“A Lesson From History” Hosea 9-10: Pastor Drew Webb

Good morning.

Father God, I pray for you to continue to work in this place.

There are lives here who need to be changed, who need to be transformed and impacted by the power of your truth.

God, I believe you want to bring freedom to people in this place.

We just sang about freedom. God, would you bring freedom in the power of Jesus' name?

Would you speak through me? Use this message for your glory. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, this morning we're continuing in our series in Hosea. We will be in Hosea chapters 9 and 10.

Hosea 9 · chapter mention

It's found on page 755. If you're using one of the Bibles there in front of you, we are not going to read all of these two chapters.

Instead, we're going to focus on a few verses that kind of get at the point of what Hosea is saying here.

Now, I distinctly recall those dreaded words that no child ever wants to hear.

Just wait till your dad gets home. That was the last thing any of us three boys ever wanted to hear.

We did not want to have our rear ends meet one of his two paddles.

One of the paddles was about a quarter of an inch thick and had a nice little snap to it when he would spank us.

The other paddle was an inch thick piece of oak that he actually got when he pledged his fraternity back in college.

And it has all the signatures of all his fraternity brothers who spanked him with it.

Unfortunately, there was a time when the thin one had snapped, so that meant he had to use the thicker, heavy one.

Now, it didn't really have any snap to it. It was more of a thud when it met your rear end.

Now, you see, we wanted nothing to do with this coming punchment, so we would immediately respond in remorse at those words.

Wait till your dad gets home. We shed crocodile tears.

We were often putting on the biggest act that we could because we wanted mom to see how sorry we were.

Sometimes, you see, we even begged mom to just spank us right then, right at that moment.

There was no need to put this off to delay this thing. Let's just get this over with. Just get the spanking done.

Well, that might have served a couple purposes. One, the agony of waiting was horrible.

Like, straight up, that was like, I feel like that might have been worse than the actual spanking.

Two, well, when mom was spanking us, we had to make sure that actually, that we weren't laughing because it just wasn't the same.

But we wanted to get it done, so hey, let's just do this.

We would go through all the motions and all the emotions to make sure that we could avoid that punishment.

Now, on many occasions, of course, our repentance and our remorse was not real.

Now, Hosea 9 and 10 continues what chapter 8 began, prophesying judgment against the people of Israel.

As Pastor Mark pointed out a few weeks ago, the Israelites were guilty of not knowing God.

They had turned from Him to follow their own path, thinking that they knew better than God did.

Now, this punishment that was coming to them, the punishment that came to us, boys,

the purpose of it isn't just simply for judgment's sake, but the purpose is to bring back, to restore,

to turn back towards God, towards obedience.

Now, we won't be reading the entirety of these chapters, but we're going to focus on a few different little spots here

so that we can see what Hosea was trying to say.

Now, chapter 9 opens with an announcement that the people would soon be taken off into captivity.

The abundance they had been experiencing was about to come to an end, and their land, in spite of all the fruitfulness that they were experiencing,

their land would become a wilderness because of their great sins.

Their behavior was crooked. They had lived in sin so God would be giving them over to that crooked behavior.

As Pastor Scott said last week, we are free to choose our actions, but we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.

They had made their bed, and now they would have to lie in it.

But you see, it wasn't always this way. Hosea 9-10 gives us a little insight into God's heart for his people.

It reads, like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel, like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers.

A few weeks ago, our family was hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, near Lake Tahoe.

One particular place we were hiking was called Desolation Wilderness.

We had hiked up this mountain, and as we neared the peak, we had a view towards the backside there, and my first thought was,

this place sure is desolate. There were some trees and rocks there, as you can see, but it certainly isn't an environment that is conducive to sustaining much life.

Finding fruit in a place like that would have been completely unfathomable and a joy to behold in such a forlorn place.

Of course, God knew, before time began, God knew how he was going to fix the relationship between he and humanity.

He knew what the plan was going to be, but when he chose the Israelites, it was as though he had found grapes in the wilderness,

and he took great delight in his people. However, God's delight seemed to be at its end with the pronouncement of judgment.

So he used some history illustrations from their past to help them understand really just how bad things were.

We need history lessons because this lesson here helps shed a bit of light on what's Hosea is actually trying to say here in a few of these verses.

