Hosea 9: Homeward bound

Hosea 9: Homeward bound

What is your ideal home like?  I am not talking of the building but the atmosphere.  A place where you feel secure.  A place where you know that you are loved.   Many homes are ruined by conflict, but not your ideal home.  Your ideal home place where you can rest your head at peace.  It is a place of safety.

In the beginning God gave humankind the most amazing home, Eden.  Adam and Eve were at peace with God and each other.  But they fell for the devil’s lie and thought that they would be freer without God.  That is a lie we believe every time we sin.  Yet this supposed freedom simply leads to pain, conflict and regret.

Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden of Eden and humanity has never been the same since.  When Cain murdered his brother Abel, God says ‘you will be a restless wanderer on earth’ (Genesis 4:12).  Isn’t that how we feel at times?  We lack the sense of security that can only be found in the best of homes.

Yet God was so kind.  He made a promise to Abram, whose people were idol worshippers.  He shows Abraham Canaan and says, ‘to your offspring I will give this land’ (Genesis 12;7).  He is going to rescue a people and give them a new home.  They will inhabit a land flowing with milk and honey.

This journey to the promised land is a long one.  First, Abraham’s people end up in slavery in Egypt.  There they cry out to God, who remembers his promise.  In the Exodus, God leads them out of slavery and Egypt.  God brings them to Mount Sinai where they become a nation.  A generation later, Joshua leads them into Canaan—God fights for the people and they drive out most of its inhabitants.

However, just before they had entered the promised land, God had spoken to the people through Moses.  His words are recorded in the book of Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy promised blessings if they obeyed and curses if they disobeyed.  If they rebelled against him, he would reverse the Exodus and send them into exile.  At the end of chapter eight Hosea warns, ‘now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt’ (8:13).   

God warns us because he loves us (9:1-5)

It is harvest time.  It’s been a good harvest.  The people are rejoicing.  But Hosea comes along and tries to spoil the party.  Do not rejoice, Israel, do not be jubilant like the other nations.  For you have been unfaithful [literally ‘you have played the whore’] to you own God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor (9:1). 

Israel had cheated on God as they went off and worshipped the Canaanite fertility god called Baal.  Baal was a god of sex and stuff.  In Baalism, you slept with temple prostitutes to encourage him to make the land fertile.  Baalism is alive and well today, as we forget God and simply lust and shop.

Hosea warns the people that their future harvests are going to look very different from this one.  Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people; the new wine will fail them.  They will not remain in the LORD’s land; Ephraim [another name for Israel], will return to Egypt, and eat unclean food in Assyria (2-3).

The curse of Deuteronomy is about to be enacted.  The Exodus is about to be reversed.  The Assyrians are going to conquer them, and it will be as if they are going to back to Egypt and into slavery.  Their harvest festivals will them seem like funerals.

Who wants to hear from a prophet of doom like Hosea in the middle of their harvest celebrations?  When life is good, people do not want to be told that they are eternally lost without Jesus.  When life is full, people do not want to hear that our existence is meaningless without Jesus.  When life is fun, people do not want to be told that there is a terrible day of judgement to be faced in the future. 

No one loved people more than Jesus did.  Yet Jesus spoke about the reality of hell more than we do.  The reason he did so was because he did not want people to go there.  ‘He knows that if we reject God throughout our lives then ultimately God will be right to reject us.  He knows that our sin, if left undealt with, will take us to a place of unimaginable and unending suffering.  He warns us, because he loves us’ (Rico Tice).  Somehow, we have to find the opportunity to warn our friends and family of the danger they are in.  It may not be a welcome message!

God warns us so that we can repent (7-9)

The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad (7b).  It is not entirely clear whether these are the people’s words about Hosea, are these are Hosea’s words about the false prophets that Israel listen to.  Either way one thing is clear: they pay no attention to what Hosea is saying.

