Hosea Lesson 7
Jehovah reveals His lawsuit with
Turn to Hosea 4. In the book of
Hosea we are once again face to face with the condemnation of God. The prophets, the Nabiim, that second part of
the Old Testament, has proved, as far as I can see as a practicing pastor in
debriefing those with great spiritual problems, it always seems like God the
Holy Spirit leaves people with tremendous spiritual burdens, particularly in
straightening out the frustrations of their life, it seems that quite on their
own God the Holy Spirit leads them to read portions of the Nabiim, portions of
the prophets. And I’ve noticed in the
years of counseling that people will come to Jeremiah or Isaiah and they’ll say
it was reading those books where God the Holy Spirit first, so to speak, really
put His finger on my problem.
But the Nabiim have been included in the text for the purpose of
exposing our rebellion against God, and Hosea is one of the most outstanding of
the Nabiim in this respect. Hosea is
divided into two parts; chapters 1-3 which we have completed, and chapters
4-14. In chapters 1-3 we found that God
established a historic parallel between His relationship with
In chapters 4-14 we have a “how to” section. Here you will watch how God the Holy Spirit,
operating through the prophet Hosea condemned the nation. What did He do? How did He do it? Did He condemn just the generalities or did
He cite specifics, and if He did cite specifics how could those specific
condemnations be accurate? How could a
simple prophet of God have any understanding of the complexities of economics. How could the simply prophet of God have any
comprehension of the details of politics and international relations. Well, he could because God the Holy Spirit
spoke to him in revelation and you’ll notice how. That’s the big thing as you read through
chapter 4, 5, 6, as we go on through this section of Hosea, ask yourself as you
read the text, how is God convicting the nation; how is God dealing with the
nation? And then if you keep asking
yourself this question long enough, that will give you a model of how the Holy
Spirit will operate on you as you read the text of Scriptures. This is just a way of familiarizing yourself
with how God works, and the Nabiim are written for that purpose.
Now we can divide this last section, this second section up into smaller
parts. Chapter 4 is one part; chapters
5-10 is another; chapters 11-14 is another.
It’s not dogmatically divided because this is a book that different
teachers will divide different ways.
We could entitle chapter 4 as: Yahweh reveals His lawsuit with
Then chapters 5-10, Yahweh’s lawsuit is preached to the people. In chapters 5-10 we have many, many different
addresses by the prophet Hosea over his lifetime, extended at least 20, 30 and
probably 40 years of active ministry. So
chapters 5-10 are pieces of his sermons tacked together in one book; not all of
his sermons, just some selected out by the Holy Spirit for inclusion in the
canon. Yahweh’s lawsuit is preached to
the people, chapters 5-10. Chapters
11-14 is one of the most passionate appeals in all of the Old Testament, Yahweh
demands a response to His election love.
Yahweh demands a response to His election love.
Now Hosea 4, we’ll get into at least the first part of chapter 4, Yahweh
reveals His lawsuit to the nation.
Immediately in verse 1 we’re face to face with something new about the
way Scripture is written, and the way this particular kind of Scripture is
written. Hosea 4:1, “Hear the word of
the LORD, ye children of
So, “Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of
So we’re going to go back to Deuteronomy 32. This chapter is the archetype for all later
passages in the Bible of lawsuits. We’ll
spend a few moments reviewing this and this will help you read the Bible
better, it’ll put a tool in your hand, unlock some more of the text of
Scripture for you. To understand why
Deuteronomy 32 is written the way it is you have to understand when God
revealed the Torah or the Law to
The vassal treaty, or the treaty format had many parts to it, and the
idea was this, quite simply actually, you have one great king, say Pharaoh of
Egypt, or say one of the great Assyrian kings, and this king would make a
treaty with a lesser king. Say, for
example, Pharaoh made a treaty with
Now the parts of a suzerainty vassal treaty. They had certain parts to them, the treaty
just wasn’t written in anybody’s order, it had a certain legal format. The first part of a suzerainty vassal treaty
was the preamble. The preamble would
always say who the great king was, and if you recall the Ten Commandments, when
God spoke to Moses on Sinai He didn’t just start with the first commandment, He
said I am the Lord God, and so He identified Himself. There’s the
preamble. The suzerain must identify
himself.