So, Hosea 9-9 reads, they have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibbia.

Hosea 10-9 then says, from the day of Gibbia, you have sinned. Now, unless you're the most astute Bible scholar, maybe some of us here are,

maybe some of you, I should say, Gibbia was lost on me. I had to go and research, but most of you are probably thinking, what is Gibbia?

Well, what happened at Gibbia is recorded in Judges 19-21. The things we learn about there, well, those aren't the types of things that our children would learn about in Sunday school, to say the least.

Now, we're not going to read all of this, but I'm just going to kind of summarize it here for a few minutes.

Now, there was a Levite in the northern territory of Ephraim who had taken a concubine from Bethlehem, which is there in the south.

This map shows all the different dealings of what happens in Judges 19-21, but we're just going to focus on the shaded, the pink areas there.

So, this Levite took a concubine from Bethlehem there in the south. He was traveling through Jerusalem with a concubine, a servant of his and some donkeys.

And the servant suggested, hey, let's stop and stay in Jebus or Jerusalem.

Believe I'd insisted, no, let's just keep going. Let's push on because the Jebusites, these people, they're not people of God, so we don't want to stay there.

So, they kept going on to Gibbia.

Now, there they happened to meet a man who was also from the tribe of Ephraim.

This man invited them into his home so that they wouldn't have to spend the night out in the dangerous open square.

In a scene not too dissimilar from what had happened to Lot while in the city of Sodom, the men of the city started beating on the door and asking for the man to send out the Levites so they could know him.

They certainly weren't wanting to know him intellectually.

The man rightly said no to this request, but also similar to the situation in Sodom, the man offered his daughter and the Levites concubine.

Eventually the Levite, no, hold on, maybe I should clarify, a Levite. This is a priestly type figure.

The Levite takes his concubine, which I hope you know the problem there.

You shouldn't have the concubine, first of all. He takes the concubine, takes her out to these men, leaves her out there with them for them to do what they wish.

They rape her all night.

As morning approaches, as dawn approaches, they release her.

She stumbles back to the door and she lays there.

In the morning, the Levite rises to leave.

It's not clear whether he assumed she had left or what had happened, but he goes to leave, he opens the door, she's laying there at the threshold of the door.

He's surprised to see her, it seems, and he calls to her and tells her, get up so we can leave.

However, there was no response because she'd already passed.

So he loads up her body onto the donkey and proceeded the rest of the way home.

When he got there, cut up the body into 12 pieces, one piece for each tribe of Israel.

And he sends it through all throughout Israel as a sign of how bad things had become since the days of Egypt.

Now the people of the tribe of Benjamin found out, and so they confronted the man about how this had happened.

And he explained that it was the leaders of Givia.

It was them, it was their fault. He's basically absolving himself of any wrongdoing.

So he says it was them.

And so a civil war begins and the men of the north killed 25,000 men, warriors of the tribe of Benjamin.

But they felt sorry for it.

So in a change of heart they said, oh, we just destroyed, basically destroyed this tribe.

So now how are we going to fix the problem?

So they decided if we kidnapped wives, then we can restore this tribe back to being a full tribe.

So they implemented a plan to kidnap the wives.

This was what happened at Givia.

Judges 21 closes with the infamous words, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

It's an astounding story, really, right?

It's completely shocking to us.

But God's word through Hosea is that Hosea's generation?

They had become just as corrupt people involved in the situation there in Givia.

The Levites, the master of the house, the men of the northern country, they were all corrupt,

and the Israelites had equaled their corruption, their level of corruption with their own actions.

This is quite a rebuke on God's people.

The next part of the history lesson takes us to Hosea 9, verse 10, again.

Hosea 9:10

So we read this, part of it.

Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season.

I saw your fathers.

But they came to Baal-Payor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame

and became detestable like the thing they loved.

Baal-Payor or Beth-Baal-Payor, it depends on where you're reading.

It's referred to both of these ways.

This is where Moses had read the law to the people.

This is where he officially called Joshua to become his successor.

Moses also buried there in that area of Beth-Baal-Payor.

Now, Baal seems to be a somewhat general term referring to the pagan god that was worshiped in the Middle East.

And Payor means openings, referring to bodily cavities, actually.

Thus, Baal-Payor is God of the openings.

