reconciliation between God and His people would be put in place. Leviticus 26:44-45, also written hundreds of years before Hosea’s time says, “when they,” meaning the Israelites, “are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”

Back to Hosea 8 we now come upon this last part of verse 1 where it says, “And [they have] rebelled against My law.” The Law given to the Israelites on the peninsula at Sinai is the referent here. Israel had not only violated that law, they were actively rebelling against it. And that’s language that picks up what we saw last week in Hosea 7:13 where God declares that woe against Israel saying “Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me! Destruction is theirs, for they have,” there’s the same verb, “rebelled against Me!” They were, as God identified them earlier in this prophecy, rebels, they were revolters. Though they had “have transgressed the covenant” and though they have “rebelled against His law,” and though, as Yahweh says in verse 14, “Israel has forgotten His Maker” as we turn to verse 2, we see the people of Israel make this startling statement.

Look at verse 2. It says “They cry out to Me, ‘My God, we of Israel know You!’ ” What an absolutely absurd statement. One that is filled with rank hypocrisy. Israel here is making a pretense of devotion to the Lord. They are addressing Him as their God. They are acting as though they acknowledge His authority over them but their profession is completely put-on. This is Israel and this verse here, verse 2, paying lip service, when in reality their hearts were yet far from Him. Israel didn’t know God! Israel had been set apart by God and God had set His love upon them going back to Deuteronomy 7, but by the days of Hosea Israel couldn’t say, “they know God.”

In fact, let’s do a little jet tour of Hosea, the prophecy here, to see what little Israel knew. Look at Hosea 2:8, go back to Hosea 2:8. Here we’re still in the setting of the illustration of Hosea and Gomer, his wife. Look at Hosea 2:8, it says, “For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil, and lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.” She does not know the source of the riches that she has. Look at Hosea 4:1. “Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of land, because there is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land.” Or Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.” Or Hosea 5:4, “Their deeds will not allow them to return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them, and they do not know the Lord.” So the sinful actions of this nation were much louder than their words. They were openly partaking in the grossest form of idolatry while simultaneously, here, crying out to God saying, ‘O Lord, we know You.’

If we could somehow transport the Israelites of Hosea’s day to Lincoln, Nebraska in the year 2023 these would be the people who would be screaming and yelling at their wives on the way to church, only to walk into church with giant smiles on their faces. These would be the people who were getting drunk with the boys on Saturday night, and then staggering into church on Sunday morning with booze still on their breath. These would be the people who are watching porn on their phones, only to use that same phone to share Bible truth with people in their Home Bible Study. That’s the concept here. Israel didn’t know God. They knew of Him. They knew He was there. They knew He had set His love on them. They knew how intolerant He was of their compromised ways and their syncretistic worship practices. But they didn’t know God. They had left Him. They had rejected Him. They had ditched Him. And now they were behaving like that child who is facing discipline and in that last-ditch attempt to avoid the rod they say something like, "Oh, was I not supposed to do that? My bad. We’re good, right, Dad? To which Dad replies, “No son, we’re not good right now but we’ll be good because I love you. But for now, the discipline still has to be measured out.”

So like the child who suddenly has that glow of a halo over their head right before they face discipline, at this point in its history Israel was simply faking it in order to avoid punishment when it says, “My God, we of Israel know you!” In fact, as we keep reading on, verse 3 it says, “Israel has rejected the good.” Meaning, they had completely rejected God Himself who is the very standard of good. They had rejected God’s moral and ethical standards as laid out for them at this point in God’s Law. Deuteronomy 5:33 says, “You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.” Or Deuteronomy 12:28 says, “Be careful to listen to all these words which I command you, so that it may be well with you and your sons after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.” Israel by this point had rejected those concepts. And they had rejected the life-giving path of obedience which God’s followers are privileged to walk on. And of course, all we’ve seen in the first seven chapters of Hosea are the details of what it means when it says here that “Israel has rejected the good.” And consequently as we see at the end of verse 3, “The enemy will pursue him.” Meaning the Assyrians would soon pursue Israel, conquer Israel, and haul Israel off into captivity.

