Hosea 10:1

Israel is a lush vine that yields fruit for itself. The more his fruit is increased, the more he increased the altars. The better his land produced, the better they made the sacred pillars. Their hearts are devious; now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars and demolish their sacred pillars. (Hosea 10:1–2)

When God removes our idols, He is not destroying us — He is doing something for us.

Reading the Prophets Personally

It's very easy when we look at prophetic books to interpret them outward. We get wrapped up in end-times themes, or we conclude, "Oh, that's talking about those people in that time." Feel free to spend a little time thinking that way, but spend the majority of your effort somewhere else.

It's easy to see the things that apply to others, but we can't change them. The only person we can truly change is ourselves — and we're not even very good at that. So let's do the hard work of self-confrontation and self-direction. Let's approach the Word and ask, "Lord, what do You have for me right now in my life?" We're going to look at Hosea 10 that way.

A Fruitful Vine That Forgot the Giver

Israel at this point is very fruitful and productive. They were affluent; God had blessed them, and things were going really well. But as it was going well, they did not take the fruit God gave them and turn it into fruits of righteousness. In their comfort, they delved into idolatry and looked to other gods, building altars and sacred pillars.

So God says, "Their hearts are devious; now they must bear their guilt." All the things they built are going to be destroyed. As Galatians reminds us, they took the freedom God gave them and used it to glorify idols. Their hearts became devious — sneaky, deceitful, cunning — and now they must face their guilt.

Idols don't fall without consequences. When God looks at things in our lives and says, "That shouldn't be there; that is taking My place," and lovingly removes them, it very often comes with pain and heartache, because our lives are shaken up. Point one: God is going to destroy the places of idolatry, but the hearts of people are not as easy to reform. The altars come down, the pillars are destroyed — but the heart is harder to change.

Broken Trust and a Vanishing King

In verse 3 the people say, "We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord. What can a king do for us?" They equate the loss of their kingship and political power with their rejection of God. There's no one to help them anymore because their king is gone, and they recognize it's the result of turning to idols.

Verse 4 describes what happens to their society: "They speak mere words, taking false oaths while making covenants. So lawsuits break out like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field." Trust between the people is broken. Their words are just noise; nothing stands behind them. So they make covenants — "I don't trust you to do what you say, so we'll write a contract" — but even then they lie in their covenants. And lawsuits break out like poisonous weeds.

It's a good thing that's not at all indicative of our society, right? Look how he describes it — like poisonous weeds in the furrow of a field, like hemlock in the wheat. It poisons the relationship between the people. Something meant to be good — the relationship people are supposed to have with each other — is suddenly wrecked, defiled, and broken because of their embracing of wickedness.

Beth-Aven, the House of Wickedness

Verse 5 contains a word picture: "The residents of Samaria will have anxiety over the calf of Beth-Aven." Beth-Aven isn't an actual place — it's a play on words. The location was called Beth-El, "the house of God," but Hosea switches it to Beth-Aven, "the house of wickedness." You've taken what was supposed to be a place of God and turned it into a place of wickedness.

The idolatrous priests rejoiced over it, but the people will mourn over it and pay the price. The calf itself will be carried away to Assyria as an offering to the great king. All the offerings they made in building this idol will go away, taken by somebody else.

The Golden Calf, Ground to Powder

A calf and idolatry among the Israelites should make our antennae go up. It brings to mind one of my favorite passages, Exodus 32:19:

And he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing. Moses became enraged and he threw the tablets out of his hands, smashing them at the base of the mountain.

Moses comes down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, sees the people worshiping the calf, and is so angry he smashes the tablets. Then comes the part I love: "He took the calf that they had made, burned it up, ground it to powder, scattered the powder over the surface of the water, and forced the Israelites to drink the water."

Remember what the golden calf was made of? All the blessings God had given them as they left Egypt. They brought their gold to Aaron, who threw it in the fire and claimed a calf just came out — which nobody believes; it's like a toddler lying. The beautiful picture is this: all that blessing they turned into idolatry, and now they drink it. Through their natural bodily processes, all that gold is left as waste in the desert. God showed them exactly what their idolatry was.

The King Will Disappear

Back in Hosea, verse 7: "Samaria's king will disappear like foam on the surface of the water." He's prophesying that their king will be gone and they'll lose self-governance. God gave them freedom and they used it for idolatry, so God takes it away. "Thorns and thistles will grow over their altars. And they will say to the mountains, 'Cover us,' and to the hills, 'Fall on us.'" They'll get so low they'd rather the mountains collapse on them than face more consequences.

Then Hosea recalls Gibeah — "Israel, you have sinned since the days of Gibeah." Gibeah is the place of Israel's greatest national shame, where horrible things happened (a passage Miles said we'll cover in the future — and I'm glad I don't have to teach it). By naming it, God says, "You have not gotten any better since your worst days. You've gone right back into idolatry."