The second part of a suzerainty vassal treaty is a historical prologue
and in this second part the suzerain would ingratiate himself with the
vassal. If Pharaoh wanted to make a
treaty with the king of Tyre, the king of Ethiopia, he would do so by saying,
King of Tyre, I helped your father, I have helped you, Egypt has made loans to
you, Egypt has bought your merchandise, Egypt has come to your aid when you
needed our military support, and therefore king of Tyre or king of some place
else, you owe something to us. In other
words, you should respond to the fact that we’ve loved you. The word “love” in the ancient world wasn’t
originally associated with what you think it’s associated with. The word “love” originally referred to these
treaties, it meant that we take a political interest in someone, and the word
“love” was used. So the second part of
the historical prologue… and that’s why in the Ten Commandments it reads “I am
the Lord your God,” and then it says, “who brought you out of the land of
Egypt,” that’s the historical prologue of the Ten Commandments; I brought you
out of the land of Egypt, so therefore you’re indebted. I ingratiate myself to you, you are to
respond to what I’ve done for you by keeping these commandments.
The third part, and the main part of a suzerainty vassal treaty were the
stipulations, and so the law has some 600+ stipulations. You should do this, you should not do this to
please the suzerain. The whole aim of
the suzerainty vassal treaty is to please the suzerain, or to be loyal to the
suzerain, just as the Law is to be loyal to Jehovah.
A fourth point is there was always provision for the deposition of the
treaty; the treaty was copied, two of them, one had to be distributed in the
temple of the god of, say Tyre, and the other copy of the treaty had to be
deposited in the temple of the god of, say Egypt. In
The fifth point about the suzerainty vassal treaties, that they always
had an invitation of the witnesses; we’ll see that shortly, that is an
important thing to note for understanding Hosea, that these treaties had to be
witnessed. When they were signed they
were signed in the presence of witnesses, and all the ancients, when they would
sign treaties they would say well, here is Bel, you sign this treaty in the
presence of the god Bel, the god Marduk, and the god Achu, these would be the
gods that would act as the custodians, as the witnesses from generation to
generation as to whether these treaties were kept or not.
Finally in the suzerainty vassal treaty form there would always be
cursings and blessings, and that’s in the Mosaic Law, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy
28, the cursings and the blessings. If
you’re loyal to the suzerain blessings flow; if you are disloyal to the
suzerain cursings flow.
Now Deuteronomy 32 is the Song of Moses; it is a song that had to be
taught to the citizens of the nation; it was kind of their pledge of allegiance
to the flag, except it was the most unusual pledge of allegiance ever written
because this particular song would bear witness in prophetic outline to their
entire history. Imagine singing in 1850
in our national anthem, say, or our pledge of allegiance to the flag, imagine
saying something about World I and World War II in 1850, but this was the
astounding thing the citizens of Israel had to do. They had to memorize the entire 32nd
chapter of Deuteronomy. They had to sing
this on many occasions, and the very form of this treaty was then picked up by
the Nabiim; Hosea, you are going to find out very shortly, Hosea as well as the
other prophets, Micah, Isaiah, all write from the form originally produced here
in Deuteronomy 32. These prophets are
not what the liberals have said they are; they are not the social gospelers who
are interested in bringing in a radically different order. The prophets out of the Old Testament, if
they are anything, they are not radical, they are reactionaries. They are
exactly the opposite of a radical. They
are a reactionary, they are going backwards at 90 mph, backwards to the Mosaic
Covenant. They are radical in the sense
of great change but they are not radical in the leftwing sense of the word.
Let’s look briefly at the outline of Deuteronomy 32:1-29, that’s the
main section; after 29 it gets into the grace addendum which we won’t go into,
but the rib format is outlined
here. I’ll just outline it very simply
for you and we’ll see these three parts, just like I outlined the six points of
the suzerainty vassal treaty and you see this occur again and again and again,
so you’re going to see these three parts occur again and again and again as you
read the prophets. So when you study the
Bible on your own, when you read some of these prophets, ask yourself whether
at that point where your eyes are looking in the text, do we have any
indication of this kind of a format, and it will cause you to interact with the
text and be more observant, more careful in your reading.
Deuteronomy 32:1-14 represent the court procedure; that was always the
first part of a rib. A rib,
by the way, presupposes the vassal treaty.