Well, that takes us through verses 1 through 3 where we’ve seen “God’s Provision Rejected.” “Israel has rejected the good.” Now, in verse 4 we’re going to see “God’s Primacy Rejected.” Israel was, in every way, supposed to be singularly devoted to Yahweh. But they weren’t. Look at verse 4. “They have set up kings, but not by Me; they have appointed princes, but I did not know it. With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves.” So in this verse, we see two grievances listed. Grievance number one is that Israel had appointed kings and other leaders without consulting the Lord. Grievance number two is that they had made idols for themselves, by crafting those idols out of silver and gold. We’ll take these one at a time.

First, is the charge that “They have set up kings, but not by Me; they have appointed princes, but I did not know it.” Now, the last part of what I just read is where the advocates of “open theism” love to jump in and have a field day. They will take those last words, “but I did not know it,” and say that this proves that there are things that God doesn’t know. That the future really is “open” to God and that God, like us, is just sort of fumbling around the dark, figuring this thing out on the fly. How things are going to shake out in the very world He created.

Open theism is total garbage. How’s that for some technical theological jargon? It’s total garbage. The Scriptures are absolutely clear that God has full knowledge, total knowledge, complete knowledge, complete omniscience, over all that ever has happened, is happening, or will happen. He’s not surprised by anything. He’s not caught off guard by anything. He’s not unaware of anything. Psalm 147:5 says, “His understanding is infinite.” Isaiah 40:28 says, “His understanding is inscrutable.” So, what then must this mean in verse 4 in Hosea 8 when it says, They have set up kings, but not by Me; they have appointed princes, but I did not know it?” Well, it’s an expression which the context makes clear not about God and His so-called limited knowledge. But instead is about Israel’s failure to involve Him, to seek Him, and to cry out to Him as they installed these various kings and rulers over the centuries.

Now of course, Israel did have this long history of sort of ‘doing its own thing’ when it came to identifying and raising up kings. You know, you’ll remember of course, the story of King Saul back in the book of 1 Samuel hundreds of years before Hosea’s time. There we see that Israel’s initial demand for an earthly king was itself a rebellious rejection of God. In 1 Samuel 8:7 you have God Himself saying to Samuel speaking of Israel, He says “for they have not rejected you,” meaning Samuel, “but they have rejected Me,” meaning God, “from being king over them.” And then He says directly to Israel in 1 Samuel 10:19, “But you have today rejected your God; who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses; yet you have said, ‘No, but set a king over us!’ ” See, the Lord had warned Israel, through Samuel, of the folly of choosing a mortal king when it had Him, the divine King, as their Ruler. But Israel wanted to do its own thing and insisted on having its own king. And why? Because they wanted to be like the other nations, who had mortal kings. In fact, those thoughts of Israel are recorded in 1 Samuel 8:19-20 where Israel is very clear about their desires and their aspirations for a king. It says, “No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” The Lord gave them the leader they wanted. They got King Saul who though he fit the part on the outside was greatly compromised on the inside as we see him doing things like offering unauthorized sacrifices which is a function of the priest, not the king [1 Samuel 13:13-14]. We see him failing to follow God’s command to utterly destroy the Amalekites [1 Samuel 15:24], so a sort of half-way obedience. In other words, like the Israelites of Hosea’s day, Saul chose to do things his way and that would ultimately cost him the crown, as God would then go after a man after His own heart, David.

Well, that experience with Saul did not dissuade Israel because over the course of Israel’s checkered history after Saul, and especially during the days of the divided kingdom after Solomon, it would go on to install wicked king after wicked king after wicked king after wicked king. And last week, in fact, you might remember, we saw an instance of that where there’s that sort of drunken overnight plot to remove one king and take one king down and install his successor. Well, that’s what was happening throughout the history of the divided kingdom of Israel especially. They were setting up kings going back to Hosea 8, “but not by Me; they have appointed princes, but I did not know it.”

