Author: missionspaul

This has to be the central message of Hosea’s prophecy and certainly one of the important message for every generation. Especially for us in 2023.

“Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unploughed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.” Hosea 10:12

Why is it time?

1. Because knowing God is not high on the agenda. Knowing about or of Him is not the same. In 4:1 Hosea says there is no knowledge or acknowledgement of the Lord. Like Hosea, alone in the marital home, or like the father scanning the terrain for his prodigal son, we have left (again), we have gone our own way (again), we have lost our knowing Him (again). When I look back on all the problems I have had to try and help within Church and I ask myself this question, ‘if the individuals concerned knew God more would this have helped to solve the problem?’ The answer is ‘YES’.
2. Because leadership is failing God’s people. Hosea has said in 9:15 that the leaders were rebellious. Last week a Pastor told me how in his town there is a church that has had a new minister. Since that appointment the minister set about asking every ‘evangelical born-again believer’ in the church to leave. Droves have left as a secular and liberal agenda has risen within that church brought about by leadership decisions. We need courageous faithful leaders today who will not remove the Bible from its central place in a believe’rs life and who teach the church to obey it. And we need gentle leaders who know how to shepherd.
3. Because it is God’s heart to bless. We will soon get to the end of the prophecy and in chapter 14 we see God’s heart which is for us to thrive and be fruitful. 

It wasn’t God’s heart for judgment and exile. It is God’s heart for revival. 

If you read any revival history you find a praying people. I was reading the other day of the life of Jeremiah Lambfear. In New York in 1857 he began calling people to pray at lunchtime. In the first week 6 people came; the second week 14 people came to pray; then 23 people; then 65 people then 200 people; then he decided to go 5 days a week still meeting at lunchtime to pray. After a few months there were 6100 people praying and then 6 months later the revival broke and as God began to move there were upwards of 10,000 a week coming to know Jesus. Scottish and Irish leaders were sent to New York and on their return they started prayer meetings and it led in 1858/1859 to the Ulster Revival which spread across the whole UK. It wasn’t the prayer meetings but it was hearts passionate for God to move who were willing to take their time to pursue Him. It was people who knew it was time to seek the Lord. This can still happen now in 2023. 

If we want His hand we need to seek His face.

If we don’t walk with God then life will only feel like work.

God tells His people that because they have left Him out of their life then it is going to get harder for them.

“Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; so I will put a yoke on her fair neck. I will drive Ephraim, Judah must plough, and Jacob must break up the ground.” Hosea 10:11

God’s people are likened to the animal which treads on the grain to separate the kernel from the chaff. The animal did not have to pull a plough and it could eat as it worked! Perfect!

BUT this was to end.

God was going to place a heavy burden on His people simply because they had turned their own way. 

It gets more difficult when we choose easier paths of comfort.

We lose blessings when we pursue our own gain.

Like Ephraim, even though we have been a disciple and trained to follow Him out of love, if we reject that, we will experience what we were never created to do.

Our discipleship and our love will be replaced with the need to be driven and pulling a heavy load. Our joy will leave us as we experience the burden that the desire for success brings. 

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).

What is challenging your total committed and undivided heart?

Not only does it demand your allegiance it blinds you to the consequences of giving it.

We are going to read that as Assyria comes in to take the people God has firstly removed their king and then the altar which was a symbol of cleansing for many years but then taken over by idolatry is now condemned. The result is that God’s people will look to the hills and the mountains which in the past were symbols of God’s protection but now instead of repenting they will want to die holding on to their sin.

“Samaria’s king will be destroyed, swept away like a twig on the surface of the waters. The high places of wickedness will be destroyed—it is the sin of Israel. Thorns and thistles will grow up and cover their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!” (Hosea 8 v 7-8)

It is hard to imagine anyone preferring to hold on their own sinful way of life willing to suffer the consequences of doing so instead of repenting and losing that sin.

It is Samaria that is cut off, the capital, the central place for economy and business, the headquarters and the mother church, where all the pomp and ceremony is displayed. When God moves in judgment He starts at the top and works downwards.

