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Lord, we offer you again our
thanks for food and fellowship and we're grateful for our time
and pray that you would be with us as we turn our attention again
to your word. Lord, as we also give our attention
to prayers on behalf of each other, we pray that you would
hear those prayers and that you would care for us and watch over
us. Lord, we ask that you'd speak
to us this evening from your word. And we pray that you would
comfort those who are not with us. We know primarily that's
true because of illness, and we ask, Lord, that you would
watch over them and be with them. And we know that there are others
who are out of town, and we pray that you would care for them
as well and restore them to our fellowship. Be with our children,
their classes, Steeles and the Wachtdorfs as they lead them,
and Lord, we commit our time to you in Christ's name. Amen.
Hosea chapter 10 is where we are, of course. And you remember,
as we have moved our way into this particular chapter, we recognize
that God is holding his people morally and spiritually accountable. We see that, for example, in
the second phrase of verse two, which says, Now they must bear
their guilt. So it's the idea that that we've seen all the
way through, that as the people live their lives in the presence
of God, God is holding them accountable for what is taking place. And
we've seen, and we'll see, a series of issues out of their lives
from this particular chapter that have to do with the heart
attitude of the people. For example, in verse 1, we've
already seen there is a self-centeredness amongst the people, a second
phrase of verse 1, says he produces fruit for himself. And we ask
ourselves a question, for whom do the Israelites live? Well,
they live for themselves rather than living for God. In verse 2 there is what we would
call a divided commitment. The first phrase of verse 2 says
their heart is faithless. And remember we suggested that
word for faithless can mean divided. And so they have divided loyalties. They are syncretistic, if you
will, in their view of their faith. In verse 3, we could call
that spiritual anarchy, where they say, surely now they will
say we have no king, but we do not revere of the Lord. It's
the idea, of course, of their unwillingness to live under any
sense of a lordship of Christ in their lives. So when we come
to verse 4, Then tonight I suppose the watchword for this verse
would be deceitfulness. You can't depend on what they
say. This is the way the people live. So look at the first phrase.
They speak mere words is what verse four says. In other words,
they speak words that have no meaning. They speak words and
it is just noise. It is just a sound. There is
nothing there that you can really latch on to. I can think of this
in terms of one day last week, Dan Wachtorf was coming by to
see me. He came by a little earlier than
we had agreed upon and he caught me working on some Hebrew vocabulary
off my computer. And I got this hot shot computer
program that's really cool. you know, that you can just press
on the Hebrew words and it says it for you and you pronounce
it and all that sort of stuff. And so I'm working on this when
Dan walks in and so I just sat there looking at him, pressing
the button, you know, going over these Hebrew words and he just
got that glee look over his face. It's the idea, you know, these
words had no meaning to him. It was just sound, it was just
noise, and he did not know what it meant. Most of the time I
don't either and that's what I was working on. So for example,
when I say to you the word bavakasha, what comes to your mind? What does that mean? It doesn't have any meaning for
you at all. It's the Hebrew word for please. Bavakashan means
please. It's that way. When we hear language
that we do not understand, it's just noise. This is the way that
the Israelites were going about their lives. They were speaking
in a way that had really no meaning for it. I can say to you, Bavakashan,
what are you talking about? Or what do you think when I say,
I promise to help you? Now, that carries with it a certain
sense, and we have a certain understanding about what that
means. But with the Israelites, when
they are talking like this, it was language that people could
understand, but there really was no dependable meaning behind
it. And so they are just speaking
mere words. He goes on to say, With worthless
oaths, they make covenants. I would translate this literalistically
this way, swearing emptiness, they cut a covenant. Swearing
emptiness. In other words, you see, the
words are empty. They promise. They cut a covenant. They say, I promise to do this
for you. The words are spoken. The words
are understood. But the words have no meaning.
They do not follow through with anything that they're saying.