Now, it’s real easy for us to come upon texts like this and sit back and fold our hands and say to ourselves or even say it out loud or nudge our neighbor and say, “How could Israel be so foolish?” You know, that’s when we start having those thoughts that we really need to check our hearts because spiritual self-reliance, which really is functional atheism, is a problem which plagues us as believers even today. This is not limited to Israel, in other words. How often do you succumb to the temptation to ‘go it alone’ as you make various decisions about which you think are best for you? How often do you make those decisions without consulting God and His Word? You know, think of the many decisions you’ve made just in the past couple weeks, big or small, that you made recently without first consulting God through prayer. Or think of the many decisions you’ve made over the past few weeks, big or small, that you made without consulting God through His Word. Or think of the many decisions, big or small, that you made recently without consulting God through godly counselors, other believers, brothers and sisters in the Lord. What fools we become when we disregard guidance offered from God, through His Word and wisdom from above, through prayer. And when instead, we trade it in for our own subjective, personal feelings about what we think we should or not do. As though our hearts were pure as the driven snow and as though our minds were unaffected by the pollution of sin. All this to say, on this point we are able to relate to the people of Israel in Hosea’s day, and they us.

Getting back to our text, the people, the leaders of the people of Israel, that were being propped up all throughout this history, they were rebellious. They weren’t God’s choice. That’s really the point here. They were being ushered in and raised up without consulting the Lord. And God, later in Hosea by the way, He’s going to taunt Israel for the types of choices they made about the types of kings they selected for themselves. In fact, you can flip ahead to Hosea 13. We’ll be here in a few weeks. Look at Hosea 13:9. Note the taunt that’s going on here. He says, “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.”

Moving on to the second half of verse 4 this brings in another of Israel’s violations. We mentioned that they raised up kings without consulting the Lord. Next we see that “With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves.” And that, of course, was a direct violation of both the first and second commandments of Exodus 20:3-4. And this was not a new problem to the people of Israel. Sadly, like a drunk with a history of DUIs or a thief with a history of petty crimes the people of Israel had a long rap sheet involving violating the first two commandments and doing so over and over again. Their idolatry, their worship of false images went all the way back to the days of the golden calf incident of Exodus 32 which wasn’t all that long after they had been called out as a nation by God. And it continued on into the days of Jeroboam after the reign of Solomon. That was about 200 years before Hosea’s time where Jeroboam set up two calves, two golden calves, one in Dan and one in Bethel. And interestingly and with some audacity, Jeroboam would say to the people of Israel in 1 Kings 12:28 after he sets up these two calves, he says, “behold your gods.” And that continued on right up into the present of Hosea’s day, where as we see in verse 5 of Hosea here that the people were still worshiping idols. They were still these serial spiritual adulterers. You know, silver and gold were not native to their land at this time and to get this silver and gold that meant Israel had to trade for it. Trade other materials that they were producing to get silver and gold which is why you see around King Solomon’s time, they are trading with the king of Tyre, the queen of Sheba to get all the gold and silver they would need to craft these idols.

And then, verse 4, ends this way, “With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves, that they might be cut off.” Which could also be rendered “as a result, they will be destroyed.” This is the final outcome and result of this apostate nation which had shown itself committed to its pursuit of and worship of idols. They were going to be cut off. They were going to be destroyed. The people of Israel had invited their own doom through their foolish disobedience.

That now takes us to our third heading for this evening which is anchored in verses 5-7 where we’re going to see “God’s Praise Rejected.” “God’s Praise Rejected.” Look at the next three verses as he says, “He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying, ‘My anger burns against them!’ How long will they be incapable of innocence? For from Israel is even this! A craftsman made it, so it is not God; surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces. For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.” There’s a lot here so we’ll do what we always do, we’ll take it line by line.

He says first of all in verse 5, “He has rejected your calf, O Samaria.” The calf idol of Samaria was singled out here because it epitomized Israel’s idolatrous ways. And though to Israel it seemed fine at this point to blend pagan worship practices with worship of the one true God, to God it was not fine. Hence, “He has rejected your calf, O Samaria.” Now that word “rejected” here gives us a striking wordplay with the use of the word “rejected” back in verse 3. Israel had rejected the good, they had rejected what is good and they had turned to idols. Now the Lord it's saying here in verse 5, rejects Israel and her idols. Meaning Israel was not going to get the last word on the subject of how they preferred to approach God in worship. They weren’t going to be allowed to worship golden calves as competing sources of devotion.

