Hosea 8:11-14 Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning. ¹² Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing. ¹³ As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the LORD does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt. ¹⁴ For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; so I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour her strongholds.

Introduction
Welcome to part 3 (of 3) on Hosea 8. In many ways, the key to understanding this chapter (and, in many ways, the key to understanding the entire book of Hosea) is found in the beginning of 8:1, “Set the trumpet to your lips!” Sound the alarm. That was Hosea’s way of warning the Israelites of the danger they were in for forsaking God. While the phrase (“set the trumpet…”) is only used in 8:1, it is implied in each of the four sections (1-3, 4-6, 7-10, and now 11-14) of the chapter. That is, Hosea 8 contains four sets of warnings describing Israel’s specific sins and their consequences.

In this final section Hosea warned the Israelites of their corrupt religion and self-exaltation. In particular, Hosea warned the people of God that if they did not forsake those things, the way of salvation would be closed to them and they would be destroyed. Let’s pray, thanking God that the New and Living Way, Jesus Christ, is open for all who will come. And let’s pray that all would come!

Sound the Alarm because Israel’s religion is corrupt (11-13)
Once again, most of the book of Hosea, most of Hosea’s prophecies were meant to name the reasons for God’s displeasure with Israel and the consequences of her failing to rightly respond to them. In the first part of our text for this morning, 8:11-13, we find another handful of reasons (for God’s displeasure). In this case the reasons center around Israel’s corrupt worship. Let’s look at v.11 for the first cause of God’s displeasure.

Alters for Sacrifice Have Become Alters for Sin (11)
Sound the alarm, Hosea cried, because Israel had turned alters for sacrifice in to alters for sin.

¹¹ Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning.

Of this treachery, listen to the remarkably eloquent words of one commentator (James Mays).

“An alter marked a holy place, a shrine where a deity was thought to be available for worship and communion…Building alters was a pious act…Alters meant sacrifice and sacrifice atoned for whatever sins were committed. As Israel prospered in the land, more and more alters were erected (10:1). Religion got its proportionate share of the nation’s prosperity, probably because the [religion] was imagined to be the machine which produced the abundance…Yet Yahweh sends no commendation by the prophet. His startling word is that the many alters built to deal with sin have become a place to sin” (Mays, 122).

What was meant to be a place to atone for their sin—to have their sins forgiven—had become a place to commit sins. Can you see the horrific evil in this? Is it easy to see what an utter mockery of God this is?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. On the earth, He placed the pinnacle of his creation, mankind, to rule the earth and be fed by it as God’s stewards. In fulfilling this purpose for which he was made, mankind would truly glorify God and enjoy him forever.

But mankind quickly fell into sin and rebellion, the earth became hard and fellowship with God was broken. In these things mankind got what God promised and he deserved.

Although it would have been entirely right and fair of God to leave mankind in this state of ruin, He did no such thing. Instead, in gracious love and mercy, God made a way for mankind to be reconciled to God. God provided mankind with a sacrificial system that would atone for his sins and satisfy God’s wrath. God’s people would offer animal sacrifices, they would take the life of an animal, as a substitute for the death they deserved (until the true Lamb of God would come and offer Himself as a sacrifice once and for all).

Do you see that? God made man and provided everything he needed for eternal life and satisfaction (in God). But man rejected it and chose death instead. Though man rejected God, God did not reject him. God made a way back to God. What grace, what mercy, what love, what a gift!

What a horror it was, then, that Israel chose to use this system of grace, mercy, and love to increase in sin! How necessary it was for Hosea to sound the alarm. How right God was to be incensed; to have his wrath kindled.

This is a son placed in jail for stealing from his mother, his mother bailing him out and welcoming him home, only to have the son use his mother’s home as a meth lab. Despicable treachery!

The consequence of this rebellion was as steep as it gets. Because Israel made a mockery of the means of her salvation, God took it away. Israel’s sins could no longer be atoned for. That’s the essence of v.13. “As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the LORD does not accept them.”

Israel would continue to offer animal sacrifices according to the form God had given her, but God would no longer accept them as substitutes for the death Israel deserved. Israel, not the animals, now must die.

What more terrible words could be spoken? You are dead in your trespasses and sins, but the one means of rescue is now closed because you used it as an instrument of sin. We see this in the NT as well in Hebrews 6:4-6. God will only be mocked for so long before he hands those who would persist in their sin over to their sin.

With the way of atonement closed to the Israelites, the second half of v.13 tells us that it got even worse. “Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt.”

