HOSEA PART 5

 

 

Q. God’s love; Israel’s ingratitude 11.1-7 “When Israel was a child…But the more they were called, the more they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.

“Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? A sword will flash in their cities; it will devour their false prophets and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me. Even though they call me God Most High, I will by no means exalt them."

God is using the Father-child relationship to express his love for Israel. The child is stubborn and rebellious and is chastised by the father. The father chastises his son because he loves him deeply. To many people the image of a father severely chastising his son is troublesome, even if the father is presented as loving. This is how our politically correct attitudes have blinded our eyes. Without discipline there is only rebellion and disorder. What many often miss in today’s modern world is that God chastises individuals and nations just as in the Old Testament. It is God’s character to chastise. We often are so caught up in God’s love, that we fail to recognize that love often must chastise.

R. God’s pity for His people 11.8-11 “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?…My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror. They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, like a dove from the land of Assyria. And I will let them dwell in their houses,” says the Lord.

God expresses his love and sorrow that Ephraim/Israel must be chastised. God promises them that they will not be destroyed--the future is bright. There will be a millennial kingdom to come.

S. The sins of Jacob 11.12--12.14 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, Israel with deceit. And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One. Ephraim feeds on the wind…and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria, sends olive oil to Egypt. The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah; he will punish Jacob according to his ways…In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God. He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor…the Lord God Almighty, the Lord is his name! But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always. The merchant uses dishonest scales and loves to defraud. Ephraim boasts, “I am very rich; I have become wealthy. With all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin.”… will make you live in tents again, as in the days of your appointed festivals….Is Gilead wicked? Its people are worthless! Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal?...Jacob fled to the country of Aram; Israel served to get a wife,and to pay for her he tended sheep. The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt, by a prophet he cared for him. But Ephraim has aroused his bitter anger; his Lord…will repay him for his contempt.

Ancestral stories of Jacob from Genesis 25 thru 29 are used as illustrations in this portion. Before that we see Israel making political treaties with Assyria for safety. It would not work. Assyria would be used as the instrument of chastisement. God then uses the ancestral stories of Jacob to illustrate how Jacob was chastised. Jacob was a usurper but was later named Israel (Prince) after he learned from his chastising. God works in the same way in our lives today as individuals and nations. Those events in our life that trouble us is one of God’s ways of chastising us and working the fruit of the spirit into us.

T. The wicked bull worship 13.1-3 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.

Ephraim created golden calves (King Jeroboam) and looked at them as the gods that delivered them from Egypt. Look at Exodus 32.1-4. The people did not totally leave the Lord, but they created an image of a golden calf and worshipped the image. God is a spirit and is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. This mixture is what is happening in the church today. Images, statues, new age philosophy, human secularism--all added in but not of God. We have mixed the pagan in just as the Israelites in the wilderness did with the golden calf. God does not want this!

U. The gracious God to bring destruction 13.4-11 But I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.
So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them—a wild animal will tear them apart. “You are destroyed, Israel,

because you are against me, against your helper. Where is your king, that he may save you?…of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away.

The Lord reminds Ephraim/Israel that He is the only God whom they have known and how He cared for them. Now they have grown rich and turned away and forgotten their God. The wild animal ripping them apart will be the nation of Assyria. The kings they wanted were human--God wanted to be their king, but the people wanted a human king like all the other nations. 1 Samuel 8.1-8

V. Inescapable ruin 13.12-16 “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…“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…The wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness. then his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up…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.

Ephraim is an unwise son…if he would repent he would be quickly forgiven. The hearts are so hard that this terrible chastisement/judgment is going to come upon them. We often fail to recognize how hard our hearts can really be. There are times God has no choice but to allow severe righteous judgment. The judgment will always come through people around us or nations. This is the character of God--do not fail to recognize this!

3. Israel’s conversion and renewal 14.1-9 O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity; take words with you, and return to the Lord. Say to Him, “Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously,
For we will offer the sacrifices of our lips…Assyria shall not save us, nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods.’ for in You the fatherless finds mercy”…For My anger has turned away from him…I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall grow like the lily…His beauty shall be like an olive tree…They shall be revived like grain, and grow like a vine…“Ephraim shall say, ‘What have I to do anymore with idols?’… Who is wise? Let him understand these things…For the ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

This is God’s powerful call to the nation to repent. In Jewish tradition these “classical” verses are read on the Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat that precedes Yom Kippur--the Day of Atonement (Redemption). That is the final chance at the end of the age for man to repent. God is always ready to forgive--it is our hardened hearts that hold us back!

Key verses: My God will cast them away, because they did not obey Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations. Hosea 9.17

“Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples; Ephraim is a cake unturned.” Hosea 7.8

And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him: “Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. Hosea 1.6

“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people, there it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons of the living God.’ Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and appoint for themselves one head; and they shall come up out of the land, For great will be the day of Jezreel! Hosea 1.10-11

“It shall come to pass in that day that I will answer,” says the Lord; “I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth. the earth shall answer with grain, with new wine, and with oil; they shall answer Jezreel. Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; then I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ Hosea 2.21-23

Israel is swallowed up; now they are among the Gentiles like a vessel in which is no pleasure. Hosea 8.8