Three ways to live

1. The main theme of Hosea 2 is God confronting the unfaithfulness of Israel, symbolically expressed as a failed marriage. God curses Israel for her unfaithfulness by stripping her naked, taking away the harvest of the field etc…. However, restoration is also mentioned where the relationship is reconciled, the vineyards will be returned etc…

2. The curses and restoration that Israel has received are similar to those promised by Moses for breaking the Sinai covenant.

Blessings if obey: Deuteronomy 28:11-13 (NIV).

Curses if disobey: Deuteronomy 28:18, Deuteronomy 28:24-25, Deuteronomy 28:38-40

Restoration: Deuteronomy 30:1-10

3. In taking away rain, food, pleasures, protection, God seems to be severing Israel’s ties with its idols, such as Baal. In doing so, he is showing them that He is the actual source of these blessings.

4. Hosea 2:14-3:5 talks about reconciliation with the unfaithful wife which symbolizes God’s restoring Israel. Some aspects of the restoration are simply reversals of the curses - return water to the land, give back the vineyards, remarriage. We can say that these have been at least partially fulfilled when Jews returned from exile. Other aspects, such as peace with animals and no wars, have not happened yet. So the prophecy is clearly looking into the future.

Application.

1. What does idolatry mean?

As part of the 10 Commandments given to Israel through Moses on Mt Sinai, God’s first 2 apparent commands were:

i. You shall have no other gods before me
ii. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;

While idolatry in the OT appears to mean making an actual physical image of God and worshipping it, Paul widens the meaning of idolatry (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5) to include greed (or service of money god).

As such, idolatry could mean putting anything, money, career, even family, above God. Anything that that we worship and serve can become our god.

2. From this passage we can see how God tried to solve the problem of idolatry in the OT. How do you think he might try to solve it in our lives?

Probably the same way, by cutting our connections with the idols.

If your career became an idol and you serve it to get recognition and financial stability, God may make you lose your job to remind you who is really in charge of your finances and recognition. You may have made an idol of relationship. Any time you want something too much and cannot get it, it does not necessarily mean it’s bad in itself. It’s possible that God simply does not want you to make an idol out of it.

3. So, do we just wait and see until God removes the idols from us? What can we do to change?

a. Discover what your idols are. An idol maybe something that takes too much of you time, effort, money to sustain. It might become your Lord – being able to command you what to do, how to use your time, money. Finally, an idol could be something that you really afraid to lose.

b. Recognize that if you simply try to get rid of idols, they tend to come back or be replaced with something else. As Thomas Chalmers, a Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland, puts it, “Heart’s desire for one particular object may be conquered; but as to its desire for having some object or other, this is unconquerable”.

c. Instead of allowing this, fill your hearts with the pleasures of God and beauty of the gospel. The reason our hearts turn to other objects of beauty and satisfaction is because we do not find satisfaction and pleasure in Jesus Christ. Meditate on what gave the joy to John the Baptist when his life and ministry started to crumble (John 3:26-30).