AN UNFAITHFUL NATION

Hosea 4:1-6:4

INTRODUCTION: 

If you were with us last week, you may remember that the book of Hosea begins almost like an episode of Jerry Springer.  If it were an episode of Springer, the title might be something like “The Preacher and the Prostitute.”

 

I hope you recall that Hosea married an unfaithful wife who bore him children of her unfaithfulness.  It was not because the prophet had a salacious side to his character that he chose to marry a prostitute but it was because God told him to marry that type of woman.  God wanted Hosea to understand what it was like to love and not be loved in return, to commit but not to receive commitment in return.  When Hosea knew how it felt, he could preach with passion to a people who were being untrue to the Lord.

 

If it is true that the book of Hosea begins like Jerry Springer, it is also true that it becomes like Boston Legal.  Starting with chapter 4, Hosea’s prophecy becomes a courtroom drama with God acting as Accuser and Israel as the accused as God puts an unfaithful nation on trial.

 

“In God we trust”…”One nation under God”…”All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”…an awareness of and a commitment to almighty God are woven into the very fabric of our nation.  On Wednesday we will celebrate the 231^st birthday of the United States of America.  If the God in whom we claim to trust, were to put this nation on trial and charge us with infidelity, would we be found guilty?  You might want to keep that question in mind as we look at the case against Israel. 

 

Let me give you this word of caution, however:  You cannot always make a parallel between God’s messages to Israel and His message to the United States.  We sometimes call ours a Christian nation and there were certainly many Christian principals upon which this country was founded.  But be aware that in the Old Testament and under the Old Covenant, God’s chosen people were a specific race with a common ancestor in Abraham.  His chosen nation had a geographical location and physical boundaries.  God’s chosen people today are “whosoever will” and its location is in hearts, minds and souls rather than in a particular region.  It would be a mistake (one often made, I might add) to try to superimpose onto the United States, everything that was said to Israel.

 

With that word of caution in mind, it can still prove illuminating to consider what God would to say to our country if He were to bring charges against us as He did against Israel.  Let’s look first at God’s case against Israel.

I.                    GOD’S CASE AGAINST ISRAEL (4:1-19)

“The Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land” (4:1b)

It is as if you are the jury and God now approaches the bench to lay out His charges against a false, faithless and fickle Israel.  The nation was guilty of rejecting God’s wisdom, refusing God’s law and resisting God’s direction.  Hear as counsel for the Prosecution presents its case:

A.     The nation is guilty of deliberate sin (4:1-2)

¹ Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites,

because the Lord has a charge to bring

against you who live in the land:

“There is no faithfulness, no love,

no acknowledgment of God in the land.

^2 There is only cursing,

lying and murder,

stealing and adultery;

they break all bounds,

and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

The Prosecution’s case begins with the charge that Israel is guilty of deliberate, volitional and intentional sin.  Rather than responding to God’s faithfulness and love by being faithful and loving in return, the people of Israel were calling down curses on one another, they were lying to one another, they were killing one another, stealing from one another and committing adultery against one another.  In fact, according to the Lord, they were crossing all the boundaries of moral behavior and were piling bloodshed upon bloodshed, compounding their guilt. 

The Prosecutor wants us to understand that none of this was done unintentionally or because they did not know that what they were doing was wrong.  It was willful, wanton and wicked. 

B.     The nation is guilty of deliberate ignorance. (4:6)

^6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.

“Because you have rejected knowledge,

I also reject you as my priests;

because you have ignored the law of your God,

I also will ignore your children.

The second charge of the Great Prosecutor is that the people are deliberately ignorant.  The tragedy of their ignorance of God is compounded by the fact that they are ignorant of God because they chose to be ignorant of Him.  They have “rejected knowledge”. 

I have asked that you consider if the God in whom we claim to trust, were to bring charges against our nation, would any of those charges be the same as the charges against Israel.  Consider this: is it possible that He would charge us with deliberate ignorance of Him and His Word?  In a land where everyone – absolutely everyone – has easy access to a Bible; in a land where religious broadcasting is available 24 hours a day on radio and television; in a land where no one lives very far from a church building; in such a land as that, is it possible that some people have simply shut out, tuned out and cast out God’s Word?  Is it possible that some among us do not know God’s Word, God’s will and God’s way because we’ve chosen not to know?  Is that an accusation that God could level against us? 

C.    And now the Prosecutor pronounces a third charge against an unfaithful nation:  deliberate infidelity.

¹⁰  “They will eat but not have enough;

they will engage in prostitution but not increase,

because they have deserted the Lord

to give themselves

^11 to prostitution,

to old wine and new,

which take away the understanding

^12 of my people.

They consult a wooden idol

and are answered by a stick of wood.

A spirit of prostitution leads them astray;

they are unfaithful to their God.

^13 They sacrifice on the mountaintops

and burn offerings on the hills,

under oak, poplar and terebinth,

where the shade is pleasant.

Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution

and your daughters-in-law to adultery.

The very first commandment that God gave to His people when He led them out of Egypt and made a mighty nation out of a family of slaves; the very fist law of that nation was: you shall have no other gods.  But here they were worshipping wooden idols.  They were offering sacrifices on the mountaintops, on the hilltops and in the shade of the trees.  And the sacrifices they were offering were to false gods that are not gods. 