You don’t have a lawsuit unless you have a prior contract which has been
violated. You can’t have a lawsuit
without a law framework, so the whole rib
thing presupposes the existence of the suzerainty vassal treaty. The first part, verses 1-14 is the court
procedure. It, in turn, is made up of
various things: verses 1-3 is the call of the witnesses. As the courtroom opens
the witnesses are called. The witnesses
must come to testify to see whether or not the stipulations of the treaty have
been followed through the centuries. So
therefore it begins, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth,
the words of my mouth.” That is an
address to the angelic powers of nature who under the sovereignty of God act as
the witnesses of God’s own treaty. And Moses teaches the people to sing the treaty
form.
Now I think the reason, we can only speculate, the reason why every
citizen had to memorize Deuteronomy 32 is because this was a means, not only of
national group repentance, but I think it creates a mentality in you so that
you can use 1 John 1:9 better, more effectively, more skillfully. It created a mentality to spot your own
personal sin before it got out of hand.
So “Give ear, O heavens,” this would recall to the believer that you are
being watched, not only that but you’re being watched by qualified observers
who know what you should be doing and what you should not be doing. There are witnesses watching. So verses 1-3 is a call to the
witnesses. That is always part of the
courtroom procedure, the call for witnesses.
In Deuteronomy 32:4-6 we have the introduction of the case. This is very brief but it specifies what it
is that’s on God’s mind. So in verses 4-6 we read: “He is the Rock, His work is
perfect,” this is Moses bringing the case before the people, “for all His ways
are justice; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He. [5]
They” Israel, “have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of His
children; they are a perverse and crooked generation. [6] Do you thus requite
the LORD, O foolish people and unwise?
Is not He thy Father who hath bought you? Has He not made you, and established
you?” So you have the introduction of
the case, what’s the issue. It’s the
rebellion of the people.
Then in Deuteronomy 32:7-14 you have the witness of God’s
faithfulness. In other words, it isn’t
God that’s at fault, it’s the people that are at fault. So verses 7-14 in this
section of the court procedure is a view of history. “Remember the days of old, consider the years
of many generations. Ask thy father, and
he will show you; thy elders, and they will show you.” And it goes all the way back to Genesis 10 in
verse 8, “ When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He
separated the sons of Adam, He set the grounds of the people according to the
number of the children of Israel,” it talks about the division of the human
race and the seventy people. [9] “For
the LORD’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.” And it
goes over and it reviews all the blessings that He gave them. Verse 13, “He made him ride on the high
places of the earth,” blessing, blessing, blessing. God is faithful, faithful, faithful.
So that ends the court procedure, the court is now open. The witnesses have been called, the case has
been introduced, and the judicial proof of Jehovah’s faithfulness is
there. Now we move to the second
part.
The second part of the format is the indictment, and in the indictment
specific parts of the law code would then be brought forward in the courtroom
to show point by point where those legal documents had been violated. Here it’s given in Deuteronomy 32:15-18, “But
Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. Thou art
become fat; thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he
forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. [16]
They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked
they him to anger.” Verse 17, “They
sacrificed unto demons,” this is the demonic in the religion which we’ll see in
Hosea, “not to God, to gods whom they knew not, to new God who came newly up,
whom your fathers feared not. [18] Of the Rock who begot thee thou art
unmindful, and you have forgotten the God who formed you.” There is the indictment, that specifies what
the case is all about.
What is the indictment. The thing
to remember about Biblical conviction of sin, and this is something that we can
get directly from this format and it will save you grief and you can use this
principle and this truth to straighten out some other believers who may not be
oriented in this area: when God the Holy Spirit convicts, He never convicts
vaguely. Just remember that, that’s the
difference between satanic oppression in the soul and the work of the Holy
Spirit. That’s one way you can tell,
whether it’s just a guilty spirit type of thing from Satan in which he’s just
trying to get you depressed or whether it’s a genuine conviction of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit convicts
specifically. And when He convicts
specifically, in order for Him to be able to do that He obviously has to have a
tool, and therefore what is the tool?
What is the tool the prophets used?
