(I want to listen to this sermon)

Have you ever watched a western where a man is lost and alone in the desert, his horse is dead and his water-bottle is running dry?He slumps to the ground exhausted and as he looks up he spies a spot high up in the sky. The spot moves and circles lower and lower becoming bigger and bigger. Suddenly he realizes what it is – it is a vulture and its approach signifies death. He is dying and that vulture is just waiting to enjoy a meal.

That is what it was like for Israel in Hosea's day. The nation was dying. The LORD had done all He could to call His wayward people back to Himself but nothing seemed to have any effect at all upon them. So set are they in their rebellious ways, their "I did it my way" ways, that their situation has gone from bad to worse and still they seem oblivious to the danger that lies ahead. They are threatened with a catastrophic doom – and still they must be warned!

"Trumpet to the lips" v.1 – is the abrupt way in which this new chapter opens. The trumpet must sound out and it must sound out a warning. The warning is necessary because the nation has transgressed the covenant the LORD had made with them and they have thrown off restraint by doing their own thing. They are really in a dreadful situation – just like the dying man in the desert – death awaits them, the judgment of God.

This chapter is all about the judgment of God. It is a sober chapter for judgment is a very sober subject for the LORD simply does not sweep unforgiven sin under the carpet – there comes a time, and there will come a time, when He will deal with it.

Hosea has shown us that God loves His people – indeed in the OT one wonders if there is any clearer development of that NT truth that God is love – and yet we must never forget that God's love is a holy love, a pure love. God's holy love is a love that simply cannot and will not leave men in their sin.

If the chapter opens with a serious warning then it closes with a damning indictment of what the Israel's situation is really like. To understand why that warning was given it suffices to listen to that indictment contained in the last two verses.

vv.13-14 explain in the clearest terms imaginable why the alarm had to be sounded, why the warning needed to be trumpeted out loud. The people were about to be judged for their guilty conduct – they could not sin with impunity for our God is a Holy God. We have to deal with this same God in the NT era and we too need to hear and heed warnings about sin "because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God"(Heb.10:31) and "our God is a consuming fire."(Heb.12:29).

The summary makes it abundantly plain that the LORD views His people as having sinned and the time for their punishment is at hand.

The sin of the people boils down simply to this: "Israel has forgotten his Maker". Instead of living for Him, paying heed to Him, seeking His glory and promoting His interests Israel has forgotten Him. It wasn't that so much that they no longer had any thought at all about the LORD but that they had, as it were, mislaid Him, they had put Him to one side and carried on as though He just wasn't there. They maintained some form of intellectual belief but they no longer allowed this belief to impinge upon the way they conducted their lives.

Here was a people who made a nice profession but whose lives simply bore no evidence that the profession actually meant anything to them. And so in practice they left God to one side while they got on with their efforts to build bigger and bigger buildings be they temples or palaces. In practice they left God to one side as they sought to provide for their own security requirements.

Jesus has made it very clear that it is possible to be loud in our profession of faith while at the same time not living in the way that He wants us to:

Mt.7:21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

How reasonable they thought they were – after all economic and political security were wonderful blessings to enjoy – but they were going about it all the wrong way. God didn't approve, He was slighted and would blast their efforts – fire would destroy their prosperous cities and destruction would overtake their security arrangements.

But here was no petulance on God's part – what patience had already been shown and now even here further warnings are issued – however He is entitled to expect that such a people "should inquire of their God?"(Is.8:19)

Are we in danger of forgetting God? Are we guilty of mislaying Him? Of putting Him to one side and not allowing Him to occupy the central place that is His by right in our lives?

Well, you might ask, what is like to forget God or to mislay Him in my life? How might I know that I am doing that? After all the nation of Israel thought that they had got things right, they thought that they knew God didn't they?  It written there in v.2 isn't it? How can we be sure?

The intervening verses contain more of a detailed analysis of the ways in which the people of Israel have turned their backs to the LORD and gone their own way. To these verses we must now turn. And in turning to them we must think for a moment about the dangerous self-reliance that had come to characterize the people.

I wonder if you've ever been given a jar of home-made marmalade. I have and sometimes the label on the jar does not correspond at al to the contents because no-one bothered to remove the old label before pouring in the new marmalade. If you go to you cupboard relying on the labelling you could be in for a real surprise.

This people were something like that. The label on the outside said "We know God" and the people managed to fool themselves that this was the case. God's understanding was very different. So we must learn that a profession in and of itself is no proof of genuineness in the heart any more than that label on the jam jar guarantees its contents!

Israel may have relied upon their past experiences as a nation and thought that somehow all would be well because God had dealt with them in the past. But God looks for current fruit and current evidence of the genuineness of faith – the fact that God had had dealings with their ancestors did not excuse them but rather heightened their responsibility!