So their promises and commitments meant nothing. Their word could
not be trusted. They made promises that they
didn't fulfill. They took false oaths. They signed
contracts that they didn't intend to honor. as I was walking through
this in preparing the study for tonight. When I got to that point,
I couldn't help but think about a guy that I knew years ago in
high school. He went out and bought a brand
new muscle car. This was in the late 60s. You
know what a muscle car is? I know you two do. And he bought
a brand, he put down the money, minimum down payment, bought
a brand new muscle car and was going to make payments. but he
never intended to make any payments at all. He just drove the car
and he jammed it all over the country until it was repossessed
and then he went on his way. He made a contract. He never
intended to fulfill it. It reminds me too of a Western author that I enjoy a
lot. He was a guy that was a veterinarian
in West Texas in the early 20th century and he used to do a lot
of horse trading. And horse trading in the 1920s
and 30s in West Texas, I'm sure it's still the same today, was
all designed to take the other person. And so he would tell
story after story after story of all the things that he would
do to deceive the person that he was selling a horse to. And
the issues were that the other guy was doing the same thing
back to him, and so he would tell stories about the ways in
which he got caught and got left holding the bag, or in this case,
a nag. It's all deceit. It's words that
mean nothing. I promised to make payments on
this car. I have no intention of making
payments on this car, but I promise that I'll do this anyway. Here
is a horse. There's not a better horse in
all of Texas. I won't tell you all the things
that I did to make it look good for the hour that you're here
looking at it. It's those kinds of things that they were talking
about. This is simple moral deceit. And the consequences of this,
verse 4 continues, and judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds
in the furrows of the field. The word for judgment here can
also be translated as justice. Hebrew word Mishpat, judgment
can be translated as justice, and I think that's probably the
best way within its context for us to think about this, with
the way in which the Israelites, and remember, these were supposed
to be the people of God, these were supposed to be the Christians
of their day, and this is the way that they're going about
their lives, this is the way that they deal with other people,
they might say, well, it's just the way we do business, like
that West Texas horse trader. These were the people whose words
had no meaning, had no weight to them. And so because of these
matters, justice sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows
of the field. Now these furrows of the field
means this isn't just land out here that's just left. This is
land that somebody has gone out They have put some work in, they
have invested in these things, in the land, they have worked
it, they have plowed it, they are intending to have it grow
something good. But what it produces in the end
are simply poisonous weeds, literally the Hebrew word is hemlock. What's
hemlock? It's poison. Do you remember
when, was it not the city of Athens that condemned the philosopher
Socrates to death? And do you remember what he was
required to drink? A cup of hemlock. And it killed
him. The issue here, of course, is
here is justice that sprouts like hemlock in the furrows of
the field. He is saying at this point, is
Hosea, he is saying justice is killed in Israel. Honest justice is poisoned in
Israel because of their purposeful deceit in their own hearts. You can't trust them to tell
you the truth. Then how can there be justice? And so this fourth issue that
we have in verse 4, As a matter of a heart, attitude is deceitfulness. As we go on and look at the verses
5 and 6, I want to suggest to you that the heart issue here
is what we might describe as misplaced loyalty. Look at verse
5. The inhabitants of Samaria will
fear for the calf of Beth-Avon. The inhabitants of Samaria is a reference to the capital
city of the northern kingdom of Israel. Remember, this is
the divided kingdom. The capital city of the northern
kingdom of Israel is not Jerusalem. That's the capital city of the
southern kingdom of Judah. So it's Samaria, that's the capital
city of the northern kingdom. And the inhabitants of Samaria,
the inhabitants of the capital city, of course, represent uh... all of israel just like uh...
the tribe of ephraim that we've been seeing throughout the writings
of hosea uh... have been referencing israel
as well but now we're talking a bit of politics and uh... we're
referencing of course the assyrian defeat of israel and you get
a glimpse of that in the first part of verse six that we're
going to get to uh... the inhabitants of samaria will
fear for the calf calf of Beth-Avon. Beth-Avon, we've seen this before
in Hosea 4.15, Hosea 5.18. Beth-Avon was the town that used
to be called Bethel. It's Hebrew as Beth-El, House
of God. It goes all the way back, of
course, to the days of Genesis, the days of Jacob, when he took
the ancient city of Luz and he renamed it house of God at that
place where God had his Jacob had his dream from God now to
the history of Israel at this place of Beth El house of God
that has been an important place not just for Jacob but for Israel
as a nation they changed its name to Beth Avon which means
house of shame And the name changed because, again, of the things
that were taking place there. It went from Luz to Beit El. Now it's gone to Beit Avein. It has gone from Luz, which I
don't remember what that means. It means light in Spanish, doesn't
it? Well, that's good enough. It
went from... It'll be Spanish Hebrew. The Columbian style of
Spanish Hebrew. It went from Luz to South Columbia,
exactly. It went from a loose to house
of God because of the things that happened there to Jacob
and his life in God's dealings with him. But it has gone from
house of God to house of shame again because of the things that
the Israelites are doing there now in this place. So the inhabitants
of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth Avon. Do you remember what was going
on at Bethel early on in the divided kingdom? under Jeroboam
I. Same thing was going on in Dan,
which was? Idol worship. Jeroboam, once
the kingdom divided between the north and south, Israel and Judah,
there was Solomon's son Rehoboam, who was king in Jerusalem, and
Jeroboam became king in the northern part of Israel. He did not want
his people, remember, to go down to Judah basically another country
now at this point to worship the Jerusalem at the temple.
