WWUTT 2249 Do Not Rejoice (Hosea 9:1-17)

Israel was still trying to eat, drink, and be merry, even though they had been whoring themselves out with false gods. So the Lord said, do not rejoice. They should instead be mourning over their sin when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Hosea’s Unfaithfulness and the Structure of the Book

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Hosea, we've been reading about how Israel has been unfaithful to God. They have whored themselves out with the false gods that are around them and have committed spiritual adultery.

And God is going to cut them off. He will punish Israel, but will be faithful. God will be faithful, even though Israel has not been. He will be faithful to fulfill the promises that he made to his people through the tribe of Judah.

At the beginning of Hosea, we read about the prophet Hosea, whom God told to take a wife of whoredom. And what would happen in the life of Hosea would be a picture of the way that God would deal with his people.

Gomer, who was his wife, she prostituted herself out with these other men. It really didn't prostitute herself. She whored herself out. So it wasn't for profit. She just jumped into the beds of other men and had children with them even.

Hosea threatened to cut her off, but was merciful toward her and forgave her. So the way that the book of Hosea is laid out in chapters one through three, we have the story of everything that happened there between Hosea and Gomer.

Chapters four to the end, to 14, that's all prophecy. So we're in the middle section now, chapters four through 11, where you have these accusations that are made to Israel and warnings, but also interspersed through this will be promises of deliverance, a glimmer of hope for God's people.

Though they are going to be punished, this is how God will fulfill his promises. Here in chapter nine, we have nothing but a warning of the day of punishment that is gonna come upon Israel. I'll give a basic outline of this chapter after we do an opening reading here.

So this is Hosea 9, verses one through six out of the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Do not be glad, O Israel, with rejoicing like the peoples, for you have played the harlot forsaking your God.

You have loved harlot's earnings on every threshing floor. Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them and the new wine will deceive them. They will not remain in the land of Yahweh, but Ephraim will return to Egypt and in Assyria, they will eat unclean food.

They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to Yahweh. Their sacrifices will not please him. Their bread will be like mourner's bread. All who eat of it will be defiled, for their bread will be for themselves alone.

It will not enter the house of Yahweh. What will you do on the day of the appointed festival and on the day of the feast of Yahweh? For behold, they will go because of destruction. Egypt will gather them up.

Memphis will bury them. Weeds will possess. Their desirable items of silver, thorns, will be in their tents. And we'll stop there. So in this first portion of Hosea, what we just read here in verses one through six, we have God telling Israel not to rejoice.

They have whored themselves out with these false gods. Their hearts are still turned from the Lord to the desires of their flesh and the riches of the pagans or the pleasures that the pagans have. And so therefore God says, do not rejoice.

That is what we find in verses one through six. The next section, which is verses seven through 10, God speaks of the destruction that will come upon them and it will come upon them speedily. And then finally we have in verses 11 through 17, the displeasure of God against Ephraim in particular.

And as I mentioned earlier in our study of Hosea, the names of Israel and Ephraim are used interchangeably. Ephraim being that tribe that's right in the middle. So it's almost as if they are depicted as the heart of Israel.

And since they are corrupt from the heart, God has plans to destroy them for the wickedness that they have done, whoring themselves out with these false gods and all the pleasures that they engage in, in these pagan rituals.

Mourning Instead of Rejoicing Over Sin

So we come back to Hosea nine, beginning in verse one. Do not be glad, O Israel, with rejoicing like the peoples for you have played the harlot forsaking your God. You have loved harlot's earnings on every threshing floor.

So you have nothing to rejoice in. You have nothing to be happy about. You should rather have an attitude of mourning. If Israel indeed recognize their sin, if they knew what it was that they had done, then they would realize the destruction that would come upon them.

Because they have betrayed God, they have gone after false gods, and God who had said in his commands that he is a jealous God and will bring judgment upon those who worship other gods. They should realize that's what they deserve and would therefore mourn over their sin.

They should not be in a spirit of rejoicing, but they should be in mourning over their sin. James says in James four, seven, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. So if we have truly been convicted over our sin, that will be our attitude about it. We won't laugh and rejoice where there should be no rejoicing.

We will weep and mourn over that which we know we deserve judgment for. And we'll come before God drawing near to God so that we may be cleansed, forgiven our sins and made new. If we draw near to God, he will draw near to us.

To get away from Satan, resist him and the devil will flee from you. That's not what Israel has done, of course. They continue to go back to their sin. Going back to these false gods is demon worship.

It's satanic, what it is that they are involved in. And they are acting in merriment, eat, drink, and be merry, as though nothing is ever going to come upon them, as though they do not know that a day of judgment has been destined for them.

When what the Lord says is this should not be your attitude, you should not be rejoicing, you have nothing to rejoice for because destruction will come upon you swiftly. And that's what will be promised a little bit later on here in the chapter.

Judgment, False Security, and Unclean Bread

Verse two, threshing floor and wine press will not feed them and the new wine will deceive them. The new wine, meaning that when they take up the harvest of grapes and they make wine from it, they will be tempted to believe that this is the blessing of God.