The Torah, the Law, the Word of God. And so if you expect to get
straightened out in your life and you expect to recover from carnality you have
to put, so to speak, a tool in the hand of the Holy Spirit to get at you. There’s only one way I know of this, no
matter how depressed you are, no matter how confused you may be, no matter how
bad your emotions are, the best thing you can do is sit down, stand up, do
something but get your eyes on the text of Scripture. I don’t care where it is, get anything, just
open it and start reading. When you are
involved in this kind of thing, particularly in extreme forms of compound
carnality, where you’ve been out of fellowship for a long period of time, the
best first-aid you can do is to get into the Word. You may have to read it out loud to yourself;
if you have to fine. That puts into your
soul the words of God; now the Holy Spirit can take those words, work through
your conscience and point out to your mind what it is that you’re violating the
Scripture, and the Holy Spirit will guide you in your reading.
You don’t want to use 1 John 1:9 too fast, you don’t want to confess
your sin too fast here because you can confess false things. You’ve got to be convinced you’re wrong
first. A lot of Christians will do this,
they want to feel better and so they prematurely rush to confess sin, they’re
not really convinced they committed it but it might make them feel better if
they went through the procedure. So just
to feel better they go through the procedure and the result is they don’t feel
any better because they’ve never solved the problem. Conviction of sin is a process that takes
time and it will take time because it is a teaching method; the Holy Spirit is
actually teaching you, certain things about your soul, certain things about
other people. And to do this you have to
place into His hands the Word.
So the prophets, when they came to the indictment form a model of how
the Holy Spirit would work in your soul.
How did He work in the soul of Israel?
He worked through men who said, hey, what does it say back here in the
Law? It said this, this, this, this, and
this. What have you been doing? This, this, this, this and this. Simple comparison between behavior and the
Word and that’s how the Holy Spirit convicts of sin. Now don’t go sitting in the closet wondering
why God the Holy Spirit doesn’t point out your problem when you don’t initiate
and get into the Word. You get into the Word
the Holy Spirit will lead you from there.
You don’t have to sweat it. But
the genuine conviction that you’ll get out of this will not be some vague
thing. God is not interested in beating
us into the ground and making us feel bad. The only reason why God the Holy
Spirit works to convict us of sin is so we can deal with the problem,
straighten up and move on to better things, not just sit and wallow in it. That’s not God’s will. And any kind of a guilt system or pattern in
the soul that leaves the people wallowing in it, digging it all up and swishing
it around, this kind of stuff, that is not the work of the Holy Spirit. We have to say that because there have been
times in church history when people thought that was a sign of revival, when
everybody got up and shared all their dirty linen and they’d have these mass
confessions and this was supposed to be the sign of tremendous revival. It wasn’t a sign of anything. That’s not a work of the Holy Spirit, and in
fact it demeans the work of the Holy Spirit.
Your sin is your personal issue
between you and God, not between you, me and God, or between you, somebody else
and God. The issue is strictly a private
one.
So the third section is the sentence.
The sentence is given in Deuteronomy 32:19-29 and the sentence is even
specific; the sentence isn’t an arbitrary one popped out of the air by the
prophet; it isn’t just a vague thing, you bad boy, God’s going to get you; it’s
nothing like that at all. The sentence
that is given by the rib is nothing
more than an application of the cursings back out of the vassal treaty. That’s all it is and I’ll prove it from
Hosea. When these prophets would
announce God’s judgment it wasn’t arbitrarily designed judgment, it wasn’t just
any judgment, it would be specific things that would come out of Deuteronomy 28
and Leviticus 26. That’s where it was.
How God, as the Father, led the nation Israel, is a model for all
parents on how to lead children. You
don’t wait until the crime to dream up the punishment. You announce the crime and the punishment
beforehand. And then when the crime
happens it’s not just the heat of the moment that determines what happens to
the kid. It’s the law that determines
what happens to the kid. And the crime
has been defined, you’ve told him that if you do this then this is going to
happen. Oh, I don’t believe it… try
it! So the kid goes out and tries it and
boom, you teach him truth right in the rear end because you have applied the
law; it’s not arbitrary, you teach him a framework of law and conversely
blessing. If he is obedient and follows
through then the stated blessing. This doesn’t have to be applied mechanically
but if you catch the flavor of how it’s done in the Old Testament it’s a very,
very good model.