So he set up idols, he set up calves at Dan in the north and
Bethel at the south. And he said look, it's too inconvenient
to go worship at Jerusalem and so here I have provided for you
and you can worship at Dan and at Bethel. And it's through this
idolatry, this idol worship and this calf that was set up there,
that Bethel, the house of God, had become the house of shame. But notice what Hosea says about
it here in verse 5, "...the inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the
calf of Beth-Avon." And that's exactly where we're going with
what Jeroboam has done. But actually the word for calf
here in the Hebrew text is in the plural. He is saying, he's
talking about the calves of Beth-Avon at this point. And I want to
suggest to you that he's using language that is meant to be
representative of that spiritual idolatry that was permeating
the northern kingdom of Israel from Bethel in the south to Dan
in the north. So we say, well, so what? So
what about this? So the inhabitants of Israel
are afraid for the calves of Beth-Avon. They are afraid of
what? Remember, we have been talking
since Hosea 1.1 that the great Assyrian Empire
has sent its army up over the Fertile Crescent, all of this
taking place, of course, under the providence of God, and they
are wiping out everything and everybody in their path And they
are headed towards Israel. And so if you're aware of that,
and they watched, of course, Middle Eastern CNN, and they
knew what was taking place. They knew what was coming. And
so they're concerned about the Assyrian army on its way to Israel. And when they come, what's going
to happen to our God in Dan, in the north? And as they sweep
on down through the length of our land, what's going to happen
to our God in the South, in Bethel, in Beth-Avon? They're afraid. Is that not what it says? The
inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calves of Beth-Avon. And what they're afraid of is
exactly what verse 6 is talking about. The thing itself. What is it? What is it referred
to? the calf of Beth-Avon, the thing
itself will be carried to Assyria as tribute to King Jerob. In other words, the Assyrians
and their ruler are about to physically overrun Israel and
there is nothing that the immediate object of the people's spiritual
trust can do about it. I try to say that carefully. There is nothing that the spiritual
object of the people's worship and affection, there is nothing
their gods can do about it. Further, these calves, the gods
themselves, Hosea says, are going to be carried off as war treasure. They are going to gut the temples
at Dan and at Bethel, and that they're going to take these golden
calves as a war booty and take it back with them to Assyria,
and the ruler of Assyria will take that as tribute. That being
the case, how do the Israelites respond to that kind of a prospect? We'll go back up to verse 5,
and Hosea says, Indeed, its people will mourn for it. The word to
mourn there means to lament they are going to be grieved when
their gods are taken from them. And this word to mourn or lament
is used most often in the Old Testament in reference to the
dead. How do we respond when a loved
one dies? We lament. We grieve. We mourn. And so that word is being used
here now at the to describe the way the Israelites
will respond to the prospect of the fact that their gods have
been taken by the Assyrians as captives. And it's like they're
going to grieve as though their god has died. Amen. Amen. So be it. Let it be. And we say, well, why not? Look
at how the Israelites are referred to I hear that middle part of
verse 5. Indeed, its people will mourn
for it. Its people, that's the Hebrew
word Amo, its people. It's very similar to the Hebrew
word Ami that we saw back in Hosea chapter 1, I believe it
was verse 8 or verse 9. You remember where Hosea's wife,
Gomer, has her third child? And God instructs Hosea to name
that boy, Lo, which is the Hebrew word for not or no, it's a negative,
Ami, which means my people, not my people, Lo, Ami. Now Hosea
is using this term almost to play on that from all the way
back in chapter one where he calls the Israelites Amo, its
people. God, by way of Hosea at this
point, is declaring Israel to be people of the calf. That's exactly what this means.
