Idolatry: Tearing at the Heart of God

Hosea begins with a love story; a painful, personal love story, the prophet’s very own. Hosea had married a woman who acted like a prostitute. Yet the more she went out on him, the more Hosea loved her. He gave her everything a good wife deserved: his love, his home, his name, his reputation. She responded by sleeping around with other men. He warned her, he pleaded with her, he punished her. She humiliated him until he wanted to cry, yet still he clung to her.

Why did Hosea begin with his personal life? Because God had expressly told him to relate it to another, more tragic love story: the painful love of God for his people. God could have simply declared, “Israel is like a wife to me, an adulterous wife.” Instead, he used Hosea to act out the treachery in real life and to show in living color God’s fury, his jealousy, and above all else, his love for his people.

Winding Down to a Bitter End

Virtually every chapter of Hosea talks about the “prostitution” or “adultery” of God’s people (1:2; 2:2,4; 3:1; 4:2,10-15,18; 5:3-4; 6:10; 7:4; 8:9; 9:1). Underlying some hard words is a remarkably tender revelation: God doesn’t want to be only “master” to his people. He wants to be a husband, giving all of himself in intimate love. Hosea spoke and acted these messages to the northern part of God’s divided country—Israel or “Ephraim,” as Hosea sometimes called it. King Jeroboam II’s reign was a time of prosperity; the prophet Amos blasted the rich for their greedy injustices toward the poor. But soon after Jeroboam’s death the national fabric began to unravel. In just over 20 years six kings took the throne—four of them by murdering the previous king. Hosea probably lived to see the massive Assyrian armies storm the capital and deport all the Israelite citizens to other lands. God’s “wife” was carried off, just as he had warned.

Bride of Christ by loswl

God Is a Lover

When most people must have been preoccupied with politics and military matters, Hosea kept his messaged aimed at idol worship, which he referred to as adultery. He saw that as the root of Israel’s problems. Israel tended to mix religions freely, to think that everybody’s religion had a little truth in it, and the more religion you got, the better off you would be. Many prophets attacked Israel’s idol worship. Hosea shows that God’s concern about idolatry is no fussy, religious matter. It is terribly personal. God, the lover, will not share his bride with anyone else.

God’s anger and jealousy, expressed so often throughout the Old Testament, reflect his powerful love. Sin does not merely break God’s law, it breaks his heart. He punishes to get his lover’s attention. Yet even when she turns her back on him, he sticks with her. He is willing to suffer, in the hope that someday she will change. Hosea shows that God longs not to punish, but to love.

In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.

To reinforce my point here is a little story. Last year I was sitting with a group of Christian men who attended the same church. One man, a leader in the church, was telling the others that he was shocked when he asked for some help with church chores after that Sunday’s service that nobody came forward to help simply because the senior pastor (the founder of that church) was away that service. He indicated that as long as he could remember every time the senior pastor asked for help a dozen of people offered their assistance!

I will leave you with these questions: Whom or what do you worship? Can that person or thing fill the need for God in your heart? God created us for Himself and no one or anything can satisfy us except Him, the one and only true living God Himself.

Is God a “just in case” God? We can fool others, but we can’t fool ourselves and we certainly can’t fool Him. Who is He to you? A match maker that you forget as soon as you find the “right one”? A job finder? A God you keep happy by giving this, doing that, praying this, just so He protects your family and business? If God took everything from you, your health, all your physical possessions and your family, including all your children, will you still pray to Him? Worship Him? Do you love Him enough that He can risk His reputation on you, just like He risked His reputation on Job?

Do you pray so that He blesses what you are planning to do, or do you pray to find out what He wants to do? What things have you not permitted God to take control of? An old hurt, bitterness, forgiveness, and low self-image?  Have you said “no” to God and not allowed Him to work at it? Do you daily surrender your life to Him, to His will?

I am not saying that we become perfect overnight, but do we even agree with Him in regard to what sin is? There is a big difference between struggling against sin, and enjoying sin. There is a big difference between someone who knows he is sinning but has not been delivered from it, and someone who does not admit his sin and has no desire to get rid of it.

Do you follow a pastor or do you follow God? Do you belong to a religious denomination or do you belong to God’s spiritual family? Have you found religion in Christianity or have you found a personal and intimate relationship with the only true God, the God of the universe and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Is sin an idol in your life? Do you cherish sin more than God’s truths? This leads to the big question: is yourself an idol in your life? Your pride? Is your reputation more important than God’s? What about your work? Does your work honor God or dishonor Him? How about your relationships, and the motive behind them? Is your happiness, and getting your way more important than God’s honor and fulfilling His purpose for humanity? Who are you living for: yourself, the world, Satan; or God?