Lesson #08

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Hosea

September 21, 2015

Lesson #01

January 6, 2010

Lesson #02

January 6, 2010

RETURN TO SYLLABUS

HOSEA 7
Lesson #08
THE WAY OF ESCAPE AND THE SILLY DOVE

• Memory Verse: Hos 7:10

• The nature of Biblical prophecy is such that within the statements of impending judgment, there is always an option of repentance. How do we know this?
• Sometimes the prophet will mention repentance by calling the people to turn from their sin and turn to the living God. However, repentance is not always mentioned specifically, but it is always inherently present.
• The nature of the character of God is both love and justice.
• Because of His love, God wants all men to come to know God. (1Tim 2:4)
• Because of His justice, there must be a payment or a penalty for sin.
• With these two aspects of His character in mind, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to be the payment for sin.
• With these two aspects of His character in mind, God sent the Old Testament prophets to warn of the judgment in expectation that some would believe, repent, and turn to God’s mercy and love.
• Therefore, the prophetic warnings are a demonstration of God’s love so that man might repent and accept God’s loving forgiveness.
• Repentance is the way of escape from God for the coming judgment. However prideful man either will not see this way of escape because of deception, or he will deliberately turn himself away from it and deny God in an attitude of rebellion.
• Chapter 7 of Hosea shows us what a nation does when it turns away from God. This path of self-determination is the pathway to anarchy and civil rebellion.
• Read Hos 7:1-16
• God was waiting to heal the Northern Kingdom of Ephraim. (1)
• Here is that expectant love that God possesses, waiting to bless a sinful people with forgiveness and restoration. However, God is blocked by the various sins of the people.”
• Notice that verse 1 says those sins were discovered.

• “…the wickedness of Samaria”

(1)

• Samaria was the beautiful capital of the Northern Kingdom. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel built a beautiful temple there where the people worshipped Baal.
• Read Joh 4:4,7,22-24
• Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that her people did not know what they worshipped. They were deceived by their leaders.
• God declared judgment on Samaria and today it is not a beautiful place.
• Sin was supposed to be covered by the blood of sacrificed animals. Because the government of the Northern Kingdom prohibited the people from going to Jerusalem to worship Jehovah and from offering sacrifices in the temple of Solomon, their sins were not covered by the blood. For that reason, God said that their sins were discovered.
• The lowest depths of society:
• Sin is contagious and compounds itself over time. We see this in verse 2.
• Their hearts convicted them of their sin as they tried to hide it. This is the first step away from God.
• As sin continues to grow to epidemic proportions, this is the second step away from God.
• Open sin of epidemic proportions takes the third step away from God when those sins are flaunted in God’s face with an attitude of hatred against God.
• This third step is society at its lowest depths of depravity because even the government leaders applaud the sin. (3)
• The heated oven of society (4)
• The baker lit the fire in his oven the night before. Early in the morning, all he needed to do was to add more fuel to heat the oven. The door or mouth of the oven was left open waiting to accept the unbaked dough. Then when the temperature maintained a constant level, the flat bread dough was put into the oven. The low even temperature caused the dough to rise. When the dough had risen, the baker increased the heat to bake the bread.
• What is the meaning of the parable of the dough and the hot oven? (4-5)
• An open expression of sexual passion in society is the heated oven with an open door.
• Israel’s sins were in the process of expanding like the bread dough in the warm oven. Soon those sins would expand to their ultimate limit and God would say, “That is enough” Then He would raise the temperature of those sins in society until those sins were at epidemic proportions, and everyone could feel the heat from the oven.
• Through television, advertising, and the internet, sex is glamorized everywhere. It is in your face and unavoidable. This is the epidemic of lust we see in our day as we see in Hosea’s day. The oven of society is getting hotter.
• Those sins and depravities openly accepted in society will eventually burn those who feed the fuel to the fire in the oven. (7)
• Hosea 7:5-7 describes a celebration of either the king’s birthday or his coronation. Certain princes made the king and his court so intoxicated that they became incapacitated. The subversive princes burned with the lust of assassination through the night. In the morning heat, they ignited the plot and assassinated the king.
• Nineteen kings ruled over the Northern Kingdom, the majority were dethroned or murdered by their successors. None of those kings called on God to save the nation.
• God’s judgment will come upon the judges, the kings, and the priests.
• The direct fulfillment of this prophetic judgment was the many assassinations of kings and judges in the Northern Kingdom.
• “Ephrain he hath mixed himself among the people…”

(8)

• Usually when something in the Bible is spoken of as being mixed, it was not a good thing. It is frequently used to mean mixing good with bad, righteousness with unrighteousness, light with darkness, truth with error, etc.
• God told the Israelites not to intermarry with the pagan people around them, but they disobeyed. In this way they became a mixed people. We see a mixed multitude of people follow the Israelites out of Egypt and caused many problems for Moses.
• This principle of maintaining the purity of His people is called the unequal yoke in the New Testament. (2Cor 6:14)
• “…Ephraim is a cake not turned”