As Israel awaited her Messiah, the blood of bulls and goats temporarily appeased the wrath of God. No longer. Instead, all the previously passed over sins of Israel were remembered by God and his wrath was about to come flooding forward in punishment. What kind of punishment? He would return her to Egypt, the place of her greatest captivity and suffering.

For over 400 years the people of God were held in oppressive slavery by the Egyptians. They were forced to work in increasingly harsh conditions and endure generations of mistreatment and abuse. They had no hope of escaping on their own from the most powerful nation on earth. Therefore, they cried out to God for deliverance, and he heard their cries.

Through a series of truly marvelous works, the mighty hand God laid flat the greatest army on earth while Israel’s role was to merely watch, obey, and praise. After that great deliverance, whenever Israel would fear or wander, God would remind her of His work on her behalf in Egypt. God himself believed the Exodus was his greatest OT example of power and love.

Exodus 13:9 …with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 6:21-22 the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes.

1 Samuel 10:18 Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’

Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

But Grace, not only did God deliver his people from the Egyptians, he also delivered them into a land of great bounty and blessing, a land He’d promised for many years.

In Hosea’s day (700 years after the Exodus and 650 after entering into the Promised Land), however, Israel had forgotten and scorned the love, rescue, and blessing of God. Therefore, God would undo their Exodus. He would send them back to Egypt—that is to a place of slavery and oppression and suffering. Indeed, they “shall return to Egypt.” This was both a choice Israel had already made and the harsh judgment of God.

By Hosea’s time, the Israelites had long believed they would always have God’s favor because they were physical decedents of Abraham. But Hosea’s message to them was that they had forfeited any benefits tied to their physical lineage by forsaking the faith of their forefathers. They were no longer hoping in God, but in the blessings that had come to them from God during the time of their people’s faithfulness. The Apostle Paul tells us that it is not the descendents of Abraham’s flesh, but of his faith who are the true children of God (Rom. 9:8).

Hear these words, Grace. Hear this alarm. In the same way that the Israelites wrongly believed they had God’s favor, there are many in the Church today (Jesus himself said in Matthew 7:23) who will be in for the same rude awakening. How can we know that we will not be among them?

We know by our appetites and works. While we are not saved by our appetites and works, they demonstrate our salvation. Let me say that another way, those who do not have God’s saving grace cannot love to do what God calls them to do, but those who do have God’s saving grace cannot not love doing good works. One more time. The saving grace of God always comes to us apart from appetite and works, but it always brings them with it.

It is not, therefore, professors of faith who will be saved, but possessors of faith. And the only certain way to know that you possess faith (rather than merely profess it), is by the continually transforming work of God in your life—your appetites will change from sin to righteousness, and then your attitudes will change from inward to outward, and then your actions will change from fleshly and worldly to spiritual and godly.

Just as Hosea charged the Israelites to recognize that their hope was in hollow things (their physical lineage and the blessings of their forefather’s), so God’s Word charges you and I to test and see what our hope is rooted in. Is it a past prayer or experience, or in a present transformation that God is doing in you? Is it a form of religion (going to church, prayer, giving, bible study, etc) or is it the God of glory?

What do we learn from this first offense of Israel? We learn that we cannot long mock God’s love and offer of grace before both will be taken away, and that we can know we have God’s love and grace only when they are our ever-increasing joy.

God’s Word Has Become Strange (12)
The second way in which Israel’s religion had become corrupt centered around her understanding of God’s Word. Sound the alarm because Israel no longer has any interest in the wisdom and will of God. Look at v.12.

¹² Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing.

Remember, Grace, these are the same people who had once sung Psalm 119 together.

⁵ Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! ⁶ Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

⁷ I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules.

¹⁰ With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! ¹¹ I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

¹² Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes! ¹³ With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. ¹⁴ In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. ¹⁵ I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. ¹⁶ I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. ¹⁷ Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. ¹⁸ Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

²⁰ My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.

²¹ You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments. ²³ Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes.

²⁴ Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.

Once Israel sang these words in earnest joy, but in Hosea’s day the commands and laws of God were scoffed at and ignored. They seemed (not praiseworthy, but) “strange” to Israel.

This is both the offense and the punishment. It was a serious offense against God that Israel had rejected His word as her guide and delight. And it is a serious punishment that Israel no longer had an appetite for the one true source of wisdom and light and life. She was, therefore, destined to walk in folly and darkness and death, and so the alarm sounded.

