The Book of Hosea
The Book of Hosea
By Richard St.James
Bible 1611.Com / Old Paths Baptist Mission © 2023
Hosea, chapter ten:
Verse one:
“Israel is an empty vine, he
bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the
multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars;
according to the goodness of his land they have made
goodly images.”
Israel is an empty
vine.
An empty vine
offers nothing to God. An empty vine
offers nothing for others. An empty
vine only takes care of itself.
This is the opposite to the mission of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, when he came to this earth, and
lived amongst men for thirty-three and a half years:
“For even the Son of
man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give his life a ransom for many.” [Mark
10:45]
Jesus Christ was the
true full vine who gave his life for others.
It is all about others.
“I am the true vine,
and my Father is the husbandman.”
[John 15:1]
The goodly images
took the people of Israel down the road to
harlotry. Harlotry serves
oneself. Harlotry is about ME service.
Verse two:
“Their heart is divided; now shall
they be found faulty: he shall break down their
altars, he shall spoil their images.”
We will comment on the
divided heart found here in verse two when
we get to verse ten.
Verse three:
“For now they shall say, We have no
king, because we feared not the LORD; what then
should a king do to us?”
Here, we are
introduced to the divided heart, as found
in verse two, which leads a man to having a
double mind.
The double minded man will be dealt with more completely in verse ten. Now here is a truth:
The double minded man
has no king.
A double minded
man can have no king while he is on the fence.
In the end the state of instability results
in an inevitable fall off the fence on one
side, or the other. In the end he will have a
master: God or mammon, one, or the other.
Question: Which master
will be your master? As for me,
I will rest on what the psalmist said in Psalm
eighty-nine, verse eighteen:
“For the LORD is
our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is
our king.” [Psalm 89:18]
Verse four:
“They have spoken words, swearing
falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment
springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the
field.”
We will comment on this
judgment that “springeth up as hemlock in
the furrows of the field” found
here in verse four when we get to verse ten.
Verse five:
“The inhabitants of Samaria shall
fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the
people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests
thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory
thereof, because it is departed from it.”
We commented earlier
about Bethaven [in both chapter four, verse
fifteen, and in chapter five, verse eight].
The inhabitants of
Samaria are grieving over Jeroboam’s calves’
loss of glory. Jeroboam had
originally placed these golden idols in
both Dan, and Bethel, in a scheme to prevent the
people of Israel from going up to worship at the
temple in Jerusalem. [See 1 Kings 12:32.]
Notice, the bizarre
scene: The people are mourning over their
idols rather than mourning over their sin
against God. Such a low, low, state Israel was
in, having departed from the LORD.
Verse six:
“It shall be also carried unto
Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim
shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of
his own counsel.”
So, they are mourning
over the loss of their idol calves to the
Assyrian king. They are mourning to
their shame. Their false god could
not save them from their enemies.
If only they had
leaned on the mighty God Who is mighty
to save. Only if they had listened to the
prophet. See Isaiah chapter sixty-three, verse
one for this mighty God:
“Who is this
that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from
Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel,
travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that
speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”
[Isaiah 63:1]
Verse seven:
“As for Samaria, her king is
cut off as the foam upon the water.”
So is the lot for all
those who turn from God.
Cut off! Cast
out!
So, as the king, so as
the nation. Here is the prophetic announcement
in the First book of Kings, chapter nine, verse
seven:
“Then will I cut off
Israel out of the land which I have given them; and
this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will
I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a
proverb and a byword among all people:”
[1 Kings 9:7]
So, it all happened as
the prophet had said.
Verse eight:
“The high places also of Aven, the
sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the
thistle shall come up on their altars; and they
shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the
hills, Fall on us.”
The high places of
Baal involve idolatry.
Hundreds of years earlier
a man by the name of Balaam had taught
Israel’s enemies how to corrupt the people of
Israel and destroy them. [The
background history for all of this is in the Fourth
book of Moses called Numbers, chapter twenty-two.]
