Reaping what you Sow

Joel Hayworth

Hosea • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

0 ratings

· 10 views

Notes

Transcript

Introduction

Whenever people disobey someone who is in a position of authority, they tend to fear that a consequence will be coming their way. For children who disobey their parents, they might fear that they will face punishment like having their phone taken away. For an employee who disobeys their boss, they might fear that their employment could be terminated. For the people of Israel, they disobeyed the Lord, yet their fear was immediately their earthly opponent rather than Yahweh, God. There are instances whenever we disobey God and rather than fearing Him and the consequence for our action, we go on with our day thinking that everything will either be alright or that we need to fear an earthly foe instead. The fact remains that God is in control. We need not fear the greatest adversary the world throws at us because our God holds everything in the palm of His hand!

Whenever people mess up in our society, generally speaking, they try to do some nice things to make up for it. If someone misses an appointment or a meeting, they might bring a gift to the other individual whenever they are able to meet in the future. Whenever people upset someone else, they try to be extremely supportive and apologetic the next time they meet. The people of Israel are no different! They see that they rebelled against the law of God and they cry out to Him. Their worship intensified, but in doing so they were exposing themselves as hypocrites. They did not mean what they were doing, they were simply trying to save their own skin.

Whenever hard words fall upon our ears, we are left with a choice, to meditate on them and investigate our heart, or to continue down our own path. Few Israelites stood with Hosea as He announced these promises of punishment and we know that few people will stand with us whenever we declare the punishment to come in the future, yet we are called to stand firm on Scripture. Let that be our call from this text, to genuinely worship and follow Christ, even whenever no one stands with us.

Hosea 8-9:9

Hosea 8–9:9 NASB95

1 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. 2 They cry out to Me, “My God, we of Israel know You!” 3 Israel has rejected the good; The enemy will pursue him. 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, That they might be cut off. 5 He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying, “My anger burns against them!” How long will they be incapable of innocence? 6 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. 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. 8 Israel is swallowed up; They are now among the nations Like a vessel in which no one delights. 9 For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey all alone; Ephraim has hired lovers. 10 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. 11 Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, They have become altars of sinning for him. 12 Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, They are regarded as a strange thing. 13 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. 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. 1 Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations! For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor. 2 Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them, And the new wine will fail them. 3 They will not remain in the Lord’s land, But Ephraim will return to Egypt, And in Assyria they will eat unclean food. 4 They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord, Their sacrifices will not please Him. Their bread will be like mourners’ bread; All who eat of it will be defiled, For their bread will be for themselves alone; It will not enter the house of the Lord. 5 What will you do on the day of the appointed festival And on the day of the feast of the Lord? 6 For behold, they will go because of destruction; Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them. Weeds will take over their treasures of silver; Thorns will be in their tents. 7 The days of punishment have come, The days of retribution have come; Let Israel know this! The prophet is a fool, The inspired man is demented, Because of the grossness of your iniquity, And because your hostility is so great. 8 Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet; Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways, And there is only hostility in the house of his God. 9 They have gone deep in depravity As in the days of Gibeah; He will remember their iniquity, He will punish their sins.

Hosea 8 NASB95

Hosea 9:10–17 NASB95

10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season. But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame, And they became as detestable as that which they loved. 11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird— No birth, no pregnancy and no conception! 12 Though they bring up their children, Yet I will bereave them until not a man is left. Yes, woe to them indeed when I depart from them! 13 Ephraim, as I have seen, Is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre; But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter. 14 Give them, O Lord—what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 All their evil is at Gilgal; Indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels. 16 Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up, They will bear no fruit. Even though they bear children, I will slay the precious ones of their womb. 17 My God will cast them away Because they have not listened to Him; And they will be wanderers among the nations.

Hosea 9:10-

Punishment for rejection

Chapters 8-13 of Hosea follow the pattern of illustrating the punishment coming towards Gods people for rejecting God’s covenant. In doing so, Hosea tells the people that they will experience disaster, corruption and future destruction. is no exception to this rule as we see in God’s Word that the people have transgressed the covenant and rebelled against the law of God. As a result, Yahweh will come against them like an eagle. The theme in the latter part of Hosea is that the people of Israel have placed their security in false things. They place their security in their wealth, other gods and in their alliances to other nations. As a result of rejecting Yahweh, they are going to be punished. This disobedience was not simply an accidental matter, rather it was wilful. It wasn’t one or two actions against God, it was a long period of disobedience.