Because that is what an abundance of wine was supposed to be an indication of. As we read about in Proverbs, let your vats be overflowing with new wine. That would be like a statement of well-wishing or cheer upon somebody else.

Let your vats be overflowing with new wine. So you have had such abundance that the grape harvest has been great, you have lots of wine because God has truly blessed you. And so the Israelites are gonna be fooled into thinking that they're actually receiving the blessing of God when in reality, God is no longer with them and he's gonna bring judgment upon them.

So the new wine will deceive them. They will not remain in the land of Yahweh. It says in verse three, but Ephraim will return to Egypt and in Assyria, they will eat unclean food. Now returning to Egypt, of course, that was a reference to returning to slavery.

The very place that God had delivered Israel from is the place that they would go back to because that's where in their hearts, they felt satisfied. They longed for, they wanted the pleasures of Egypt.

Did not think that what God had for them in the promised land was enough. I need to go back to where I was in slavery. That condition was even better. That's the attitude of the Israelites. Jesus said in Luke 17, 32, remember Lot's wife.

What happened to Lot's wife? When God brought judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness, Lot and his wife and their daughters were warned, do not look back. As the fire and brimstone would come upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife did not listen.

And as they were fleeing from the destruction that was coming upon those cities, she stopped and looked back. And it shows that her heart was still in Sodom. She was not grateful to God for delivering them out of that destruction.

She still wanted what Sodom had. So she stopped in the midst of fleeing, in the midst of God's mercy. She stopped and looked back at the place that was being destroyed for its wickedness because her heart was there.

And so Jesus gives that warning to remember Lot's wife. She looked back, turned into a pillar of salt. It killed her. She was judged with the rest of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities on the plains because that's where her heart really was.

And when our hearts are with this world, that we would rather have the stuff of this world, we would rather have the passions of our flesh, sexual immorality, greed, drunkenness, the pills or drugs that you might be addicted to, drowning yourself in constant entertainment, just watching show after show instead of being in the word, never really satisfied with being in the company of God's people.

And so you eat and drink with drunkards as Jesus had warned about some of the false slaves doing as talked about in Matthew 24. If that's where your heart is, you would be as Lot's wife. And though there may be aspects of this world's wickedness that you yourself don't engage in, but if your heart is longing for it, like you actually want that, then you are as Lot's wife with your heart in the world and you will be burned up with it as well when God's judgment comes.

This is what is being said of Israel. And though they'll go through their own religious practices, though they will, they'll play the role of praising God, they shouldn't have that attitude. They should be weeping and mourning over their sin and asking that God would forgive them and not bring the judgment upon them that they deserve.

So it goes on in verse four, they will not pour out drink offerings of wine to Yahweh. Their sacrifices will not please him because the sacrifice will be offered from a heart that actually is worshiping false gods and God will not share his glory with another.

The warning that we saw in the book of Isaiah, their bread will be like mourner's bread, it says. All who eat of it will be defiled for their bread will be for themselves alone. It will not enter the house of Yahweh.

Mourner's bread would be made up of the leftover stuff, not the good grain, the flour that has been milled and then prepared and baked and made good bread, whether leavened or unleavened. This would be the bread that was made with all the leftover stuff.

So after the grain has been taken out of the stalks, the stalks would be ground down, maybe even a little bit of millet in there and emmer and beans and lentils, the kind of bread that's described in Ezekiel 4 .9.

You know, you've probably heard of Ezekiel 4 .9 bread. It wasn't a good bread. There's that kind of bread you can buy in the supermarket. It's a gimmick. They're taking it from the recipe that's given in Ezekiel 4 .9, but that's not a good bread.

That's mourner's bread. That's bread that's made out of the leftover stuff. It's the kind of bread that you make in the midst of a famine. Not when things are good and bountiful. There's nothing healthy about that bread.

And that's the gimmick that the Ezekiel 4 .9 bread tries to sell you. Like this is the bread recipe given by God. Yeah, for a people that are going to be sent into exile because of their wickedness. That's the recipe that they deserve.

That's the kind of bread that they should be eating or they would end up eating in the midst of losing everything that God had previously blessed them with. This is talked about here in Hosea 9 as well.

It's not a recipe, but nonetheless telling them you'll eat mourner's bread and all who eat of it will be defiled. It will not be good bread. It will not be pure. It will be made of ingredients that defile you.

For their bread will not be for themselves alone. It will not enter the house of Yahweh. Certain kinds of food were not permitted to be in the house of the Lord because it made a person ceremonially unclean.

And so these people would end up eating bread that would demonstrate their impurity of heart. In Assyria, they will eat unclean food as it was said back in verse three, because it's the Assyrians that are going to come against Israel.

Verse five, what will you do on the day of the appointed festival and on the day of the feast of Yahweh? You won't have the food that God has said you should be eating and offering up on the festival day.

So how can you celebrate the festival if God has not provided it for you? Verse six, for behold, they will go because of destruction. Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Weeds will possess their desirable items of silver.

Thorns will be in their tents. Israel would try to make a deal with Egypt to try to escape the judgment of the Assyrians that would come upon them, but Egypt will just take their money and not provide them the protection they thought they were purchasing.