Tragically the people are in great danger.  A watchman was meant to keep a lookout for invading forces, but they will not listen to those who warn them of judgement.  The enemy that is coming is God himself.  It is God who will punish their sins (9b).  But what a strange enemy he is!  He refuses to maunch a surprise attack.  He continually warns of his coming, because he wants us to turn to him, repent and find mercy.

We pray that God would bring people to their senses (10-17)

These people had once been God’s delight.  Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel (10a).  But soon everything had gone wrong.  At Baal Peor (10b, see Numbers 25) the king of Moab had sent Moabite women to seduce the men of Israel and involve them in the worship of Baal.  The men were only too glad to oblige, and the resulting judgement left twenty-four thousand Israelites dead.  What is going to happen now that Israel is again worshipping Baal?  Had they not realised that God takes our sin seriously?

Hosea tells them that there is going to be a dreadful judgement.  The glory of Ephraim [another word for Israel] is its children.  The shame of Israel is their worship of Baal.  Now there will be no more glory.  There will be no more birth, pregnancy or conception (11).  Those who are born will be slaughtered (12-13).  Even if they bear children, I will slay their offspring (16).  This is not the kind of God that people feel comfortable with today.  Our God is love is also a God of judgement. 

Look at Hosea’s prayer in verse fourteen: Give them, Lord—what you will give them?  Hosea is asking God to send them adversity.  Why would he do that?  He asks for adversity to come upon them because this might cause them to repent.  When our loved ones don’t know God, we pray for them.  We want life to go well with them, but more importantly we want them to know Him.  We pray, ‘Lord, do whatever it takes to bring them to their senses, even if that means that they have to end up in the pigsty.’  It would be better for them to suffer for a while now if it turns them to God, than suffer for an eternity later!

Because of their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there … (15).  This idea of hate must be seen in light of God’s unrelenting love displayed in this book.  It is a Hebrew way of saying that he was rejecting them in order that they might seek him.  Gilgal was where the people had made Saul their king.  Their motivation for wanting such a king was to be like the other nations.  They were rejecting God as their king (1 Samuel 8:7).

Gilgal reminds us of the human story.  People simply refuse to live under God’s loving rule.  Ever since Adam and Eve we have sought our freedom elsewhere.  The consequence is that we live restless and unfulfilled lives in the present and then we spend an eternity exiled from his heaven.

God had found Israel in the wilderness.  There he had loved them, prospered them and given them the land.  But they had not loved Him.  Their lack of love was shown in their repeated disobedience.  Now, they are going to back into the wilderness.  My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations (17).

Conclusion—this is not the end of the story!

Gosh!  This is not an easy chapter of the Bible.  Perhaps you think that you would have been better off staying in bed this morning.  But don’t despair.  The good news is that this chapter does not mark the end of the story.  Jesus promises us a better future.

Jesus was the one person who worshipped God as he should.  Jesus is the one person who was faithful.  Jesus is the one person who deserves the blessings promised in Deuteronomy.  But instead he took upon himself its curses.  The apostle Paul explains, ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written cursed is anyone who is hanged on a tree’ (Galatians 3:13).  The curses of Deuteronomy had warned of exile, and Christ was exiled from the love of the Father on that cross where he cried out, ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:24).  The dreadful judgements that we read of in this chapter actually find their fulfilment in the punishment of Jesus on the cross.  As he takes our sin and gives us his goodness, we become worthy to live in the promised land.

So, gather up your best thoughts of home.  This is the future that awaits you if you are in Christ.  You may suffer in this life, but you are homeward bound.  The apostle Peter writes, ‘In keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness’ (2 Peter 3:1).  One day our sense of displacement will be over.  Even now, Jesus offers us rest for our weary souls.   

One final thought, if we are heading to a better home, is it not foolish to spend all our dreams on this brief life?  Go to your city dump and you will see the remains of people’s dreams.  All those products that people looked to for fulfilment that are now considered rubbish.  Today’s purchases will soon end up in tomorrow’s bins.  So why do we think that they can satisfy?  Today’s successes will soon be forgotten.  Death will separate us from every satisfaction, other than those that we have found in Christ.  He will be the greatest joy of our eternal home!