Sowing and Reaping: Hosea 8; Galatians 6:7-8

Now, as we prepare for Pastor Hoel's sermon, I'll be reading the sermon text this morning.

Chapter 8 of Hosea, and then a couple of verses from chapter 6 of Galatians.

So first chapter 8 of Hosea.

Set the trumpet to your lips.

One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law.

To me they cry, My God, we Israel know you.

Israel has spurned the good.

The enemy shall pursue him.

They made kings, but not through me.

They set up princes, but I knew it not.

With their silver and gold, they made idols for their own destruction.

I have spurned your calf, O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be incapable of innocence?

For it is from Israel.

A craftsman made it.

It is not God.

The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no flower.

If it were to yield, strangers would devour it.

Israel is swallowed up.

Already they are among the nations as a useless vessel.

For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild donkey wandering alone.

Ephraim has hired lovers.

Though they have hired allies among the nations, I will soon gather them up.

And the king and the princes shall soon writhe because of the tribute.

Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning.

Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousand, they would be regarded as a strange thing.

As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it.

But the Lord does not accept them.

Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

They shall return to Egypt.

For Israel has forgotten his maker and built palaces.

And Judah has multiplied fortified cities.

So I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour, devour her strongholds.

And now from Galatians chapter 6, verses 7 and 8.

Galatians 6:7

Do not be deceived.

God is not mocked.

For whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption.

But the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.

Here ends the reading of God's word.

And this chapter can be seen as a summary of chapter 5 to 7, where the people are reminded that they have forgotten God.

Therefore, they will reap, will win, and symbolizing judgment.

However, God during the storm brings healing and hope to his people.

Talk to us and empower us so we can keep giving the honor to you every day.

Show us Christ today.

Amen.

By the grace of God, the tornado took another path just a few, just a few miles before hitting us.

The next day, close to there, I could see the devastation it caused.

Leaving houses without roof, others destroyed.

I realized that tornadoes are more serious, are more serious than I imagine.

People often say, I feel God so far away that I cannot trust in his love.

Probably we hear that at some point in our lives.

In this analogy, the world is like a clock that is almost unwound.

At creation, God watchmaker made the world, the clock, wound it up, and then withdrew.

Therefore, according to them, God is not an active part of us.

He's really far away from us.

Our people, his people.

Even though when people, his people are unfaithful.

And verse one begins with an incredible sad statement.

Because the people have broken my covenant and revealed against my law, the scripture said.

The text shows us how the people are ready to receive the consequences of their own decisions.

This chapter 8 tells us about a whirlwind that will come upon Israel because the people forgot God, meaning they were negligent.

Whirlwind forgot, sorry, whirlwind that will come upon Israel because the people forgot God.

They forgot God.

And whirlwind in the in the Bible, it is a symbol of God's rapid and complete judgment.

Let me use an illustration to emphasize this point.

We all know that the law of gravity is absolute, right?

Let us say, for example, if I have something in my hand, and then let us imagine that one day I try to put it here and let go and fall to the floor.

But let's say that I imagine that one day it occurred to me that to climb the tallest building in the USA convinced that I am to break the law of gravity.

Someone of you are going to beg me not to do it for sure.

And start to think that I have something wrong with me.

Why would some of you try to convince me not to jump out of the building?

Obviously, because I am never going to break the law of gravity.

The one who is going to break into pieces is just me, if I do that.

They believe that their actions will have no consequences.

Clearly, this proverb establishes that there is a relationship between what the person does and what happened to them later because of their decisions.

James Boyce says, the proverb basically means that Israel has sown the seed of a meaningless religion.

Therefore, it will rip judgment.

God will use the Assyrians to discipline his people, and that happened in 722 before Christ, when they were captive.

This morning I want to remark three points, as usual, right?

The first one, we all saw something, whether good or bad.

In verse 7, they saw winds and rip storms.

The word wind means in the original, empty, vain.

So the Apostle Paul wrote something similar in Galatians 6, 7, whatever a man saws, that will he reap.

Sowing and reaping has application to spiritual life.

If you plant, for example, a potato in your garden, what is going to happen?

