Hosea 4:11-14

ISRAEL'S INGRATITUDESPIRIT OF IDOLATRY

TEXT: Hosea 4:11-14

11

Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding:

12

My people ask counsel at their stock, and their staff declareth unto them; for the spirit of whoredom hath cause them to err, and they have played the harlot, departing from under their God.

13

They sacrifice upon the top of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks, and poplars and terebinths, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters play the harlot, and your brides commit adultery.

14

I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and they sacrifice with the prostitutes; and the people that doth not understand shall be overthrown.

QUERIES

a.

What are the stocks from which the people ask counsel?

b.

Why were the people burning incense under the trees?

c.

Why would God not punish the woman for harlotry and adultery?

PARAPHRASE

Licentiousness and debauchery is robbing men of their reason and understanding. My people seek wisdom and religious revelations from their divining sticks. The spirit of promiscuity and sensuality in their hearts has caused them to depart from Jehovah and the truth and to worship idols. They indulge in the immoral and vain pagan worship on the mountain tops and in the pleasant groves. Their daughters and wives have become prostitutes and priestesses in such heathen worship services. But why should I punish them when you men are so reprobate and, as leaders of society, have corrupted the women by your own indulgence in sexual immorality and idolatry. So this people which has allowed its understanding to be taken away by drunkenness and paganism will be cast headlong into destruction.

SUMMARY

In one quick stroke, Hosea tells the nation why they have no knowledge of God. They have allowed debauchery to take away their understanding.

COMMENT

Hosea 4:11 WHOREDOM AND WINE. TAKE AWAY THE UNDERSTANDING. Licentiousness and debauchery robs man of his reasoning power and of his will-power. Sexual excess and alcoholic addiction will reduce any self-assured man or woman to abject, whimpering, slobbering slavery, The Bible has a great deal to say about self-control in both sex and alcohol (cf. 1 Corinthians 7; Proverbs 20:1; Proverbs 23:20; Proverbs 23:31; Isaiah 5:11, etc.). Many an individual, home and nation has been destroyed because of one or both. Belshazzar lost an empire because of this; Alexander the Great died a debauched profligate at the apex of his power; the Roman empire of the Caesars disintegrated because of thisand in our day the British empire is about to fade away because men in high places betrayed their country after they had become enslaved to such excesses. And let Americans tremble when they think of the drunkenness, the partying, the carousing and whoring that goes on in high levels of government, business and the arts in her own fair land! How can we trust men with such tremendously cataclysmic responsibilities in places of political leadership to make the true, good and right decisions when their minds are sated with sensual excess?! These two excesses are demons! They literally possess men and women! Men who are so possessed will compromise and surrender, they will pervert and poison, they will even steal and kill to satisfy their lusts. They become senseless (cf. Romans 1:18 ff).

Hosea 4:12 MY PEOPLE ASK COUNSEL AT THEIR STOCK. AND THEIR STAFF. This is a demonstration of the preceding statement. Men who lose their reason by allowing themselves to be overcome with sensual excess turn to falsehood to deliberately shield themselves from the truth! It sounds impossible but it is true nevertheless (cf. John 3:19-21). The people of Israel turned deliberately to dumb, speechless, powerless idols in order to rationalize their lust for licentiousness. Men today are not any wiser. Men who delight in sensual indulgence will turn to dumb or dead gods of scientism, psychology, philosophy, liberal theology, or some pagan cult in order to rationalize and find credence for their indulgences. Many form their own philosophy or system of ethics (all relative, of course) and turn to fate or the stars to ask counsel. Some have made love a god (their definition of love, of course, precludes any discipline or moral responsibility). God is love, but love is not God! People will turn to every source under the sun for counsel but the divine revelation of God propositionally delivered and inerrantly recorded in human language in the Bible. This is too objective for people, too restrictive for those with the spirit of whoredom.

The spirit of whoredom is that spirit of promiscuity, license, libertinism or anarchy which desires to be free of all reasonable, moral and physical restraint. It is a totally selfish spirit for it considers only its own pleasure or satisfaction. It is a spirit of envy, greed and covetousness for it desires to possess that which does not rightfully belong to it. It is a spirit of rebellion, a spirit of pride which says, I know better than God and His law. It is the spirit which is susceptible to being led astray into ignorance, lie, and spiritual death by the devil.