(8)

• A pancake that is not turned becomes burned on one side but remains raw on the other side.
• What is the significance of the cake not turned? (8)
• This illustration describes for us Israel’s relationship with God. Sometimes they were warm towards God and sometimes they were cold towards God.
• Many Christians are like that today. When they are warm towards God you see them continually at church doing all the right things, but then one day they turn cold and you never see them at church. They are the unturned pancake!
• Because the Northern Kingdom did not seek God, they mixed themselves with pagan people in direct violation of God’s command to remain separate. (Num 23:9 Deu 33:28) Those pagan people brought with them their foreign gods.
• It was this mixture that caused Israel’s instability of faith, and for that they were half-baked.
• The person that is like the unturned pancake does not realize what is happening to him.

• “Strangers have devoured his strength…”

(9)

• “…grey hairs are here and there upon him…”

(9)

• In other words, time is passing him by and he is unaware that his life of opportunity to serve Christ is slipping away just as in the days of the Northern Kingdom.
• “Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart.”

(11)

• This is another picturesque illustration that speaks of the foolish wisdom of the Northern Kingdom.
• If a dove has a nest with eggs or babies in it and an enemy approaches, the dove will pretend weakness and a broken wing in an attempt to lure the enemy away from the nest.
• This action is not very wise because the dove puts her own life at risk. If the enemy catches the dove, the babies will die without food.
• How does this scenario relate to the Northern Kingdom?
• Like the silly dove running back and forth in her weakness, the Northern Kingdom ran back and forth between Egypt and Assyria seeking help from her enemies to protect the survival of the nation.
• God says that they will be caught in a net. Notice that the net belongs to God. (12)
• Historically speaking the net was the armies of Assyria that finally caught the people of the Northern Kingdom and removed them from the Promised Land to take them to the city of Babylon. The nest of Israel was destroyed.
• A Spiritual Truth:
• When a nation turns from God and does not seek God’s wisdom and protection, it turns to man’s wisdom in dealing with its enemies. Man’s wisdom is the silly dove running back and forth in weakness and usually ends in a net of weak treaties.
• What is the deceptive trap? (11-12)
• The deceptive trap is man’s wisdom when God’s wisdom is rejected.
• This spiritual truth concerning this deceptive trap relates to nations and to individuals.
• Destruction:
• The reward for Israel’s folly was destruction. (13)
• Before the destruction, there was famine. (14)
• There are many famines in the Bible and each one is related specifically to God’s judgment.
• The famine God speaks of here in verse 14 were small raids by the Assyrians that destroyed the crops. These small famines were supposed to be a warning to the Israelites of a greater destruction ahead, but they were already too far down the road to destruction to turn to God.
• “…they are like a deceitful bow…’

(16)

• The leaders did not RETURN to the Most High God, and in that they turned to worldly wisdom. Instead of drawing a bow to hit the target with an arrow that would win the victory over Israel’s enemies, the foreign alliances were deceptive. A deceptive bow is one where the string breaks and the arrow flies far from its target.
• All of Israel’s attempts to balance the powers in the Middle East that would neutralize the Assyrian power did not achieve anything.
• The same situation is true today in the Middle East.
• Israel does not seek the Most High God.
• Instead she relies on the strength and friendship of the United States that becomes` weaker every year.
• What will be the end result?
• According to Bible prophecy the net of destruction will eventually catch them and the war of Eze 38 and 39 will put Israel in the hands of the Antichrist in the tribulation period.
• Application:
• In this chapter Hosea uses a variety of very descriptive illustrations to give us the flavor of a nation on a slippery slope to corruption, anarchy, and destruction.
• The heated oven of sin and lust growing openly in society.
• The half-baked cake of religious idolatry mixed with a jealous God who loves His people.
• The silly dove of man’s wisdom that attempts to deal with problems without turning to God.
• The deceitful bow that foolishly makes commitments with the enemy from the perspective of weakness.
• We saw at the beginning of our lesson that God’s purpose for prophecy is to call people to repentance.
• We have seen that Israel did not seek God’s way of escape by means of repentance to avoid the coming judgment, but, like a silly dove, she sought the world’s wisdom.
• God’s wisdom is superior and gives victory while the world’s wisdom brings defeat and destruction.

HOMEWORK
HOSEA 8
This is a self-study. Please do not send homework answers to the teacher forcorrection.

• Application of Hos 7
• As you contemplate the problems in your life, you are confronted with a choice: God’s way through repentance, humility, faith, and dependence on God or the way of the world’s faulty wisdom of psychology or Oprah. Which will you choose? Why?

• Preparation for Hos 8
• Read Hos 8:1-14
• What New Testament statement by Jesus comes to mind when you read verse 2?
• What are the similarities in Hosea’s day and in Jesus’ time on earth that prompted the statements?

Memory Verse: Hos 8:12