Every success in your life, everything you have achieved and all that you have was given by God. It was not your good works that did it. It was not your plans, goals, priorities, money and possessions. Don’t ‘rejoice’ in those things. That’s what the ‘others’ do. Rejoice in God who gave you all things. That is the heart of the message as we move into the next chapter of Hosea. He warns God’s people not to celebrate like their world does for God is the God of their harvest.
“Do not rejoice, Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor.
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 will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria. They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, nor will their sacrifices please him. Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat them will be unclean. This food will be for themselves; it will not come into the temple of the Lord.” (Hosea 9 v 1-4)
The problem:-
- There was not thankfulness for what God had given them.
- They celebrated idolatry like the world around them believing their own idols brought the success. Instead of gratitude to God they engaged in sexual practices to Baal in the places where the grain was processed believing it helped their harvest.
It seems so difficult for us to relate to what God’s people did. This is why we must understand idolatry in 2023 not as some statue that we bow down to but the culture and the character of the world which we welcome into our lives.
The neglecting to thank and honour their Provider God led to:-
- Their harvest failing. Ungratefulness will not lead to success.
- Them returning to exile. They will lose their authority in the place they are in.
- The rejection of them as His people. They will lose their promises that as you put God first He makes a way. There will be no early release.
Missions Paul 