Now let’s come to Hosea 4 and watch how this rib format pops right out
of the first three verses. Hosea 4
introduces Jehovah’s lawsuit with the nation, and the first three verses
capsulize this lawsuit. If you look
carefully, I gave you three parts to the rib. Now if you’ll read the first three verses of
Hosea 4 you should notice those same three parts appear. Hosea 4:1, “Hear the word of the LORD, ye
children of Israel;” there’s the call of the witnesses “for the LORD has a
controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.”
That’s the introduction of the case.
It turns out here there is no proof of Jehovah’s faithfulness, that’ll
come later in the chapter. But verse 1
is simply the first part of the rib;
it is the court proceeding.
Hosea 4:2, “By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and
committing adultery they break out, and blood touches blood.” That’s the indictment. Verse 3 is the sentence, “Therefore shall the
land mourn, and every one that dwells in it shall languish, with the beasts of
the field, and with the fowls of the heavens; yea, the fish of the sea also
shall be taken away.” That’s the third
part, the sentence.
Now let’s look at the details; we’re acquainted with the overall of
verses 1-3, we see what the prophet Hosea is doing; he is working inside a
framework of the Word of God. He is not
just spouting off about sin. He is
placing the sins of the people within the Mosaic framework and working from there. Now let’s go to details.
Hosea 4:1, “Hear the word of the LORD,” is just like we read in
Deuteronomy 32, it’s an address to the witnesses, and in this case the
witnesses aren’t angels, it’s the people themselves, “Hear you children of
Israel,” you are the people that memorized Deuteronomy 32 and for century after
century, for at least five centuries you’ve been singing that song over and
over and over and over. You have become
witnesses to your own crimes, like out consciences become witnesses to our own
crimes as individuals, so they are the witnesses. “…for the LORD has a lawsuit with,” and then
he has another name for the people of the land, he no longer calls them
Ephraim, he no longer calls them beni
Yisrael, the sons of Israel, he calls “the inhabitants of the land.” Why does he call them by this strange
title? It’s simple, the land is His,
that’s why. The land is His, and when he
says “the inhabitants of the land” that’s a deliberate title to say hey, who’s
sustained you, who has given you the food, who has given you the agricultural
blessing, who has blessed you and blessed you and sustained you and sustained
you over the years. I have, that’s My
land, and you have the right to farm it and you have the right to sit on My
land, but I gave you that land and I bless that land or I curse that land, but
the land is Mine. So He deliberately,
when He comes to a person, to cut them down to size, you are inhabiting My
land. And in the Hebrew there’s an
article in front of the word “land” which means it emphasizes not just land,
but “the land,” “the land of the covenant,” that’s the issue. You are inhabiting My land.
And then the case, and he stresses particular items in this case, and
this cuts to the heart of sin itself.
You think that sin comes out in verse 2; no it doesn’t, the heart of it
comes out in verse 1, “…because there is not truth,” this is the word related
to amen, “there is no truth,” and the word for truth means reliability, not
truth in the abstract sense of 2+2=4 but rather 2+2 always is 4,
reliability. “…nor mercy,” there’s no
reliability, in other words, there’s no mercy, that’s the word chesed, for loyal love, covenant love,
loyalty to a prior agreement, there’s none of that in the land. And there’s “no knowledge of God in the
land.” Now this is a phrase that we
encounter again and again in Hosea, the knowledge of God. Yadah
is the Hebrew word to know, it doesn’t just mean intellectual knowledge. Yadah means consistency between thought,
word and deed. So it’s not just abstract
intellectual knowledge, it means knowledge that’s acted out and acted
upon. There’s no dichotomy between what
you think and what you do here. And the
people who keep Yahweh’s Law yadah
Him more, they get to know Him more because He reveals Himself more and more to
those who obey what He has already revealed.
So what is God getting at? No
truth, no reliability, no loyal covenant love, no consistency. In other words, it’s all vertical, not
socially but theologically. In verse 1
the heavy stress is on the theological.
In verse 2 it’s social, but you always start with the theological first
or you always misdefine the social. You
can’t talk about social injustices apart from theological presuppositions. So therefore it’s all tied in to start with
with the theological presuppositions.
Then after you’ve decided that, then you can talk about your social
things. So the covenant, the solid
covenantal basis is given.
