Hosea Chapters 5-6 01/04/2026

Podcast

Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord, join us here today
Sometimes
Our good intentions
Fall flat
Miss the mark
Fail
Sometimes our disappointments
Gather together
Pile up
Envelope us

Please Lord
As we face this
Let us find our shelter in you
Let us find our peace in you
Let us find our way in you

Instead of nurturing resentments, teach us to praise
Instead of complaining, teach us to ask
Instead of judging, teach us to be still
Instead of fear, teach us to love

Show us the path to be like you
To grow whole
To heal
Show us how this life is for loving
And let us know
And experience
Your great love
All along the way
Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

Hear this, you priests,
and listen, house of Israel,
and the house of the king, bend your ear,
for against you is the judgment.
For a trap you have been to Mizpah,
and an outspread net against Tabor,
and have dug a deep pit at Shittim,
but I am a chastisement for them all Hosea 5:1-2

Intro: We are returning to Hosea this morning

The prophet who had to experience in his own life, with his wife, what God had experienced with Israel
– a people who were unfaithful to him, not only by adultery,
• but prostituting themselves with other gods
• you may have guessed that I’m not comfortable with Hosea
◦ I’d rather be with Jesus in the New Testament, loving and rescuing sinners
◦ instead, Hosea delivers a barrage of condemnations
– Israel had a long history of turning their backs on Yahweh
• and he repeatedly called them to return to him
◦ when they didn’t return , he withdrew from them
◦ and there were consequences–enemy invasion and crop failure
• this time, they were reaching a point of no return
◦ I think it’s okay to say God was desperate to stop them, to reach them and motivate them to return
◦ so he used strong language and threats of calamity

Haven’t we done something similar raising our children
– are we cruel or unloving to tell them, “Don’t run into street. If you do you could be killed”?
• or, “Don’t play with matches, because if you do you could suffer severe burns or destroy our home”?
◦ is it cruel to make clear the potential consequences of wrong or dangerous actions?
• there are natural consequence for a society in moral decline
◦ what God does through his prophets, is to make those natural consequences personal
– God doesn’t have to cause the suffering
• it’s enough for him to withdraw his presence and let the chips fall where they may
◦ Israel needed God’s warnings, yet his prophets were hardly ever well received
The Israelites “are a rebellious people,
lying children,
children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD;
who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’
and to the prophets,
‘Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
prophesy illusions,
. . . let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel’” (Isa. 30:9-11)
• I’ve learned to be thankful for God’s “severe mercy”
◦ I am grateful when he pulls in the reins

5:1-2, God begins here by calling out Israel’s leaders

First, Hosea identifies three sets of people, then three places, and then adds his remarks on them
v. 1: priests – house of Israel – house of the king
– they are to hear – listen – and bend your ear
v. 2: a trap – an outspread net (for catching birds or wild game) – a deep pit
each snare is related to a place: Mizpah – Tabor – Shittim
– then a final statement, “but I am chastisement for them all”
• verse 1, average citizens were sandwiched between priests and rulers
◦ they were subject to clergy and king – religion and politics
◦ but that doesn’t make them innocent
• God frequently comes down hard on Israel’s leaders
“Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been wronged. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place” (Jer. 22:1-3)
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” . . . “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds” (Jer. 30:1-2)
“prophesy against the shepherds of Israel . . . and say to them . . . Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep” (Eze. 34:1-10)
◦ last year, reading through the Bible, I was amazed at how the messages of the prophets fit the time in which we live
“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
and his upper rooms by injustice,
who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing
and does not give him his wages,
who says, ‘I will build myself a great house
with spacious upper rooms,’
who cuts out windows for it,
paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermillion.
Do you think you are a king because you compete in cedar?
. . . But you have eyes and heart only for your dishonest gain,
for shedding innocent blood,
and for practicing oppression and violence” (Jer. 22:13-17)
– God begins at the top of the social structure – those in charge get hit the hardest
• I cannot see how many North American preachers and politicians
◦ will avoid answering for what they have done,
◦ removing necessary provision for poor, infirm, and resident aliens while enriching themselves

God calls Israel out – he knows their betrayal
I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from Me.
For now you have whored, Ephraim,
Israel is defiled.
Their acts do not let them
turn back to their God.
For the spirit of whoring is within them,
and the LORD they do not know.
And Israel’s pride bore witness against him
and Israel and Ephraim stumbled in their crime,
Judah, too, has stumbled with them.
With their sheep and their cattle they go
to seek out the LORD.
But they do not find Him.
He slipped away from them.
The LORD they betrayed,
for alien sons they bore.
Now the new moon shall consume them,
together with their fields Hosea 5:3-7

Verse 4, God identifies a tragic condition that results from habitual sin
– and that is when indulgence becomes an addiction
• it’s no longer an enjoyable activity, but a necessity
◦ the New Testament word for addiction is slavery
“Their acts do not let them
turn back to their God”
• there is a pathetic moment in Jeremiah’s ministry
God told his people to stop wearing themselves out chasing after other gods;
“Keep your feet from going unshod
and your throat from thirst.
But you said, ‘It is hopeless,
for I have loved foreigners,
and after them I will go” (Jer. 2:25)
– so, while God knows their betrayal, “the LORD they do not know”
• we’ve seen that knowing is a persistent reminder in Hosea’s prophecies
◦ and their ignorance of God’s will is their own fault
“My people is destroyed without knowledge,
for you—you rejected knowledge” (Hos. 4:6)
◦ I’m surprised at the biblical ignorance of so many Christians today
• people post Bible verses online without any idea of what they mean
◦ perhaps they’ve never read or understood the passage from which the quote is drawn
maybe they’ve just heard preachers use the quote, so they assume they understand it
◦ they assume they’re making a point, but in reality they’re missing the point

