Sin's Inevitable Consequence | Sunday, July 21, 2024

Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples, for you have played the harlot against your God... The threshing floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. They shall not dwell in the LORD's land, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and shall eat unclean things in Assyria. (Hosea 9:1–3)

When a nation falls apart in the visible world, it is a sign of something gone wrong in the unseen one.

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

We sang about the hope of heaven, that the Lord is preparing a place for us. In John 14 Jesus told His disciples, "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places... I go to prepare a place for you... I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."

Notice how it begins—let not your heart be troubled. The disciples' hearts were troubled in that moment. Jesus was about to be betrayed by Judas, arrested, condemned, and crucified. There may be things troubling your heart right now, and it is easy to look at our world and feel troubled. But because of who Christ is and what He has done, we have absolute certainty that we will be with Him in His kingdom forever. The Scriptures say there is fullness of joy in His presence and pleasures forevermore. That hope is not wishful thinking or blind optimism—it is a certain hope. May God comfort us with those words this morning.

An All-Too-Familiar Story

We've been making our way through Hosea this summer, and I'll admit I don't enjoy giving messages like these. Hosea's message was unpopular 2,800 years ago, and it has not grown more popular since. When you get into the weeds of it, it is a challenging message to preach.

Yet the story is sadly familiar. Hosea lived in a time of economic instability, political upheaval, coups and assassinations, moral decline, civil conflict, social inequality, rising foreign powers, and geopolitical pressure on every side. Sound familiar? As we sit here on Sunday, July 21st, we are a week out from an attempted assassination of a leading political candidate, and at this very moment the incumbent president is being pressured by powers within his own party to step down—not by the constitutional process, but by an open conspiracy happening behind the scenes. We are living through historic, strange times that will be written about a hundred years from now. And let me tell you: that was the same in Hosea's day.

Israel in the Eighth Century BC

We sit amid generationally high inflation and interest rates, historic civil division, deep inequality, multiple foreign wars that could escalate globally, rising powers seeking dominance, and moral confusion higher than at any point in my lifetime. Hosea's time was strikingly similar.

In 752 BC, King Pekah rose to power in the Northern Kingdom by assassinating his predecessor. Second Kings 15 tells us the previous king did evil in the sight of the Lord and led Israel deeper into sin, and after two years Pekah conspired against him and killed him in Samaria, reigning in his place. Pekah predated Jesus by more than 700 years, but he could have benefited from Jesus' teaching in Matthew 26 that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. About twenty years later, in 732 BC, Hoshea the son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah, struck and killed him, and reigned in his place.

The Northern Kingdom was an absolute mess. The nation was experiencing economic devastation from a great famine in what had been a fertile, agriculture-based economy. At the same time the Assyrians were ascending—under kings like Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon—toppling city-states across the Fertile Crescent and marching toward Syria and then Israel. The kings tried to avert disaster through alliances and tribute payments, but the Assyrians kept coming. There was foreign aggression, civil unrest, and a wide divide between the wealthy elites tied to the ruling and priestly powers in Samaria and the poverty-stricken lower classes. It was the worst of times.

The Spiritual Root Beneath the Ruin

Why was it the worst of times? Hosea answers: "Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples, for you have played the harlot against your God." Underline that. They had turned to immorality and idolatry, away from faithfulness to God, and had done so consistently for at least 500 years.

All these earthly manifestations—the famine, the economic collapse, the divide between the haves and have-nots, the political coups and assassinations—were the earthly manifestations of underlying spiritual problems. This is hard for a culture like ours that doesn't believe in a spiritual realm affecting the physical one. But if you are a Christian, you're given a peek behind the veil. When things fail and fall apart in this earthly realm, it is an indication that something is happening in the spiritual realm. Israel was in dire straits because of their sin. They did it to themselves, and they were experiencing the inevitable consequences of sin.

They had given themselves wholesale to idolatry—Baal, Asherah, Molech, the golden calves that had seduced them at Mount Sinai—all while keeping up the pretense of faithfulness, still observing the feast days. But you cannot actively participate in wickedness and expect any outcome other than bondage, suffering, and destruction.