Discipline at God's Discretion

Verse 10: "I will discipline them at My discretion. Nations will be gathered against them to put them into bondage for their double iniquity." Scholars debate the "double iniquity" because of awkward Hebrew constructs, but as Miles says, when the text makes plain sense, seek no other sense. Scripture explains itself in Jeremiah 2:13:

For My people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

Their double iniquity: they turned their back on the living God — "No, thank you" — and then said, "We'll do it on our own. We'll build idols. We've got this." They built cracked cisterns that can't hold water.

But notice God says, "I will discipline them," not "I will destroy them." Proverbs 3:11–12 says, "Do not despise the Lord's instruction... for the Lord disciplines the one He loves, just as a father disciplines a son in whom he delights." It is the love of God that leads Him to discipline His people. Leaving them in idolatrous sin would be the worst thing for them, with eternal consequences. Point two: God is not doing something *to* them. God is doing something *for* them. He isn't interested in destroying His people; He's interested in bringing them back — even if that means overthrowing their entire way of life to recapture their hearts.

From Easy Threshing to the Yoke

Verse 11: "Ephraim is like a well-trained calf that loves to thresh, but I will place a yoke on her fine neck." When a calf threshes grain, it simply walks around on the threshing floor, and Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain." The calf is free to walk and eat good grain. That's the picture of Israel when God blessed them: their job was easy — just walk around, enjoy the blessings, and glorify Him.

But now the yoke comes. The yoke forces hard work; you no longer get to just hang out. The yoke defines their choices — they go where they're pointed, not right or left. And it makes them remember their prior life of ease.

This mirrors the Garden of Eden. Adam, Eve, God, and a beautiful garden with one rule: don't eat from that tree. For a time they had perfect fellowship — no shame, no guilt, no pain. Then they ate the fruit, and everything fell apart. They hid from God, blamed each other, and were put out of the garden. The consequences: painful childbirth, ground that yields thorns, and within one generation their children murdering each other. That's what sin does — it breaks an amazing amount of destruction loose.

God Is Doing Something for Me

God has shown me this often. I tend to get complacent and comfortable — "life is good" — which isn't a problem if you remember God. But when things are good, I enjoy the good and forget the Giver of good. So God lovingly reminds me that my cisterns are cracked and can't hold what He has for me. Point three: God is not doing something *to* me, but is instead doing something *for* me.

We've had a warm couple of weeks, and we're about nine days into having no air conditioning in our house. We'd planned to do the roof and the AC. We did the roof — then the AC died. My brain said, "But God, we took care of this! What are You doing to me?" Then comes the reminder: He's not doing something to me; He's doing something for me. So I reframe and ask, "Lord, what are You doing for me here?" (And when the house is 90 degrees inside until nine at night, there's a lot of crying out to the Lord.) Anthony graciously lent us a portable air conditioner, so we have one cool room.

I kept praying, "Lord, I know You're doing something for me — what is it?" The repairman came, and our 1973 air conditioner fell completely apart, so the easy fix became the hard fix. I told him, "I prayed about it, and I trust God's going to take care of this." He apologized for the language he'd been using, and that opened a conversation about Jesus — a really nice conversation where I got to share. Maybe that's part of what God was doing, and I'm sure there were many other things too. When I remember that God is doing something for me, I can face these situations in a way that glorifies Him instead of being consumed by anger and heartache.

Sow Righteousness, Break Up the Ground

Verse 12 tells us how to deal with our insufficiencies: "Sow righteousness for yourselves and reap faithful love; break up your unplowed ground. It is time to seek the Lord until He comes and sends righteousness on you like the rain."

Sow righteousness. What you plant, you grow. Do relentlessly the things God has called you to do, and you'll reap faithful love — not riches, not health, but love.

Break up your unplowed ground. This is the parable of the sower. The hard path, rocky soil, and weedy ground all fail — and the difference between them and the good ground is simply the amount of work put in. The hard path needs to be tilled so the seed has somewhere to take root. The rocky soil needs the rocks removed — and like the stone walls of Ireland and Scotland, the obstacles we pull out of our lives can become our defense: "I used to be like that, but I don't do that anymore." The weedy soil needs the weeds pulled — removing dangerous tendencies and temptations. In San Diego, when the rain comes, almost everything that springs up is weeds, and we have to pull them out rather than just cut them off, or they come right back.

Seek the Lord. This is the most important part, and it's not just church on Sunday or a rushed devotion. Seeking the Lord is a constant, daily process — while driving, while working with our kids, at our jobs, even when the air conditioning dies. We look for Him in every situation, and He is faithful to reveal Himself. When we are faithful, He comes and blesses us like the rain. Remember, when you face trying times, it's not happening to you; it's happening for you.

You Reap What You Sow

Verse 13: "You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice. You have eaten the fruit of lies because you have trusted in your own way and in your large number of soldiers." As their society grew more wicked, it grew more unjust. They ingested the lies until the lies became part of them, because they stopped looking for God and thought they could do it on their own.

