A People in Whoredom and a Forsaken God — E.A. Johnston

Hosea as a Picture of Spiritual Adultery

We are still in our study of the minor prophets, and this evening we will be looking at the book of Hosea, as it speaks volumes to our current church situation today, friends. Hosea is a love story about a broken heart.

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 turned away from the living God to worship blocks of wood and stone.

God compares a strained people to children of whoredom, who are like a stubborn calf, a half-baked cake, a treacherous bow that is both unreliable and deceitful, and a vessel in which there is no pleasure.

Does this sound like our nation at this hour, friends? Have we not forsaken the God of the Bible in your day and mine? This message of Hosea describes the whoredom of a backslidden people, as demonstrated in the ten-tribe nation, represented by Ephraim, and the stories played out through the prophet Hosea's own domestic life, as he is commanded by God to marry a harlot called Gomer.

This adulterous union breaks the heart of Hosea, who displays unusual patience towards his wayward wife, even buying her back from slavery. Is this not a picture of the heart of God and the work on the cross?

In our redemption through Christ Jesus, Christ died to redeem us from the marketplace of sin and bondage to sin. The faithful, long-suffering prophet is a picture of God, whose holy heart has been broken by an adulterous generation, who departed from him, ceased obeying him, and have forsaken him.

God declares in Hosea 4 and 11, Whoredom and wine, and new wine, take away the heart. And we see God's reaction to a people who have forsaken him. This is seen in chapter 5 and verse 6, which declares, They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord, but they shall not find him.

He hath withdrawn himself from them. Listen friends, is this not a portrait of the church in our land today? People who have substituted the God of the Bible for other gods, and because of the sins of the apostate church, God has withdrawn himself.

We today are under the remedial judgment of God, of his withdrawn presence. Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you experienced a God consciousness in a meeting? Where is the power of God in our meetings today?

I can give you the answer to our present dilemma, friends. It is found in Hosea 5, 4, which reads, They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God, for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.

Ephraim Joined to Idols

The title of my message this evening, friends, is A People in Whoredom and a Forsaken God. Our text can be found in chapter 4 and verses 16 through 17. Let me read that to us now. For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer, now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place.

Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. I want to make a statement, friends, and it may startle some of you, but I believe it's a true and valid statement. I believe that the most miserable person in the world is not the sinner, dead in sin.

The sinner enjoys the pleasures of sin while they last. He's quite happy in his sins. All the college kids down in Florida on spring break that are participating in drunken debauchery and sexual orgies aren't enjoying themselves this week.

You cannot tell me they are not having fun with the pleasures and excitement of sin. They are. The sinner is enjoying his sin for a season. The book of Hebrews speaks of this in chapter 11 and verse 25 as it speaks of Moses choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

You can't tell me that the sinner is not happy in his sin. He is not miserable. He's having the time of his life for now. No, I believe the most miserable person in the world is not the sinner in his sins, but the believer backslidden from God.

That person is the most miserable person in the world. A backslidden believer is utterly miserable, utterly bitter, utterly unhappy, out of step with God and out of step with himself. The statement from our text in Hosea where God says Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.

That to me, friends, is the most terrible thing that can happen to a person. For God to leave that person alone in their sins, Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. Let me ask you a question. Is not the church joined to her idols today and is not God leaving her alone by his withdrawn presence?

Are not many in our churches today turned away from the God of the Bible? Is there someone here within the sound of my voice where God looks at your life right now, friend, and the spiritual bleakness of it?

And he says if you, so and so, is joined to idols, let her alone, let him alone. Are you joined to your idols? Are you miserable in your backslidden state? Do not deny that you are, if indeed you are.

If you are away from God, friend, you are indeed a most miserable person, I know of which I speak. The times in my own life where I replaced God with other things, when I became a backslider in heart, I was the most wretched, miserable person you can imagine.

Do you want to find a backslider? All you have to do is to listen to that person when they talk. All they do is complain and gripe and complain and complain and gripe. They're miserable. The book of Hosea is a picture of a people in spiritual adultery against their God.

The marriage vow is broken. They have turned their backs on God and gone their own way. They have wandered so far away from God that they are deceived individuals who are like a cake that is unturned or half-baked.

It's cooked only on one side. The other side is raw and no good to eat. Only they are unaware of their own spiritual condition. Is this not a picture of the church today? Away from God, full of pride, self-reliant, and unaware of her sad spiritual declension.

And their sins are aggravated sins, for they have sinned against mercy, favor, and light. In chapter 4 and verse 7, God states, The more they increased, the more they sinned against me. He's indignant.

He cannot believe it. The whoredoms that they practice, the rottenness of their hearts, they are out of a vital love relationship with him and playing the harlot with the world. They're tied to their lusts, and God says, let them alone.

A Forsaken Church and a Compromised Gospel

Look at the church today, friends, and how forsaken of God it is. Look at our nation and see how forsaken of God it is. How violence floods our streets with blood. How corruption reigns in high places in government.

How immorality and perverseness permeates the very fabric of our society. The church has become like a deceitful bow, unreliable in both its message of the gospel and in its conduct in daily living. How careless many pastors are today.

