Hosea 10:11-15

Tonight I direct your attention to Hosea once again, the minor prophet of Hosea chapter 10 and verses 11 to 15. And Ephraim is a heifer that is taught and loveth to tread out the corn, but I passed over upon her fair neck. I will make Ephraim to ride. Judah shall plow. Jacob shall break his clods. So to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and reign righteousness upon you. He have plowed wickedness. He have reaped iniquity. He has reaped iniquity. have eaten the fruit of lies because thou didst trust in thy way and the multitude of thy mighty man. Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as shallman spoiled Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces upon her children. So shall Bethel. due unto you because of your great wickedness. In a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off. God bless to us. It’s sacred and holy word this morning. Excuse me this evening. Detroit news writer Nikki McWordy devoted one of her columns to the widely reported troubles of two public figures. One was a prominent politician who ruined his life by alcoholism. The other was a sports figure who was caught up with drugs. He ruined his life in that same kind of way. McWordy was caught up with drugs. He said without half trying, certainly without altruistic motives, they are offering the rest of us a short course in substance abuse. Are we listening? Are we learning? This is quality education here. And the price is right. You know, it costs nothing to learn from mistakes of others. You just have to pay attention. and observe the tragic consequences of their mistakes. From a spiritual standpoint, you and I need to pay attention to Israel and see how God dealt with them and see where their behavior led them. Here are people who profess to know the Lord, yet in works they are denying him. And so there’s a good lesson to learn from them. I’ll begin tonight by saying this, that God will bring hardships upon you when you do not obey him. Now, some of these themes are pretty regularly brought up, and you think, you know, by now they would have learned them, but God repeats them. He says, and Ephraim is a heifer that is taught and loveth to tread out the corn, but I passed over upon her fair neck. I will make Ephraim to ride. Judah shall plow. Jacob shall break his claws. Now Israel has lived the life of luxury. We’re dealing with people who are certainly familiar with the soil. So God chooses a farming illustration here. Ephraim is compared to a well-trained heifer, the love that tread, the thither, freshing floor. Now it’s important to bear in mind that treading the freshing floor was easy work. And the oxen on the threshing floor didn’t need a yoke, and they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted while they were doing that, because the law of God said they’re not the muzzle of the ox that treads out the grain. Pulling a heavy plow through furrows. and bearing a yoke around the neck were not very pleasant. That was hard work. So what is Josea saying here? Israel loves the life of luxury it has led during the prosperity it is led during the prosperity of Jeroboam II. And yet for Ephraim, this time of luxury was a very hard, I should say very bad time spiritually. The religion was just a matter of externals, and she lived like the heathen around her. And so we see here something about the danger of a life of ease. Things haven’t changed much. People are still getting caught up in their pleasures, their jobs, their favorite activities. When life is good, you may not have any interest in repenting of your sins. too busy engaged in enjoying yourself. Baring the yoke of Christ willingly is not something you wish to do. It sounds too much like hard work. The labor of mortifying your sins appears to be very strenuous. And so you coast along, happy with your life of comfort and ease. Prosperity brings some definite dangers in its wake. and we find that’s always the case so you and I have to be on our guard especially during times of prosperity people are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God the scripture says so there are dangers to life of these and God will certainly send hardships and struggle as a discipline God who is the Heffer’s owner in this passage will harness Israel to pull the plow. Evil days are going to follow these days of prosperity. Israel is going to go in exile because she didn’t listen. She’s going to have to learn the hard way. And Judah is going to have to learn the same lesson. Sometimes your temporal welfare has to be sacrificed for the eternal welfare of your soul. And so that’s what God does. This is brought to the forefront. God will bring you into a state of great adversity to that you truly consider your ways. You may have to learn obedience by the things that you suffer in this life. And that’s the hard way. In the book of judges, you have a pattern that you see. It’s very prominent. Israel, you know, turns it. their back on the Lord, and then the Lord sends a foreign nation to overcome them. And then they have to seek the Lord and get, find a way of escape. He raises up a judge to free them from this burden. And it’s repeated on and on throughout the book. If you are a true believer, hardships while grievous are designed to bring you back to the Lord. so God will bring hardships when you don’t obey him and that’s what we see here in this passage. Now secondly here, God calls you to seek him and plead for his mercy. We see that here in verse 12. So to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fellow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord. the