Hosea 4:2 which would be the indictment, and here we find a strange
thing; a strange thing the way the sentence is structured. “By swearing, lying, killing, stealing,
committing adultery they break out,” the word “break out,” is the main verb of
this sentence, and so you have the main verb, and then that verb is amplified
by a series of infinitives. This is the
way the Hebrews had of modifying their verbs, one way besides participles, so
you have the main verb which is to break out.
Now how do they break out? Point
by point by point by point indictment.
Now if you’ll hold the place and turn to the Ten Commandments, Exodus
20, you’ll quickly find that the list is not arbitrarily designed. Hosea had something firmly in mind; he had
the prior legal agreement in mind. And
so when he goes to analyze the social disruptions, he doesn’t analyze it like
the modern sociologist would, with just no framework whatever, he doesn’t
approach it statistically, he approaches it theologically and he specifically
refers to five out of the Ten Commandments that are being broken. Let’s look; we’ll flip back and forth. The first one, Hosea says is “swearing,” this
means they were using God’s name in court room proceedings for all sorts of
trivial things and this is forbidden in Exodus 20:7, “Thou shalt not take the
name of the LORD thy God in vain,” literally, you shouldn’t raise up God’s name
and put it on something unworthy of His character is what it means. By the way, you can break verse 7 by being in
some Christian organization that operates non-Scripturally you’ve violated this
commandment, taking the Lord’s name in vain, because you have placed God’s name
on something that is not worthy of the name.
So this is violation number one.
So Exodus 20:7 answers to the stipulation that has been broken by the
indictment, “swearing.”
The second indictment that Hosea speaks of is “lying.” Again, Exodus
20:16, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” a specific in
the original covenantal agreement.
That’s being broken. The third
one Hosea lists is “killing,” and that’s a violation of Exodus 20:13, “Thou
shalt not kill,” that’s the word for murder, by the way, and the idea is that
God alone has the responsibility to execute capital punishment, plus His
designated representatives. People often
get verse 13 and think that teaches against capital punishment, but they fail
to realize that in Exodus 21, the very next chapter, it’s talking about capital
punishment. “Thou shalt not kill” was a
stipulation of the treaty; that stipulation, Hosea says, is being
violated.
The fourth stipulation of Hosea is “stealing,” and if you look at Exodus
20:15, “Thou shalt not steal,” it’s respect for private property. The next item on Hosea’s indictment is
“committing adultery,” and that violates Exodus 20:14, “Thou shalt not commit
adultery.” All those, in other words, in
Hosea 4:2 refer back to the Mosaic Law.
They all are the ways that the people break out. But there’s something else about Exodus 20 we
want to see, and that is what he didn’t say, what he did not say.
He cited five out of the ten, but Exodus 20, and this is a good way to
remember something about the Ten Commandments, if you’ll think of 8 and 2 it’ll
help you fix the design in your head as to how those commandments are
designed. Think of 8 central
commandments with one introduction and one summary. Now the one introductory commandment is
Exodus 20:3, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The last commandment, “Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor’s house, nor covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor
his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any property that is your
neighbors.” Now these two, both the
first commandment and the tenth, are mirror images of each other, because the
person who has the God of the Bible alone for his God will always be thankful
and not covet. Conversely, whenever you
covet, at that point you are not wholly worshipping the God of Scripture. Now this might introduce a test for your soul
to watch your mental attitude. How can
you detect when you’re kind of drifting?
When you’re coveting, when there is that in your heart which is saying I
need this, I need that, I need this or that.
What’s that really saying if you haven’t thought it out spiritually,
what you have just said when you say that is that my God hasn’t provided and I
am going to provide for myself in my way, thus to deny the wholeness of the God
of Scripture of the first commandment.
So the first commandment and the last one, always fit those two
together; they are mirror images.
This is why we have said over and over, one of the signs of the filling
of the Holy Spirit it thanksgiving. You
cannot covet and be thankful at the same time; try it, no way you can be. So again we’re back to that simple test for spirituality,
you know when you’re with it whether you’re giving thanks for something or
not. This is why in prayer, we have
praise first, then petition. Why the praise first? Because that’s where the
thanksgiving is being made. If we can’t
give thanks forget the petition, we ought to be able to give thanks for
something. So the Ten Commandments
specify this relationship; it’s a covenantal relationship. Whenever people violate the first they have
already violated the tenth, and when they violate these two, eventually these
eight will also be violated, it’s just a
question of time, that’ all.
