Hosea 6
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Hit bottom and be dragged up
Hit bottom and be dragged up
“Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
I know partly in my own story and so many stories I’ve heard from others, sometimes hitting the bottom is the only way to really come to know the Lord. Thankfully that’s not true of everyone but for some of us thick headed people, or stiff necked people in the biblical vernacular, it takes that serious world shattering on the precipice moment for things to sink in. Sometimes people get stuck in that cycle and relent for a time like Israel does through history but they stumble over and over. While I wouldn’t want discourage anyone that has become the yo-yo Christian, I would caution that the expectation we see from scripture is perseverance in the faith. I don’t mean struggling with sin, I mean the abandonment of a real trust that God is who he says he is. Be encouraged by God’s word and the people of faith around you.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
What is the resolution when we’re broken and when we’ve been torn up and struck down? How will he heal us and bind up our wounds? His Resurrection is the ultimate answer. We see a shadow of that here in Hosea. How amazing is this tiny whiff of our atonement and the hope in resurrection that took place on the third day. There is no reason for the time frame given here. Why raised on the third day? Why not the 7th, 12th, 40th or some other significant number? The only reason I see is because God knows the end from the beginning and he knows his plans and that they will be accomplished. I think this is one of the things Paul is thinking about when he summarizes the Gospel in 1 Cor 15:4-6
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
This prophecy is pattern for the people then, and for all people future.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
God is definite, as clear as the sunrise, and certain as rain in the spring. Let’s go back and put this all together these three verses. Hos 6.1-3
“Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
Coming from last week in Chapter 5 where we talked about the unspoken understanding that repentance is ALWAYS an option. Even when it’s not mentioned and it looks like everything is a done deal. At the end of Chapter 5 we were left with God waiting and out of the picture. We get the response here in the first three verses. Hosea changes the perspective again. In the first chapter it was ‘YOU’ In the second chapter we moved to ‘I’ for Hosea’s personal connection to his wife. Now it’s US he includes himself because we all need to repent. No on is perfect and we all need to die with Christ, to be buried with him and raised in new life so we can know the Lord truly.
Okay making record time as usual let’s get to verse 4
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes early away.
I love these word pictures and wish I knew Hebrew a lot better because I can see a lot of alliteration in the Hebrew with a couple rhyme schemes that I wish I could recite it for you. This verse is not walking away from the first three in pointing out how fickle the people are. It’s the promise of all scripture despite the weakness of humanity and the people of this story, and our story, and those in the future until his return.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
This just struck me as such a disappointment. Such expectations and such possibilities for this nation and in a few hundred years it ends up at this point. It makes you do some self reflection, or at least it does me… This people who’s known such prosperity. Who’s seen the evidence of God’s plan for them. In our country We’ve seen the most prosperity any nation in the world has EVER seen. It can be torn apart in a generation, the light of judgment reaches to every corner faster than anything else can. Here even the Bible hints at the universe’s speed limit - the speed of light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Here we get to the crux of the matter. What does God desire? steadfast love… not your rituals of blood and death, he wants you to know him not your standing far off and fulfilling your duties in offering.
We are reminded again of the bigger picture and the bigger pattern in vs 7
But like Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
What was that covenant? Don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. Don’t reject God’s wisdom and put in your own. Now we see that exemplified in the following three verses. We also possibly have a hidden pun here, the first thing you think of is the person Adam but in the rest of the verse it says -there- as if Adam is a place, and there was a town of Adam. It’s entirely possible this was a pun to make us think of the first sin, and then point to places all over Israel like he continues on to do.
Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with blood.
As robbers lie in wait for a man,
so the priests band together;
they murder on the way to Shechem;
they commit villainy.
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
Ephraim’s whoredom is there; Israel is defiled.
It is a very sad state of affairs and they are not alone in the inevitable downfall.
Hosea 6:11a (ESV)
For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.
So what? There is so much up and down Hosea is such an emotionally draining book. We see hope and failure, the bottom and the redemption. But one thing I want us to see very clearly is the story of Jesus through these pages. We see the hope of redemption in Jesus. I think the modern world’s philosophers are the song writers. This song struck Come & Go struck me and I’ll read you some of the lyrics. I really thought about playing this song but I don’t know if that would be stretching all of you a little too far. Look it up on youtube and listen on your own- clean version is out there too if kids are around.
I try to be everything that I can
But sometimes I come out as bein' nothin'
I try to be everything that I can
But sometimes I come out as bein' nothin'
I pray to God that He make me a better man, uh
Maybe one day, I'ma stand for somethin'
I'm thankin' God that He made you part of the plan
I guess I ain't go through all that Hell for nothin'
I'm always f---in' up and wreckin' sh--, it seems like I perfected it
I offer you my love, I hope you take it like some medicine
You tell me, ain't nobody better than me, I think that there's better than me
Hope you see the better in me, always end up betterin' me
Then the chorus repeats
I don't wanna ruin this one
This type of love don't always come and go
Then it goes on
We take drugs, then you hold me close
Then I tell you how you make me whole
Sometimes, I feel you like bein' alone
Then you tell me that I shoulda stayed in the room
Guess I got it all wrong, all along, my fault
My mistakes probably wipe all the rights I've done
Sayin' goodbye to bygones, those are bygones
Head up, baby, stay strong, we gon' live long
Chorus repeats again
I don't wanna ruin this one
This type of love don't always come and go
The world is searching, they cry out, they try and fill that longing with everything imaginable. It comes down to this. We need Jesus. We are broken we’ve failed, We are dead and it takes God to raise us up. We can think that God is mechanism that gives us good things and fixes our problems and responds to our formulas and rites, but he is a mighty, righteous and holy God that when truly faced scares us to death. We weep at his feet for our mercy knowing our inadequacy. We need to see our shortcomings, be healed and resurrected by God. It’s what the people of this world need and they need us to tell them about it. We need to return to the Lord.