Hosea 7 [HCSB]
May 22, 2013
Oak Park Baptist Church – Wed Bible Study Series
Hosea Bible Study
A Study of the Minor Prophets Hosea (750-725 BC)
HOSEA to Israel (Northern Kingdom)
We have moved thru the 1st six chapters of Hosea and we have learned several things:
1st we have learned that this book was a prophecy given to Hosea by God and the targeted audience is the nation of Israel (the Northern Kingdom)
2nd we learned that the Kingdom of Israel divided right after Solomon died and the 10 tribes of the north, led by the tribe of Ephraim formed the Northern Kingdom, also known as Israel -- The 2 tribes in the South formed the Southern Kingdom, known as Judah
3rd we learn in this book how far the people of Israel had strayed from their relationship with God. They were all about the form of worship, but their worship held no real meaning for them as they also worshiped foreign gods and practiced foreign worship rituals. They had turned away from God… But it was not limited to the nation of Israel, Judah was headed in this direction as well.
4th we learned that it was God’s desire to see repentance and submission to Him and He told Hosea if the nation would turn to Him that He would reverse His decision on punishment, defeat and exile!
BUT if they refused He would have no choice but to discipline the nation thru the use of pagan kings and nations to overwhelm them and subvert them to slavery and servitude.
Tonight we are going to look at a very grim chapter as it paints a very dark picture of what God is going to DO about the disobedience of the nation of Israel. So tonight I want us to journey thru this chapter & take a look at what God is saying to the nation of Israel and how this applies to us today…
1“I want to heal Israel, but its sins are too great. Samaria is filled with liars. Thieves are on the inside and bandits on the outside! 2Its people don’t realize that I am watching them. Their sinful deeds are all around them, and I see them all.
When we read this passage I want to clarify a couple of things here that some may point out…
FIRST: God’s desire is to heal the nation… to bring it back to Him! His desire is NOT discipline/destruction BUT reconciliation/redemption!
SECOND: the phrase, “…but its sins are too great…” this is a phrase that seems to fly in the face of the message we preach today that NO MATTER where you are in life and no matter HOW much or WHAT you have done… God can and will forgive you!
Well that IS a fact that there is NOTHING from which God’s mercy and grace cannot rescue a soul… but here it seems as if there MAY actually be a line that can be crossed… a point of no return (so to speak)
What the writer is saying here is NOT in reference to the quantity of sin or the fact that sin is present… Sin is a reality in the life of any human!
The writer is saying here that Israel had sinned greatly against God and they were continuing IN that same sinful lifestyle and their hearts were NOT changing! And where there is NO repentance there can be NO forgiveness… their actions reflected a general lack of repentance and this is why God can make such a statement… AND even when they DID supposedly do what God desired them to do, their hearts betrayed their actions!
Hosea writes that Samaria (Israel or Ephraim) is filled with liars, which is another reason for destruction and another reason to NOT trust what they say…
Thieves and bandits are the ‘norm’ in this country… they live out their lawless lives in plain sight and take advantage of those who seek to follow the Law.
They flaunt this behavior and do not seem to think there are any consequences to their lawless behavior. There is NO repentance or brokenness about their sinful lives…
To these people God is not even on their radar, ‘… they don’t even recognize that I am watching them…’ but I am watching and I am seeing ALL they do…
3“The people entertain the king with their wickedness, and the princes laugh at their lies. 4They are all adulterers, always aflame with lust. They are like an oven that is kept hot while the baker is kneading the dough.
This is sin gone crazy… where self desires overwhelms their lives. They begin to treat what is wicked as entertainment and their leaders condone these actions…
Where the king should be the moral leader and the moral compass for the nation, their king had become the chief of all sinners against God… He was being entertained by things that God considered wicked.
The princes here refer to high ranking officials in the gov’t that mock the truth… when they laugh at their lies mean that the truth is not important and deception has become the norm… this attitude of the heart is FAR from what God desired of his nation.
These leaders allow their lusts to control their actions… they ‘burn hot’ with lust and desire… a wasteful and inappropriate application of sexual desire…
Sexual desire is designed to be aimed at our spouse and spouse ALONE, but here the people had come to believe it was for WHOMEVER they wanted it for… does this sound familiar?
It was a waste and perversion of what God had created! Just as putting wood into the furnace to burn BEFORE you are ready to bake… a waste of fuel that would be put to good profitable use if done the way it should be…
These people were perverting God’s natural order of things and it was a waste… God was NOT pleased!
God provides us with our desires and when we allow those desires to begin to control us and pervert us to act outside of God’s laws… this is sinful and God does not condone or want this for us!
We must learn to focus on God’s desire and put our desire to the side! We cannot allow self-desire to overwhelm our service to God and that is what these people were allowing in their own lives!
5On royal holidays, the princes get drunk with wine, carousing with those who mock them. 6Their hearts are like an oven blazing with intrigue. Their plot smolders through the night, and in the morning it breaks out like a raging fire. 7Burning like an oven, they consume their leaders. They kill their kings one after another, and no one cries to me for help. 8“The people of Israel mingle with godless foreigners, making themselves as worthless as a half-baked cake!
On certain days the leaders of the nation would gather and drink to excess… there were those who knew this and began to attempt to influence the leaders who were drinking!
They would plant seeds of destructive behavior in the minds of these national leaders and they would enrage their hearts and minds with a passion about something the king was or was NOT doing… they would enflame their hatred toward the king, so much so that there were many ‘kings’ that were murdered by such men.