Some people say that God is not merciful because of His wrath that we see throughout Scripture. One such argument that I’ve heard from many people is, “How can God send good people to hell?” or, “How can a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?” What we see in Scripture is that we are all sinners. We “deserve” destruction and eternal separation from God in a place called hell. That’s what we deserve today! However, God is a merciful and patient God. We continually disobey Him, yet we know that Jesus Christ bore our past sin, present sin and future sin on the cross for those who call upon Him to be their Lord and are transformed from the inside out by the power of the Holy Spirit! God is a patient God. We have to remember that, because our world says that He either doesn’t exist or doesn’t care. Both of those things are simply false. He exists, He has a plan and He is patient and merciful. He was merciful in giving the people chance after chance to repent and turn back to Him.

Likewise, each and every day we have is a chance to repent and turn to Him. Each and every day we have is a day to seek His face. Again, praise God that He is a God of mercy and patience.

The people in verse 2 cry out to Him. They try to offset their disobedient ways by intensifying their worship. God cannot be mocked, though. He cannot be deceived. He saw right through their plea and saw it for what it really was, trying to save their skin rather than truly worshipping God for who He is. There are some people out there who worship Jesus Christ for what He can do for them rather than worshipping Jesus Christ for who He is. They worship Christ because He can heal them or because He can bless them rather than worshipping Him because He is the Son of God and our Lord and Savior! People struggled with this back in the 1st century and they struggle with it still to this day. Friends, we cannot love God simply for what He can do for us, we love Him for who He is and what He has done in our life!

Verse 3 shows that Israel has rejected the good and they will suffer punishment as a result. “The enemy will pursue him” is a common covental curse associated with and can be expressed by being on the losing side of a war. As we have talked about in the Old Testament several times, whenever a side would lose a war, they would flee and try to make it back to their homeland. In fleeing, the victorious army would often chase them and try to pursue them before they could make it back home. This is the idea behind this type of curse. Israel will be pursued by an enemy and they will suffer defeat not because the other army is stronger or because they are weak, rather this will happen because Israel has rejected God.

A lot of people say that things happen for random reasons. Maybe they believe in karma or luck, but in general many people think that things happen for no reason whatsoever. The Christian is unique in saying that things don’t happen by happenstance, we know that our God is in control in the good and the bad. As a result, we should praise Him all the same and not reject Him whenever things get a little tough.

Verses 4-6 list the ways in which the people have rejected God: they have set up kings and princes that were not appointed by God. They made idols with their silver and gold. The most obvious idol of the people of this day and age was the calf (as verse 5 shows). They used the materials that God had blessed them with to worship a false god and offer sacrifices to them rather than Yahweh. At this point there is a question for us, what “idols” do we worship in our society? Most people don’t have a golden idol in their home these days, but we all know that there are things that we put before God from time to time. What are they? Phones? TVs? Books? Relationships? We have to understand what it is before we can address it and turn it over to the Lord.

The people of Israel worshipped these idols and the anger of the Lord burned against them. Our God is a jealous God. Many people say that God is a gentleman and a God of love, while God certainly displays love towards us we know that He is also a jealous God. He demands our devotion and worship. He will not be the “second fiddle” in a relationship. Whenever we place our hope or worship anything other than God, it hurts Him and makes Him jealous. As a result of the people’s worshipping of this calf, verse 6 shows that the calf will be broken into pieces. Because the people of Israel had not destroyed their idols as the law required, God will now do it for them.

Coming Disaster (7-8)

Hosea 10 NASB95

1 Israel is a luxuriant vine; He produces fruit for himself. The more his fruit, The more altars he made; The richer his land, The better he made the sacred pillars. 2 Their heart is faithless; Now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars And destroy their sacred pillars. 3 Surely now they will say, “We have no king, For we do not revere the Lord. As for the king, what can he do for us?” 4 They speak mere words, With worthless oaths they make covenants; And judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. 5 The inhabitants of Samaria will fear For the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn for it, And its idolatrous priests will cry out over it, Over its glory, since it has departed from it. 6 The thing itself will be carried to Assyria As tribute to King Jareb; Ephraim will be seized with shame And Israel will be ashamed of its own counsel. 7 Samaria will be cut off with her king Like a stick on the surface of the water. 8 Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed; Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars; Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!” 9 From the days of Gibeah you have sinned, O Israel; There they stand! Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity overtake them in Gibeah? 10 When it is My desire, I will chastise them; And the peoples will be gathered against them When they are bound for their double guilt. 11 Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, But I will come over her fair neck with a yoke; I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself. 12 Sow with a view to righteousness, Reap in accordance with kindness; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord Until He comes to rain righteousness on you. 13 You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, You have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your way, in your numerous warriors, 14 Therefore a tumult will arise among your people, And all your fortresses will be destroyed, As Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle, When mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel will be completely cut off.

