July 29, 2001

Hosea 5

v. 1 - Judgment from Him where there are

no miscarries of justice or mistakes made.

Priests, people, king - the rulers & the ruled!

Instead of safeguards, they had been a snare,

instead of true leaders as God had intended they

seduced them to sin and helped prepare them for

destruction.

Mizpah - in the southwest to Tabor in the northeast -

idols everywhere.

v. 2 - “revolters” - revolution, apostasy.

“I have been a rebuker unto them”

v. 3 - no hiding

v. 4 - “they will not frame” - framers of the

constitution

Habits so powerful that they could not break them!

Chains too small to be felt until too strong to be broken.

Chains of impenitence, ignorance, insolence, iniquity.

One thing to fall into sin, another to persist in sin!

Slavery - people get excited except when Satan does it?

“spirit of whoredoms in the midst of them & they

have not known the Lord”

They are overmatched - no counteracting force to turn them

back or reverse their course.

Such a force was in the knowledge of God, His

covenant, His mercy, His power, His love, grace

and goodness!

It was Israel’s privilege & duty to know the Lord -

their ignorance was inexcusable.

v. 5 - Worldly wealth, pride - no liking for the

knowledge of God, they did not concern

themselves with it.

Prosperity -flourishing condition

Vain pride - self exaltation

“Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty

spirit before a fall” - Proverbs 16:18

Before their captivity but while still in their land,

they shall perceive their humiliation & degradation

instead of their glory which they had at the beginning!

“therefore......fall in their iniquity”

v. 6 - Numerous & costly sacrifices to try and appease

Jehovah.

They won’t find Him - hypocritical repentance came too

late.

“my son, give me thy heart” - brought their

herds but not their hearts.

For God, instead of being a present help in

time of trouble -Ps. 46:1 - He had withdrawn

beyond their reach - He had removed His

Shekinah glory from among them!

Ezekiel 9:3, 10:4,18, 11:22-23, 43:2,4

v. 7 - “begotten strange children” - godless

parents, intermarrying with idolaters.

The spirit of whoredoms produced a graceless

and godless race.

“a month” - in a short time.

v. 9 - “desolate in the day of rebuke” - God’s

mercy to apprise of the danger -

“among the tribes of Israel have I made known

that which shall SURELY be”

v. 10 - boundary removers - Ps. 2 - regardless

of the rights of others.

v. 11 - “he willingly walked” - arbitrary & self imposed

precept.

Missteps, mistakes, mishandling, misguided & misgoverned

people.

v. 12 - figures of slow but sure ruin - When the

foundations are destroyed, what can the

righteous do?

v. 13 - Ephraim saw, Ephraim went - “yet he could

not heal or cure”

A Quack!

v. 14 - Change of mode to one decisive & open -

Beware of provoking God to withhold blessings or withdraw

His presence with the gracious influences of His Spirit leaving us to Judicial Blindness.

First step - confession - Second step - Seek His Face!

“in their affliction, they will seek me early”