WWUTT 2264 Ephraim Says I Have No Sin (Hosea 12:1-14)

Israel had this idea that as long as they can keep their sins a secret, then I won't have to face consequences for it. But God sees and knows all, and will render to each one of us according to our works, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Hosea as a Picture of Israel’s Unfaithfulness and God’s Faithfulness

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Hosea, we are on to Chapter 12, and this is the start of the final section of Hosea. If you'll remember back to our introductory lesson, however many weeks ago that was now, but I said you could break up Hosea into three parts.

Chapters 1 through 3 are the setup of the book, where God tells a prophet named Hosea to take a wife of Hortam, and he marries a woman named Gomer, who gives him a child, but then she goes and jumps into the beds of other men and has children with them.

Prostitutes herself out, Hosea says, I'm going to cut you off, but ultimately he forgives her and takes her back. And this was supposed to be the picture of the way that God was dealing with Israel. They had been unfaithful to God.

They had whored themselves out with the false gods and the pagans that were around them. God was indeed going to punish them, but he would still be faithful to fulfill his promises to the descendants of Abraham, which he would do through the Jewish people, through the tribe of Judah.

So he wouldn't utterly cut them off. And we read about that last week, too, in Hosea Chapter 11. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah and Zeboiim, the cities of the plains that were wiped out with the wrath of God and fire and brimstone, which he rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah?

My heart is turned over within me. All my compassions are stirred. I will not execute my burning anger. I will not make Ephraim a ruin again. So there the Lord saying, you will be punished. You will face the consequences for your actions.

But God would not utterly destroy them and still would fulfill his promises, sending a savior. And we even had a prophecy about that savior made in Chapter 11. Out of Egypt, I called my son, which Matthew says was fulfilled in Matthew Chapter 2 after Joseph and Mary and Jesus flee to Egypt and then returning from Egypt back into the land, into Israel, up to Galilee and settling in Nazareth.

That was fulfilling that prophecy, which was said out of Egypt, I called my son. And so though Israel had failed in all of these places to keep the commands of God, Christ fulfilled them perfectly. So Jesus becomes faithful Israel and he accomplishes all that Israel could not do.

Jesus becoming the spotless sacrifice for us, blameless in all of his ways, gives his own life, dying on the cross for our sins, taking the wrath of God upon himself and thus making a propitiation for our sins.

All who believe in him, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life with God. We are rescued out of our Egypt, our slavery to sin and to death, set free in Christ, adopted into God's family. That's what we've seen so far, even in Hosea.

But there's still one last section. And that's what we start with today. Chapters 12, 13 and 14 are again going to be a series of warnings. There will also be promises of deliverance and there will be an issuance of these are the consequences for your actions that you must face.

So let's come to Hosea chapter 12. The first verse here really closes out chapter 11. It ends up with chapter 12, though it fits better with the chapter that we just finished. I'll go ahead and read it anyway and go through verse 11 here.

This is from the legacy standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Ephraim feeds on wind and pursues the east wind continually. He abounds in falsehood and destruction. Moreover, he cuts a covenant with Assyria and oil is carried to Egypt and Yahweh has a contention with Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways.

He will cause everything to return to him according to his deeds. In the womb, he took his brother by the heel and in his maturity, he wrestled with God. Indeed, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed.

He wept and sought his favor. He found him at Bethel and there he spoke with us. Even Yahweh, the God of hosts, Yahweh is his name of remembrance. Therefore, return to your God. Keep loving kindness and justice and hope in your God continually.

A merchant in whose hands are deceptive balances. He loves to oppress and Ephraim said, surely I have become rich. I have found wealth for myself in all my labors. They will find in me no iniquity, which would be sin.

But I have been Yahweh your God since the land of Egypt. I will make you settle in tents again, as in the days of the appointed festival. And I have spoken to the prophets and I made visions abound. And by the hand of the prophets, I gave parables.

Is there wickedness in Gilead? Surely they are worthless. In Gilgal, they sacrifice bulls. Yes, their altars are like the stone heaps beside the furrows of the field. Then the last three verses I'll save to the end, but a promise of God of judgment upon this people who have done wickedly.