Within a few months, you will harvest many potatoes.

That is the principle.

We almost always harvest more than we sow.

Everything we do has consequences in greater ones than we believe.

It looks like some seeds that Israel was sowing.

They were sowing religiosities, the first one.

They profess to be covenant people.

This reminds me of the Pharisees in the New Testament.

Once they reproached Jesus, they said, We were not born of sexual immorality.

We have one father, even God.

During the time of Hosea, the religious people, they said the same thing.

Chapter 8, verse 2, My God, we have known you.

Something similar and different way, they told.

They were sowing.

Chapter 8, verse 4.

They set up kings without my consent.

They choose princes without my approval.

And someone said, the reality is that the more independent we are from God, the more bound we will be to sin.

To follow an empty religion, to follow that, we don't need the help of God.

It is through human effort, rituals, customs, just using our lips, pretending and pretending that everything is fine.

That is religions.

Don't bother me, God.

Let me alone.

Can you hear the loving voice of the Father who loved his son, whispering, talking?

Why aren't you hearing my voice, my son?

Why?

The third seed that they sowed with passion was idolatry.

Because of the idolatry, religion was distorted.

It was a gradual process.

First, they were small, small idols hidden in their homes.

Suddenly a golden calf appears, demonstrating a total rejection of God.

This was like what happened to Moses and Aaron when the people were gathered around Mount Sinai.

The people cried out for God like the gods of Egypt.

And Aaron granted the people's impulse of the flesh.

James Boyce remarks that Aaron did not see this as something so bad, but as a representation of the true God, to the point that he proclaimed the dedication festival, which later ended in orgies.

God to the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 14, verse 3, also reminds, reminds him, Son of Man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts.

Ezekiel 14:3

The Heldeberg Catechism reminds that idolatry is putting trust in any person of thing that takes the place of God.

God is saying that man takes good things, such as career success, love, material possessions, and then our heart worships them and gives them priority about God.

And the fourth seed they were sowing was neglect.

Their religion was lip service.

They did not take God into account for their decisions.

And they found a substitute for God.

James Boyce says they did not deny the existence of God.

They even thought they adore Him.

It can be defined as negligence.

They let other things become central in their lives, leaving God second.

When I have the chance to talk with people, I ask one question.

Well, I can make a different question, but one of the questions I ask is, do you believe in God?

So maybe decades ago, people said, yeah, I believe in God.

Right now, probably is uh it's not like that.

It's not so much.

More people say, no, I don't believe in God.

But a CBN News published a survey revealing a shocking strategy about young Christians.

More than 60% of Christians between the ages of 18 and 38 years old believe that Jesus is not the only way of salvation.

Also, more than half of Americans do not believe what the Bible teaches.

In Hosea's time, they had no intellectually forgotten God.

They knew that God was there.

But morally, yes, they forgot God.

They were doing, they were following their own ways.

Any glit of the authentic worship of God was the problem.

So Israel's basic sin was they forgot the Almighty, the only one, sovereign God.

Psalm 103, verse 2 says, Bless the Lord my soul, and do not forget any of their benefits.

Psalms 103:2

It's like uh I can imagine David, the author of this psalm, saying, Soul of David, remember him who has blessed you.

Maybe we can put our name in this verse.

I will put my one.

Don't forget where God brought you from.

Don't forget where I took you from to make you someone who gives me honor.

Question for us today.

What seeds are you sowing in your life today?

We are cultivating a relationship with God.

And so this brings me to the second point.

We all reap what we sow, no doubt.

In the text, we can see the consequences of what will happen to Israel for sowing winds.

I mean something empty or vain.

God warns the people that a will wind will come.

Hosea is anticipating that they will receive will wind as a result of sowing for the flesh.

As Galatians 6 warns, we already read, he who sows to his flesh from the flesh he will reap corruption.

Likewise, God commands Ezekiel to warn the people also.

And the text says, There will come torrential rain, and I will send hailstones to cause it to fall, and a stormy wind will break it.

In the case of Ezekiel, a storm will come.

Let me mention some storms that could hit us in our lives.

For example, abuse.

It can be a storm in our lives.