These words in Hosea’s day are parallel to what we see from Luke’s gospel and then the Revelation.

As Jesus was nearing the cross, “Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’ (Luke 23 v 28-30)

Just as Hosea was looking to the shadow of Assyria descending on God’s people, Jesus had the Roman aggression on the city of Jerusalem in AD70 when death and destruction reigned bringing everything to the ground.

And the Revelation?

“Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (Revelation 6 v 15-17)

Is the Revelation pointing to something of such a grand scale it is nuclear? Maybe. But the parallel teaching is the same whether in Hosea, Luke or the Revelation. And it is this.

When judgment falls will we be okay? Will we stand ready for what is next in sure and certain hope of our resurrection or will we be so consumed by idolatry that even though our world falls in on us we will still not repent. The world leaders that come toppling down whether Presidents, Prime Ministers or Priests often do so holding on to their lies that have consumed them. Very few apologise. Most do not repent.

The glory of the idol is gone. Everything fades but the Lord.

Even though they acknowledge their unfaithfulness in v3 ‘we did not revere the Lord’ and they have made (false) ‘promises, oaths and agreements’ (v4) they soon begin not to mourn their sinfulness but their losses. They do not grieve of the loss of God’s presence but their idols especially the calf-idol.

“They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements; therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field. The people who live in Samaria fear for the calf-idol of Beth Aven. Its people will mourn over it, and so will its idolatrous priests, those who had rejoiced over its splendour, because it is taken from them into exile. It will be carried to Assyria as tribute for the great king. Ephraim will be disgraced; Israel will be ashamed of its foreign alliances.” (Hosea 10 v 4-6)

Repentance does not necessarily lead to reformation as it can be very shallow. ‘We did not’ soon gave way to sadness over the loss of their idol.

Bethel (house of God) the place for worship for the pilgrims had been renamed by the prophet Beth-Aven (house of iniquity). It teaches us of the divided heart.

“Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” (Psalm 86 v 11)

Here are some popular prayers, “Hear me … Answer me … Look after me … Save me …”

We know all these and have said all these prayers at some point.

 So had David and he uses them all in Psalm 86. But he also uses this prayer which isn’t as popular: Teach me, give me an undivided heart.

 What is God teaching you at this moment of your life?

 What are you reading that has caused growth to happen?

 Where have you been corrected?

 The most exciting prayer that you could pray is: Teach me. Give me an undivided heart.

In the words of Bob and Larry of Veggie Tales:

Bob the Tomato: “Larry, how much stuff do you need to make you happy?”

Larry the Cucumber: “I don’t know. How much stuff is there?”

When we move away from King Jesus and chase after ‘stuff’ and make other things kings of our life then when God decides to topple over those thrones we end up having no king at all. Our idols are broken and we have lost His presence.

“Then they will say, “We have no king because we did not revere the Lord. But even if we had a king, what could he do for us?” (Hosea 10 v 3)

Assyria was a shadow, they were coming and in 722 BC they took the land and they took their king. There was nothing they could do. They had lost everything because of their unfaithfulness to the true and only King.

Don’t chase after ‘stuff’ to satisfy your soul when only King Jesus can do that.

Easy.

It is possible to appear to be loyal to God and yet bow down to idols.

It is possible that what happens on the public stage is not mirrored with what the private life is like.

It is possible to claim many things and yet they not be a reality.

For a time.

“Israel was a spreading vine; he brought forth fruit for himself. As his fruit increased, he built more altars; as his land prospered, he adorned his sacred stones. Their heart is deceitful, and now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will demolish their altars and destroy their sacred stones.” (Hosea 10 v 1-2)

The Church grew numerically and they had a harvest with abundance of blessings, there were many testimonies, stories of transformation. They became prosperous and bought buildings and extended their staff, their community work was amazing, their ministry became known around the world and yet the leadership having admired the success, enjoyed the benefits of it and began to idolise what they had received.

The GIVER and the GIFTS had become separated.