Point One: Sin Always Brings People Down

After centuries of unfaithfulness, God gave His word through Hosea, who would be the last prophet to speak to the people before their exile and destruction. For generations God had sent prophets—some named, many unnamed—calling Israel back to repentance. But they hardened their hearts, mocked the prophets, sometimes beat them, and rejected their message.

Hosea's message is that joy and rejoicing will cease—the joy of the harvest will vanish, because the famine will leave them nothing to eat. This reveals a clear truth: sin always brings people down. You cannot walk in ways that oppose God's ways and His word and expect anything but devastation, brokenness, bondage, and suffering. Solomon observed the same thing: "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Disregard for God's law always leads to separation, suffering, and death. This is both observable and revealed in Scripture.

God Does Not Delight in Judgment

We should remember that God does not desire that we suffer these consequences. As I shared from Ezekiel, God does not delight in the death of the wicked. This shows the difference between God and us—we tend to delight when we see the wicked judged, feeling a sense of vindication. But God does not. He desires repentance, that people would turn to Him and live.

Yet God will allow us to choose sin instead of righteousness, and in choosing to walk contrary to His ways, you are also choosing to suffer the consequences. Israel had openly walked against God for hundreds of years, and out of patience, kindness, and love God lovingly sent them prophets to turn them away from the path of inevitable destruction. But they would not turn.

The Famine and the Exile Foretold

"The threshing floor and the winepress shall not feed them"—poetic language for famine. God had told them this through Moses 700 years earlier. Deuteronomy 28:15 says, "It shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God... all these curses will come upon you and overtake you," including verse 18: "Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land." This should not be shocking—God said it would happen.

And the next step should be no shock either. Hosea says, "They shall not dwell in the LORD's land, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria." Israel was about to go into bondage—exile from the land they had been graciously given. This time it would not be bondage along the banks of the Nile but along the Tigris and Euphrates. Deuteronomy 28 foretold it: "The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies... because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart... He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you," bringing a fierce nation from afar whose language they would not understand.

While Hosea spoke, soothsayers and false prophets told the people the opposite: don't worry about Assyria; you're God's people, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—everything will be okay. That message sells, then and now. But it is false. Jesus warned, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." In 722 BC, Samaria fell to the Assyrians, and the northern ten tribes became what we know as the lost tribes of Israel.

Point Two: Sin Always Makes People Dumb

The famine would be so severe that Hosea says they would have nothing left to offer God at the feasts. This is striking: they were worshiping Baal, Asherah, Molech, and the golden calves while still keeping up an appearance of righteousness before God. This is the foolishness of sin—it robs people of reason. People bow down to all kinds of evil while telling themselves, "I'm okay, because at least I go to church once a month."

This reveals the second point: sin always makes people dumb. Paul observed it in Romans 1: "Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools." The psalmist saw it too. Psalm 115 says the idols "are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes, but they do not see; ears, but they do not hear." Then the key verse: "Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them." The idols are deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid—and if you devote yourself to them, you become the same.

The greatest teaching I ever heard on Psalm 115 was given by a pastor of one of the largest churches in America—a man I and many others looked up to. Yet all the while he was living a duplicitous, sinful life that was ultimately exposed, destroying his life and nearly destroying his church—though by God's grace the Lord raised up a new pastor. It's heartbreaking, and it's exactly what Israel was doing in the eighth century, and exactly what many do today. "But I go to church on Sunday" only means you will face greater accountability when you stand before God, because you knew Him and did not worship Him as God.

Point Three: Sin Always Invites God's Wrath

The days of punishment and recompense had come—and that word recompense means the payment of a wage. What is the wages of sin? Death. Hosea, like all the prophets, spoke these words not to make people feel bad but that they might repent. Instead they mocked the prophets.

Isaiah, a contemporary of Hosea in the southern kingdom, gave the same message. The people complained that all Isaiah ever said was "line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept"—a mockery, as if to say he was a broken record they had simply tuned out. It's like the constant beeping of a server that you stop hearing because it's always there. That's what Israel did with the prophets.

