Who or What Are We Serving?

Hosea 10:1-15 Click here for Bible Verses

We All Tend to Serve Something or Someone. The Question is Who or What Are We Serving?

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is Hosea 10:1-15. Let’s go!

Hosea 10:12-14 (NIV)
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.
13 But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors,
14 the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated– as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.

Here are 3 lessons I learned from Hosea 10:

1. Hosea 10 describes Israel’s situation as well as our own. God made us to live righteously and to obey His commands (“sow righteousness” – v12). In return, God would give us His unfailing love (“reap unfailing love” – v12). But we did not live up to our end of the bargain. Instead of living righteously, we “planted wickedness” (v13) by depending on our own strength and worshiping other people, places and things. We made promises we couldn’t keep (“false oaths”) and hurt people in the process (v4).

In so doing, the consequence we deserved was not unfailing love but destruction (“all your fortresses will be devastated” – v14). Instead of being a house of God (“Bethel”), we became a house of wickedness (“Beth-Aven”, a derogatory name for the city of Bethel) (v5).

But as we will see in the chapter that follows, God decided to have mercy on sinful and wayward Israel. Similarly, God chose to have mercy on us as well when He sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins. The devastation and destruction that we deserved was placed on Jesus, the true King of Israel, who was “completely destroyed” for our sake (v15).

2. These verses also speak to how we all want to serve someone or something. Like “a trained heifer that loves to thresh” (v11), as crazy as it sounds, we naturally want to bear a yoke and be subject to someone. If we do not serve and submit to God, we will end up serving and submitting to a much crueler master. In Israel’s case, those crueler masters would be other nations who would be “gathered against them to put them in bonds for their double sin” (v10).

3. These verses also speak about how when we put our hope in an idol, that idol will not last. Just as the calf-idol that the Israelites worshiped in Bethel was taken away to Assyria (v5-6), just like the high places where the Israelites committed their idolatrous practices would be destroyed (v8), the idols we worship will eventually be taken away and destroyed. When we put our hope in something or someone other than God, we will ultimately be disappointed because that idol cannot and will not last.

Thank You, Lord, that You made me to serve and submit to You, that You are a gentle and kind master, whereas all other people, places and things that I might otherwise bow down to are cruel masters. Thank You that when all I deserved was destruction, You placed that complete devastation on Your Son Jesus instead, so that I could go free. Thank You for Your amazing grace for me. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!