But here’s another principle thinking about the Ten Commandments in this
way; you will never in your life violate any of those commandments without
first violating the first one and the tenth one. You have to violate those two first before you
can get to the others; no way can you ever steal, commit adultery, murder or
anything else unless you have first violated the first and the tenth
commandments.
Now let’s come back to Hosea and see his point. In verse 1 he has made his court procedure;
in verse 2 he has made his indictment; he has made his indictment back on the
basis of the treaty, specifically five points where you’ve broken the lay,
“they break out,” and the result is that blood touches blood.” [tape turns]
…want to see it operating; here’s true Biblical condemnation social
sins; blood touches blood, and it goes back to the mechanisms of the vassal
treaty. Here you have the suzerain and
let’s say vassal one and vassal two; these are vassals that he’s made this
treaty with. When he makes his treaty he
specifies relationships between his vassals.
He will make a treaty with vassal one and say when vassal two needs your
help you go over there and help him.
When he makes a treaty with vassal two he’ll say when vassal one needs
your help you go over there and help him.
And he will also put other things in the treaty, he’ll say vassal one,
you will not take the property from vassal two; vassal two you will not take
the property from vassal one.
So these people, if they would follow the treaty there would be no
social chaos. But social chaos comes
because they violate the suzerain’s treaty.
And the argument of the Bible is wherever… wherever you have social chaos, whether it’s between races, whether
it’s in cultural problems, whether it is some place else, it is because one or
more groups have violated God’s Word as groups, not just as individuals but as
entire groups. You have a group defying
the Word of God.
Now here when he says “blood touches blood,” or “blood has touched
blood,” he is simply arguing that the families of Israel have violated God’s
Law and because they have, they have collided, it’s just another word, an idiom
for social chaos.
Now Hosea 4:3, the sentence. The
court procedure, verse 1; the indictment, verse 2, and now God’s judgment. “Therefore, shall the land mourn, and every
one that dwells therein,” or literally, everything that dwells there in shall
languish,” a startling kind of sentence if you’re not used to thinking
biblically because what verse 3 seems to be teaching, if you read the rest of
it, is that nature is disrupted. And God
will use nature’s disruption to judge men in nature. Now this is not foreign; let’s trace the
history of it for a moment. It starts in
Genesis 8; turn there, the Noahic Covenant.
Hosea is not operating in a vacuum, he’s not just making this up. Revelation didn’t just come to him in the 8th
century; it’s a product of a long, long tradition. Back after the flood God made a covenant, by
the way, with which the United States of America is still locked into. Every modern nation on earth is part and
parcel with the Noahic Covenant. We can
judge our national behavior on the basis of the Noahic Covenant.
The Noahic Covenant, in Genesis 8:22 specifies that geophysical forces
are controlled and part of the covenant.
In verse 2 zoological and botanical forces in creation is part of this
covenant. So the covenant of Noah sets
the precedent; the Noahic Covenant becomes the model covenant; the Noahic
Covenant is with man; the Noahic Covenant is with physical nature; the Noahic
Covenant is with the animals, the Noahic Covenant is with plants. The Noahic Covenant is man and all of nature,
that’s the God of the Bible. He makes
His covenant all over. Now let’s move
forward in time many centuries to when God said I’ll adopt Israel to Myself and
I’ll lock you into a covenant agreement.
Turn to Deuteronomy 28; here’s the blessings and the cursings
passage. Let’s look at some of the
implications of the curses. It follows
the Noahic tradition; why should we be surprised, it’s the same God that made
the Noahic Covenant, now He’s making another one with Israel. And now He’s going to make some statements
about what He’s going to do in nature.
Deuteronomy 28:21, “The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave [cling]
unto thee, until he has consumed thee from off the land….” Verse 22, “The LORD shall smite thee with a
consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme
burning,” that obviously specifies that when God makes the Mosaic Covenant,
what is He controlling with the Mosaic Covenant? He’s controlling the physiology of the human
body. That is involved in the covenant,
that’s how physical it is. I will send
in these cursings the fever, the inflation, the extreme burning of verse 22;
God said I have power over the physiology.
