There are some people who don’t like messages of sin, repentance, holiness. In fact for some they want to remove those words entirely from their liturgy.
Hosea’s people were equally not happy hearing such a message from God. Gibeah has appeared before and God comes back to it so it is important. There was a sin at Gibeah that not only happened then but continued down the generations. And I see it still in 2023. It isn’t a nice story at all but neither are the stories of broken people today. I read a message the other day of how a man was ‘broken’ for 24 years because of the sin of another person of great responsibility and privilege. I believe we have and are still to enter into days of judgement for those who will not repent. There is a call, a warning from the Spirit and those who are spiritual deaf because of their lack of self-awareness and arrogance are at the point of no return. Not everyone emerges from exile the way they entered and some don’t emerge at all.
“Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, Israel, and there you have remained. Will not war again overtake the evildoers in Gibeah? When I please, I will punish them; nations will be gathered against them to put them in bonds for their double sin.” (Hosea 10 v 9-10
She was a concubine. In a fit of anger she ran away from her master and owner to her father’s house in Bethlehem of Judah. The man found her and wooed her back. On the way back to his home in the hill country of Ephraim, it became late in the evening and they needed a place to stay. They depended on the hospitality of the people of Gibeah, but there was no hospitality forthcoming. Finally, an old man offered them a place to stay in his home. That night a set of townsmen knocked on the door. They demanded the body of the male visitor. In order to appease the sexual hunger of the men outside, the old man grabbed the concubine and threw her out and shut the door. The crowd outside gang-raped her, abused her all night. When dawn broke they left her lying on the ground. When her husband came out he saw her lying dead at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. It is a horrible story told in Judges 19 and there is no mention of God. Does He not care? Was it too shameful to even make an appearance or speak a word? Her memory calls out. It calls out to the psychological numbness of those around her, and it calls out to us down the centuries to amplify her silent cries. There are people crying today because of acts that are too shameful to even mention where the presence of God seems remote. We need to speak up and out. We need to step into the shame and feel the dirt and the pain and we need to stand for justice. For the greatest shame is on those who turn away from that cry. Will we speak up for those who have been impacted by the sin of God’s people? Or do we just want people to like us? Whenever God desires He will bring judgement for those who will not repent. It starts in the house of God (Bethel) which as we know became the house of iniquity (Beth-Aven).
Missions Paul 