Hosea 10

CHAPTER 10THEME: Israel will become an empty vineWe are in a section in which God pronounces His judgment upon Israel. In this chapter we discover something else that Israel was doing which would bring God’s judgment upon her.

Hosea 10:1

ISRAEL WILL BECOME AN EMPTY VINEHe was not saying that Israel was a vine which was not producing fruit, because during this period Israel was very prosperous. God was still being good to them, although He was warning them of coming judgment. “He bringeth forth fruit unto himself” means that he was a vine that was emptying itself of its fruitjust pouring out fruit upon the people. You see, although God had made Israel prosperous, He was not given credit for it. Their urban areas were growing, they were putting up apartments and condominiums, and as a result, they thought everything was all right. Their prosperity was blinding them to their true condition. It is my belief that this same thing has happened to my own country. As a nation, God blinded us with prosperity and with power at the end of World War II, while other nations suffered. We became the big brother to the world. Well, we have been eager to send bombs, but we have not sent what we should have sent: Bibles. I am weary of protestations decrying the fact that we used our bombs on other nations but never telling us what we should have sent instead of bombs. My friend, it is the Bible which has made our nation great, and we are pitifully ignorant of it today. The logical, rational conclusion, judging from history, is that God will judge our nation. There is many a great nation lying in rubble and ruin, which reveals God’s judgment upon them. “According to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars.” As the population increased, the images increased. In other words, their sin increased as the population increased. This figure of the vine reminds us of what the Lord Jesus said in John 15 to His Jewish disciples. He said, “I am the true [genuine] vine …” (Joh_15:1, italics mine). He was saying that until then they had felt that their identification with the nation gave them access to God and a relationship to Him. Now this was no longer true. The Lord Jesus was beginning to call out a people to His name. He would be the Head, and the church which He would be forming would be His body. When He said, “I am the genuine vine,” He meant that no longer would His people worship through the temple, but they would come through Him to the living God.

Hosea 10:2

“Their heart is divided.” Actually they did worship Godwe can’t say that they didn’t. Many of them went down to Jerusalem for the feast days as they had done in former years and joined in the worship of God. However, they would come right back up to the golden calves that had been set up, and they would also worship Baal. Their hearts were dividedone day they would worship God; the next day they would worship Baal. This is the condition which James mentions in his epistle. “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways” (Jas_1:8). I believe this is the reason we find so much inconsistency in the lives of men in public office today. They talk out of one side of their mouths saying one thing; then they talk out of the other side of their mouths saying the opposite thing. I understand that the language of some of our leaders is absolutely the foulest speech one can imagine. Then some of those same people can appear on television and quote a Bible verse so that you would think they were sprouting wings under their coats! That is having a divided heart. My friend, you cannot go to church on Sunday and sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” then walk out, and on Monday morning go to your work and take His name in vainlose your temper and use His precious name to damn everything that irritates you. That kind of divided living is exactly the same kind of divided heart that brought judgment upon Israel.

Hosea 10:3

They were saying, “Go down and look at the southern kingdom, and you will see that their king is not helping them very much.” Their basic problem was not that they had godless kings (they never had one good king in the northern kingdom), but their own hearts were not right with God. My friend, it is easy for you and for me to blame our government for our problems today when the basic problem is in our own heartsyours and mine.

Hosea 10:4

The last days of the northern kingdom must have been parallel to our times. “They have spoken words.” They were very loquacious, great talkers. I believe that in our day radio and television and the printed page have made our generation the most talkative people on earth. Man is a pretty talkative “animal"there is no monkey in a tree that does more chattering than man does. Talk, talk, talk, talk, reams and reams of printed material, and about 99.44 percent of all of it is not worth listening to. It would be better if most of it had never been said. Yet people are being paid fortunes for what they say and for what they write. Out of it all you hear practically nothing said about bringing people back to God, about a return to God and to the Word of God, about looking to Christ as the Savior. “They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant.” They just talk, talk, talk, and you can believe almost nothing they say. I hear some Christian people say today that it is terrible that we don’t ask people to put their hand on the Bible anymore when they swear to tell the truth in a courtroom. Frankly, I’m glad the Bible is being left out of it. If they are going to lie anyway, all an oath on the Bible would do is blaspheme the Book. If the Bible means nothing to people, why in the world should it be used? I resent seeing someone put his hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth and then hear him lie! How many Christian people have spoken words to make a false covenant? How many people have marched down to an altar to dedicate their lives to God, have done it repeatedly, and still nothing changed? How often do we say words but not really mean business with God? “Thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.” Or, getting it down to the level of most of us, judgment will spring up like weeds in our planted gardens.