Now what’s the implication of this?
This means that entire communities of men can suffer physiologically by
the decrees of God; God has this much control; it doesn’t say the other nation,
it just says in this case Israel.
Notice Deuteronomy 28:23, “And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be
bronze, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. [24] And the LORD shall
make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven shall it come down upon
thee, until you be destroyed.” So God
controls the climate. And we can go on and show how God deals with various
things. In verse 28, “The LORD shall
smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart,” that is a
psychological disturbance that enters collectively into a social group. You can have entire groups of people go
crazy; they become animals.
This happens on a small scale when you have a mob. If you’ve ever been around a mob it’s a
terrible thing; you will find yourself joining it, and you’ll find yourself
lusting to go along with the mob, doing things you’d never dare to do as an
individual but because the mob is there, it’s like one tremendous spirit that
just moves you on. The mob is crazy;
this is one of the hardest problems of law enforcement, how to deal with
mobs.
Notice in Deuteronomy 28:29, “And you will grope at noonday, as the
blind gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways,” that not
prosper in your ways means economic frustration, no matter how hard you try
disaster. Verse 30, “Thou shall betroth
a wife, and another man shall lie with her; you will build a house, and you
won’t dwell in it, you’ll plant a vineyard, and you’ll never gather the grapes,”
frustration, complete frustration.
Deuteronomy 28:38, “You will carry much seed into the field, and you’ll
gather a little in, for the locusts shall consume it,” in other words, God
controls the insect world and He’ll bring the locusts in judgment, as several
of the prophets, including Amos, point out.
This is sufficient, at least to show you the mentality these people
have.
Turn back to Hosea; Hosea thinks biblically and so when he announces
this and he pronounces God’s sentence, he says “the land shall mourn, and every
thing,” not every one, “every thing that dwells shall languish,” why? Because the [can’t understand word] of the
curse will be released, He’ll peel back His restraining grace, people want to
rebel against me, go right ahead, is God’s attitude. And we reap the judgment.
Now that’s why in Hosea 2:18 when the New Covenant comes about it’s also
with the beasts of the field; it’s also with nature. God has to have this connection. You can argue, well that’s very nice, and in
the first three verses we’ve seen what a rib
looks like; we kind of got a nutshell of how God the Holy Spirit convicts of
sin. He certainly in verse 2 has taught
us that it will always be specific, it will be related to the commands of
Scripture, but how do you ever apply verse 3 to the Christian life?
Turn to James 5. This is not
teaching that all sickness is due to direct personal sin; this is NOT teaching
that; I’m prefacing my remarks, does everybody hear—we are NOT saying that
every sickness is due to personal direct sin.
However, as true as that is, it’s also true that some sickness is the
result of our direct personal sin.
Notice the instructions, James 5:13, “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.” This is a person who is depressed. “Is any merry? Let him sing psalms.” This is a person filled with the Holy
Spirit. [14] “Is any sick among
you? Let him call for the elders of the
church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord, [15] And the prayer of faith shall deliver” or raise up “the sick, and
the Lord shall raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they shall be
forgiven him.” And then verse 16 is a
fine preventative, “Confess your faults one to another,” now that’s not public
confession, that means confession to someone you’ve wronged on a personal
private level, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another,”
purpose clause, “that you may be healed.”
That’s New Testament truth, not Old Testament truth, and it’s the
application of what we have learned in this sin problem of Hosea to the
Christian life. You see sin carries a
price, and God is the God who is Lord of the physiology of the body and He will
destroy it; tremendous awesome power. We consider these things of our sin,
before we use 1 John 1:9, think back, you’ve learned a procedure tonight, just
from the rib, three step procedure,
how God works in the Old Testament. His
sentence was also directed physiologically against people and that’s what we’ve
pointed out. We’ve pointed out time and time again how you have the mind, how
when your mind violates your conscience on negative volition, scar tissue is
built up, your conscience can’t get back to your mind so your conscience begins
to work on your emotional pattern. It
will work on your body, psychosomatic illness. All this is a product of
personal sin. And as a believer you
ought to be aware of the high price of staying out of fellowship.
With our heads bowed.