So we start with that verse, really, as I said, closed out the previous chapter, the previous section, Ephraim, which is a title synonymous with Israel, the tribe right in the middle of Israel, Ephraim feeds on wind and pursues the east wind continually.

He abounds in falsehood and destruction. Moreover, he cuts a covenant with Assyria and oil is carried to Egypt. So pursues the east wind continually was kind of an indication of the group of people that Ephraim tends to align himself with.

He does not join himself to God. Rather, he goes to the pagans. He tries to cut a covenant with Assyria. His oil is carried away to Egypt. He thinks that the Egyptians and the Assyrians, they will be our friends when their heart actually goes after them and their false gods.

But the wealth that God had given to Israel would be carried off by foreigners, that place that you would come out of the place of slavery, which was Egypt. And remember, Israel plundered Egypt. When you read about what happened with Israel through the 10th plague, before they fled Egypt, they took the treasures out of the households of the Egyptians.

They went door to door and the Egyptians just gave them their stuff. Yes, please take this and go. And in this way, they plundered the Egyptians. Well, here they're giving their wealth away. The wealth that God had given to Israel, they're giving it away back to Egypt.

Egypt, it's as if they regain what they lost because of Israel's foolishness, trying to keep themselves from the destruction that will befall them because of their idolatry, when who they really need to be turning to is God.

And they don't. They don't turn to the Lord. Now, how many of us have been here? How many of us have sinned? And instead of turning to God and asking the forgiveness of your sins, instead of being honest about your sins and turning from this idolatry and not walking in it anymore, you try to bargain with it or with other people.

Maybe you try to do things to keep your sin out of the light so that other people don't find out about it or how you can manipulate your circumstances that you may continue in this sin and not have to face the consequences of it.

I think we've been in those positions before. And in that sense, we would behave as Israel instead of turning to God and seeking forgiveness, which is really where we need to be turning. If you want to get away from the real consequences from your actions, that's where you need to go to God.

Because whatever consequences you can face down here on Earth, nothing compared to the consequences you would face in judgment. Whenever a person is more afraid of what other people will find out about their sin than knowing that God already knows about your sin, then that person fears man more than they fear God.

I'm just going to try to keep this out of the view of other people. But then they don't stop doing it. They don't repent of it. They don't ask God for forgiveness. And in this way, they fear man more than God.

When who do we need to fear? If you're fearing God, then you'll be fleeing from sin, even in secret, when nobody can see it, when nobody knows, no matter how well you think that you can keep it hidden.

God knows, you know, and God knows, like, you know, when you do evil. There are people, of course, who suppress the truth with their unrighteousness, as said in Romans 1 18. But your conscience is still guilty.

Why is it that you keep it hidden from other people? Because, you know, you've done something evil. You may try to convince yourself in your mind that it's innocent. It's OK. I'm not really going to face consequences for this.

It's not really that big a deal. But in your heart of hearts, you know, which is why you're suppressing it, which is why you're trying to keep it hidden, because, you know, you've done something evil.

And God knows every secret thing. As Jesus says, he will judge the hearts and minds of everything and everything will be brought into the light. And so this is who we must fear. We must fear God. Interesting how interesting how the Bible lays this out to convict us of our sins in this way.

This was definitely not written by men, as the skeptics will often claim. Well, the Bible is just written by a bunch of men. It was written in such a way that men can control other men or men can control women.

You hear that one a lot, too. If that were the case, though, then why is the Bible so intense about knowing what you do, even in secret? Otherwise, wouldn't Scripture, if it was written by men, just be full of stuff that's like, you know, just don't let anybody else see it.

As long as it's out of sight, it's out of mind. And that's not the way that the Bible speaks of these things at all, even when no one else knows God knows. And so even in secret, you must commit your every way unto him.

When we are told in Romans 12, 1, in view of God's mercy, present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto the Lord, holy and acceptable to him. And this is your spiritual act of worship, not just when other people are watching, but all the time.