only common rain righteousness upon you. Your life is sort of like a small farm. And God speaks here some unproductive, uncultivated area of your life. Few need to be told to pay attention to their bodies. If anything, we pay way too much attention to our bodies. It’s the soul which is permitted to lie. entirely fallow or uncultivated. And this is the problem. The finest part of your being, you know what happens to a fallow ground? It becomes caked and baked hard as though we’re a brick. It gets covered with weeds and thistles and thorns and so forth. The Bible says the wicked shall be turned into hell and you might say, well, that’s not me. No, I didn’t think it was. But the verse continues in all nations that forget God. You see, this is where most people run into trouble. It’s not that they don’t go to church or they don’t worship God in some capacity. What happens is they forget God. Their daily life is such that God is not in their thoughts. The verse continues. and tells us that careless souls, unproductive souls, forget God. Neglect destroys your soul. Forgeting God leads to disaster in your life. Careless souls. To walk through life paying a little attention to your soul, certainly the path to ruin. says break up your fallow ground begin to look at what you’ve been doing and neglected contemplate the result of this continued carelessness about your soul how can you be so careless so consider the neglect of your soul he says here and you must earnestly seek the Lord seek the Lord he says here if you’ve neglected the Lord you must diligently seek him out for it is time God says it’s time to do it seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near what do you think about those damn souls and hell they would probably give anything that they could seek the Lord and find help They don’t have that opportunity. It’s time to look to God for grace, to beg him for mercy, for him to give you righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. Isaiah 557, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him to our God, and he will abundantly pardon. It’s time, God says, to make things right with the Lord. It’s time that you pleaded with him about your eternal soul. You must perceive, excuse me, you must persevere in seeking the Lord till he reign righteousness upon you. The soil of your soul needs the reign of righteousness. You must be a righteousness. seek the Lord till you find him. He can’t give up in this endeavor. He is a rewarder, those who diligently seek him. We talked this morning about Elijah up on Mount Carmel praying and seeking for rain, praying for it. And he sends Gahazi his servant seven times out there. And only on the seventh time does the rain cloud show up. And it pours down rain. Well, God is saying what I want you to do is pray until righteousness reigns upon you. To you are given the righteousness of Christ here. And we must not forget when we enter in our prayer closet that we should pray for this righteousness. A deluge of your mercy will descend and your heart. heart will rejoice. But God must be sought while he may be found. There is a day when it’s too late. So we must take advantage of the situation right now. Now, God expects out of you a life of obedience. So to yourself in righteousness, reap in mercy, he said. Now, every action you life is a seed sow. And the Bible makes it clear that you reap what you sow in this life. And so we have to sow righteousness if we wish to receive blessing. You know, when Daniel once told King Nebuchadnezzar, break off thy sins by righteousness in Daniel 427. God says, cease to do evil, learn to do well. In Isaiah 1, 6. and 17. There must be repentance. God demands that you change your ways. Not only your conduct, but also your thinking and your attitude. There was a church member who went to his pastor, Philip Brooks, to tell him he was going to the Holy Land. He said, while he was there, his intention was to visit Mount Sinai, and he was going to do something special. He said, I plan to climb to the top of that mountain, and when I get there to read the Ten Commandments, thinking this would please, Dr. Brooks, the church member was surprised at the pastor’s response. You know, I could think of something better for you to do. You can, pastor? What might that be? Well, why don’t just stay at home and keep the Ten Commandments in your life. All the reading and hearing of the Word of God does you no good unless it results in a life of obedience to God. And if any fruit ever comes out of your earnestness, it will be mercy that gives it to you, as the text talks about. Anything that is Godlike, anything that’s whole. holy in your life is planted there by God. You can bet on that. You can put the book on that. You’re nourished and supported by divine power. Human energy really ultimately is useless. It takes divine energy and power. Help us to live the godly life. So God bid you here to sow righteousness. But to reap, To the glory of God is merely a matter of mercy, as he says here in the text. So God called you to seek him and plead for mercy. Thirdly tonight, your punishment will be unavoidable if sin is pursued. Let’s look at verses 13 through 15 now. You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity. you have eaten the fruit of lies because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men. Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as shalman spoiled Beth Barbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces upon her children. So shall Beth will do unto you because of your great wickedness. In a morning, shall the king of Israel be utterly out of all. You will reap what you sow. So, Jose has commanded them to sow righteousness, but Israel’s labor had been spent in plowing wickedness. You may spend a great deal of effort in the service of sin. You realize people do so much to do. damn their own souls. You’re going to reap what you sow. Job 4-8, even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same. You may set your heart stubbornly upon doing evil in the sight of the Lord. But he tells you here, you’re going to pay for it. There’s going to be a crop that comes out of that wickedness, and you’re going to have to live with that. Many go to great lengths to go to go to great lengths to go. to hell. He may cling to your sin, though it will drag you down to the depths of the fiery furnace. If you plow wicked, God promises you’ll repay the iniquity. He’s going to punish it. How do you plow so diligently and not expect to reap the sad consequences of your actions? No, you cannot depend upon human means to spare you. Jose is already forewarned Israel about a coming enemy invasion and feudal, a future exile, I should say. Slavery and misery was their heritage. The possibility of this would soon become an everyday concern, but right now, Israelites were not too concerned. They had made treaties. They had negotiated craftily with Egypt and Syria. Syria, as we saw from verse 4. War was perceived to be a distant problem. The nation as a whole thought that an immediate military threat was not imminent. It could be averted. This would give them the opportunity to strengthen their military forces. They trusted in their leaders. They trusted in their military might. But they had eaten the fruit of life. eyes, fruit which looks good outwardly, but is right within. All their scheming would not avert God’s eminent judgment that was coming with a final blow. You may hedge all your backs. Yet find God still checkmate you, as he always does. You know, in Israel, the mentality of the Maginal line prevailed. This was a great wall that was built in France during the 1930s. The Minister of War, Andre Maginot, extended his fortified line from the Swiss border all way to the border of Belgium. And the idea was to provide security against a German invasion. everything went through Belgium and circled around and so the magina line was of no value really it was a symbol of false confidence and the whole country got overrun in nineteen forty by the german military too many have this imaginary you may have this magina aline mentality you may have your confidence in this place that it’s going to prove disastrous in the end. So you cannot depend upon human means this period. You will dearly pay for your rebellious ways versus 14 and 15. Israel here is certain with utter destruction for their chrono practices, their false competence. To malt means a great disturbance, some kind of confusion, people being terrified. Jose is even to indicate a great evasion here. here by the Assyrians was coming and would overthrow Israel. Their fortresses would be seized and rifled. There’s a particular battle which is alluded to here that we really don’t know anything about. It’s not spoken elsewhere in the Word of God. So I can’t tell you exactly what he’s referring to. And no doubt it refers to some of them. that happened not too long ago, was still fresh in the people’s mind. Shalman, or Shalman, is the same as Shalmaneser. So we’re talking about the king of Assyria. But at some point in the past, put some town or a fortress to the sword, killed the women, killed the children, slaughtered them. This was to put the fear in the other villages and other fortresses, so that they would not oppose him, but surrender quickly. God says with great severity he’s going to punish Israel for their sins. Their king would be killed also, it says. And all of it has a result of their wickedness stemming from their false worship at Bethel, where the golden calves were set up. These words ought to awaken you to the danger. of turning a deaf ear to God’s call for you to repent. God is able to judge you in this life and how far awaits you in the next. Like those two public figures that I mentioned written up in the Detroit News, they ruined their lives and destroyed themselves. God expects you to go to school. to learn from the sins of Israel, not to follow in their footsteps, because you will reap the same thing they reap. He calls upon you to seek him now, to plead for mercy, to consider how you have been neglecting your soul, to live a life of obedience. And, of course, to pray to him until he reigns the right to be. righteousness Christ. God upon you. Let’s close with the word of prayer tonight. Heavenly Father, it is with solemnness, we read this passage. And you repeatedly warn the Israelites in many of them were different ways, using different metaphors and so forth, to get their attention, change their attitude and spirit and you pray to you. Pray to you. for mercy and grace that they refused. May we as your people take this to heart and realize the danger here. And I pray, Lord, that you would make this word affectual in people’s hearts who do not know the Lord, for surely it will catch up with them when they forget God and do not pay attention to all. what he has said. We asked all these things in Christ’s precious name with thanksgiving. Amen. Let’s stand for the benediction of the benediction of the grace be with all them to love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.