They were to be the people of Jehovah. They were to be Yahweh's
people. They were to be the people of
the covenant. But at this point, God is instructing
Hosea to refer to them essentially as people of the calf. And if they're people of the
calf, if that's how we describe their faith, then why shouldn't
they mourn as people who are grieving over the dead when their
gods are stolen from them and taken from them? Their leaders,
of course, are no better. Verse 5 goes on and says, and
it is idolatrous, and its idolatrous priests will cry out over it. Now there are a couple of things
here. The word for priest is not Kohanim. It is not the word
Kohen. Have you ever seen somebody's
last name Kohen? C-O-H-E-N, Kohen? That's really a transliteration
of the Hebrew word for priest. Kohen. Kohen. So you find somebody
who has a last name of Kohen, They're most likely of some kind
of Jewish-esque extract, and very likely coming from probably
a priestly lineage. And that's why their last name
is basically Priest, because they have that as a part of their
lineage. Now, that word Kohen, or in the
plural it's Kohenim, is used throughout the scriptures to
refer to, of course, the priests of God, but that's not the word
that is used here. Rather, it is the word Kemarin, which is
a word that is used throughout the Old Testament in reference
to priests of idols or idolatrists, idolatrous priests, as it is
translated here. The second thing to note is that
the construction here of its people is exactly the same, its
idolatrous priests is exactly the same as the construction
its people. So in other words, What God is
saying here is, the Israelites are people of the calf, and their spiritual leaders are
priests of the calf. And that's where they are, and
that's what they are spiritually. And so he says, its idolatrous
priest will cry out over it, over its glory, since it has
departed from it. And remember, what we're talking
about here is that that calf of Beth-Avon. So they grieve
over the loss of their god who couldn't save itself from the
Assyrians. That's important. I want you
to remember that. I'm going to refer to that in just a minute
when we wrap this all up. They grieve over the loss of
their god, the calf of Beth-Avon. because their God could not save
itself from the Assyrians. And this is exactly what they
were afraid of. You see? And now what it says?
The inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-Avon. This is exactly what they were
afraid of. The irony here is where Hosea
says in reference to this calf of Beth-Avon, talks about its
glory since it has departed from it. This idol has no great glory,
and the irony here that struck me was to go back to Ezekiel
10.18. We've looked at that verse in
other contexts before. This is several generations later
when the great prophet Ezekiel is now preaching a very similar
message to the southern kingdom, to the tribe of Judah. warning
them about their unrepentant sin, warning them about the spiritual
condition of their heart, and in a vision, in Ezekiel 10, verse
18, Ezekiel says he sees the kavod, he sees the glory of God,
rising and exiting the temple. The words there are, the glory
of God departs the temple in Jerusalem. And the temple building
becomes simply an empty shell of stone and marble and gold. It's a similar language to what
is being spoken of here. It's glory, since it has departed
from it. You see, the glory of this calf
of Beth Avon has departed. And it's going to be something
just as simple as an army of men are going to show that this
idol has no glory of its own. But the irony is, several generations
later, the glory of the true God will leave the temple in
Jerusalem for the very same reason, because the people's hearts are
not right, and they refuse to repent. Verse 6, the thing itself
will be carried to Assyria as tribute to King Jareb. Ephraim
will be seized with shame, and Israel will be ashamed of its
own counsel. The point here simply is the
people's wisdom will be shown for what it is. It's sheer foolishness
and they will be ashamed of it. The point is they have trusted
in that which cannot save itself. They've looked to that which
isn't real. They've loved and worshipped
what isn't worthy. And it's through the Assyrian
army that they will see their shameful spiritual condition. They will look at their wisdom.
They will look at their supposed counsel. They will look at what
they thought was religiously true. And they will be ashamed. Well, we're dealing with a spiritual
condition of the heart then, as we've talked about tonight.
One in which the heart is self-centered, they're living only for themselves.
The heart is divided, they are not sold out, focused, exclusively
committed to the Lord as the living God in their lives. In verse 3, we can see how they
have disdained the lordship and the kingship of God himself over
them. In verse 4, they deal with one
another in deceitfulness. Their words of their promises
and their contracts mean absolutely nothing. You cannot depend on
them to tell the truth. And in verse 5, they have this
misguided loyalty. They have a misguided affection. They love the calf of Beth-Avon,
and they care nothing about Jehovah God. What does it all mean for
us? Well, as always, we need to look
at these of long ago, and we need to examine our own hearts
before the Lord. We need to examine our hearts
from the Scriptures to say, what is the true spiritual condition
of my heart? What is the essence of my heart
attitude as I go about in my life? And we can take each of
these five things that we've been looking at, albeit briefly
tonight, and we can of course examine our lives according to
those matters. But the question becomes, what
is it that we are trusting? What is it that is the object
of our affection and worship? Jesus was teaching in Matthew
chapter 6, verses 19 and 20, when he says, do not lay up for
yourselves treasures upon earth. where moth and rust destroy,
where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where
thieves do not break in or steal." What is the object of our affection?