This describes the people of Israel in Hosea's day. So they were turning to their sticks for revelations and wisdom. Cyril of Alexandria says this refers to a practice which was an invention of the Chaldeans where two rods were held upright and then allowed to fall while forms of incantation were being uttered; and the oracle or message was inferred from the way in which they fell, whether forwards or backwards, to the right or left, or (if they had inscriptions) which inscription was facing upward, (cf. also Isaiah 44:9-20; Isaiah 45:20; Jeremiah 10:3-11). What foolishness men will succumb to when they allow their minds to be thus darkened!

Hosea 4:13 THEY SACRIFICE UPON THE TOPS OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND BURN INCENSE UPON THE HILLS. AND YOUR BRIDES COMMIT ADULTERY. The sacrificing upon. the mountains refers, of course, to Israel's practice of pagan idolatry. They were infected with the paganism of Jezebel, the heathen wife of Ahab (1 Kings 16:32; 1 Kings 1 Kings 18-19), early in their history as a nation. Earlier than this though, Jereboam I started the nation in idolatry when be built golden images for the nation to worship. In the pleasant, shady, cool groves they indulged themselves in the grossly immoral religious rites of Baalism (cf. Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Jeremiah 3:13; 2 Kings 16:4; 2 Kings 17:9-18). According to Henry H. Halley, in the Pocket Bible Handbook, in the religion of the Cananites, -Priestesses were temple prostitutes. Sodomites were male temple prostitutes. The worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, and other Canaanite gods consisted in the most extravagant orgies; their temples were centers of vice. Under the debris, in one of the High Places, Macalister (of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1904-09) found great numbers of jars containing the remains of children who had been sacrificed to Baal. The whole area proved to be a cemetery for new-born babes. Another horrible practice was what they called -foundation sacrifices.-' When a house was to be built, a child would be sacrificed, and its body built into the wall, to bring good luck to the rest of the family, Many of these were found in Gezer. They have been found also at Megiddo, Jericho, and other places. Also, in this High Place, under the rubbish, Macalister found enormous quantities of images and plaques of Ashtoreth with rudely exaggerated sex organs, designed to foster sensual feelings.

The literal meaning of the word baal, is possessor, husband. Very lascivious rites accompanied the worship (1 Kings 14:23-24). Sometimes priests, dancing around the altar in a state of frenzy, slashed themselves with knives (1 Kings 18:26-28), When people commit themselves to worship (which really means to adore, to practice and believe in something or someone as the reason for existence and the motivating center of life) in such immoral, fleshly indulgence, one can understand why the society became politically corrupt and falls apart.

J. N. D. Anderson, in The World's Religions states (from his own knowledge as a missionary) that in India today young girls are still provided in Hindu temples to serve as religious prostitutes. If a worshiper visits the temple prostitute he is doing only what is customary and taking advantage of what is provided for him by his gracious gods.

Hosea 4:14 I WILL NOT PUNISH YOUR DAUGHTERS. AND THE PEOPLE THAT DOTH NOT UNDERSTAND SHALL BE OVERTHROWN. God does not mean to say that He will not ever punish the adultery and harlotry of the women of Israel, What is meant is evident from the last phrase of this versenamely that God is going to leave the people in their deliberate, rebellious ignorance to choose their own course. God has spoken. God has sent calamity after calamity, but the people refuse to hear. There is nothing left for a merciful God to do but give them up (cf. Romans 1:18 ff). So, because this is the way Israel wants it, the presence of Jehovah has left themthey are left to their own devices. They are given up in their headlong plunge into utter ruin.

QUIZ

1.

How does whoredom and wine take away the understanding?

2.

What is the spirit of whoredom?

3.

Describe the worship of Baal. Where did it come from?

4.

Does such gross immorality occur in the name of religion today?

5.

How does Hosea 4:14 compare to Romans 1:18 ff?