Hosea 13
McGeeCHAPTERS 13 AND 14THEME: Israel will be judged in the present; Israel will be saved in the future
Hosea 13:1
ISRAEL WILL BE JUDGED IN THE PRESENTIn chapter 13 we see that God’s judgment of Israel is inevitable. In other words, when Ephraim served the living God, God exalted him; but when he began the worship of Baal, he died. My friend, not only did Ephraim die and was put out of the land, but the land also died, and I do not think that it has come back today. The ruins of Samaria and the other cities in that area are the most desolate that you will find anywhere on the earth.
Hosea 13:2
This was a form of worship. The people were actually going up and kissing those golden calves! There are many people today who think that to kiss a certain image or to kiss a certain area of ground is to worship God. On one of our tours to Israel there was a lady who got down on her hands and knees at the Garden Tomb and started kissing the place. I immediately took her by the arm and reminded her that we had been told not even to drink the water in that land and that she must get up out of the dirt. “Oh,” she said, “that doesn’t make any difference. This is a holy place; this is where my Lord was buried.” Then I said to her, “He’s not here today. He is the living Christ at God’s right hand. You cannot kiss Him today, but you can worship Him and praise Him.” It is nonsense to go around kissing something as an act of worship of the living and true God.
You worship Him, my friend, by the life that you live. You worship Him in the way you conduct your business, carry on your social life, the way you run your home, and the way you act out on the streetnot only in the way you act in the sanctuary. We are the ones who have made a distinction between the sanctuary and the street, but in God’s sight there is no difference at all.
Hosea 13:3
Listen to Him, my friend. You may work out a plan of salvation, but He is the only Savior, and since He is, you had better come His way. The Lord Jesus said, “… I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Joh_14:6). Now either that’s true or it’s not true. Millions of people have come that way, and they have found it to be true. You may think you have your way of salvation, but God is the only Savior, and He is the only one who can offer you a plan of salvation.
Hosea 13:5
God says, “I have been your God, the one who brought you out of Egypt. I am not about to give you up, but I am going to judge you.”
Hosea 13:7
There is a prophetic sidelight here that is very interesting. In Daniel’s vision (ch. 7) Babylon is pictured as a lion, Greece (under Alexander the Great) is pictured as a leopard, and the empire of Media-Persia is pictured as the bear. Now here in Hosea’s prophecy God is saying that in the future He will come against them like a lion and a leopard, but in the immediate future He will come like a bearrepresented by Media-Persia, which at that early date was dominated by Assyria. God says, “I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps.” There is nothing more ferocious than a mother bear that has been robbed of her cubs, and she is an apt illustration of the brutal Assyrian army.
Hosea 13:9
We often blame God for what happens to us. When you feel like that, this is a good verse to turn to. You have destroyed yourself, and you are responsible for your condition. But you can get help from God; He will furnish help to you.
Hosea 13:10
“I gave thee a king in mine anger.” When Israel asked for a king, God gave Saul to them. “And took him away in my wrath.” He took the last king, Hoshea, away from the northern kingdom, He took Zedekiah away from the southern kingdom, and He did it in His wrath. Judgment! It was His judgment in the beginning, and His judgment at the end.
Hosea 13:16
“Samaria shall become desolate.” I have been to Samaria, and I agree with God. It is a desolate place today.