Does it have to do with those things that are inseparably tied
to the issues of this life in the here and the now? The question
is, is our life driven by earthly affections? I sat in the car
last night with a fellow and he was sharing with me some issues
of concern in his life about some things that were a part
of his physical life that somebody else had at this point, and he
knew that he could not go and get these things without causing
great issues of concern within his family. And he asked me,
what do you think I should do? And I told him this. I said,
look, those issues that you're concerned, those things that
you are concerned about, guess what's going to happen to them
someday? He laughed and he said, Are you trying to tell me they're
going to burn? Something's getting through.
In the preaching and teaching of the Word, I said, absolutely,
that's what I'm trying to tell you. All of those things are
going to burn, but the issues that you will compromise if you
pursue those things, those are the things that will last through
that fire of God's judgment someday, and those are the issues of eternity,
and those are the things that should drive your life. He said,
that's exactly what you're talking about. He said, that's what I'm
going to do. And so the question for us in
our own lives has to do with the object of our affection.
Is that object in heaven? Is it our relationship with Christ?
Is it the gospel? Or does it have to do with, inseparably,
that we are in love with the things of this earth? What are
the things or the issues or objects of our trust It can be things,
it can be other people, but most likely, most often, it is ourselves
trusting in our own counsel, as was the case for the Israelites
at this point, trusting in our own sense of wisdom. But Proverbs chapter 3 warns
us about these matters when it says, do not lean on your own
understanding. Verse 7 says, do not be wise
in your own eyes. Again, we can say, what is it
that I trust in? I can trust in my own wisdom and my own sense
of what is right and wrong. I can trust in my own sense of
a discerning of a particular situation in life, of what is
real and what isn't, what is true and what is false. I can
trust in my own ability to move forward with matters in my life
according to my own wisdom and counsel. And the Scriptures warn
us repeatedly, do not do that, but rather we trust in God and
in the truth of his word and that is what provides direction
for us in our lives. The issue comes back then ultimately
to this point of saying who or what is our God? It is the great
prophet Isaiah who was a contemporary of Hosea. along with, you'll remember,
the minor prophet Micah. And so Hosea, as he is writing
and prophesying, as he is preaching and teaching, he's doing these
things, he's ministering to the exact same generation as is Hosea. And so all the issues of context
that we constantly talk about are true for Isaiah, just as
surely as it is for Hosea. In Isaiah chapter 12, verse 2,
This is a part of his proclamation to this generation of Israelites. He says, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. You remember I told you just
a moment ago to hang on to this issue of how the inhabitants
of Samaria, verse 5, will fear for the calf of Beth-Avon. They were afraid as they anticipated
the onslaught of the Assyrian army that their God in whom they
had trust and believed would not be able to defend himself
against the Assyrian mere men. And they knew this in their heart
of hearts and they were afraid because of the God that they
trusted in. But notice what Isaiah is preaching
to them. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. The question is, who's going
to knock off the Lord God in your life? What army is going
to overrun him? What army is going to overtake
Albuquerque and take Jehovah captive back to their land as
a war trophy? What army, what people, who or
what thing in the length and breadth of the universe is going
to be able to overpower the Lord who is our God in whom we trust? And the answer, of course, is
absolutely no one, absolutely nothing. Then why should we be
afraid? He says, Behold, God is my salvation.
I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength
and song, and he has become my salvation. Over in chapter 26,
verse 4, Isaiah is still preaching to that generation of Israelites
in Hosea's day. when he says, trust in the Lord
forever, for in God the Lord we have an everlasting rock. It is not a matter that in God
the Lord we have a calf at Beth Avon. It is in God the Lord we
have an everlasting rock. Shall we not trust in him? Amen. Amen. Let's pray. So Lord, again, we are encouraged
with these truths, and we see it repeated in the Scriptures.
You are the rock of our salvation. You are the rock of our redemption. Lord, we know these truths to
be so, and we know that intellectually. But our God, we pray that you
would make that an integral part of our faith, a truth by which
we are willing to live in trust. And so our God, we pray that
that truth would transform our hearts, that we would not be
like the Israelites of long ago, who were afraid that an army
of men was going to defeat their God, who were people whose words
had no meaning, who were a people who had divided affections. Our God, we pray, that we would
be a people of single affection, single faith, single hope, in
absolute trust, in a God of our redemption, who cannot fail us. So help us, God, we pray, to
live our faith according to that truth. that we might be a powerful force
for the gospel, that we should live as a testimony and a witness
to the world around us, that our God is the rock of our salvation. Help us, then, we pray in Jesus'
name. Amen.
Hosea - Part 47
Series Minor Prophet Series-Hosea
| Sermon ID | 32006112244 |
| Duration | 38:36 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Bible Text | Hosea 10:4-6 |
| Language | English |
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