Now, Baal is conceptualized and named slightly differently throughout the different regions of the Middle East.

There would be different iterations.

But one thing seems for sure, this god likely represented by a bull was a god of fertility.

And as such, worship of Baal involved engaging in sexual immorality.

Now, you will recall that when the Israelites came out of Egypt, first of all, Egypt,

they had spent 430 years as a people.

They'd spent 430 years in Egypt.

Egypt was much pagan idolatry.

So some of that would have rubbed off on them.

So the people, they'd just witnessed God performing some miraculous things.

There were 10 plagues. Each of the plagues was designed to counter one of the Egyptian gods.

And these plagues led to their exodus from Egypt.

And then crossing the red sea, and they come to Mount Sinai.

And Moses goes up on Mount Sinai, and he's gone a little while.

And so they tell Aaron, hey, we don't know what happened to this Moses guy.

So can you make us gods to go before us?

So Aaron obliges them.

Okay, give me all your gold rings, rings, earrings, whatever you have.

Give me all your gold, and I'll make something.

So he collects all their gold, melts it, fashions, a golden calf.

Now, the people see this golden calf and they start worshiping it.

And they proclaim, this is the God that brought us up out of Egypt.

They were wholeheartedly committed to worshiping Baal.

That meant that, so then the next day in their worship, they went and ate and they drank.

And English text isn't clear on what actually happens there.

But what actually happens is they end up participating in mass orgies.

That was their worship.

Moses is in sense when he comes down and, you know, he destroyed the tablets.

He asked Aaron, what happened?

I don't know. This thing just appeared. You know, he plays stupid like he had nothing to do with it.

So this was Baal-Payor. That was what happened there.

So Hosea is telling his generation that they were just like these people who had come to this place,

and they'd worshiped the calf, they'd consecrated themselves to Baal,

and they had become detestable to God, just like the false God, that they couldn't stop worshiping.

That was what happened there at Baal-Payor.

There was such a strong proclamation against them.

So this brings us to the last history lesson.

Lastly is Gilgal.

Hosea 915 says, every evil of theirs is in Gilgal.

Gilgal was practically a holy city.

This was a city near Jericho. It was an important location from the time Israel first entered the Promised Land.

You see, it had become kind of a base camp for Joshua as his people would conquer the Promised Land.

It was kind of a place where they would come back too often.

And not only did Joshua camp there, but Samuel spent a bit of time there as well.

After Saul had led an army to victory over the Ammonites, Samuel and a group of people went to Gilgal,

and they proclaimed Saul as king.

Elijah and Elisha also had dealings there.

It was an important place in Israelites, and God had used it in their past.

However, the Israelites were now perverting the ways of worship in that city.

Hosea 101 reads, Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields fruit.

That means that Israel was experiencing much abundance.

Their crops were plentiful. Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit.

The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built.

As his country improved, he improved his altars.

The people were experiencing abundance, and they were attributing that abundance to their false gods.

So they would go and make better these temples that were devoted to these false gods.

As they would experience great harvest and seasons of plenty,

they would pour their financial resources into making these places better.

They weren't giving it to Yahweh for his purposes.

They were perverting the worship of Yahweh instead.

Now it seems that they may have thought they were on the right path.

Some of the things they do are kind of some of the right things.

They are doing some of the right things, but sometimes sin can be like that.

See, sometimes, obviously some sins are a little more like in your face, and you know, hey, that's a sin.

You can tell that.

But sometimes sin can be a little more subtle, and you don't really realize it's there until it's pointed out to you.

You're doing fine, but in reality, blind to what is actually happening.

I can't help but think of a season that I've recently gone through.

I had unintentionally hurt some people, and I had literally no clue about it.

I thought all my relationships were fine.

I was doing fine with everybody.

But then somebody came and said, somebody.

Pastor Daniel, thank you.

Hey, you've hurt these people.

And so, and I was shocked.

Just completely shocked.

Had no idea.

So I had to make those relationships right.

I had to confess that sin and make it right.

Sometimes we don't see sin in our lives, and I think these people,

I think they kind of thought they were going down the right path.

Hosea 9-4 reads, it kind of shows us some of the things that they're doing.

They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord.

So a drink was something learned about in the law.

They shall not pour those drinks off the Lord, and their sacrifices shall not be like mourners bred to them.