The passion for self fulfillment was so great that the people of the nation could not see the wisdom in God’s command to NOT intermarry or intermingle with the foreign people.
God’s command was to keep their spiritually pure, but they disregarded God’s command and it made them totally worthless in the sight of the nation… as worthless as a half-baked cake… what is a ½ baked cake worth??
When we don’t seek spiritual maturity and spiritual purity… when we DON’T pay any regards to the commands of God on our lives, we become worthless to Him!
We are called to grow and mature as believers so that we can be useful tools in His hands for the growth of the Kingdom, but when we refuse to grow and mature, we are useless!
9Worshiping foreign gods has sapped their strength, but they don’t even know it. Their hair is gray, but they don’t realize they’re old and weak. 10Their arrogance testifies against them, yet they don’t return to the Lord their God or even try to find him.
Have you ever seen an old man who refuses to believe he’s old… he MAY have some moves left and he MAY have some skill, but his skills have deteriorated from his youth and his body NO longer can sustain the physical drain he once could… but YET he thinks he still can…
We see this in pro sports all the time when men reach their late 30s and they have lost a step and can no longer ‘keep up’ and have to do it on guile and moxy, but that only goes so far! It is sad to see a ONCE proud and glorious athlete reduced to an ALSO ran… a dried up, used up has been who refuses to believe he is ANY less than he once was…
Spiritually this is where the nation of Israel was… they were once God’s people and had influence on the world around them, but now the nation stood as a used up, wounded warrior who refuses to believe he is a step slow and beat behind… they are arrogant about what they USED to be… what they USED to mean on the world’s stage… and they refuse to believe that they are NOT still that same nation.
But what God is saying is that they are NOT that nation… earlier in this book we find God calling them ‘NOT’ my people… they still believed that they were God’s people, and they were too arrogant to see what had happened to them as a nation!
People when we come to such a point of arrogance… it is THEN that we have lost our witness for Christ! We can NEVER believe that we are God’s people if we are not living up to how God has called us to live… NO MATTER WHAT WE USED TO BE!!
11“The people of Israel have become like silly, witless doves, first calling to Egypt, then flying to Assyria for help. 12But as they fly about, I will throw my net over them and bring them down like a bird from the sky. I will punish them for all the evil they do.
The nation of Israel had not LIVED as God’s people for quite some time but they still attempted to portray themselves as God’s chosen… almost like a deposed royal who no longer has status in their country… seeking the honor that comes with the position when NO one sees them in that position any longer…
When someone like this does not get honor from who they expect it from they seek it from others… the nation of Israel was running about their corner of the world seeking to be honored by other nations… befriended and respected by other nations… but God is saying here that they looked silly in their actions! Like a mindless bird… who cannot find its way out of a building!
As believers, when we do NOT live as God has called us to live we look silly to the world… we claim ONE thing but live out another… it is silly and mindless and brings shame onto the church. It is hypocritical and harmful to God’s witness in the world!
And when we choose to live a double life… it brings only sorrow for us, look at the next few verses…
13“What sorrow awaits those who have deserted me! Let them die, for they have rebelled against me. I wanted to redeem them, but they have told lies about me. 14They do not cry out to me with sincere hearts. Instead, they sit on their couches and wail. They cut themselves, begging foreign gods for grain and new wine, and they turn away from me.
God’s desire is redemption and reconciliation but that only comes with a repentant heart… The nation turned every direction BUT to God for help!
When we turn away from God sorrow is going to be our companion… God’s desire is communion with us and when we turn away from His communion with us we are left empty and hollow… only sorrow can come from that life… we can turn to ANYTHING this world has to offer, but it will NOT fulfill us… it will NOT bring us the contentment we have IN CHRIST!
15I trained them and made them strong, yet now they plot evil against me. 16They look everywhere except to the Most High. They are as useless as a crooked bow. Their leaders will be killed by their enemies because of their insolence toward me. Then the people of Egypt will laugh at them.
God was the one who chose the nation of Israel, who formed them, who instructed them, who rescued them and guided them and set standards for them… but now the people had turned against God and there was nothing but evil being plotted in the nation…
Once again God mentions that the nation looks EVERYWHERE but to Him… at this point the nation (in their rebellion and refusal to repent) was useless to God! As useless as a ½ baked cake OR a crooked bow… can you imagine attempting to shoot an arrow with a crooked bow?
The result for their attitude and actions against God was going to lead to the deaths of their leaders and the nation being a laughing stock to other nations… especially the nation from which God had delivered them, EGYPT!
When we refuse to reconcile to God and repent of our sin, we are USELESS for God in His kingdom and our actions rebelling against God will effectively KILL our witness and when we attempt to witness we will become a laughing stock to the world…
I once heard a person who was being witnessed to say, “Why should I listen to you? You are NO different than me! You drink when and what I drink! Your language is no different than mine! Your attitudes are the same as mine! Why do I need what you have? We are the same already…”
Needless to say the one doing the witnessing was very embarrassed and really had NOTHING to say… the person they were witnessing to simply laughed and walked away… HOW SAD! When we do NOT live as God has called us to live, this is what happens to our witness for Him!
We must seek to KNOW God and to live as He has called us to live! We cannot seek our own desires… it only leads to trouble for us… trouble in the form of mocking and ridicule from the world and a damage to our witness for Christ! Are you living OUTSIDE of what God desires for you today?
PRAY!.