The Days of Punishment and the Corruption of Ephraim

So the next section we have in verses seven through 10, this is a description of the days of punishment. So first of all, we have had it said, do not be glad. That was in verses one through six. Here's the promise of the days of punishment in verses seven through 10.

The days of punishment have come. The days of recompense have come. Let Israel know this. The prophet is an ignorant fool. The inspired man has madness because of the abundance of your iniquity and because your hostility has abounded.

So they will turn to a prophet. It wouldn't be a prophet of God, not Hosea. They will turn to the prophets that they're looking for to tell them the things that they want to hear. They want to hear from false prophets.

They don't want to hear the bad news. We just want you to assure us that we're all okay. So the prophet is an ignorant fool. He doesn't know. He's not heard from God. The word that he gives to you is not from the Lord.

The inspired man has madness, which is a parallelism. It's the same sort of a thing where a man who will claim to be speaking from God will instead, he will be mad. It will not be a word from the Lord.

It will not give guidance and direction. Instead, it will drive you into more and more sin because of the abundance of your iniquity and because your hostility is abounded. Because of your sinfulness, God will not give you the words that you desire or that you need to hear so that they will go to judgment.

Verse eight, Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet. Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways and there is only hostility in the house of his God. Ephraim was a watchman. He was on the wall and he was blessed of God to have judgment and discernment, was warning the people when an enemy would come near.

But now Ephraim's been ensnared by that enemy. Instead of warning about it, he's friends with it and partying with it. Verse nine, they have dug deep in corruption as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity and will punish their sins.

Gibeah is a dark chapter in Israel's history and they would have known exactly what that was in reference to. You have become as evil as Benjamin was in the days of Gibeah, which we read about in Judges chapter 19.

I don't have the time to recapture the story, but it was the time in which Israel had become as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 10, I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season, but they came to Baal Peor and devoted themselves to shame and they became as detestable as that which they loved.

God loved them, but they loved false gods and all the pleasures and passions that came along with pagan worship. And so therefore, in light of this, chapter nine, verses one through six, do not be glad.

Verses seven through 10, the days of punishment have come. And now finally in 11 to 17, this is the destruction that will come upon them. God expresses his displeasure with Ephraim beginning here in verse 11.

Ephraim’s Coming Destruction and the Call to Repentance

As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird, no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception. So they will be in such judgment that men and women will not be in bed with one another. The husbands will not be taking their wives and conceiving and therefore having children.

That's also a sign of God's blessing to a people. When he is blessed to people, they are fruitful and multiply, but that will not happen for Israel in these days, signifying they will die out. Verse 12, though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them until not a man is left.

Surely woe to them indeed when I depart from them. And that really is one of the worst judgments of God, that he would abandon someone, that he would remove his spirit from them. So indeed, I will depart from them, God says.

You will bring up children, but I will bereave them until not a man is left. When Assyria comes in and takes Israel, they will move all the Israelites out of their land and move Mesopotamians in that land in their place.

And any Israelites that are left will intermarry with the Mesopotamians and it will corrupt the bloodline and there won't be any Israelites left. And that's what ends up happening. All the people that live in that region at the time of the birth of Christ will be Samaritans, which are kind of mutts.

They're a mix of different nationalities, none of them truly Israelite. Verse 13, if Ephraim, as I have seen, is planted in a pasture like Tyre, but Ephraim will bring out his children for killing. Give them, O Yahweh, what will you give?

Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. No way for them to have children and the children that they do have will not be nourished. This is the totality of the judgment that God will bring upon Israel because they hoard themselves out with false gods.

Verses 15 to 17, all their evil is at Gilgal. Indeed, I came to hate them there because of the evil of their deeds. I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.

Pretty harsh statements from the Lord. Verse 16, Ephraim is stricken. Their root is dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they bear children, I will put to death the desirable ones of their womb.

My God will despise them because they have not listened to him and they will be those who flee among the nations. My friends, it is not too late from you to turn back from the sin that you love and turn to the Lord that he may forgive you and cleanse you and restore you.

David was given that opportunity when he was confronted by Nathan the prophet after committing adultery with Bathsheba and David having Bathsheba's husband killed in the line of battle. The Psalm that David wrote as he mourned before God and asked for his forgiveness was Psalm 51.

And David said, be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the abundance of your compassion, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you and you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and pure when you judge. David had that opportunity to turn from his sin to seek the Lord for mercy.

And so my friends, as long as there is breath in your lungs, turn to God in the day when he may be found that he would forgive you of your sin and restore you back to the path of righteousness. As for others, pray that they too would turn from their sin to the Lord Christ.

We look at this nation and we see the wickedness that is going on in the culture all around us. Pray that there are many others who will come to the truth and be saved before the day of wrath. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have heard in the message of the gospel of Jesus who died for us, who rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God, but will be saved.

May we continually remember this message, remembering what we have been saved from so that we will not go back to that path, but we will desire to walk in the righteousness of Christ that we have been clothed in for all who believe in him.

Cleanse us of our iniquities, restore us to paths of righteousness and may we live out our days to your glory until we join you in glory. 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.