Now if you want to talk about a timeless principle from this section of Hosea to apply to today I think that’d be it. See, in Hosea’s day there would have been those who would have called themselves worshipers of God who were also worshiping something else, in their case a golden calf. Now, in our day there are people that are calling themselves worshipers who create competing altars for competing worship of the true living God. Some create altars to their families. Some create altars to their children. Some create altars to their grandchildren. Some create altars to their kids’ sports. Some create altars to their favorite sports teams, Huskers. Some create altars to their cash. Some create altars to their comforts. Some create altars to their… you name it. And as we see here from Hosea God won’t allow it. He’s never allowed it. He doesn’t allow it today. Didn’t allow it back then. He doesn’t offer, He doesn’t allow competing sources of devotion.

Going back to verse 2 here of Hosea 8. It was preposterous for the people of Israel in Hosea’s day to say, “My God, we of Israel know You!” Now, sure, by birth, by up-bringing they were Israelites. But so were the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. The Pharisees called themselves “descendants of Abraham” and they called themselves “disciples of Moses.” Well, as was true of the Pharisees later in Jesus’ day and as is true of certain “evangelical Pharisees” in the Church Age, the Israelites of Hosea’s day weren’t going to be allowed anymore to lean on their heritage, to lean on their pedigree. Their actions were totally undermining their identity and God saw right through their hypocrisy.

All this to say, as we turn back to verse 5 here, the Lord was not pleased with this idolatrous people which is why He says “My anger burns against them!” And then, in despair, He asks
“How long will they be incapable of innocence?” Now, we’re used to seeing that formulation “how long?” in the psalms of lament. Psalm 13, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” But here, it’s God saying, “How long?” He is expressing dismay here over the fact that the people He had set His love upon had become as unclean as the people groups around them. They were “incapable,” it says “of innocence.” Then He continues on in verse 6. He says, “For from Israel is even this!” You can sense how exasperated and appalled the Lord is that such a thing would be happening in Israel, among Israel, His people. I picture the parent with maybe multiple children lined up and you know, one is maybe more unruly than the others usually. They have one kid that’s a little bit better behaved and that one kid that is usually the better behaved one does something unruly at some point and the Dad says to that kid, “but you? I mean I expected it from that kid, but you?” That’s kind of the idea here, “For from Israel is even this?” That’s the tone with which this is being said.

Now He goes on to explain the source of His exasperation. He goes on in verse 6 to say “A craftsman made it, so it is not God; surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces.” See, the idol, the idols before which Israel was falling down were created. “A craftsman made it,” it says. And just as they were created they were also capable of being destroyed. They would “be broken to pieces,” it says, shattered, smashed to bits. So that’s why we have this logical conclusion lodged between those two statements that “it is not God.” The utter foolishness of worshiping idols is stitched into this syllogism. God is uncreated and eternal. Idols are created and temporal. Therefore, idols are not God. Idols can’t be God so why worship them? Why worship something that was formed with human hands? Why worship something that has an expiration date and can be smashed to bits?

Of course, it was not only Hosea who pointed out the utter folly of worshiping man-made idols.
Habakkuk 2:18 says “What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he fashions speechless idols.” Or Psalm 115 starting in verse 4 says “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of man’s hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak; they have eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but they cannot hear; they have noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but they cannot feel; they have feet, but they cannot walk; they cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them.” And there’s Isaiah 40:19-20. It says, “As for the idol, a craftsman casts it, a goldsmith plates it with gold, and a silversmith fashions chains of silver. He who is too impoverished for such an offering selects a tree that does not rot; he seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman to prepare an idol that will not totter.” One more, Jeremiah 10:3-5 says “For the customs of the peoples are delusion; because it is wood cut from the forest, the work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. They decorate it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers so that it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they, and they cannot speak; they must be carried, because they cannot walk! Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, nor can they do any good.” I won’t even read Isaiah 44 because that’s the one where he says maybe your idol has gone to relieve himself and basically jabs at those who would worship idols. The point is the idols here in the time of Hosea, they were just idols. They weren’t God, they weren’t truly God, so it was folly for the people to worship these objects, these items of silver or gold or even wood. What Israel needed to do was not keep worshiping these idols. What Israel need to do was repent but the time for repentance was running out.