A true profession of faith would have been attested by correspondingly appropriate behaviour but that was exactly what was not forthcoming! Instead of responding by putting away foreign gods and inclining their heart to serve the LORD and obey His voice (see Jos.24:23-24) this people had spurned the good v.3! They had thus exposed themselves to the very real danger in which they then stood.

The essence of the people's problems lay here. They had developed and independent spirit that had led them to trust in their own plans, in their own scheming, in their own religious practices.

1.       Their politics was pursued with no reference to the LORD:

                They made kings, but not through me v.4

                They set up princes, but I knew it not v.4

They pursued alliances with those they should have feared and steered well clear of and had trusted in their diplomatic skills backed by economic incentives and back-handers vv.9-10

In times of economic prosperity they had invested all their hopes in an impressive  building boom v.14

They relied upon their fortresses for security v.14

2.       Their religion was just that, their own:

They did things that God told them not to do: they used the wealth that had come to them through the LORD's blessing to make for themselves idols. These were no help to them but indeed their destruction as they looked the wrong way for help when they needed it and when they did look in the right direction they did so in the wrong way.

It wasn't that they weren't a religious people – it was their very reliance on their religion that was the problem!

They set up altar after altar but instead of these dealing with their sin they only served to aggravate their sin and to promote it

When they did avail themselves of sacrifices and sacrificial meals concerning which the LORD had originally given instructions they concentrated upon the mere outward form imagining that the performing of certain religious practices was in itself sufficient to please God regardless of whether or not their heart attitude was right.

Oh yes, in the Israel of Hosea's day religion was flourishing but the tragedy was that it was a man-made religion and the LORD simply did not accept it!

3.       Their general morality was all wrong

According to the LORD they had "spurned the good" v.3. "They were incapable of innocence" v.5. They did not value God's law – their attitude had become such that had the LORD given them more instructions on how to live life well their only reaction would have been of astonishment. They thought they could organise their own life well enough without any reference to God and His laws thank you very much.

No, in all this they didn't think of themselves as having turned their back upon God, after all didn't they speak about Him? didn't they have their religious life?

But the LORD didn't think they were OK – His assessment was that they had broken the very covenant that He had generously and freely established with them. The people of Israel were playing a very dangerous game – they were sowing the wind and they were going to have a harvest but it would be an unwelcome harvest, they would reap a whirlwind of destruction! Already, because of self-reliance and doing things the way the nations of the world did them, they had become worthless and valueless – destruction was to be the outcome of it all.

The chapter is hardly a cheery one for us to read and to consider. Why, you might ask, should you come to a church meeting in order to listen to such depressing stuff?

The Bible itself gives us some reasons.

All has been written down for our instruction. We need to hear and heed the lessons of chapters such as these in God's Word. We need to hear them because our own hearts are very complex and complicated indeed as Jeremiah declared:

Jer.17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"

A chapter like this in God's word then reminds us that we should take note that God is not some doddery old fool who delights to indulge his children so that whatever their foibles might be he continues to approve of them.

The God of the Bible is an all-wise, all-seeing, all-loving God whose love is nevertheless strong and pure and holy. This chapter is further evidence of His love in that it calls upon us to take a close look at the way we live – are we genuine or are we false in God's eyes? We all tend to see ourselves in a positive light – just as the Israelites as they declared in v.2 "We know you, God".

So we should use such a chapter to ask ourselves some serious, if perhaps, uncomfortable questions:

·         Does our profession of knowing God have any practical influence on the way we live our lives?

·         Do I keep God in a little box and determine the important questions of life according to what I think best, following perhaps the example of others who don't even make any pretence of knowing God.

·         Is my life really directed by the instructions of my Maker?

·         Am I relying on mere externals? Have I slipped into thinking that if only I perform a few specific religious then all will be well forgetting that God does not look on the outward but considers the heart?

Thinking about such questions must NOT end with a resolve to try a bit harder and to resolve upon a bit more self-reliance. An awareness of failure and short-coming is designed to lead us away from ourselves to the One who can help us and that one is Jesus Christ.

The LORD spoke to Israel in Hosea's day desirous of them abandoning the wrong paths they had taken and calling them back to Himself. He had dealt graciously with them in the past and wanted to do so again. In our day God wants to deal graciously with us and His grace is focused in and channeled through the LORD Jesus Christ.

Jesus came not for self-righteous people, not for those who were convinced they were OK, He came for sinners. He didn't come to give them a wigging but to save them from their sins. Because sinners have sown the wind a whirlwind struck the Saviour. If you are hidden in Him you are safe if you stand exposed to that whirlwind yourself then destruction is the only outcome.

Cry to God from the heart: As Peter put it on the Day of Pentecost:

Acts 2:38-40 "And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”"

Amen.