There is a scene in verse 6 that is sad, and also, again, very much like today
– the people go off with their sacrificial animals to seek Yahweh,
• but they don’t find him – he’s “slipped away from them”
◦ I don’t think they realize, he’s not present to them
◦ since they’ve lost touch with God, don’t realize when he’s not there
“this people draw near with the mouth, and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me . . .” (Isa. 29:13)

When the church I planted in Dana Point went from hymns to contemporary songs of praise and worship, there was a backlash–and especially so when we rolled in the drums. But we began to meet God in a way we never had before experienced him in worship. Now every new church has a band and hundreds of praise songs. I can’t judge anyone else’s experience, but I’ve heard from new believers exposed to moving experience standing, lifting their hands, and singing along with a loud band, that the emotional energy is almost identical to a rock concert.
When we transitioned to music and intimate expressions of our longing for God and love for Jesus, we made learning the biblical concept and theology of worship a central focus. I don’t think any true believer is interested in worshiping “what you do not know” (John 4:22). At that time, I taught on worship as we came to it from one end of the Bible to the other.

◦ We can be very religious and assumed we have pleased God, and yet be far from him
◦ we need to be aware of the worship and service we offer is that which God chooses
• for instance, what we offer him in worship (i.e., “mercy and not sacrifice” Hos. 6:7)
◦ and the kind of fasting that he chooses (Isa. 58)

Notice that God has included the southern kingdom of Judah and brings his charge against them as he had the northern kingdom of Israel
– he will continue to include Judah in the remainder of the chapter

God has an announcement for Hosea to make
Sound the ram’s horn at Gibeah,
the trumpet at Ramah.
Shout out at Beth-Aven:
“After you, Benjamin!”
Ephraim shall be a desolation
on the day of stern rebuke.
Among the tribes of Israel
I have faithfully made it known.
The nobles of Judah have become
like those who remove boundaries.
Upon them I will pour
My wrath like water.
Exploited is Ephraim,
and crushed in justice,
For he undertook to go
after an empty thing Hosea 5:8-11

– like a town crier ringing a bell
– only here, a ram’s horn is blown along with a shout, but to the same effect
• Israel is doomed, and they have only themselves to blame,
• because, God has given them fair warning, “I have faithfully made it known”

God uses a cluster of metaphors to describe how he will destroy them
And I am like a moth to Ephraim
and like rot to the house of Judah.
When Ephraim saw his sickness
and Judah his running sores,
Ephraim went off to Assyria
and sent out to King Jareb.
But he cannot cure you
and will not give you healing.
For I am like a lion to Ephraim
and like the king of beasts to the house of Judah.
I, I will maul the prey and go off,
bear it away and no one will save it.
I will go, return to My place,
until they sense their guilt and seek Me.
when in straits they shall search for Me Hosea 5:12-15

First, God is “like the moth” – moths that ruin clothing and crops
Second, he is “like rot” – perhaps an internal decaying bones
Third, “sickness” and “running sores” – a miserable illness
Fourth, God is “like a lion” – mauling his prey then dragging the carcass off to his lair
– and so the chapter ends with God abandoning Israel
• but it is not that he intends never to reunite with them
• he will wait until they feel the loss and then begin an authentic search for him

So the next message Hosea delivers is a call to exactly this–seek God
Come let us return to the LORD,
for He mauled but He will heal us,
He struck but He will bind up.
He will revive us after two days,
on the third day raise us up,
that we may live in his presence,
and that we may know, pursue knowing the LORD.
Like daybreak His emergence is sure,
and he will come to us like the rain,
like the latter rain He will shower the earth Hosea 6:1-3

I love this invitation!
– there would be punishing hardship, but there will also be healing
• I can imagine that Israel’s greatest pain was mental anguish over what they forfeited
◦ being abandoned generates psychological misery
• remember the message of the formulaic three that began chapter 5?
◦ Israel’s healing corresponds to their illness — from revival to restoration
Their previous problem: they didn’t know Yahweh; now the solution is for them to pursue knowing him
(cf. Php. 3:7-12)
Their previous problem: they had lost sight of Yahweh; now the solution is to live in his presence
– God’s cure works quickly–after just two days they would be up and walking around
• again God uses metaphors, but these are very different from than before
Like daybreak His emergence is sure,
and he will come to us like the rain,
like the latter rain He will shower the earth
◦ we see here Hosea’s absolute certainty of God’s restoration
• did the sun rise this morning? was the earth refreshed with rain today?
(“Yes” to both here in S. Orange County, CA)
◦ so certain is God’s return to his people

Conclusion: This chapter ends with God’s dilemma
What shall I do for you Ephraim,
What shall I do for you, Judah,
When your trust is like a morning cloud,
like early dew that melts away?
Therefore I hacked among you your prophets,
slain the with the utterances of My mouth,
and your sentence will come out like light.
For trust did I want and not sacrifice
and knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
But they like humankind breached the covenant,
there they betrayed me.
Gilead is a town of criminals,
covered with tracks of blood.
And like gangs who lie in wait for a man
is the band of priests.
They murder on the road to Shechem.
Why, debauchery the perform!
In the house of Israel I have seen a horror.
There the whoring is Ephraim’s,
Israel is defiled.
Judah, too, He sets a harvest for you Hosea 6:4-11

God’s dilemma is that when Israel returns to him, he must ask “What am I going to do with you?”
Every time they had returned to God, it had always been short-lived
And it had been more religious than relational
What he wanted was
“mercy and not sacrifice
and knowledge of God more than burnt offering”
Anyway, whatever the problem, the solution is always the same:
“Come, let us return to the LORD”
Wherever we find ourselves, no matter how far from home
at any moment in our lives, we can choose to return to God
We are never stuck!