So this section of Hosea 8 is going to conclude with these words, in verse 7, “For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.” Now that phrase, “they sow the wind,” it highlights the escalating uselessness of all sorts of false religion. It highlights the futility of Israel’s worship of these idols which we’ve just looked at in verses 4-6. But it also previews, this sowing the wind idea, the foolish foreign policies that they were about to be exposed for in verses 8-10. And wind here, it is representing something lacking substance, it is worthless, it’s of no assistance.
Proverbs 11:29 says “He who troubles his own house will inherit wind.” Here, in context, it’s referring to Israel’s trusting in her idols but also in these flimsy political alliances she was forming in this time.

And as Israel was about to see, she was soon going to reap an extra measure what she had sown. As this futility, this wind that was sown like seed, was about to yield a crop of destruction in the form of a “whirlwind,” which was in the form of Assyria coming upon them and conquering them.

Now timeless principle time again. “they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind.” We know the context here. It’s of trusting in other nations, trusting in idols, and seeing further and further destruction come out of that. But there is a principle here, a timeless principle that applies even today that relates to the larger effects of our seemingly small actions when we engage in those actions. For instance, we might lie to avoid embarrassment or shame but then the tangled web of lies grows as we seek to cover our tracks and now we’ve concocted an entire false narrative. We sow a ‘missionary dating’ relationship. Oh, he’s just so handsome and I know I can eventually win him over because I’m just so cute and he’ll come to know the Lord. But then what you reap later is an unequally yoked marriage which results in all types of heartbreak and despair. A married man sows a second or third glance at that girl and sooner or later there is adultery, and divorce, and custody battles, and complicated Christmases. It’s true, as the old proverbial wisdom goes, that you do “reap what you sow.” But Hosea here is reminding us that many times you reap much more than what you’ve sown.

Back to the original context, verse 7. What we see here is that Israel’s hope was misplaced. They thought that this alliance with Assyria would save them but not only would it not save them, it would actually make matters much worse. They would “sow the wind” but they would “reap the whirlwind” through this terrorizing foreign army.

Among the judgments that we’re going to see happening is related to agriculture. It says, “The standing grain has no heads; it yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.”
When it says, “the standing grain has no heads, it yields no grain,” it’s just saying that Israel’s crop would be worthless, containing only stalks but without grain. Even if something was to fill those heads, it says should it yield “strangers would swallow it up” meaning even if the stalks were to produce, the Assyrians like locusts would eventually take it all and eat it up.

Those last words, by the way, “strangers would swallow it up,” those form a bridge to the next section of chapter 8 which takes us to our fourth heading for tonight which will cover verses 8-10. Our fourth title or fourth heading is this, “God’s Power Rejected,” “God’s Power Rejected.” Verse 8, “Israel is swallowed up; they are now among the nations like a vessel in which no one delights. For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey all alone; Ephraim has hired lovers. Even though they hire allies among the nations, now I will gather them up; and they will begin to diminish because of the burden of the king of princes.” Now we’ve just seen in verse 7 that any harvest Israel was to receive, if it received a harvest, was going to be swallowed up by strangers, namely the Assyrians. In verse 8 now though, we see Israel is becoming the meal herself. “Israel” it says “is swallowed up.” Now God was to be the source of their strength and protection but here, Israel is being depicted as having no guard, having no protection, being swallowed up, being eaten up.

They had intermingled. They had intermixed. Now they were being eaten up. And now they were “like a vessel in which no one delights.” That’s sad language because that’s saying they are like discarded pottery, like a broken piece of terracotta pottery that no one has any need for. They have mixed together. They are now among the nations, but they blended in so much that there’s “no one delights” in them, no one wants them. And it says for “they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey all alone; Ephraim has hired lovers.” The sad picture that’s being painted here is Israel, this vessel in which “no one delights,” now being viewed as this worthless broken pot.