All who eat of it shall be defiled.

For their bread shall be for their hunger only.

It shall not come to the house of the Lord.

So the Israelites were syncretistic, and they had combined some of the externals of Yahweh worship with some of the tra...

They were making sacrifices and taking oaths, but they lost their way.

They thought that pouring out these drink offerings and making the sacrifices and bringing this bread,

things would...

...place.

But really, they couldn't have been any farther from the truth.

Their hearts were not right with God.

So these were just mere actions, just going through the motions.

But...

There's a glimmer of hope here.

In the midst of this section, we have Hosea 10 verse 12.

Hosea 10:12

Some of you may know this.

It says,

So for yourselves righteousness,

Reap steadfast love,

Break up your followed ground,

For it is time to seek the Lord,

That he may come and reign righteousness upon you.

Yahweh has called each of us

To something greater.

He wants to release you from whatever it is that is holding on to you.

He wants to release you also from whatever you are holding on to.

The advice to Israel was to sow righteousness.

They were to live in accordance with God's commands and make their hearts and lives right with Him.

Now when we sow righteousness and make our hearts right with Him,

We will receive the great...

...seed steadfast love.

The people had broken their covenant promise with God.

When you enter the covenant,

Two parties are making a commitment.

And technically speaking,

If one party fails in their commitment,

Then the covenant is broken.

God owed them nothing,

Because they had broken the covenant.

But yet,

He says,

If they would turn back to Him,

Then He would receive them.

Now sometimes people will talk about running far away from God.

Now,

It doesn't matter how far you've run,

You can spend years running from God.

Doing the most heinous things, whatever it is.

You can run and run and run.

But the moment you turn back,

He's right there.

You spent so long running far away,

But the moment you turn back,

He's right there.

He's that close, just a single step.

That is God's loyal, faithful, steadfast love.

Now,

The soil of their hearts had been left untended for a long season.

So God says,

He said to them,

Get ready.

He said,

We read this,

Break up your follow ground,

For it is time to seek the Lord.

To break up the follow ground,

Is to begin the process of preparing the ground for the planting season.

God says,

Break up the soil of your hearts,

Prepare it for the sowing of seed,

Prepare it to receive what I have for you.

To receive what I have to give you.

Prepare to walk in righteousness.

They needed to give up their waywardness.

They needed to commit to sexual fidelity.

They needed to commit to the sanctity of children's lives.

They needed to seek the Lord.

Now back in Hosea 6,

They just kind of gave Him lip service.

They said,

Come, let us return to the Lord.

He has torn us into pieces.

But He will bind us up.

He will heal us.

And He will come to us.

But they failed to follow through.

He will test lip service.

And God wants actual full repentance.

He's encouraging them.

Turn to me.

Seek me.

Go back to the Torah.

Learn of me.

See what I have done in your history.

See what my character is and who I am.

That is God's call to them.

That they would turn.

They'd wandered a long ways away.

But all they needed to do was just turn to Him.

So now we ask an all important question.

So what does this have to do with us?

We surely can't be anything like those people

and those heinous stories from their past.

Well, God wants all of our lives.

The sacrifice God desires is a broken and contrite heart.

Centuries later after Hosea,

Paul would write instead that we are selves.

We are the sacrifice.

We are living sacrifices.

We offer a life lived for God.

And that is our only reasonable act of worship.

Now I don't think any of us are engaging in pagan idolatry practices.

If you are, just stop.

Yeah.

But we can still wander a long ways from God if we're not careful.

If we aren't intentional about seeking God,

then it might be that we find the soil of our hearts

has become hard and cracked.

So the question this morning is,

are there idols that you've given yourself over to?

Are there areas that pose a weakness for you

and that if you aren't attentive,

you can get to that thing.

As we close this morning,

I want to list a number of modern day temptations.

Things that compete and vie for our hearts' attention.

And perhaps one of these will strike a chord with you.

First of all, status.

This is something I noticed so much when we were actually back in California a few weeks ago.

Like it is really interesting.

I noticed this years ago when we moved here,

but it seems like in California everybody is driven by status.

Everybody is driving the newest, nicest thing.

It was really weird.

You didn't see old cars much.

But status can be conveyed.

It's not wrong to own nice things.