Numbers 22:41: “And
it came to pass on the morrow, that Balak took
Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of
Baal, that thence he might see the utmost part
of the people.” The target was the people of
Israel and centuries later we see here in Hosea
these high places of Aven.”
The use of a
stumblingblock.
Now, he taught them
[among other things] to construct alters of worship
on the high places in order to promote idolatry,
which in the end brought about the
destruction of the people.
Remember, the altars
on the high places are the places visited by
the devils, and these devils work under the
authority of the Devil.
In the book of the
Revelation of Jesus Christ, in chapter two, verse
fourteen is revealed to us the evil work of
Balaam in setting up Israel’s destruction:
“But I have a few
things against thee, because thou hast there them
that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac
to cast a stumblingblock before the children of
Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to
commit fornication.” [Revelation
2:14]
The Devil’s plan worked.
It all got so bad that they cried out to the
mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on
us.
Verse nine:
“O Israel, thou hast sinned from the
days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in
Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not
overtake them.”
From the days of
Gibeah it has not been the same.
The root of the
problem has been identified earlier [in
Hosea chapter five, verse eight].
The problem is with
knowledge or knowing.
When they knew God.
Israel once knew
God, but they were now far from God. They no
longer knew God. Why? The answer:
Gibeah.
In times past, we once
knew God but we didn’t do the right thing
with that knowledge. We were not
thankful to him, nor did we render up praise
to him. Thus, it became sin for us.
In the Epistle to the
Romans, chapter one, we have this downward
progression described by the Spirit of God that
will happen to any people of any nation:
“Because that, when
they knew God, they glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful; but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
[Romans 1:21]
Thus, God gave us up:
[Look at verse twenty-six and twenty-seven.]
They changed the
natural use into that which is against nature.
“For this cause God
gave them up unto vile affections: for even their
women did change the natural use into that which is
against nature:
And likewise also the
men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in
their lust one toward another; men with men working
that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves
that recompence of their error which was meet.”
[Romans 1:26-27]
Watch the hemlock
effect growing between the two furrows.
Verse ten:
“It is in my desire that I
should chastise them; and the people shall be
gathered against them, when they shall bind
themselves in their two furrows.”
The Invasion of the
Hemlock
1.
The Essence of Man
2.
The Divided
Heart
3.
The
Double-minded man
4.
Unstable as
Water
5.
The Field is a
Man
6.
The Hemlock is
in the Field
7.
The
Single-hearted Man
1.
The Essence of Man
We will begin here.
Light is what we need
today here in the 21st century. “The entrance of
thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto
the simple.” [Psalms 119:130]
The BIBLE gives LIGHT!
Now the Bible I am
referring to … is available to anyone … everywhere …
in America to read, to believe, to hearken and to
obey.
This BOOK I am talking
about … is the Authorized Version of the Bible of
1611 (or any of its editions) and is commonly known
as the King James Bible.
Now, this BOOK is a
perfect book: “The words of the LORD are pure
words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,
purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD,
thou shalt preserve them from this generation for
ever.” [Psalm 12:6-7]
In this BIBLE is found a
person … having personality … called
MAN.
MAN is a being … a
human being!
Now mind you, this human
being [as originally created in the image of God] is
comprised of three parts: soul, body, and spirit -
three in one:
“And the very God of
peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
[1 Thessalonians 5:23]
HUMAN BEING = [BODY +
SOUL + SPIRIT]
The Three Parts of Man
Now this three-part
being came under a subversive attack very
early in history. It happened very soon after
God’s creation week.
Now, read of this with me
in the book of beginnings:
“Now the serpent was
more subtil than any beast of the field which the
LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the
garden?” [Genesis 3:1]
When Adam [or man]
believed, and obeyed Satan, rather than
obeying God, he died:
“Wherefore, as by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned:” [Romans 5:12].