They continued and more success came their way as they began to teach others the keys to their growth. “You can be like us”; “We will show you how we got these gifts”; “If you do this ABC principle then you will receive what we have”.

That’s not why the GIVER gave the GIFTS.

So God began to topple down that what was built. He broke down the idolatry by exposing it and all that was successful fell down. The success become the failure it always was.

And someone asked, ‘How did we get here?’

And the reply came.

“Easy”

Thank God today for the leaders of your church who teach and lead you along the right path.

“Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious. Ephraim is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring.” My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.” (Hosea 9 v 15-17)

Good leaders honour what God did in the past and encourage others to make the same commitments their ancestors did. (Gilgal was the place that the Israelites first encamped after the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River but which later became the centre of idolatry).

Good leaders are continually calling people from drifting from the presence of God (these people would soon be driven from His home and into exile).

Good leaders are not focused on their own gain but are focused on the legacy that they leave behind (difficult to read perhaps but the One who forms us in our womb will lift His protection on future generations).

Good leaders teach the Bible in a way that it must be obeyed (they were rejected because the people didn’t obey).

Good leaders teach the Old testament history in light of a New testament covenant which is of course so much better (because of Jesus’ blood there is no hate, no being driven away, no blighting of the future, no withering, no fruitlessness, no slaying, no rejection and no more wandering, thank you Jesus!)

There is always a price to pray when we walk away from God.

^“I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place. But Ephraim will bring out their children to the slayer. Give them, Lord—what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry.” (Hosea 9 v 13-14)

When the glory of God is exchanged for idolatry then fruitlessness is the result. Growth is hindered because blessing has stopped and the potential (because Ephraim means doubly fruitful) is not fulfilled. Ephraim who lived in a pleasant place had enough things to look at to think they will be okay. They were surrounded by blessings and yet even pleasant places can experience the slayer.

God has stepped back.

Whenever we move from the Creator to the created for our satisfaction we lose.

Hosea cries out with a prayer asking for God’s help. But then realises that actually it is more merciful to cut off the future generation because of what is coming from the Assyrian nation.

Is that applicable to us in 2023 if we lose the glory of God?

Paul in Romans says to us the wages of sin is death meaning there are consequences to walking from God. This is why the enemy of our soul is working to redefine sin and to make sin more acceptable. To water down the Bible. To make sure Churches create false fire so that the deception is created that God is fine with idolatry. He is not. The consequences that Hosea realised remain today. Judgement continues to fall on the House of God. Celebrity heroes continue to fall and more will do so. Legacies are robbed and cut off. But not all. For those who return there is hope. Amen.

Those are the words that were spoken to me yesterday about a financial situation. ‘There has been a tangible decline’. I looked at the figures and sadness came over me as I saw how what used to be is no more. It is a very difficult situation to live under when there are just echoes of what used to be.

Israel started out like with fruitful potential, like ‘grapes in a desert’ God found her. But she chose a lifestyle of idolatry and as a result … ^“Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—no birth, no pregnancy, no conception. Even if they rear children, I will bereave them of every one. Woe to them when I turn away from them!” (Hosea 9 v 11-12)

Israel’s glory is their population and it will diminish. Being moved into exile their numbers will decline

The word ‘glory’ in the Bible means ‘weighty, heavy’ and refers to the presence of God.
Nothing can change the presence of God. Nothing can affect His glory. It is unchanging. He will be where He wants to be. However His glory is not what is under scrutiny, it is our glory.

Our glory is the original condition mankind was created with.
Adam lost it because he wanted to be somebody else instead of being happy with who God created.
Adam lost it for us and Jesus gave it back to us but we keep on losing it because we want to be somebody else other than who God made.
We want to be and we want to have and we pursue this at all costs even if that cost is our glory.
We exchange our glory for idolatry. Hosea has taught us so much about idols. They exist in our world and they are the one reason for losing our glory.

The question is always this: is that image the image of Jesus? If it is not, then you are in danger of losing your glory.

Keep your glory: it is who you are created to be.