I was listening to a high-profile pastor, and his attitude was so careless before his congregation that he misquoted John 3 .16, and he acted like it was no big deal. And that's the attitude of the church today, careless and casual, sloppy and unreliable.

You'd be hard-pressed, friends, to find a church that preaches a true gospel of repentance and regeneration. It's mainly a perverted gospel today, one of whoredom with the world. Our churches are sending millions to hell with their compromised example and diluted gospel of people in whoredom and a forsaken God.

Our churches are houses of entertainment rather than houses of prayer. There is a dearth of prayer in the life of the church today. Prayerlessness is the norm. If there is a prayer meeting, it is self-centered, self-indulgent prayer, a self-glorifying prayer.

In Hosea 7, verse 7, we see this is the case of a people backslidden from God. God says of them, There is none among them that calleth unto me. The church in America killed off the weekly prayer meeting decades ago, and when the church did that, she lost the only power that she had.

For the prayer life of a church is the engine that empowers a church and makes her influential into society in which she exists. Today the church is nothing more than a laughingstock in the eyes of the unconverted.

They look at the church today and see the huge large campuses spilling over with man-centered amenities like coffee bars and swimming pools and workout gyms, and the church in many respects today just looks like a country club.

There are few God-called men in our pulpits today who cry out against the sins of the land and call their people to repentance before the Lord. God told Hosea to go take a wife of harlotry because that's how God viewed his bride.

They were immersed in whoredoms and separated from him. In chapter 8, verse 11, God states, Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. Today, friends, in our sanctuaries, we sacrifice to our altars of sin.

We play Hollywood movies, show Super Bowl broadcasts, tell funny stories, and even use lewd humor to entertain our people to keep our crowds from falling away because we need them. We need them to pay our huge bills because of our expanded campuses.

You'd be shocked, friends, to know what some churches spend money on. I saw them make a church budget and they spent $70 ,000 a year on donut holes so people could have something to munch on while they waited in the hallways for church to begin.

The Call to Repentance and the Loss of Prayer

The church today, for the most part, is backslidden and away from the heart of God, and the biggest sin of the churches in this country today, friends, is the refusal to repent and turn back to God. Listen to Hosea 7 in verses 13 through 16.

Woe unto them, for they have fled from me. Destruction unto them, because they have transgressed against me, though I have redeemed them. Yet they have spoken lies against me, and they have not cried unto me with their heart.

When they howled upon their beds, they assembled themselves for corn and wine, and they rebelled against me, though I have bound and strengthened their arms. Yet they do imagine mischief against me. They return, but not to the Most High.

They are like a deceitful bow. Listen, friends. A deceitful bow is an undependable bow in the archer's hand. It fails to hit the intended mark. It cannot be trusted nor relied upon. And the church today is like that deceitful bow.

You can't trust the message from the pulpit. You can't trust the people in the pews. You cannot rely on them to even point you savingly to Christ. That's how sad things have gotten in this country. But it didn't used to be that way.

I remember the power of God in a meeting. I remember what it was like to be in a prayer meeting, where people weren't afraid to cry when they prayed. And they prayed loud and long and did so until the fire fell and consumed the sacrifice.

I've seen sanctuaries where the carpets were wet from the tears of broken-hearted saints who cried out to a holy God for the salvation of souls. They interceded in desperate and anguished prayer over the sins of the land and the lost in their town.

Pastors back then weren't afraid to preach on the sinfulness of sin and call sin black and hell hot and warn people not to go there. They preached up the blood and the cross and the Savior hung there for sinful man.

They preached up man's duty of repentance and man's utter necessity of a work of grace upon the heart through regeneration to get into God's heaven. I've seen people under the conviction of sin bolt toward an altar to get to God and get under the blood like it was a house fire.

Judgment, Revival, and Returning to God

But today we have a routine. We have a worldly church. We have a compromised gospel and a people in whoredom tied to their sins, tied to their idols. And we call it church on Sunday morning when it's nothing more than business as usual.

Listen to me, dear friends. If we don't have revival, God will have to destroy this nation like he did Sodom because he cannot be God and tolerate sin. America is more wicked than Sodom and Gomorrah ever was.

God speaks of the judgment upon Israel for sins in Hosea 8 and verses 7 and 8. For they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. It hath no stalk. The bud shall yield no meal. If so, be it yield.

The stranger shall swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up. Now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure. Uh, God says they're like a vessel in which there is no pleasure. Listen, friends, this passage from Hosea should be a wake-up call to each of us to fall on our faces before a holy God and repent of our great failure in following him as we should, in being obedient to him as we should, in being faithful to him as we should.

Oh, how we need a vital love relationship with our God. Jesus, lover of my soul, give me the grace to love you more and to love myself less. Great God, help us before we destroy ourselves and you destroy our nation.

Forgive us, great God, for our great departure from thee. Forgive us for our wretched sins and our wicked pride. Forgive us as a nation. Forgive us as a church. Forgive us as a people who are called by your name.

Grant us the grace to seek you earnestly in prayer, in true humility of anguish and desperation, and to turn from our wicked ways. Oh, great God, send us the grace to turn to you before you destroy us.

Oh, heaven help us all.