Spiritual Adultery — E.A. Johnston

Hosea's Broken Heart and Israel's Spiritual Adultery

The book of Hosea is a love letter about a broken heart, and the heart belongs to God. His heart is broken over his people, Israel, who have committed spiritual adultery with foreign gods. The northern kingdom of Israel had fallen into corrupt morality and provoking sin as they stood on the brink of impending calamity.

God sends his prophet, Hosea, to his trained people to turn their divided hearts back to him. God lists their sins and calls them out for their spiritual adultery. In Hosea 9 -1 we read, Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy has other people, for thou hast gone a-whoring from thy God.

My message today, friends, is entitled Spiritual Adultery, and will be in the book of Hosea. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. Today we will look at a people who have turned their backs on God.

National and Ecclesial Backsliding

Let me ask you a question. Has our nation turned her back on God? Have our churches backed away from the God of the Bible? Well, in today's study we will see how an offended God deals with his backslidden people.

Idolatry and Empty Religious Activity

In the book of Hosea, we see how a self-reliant people have turned away from God. In the preceding verse, in Hosea 8 -14, we read, For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples, and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities.

But I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof. Here we see a provoked God who keeps on punishing Israel for her multiplied sins. What are these grievous sins? First, we see that Israel continues to worship idols.

In Hosea 8 -11, we see their grievous sin of spiritual adultery. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. Secondly, God calls them out for forgetting him by replacing him by building elaborate temples for themselves.

The people of God had forgotten God by getting on a building program. And this has shifted their focus from spiritual things to brick and mortar. But God has a bone of contention with his rebellious and backslidden people who by their actions and by their lifestyle and by their empty religious activities are committing spiritual adultery against the very God they claim to serve.

The Church's Reliance on Money and Manpower

Now this is a serious situation, friends, and one we face today when the church in America got on a building campaign. We shifted our allegiance from God to ourselves as we went from relying on God to run his church on prayer and Holy Ghost power to becoming a self-reliant church that relies on money and manpower.

We wanted to reach the world, so we let the world into the church. And you can see where that has gotten us. A huge church campus with million-dollar sanctuaries that are empty of the presence of Almighty God.

When was the last time, friend, that you felt the power of God in a meeting? God's third grievance with Israel was that they had become a self-reliant people. God speaks of their multiplied, vast cities, meaning they were dependent upon the strength of their armies rather than being dependent upon God to fight their battles.

So God says he will send a devouring fire upon them and burn up their love for palaces. God had looked for fruit from his beloved children that he had nursed and prospered, but their fruit was selfish fruit only unto themselves.

Divided Hearts and Lukewarm Worship

In Hosea 10 .1 we read, Israel is an empty vine. He bringeth forth fruit unto himself. And we see why in the next verse. Their heart is divided. Listen, friends. You can't walk with God with one foot with him and with the other play footsie with the world.

A divided heart only results in half-hearted worship to God, and he will have none of that Laodicean, lukewarm Christianity that is neither hot nor cold. We find God's call to return to him in Hosea 10 .12, which states,.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you. I like Charles Finney's comments about Hosea 10 .12.

Breaking Up Fallow Ground Through Repentance

Finney writes,. The Jews were a nation of farmers. Scripture, therefore, commonly draws illustrations from that line of work, and from scenes farmers and shepherds would know well. So when the prophet Hosea addresses Israel as a nation of backsliders, reproving their idolatry and threatening them with the judgments of God, he uses fallow ground as his illustration.

Fallow ground is ground once farmed, but which now lies waste. It must be broken up again before it's ready to be planted. I will stop there, friends. Finney's observation is a good one, and we should apply it to our own hearts today, for to break up fallow ground is to break up our hearts in humility and repentance in a full return to the living God of the Bible.

It's time to look at our life and examine our sins one by one and be honest with ourselves and honest before the all-seeing God who knows our hearts. Our neglect of God through a divided heart will only make us empty vines as well, no matter how much fleshly fruit we try to drum up by our church activities.

Returning to God in Wholehearted Devotion

It is time to break up the fallow ground of our hearts by looking at our hearts and admitting there was once farmed ground to the glory of God, but now lies waste, producing dust in the wind. God says in Malachi, Return to me, and I will return to you.

What are we waiting for? Let us pray.