We commit our ways unto the Lord in all our ways, acknowledge him, as said in Proverbs three, and he will make straight your paths, not just in the ways that other people see, but in all our ways. Yet here's Israel trying to bargain their way out of their sin.

As long as we can appease men, then we'll be OK when who they really need to be concerned about is what God thinks of what they are doing. And so we go on to verse two, Judah gets brought back into this again, and Yahweh has a contention with Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways.

Jacob representing the northern tribe, Israel, the northern ten tribes, Judah representing the southern two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. So when you have the kingdom split, you have Israel, you have Judah.

Israel's the northern ten tribes, Judah's the southern two tribes. Judah is not as far along in their sin as Israel is, but Judah is still guilty of the same sins. And so though this judgment is going to come against Israel, God has a contention with Judah as well, and punishment will come to them also.

But God will preserve Judah. He will utterly drive Israel off of the land. I will punish Jacob according to his ways. Now, Jacob is the one who gets called Israel. That's where the name Israel comes from.

He who struggles with man and God is what the name means. Jacob wrestled with God. You'll notice that came up here in this historical remembrance. He will cause everything to return to him according to his deeds.

Same thing that Jesus says to the churches in Revelation chapter three, I will render to each one according to his deeds. So verse three, we have a reference to Jacob. This is, of course, the nation that is descended from Jacob, but still characteristic of Jacob himself.

In the womb, he took his brother by the heel. Jacob presumably means heel grabber, by the way. There are various translations or interpretations of what that name Jacob could mean. Cheater is another one.

And I remember when I was a kid, I would use that against my brother, whose name is Jacob. And he was he was definitely the rebellious, the most rebellious of us four brothers. Jacob was the one that rebelled the most against my parents.

My I had a sister. She was pretty rebellious, too. But I still think Jacob did. Jacob did worse. But anyway, because he would act this way, because he would fight constantly with my parents, constantly getting into trouble, even when he didn't need to.

You know, there wasn't even an excuse for him acting the way that he was. He just would do it just because. And so I would say, you're living up to your name. Your name's cheater. So that's what it is that you do.

And he didn't like that. I wasn't being kind either, but that was the interpretation of his name that I would use against him. There are a lot of names in the Old Testament. We don't quite know exactly what they mean unless the Old Testament plain tells us what it is that the name means.

And so Jacob is most likely heel grabber is what that name means. He took his brother by the heel. Jacob was holding on to Esau's heel when these twins were born. And in his maturity, he wrestled with God.

The story of Jacob wrestling with God. Jacob wins. God says, let me go. And Jacob says, not until you bless me first. But God still touches his hip and causes him to limp for the rest of his life. God's showing you one because I let you one.

I'm really the one who's in control of this conflict. Lest anybody assume that the struggle that Jacob had with this angelic being that Jacob wrestles with in Genesis chapter 32. In case there's light confusion.

Well, was he really wrestling with God? Was he just wrestling with an angel? Hosea 12 three tells you exactly. In his maturity, he wrestled with God. Indeed, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed. Well, now it calls it an angel.

Yeah, angel just simply means messenger. It may not have been like exactly God himself. It was something in the form that God presented that would wrestle with Jacob. You can't wrestle with the actual form of God.

He's spirit and also so glorious that we could never set our eyes upon him. So he wrestles with this angel, a stand in, so to speak, or a or a messenger, because that's what the word angel really means.

It means messenger. So Jacob wrestles with the angel with the messenger and prevails synonymous with he wrestled with God. These are parallelisms. Remember, common form of Hebrew poetry that you have one line and then another line that repeats it.

He wept and sought his favor. He found him at Bethel, and there he spoke with us. Bethel is the place where Jacob saw the staircase with angels descending and ascending on the stairs. And because that place was so sacred, that was where Israel had built an idol, an altar to a false god there at Bethel.

And then, I mean, this extremely blasphemous, but Israel thinking that they're doing something right because, hey, this was the place where Jacob communed with God. Let's build an altar here. But they built it to a false god instead of the true God.