But now it’s saying they go “up to Assyria.” And that, by the way, is not a reference, verse 9, to their captivity, but to the alliance that they had made with Assyria. And we’ve covered that in previous lessons. But in doing so they are compared to “a wild donkey.” A wild donkey is an animal that’s known for its desire to be free of all restrictions, to do its own thing. That sounds very Israel. Israel has to this point stubbornly pursued all this foreign assistance from other nations rather than depending humbly on the Lord. The Lord would have protected them at no cost, at no charge for His protective services but Israel in its folly was paying tribute to all these other nations to protect them. The very nations that we saw last week that were the ones that would later invade them. What foolishness! Then it says, “Ephraim has hired lovers.” Like a prostitute, like a harlot she had sold herself out to other lovers. And here we see the Gomer illustration of Hosea 1, 2, and 3 making deeper and deeper sense, more and more sense, as we keep working through this book.

And as we turn to verse 10 the Israelites of Hosea’s day were already becoming mixed in with the various surrounding people groups. So much so that they had become virtually indistinguishable from these other people groups. No matter, says the Lord, He assures them, here in verse 10 that He will have no difficulty identifying His wayward people. They are in the midst of these other nations, and assembling them for the judgment that was coming upon them. That’s what is meant in verse 10, when He says “Even though they hire allies among the nations, now I will gather them up; and they will begin to diminish because of the burden of the king of princes.” Now, He says “Even though they hire allies among the nations, now I will gather them up.” Gather can describe the gathering of the exiles from the promised land speaking of blessing, or it can mean a gathering up for judgment of the accursed. The latter meaning is what appears to be intended here as Yahweh is saying He will “gather them up.” He’s not talking about gathering them up for salvation at this point in their history. Rather, He’s referring to gathering them up to make war on His apostate people. He’s gathering them up for judgment. There’s a similar concept of gathering for judgment in Joel 3:2 where He says “I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there.” There’s a similar reference to gathering for judgment in Zephaniah 3:8 which says “My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them My indignation, all My burning anger.”

And then that last part of verse 10 where it says “and they will begin to diminish because of the burden of the king of princes,” it likely refers to (it is much debated) the burdensome effects that paying of the tributes to those foreign nations and kings would continue to have. Israel had outlaid so much for protection from these nations that they would be diminished financially, economically, because of the burden of those tributes they had paid to those princes in other lands.

With that we get to our final heading and final section here of verses in Hosea 8, verse 11 through 14. Heading number five is “God’s Principles Rejected. It says, “Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, they have become altars of sinning for him. Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, they are regarded as a strange thing. As for My sacrificial gifts, they sacrifice the flesh and eat it, but the LORD has taken no delight in them. Now He will remember their iniquity, and punish them for their sins; they will return to Egypt, for Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities, but I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.”

He starts by saying “Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, they have become altars of sinning for him.” Now, this language “multiplication of altars for sin” shows, if anything, that there was no lack of religiosity in the land. There’s no doubt that Israel was still what can only be described as a place of religious activity, but its religious activity was grossly misdirected. This was hypocritical ritualism at its best. The people had built many altars for sin offerings but these altars had become altars for sinning because the religious activities the people were engaged in were hypocritical, they were two-faced. See, we’ve already seen this in Hosea 6, that sacrifices are an offense to God when they are not combined with a wholehearted devotion to God. Hosea 6:6, “For I delight in loyalty” says God, “rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Israel had built many altars, but their hearts were far from God.

Next in verse 12, we see that this problem was only compounded by their flagrant violation of the Law. It says, “Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, they are regarded as a strange thing.” In other words, Israel had been duly warned. They knew of their obligations under the Mosaic Covenant, under the Law, Hosea 6:7, Hosea 8:1 which we’ve seen today. So, they were completely without excuse. God’s Law was clear, there was no room for confusion. But Israel here is acting as though it’s something foreign. Psalm 119:97 says, “O how I love your Law.” Israel here were saying, “What law?” as though it hadn’t been there all along.

Moving on to verse 13, it says, “As for My sacrificial gifts, they sacrifice the flesh and eat it.” So rather than the meat that was being offered being burned up and consecrated to God it appears that what was happening here was the people of Israel were eating the flesh of animals that was being sacrificed in an act of gorging and indulgence. It is reminiscent of the scene in 1 Samuel 2 involving the wicked and immoral sons of Eli who took and ate for themselves that which belonged to God. So now you have the same issue happening under the same scenario happening, hundreds of years later, in the days of Hosea. And the question begging to be asked is, hasn’t Israel learned?