A big storm.

You know my testimony, right?

I experienced some of these things.

Divorce, that of a loved one, illnesses, financial losses, loneliness, and I can keep going.

Many others.

And he can build a wall with breaks of sadness, self pity, self hatred, rejection, unresolved guilt, unforgiveness, pain that consumes and controls his life.

And then, because this world is not really.

Well built, one term comes after another, and then his wall begins to shake and fall in on top of him and bring more pain, more sadness.

This person can have two reactions.

The first one, he can come out from the bricks and defy God, rebuild a wider wall, and raise his fist toward God and say, Leave me alone, God, I will live my way.

Don't bother me.

I know what to do.

Why does he react this way?

The pain is consuming him deeply.

Or another option, this person can come out from the bricks and humble before the Lord after the light of Christ has penetrated his life and say, God, you love me.

And I want, and you want the best for me.

I give up.

I don't want to resist anymore.

Heal my pain.

Please, God, heal my pain.

I need you.

Our Lord Jesus tell us today.

I want to heal you.

Jesus wants to heal you.

Whatever it is you are experiencing, God, He wants to do it.

Jesus wants to do it.

He is a great healer.

The best one.

The best one.

Someone drafted the following using the analogy of the Trojan horse.

Let me read it for you.

A Trojan horse lies just outside the door of your heart.

Its name is anger, pain, resentment, and bitterness.

It is a monument to every attack you have suffered from your neighbor.

It is a gift left by people who have hurt you.

It is a monument to the pain, sadness, and devastation that have happened to you.

But to accept the gift is to invite ruin into your life.

It is just a decoy.

The celebration is brief.

Once within the walls of your heart, it releases its agents of destruction.

Its plot unfolds quietly from the inside out.

It is a Trojan horde of destruction.

You should never let it inside.

So the question is, what do we do with this information this morning as a Christian who have known the love of God?

My third point is God called us to sow hope in a world without God, without hope.

Something, sometimes it's necessary for us to remain silent.

Don't say anything.

The trumpet was blown to announce the start of the battle.

In other words, a call to be prepared.

I think all the time when we hear this the preaching, when we read the scripture, when we hear a sermon, etc., God is talking to us.

And remember us to be prepared.

But it could also be the figure as a vulture circling, waiting for the moment to eat.

This call for Hosea is also ours to blow the trumpet as a warning to others.

God remind us in Hebrew 9, verse 27, and it is appointed unto men once to die, and afterward the judgment.

So the trumpet that we must blow as faithful watchmen, as believers, Christian who love God, must not only announce the salvation that Jesus brought in his first coming, but also that Christ is going to return a second time.

This is a promise that he will certainly keep.

A seed sown in a small village multiplied around, and thousands came to the Lord.

The scripture said in Psalm 126, verse 5, those who sow in tears will reap with joy.

Psalms 126:5

Jesus did not sow empty or vain winds.

However, he ripped a storm, although he sowed love, freedom, healing, hope, and salvation.

Unfairly, he experienced the worst storm ever for you and for me, our Savior.

The trumpet continued to sound, giving us warning signals.

If you have not surrendered to Jesus, today is the day of salvation.

If you have turned away from Him, come back to Jesus.

The empty idols of this world enslave us.

Play with us and lead us to addiction, and the end is not good.

Ask God to help you.

Live that doesn't make sense, empty, meaningless, and vain.

Come to Jesus, the friend of sinners.

God is calling us to come closer to Him.

To finish, I'm going to pray.

If you identify with this prayer, please pray with me today.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for the riches of your kindness, patience, long-suffering toward me, for I know that your kindness leads me to repentance.

I confess that I have not shown the same kindness and patience toward those who have heard or offend me.

On the contrary, I have retained my anger, bitterness, and resentment toward them.

Holy Spirit, bring to my mind this week the people I need to forgive.

You have said that rebellion is like the sin of divination, and stubbornness is like idolatry.

I know that I have not always been submissive.

I have rebelled against you many times.

I don't want to live like this anymore.

Help me to renounce the idols of my heart.

God, I need you.

Help me to be closer to you.

I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.