And they weren't supposed to build an altar. They were not to build an altar there anyway, because God had chosen Jerusalem to be the place where he would meet with his people. That's where they were to go and worship him.

Anyway, continuing on in verse five, even Yahweh, the God of hosts, Yahweh is his name of remembrance, that you would know God, that you would know who he is, that you have communed with God, that you have fellowship with God.

If you know his name, you remember him. And so, therefore, Yahweh being his name of remembrance, therefore, return to your God. Keep loving kindness and justice and hope in your God continually. An opportunity for Israel to come back and even for Judah to come back, because Judah is supposed to see what's going on with Israel and then repent of their ways.

So they would not continue down the same path. A merchant in whose hand are deceptive balances he loves to oppress. Now, this was something in the law where it was said that no one is to have a set of scales for one group of people and then a different set of scales for somebody else.

There can't be different weights and measures. It has to be the same for everybody. If someone has a different scale, deceptive balances, well, he loves to oppress. I'm going to favor this group of people.

I'm going to oppress this one over here. They are not just. They don't fear God. And so this is this is the way with Israel. Verse eight, and Ephraim said, Surely I have become rich. I have found wealth for myself in all my labors.

They will find in me no iniquity, which would be sin. And we talked about this in previous lessons, too, where Israel takes credit for their own accomplishments. It's not because God gave it to me. God gave them this warning in the law in the book of Deuteronomy.

Don't look at all that you've received and think my hand has made me wealthy, but you will give honor to the Lord who has given you these things. And here's Ephraim going against exactly what God had warned them of in the law.

And in all my labors, no sin will find me if I get to be my own judge. Then surely I am in the right is essentially what Israel is saying. So verse nine, but I have been Yahweh your God since the land of Egypt.

I will make you settle in tents again, as in the days of the appointed festival. Now, this is God saying you're going to go back to that land that you were groaning in that you didn't want to be in when you wanted your own land of prosperity and home and abundance.

And I gave you that. But since you are praising yourself and since you are going after these false gods, I'm going to send you back to that place of your groaning. And I have spoken to the prophets, verse 10, and I have made visions abound.

And by the hand of the prophets, I gave parables. You've heard the warnings. Is there wickedness in Gilead? Surely they are worthless in Gilgal. They sacrifice bulls. Yes, their altars are like the stone heaps beside the furrows of the field.

God is God is the one who has made us in his image. So being made in his image. Then we are valuable, but we make ourselves worthless. As it says in Romans chapter three, together, we have become worthless because of our sin and our rebellion against God.

We make ourselves worthless. And so what we deserve for that is judgment. And if not for what Christ has done for us, we would perish. But by faith in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven our sins and we will live.

Judgment, Repentance, and the Fear of God

Now, here's the close here, 12 to 14, the promise of these consequences that Israel has incurred. Now, Jacob fled to the field of Aram and Israel worked for a wife and for a wife. He kept sheep. But by a prophet, Yahweh brought Israel up from Egypt.

And by a prophet, he was kept. That's in reference to Moses. Ephraim has provoked to bitter anger. So his Lord will leave his blood guilt on him and cause his reproach to return to him. You were rescued out of Egypt for a time.

You did listen to the prophet. You were delivered into this land. But you have gone after your own way and provoke the Lord to anger. So the judgment that comes upon you, you deserve it. And your reproach will return to you.

My friends, what we deserve is judgment. We don't deserve the mercy and grace of God. Otherwise, it wouldn't be grace. If we deserved God's grace, it wouldn't be grace. He shows his grace to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5, 8, right? God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so repent of your sin and turn to God. Worship Christ. And you will be forgiven your sins and walk in righteousness all your days.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here in Hosea chapter 12. As even the things that are said here in warning to Israel would caution us against our own sin. We would turn to Christ and surely walk in his ways, not taking God for granted, thinking that I can do whatever I want to do and you're just going to forgive me.

But we know that we've been called to holiness as you are holy. So teach us to turn from our sin and walk in the way of our Savior. Forgive us our sins and lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word, when we understand the text.