This is like the married man who has given himself over to sinful lust to such a degree that he can no longer enjoy godly intimacy. It is both the offense and the punishment. It is like the glutton who can no longer appreciate a healthy meal. It is both the offense and the punishment. It is like the gambler who can no longer enjoy a sporting event without money on the line. It’s both the offense and the punishment.

Again, Grace, let us learn from this. Let us learn to guard ourselves against hardening our hearts to any of God’s ways. Let us realize that it is usually 1,000 little compromises that lead to faithlessness, rather than one big one. Let’s especially learn to esteem God’s Word and not long tolerate coldness, avoidance, or disobedience to it, lest we too find ourselves regarding the Word of Life as “a strange thing”. We must be people who read God’s Word, meditate on it, and cry out to God to make us see it as it truly is.

Sound the Alarm because Israel is trusting in herself (14)
That leads us to the last point, the final cause for alarm in this section. We see it in v.14.

Because God made mankind with an innate belief in the divine, because he made us in His image, once true religion has been abandoned the void must be filled. When God’s glory is no longer our goal, seeking glory somewhere else is inevitable. Likewise, when God is no longer the fountain of our hope, hope must be anchored elsewhere.

Finally, then, Hosea called Israel to sound the alarm because she had set up atheistic, self-exalting displays of her (rather than God’s) prosperity and strength.

¹⁴ For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities;

Two weeks ago we saw that much of Israel’s sin resulted from her ignorance. This week, from another angle, we see the same thing again. Her sins, suffering, and judgment resulted from the fact that she had “forgotten her Maker.” That is, Israel had forgotten that God alone is God. Once that happens, as we’ve seen over and over, something must fill the void. We cannot function as atheists. If we abandon the one true God, we will always seek to replace Him with something else.

Having forgotten that her Maker alone has and gives prosperity Israel built palaces for her name’s sake. And having forgotten that God along has and gives strength, Israel multiplied fortified cities. She believed herself to possess these things independently. Though God had blessed Israel to show His unique glory and splendor, Israel set herself up to look important and powerful apart from God. In spite of her efforts, however, both God and the nations saw right through her posturing.

This veneer of significance was ridiculous in front of the Assyrians, for Israel had been paying tribute to them. And, of course, it was even more ridiculous in front of God who had destroyed enemy nations to give Israel her prosperity in the first place, and so the alarm sounded.

What were the consequences of this treachery? God promised to send a devouring fire.

¹⁴ For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; so I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour her strongholds.

No one can stand up against God. Not Israel, not Egypt, not Assyria, not all the forces of heaven and earth together. Everyone who has tried has lost. Everyone who will ever try will lose.

Instead of finding her significance in her God, Israel sought it in palaces. Instead of looking to God for her protection, Israel built fortified cities to defend herself. Israel trusted in herself for glory and help and so she would be destroyed.

This is no subtle lesson, Grace. We don’t need advanced degrees or to spend hours in this text to see that building our lives to impress others with us (rather than God), and setting up our own systems to protect ourselves (rather than God) are both futile and deadly. They are futile in that anything impressive about us and anything by which we might defend ourselves was given to us by God. And they are deadly in that seeking glory and protection for ourselves is a direct rejection of God, to who alone belong those things.

Perhaps the main thing to see in all of this, Grace, is that God alone is King and he will not tolerate anyone who puts himself or herself or themselves up against him. But it’s also a reminder that anyone who will acknowledge him as King will be welcomed (through Jesus) into his kingdom of everlasting forgiveness and love and joy and peace and abundance.

CONCLUSION
Hosea called Israel to sound the alarm because she was in grave danger. She was in danger because her religion had become corrupt. It had become corrupt in that Israel had turned the means of her atonement into a means of sin, and in that she had come to find God’s Word to be strange. And Israel was in danger because she had determined to present herself, not God, to the nations as one of glory and strength.

What’s more, Hosea called Israel to sound the alarm because these things, apart from genuine repentance, would lead to God’s judgment. For Israel’s sin God would give them over to their sin, cut them off from the way of salvation, and then devour them.

The system has not changed for us, Grace. Either we will honor God as God or we will face the fate promised to and experienced by the Israelites. Either we will look to God alone or we will be devoured by his fire.

But thanks be to God, because of the atoning work of Jesus we can be forgiven of all our sins and made new. All our treachery can be washed clean and none of us who truly hope in God will be left in our sin. The way of salvation will remain open to us. And fellowship with God will be eternally restored. Hear the alarm, then, and look, not to the world’s wisdom, not to yourself, not to other man-made gods, not to a form of religion, but to Jesus.