When Adam fell from his
perfect [sinless] state, he became subject to
death.
Man fell! Man was now a
fallen being.
Thus, [for the last six
thousand years of human history] man has been under
the dominion of the “power of darkness”
[Colossians 1:15].
What is more, the Devil,
and his cohorts, [which includes all the
unrighteous, the philosophers, the educators,
and the agents of change] all have conspired to
further debauch the human being [as he is
defined in the Bible].
This prepares the
ground for the invasion of the hemlock. Watch
out!!!
Now for the agenda!
The agenda for these agents of change
is this: The human being must have every
last vestige of his former IMAGE erased,
nullified, and removed.
The GOAL, therefore, is
to REDEFINE the human being in the mold of a
Darwinian image.
This Darwinian image
was to replace man’s original image with that
of an image concocted from fallen man’s own
“vain imaginations” [Romans 1].
2.
The Divided
Heart
Hosea 10: 2: “Their
heart is divided; now shall they be found
faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall
spoil their images.”
The thing that is
divided is no longer whole.
The thing divided can no longer focus on the
target.
Bottom-line: The
divided heart will fail.
Note: A person with a
divided heart will fall, in the very same manner
as a kingdom, or as a house, according to no less
than Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Mark, chapter
three, verses twenty-four and twenty-five:
“And if a kingdom be
divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.”
And if a house be
divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”
3.
The
Double-minded man
The invasion of the
hemlock is moving in for the kill! It is
called death!
Now notice: The
divided heart produces a double-minded man.
He is divided against
himself. The word of God says, He will not
stand! He will fall!
Next, the Spirit of God
through the Apostle James defines a person
who is double minded as being unstable
in all his ways:
James 1:8: “A
double minded man is unstable in all his
ways.”
His mind has two
states. One mind has Mammon
[as his master] in charge of him.
What is mammon?
Now, mammon is constituted by the riches
and the things of this world. His
other mind has God as his master in
charge of him.
Thus, this person tries
for a time to fence-straddle between these
two masters. You cannot stay on the
fence very long. And why not?
Because Jesus Christ himself said so, when he was
here in the flesh the first time nearly two
thousand years ago.
Now,
here is what he said: “No servant can serve two
masters: for either he will hate the one, and love
the other; or else he will hold to the one, and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
[Luke 16:13]
Remember Demas.
Demas tried to do it. Demas tried to
straddle the fence and he could not do it very
long. He finally got off the fence on the side
to have this world be his master.
He got a mouthful of
mammon, and he choked to death.
Read for this Second
Timothy, chapter four, verse ten:
“For Demas hath
forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is
departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia,
Titus unto Dalmatia.” [2 Timothy
4:10]
The stable man
with a singular heart, a whole heart,
in his right mind will have the LORD as his
Master.
4.
Unstable as
Water
Now we saw that a
double-minded man is unstable.
Observation: You might
say, he is off his rocker. This man
cannot be counted on. He will fail you!
He is like Reuben, the
eldest of the twelve patriarchs of the tribes of
Israel: UNSTABLE AS WATER!
Genesis 49:4 “Unstable
as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest
up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou it:
he went up to my couch.”
5.
The Field is a
Type of Man
Now, picture in
your mind an expansive green field.
Observe: This field
has a purpose, and this purpose is to produce
a beneficial bountiful crop of grain.
Now, a man is like
this field. And if a man is like a
field, we have need to wonder: What will be
the fruit of this field? What will be this
man’s fruit at the harvest [at the end of his
life]? Notice something else.
The Bible speaks of a man’s fruit as
being the fruit of his mouth.
Proverbs 12:14: “A man
shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his
mouth: and the recompence of a man's hands shall be
rendered unto him.”
6.
The Hemlock is
in the Field
Hosea 10:4: “They have
spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant:
thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows
of the field.”
The
invasion of the hemlock is here.