Hosea 10:5

“Beth-aven” is a term of ridicule for Bethel. Since one golden calf was located at Bethel and the other at Samaria, the inhabitants of these two cities were jealous of one another over who had the biggest calf or the most gold in it. “For the people thereof shall mourn over it.” The actions of people mourning over these calves is really more the idea of trying to outdo one another over it. It would be in our day like “keeping up with the Joneses.” They bought a Cadillac, so we must buy a Continental. They built a house with three bedrooms and three baths, so we must build one with six bedrooms and six baths. They were trying to outdo each other in their calf worship! “The priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.” God is saying, “All the glory of your religion that your priests have boasted in will one day disappear.” The word Ichabod, meaning “the glory is departed,” will be written over the door. What will happen to it?

Hosea 10:6

Those golden calves are going to be carried into Assyria for a present to the king. They would make a gift fit for a kingafter all, there was a lot of gold in those calves. “Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.” Their counsel will come to naught.

Hosea 10:7

God makes it very plain that He is going to cut off the king of the northern kingdom. He’ll be “cut off as the foam upon the water"that royal line, as well as the royal line from the southern kingdom, will spend their time singing, “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.” In other words, they will be reduced to nothing.

Hosea 10:8

“The high places also of Aven …shall be destroyed.” As we have seen before, they worshiped their idols in groves of trees on the mountains. “They shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.” They want to be hidden from the judgment that is coming upon them. This will also be said in the Great Tribulation (see Rev_6:15-17).

Hosea 10:9

This probably refers to the terrible events recorded in Judges 19-20. Even after the civil war, and the men of Gibeah were wiped out, the sin remained, and Gibeah was emblematic of gross and cruel sensuality. Along with the idolatrous practices of Israel were also gross sensual sins.

Hosea 10:10

“Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn.” Ephraim is like an heifer that loves to tread out the corn. They enjoyed the wonderful, bountiful harvest that they got, but they sure didn’t like the idea of going out and plowing the ground to break up the clods. God is saying that He will force Ephraim to go back to doing the thing he does not want to do.

Hosea 10:12

This is a principle that runs throughout the Bible. It is exactly what Paul wrote to the believers in Galatia: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal_6:7-8). Hosea is saying that if they would sow in righteousness, they would reap in mercy. It is always true that we cannot live by the Devil’s standards and then expect to reap a reward from God!

Hosea 10:13

Israel hadn’t learned her lesson. She plowed wickedness, so she would reap iniquity. They have eaten the fruit of lies. They trusted in mighty men, in their leaders who lied to them. They believed these men rather than God. So they got exactly what was coming to themthe fruit of lies. In Daniel we read that God set over the nation the “…basest of men” (Dan_4:17). My friend, in our day, regardless of what political party you are talking about, a sinful, godless people cannot elect a righteous leader. If the people are liars, they will get a liar as a leader. If they are adulterers, they will get an adulterer. If they are thieves, that’s the kind of ruler they will have. My friend, you cannot beat God at this.

As the Greek proverb puts it, “The dice of the gods are loaded.” You can’t gamble with God without losing. If you think that you can be a liar, an adulterer, a thief, and get by with it, I have news for you. When you roll the dice of life, you think they are going to come up in such a way that you will be the winner. Well, God already knows how they will come up, because He has loaded them. When you sow sin, you will reap sin. That is inescapable.

If you think that you can escape the results of sin, you are making God out a liar and the Bible a falsehood. It is true that some have thought that they have gotten by with sin, but no one ever has. If we could bring Ahab and Jezebel or Judas back to testify, they would tell you that they did not get by with sin. And if we could bring back to life some Americans who have died, they would testify to the same thing.

Hosea 10:14

“Shalman” is an abbreviated form of Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria. “Beth-arbel” apparently refers to a place the Greeks call Arbela. It is in the northern part of the country in the region of Galilee. It seems there was a battle here, although it is difficult to identify in secular history just which incident is being referred to in this verse. “The mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.” This was a method used not only by the Assyrians, but also used later on by the Babylonians. This was mentioned by the children of Israel as they wept in Babylon. “O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones” (Psa_137:8-9). Those people used an awful, brutal, uncivilized method of destruction in war. Was it so uncivilized? Are we any better today? Have you read of things that are done by those in the drug culture, by homosexuals, by demon worshipers, by the new morality of our day? Was dashing the heads of little babies against the stones any worse than the sins that are committed today? A brokenhearted man in Atlanta, Georgia, said to me one day, “The day I sent my boy to college it would have been better for him if I had taken him to the cemetery and buried him instead.” In other words, it would have been better for him to have been brutally killed as a baby by a ruthless pagan. But the ruthless pagans of the present hour are not condemned by our society. Instead they are accepted and even approved.

Hosea 10:15

The Assyrians came, and overnight Israel was being transported to Assyria and a life of slavery.