Verse 7 gets into the meat of this text as it shows that the people will be punished and they will reap what they sow. They will experience an agricultural disaster. The people have disobeyed and they will experience what they deserve: disaster. They will reap the whirlwind. Verse 7 continues to saw that if their harvest should yield, it would be swallowed up by strangers. Everything the Israelites had worked so hard for on their own power will now be taken away from them. Either they will not get a harvest or if they do it will be taken from them. The people placed their hope and their trust in other gods who promised things like fertility, bountiful harvests and military success, yet we know that lower g gods cannot follow through on their promises because they are nothing more than man’s creation! The only one who follows through on their promises 100% of the time of Yahweh, God! Because the people placed their trust in other gods, they would be disappointed.

One of the greatest lies that the devil tries to sell Christians is that your personal integrity, what you do whenever you’re by yourself, doesn’t really matter. You can look the part of a super-Christian at church but deep down you know that you’re just playing the game. Church, we must remember that God satisfies and that His grace transforms lives! So, whenever you feel as though you are being tempted to give into sin, keep in mind that temptation never delivers what it promises but that God always delivers on His promises. He promises to never leave, nor forsake us! Cling to Him and trust in Him in the hard times, unlike the Israelites who looked identical to the ungodly nations around them!

Corruption of the people (11-13)

The people of Israel cried out to pagan nations like Assyria whenever they were afraid of foreign powers. They were easy prey because they looked to human leaders and armies rather than the Lord of Hosts. This marks the corruption of the people. They built multiples altars for false gods, they disregarded the laws and the sacrifices. The people gave into sin and never repented, they were merely sad that they got caught.

There is a warning in these verses for us, friends. We know that we are to imitate Christ and to be salt and light to the world around us, but we also know that Christ bore our sin on the cross of Calvary! Because of this, there can exist a temptation to simply let the little things go. It’s not a big deal that I commit this sin because it only effects me. It’s not a big deal to do this action because the Bible doesn’t address 21st century issues like technology and computers, therefore I’ll do whatever I want. Friends, we cannot live our life with this mentality. We know that perfection is unattainable, but we must ask ourselves if we are more like Christ as a result of the action in question or if it will make us more like the world around us? The people of Israel had been corrupted so much that they disobeyed the Lord without remorse and thought that they could get away with worshipping Him and their other gods on these false altars.

As verse 13 states, the Lord has taken no delight in their offerings and sacrifices. It’s all about the matter of the heart! Do you worship, study and give with a cheerful heart or out of a sense of duty or obligation? The people of Israel disobeyed time and time again and as a result they were going to be punished.

Future Destruction (14)

Verse 14 gives us the promise of future destruction. The people will go into exile because they have forgotten their Maker. They will be destroyed by fire and the fire will devour their fortified cities and walls. The next few chapters of Israel will explain this coming destruction in more detail, but it all comes back to this fact: The people have forgotten the Lord their God.

There are people in our nation who have forgotten their maker, amen? There are people in our community who have forgotten the fact that they are sinners and in need of saving! Friends, we must be faithful to share the truth of Scripture with those around us. We must be faithful to share that Christ Jesus came to die on behalf of sinners and that this is good news! But we must also share the other side of that coin: We are all sinners. We are powerless and dead apart from Christ. We need Him to perform a resurrection in our lives because there is no life apart from Him!

We know that there is eternal destruction awaiting those who are not a part of the family of God. We know that this is something Scripture promises. With that said, we must be mindful and careful to make sure that our lives are being lived in such a way that people can tell that there is a difference between us and non-Christians around us. That was the problem with the Israelites in Hosea’s day, they looked no different than the other nations around them. They were tempted to follow false gods and to worship them along with Yahweh. Sadly, they gave into this temptation and they suffered the consequences. Israel was called to be the light to the world, they were to be the nation that God used to bless the world, yet they put a lamp over that light and conformed to the ways of the nations around them.

Conclusion

May we not suffer the same fate. We know that Christ’s church will endure and not even the gates of hell will stand against it! Friends, this is an offense statement. The gates of hell will not be able to overpower the church of Jesus Christ, therefore we should aggressively and faithfully share the good and bad parts of the Gospel message with others. We must share that Jesus Christ saves sinners and we know this because He has saved us!

We must also check our own lives and ask if our life is bearing fruit and if we are looking more like Christ than how we looked years ago. Do we look good in public and go back home and worship false gods and idols? I pray that we don’t! I pray that we would remain faithful in the good and bad times as we go through this thing called life and as we tell others to be reconciled to Christ.

Focus on the things of Christ and pray that the Holy Spirit will illuminate areas in our life that we need to give over to the Lord today. Let’s pray!

Related Media

Related Sermons