Hosea says they were "deeply corrupted, as in the days of Gibeah." This points to the third truth: sin always invites God's wrath. Sin opposes God's word and His very nature, and it always invites His wrath. As Paul says in Romans 1, "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." God is patient and slow to anger—He bore with Israel for five centuries—but ultimately judgment comes. I don't like this reality, because no one could convince me that our nation is walking in rightness before God. God is longsuffering, and it took five centuries before judgment fell on Israel; we are only halfway there, celebrating 250 years in two years. Perhaps God will continue to be longsuffering—but only by His grace.

Point Four: Sin Always Multiplies Suffering and Sorrow

"As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird"—and one evidence of their lost glory is a collapse of birth rates: no birth, no pregnancy, no conception. The glory of a nation is its children, and that glory would be removed. This is judgment, but it is also mercy—so that those children would not be destroyed in God's coming judgment.

"Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them... Woe to them when I depart from them!" Hosea even prays a strange prayer: "Give them, O LORD—what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts." Better that they have no children than that the children suffer this shame. This is the fourth truth: sin always multiplies suffering and sorrow. If you continue in wickedness without repenting, you can expect it.

Point Five: Sin Always Removes Us Far From God

The dreadful declaration is not finished. "All their wickedness is in Gilgal"—a place that had once been glorious, the first place Israel celebrated Passover after crossing the Jordan and reconsecrated themselves to the Lord. Now it had become a place of idolatry. "For there I hated them. Because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them from My house, I will love them no more." Ephraim is "stricken, the root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Yes, were they to bear children, I would kill the darlings of their womb." I don't think you could read a more striking word from God.

He references the wickedness of Baal Peor—when Israel turned to idols during their wilderness wandering—and the wickedness of Gibeah, one of the most vile stories in all of Scripture, found in the latter chapters of Judges, which we'll reach in about two months. Hosea says Israel had become like that throughout the entire nation.

I almost feel wrong to bring it up, but look at the once-great places of our nation. Earlier this year a vile, reprehensible thing was filmed in one of the rooms of Congress. Twenty-five years ago, consider what was happening in the west wing of the White House. The once-great places of our nation, soiled by sin. Those whom God had loved with an everlasting love became a hated thing because of their idolatry. This is the fifth truth: sin always removes us far from God. "My God will cast them away, because they did not obey Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations."

The Only Remedy

So where do you go from here? Sin always brings people down, makes them dumb, invites God's wrath, multiplies suffering, and removes people from God. There is only one remedy for sin. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed."

Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost, to give His life a ransom for many. That is the good news that brings grace, restoration, forgiveness, and redemption—the only ultimate remedy for Israel 2,800 years ago and for America in 2024. There is no political or economic remedy for the woes of our nation, because those woes are the inevitable consequences of sin. If you want to deal with the woes of the nation, you must deal with the root cause—and there is only one remedy for sin: Christ Jesus.

That needs to be our message. The sign you put up should not be a political sign; the message we have is the one that redeems sinful people back to God and brings restoration to individuals and to a nation. I get sucked into all the political craziness every four years just like you do, and I have to remind myself seventy-two times a day: there is only one answer, and it is not a better political candidate. It is only the gospel. He was wounded for our transgressions.

Closing Prayer

Father God, would You help us to orient our focus to You in this moment. If there is anything keeping us from You, any sin that separates, Lord, would You reveal and expose it, so we can confess it—because You died for our sins. Your blood was shed to release us from the penalty, the punishment, and ultimately the presence of sin. Lord, would You help us be released also from its power. We thank You for Your body broken and Your blood shed. We worship You now, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Jesus, we remember that You not only came to deal with sin, but, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, You became sin for us, standing in our place to absorb all the guilt, shame, and punishment for our sins, that we might receive Your righteousness. We thank You for Your grace.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11: "I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to His disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.'" In the same manner He also took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This is the cup of the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."

Lord, we know from the Scriptures that there is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood, and the blood of bulls and goats could only cover for a time. But You, Jesus, came and Your life was shed; Your blood was shed once for all. We rejoice in the salvation we have from You. You gave Your life a ransom for us. God, I pray we would rejoice in that this week, and that we would have opportunities to share that reality with others. So many in our culture are in bondage to sin, experiencing its suffering and death, and You desire to draw them into relationship with You. Would You use us to be lights in a dark place, for our culture desperately needs the light of Your grace and truth. We praise You.

May the Lord bless you and keep you; may He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may He lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.