And then comes this ringing condemnation near the end of verse 13. It says “But the LORD has taken no delight in them. Now He will remember their iniquity, and punish them for their sins.”
The Lord took no delight in their sacrifices. We’ve just seen that in Hosea 6:6. We see a similar sentiment expressed by God in Isaiah 1:11 where He says, “ ‘What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me”,’ says the Lord. ‘I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle; and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats.’ ” And then He says, in Isaiah 1:13 “Bring your worthless offerings no longer.”

And then next, verse 13, it says, “He will remember their iniquity, and punish them for their sins.” That language is striking because it’s just about the opposite of what God says when he mentions the New Covenant during the days of Jeremiah where in Jeremiah 31:34 He says, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Forgiveness wasn’t being extended to Israel at this point during Hosea’s day though. Instead what was coming was justice and punishment and retribution by way of exile. Which takes us to the last line of verse 13, “they will return to Egypt.” Now the commentaries on this passage are all over the place.
Is this referring to a literal return to Egypt during the days of Hosea? Is Egypt symbolic of a place of future exile, bondage? Well, an important principle of biblical hermeneutics is to let Scripture interpret Scripture. Turn with me if you would to Hosea 11:5, just a couple pages over, Hosea 11, look at verse 5. It says, “They,” referring to the Israelites, “will not return to the land of Egypt; but Assyria — he will be their king because they refused to return to Me.” So that reference to Egypt, I would take it in Hosea 8:13 as actually to Assyria. The ones who were about to invade Israel in the context here and haul its people away. And the word here Egypt is used intentionally by Hosea to recall the place of Israel’s former bondage, to remind them the bondage that is about to come. It’s a point of reference to help them relate to what is about to happen.

And last, and finally, we get to verse 14. “For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities, but I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.” And that brings us full circle to where we began this evening, “Israel has forgotten his Maker.” Oh sure, they had built palaces, and Judah to the south multiplied fortified cities. Meaning the people of the land had both built towers and military armaments, but it ultimately didn’t matter because it was all about to go up in smoke. And as it did the people of Israel could never say that they hadn’t been warned.

Now to the outside observer during Hosea’s day, say to the inquisitive passerby, it’s quite possible that the religious landscape of Israel would have looked somewhat healthy and vibrant to them. We got this chosen people of God, and they are gathering in these historic places of worship, and they are filling these places of worship, and they are apparently engaging at least outwardly in some form of worship. All appeared to be well. But all wasn’t well. It was all a façade as we’ve seen tonight. It was false worship. It was hypocritical. And it was devious. And it was about to pay disastrous dividends for the people of Israel as they were about to be overtaken and taken away. Israel had truly forgotten God.

Which reminds us of what God said to Judah through Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 2:32, where He says “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.” So Israel had forgotten God but God certainly hadn’t forgotten Israel. You could jot down Isaiah 49:15-16. “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget,” this is God speaking, “but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.” Israel had been faithless. But God is and ever will be faithful. Which again is a reminder for us today in the church that worship the same God Hosea did. Which is that reminder again from 2 Timothy 2:13, that “If we are faithless, He remains faithful,” amen.

Let’s pray. God thank you again for the clarity and power of Your word. It still amazes me that we can study a book like Hosea, written so many, at this point, thousands of years ago, written to an entirely different people and entirely different context, that we can understand it. We can relate to it. We can understand it for where it sits in its original context. But we can also extract eternal truths that impact us and transform us and challenge us for we who are followers of Jesus Christ. Thank you for a wonderful day of worship. Thank you God that we have the privilege to worship freely without fear, at this point, of persecution or retribution. God, may we be found faithful in all that we do in this week to come, in our homes, in our jobs you send us into, into the community of Lincoln, Nebraska. Help us be a faithful group of believers advancing the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Doing so faithfully until You return. We love You and thank You for this time. In Jesus’ name, amen.