August 17, Hosea 8
For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it. - Hosea 8:7
The alarm was sounding; the vultures were circling. Despite Israel's desperate protests that they knew God, their actions betrayed their disregard for what they knew of God. Israel was about to reap the harvest of the seed they had sown.
Why was God about to give these people into their enemies' hands? Israel came to this bitter end because they had forgotten God, embraced pagan gods, and relied on human allies for their deliverance. Centuries of doing their will instead of God's will, making and worshiping idols instead of God had made them strangers to God and his laws. Neither the idols they made nor the allies they paid could save them from the catastrophe that was coming. Their foolish demand for a human king insulted God, and doomed them to the dark consequences of their choices. They went through the motions of sacrifice and feasts, but God would not accept them. They ignored the law God gave them, and God said they would have also ignored 10,000 times more laws.
Israel reaped the whirlwind consequences of their choices and actions. God warned the nation before they entered Canaan not to forget him, but that was exactly what they did. He commanded them to make no idols and to be holy to him, separate from the pagans around them. Those seeds were about to yield a harvest of hunger, bondage, fire and humiliation.
The people of Israel incriminated themselves when they cried out that they knew God. If they really knew him, they were even more guilty for their rebellion and disregard.
When the Lord said they were going back to Egypt as punishment for their sins, he used Egypt as a figurative expression of bondage. As bad as Egypt had been before God rescued and redeemed them from there, this latter bondage would be even worse. This time God would not redeem them. There would be no deliverance, no return and no end for the great majority of Israelites who went away into captivity.
Another good way to remember the contents of Chapter 8 would be to memorize verse 3: "Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him." That little ten-word verse states two facts, one a sad summary of Israel's history, the other a dark forecast of their troubled future. God, who knows the end from the beginning, can speak factually about what is yet to happen. These two statements are another way to express the law of sowing and reaping. God will not be mocked. The process of seed bearing fruit after its kind is true in the literal facts of nature. It will also be true in the metaphorical sense of cause and effect in our lives.
What does this sowing and reaping concept speak into your life and heart today? Do we realize that we are sowing seed every day for a harvest that is to come? We may not be "farming" a large parcel of land, but it is still true even in the tiny garden plot of our lives. We should evaluate the harvest, the fruit that our actions, words and thoughts will bring. We can trust what God tells us about such things to be true. If we spurn what is good, our harvest won't be good. If we sow seeds of peace, holiness, and godliness today, tomorrow's harvest will be one of righteousness and joy. As Paul said in Galatians, "For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." We want to, as David put it, "come home with shouts of joy," bringing our sheaves of righteousness and eternal life with us.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—August 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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