Please understand that.

Status can be conveyed through vehicles we own and drive,

the houses we buy, the town or the city that we live in.

Status can be conveyed in a number of ways.

None of these things are wrong in and of themselves.

But when you make them an idol,

then it comes in for you.

Media.

All the different forms of media that we have.

We have of course that thing on the wall, the TV, you know.

But we have the TV, we have just simply surfing online, Netflix, social media.

All the different ways we consume media.

It is so easy to just get stuck online.

We have to be attentive to that.

And watch out to make sure that we don't just lose that time.

And we don't allow the various forms of media to become an idol in our lives.

Money.

If I only made a little bit more, then life would be better and we would be more secure.

So I just need, I need more money, more money.

How about acceptance?

If everyone likes me, then I know that I am loved.

I just want to make everybody happy.

I want everybody to like me so I can feel accepted.

Vanity.

Looking good in all of its various forms.

This might be weird for some of you to think about.

Romance.

This is probably more for the young people in particular.

Be careful that you don't commit yourself to a Disney version of what your future will be like.

When we idolize things like romance, our hearts can get lost in places that we hadn't intended.

I would add that this can also include books, movies, stuff like that.

Guard your minds, guard your hearts.

Trust in God's ways and He will work things out for His glory.

Along similar lines, sex.

I have a younger generation today that has idolized sex.

Many young people are so wholeheartedly committed to sex and getting it in any way that they can,

that they've begun to redefine it and engage their terms and not God's terms.

The conversations in our home that we have about sex are light years ahead of the conversations that we had when I was growing up.

Parents start the conversation early, in appropriate ways, but started early.

Help them understand how to control their bodies.

Help them understand the why we control our bodies.

When they understand those things, that will give them a head start when the enemy is pressuring them to give their lives over to sex.

Success. I want that promotion and nothing matters to me as much as getting that top position so everyone can see how hard I've worked and how much I deserve it.

Don't let success become an idol.

Busyness.

Busy, I don't have to do what God wants.

I don't have time.

In a recent survey among pastors, the top idol in churches is comfort.

Comfort's not wrong, but when you make it a priority, it can become sin.

God might want to call you to something very uncomfortable.

He might want you to step out of that boat and onto the water to a place where you are fully trusting Him.

If you value, have idolized comfort, then you're not stepping out of that boat.

So that's something for us to think about.

I suspect that something on this list has resonated with this morning.

If that is the case, I encourage you to first of all, confess that thing to God if you haven't already.

And second, ask for God's strength to overcome that idol and to walk in purity of heart before Him.

When we live with our lives sold out for Him, He can and will do great things through us.

If we need only surrender to His will, then He will work in us.

Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.

As we close this morning, I don't want to leave this moment this time.

We've already sung this truth. We've sung the truth this morning, the gospel.

But I want to speak the gospel in this moment.

Humanity has strayed far from God. We all have. This tells us that.

We deserve eternal separation from God.

But God in His love sent Jesus Christ, the perfect, sinless Jesus Christ, to be our Savior.

He died on that cross, was buried in the grave, then on that Sunday morning,

He rose again from the grave, conquering death.

And He has ascended back to heaven.

He has made the way. He has paid the price.

He has paid the price that you and I couldn't pay.

Because He loved us. He wants that relationship with us restored.

As I said, no matter how far you may have run, He's right there.

He's waiting for you to turn around.

Back.

His forgiveness is on offer to you.

Just get your sins to Him and He will offer for you.

If you haven't placed your trust in Him, yet I encourage you to do that.

And if you can do that in serity of heart, then you will be a child of God.

All you need to do is say something like, God, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I cannot save myself.

I know you sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sin.

I'm trusting in His salvation.

So when you come into my life, transform me and make me a new creation.

If you pray something like that, you will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Others are in this place this morning who something in their mind might have been triggered with that list.

There's something, oh, I need to watch out for this. I need to be careful so that I don't give my heart over to this thing.

This morning during our time of response, I encourage you to surrender that to God.

Surrender your whole self to God. Say, God, here I am, use me for your purposes. You can have it all.

God, we thank you for your love. That is deeper than we could possibly imagine. We thank you for your forgiveness.

We don't deserve it, but you extend it out of your grace.

God, would you free hearts in lives this morning? It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.