The double minded man
spreads his poison. The double
minded man will swear falsely. He
poisons the field. That is what
the hemlock will do. The double minded
man will not tell the truth if it will not save
his hide. Truth will not be found in a
room with double minded people.
Watch the hemlocks effect in growing between
the two furrows.
Hosea 10:10: “It is
in my desire that I should chastise them; and the
people shall be gathered against them, when they
shall bind themselves in their two furrows.”
Watch for the Hemlock!
The harlotry of a
nation leads to the sowing of the hemlock between
the two furrows. When a nation, or a
person, or a people go wrong, the LORD of the heaven
and the earth will chastise that nation, or
that person, or that people [judgment comes].
Now note: The
hemlock’s poison is deadly, and its location is
between the two furrows. This
poison spreads, and it kills the fruit of a
person [or a people] including all the
land, and all that comes into contact with it!
7.
The
Single-hearted Man
So, it is with us [the
Christians] today. We quench the Spirit of
God within us, even though we are commanded
not to quench him: “Quench not the Spirit.”
[1 Thessalonians 5:19]
We grieve the Spirit
of God within us, even though we are commanded
not to grieve him:
“And grieve not the
holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the
day of redemption.”
[Ephesians 4:30]
We do this to our own
hazard. We will end up defiled and
suffering the loss of our testimony. Rather
let it be as it says in the Epistle to the
Romans, chapter eight, in verse four:
“That the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
Lesson: The
double-minded man is the fruit of the hemlock.
We will finish here in
the book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter two,
verse forty-six:
“And they, continuing
daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking
bread from house to house, did eat their meat with
gladness and singleness of heart,”
Focus on the
singleness of heart!
Get rid of the
hemlock in your field and you will be single-hearted
for Jesus Christ.
Watch for the Hemlock.
Verse eleven:
“And Ephraim is as an heifer
that is taught, and loveth to tread
out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair
neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plow,
and Jacob shall break his clods.”
They reaped for
what they sowed. We reap for
what we sow: As it is recorded in the book of
Job, chapter four, verse eight:
“Even as I have seen,
they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap
the same.” [Job 4:8]
Verse twelve:
“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
rain righteousness upon you.”
The remedy, the
solution, is the healing found in the
LORD’s wings.
Malachi 4:2:
“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of
righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and
ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the
stall.”
Turn back to God and
God will turn to you.
Verse thirteen:
“Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have
reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies:
because thou didst trust in thy way, in the
multitude of thy mighty men.”
But instead of turning
back to God, Israel put their trust
in the man-made solutions. Their
pride held them as captives are confined in
prison.
Psalm 73:6: “Therefore
pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence
covereth them as a garment.”
Earlier in this
commentary [in Hosea 2:9, 4:7, 5:7] we covered this
problem of pride.
Verse fourteen:
“Therefore shall a tumult arise
among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be
spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Betharbel in the day of
battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her
children.”
The horrible tumult
came. It is all recorded in history.
People that refuse to learn from history are doomed
to repeat history. If they refuse to
repent, then it will be curtains for them.
Verse fifteen:
“So shall Bethel do unto you because
of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the
king of Israel utterly be cut off.”
This prophecy was
fulfilled in the year of B.C. 721. The
Kingdom of Israel ceased.
Next, it came for Judah.
It was curtains for them in B.C. 610. It was
curtains for them again in A.D. 70.
When will men ever
learn?
When will we ever
learn?
Friend
If you
know the Bible Is True,
And you
never received
Jesus
Christ as your personal Lord and Savior...
And you
want to come to Him for Salvation now ... Then:
1. Admit
... To God that you are a Sinner...
Deserving Hell Fire...
2. Believe ... that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God...
Who died on the Cross for
You! ...
3. Repent! ... Ask
Him to Forgive You of Your Sin...
4. Receive Him... By
Asking Him to come into Your Heart...
And You
Will Receive the Gift of Eternal Life!
Born of God! You
Are in The Narrow Way ... To HEAVEN!