 

And yet again, their sin is compounded by the fact that they knew better.  They simply chose to forsake the God of who created them for gods of their own creation. 

 

In this day and in this land, we have very few people who worship images of wood, silver or gold.  Rather we worship the gold and the silver themselves and we prostrate ourselves before the objects of wood and steel that we have made: houses, cars, electronic devices and so forth. 

 

D.    The final charge of the Prosecutor against the people of Israel is that they were guilty of deliberate insolence (4:16). 

^16 The Israelites are stubborn,

like a stubborn heifer.

How then can the Lord pasture them

like lambs in a meadow?

“Insolent” is defined as: haughty, disregarding of others, domineering, disrespectful of authority, impertinent, impudent and insulting.  The Prosecutor summarized the deliberately insolence of the Israelites with one word: stubborn.  Then He painted a word picture and said they were like a stubborn heifer.  How can He care for them like lambs when they are like stubborn heifers?

A nation that is disrespectful of God and impudent toward Him is an unfaithful nation and that is the charge that God makes against Israel.

 

With the charges lodged against Israel, God now changes roles and moves from being the Great Prosecutor to being the Great Judge.  Chapter 5 of Hosea reveals God’s judgment against an unfaithful nation.

II.                  GOD’S JUDGMENT AGAINST ISRAEL (5:1-15)

Because of the nation’s unfaithfulness to Him, God would pour out His wrath upon them. 

A.     In rapid-fire fashion, God declares that they would be deserted (5:5-6).  That is, He would withdraw His presence from them.

^5 Israel’s arrogance testifies against them;

the Israelites, even Ephraim, stumble in their sin;

Judah also stumbles with them.

^6 When they go with their flocks and herds

to seek the Lord,

they will not find him;

he has withdrawn himself from them.

B.     They would experience decay (5:12).  God said He would be like a moth that would eat at the nation and like rot that would erode them.

 

C.    If that doesn’t bring repentance, they would experience destruction (5:14).  He said:

^14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,

like a great lion to Judah.

I will tear them to pieces and go away;

I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them.

D.    If that doesn’t bring repentance, they would experience dishonor (5:15) because the presence of God will be removed from them.   

^15 Then I will go back to my place

until they admit their guilt.

And they will seek my face;

in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”

Deserted, decayed, destroyed and dishonored: that will be the judgment against the unfaithful nation of Israel.  May I ask if you have any reason to believe that God will judge an unfaithful nation differently today?

III.                GOD’S SENTENCE AGAINST ISRAEL (6:1-4)

In the face of the charges against Israel and in the face of the judgment that is upon them, the people showed no remorse at their sentencing.  God declared that their remorse was skin-deep and their repentance was short-lived.  They went through the motions of repentance but their lack of lasting change proved their lack of sincerity. 

“Come, let us return to the Lord.

He has torn us to pieces

but he will heal us;

he has injured us

but he will bind up our wounds.

^2 After two days he will revive us;

on the third day he will restore us,

that we may live in his presence.

^3 Let us acknowledge the Lord;

let us press on to acknowledge him.

As surely as the sun rises,

he will appear;

he will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.”

^4 “What can I do with you, Ephraim?

What can I do with you, Judah?

Your love is like the morning mist,

like the early dew that disappears.

They had not really given their hearts to God; they just acted as if they had.  Then, like the morning mist or the early dew, their faithfulness soon disappeared. 

 

As a result, God said that His judgment flashed like lightening upon them.

 

All this week, we’ve been without internet service because “bspeedy” got hit with lightening Monday evening. 

·         Lightning is sudden and unannounced.  If we always knew when and where lightning was going to strike, we wouldn’t need surge protectors.

·         Lightning is sudden and it is swift.  In fact, we use, as a figure of speech, that something is as ”fast as lightning”.  Do you want to know how fast lightning is?  A cloud-to-ground flash of lightning comprises at least two strokes: a pale leader stroke that strikes the ground and a highly luminous return stroke. The leader stroke reaches the ground in about 20 milliseconds (0.02 of a second); the return stroke reaches the cloud in about 70 microseconds (.00007 of a second).  That’s fast!

·         Lightning is sudden, it is swift and it is strong.  Lightning is a powerful force.  A typical lightning flash involves a discharge between cloud and ground of several hundred million volts.  Temperatures in the lightning channel are on the order of 50,000 °F.

Lightening is sudden, swift and strong.  And that is God’s image for His judgments on an unfaithful nation.

CONCLUSION:           

In Yellowstone National Park is the world’s most famous geyser: Old Faithful.  The geyser was named that because, unlike other geysers, it follows a dependable time schedule.  Once every 65 minutes, it shoots a stream of boiling water over 175 feet into the air.  It is called faithful because you can depend on it.

A faithful nation is one God can depend upon.  In reality, a faithful nation is nothing more and nothing less than a nation of faithful individuals.  Regardless of what anyone or even everyone else resolves to do, will you resolve to be a faithful individual? 

 

The truth is: God is ever faithful.  The question is: will we ever be faithful?

INVITATION:                        #196 – “Great is Thy Faithfulness”

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