Sermon - AudioHosea 8-14 - Audio
Hosea 8-14 - Reading
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From accusation to sentencing [ chapter 8 ]. Now that God has presented his divine lawsuit against Israel, we move to the sentencing phase of the trial. Statements of God’s intention to punish the guilty are mingled with continued reminders of why he is doing it. -ESVLB-
2 - Israel claims to know God and follow Him, but all their actions state otherwise. Again, as stated yesterday, they may have the head knowledge, but not a true knowledge of God. Otherwise, they would have turned from their evil ways and sought the LORD. This kind of reminds me of Matt 7:22-23.
7-10 - The judgment will seem harsh to Israel, but in the face of what they've done...it is nothing.
11-13 - Their offerings are not acceptable to the LORD. He will punish them for their sins. They shall return to hardship/slavery/destruction.
14 - The real heart of the issue: They have forgotten their Maker/Creator/First Love.
Chapter 9
1-4 - There is no time for rejoicing, for they have committed great sin against God. God will "leave" them and they will be under submission to an oppressor. The people will wonder where God has gone.
10-14 - God remembers the days when Israel was faithful to Him, but they turned and became an abomination. Because of this Israel will experience barrenness. Hosea closes by praying for mercy, that no more will be born into this coming judgment.
15-17 - They will have no home, they will be in exile.
Chapter 10
Final verdict [ chapter 10 ]. Chapter 10 is the third panel in a triptych that began with chapter 8. The rhetorical forms and content remain the same: nations and tribes and cities as the chief actors; occasional direct addresses to these *personified entities in the form of *apostrophe (e.g., “O Israel”; “sow for yourselves righteousness”; “you have plowed iniquity”); poetic images and figures of speech as the vehicles for the message; mingling of accusations of misconduct and predictions of coming calamity.
1-2 - For the image of Israel as a vine, cf. Ps. 80:8–16; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 15:1–8; 17:1–10. This example suits Hosea’s repeated pattern that Israel got off to a good start but then went wrong. The vine’s fruit increased, and the country improved. However, the more Israel prospered, the more Israel sinned. the more altars he built … he improved his pillars. It was just as Moses had warned (Deut. 8:11–14). Abundance is risky; God’s people could not handle it (cf. Prov. 30:7–9). -ESVSB-
2 - "Their heart is false." Even their seemingly good deeds are not acceptable to the LORD. God is looking at the heart and sees nothing but evil.
3-8 - The people will have no king, no altars, nothing.
11-15 - Instead of plowing correctly, Israel, the trained heifer, plows wickedness.
9-15 - The results of resisting God's draw and choosing our own ways.
Chapter 11
God’s mixed feelings toward his beloved [ 11:1–11 ]. The onslaught of accusation and punishment has a temporary respite in this unit. The voice of judgment is still present (vv. 5–7), but it is preceded by expressions of divine parental love (vv. 1–4) and God’s compassionate feelings, which result in a decision to restore Israel (vv. 8–11). God emerges in this unit as a thoroughly *anthropomorphic God, possessing the feelings of a human parent toward a wayward child. -ESVLB-
1-2 - God switches things up by calling Israel his child, and not his bride.
3-4 - God explains his love, mercy, compassion, and guidance of/for His people.
5-7 - God still desires to show this to His people, but they will not repent. We are called to repent.
Q. When we sin (choose against God's created order), how quickly do we run to God, confess it, and ask Him to restore us?
Q. What does it mean to live with an attitude/state of continual repentance, and what does this look like? What does do to our pride?
8-9 - Like a parent disciplining His child...judgment is not fun to God. So many people can get tripped up on the idea of a God who loves to punish us, but this is just not true. Every one of us deserves much worse than we can imagine, but God chooses love, compassion, and mercy even after we continually reject Him. However, judgment must eventually come to those who do not turn.
10-12 - Redemption! Restoration! When refined through/by fire, they will not be the same.
Chapter 12
Final words of judgment [ 11:12–13:16 ]. An extended oracle of judgment brings to a climax the theme of justice in the book of Hosea. One more time we observe...
(1) God’s indictments against his chosen nation;
(2) predictions that he will punish the guilty;
(3) poetic vividness;
(4) direct addresses to the nation and its people.
-ESVLB-
*Almost done with judgment in this book...Although Jeremiah is still coming up, so get used to it.
1 - God's people are not trusting Him to provide, but are working with the Assyrians and trusting in them. Interesting that the same people they are trusting will destroy them.
Q. What are some of the things that you're trusting in that are destroying you? family? wealth? career? etc? What is God's call to you in these areas? What does this look like?
2-6 - Taken from Genesis 32 - story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel/God.
*Remember Micah 6:8 - You know what is good! Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Israel knew this and disregarded it.
7-11 - Remember that this is a prosperous time, Israel put all their hope in their wealth...but God will clean house. - "I will again make you dwell in tents."
12-14 - The mention again of Jacob emphasizes God’s grace in preserving his fugitive so that he would father the 12 tribes of Israel. Aram is Paddan-Aram (Gen. 28:2, 5). The prophet was Moses, who led the nation out of Egypt (Deut. 18:15; 34:10). In the face of God’s gracious deliverance and preservation of his people, Ephraim has given bitter provocation. -ESVSB-
Chapter 13
*Continuation from 12...
Honestly, much of the same till verse 9. It is amazing to me the extent of their trespasses against God. I wonder how aware they were of many of them. How aware are we of ours?
9 - God will be their King once again. When all is lost, God will come and find them. He will be the rightful King of His people, and not the kings in which they desired.
12-16 - God's ability to redeem His people is much greater than the power of sin. I love the language used here in, "I will redeem them from death, from the power of the grave!" Jesus did just that.
CHAPTER 14
“This is a wonderful chapter to be at the end of such a book. I had never expected from such a prickly shrub to gather so fair a flower, so sweet a fruit; but so it is: where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound. No chapter in the Bible can be more rich in mercy than this last of Hosea; and yet no chapter in the Bible might, in the natural order of things, have been more terrible in judgment. Where we looked for the blackness of darkness, behold a noontide of light!” (Charles Spurgeon)
1-3 - What repentance looks like, a "turning."
*We humble ourselves, We admit our faults, We ask for forgiveness, We receive it graciously, We sing His praises, We don't look to man for provision, but in everything we rest in God giving Him the glory.
4-7 - If we/Israel does this...
*He will stop the destruction, He will choose love, He will settle His anger, He will replenish us, He will grow us, He will make us shine like the noonday sun, We will be fruitful once again.
8 - His people will no longer care for idols.
9 - His people will walk in wisdom
9 - Hosea has an apt conclusion for his book. The Lord has made his case, and is justified in punishing Israel for ingratitude and covenant breaking. Yet there is a final appeal for the wise, who understand (the same verb used in 4:14: “people without understanding shall come to ruin”). This verse is full of terms otherwise met in the Psalms and Proverbs, such as “wise,” “understand,” discerning, the ways of the LORD, and the contrast between the upright and transgressors. Most of the book has addressed Ephraim as a corporate body, but these terms in Hos. 14:9 focus on the moral response of individual Israelites. The positive terms in such a setting refer to those who really grasp the grace of the covenant. They also guide them in their own course of life, even when terrible disaster overtakes the people as a whole. -ESVSB-
Q. What have you learned about love, grace, compassion, and mercy from this book?
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