Israel trusted in their armies. We tend to trust the vast troops of Visa, MasterCard, and American Express to rescue us when things get hard — and if our balance is high enough, we can postpone the reckoning while planting a whole lot of wickedness. So we need to be careful to plant righteousness.

Sowing and reaping are tied together. We once planted jalapeños in the same bed as our bell peppers, and they cross-pollinated — our bell peppers tasted like jalapeños, and our jalapeños lost all their heat. They affected the plants around them. In the same way, if we plant righteousness, we cross-pollinate the people around us; it rubs off on them. As we walk through life doing what God has called us to do, it changes the people around us.

This points to Galatians 6:7–10:

Don't be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows, he will also reap... Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don't give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.

As gardeners know, the thing you need to grow most is your ground. You can have the best plants in the world, but in bad soil they won't thrive. We have beds where nothing thrives, and we keep amending and building the soil — a frustrating, patient process. The single biggest determinant of success in gardening and in following Jesus is faithfulness — perseverance, stubbornness, the dogged pursuit of, "I am going to keep walking and keep chasing You, Lord, no matter what." My life is supposed to yield good fruit, and that only happens if I keep pursuing Jesus.

Fostering Faithfulness: Who, Why, and How

Point four: how do we foster faithfulness? Three things — we remember who we are, why we are here, and how we are supposed to live.

Who we are. First John 3:1 says, "See what great love the Father has given to us, that we should be called God's children. And we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it didn't know Him." We are loved by God — He doesn't hate you, doesn't want to destroy you, hasn't forgotten you. We are children of God, which implies a family bond that holds tightly even when it's hard, even when we mess up. And we are foreign to the world. The world won't understand our motivations or our words, but it will understand love. As our culture moves further from God, we'll stand out more and more — and that's a good thing. We should be a city on a hill, a shining light, so that people who are dissatisfied with their lives come and ask, "Why are you different?"

Why we are here. Ephesians 2:8 reminds us we are saved by the grace of God. He didn't save us because we're awesome, tall, good-looking, or strong; He chose us because He loves us. It's a gift, not a payment — He was under no obligation and we didn't earn it. We are also His workmanship — His project. I have a garage full of projects, some I love, some so frustrating I've thrown them across the room (because I have such patience and self-control). God, thankfully, doesn't do that to us; He patiently builds us into something He wants to use. And we are saved to do good works He has prepared for us. We're not saved to park or sit and merely enjoy the blessings. We're given freedom with stipulations — go out and do the work He has waiting for us to discover.

How We Are to Live: Walk by the Spirit

Galatians 5:13–18 tells us how to live:

For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters. Only don't use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out, you will be consumed by one another. I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desires of the flesh... But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

We are called to be free, but not to indulge the flesh — our freedom is for serving one another in love. All our instructions come down to one statement: love one another. It's easy to say, sometimes hard to define in the moment, and always hard to do, because we are all challenging, difficult sinners — and yet we're called to love anyway.

Avoid contentious behavior — "don't bite and devour each other." When I was a kid I got a real wooden boomerang, threw it high into the air, and only then realized I had no way to stop it; we all dove to the ground as it flew over us (and of course did it again, because we were kids). Harsh, cutting words are like boomerangs — they come back to you. The best way to avoid that is not to throw them in the first place.

And walk by the Spirit. It's like being in a store with your little kids: you stop, and they keep going, until they look around and run back to you. Walking with someone implies intention and proximity — like junior-high kids walking close enough that "our fingers touched." You can't walk together if one of you isn't following. God determines the direction; we follow Him. As I tell my kids when we hike, you can't follow from the front — sometimes we race ahead, sure we know where God's going, only to discover He turned left and we have to come back.

And expect opposition — largely from ourselves. Nobody has ever held a gun to my head and made me sin, yet I've done plenty of egregious things on my own. My biggest opponent is myself, so I need to repent continually and rejoin walking with Jesus.

Rescued to Rescue

All of this is personal application, but the results show up in the people around us. Even if we do everything righteously, it doesn't remove us from our people or our place. Sometimes we can do everything right and still be part of a nation under God's judgment. But remember: God's judgment is done for a people, not merely to a people. He desires that everyone come to repentance, and He chooses to use us, His workmanship, to be part of that.

So we rejoice, because God has given us, His church, an opportunity to go into the world and draw others close to Him — to show them what it means to follow Jesus, to walk closely with Him, and that there is an alternative to what the world offers. We get to be the rescuers, like lifeguards pulling people out of the water. But to do that, we need to remember who we are, why we're here, and how we're supposed to live.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, help us to remember, Lord, who we are, why we're here, and what You want us to do. Help us to be those who have grown close to You. Help us to be those, Jesus, who repent quickly. And Lord, help us to be shining lights before You. When we fall short, we pray that You would forgive us. When we lose our way, we pray that You'd welcome us back. And Father, for those currently going through difficult things, I pray that You'd help us remember that those things are not being done to us — that You're not doing something for our destruction, but something for us, that we could walk closer with You. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You.